Trump's Big Speech, Trade War Roller Coaster, and Elon v. Jon Stewart
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The best brands don't guess, they test. See how at usertesting.com slash pivot. I didn't want to see Mark Zuckerberg's chest in any way, and there it was. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher, and it's tomorrow where I am, Scott Galloway. Are you still in Australia, Cara? I am still in Australia. I am still in Australia. I know. I've been here a while. I've been all over this amazing country I was in.

I was in Adelaide. I was in Sydney. And now I'm in Melbourne, which I think is my favorite city. I hate to pick one because all the Australians who love us will be mad at me. But it's a great city. It's a fantastic city. It's a great city. Last time I was in Australia, I traveled to New Zealand. And I was driving along the side of the road. And there was a guy fighting a sheep. And I said, you know, in Australia, they shear them. And he said, fuck you. I'm not shearing her with anybody. That's good. Oh, my God.

Oh, I can't believe you have a dirty Australian joke. I'll take it PG-13. You're coming to Texas in a few days, right? Tomorrow, yeah. Well, the day after tomorrow for you. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. I'm bringing cheese for us so we can handle any emergency. I'm calling it my Justin Queso.

Oh, Scott. So, okay, what have you been doing in Australia? I've been going on my book tour. I didn't come here when my book came out last March. Wait, you're going to sell 11 books this year? No, Scott, I literally have sold out. You're huge, you're huge.

We are huge. Everyone asks me about you. It's really irritating. They're like, when are you and Scott coming? I have sold out, like, major venues here just by myself. We could sell out a stadium. We could sell out a stadium. I would like that. Yes, they want us to come. Tomorrow belongs to me. And they're all upset that you talk about not wanting to come there. Everyone would live in Australia if it wasn't so far. Yeah. Yeah, well, except if everyone lived here, it wouldn't be far. You see what I'm saying? Ooh.

I had one of the best nights of my life in Australia. It involved the ex-girlfriend of the drummer of NXS. I'm

dating myself. I was at the W Hotel. I was out alone, and these two women came up to me and said, hi, you're alone, and they took me out. We had a great time. I just had the best time. They had the water taxis, that polar place with the pool and the polar bear club, whatever it's called. I miss all that. I miss all that here, but I do a lot of walking. I do a lot of walking. It's a weirdly diverse place.

You know, there's all kinds of different people from countries all over the world. And I kind of like that. It feels very... Even the smaller cities like Adelaide just feel... They're just really interesting. And maybe...

Because it's a familiar environment, yet it's not. Anyway, I love it. I went and saw the Sydney Opera House. I took walks. Wow. I did the whole thing. I did it. I love it here. Last time I was here, I took my boys. Louie and Alex and I were here. I'm going next Christmas before our next holiday. I'm taking my boys before we head back. It's a tourism giant and some of the best wine in the world.

The more kangaroos than people. Yes, I didn't see any kangaroos this visit. And they did something that I think we should do here in the U.S. What? Well, they're very paternal, and they take some of their mineral wealth, and they invest it on behalf of people. And they have something called the Superannuation Fund, and it's essentially a pension program. And it has over $3.5 trillion under it, making it one of the largest pension funds in the world. Interesting. You see, you need to come.

You know a lot about Australia. This is great. Oh, I love Australia. You know what else we could do besides going around in stadiums? You and I could do our tour. And then for the last part, you and I go to the Outback and only one of us comes back. What do you think? It's not a vacation. It's Survivor. Yeah, something like that. Why do your fantasies always involve something where I die?

Because if two of us went out in the outback, only one of us would come, who do you think would make it? Well, you always ask this question and it's obvious. I would just honorably kill myself. I would just find several pros and a bunch of fentanyl and just say, all right, I'm out. Game over. By the way, some bands from Australia, ACDC, In Excess. Highway to Help. Those people? The Highway to Help people? That's ACDC. Okay.

Jesus, didn't you have a childhood? You really didn't smoke pot. Anyways, yeah, ACDC. One of the great actors, not arguably a great guy, Mel Gibson. Oh, Mel. Yeah, lost it there, didn't I? You did. Took it a little too far. But look, you know, and I can say I really like, the only reason I want to do the Outback, I'll come back and I'll go, a dingo ate my Scotty.

Yeah, that's Meryl Streep. Now, the best independent film to come out of Australia. This is a gorgeous little film that introduced Nicole Kidman and the most beautiful woman in the world is in the film. Oh, Kate Winslet. No? Jesus Christ, you're awful. Anyways, Thandie Newton. It's a movie called Flirting. And it's about...

boarding school in Australia, and it is so touching and so well-known. Wow. It's Tandy. It's Tandy, just so you know. Anyway, back to Australia. We love Australia. We love Australia. And you and I are coming here. All right, Scott, we've got a lot to get to today, including Trump's tariff roller coaster and how the Democrats' resistance tactics keep falling flat.

But first, let's talk about Jon Stewart and Elon Musk. We get to see the two of them sit down for an interview after an ex-user suggested that you should have a conversation. Musk said he'd be up for it if, quote, the show airs unedited after Stewart accepted. And obviously the show is always unedited, Elon. Musk proceeded to call him a propaganda, saying he used to be more bipartisan and sort of backed away. Let's listen to Stewart's fantastic response. The guy who custom made his own dark MAGA hat...

That he wears to opine in the Oval Office with the president who he spent $270 million to elect thinks I'm just too partisan. So I guess what I would say is this. Look, Elon.

I do have some criticisms about Doge. I support in general the idea of efficiency and delivering better services to the American public in cheaper and more efficient ways. And if you want to come on and talk about it on the show, great. If you don't want to, sure. But can we just drop the pretense that you won't do it because I don't measure up to the standards of neutral discourse that you demand and display at all times?

Yeah, that was good. That was good. That was good. You know who's doing really well? I think comics have, like, like Stewart and Bill Burr has been really funny, and Bill Maher has kind of been up to, like, Chelsea Handler, all of them are really handling it, like, really well, I would say, like, in a way that's funny, approachable, and also very pointed. I just, I find them, I don't know, for some reason, quite good. I don't know if you do. Yeah, they've been great, but the most, I would argue, the

You know, comedians have always played a pretty big role in culture and highlighting the injustices of culture. I would argue the most important in that group is Bill Burr, because I think Bill has so much credibility across the conservative ecosystem. And he was constantly setting progressives' hair on fire with very...

very funny, provocative, and you know, whatever, inappropriate to say above comedian. And he's just gone off on Musk. And I think for me, it represents sort of the Nadir of the Peak or whatever, where the dialogue has really, really flipped. And people are coming. I do think there's sort of been a reveal that

By the way, I wonder if Elon's going to bring one of his kids as a human shield to Jon Stewart. By the way, I don't think that's ever going to happen. I don't think he's going. No, no, he's not going. He's saying he's too bipartisan. He's such a chicken shit. Oh, yeah. He's such a chicken shit. I'll fight you anywhere in jujitsu. Oh, no, never mind. I have a herniated disc. There's no way he's going to go on that show. No way. No, because he can't keep up. Stewart's too fast and too sharp for him. He's not...

I think people should realize, I mean, Elon's not, he's a very smart person, but in this regard, he is not. And Stuart would run circles around him in a way that would be embarrassing. By the way, just because you didn't ask, I've been in Barcelona, Miami, New York in the last 48 hours. You're not the only one who looks 110. I saw you were at Mobile World Congress. Like, I have no idea.

Unbelievable event. Huge event. Yeah, I haven't been there in years. I used to send reporters there. And what were you discussing? I saw you on the stage looking very comely, by the way. You look very fit and trim. Oh, thanks for saying that. Basically, my rap now is the cowardice domino that is big tech, that these individuals don't realize the damage they're having and they're enabling. They're the mortar and the bricks of fascism, basically.

And because all these, the biggest, the biggest companies are there sponsoring it. I'm like, these individuals are playing a really key and terrible role in our march towards fascism. And that's all we talked about. Oh, wow. Yeah, people are super, everything is linked to tech right now, of course, which puts it in our wheelhouse in a lot of ways. And I think, you know, especially abroad, they're sort of absolutely confused by the whole thing and they don't know what to do because, you know, they endured Trump 1.0, but this is something far different for them.

And even in our own country, a group backed by Musk is spending millions in Wisconsin's Supreme Court election. Like, what is he doing over there? Ads run by the group highlighting progressive values appear to be coming from supporters of a Democratic-backed candidate, but instead come from conservatives, Musk's America PACs.

is the biggest outside spender in the race. The outcome of the election will have major implications in Wisconsin as the core is expected to face issues surrounding abortion, voting rules and unions. Liberals gained a four to three majority two years ago, if you remember that, and after 15 years of conservative control. I heard from the people who are backing the woman candidate for the judgeship.

who are working really hard, who won the last time they had this fight. But the money from Musk is, this is where you're going to see it all across the country. People that are against Trump in some way are going to, this money is going to move in

like crazy. - But there's a couple of reveals here or points, and that is one, and I've said this, this was one of my big themes for 2025, democracy and rights have now become, the R is almost one, they're almost perfectly correlated with how much money you have. 'Cause in almost every election in America, it's kind of 48% vote one way or 49 and 48 to 49 vote the other way and one or 2% swing the election. And lately because of gerrymandering,

It's 0.1% that swing the election. And it's pretty fairly obvious that Musk and his ad targeting and a third of a billion dollars in key states leveraged by a platform, he's probably decided the geopolitical priorities for the next four years globally. So if you don't think that rights are directly correlated to money, case in point, Elon Musk. And then when you look at Doge and what he's doing in Wisconsin,

There are people on the right and they are intellectually honest. It's about politics for them. It's about a belief system. Whether you agree with them or not, you have to respect their ideals and they're putting their money, their time, their treasure and talent behind those ideals. I don't think it has anything to do with it here. And that is, if you look at Doge, Doge isn't about fraud and waste. The first thing they thought they identified on their wall of receipts at 8 billion was 8 million. And numbers two, three, and four, people can't even

verify. They seem to be false. But what they've managed to do really elegantly is remove regulators in autonomous driving. I mean, this is so obvious. This isn't about ideology. It's about money. And by the way, that judge that he was trying to get elected, Wisconsin, you need an exemption to directly own car dealerships like most states. The regulators or the lobby for car dealerships

have made it very difficult for car dealerships to be vertically owned by their manufacturer because there's a lot of wealthy people and they think that it's good for competition. You have to get an exemption in Wisconsin. He has been suing in Wisconsin for this exemption. And if he gets his guy on the Supreme Court there, it'll likely be overturned. Folks, wake up. Money equals power, full stop. And this guy, it's all about money. It has nothing to do with his views politically or anything.

This all reverse engineers to, I want my cars put on the road regardless of safety standards. I want Verizon kicked out of any bidding. I'm in behind an AI. I would like this to happen. I agree. I think people- I mean, the Koch brothers have a lot more intellectual honesty than this guy. They do. They do. I think they actually believe some of their nonsense. Anyway, speaking of which, it's not just Musk. Google is urging officials at Trump's DOJ to back away from breaking the company up.

Reps from the parent company, Alphabet, argue that breaking up the search engine could have national security repercussions. I'm sure of that not. As a reminder, the Biden administration called for Google to sell off Chrome and make other business changes after a judge ruled the company to be an illegal online search monopoly. A federal judge is set to rule on what Google must change at a hearing next month.

But it doesn't—the judge is going to decide this, but this is—they put a donation to Trump's inauguration. And, you know, these people have been running from regulation for decades, two decades now. And here is what I consider a minor thing, a minor change that other industries—

have not been able to get out of, and here they are doing the same thing. So it's not just limited to Musk, although he's the most egregious example of it. But they're all sort of pay-to-play kind of stuff going on. Yeah, they're doing what they're doing. They're trying to figure out a way not to be broken up. What's counterintuitive is I think shareholder value would actually go up if they were broken up. You and I both, sir. But the problem is the people in charge want to sit on the iron throne of all seven realms, just not Westeros, and they get to decide.

But Alphabet while having probably more, maybe with the exception of Apple, more separate independent $100 billion plus independent companies that you could spend, they probably have four or five.

They do have an existential crisis, and that is their search share or their share of search fell below 90% for the first time. And AI is starting to eat away at their share. Absolutely.

is vastly beaten by OpenAI, Anthropic, and even DeepSeek. They got to be really kicking themselves at how did we let everyone get out ahead of us? In their latest earnings report, the stock tumbled by nearly 9 percent.

And their revenue growth has slowed since this time last year. Did you see Sergey Brin was talking about everyone back to the office and we got to hardcore it? He's one of the founders who was talking about the need to do that in order to prevail in AI. He even was sounding the alarms. Well, this is, I mean, it really is, this company is...

But here's the thing. The argument they will make when they get in front of judges on earnings calls, they will say, temporary lag. Look at this. Everything's great. We're amazing. The power here is unprecedented. When they get in front of a judge next week, they're going to be like, oh, my God, things are so terrible. You can't break us up right now. We're really weak. The national security implications. I mean, it's just they come up with something every time. Like, we must have strong national champions. It sounds so...

I don't know, Chinese, Russian. Well, nationalists. I mean, just a quick definition. People throw around the term fascist law. They use it to describe Carter, Obama. People incorrectly use it to describe certain aspects of the Trump administration. Fascism

is extreme nationalism. It's a belief that someone you elect who, for whatever reason, his view of what's good for the nation should supersede the other party, any governance, any checks and balances, even the courts, even you refuse to condemn violence against your enemies, you condemn immigrants, that is fascism. It literally, this kind of the current administration and their current policies are literally the textbook of

definition of fascism. So it's a word that's become overused, but it's absolutely appropriate here. One of the things that I was saying to one of the questions, and they said, what bothers you the most? I said, well, a lot of times they competed. I was, you know, as I go look back on, I'm talking about my book and stuff like that, like they compete, like, like,

Steve Jobs competed on product, right? Or tried to compete on the actual product. There's so many bad products. Like, Tesla has not innovated. I said, I'm offended by Elon because of Elon, but the

The car hasn't innovated, right, very much. And that's why he's losing. Or Google Search hasn't innovated. And all kinds of products aren't better, right? A couple of them are doing a better job. I think Apple has come up with several new interesting products over the past 10 years, for example. AirPods, the watch, things like that. But right now they're competing on oligarchy and innovation.

access and proximity and none of it's about the actual product. And that makes me, I don't know, I was like vaguely like, it was irritating that they can't, that this is the way they're going to get an advantage. And I get that's why, but it feels that's late stage. And it's a real turn for them that they can't compete on actual things. They have to get whatever angle they can in order to stay in business. Like Starlink, I want to be close to them so I can get

whatever I want. Although Canada just kicked him out. That Justin Trudeau has gotten a dose of backbone. Have you noticed that? He's extra adorable recently. There is a real void that people are stepping into, I would say, Trudeau. I also say Macron is really stepping. Yeah, they're looking very handsome. I don't know.

You're drawn to these individuals. Well, they are. They're acting like leaders. Not just because I like what they say. Power is an aphrodisiac. I get it. They're being clear and crisp. The real estate. Are you hot for Starmer yet? Keir Starmer, who assembled- I love him. I think he's adorable. Who assembled the world leaders. Yeah, pass the head up your ass. Non-dom thing. 10,000 millionaires have left the UK in the last three months. But other than that, he looks like a leader. He's got big shoulders and good hair.

The rich people like this stuff. There are people stepping into the void. You know, the leader of Denmark, the leader of Finland, there are people making really powerful decisions

Yeah. Speeches. It's bringing them together, too. It's bringing them together. And I'll say more about it later, but I do think the EU, and it's a silver lining here, is stepping into the morass or the crevice or the void. The crevice. Yes, it's the crevice. Also, there's a lovely video of Justin Trudeau making a maple milkshake. Making out with macaron? I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, that would be hot.

Anyway. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's address to Congress, the Democrats' divided response with posts that they think were unimpressed by. Also, John Fetterman was unimpressed.

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Scott, we're back with our first big story. President Trump delivered a joint address to Congress this week. And for those watching, it felt like yet another campaign rally. He has got to get some new material. Over the course of one hour and 40 minutes, very long, Trump touted his accomplishments, revisited old grievances and repeated lies. It was a good version of what he did, what he does. He praised Elon Musk and Doge, mocked Democrats and wokeness.

He didn't unveil any future policies or plans. It was a greatest hits and it was a good version of greatest hits. We'll get to the Democrats in a bit. What did you think about the speech? And I'll just note, Trump also noted in the speech that he's working to end the war in Ukraine and also say the letter he got from Ukraine's President Zelensky apparently now is ready to come to the negotiating table. He's had to

He's had to get the lesson in how to suck up to Trump, which is unfortunate. It follows this explosive meeting between Trump, Zelensky, and J.D. Vance in the Oval Office last week, the second most interesting thing J.D. Vance has done on a couch, according to the American people. Trump suspended military aid to Ukraine earlier this week, and he's cut off intelligence sharing as well, which is probably even more devastating. First, talk about what you thought of his speech and then the Oval Office speech.

situation? Well, putting truth aside, and I'm going to circle back to truth, I thought it was a win for him, and I thought it was a loss for Democrats. I thought he came across as resolute, as strong. I thought he looked good. I thought he was forceful. I thought he was articulate.

And I don't want to be one of those nations that digresses into a total fucking food fight in our addresses. I think that it reflects poorly on the United States. We'll get to the Democrats in a minute. Talk about him. Why do you think—I agree with you. Why do you think he did well, even though it was the greatest hits? He did the greatest hits well, is what I thought. Well, he was just—he came across as forceful, and we are now in a situation where I have friends who have become—

who put out reels and just adopt every talking point no matter how outrageous it is, but just a little bit of an economic reality check. He could declare it America is back. Meanwhile, markets are tanking and the economy stumbling. GDP, the US economy is contracting at the fastest rate right now since the COVID lockdowns. The Atlanta Fed has something called a GDP Now model, which estimates annualized growth.

And it's gone from 4% up, which is remarkable, to negative 2.8 in the last month. Consumer confidence has had its greatest drop since COVID. Retail spending is down. Eggs up. Trump take egg. The markets are not in free fall, but definitely declining. The Nasdaq has lost 9% in 10 days. All of the gains since the Trump bump.

have disappeared. He has the greatest levels of disapproval of any president except one other at this time in his presidency, and that other was Trump's first term, 52% saying he's ignoring the country's biggest problems. And just a little word search on here, he mentioned Greenland.

Three times more than affordable housing, veterans or prescription drug costs. Zero mentions of healthcare, zero mentions of veterans or prescription drug costs. Five mentions of tax cuts for billionaires, five mentions of illegal aliens, six mentions of the Panama Canal, 13 mentions of Joe Biden and three mentions of annexing

Panama. Don't forget Panama. It is just – and my favorite was, the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over while Elon Musk sat in the audience. I know.

Oh, transgender mice? Oh, go ahead. Free speech. It's back. Forgetting that on a social media post, he said he would ban illegal protests at universities and that he has barred the Associated Press from the Oval Office. So unfortunately, our leadership and our politics and even us,

our truth have become just who can lie the most with the most confidence. No, he was an effective liar. He was an effective liar. That's what I thought. I'm like, he's lying excellently here. It was easily proven lies. The transgender mice thing was insane because it's transgenic mice and they put DNA. It's not what he was describing it as, but of course, he wins the day because it's like transgender mice. It's ridiculous.

- And you know what was just, just when you thought the guy couldn't get any more craven, the emotional manipulation of that,

That girl who had her face, her nose broken and got a concussion because of a spike from a transgender volleyball player. I just want to remind everybody before they clutch their progressive pearls. A couple of years ago on this show, I said that transgender women should not be allowed to be in sports where there is money or scholarships on the line. I have I said that early and often, much to the much to the, I don't know, disappointment of many of my friends.

progressive colleagues. I have said that early and often. At the same time, demonizing a transgender girl and emotionally manipulating and using as a prop another teenage girl to try and look at her. Isn't she beautiful? And she's a beautiful little girl and she had a concussion. And by the way, I played high school sports. The sport that has the greatest level of injury in the world is

is high school football. High school sports are chock full of injuries. And again, see above, I do not think transgender women should be allowed to play in collegiate level. You can't have a 6'4 swimmer showing up and saying, I present as a woman and take every medal. My point is, that was just craven to create that sort of emotional manipulation and to demonize women.

You don't think that that transgender girl who was the one who spiked the ball is probably getting fucking death threats right now? It feels bad. Nobody, no, it's... No one wants to hurt someone else. That was just, you don't use kids as props like that. No, it was such, it was cheap. It was a cheap shot. It was a cheap shot, as they say. Anyway, what did you think of the Zelensky thing? Speaking of beating up on someone and planning a ridiculous attack. Purely orchestrated by Putin. Purely orchestrated by Putin.

I mean, just that was planned. Vance, who doesn't have, I mean, the only thing that gave me any sort of joy there was watching literally Senator Rubio lose all of his last final specks of soul and respect for himself. And then he defended it. Knowing that TikTok would come up with every time he's presented himself as a cold warrior and he just sat there literally melting into a couch. Him and Lindsey Graham. Okay.

I can't believe this. In Foghorn Leghorn. Closet in Foghorn Leghorn. Just go back to your closet. That reminds me, what's the difference between a garbanzo bean and a chickpea? What? I'm not going to pay 50 bucks for a garbanzo to bean on my face. I don't even know what that means. Think about it. Think about it.

Oh, I still don't get it. Don't explain. I pay 50 bucks for a chick to pee on my face. I really don't. Oh, oh, oh, oh, okay. There you go. We'll get you there. We'll get you there. I'm very simple lady. Yes, it was depressing.

And the whole thing around the outfit. I'm not that person. I don't think very many of us are that person. Let's go back to Zelensky. The outfit, like, with Musk was there. They just have no irony. Like, they had Musk there looking like a lesbian from the 1980s, a badly dressed lesbian from the 1980s. And then they're insulting guys wearing a military uniform, his country's military uniform. We treated representatives of the Viet Cong with more respect. I know. It's true. Negotiations around that.

You don't provide a world leader and then ambush them. It's just bad manners and you lose credibility. You know, his people are like, good job. Like, good job that they went after him and like, go, go, fella. It's so ridiculous. Yeah.

God, it was so, that was really, and then of course, Zelensky's had to like walk it back because and say it was unfortunate. And, you know, when I rewatched it, I was like, was he that difficult? And I just to make sure, and I was like, no, they really egged him on. You could see it happening in real time. He certainly got a no show. He should have showed up with a big medal.

We are giving you the nation's highest honor. Here you are. And here's a statue made out of six-carat gold. Look how fit and trim you are. We're giving you an honorary gold medal just for being awesome. I know. Oh, it's so gross. And by the way, just a few facts about Zelensky. His grandfather fought in World War II. He lost people in the Holocaust. He's Jewish.

He was reelected by 70% of the people. They complain about a lack of free press. Britain didn't allow... He has not banned any other press unless it's Russian propaganda, just as the UK did. They wouldn't allow fascist papers to run pro-Hitler ads while they were getting the shit bombed out of them. This guy, the greatest ROI, the greatest venture investment in history is America's

mild, modest, $60 billion, 70% of which is spent in the U.S., mostly red states, that has done the following. It's taken out a third of the kinetic power of Russia. It has given China pause, recognizing a small, motivated army that's technically literate and backed by the West. Think twice before you do it. And it is the best thing about all of this is that it is unifying. He is unifying Europe, and he is saying to people around the world, and by the way, just a quick tangent, I heard from this kid

I apologize. I apologize. I just, I gotta get something out of this. You're on a roll. Go for it. I'm on a roll. No, this is just personal privilege. There was this lovely young man in my fraternity at UCLA named Greg Townsend. Just everybody liked this guy. We used to call him Townie.

We went to the same high school. He was a year younger than me. Out of the blue, I get a message out from saying, I have a friend who's a human rights lawyer. I'd love for her to come on the pod. You know, every day people are calling us with ideas about who they think is fascinating and should come on the pod, right? And I say, what are you up to? And he goes, well, I went to law school. And for the last 20 years, I've been working for the UN tracking down and prosecuting war criminals.

And I'm like, it's just so funny. All I remember is like listening to Led Zeppelin with this guy and he's fucking hunting down war criminals and prosecuting them through- Impressive. You have impressive friends.

This guy, I just like, I was so moved. I'm like, okay. I immediately went off and said, how can I party in St. Barts and make as much fucking money as possible? And he decided to go to Switzerland and get a law degree and then work with other good people to try and ensure that the- All right, and how are we going to knit this together? Knit it together. Yeah, and try and ensure that the incentive system is that, think twice before you start murdering children and raping women under the context of war. And he tracks these people down and,

And he prosecutes them. And then the cherry on top is that funding for his entire group has been stopped. Yep. And so he's not sure what he's going to do next. And you know what? The majority of him and his colleagues are continuing to work.

Anyways, Greg Townsend, good for you, my brother. Very impressive. The beating up of this guy is crazy, but they think it's like sport. And then the language that the Republicans use, people like Lindsey Graham and Rubio, who are very much supportive of this, have literally lost every bit of credibility. It's embarrassing not to be. And so they can say they were so mean to Trump. They weren't mean to Trump. They just wasn't. It wasn't. But that they think this is a win is pathetic. Anyway.

Speaking of pathetic, let's talk about the Democrats who tried all sorts of tactics during Trump's speech, none of which worked. Congressman Al Green was removed from the chamber after interrupting the speech, shaking his cane and shouting to Trump, no mandate to cut Medicaid. I didn't mind him as much. And other forms of protest, some Democrats wore pink, some held up auction-style paddles that said false and Musk steals. A few walked out during the speech. One lady was wandering around, this is not normal behind Trump. It was juvenile. It was so...

Oh, they were trying to make Fetch hack, like completely. The whole thing. If you call someone Hitler, wearing pink is not the response, people. I'm sorry. It's just not. The only person I did think was a good job was Senator Alyssa Slotkin gave a Democratic response after the speech where she talked about the dangers of Elon and Doge. I thought she did an excellent job. Let's just listen to her and then I want your response of what you thought.

While we're on the subject of Elon Musk, is there anyone in America who is comfortable with him and his gang of 20-year-olds using their own computer servers to poke through your tax returns, your health information, and your bank accounts? No oversight, no protections against cyber attack, no guardrails on what they do with your private data. We need a more efficient government. You want to cut waste? I'll help you do it. But change doesn't need to be chaotic or make us less safe.

Thought she was great. That was the only high point is a really nice response and a very clear centrist, very, very focused on the audience, which is the American people. So what tell me what you thought about this and what would have been an effective strategy here? One of the most powerful things about the presidency is they get the bully pulpit and they get to stand up in front of the vice president and the speaker and the cameras and the music and the majesty and.

And they get to win every time they do it. And...

I think the whole thing reflected really poorly on Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic leadership because they clearly have no control over their constituents and their messaging is awful. We looked terrible, Cara. We looked reckless, immature, beside ourselves. You don't think that emboldens Republicans when they see us acting this way? What could they do? The bottom line is there's not a lot to do. You sit there, you're polite, you're

There's probably a couple of things you can clap for when they welcome whatever, a war veteran, you can stand up and applaud. And other than that, you just sit there and you take it. Or you don't go, right? Fine. I don't even think that's a good idea because I don't, eventually we're going to digress to only half the chamber shows up for every presidential address. And I think there's a certain level.

There's a certain level of decorum. But this is, again, the Democrats have consistently shown they do not have discipline and they do not have leadership and they do not have good messaging right now. They haven't gotten their shit together. The signs. I was like, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. This is not going to be a viral moment. This is so bad. It disgusted me when one of the squad put up the sign saying genocide when Netanyahu spoke, whether they...

You just don't show up with signs. It's not the place for it. It's not the place for it. Anyway. I like a good protest. I thought it was a loss for us. So what would be effective in the strategy? Just sit there quietly? Or is there an effective strategy? I mean, obviously, some people are doing things. Pete Buttigieg is appearing everywhere, it seems like. What would be an effective strategy from your perspective? Judge Carville's saying do nothing. Play for dead for right now because you're not going to win anything. You look stupid. Yeah.

Well, there's tactical and there's strategic. On the tactical, you just show up, you're polite, you're the adults in the room, you nod, you get someone fantastic as we did to give the response. The response is a thankless job because you just can't command the majesty of the lighting and the camera angles. She did a competent slash good job. You sit there, you're polite, you have more respect for the flag and the rotunda than you do your tribal censors. And we did not do that. We showed that we were reckless and we're like,

a kid coming home who is polite all day and then just vomits his or her emotions, speaking for a friend as a parent, and give mom and dad just like, "Who is this terrorist who just walked through the door?" And by the way, in the parent-teacher's conference, everyone's like, "He's just such a good kid at school. He's so polite." I literally said that to Saul the other day. He was like running terror at the house. I was like, "Do you do this at school?" He goes, "No."

And I was like, "No." They won't let me. Yeah, no. Yeah, and then you read all these child books saying, "It's because they trust and love me." I'm like, "Well, I wish they trusted and loved me a little bit less." Yeah, I agree. On a strategic level, you pick one or two issues, don't go after all these ridiculous DEI, transgender, Greenland, Panama. You go after a small set of issues, a surrender,

to the American brand now means surrender, measles, and inflation. And I would focus on those three things. I'd bring in experts. I'd be thoughtful. I'd be data-driven. And then I would fucking shut down the government. I would go upstream of Elon Musk and saying, no, we're not raising the debt limit. No, we are shutting down the government. You want to play hardball? Fine. Let's dance. That's what the Republicans would do. That's what the Republicans would do. And they did. You know, that's what they do.

I agree with you. I thought it was embarrassing. I thought they're trying to create a viral moment. It was sort of like, hey kids, look what we're going to do. And people should be relentlessly critical of this, of what they're doing. It doesn't have any discipline. I mean, in a weird way, they kept

shooting to Nancy Pelosi, who did sit there quietly, by the way. Did you notice that? She understands the decorum. She looked sour, definitely. But I have to say, I was thinking, this wouldn't happen under Nancy Pelosi. I'll tell you that. She was distracted. She was trading options on Robin Hood. I'm just saying, she ran that place with the Democrats very tight. She had them tightly engaged.

I thought Hakeem Jeffries did a bad job. He had no control over these people. And again, if you think this guy is Hitler, that is not the response. This is something much more significant. You know what the Republicans have that we don't have? They have synchronicity. They do. They get in line. The synchronicity between think tanks and...

between their media and their leadership and their talking points, they are a well-oiled machine. They are, they get mine. We are flailing around. We are, you know, we define the term seizure. We're just out of control, our limbs flailing in different directions and have no control of ourselves. And you watch it, you watch what's going on, our response, and it's just sort of,

uncomfortable. It's like, okay, we got to be able to do better than this. Yep, I agree. I had a really interesting back and forth with Mike Birbigli over this because I sent him Fetterman slams Dems unhinged protest during Trump's speech. And we were going back and forth, but what Mike was pointing out when we were going back and forth is they're not thinking of the audience, right? They aren't thinking, for some reason,

The Democrats do not think of the audience, of like what the audience is hearing and seeing. And they just weren't thinking of, you know, how to hit back in a way that's effective in some fashion that shows. They feel so non-genuine and it feels so, it's such a weak and sad, you know, response. I don't know. I just. But your analysis is the right one. And that is, who's our target audience? Yeah.

Well, this was like saying this, so Mike, repeat.

And you need to be thoughtful and you need to be measured and you need to show we're the adults in the room. Do you want measles? Do you want these hacker kids fucking with you? Do you like paying more for eggs? You know, Trump take egg. We're adults. We're reasonable. We're going to lay out the facts. We're not going to have an emotional response. We have emotional control because the people that loved and will applaud for this type of who are saying, you know, you

stand up, walk out, yell them, good for you. Those people are on board with democratic policies. We don't need to convince those people of anything. We got to go after the people who voted for Trump. And be ubiquitous with the messaging. I mean, it was interesting. I have an idea for Kamala Harris for a podcast. You want to hear it? Sure, go ahead. So I think she should do a podcast called Recently Unemployed with Kamala Harris and go around and talk to people about that.

economy, go to places she's not welcome, and make herself a nuisance, like, in that regard. Like, talk to them and go around. But I was thinking all of them have to feel like they're listening to the American people, right? That they're listening and they're present and they're responding and listening. I know it sounds like Bill Clinton really listened, felt like he was listening. I don't know. Yeah, my...

Recommendation around what she should do is nothing. She's a reminder of how badly we fucked up. It would be bad. I'm sorry. By the way, I saw Secretary Clinton last night at Shea Margo in New York.

She just out of nowhere, I'm like, I know that woman. I wanted to go up and say I love you. Did you say hi? Say hi to her. Say I'm Kara's friend. I was too intimidated. Say I'm Kara's friend. I was doing my favorite thing. I was drinking at the bar alone. No joke. Next time you're going up to her. I thought her Secret Service people are going to attack like that tall, weird looking dude who's alone drinking. Anyways, but when you lose...

You take a break for a while because all she's going to do is remind people, quite frankly, of why we lost. And this is what Vice President Harris should do. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing until we have a Democratic president who appoints her to the Supreme Court. She's just not from a, quite frankly, no mercy, no malice brand perspective. She should do nothing. I don't agree with you.

I think she was just beginning to be—she improved a lot. I don't think she did that bad a job. I think Biden was the problem. Agreed. Everything you're saying is true. And the reality is she's a reminder of the policies and reasons we lost. And she should just stay out of the line. In terms of just what's good for Democrats right now—

She should she should, quite frankly, just be under the radar. A Democrat has to step up and feel ubiquitous in the very least, you know, and feel like they're speaking to speaking to Americans. Right. Again, I think that's Mark Cuban, as you know, who's having a moment. And you were right on this. And I was wrong as your guy. Fetterman is.

Not everything that he's doing I like. Well, then we vote him off the island. He doesn't align perfectly with my ideas. No, sometimes he can be obnoxious. He could be a little nicer. That's all I'm saying. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll discuss the latest on Trump's trade war. Daredevil is born again on Disney+. My name is Matthew Murdoch. I'm a lawyer. Exactly what kind of a lawyer are you?

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Scott, we're back with our second big story. U.S. automakers got a one-month break from Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico. The tariffs went into effect on Tuesday, roiling markets and creating headaches for companies in the U.S. and around the world. Canada quickly announced retaliatory tariffs with the very handsome Justin Trudeau doing it.

Mexico is announcing countermeasures. She's also fantastic, the president of Mexico, this week. China is also taking action after Trump added 10% to existing tariffs. Trump acknowledged in his address to Congress that there would be a little disturbance from these tariffs, but he's okay with that. But then he turned it around, which means he only wants to sort of threaten American comforts.

companies, it felt like. He's trying to let certain people in and pay homage to him and this and that. So stocks have been on a roller coaster, as you noted, over the last few days, with Dow falling almost 700 points on Tuesday. The markets rebounded on Wednesday on the news that automakers were getting the exemption. It's such a fucking game. It feels so deep state and manipulative. And anyway,

We'll see more exemptions. And if you're a CEO right now, it would be very hard to know what to do. Target and Best Buy CEOs are already warning about price increases.

And is the rest of the world just going to start doing business without the U.S. if these terrorists continue? Warren Buffett looks like he's sick to his fucking stomach. The first time he didn't respond, he said terrorists were ridiculous and it's a tax on the little guy. But then when someone asked him about the economy, he's like, I'm not going to comment, which is bad news because Warren Buffett always gives the straight scoop on things. What do you think? Put the moral arguments aside.

We have established amazing economic trade relationships and trust and rule of law and reciprocal. When I'm in the Gulf, I have a speaking gig in the Gulf. And then October the 7th happens and I make some comments that they find disagreeable and they cancel the speaking contract. We have a contract. And nowhere in that contract did it say you're not allowed to say certain things.

And then we point it out and they say, you're right, we respect rule of law. We've got a great trading relationship. We're going to come to a settlement. We have established really strong economic relationships with the world's largest economies over the last 80 years that benefits them and benefits us. And one of the key tenets of American capitalism democracy is we believe in lifting up people all around the world, that economic prosperity, if it's shared, is

We all do just much better. And we have amazing trading relationships with the world's largest economies. And we are taking them and saying to those economies, figure out alliances and relationships and trade routes and supply chains and legal agreements with each other and go around us and exclude us and be less inclined to trade with us moving forward. Because even if he drops these tariffs,

They can't trust us. They can't start clearing off all Jack Daniels off of all shelves and figuring out how on earth are they going to reconfigure the supply chain of cars. By the way, with these tariffs, cars are going to cost, if these tariffs hold, an additional $12,000. Each car. People don't realize cars, General Motors cars, those big American trucks,

The parts go back and forth across the Mexican and Canadian borders numerous times. So you're talking about another $12,000. More than half of America's produce comes from Mexico. Everything's about to—99% of shoes in America are imported. You're going to see this everywhere. Crazy stuff. There was—what was it? Sledgehammers? It was like a bunch of—

Like something else that was so strange, and I had no idea it was made in Canada, besides maple syrup. I got that one. The average U.S. household is going to see prices go up by $1,200 each year. And when you're... The average household makes...

was it $68,000 or $70,000, call it $55,000 after taxes. That's the difference between being able to go on vacation or not. So what about these exemptions? Because a lot of people feel that he is sort of trying to get companies in line with him, like, make sure you're on my side. It's mob boss. Mob boss. That's what it

feels like. Deep state mob boss, like, hey, you know. You pay me. And by the way, it started with Tim Cook, who kissed his ass, and all of a sudden the iPhone was exempt from certain tariffs in China. So basically what he's doing is saying, okay, who's willing to give me money? Who's willing to kiss my ass? And then I'll figure out a workaround for you. This is

This is what a kleptocracy is. This is corruption. Not innovation. Again, not innovation. Not making better cars or making better anything. It's this ridiculous...

I mean, the face of Buffett really haunted me when he was talking about it. Like, he's not a young man. And he's like, it was like, are you fucking kidding me? I'm 100 years old and you're pulling this shit. It's just like. I was a graduate student instructor in American economics for Professor Christina Romer at Berkeley back in the 90s. And we used to talk about tariffs. It's like.

An obvious example of just how stupid we were. We'd bring up tariffs in the early part of the 20th century. Smooth hauling. Smooth hauling. And we'd all, it was just so funny. We would kind of laugh at like, okay, this is, wait, hold on kids. This is what they decided to do. This is like a little economy professor joking. As if.

As if we had gone, it was like we literally tariffs were the economic equivalent in the world of medicine of leeches. Like, can you believe they did this? Yeah, leeches. Can you believe they thought this would work? Yeah. And here we are again. Makes absolute fucking little no-sense. Do you know what's going viral is from Ferris Bueller? You know, they had the Smoot-Hawley section. Oh, yeah, Ben Stein. Anybody? Anybody? Anyway, there's a great scene that's going around where he talks about Smoot-Hawley and-

it was a disaster and this is going to be a disaster. And then they're going to do exemptions and then it doesn't matter. And then they're mad at us and it doesn't matter. The whole thing is just...

Ugh, it just is so embarrassing. It's just embarrassing, right? So, I mean, this is where, speaking of rubber meets the road, when these prices go up, it's going to be problematic. And again, Democrats need to focus on that. Guess who did this? Donald Trump. Guess why eggs are more expensive? He tried to put the eggs on Biden, but he gets the eggs. Trump take egg is the other meme, by the way, the viral meme.

around thing. Anyway, the world will move on without us is what they'll do. Jack Zhang, I think it's Zhang, he's a professor at the University of Kansas, summarized it perfectly with respect to tariffs are essentially yet again another regressive tax because lower middle income households spend 100% of their paycheck on these products. So again, they're the ones that get hurt the most and he summarized it perfectly. He said, it's a rich man's war and a poor man's fight.

These tariffs, yet again, really target lower and middle class homes. It is a regressive tax. Low-income Americans spend all of their money on these, think about this, produce, saving for a car, eggs. I mean, these are the people that get hit most.

the hardest. Cherry tomatoes, apparently. There was a whole bunch of really interesting that I had no idea to learn about. Anyway, it's a bad idea. We think it's a bad idea. And Oswald, I had Oswald on talking the same thing. Every smart person I know is like, this is... And now it's being run badly. The tariffs are even being run by letting people out, putting people in, and that means you don't have any credibility about it. It's a stupid negotiating tactic and you think it'll work. And the same thing happened with Zelensky where...

he threatened him and now Zelensky has to apologize. That's not a good outcome. It doesn't matter that Zelensky folded. The fact that he had to fold is pathetic. The same thing here. The fact that they put them out and then take some back, it's not a good tactic if you do this. Moving to facts, we get outraged. It's extortion that we're demanding rare earth minerals from Ukraine. Okay, I get it. But now let's quickly pivot to facts.

Trump has said he wants $500 billion worth of rare earth minerals from Ukraine in exchange for continued military and political support. All right, let's just a couple of facts. The entire global market for rare earth minerals is 10 to 14 billion. A rare earth mineral mine takes at least 10 years to spin up.

So let's just look at, okay, well, you're right. It's extortion. Let's get angry. But let's look at the actual data and show just how ridiculous this is. This makes no sense. You know, getting back to that thing, a lot of his points during that thing were things that

sound good in concept, but aren't ever going to happen. And it's lies, ultimately. Anyway, it's time for last week's poll results, by the way. We asked each of you which of our hosts would end up dead on a season of White Lovers. Well, this is going to be a shocker. I know. This is going to be a shocker. By the way, did you hear my appearance? I did. I watched it on a plane. I was very pleased. I was very proud of you. I was very, like,

I was very proud. You did a great job. And you're reading, thank God Jason helped you on that one. Thank God. Thank God. But the answer was 56% of you said Scott would end up dead on a season of White Lotus. 33% of you said both of us and only 11% of you said me. Yeah.

No surprise there. Not a surprise there. Moving along, it's time for this week's Threads poll. Do you guys in the audience think Elon will end up doing an interview with Jon Stewart? He should. We think you should, Elon. Go ahead. Go into that.

Go into that lion's den. It'll be just fine because you're very strong. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. I'm ready for my life to change. ABC Sunday, American Idol returns. Give it your all. Good luck. Come out with a golden ticket. Let's hear it. This is a man's world.

I've never seen anything like it. And a new chapter begins. We're going to Hollywood! Carrie Underwood joins Lionel Richie, Luke Bryan, and Ryan Seacrest on American Idol. Season premiere Sunday, 8, 7 central on ABC and stream on Hulu. Have you ever spotted McDonald's hot, crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton? And time just stands still.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I shall go first. I'm going to say, I was going to talk about, there's a really great column by Mike Masnick in Tech Dirt talking about how he writes about tech a lot of the time. And he's written a wonderful piece about how he's now a democracy blog. And he was talking about the importance of tech reporters to really explain what's happening. And I agree with that. I think Wired's doing a great job. I think

The Wall Street Journal has done a great job, and New York Times has, and a lot of publications, big and small. So I think that's the thing. But actually, I'm going to actually, something I watched on the plane, I binged watched it. It's called Running Point. Our friend Justin Theroux is in it. He's fantastic. But the star is Kate Hudson, and this most astonishing group of very funny people. It's about basketball. Essentially, it's about

It's a group called the LA Waves. It's about a basketball owner. And it's kind of like silly and stupid and a bit of an ad for how good sports is, kind of a feel-good comedy. And critics don't like it because it's not mean and how terrible it is. But I loved it. And I think Kate Hudson is the most adorable person ever. And it's very, very, very funny to me. I love this show. It's on Netflix again. And I get it. I get why critics don't like it because they're snotty bitches.

But I had a great time at watching it. And I watched, I binge watched the whole thing. And again, Justin is amazing in it among the many actors in it who are amazing. Every single person is. But he does, he wears a, I wrote him, I said, your scarf work is excellent. He plays a basketball owner, basketball team owner. Anyway, I love it. It's really fun.

My negative, I'm trying to go between, I try not to talk about people's outfits, but it's very hard this week. I'm trying to go between Elon's new haircut, which is, again, a very lesbian-level haircut from the 80s, and Zuckerberg wearing Benson Boone's powder blue jumpsuit for his wife Priscilla's birthday party. I try, Scott, but they need to stop. These people need to stop because I can't contain myself, I think, anymore.

It was so performative. Everything is so performative with these people. And I want them to go away, like go away from us and stop posting themselves doing wacky, crazy things. And it feels a lot like Rome is burning and they're fiddling. So that's why I think it offends me in so many ways. Besides being so awkward, it's painful. I didn't want to see Mark Zuckerberg's chest in any way. And there it was. And it was hard to avoid. Anyway, yours? Go for it.

I just have a win. I'm trying, just because I'm such a glass half empty kind of guy, I'm trying to focus on or having some discipline around. If you look at the world, actually, the world over the medium and long term, despite some severe hiccups in the short term, the world gets better. And so it's your default setting should be.

or you should always have in the back of your mind what could go right. Because generally speaking, over time, the world has gotten better. And I'm trying to think, looking at this mess and how upsetting it is, what could go right? And I think what could go right here is that I do believe a real silver lining the size of the cloud here is I do think that Europe is threatening to be an actual union. And if you look at, most recently, the European Commission President Ursula

von der Leyen, I think it is. I like how you say that. Go ahead. She unveiled a historic $840 billion plan to increase EU defense spending. They're now looking at going past the 2 percent number, they're looking at coordinating. What they've decided is that, and this is the unintended consequence of recognizing they can no longer depend upon American consistency in the military umbrella,

It really doesn't make any sense that Europe would, and they're recognizing this, that they would need to back down to Russia because Russia's GDP is about 2 trillion. The combined member states of the EU is 19 trillion.

Germany, France, and England all have bigger economies. Russia is just barely ahead of Spain. It's smaller than Canada. Both Britain and France have nuclear arsenals. They have very sophisticated manufacturing intellectual property. They have decent AI. They have fantastic communications technology. And I believe, and this is kind of links to investments,

If you look at European value stocks on a scale of 1 to 100, one being the cheapest they've ever been, 100 being the most expensive,

U.S. growth stocks are at 98, and that is only 2% in history, only 2% of time have they been more expensive than they are now. European value stocks, big companies like Mercedes, L'Oreal, are at 2%, meaning 98% of time they've been more expensive. I think that Europe is finally saying, okay, we believe it. We can't count on our rich, crazy uncle. He's gone just fucking insane. We can't count on him.

But we as siblings are actually very strong when we coordinate. And we're a bigger economy. We have fantastic technology. And they have already stepped up. They immediately called a meeting in the UK. They're about to call another one in Brussels. And Europe is really stepping up. And this really goes to not only my win, but my prediction. And that is, I think you're going to see the European economy and European stocks rip.

Because if you look at military spending, there really is some spillover in terms of technology. The most valuable companies in the world, Cara, are basically thick layers of innovation on top of technologies developed in the military. Apple is a function of a Cold War technology where we wanted to make sure we could put a missile in someone's pocket in terms of GPS accuracy.

All of the internet was the Americans trying to figure out a nodeless or hubless communications network post a nuclear attack from Russia. The drone technology coming out of Ukraine could have unbelievable applications in the consumer economy, as could AI. Anyways, my win is that Europe is finally becoming a union, commanding the space it occupies. They're going to massively increase their coordination and their military budget. And I believe the stimulus of that spending

And the new technologies that will spend over to the consumer economy are about to set European markets on a tear. And it's already happened. They're up 12% this year, largely on the back of European defense contractors that their stocks have accelerated, while the U.S. is flat. So I think we're about to see my win is that Europe is finally a union and that I think it's going to have huge economic growth.

both stimulative and in terms of technology spill over. All right. And? That's it. That's all I got. That's good. Just in case. All right. Okay. All right. Very good. In case. Oh, my God. Are we going to...

We're going to Austin. We're going to Austin. Are we going to have a good time? That's my win. You and me in Austin. I miss you. There we go. We're going to have fun. There we go. We're going to hang out. There's a party. We're going to do a live pivot. I have to also interview Chelsea Handler, who is the number one book in the country right now, and Elizabeth Warren. Yeah, I'm doing two live things there.

That's two great tastes I didn't see going together. They're not going together. They're separate. Although I could put them together, couldn't I? No, I'm not going to do them and do them separately. Anyway, elsewhere in the Scott and Kara Universe this week, this week in Prof G Conversations, Scott spoke with Dr. Anna Lemke, professor of psychiatry at Stanford and author of Dopamine Nation. Let's listen. Drugs in all their forms are the great human replacement. Addiction is a disease of loneliness.

Even if we have a lot of great people in our lives, if we get addicted, we will isolate and we will use our drug to replace that human connection.

And I say that because we sometimes talk about loneliness as the cause of addiction, but more often than not, what I see is that the addiction causes the loneliness. Oh, I like that. That sounds fascinating. Can I go around here? I've been thinking about this a lot, that a lot of people came up to me saying,

at Mobile World Conference to talk about this. There's a specific addiction that I haven't spent much time thinking about because there's not a lot of good research on it. In the last two weeks, I've had three men, two young men and one older man. The most recent was at Mobile World Conference. This kid came up to me, a kid, he's like 34, he's killing it. Great family, married two kids, just killing it professionally.

And he said, "Would you mention me?" And I'm like, "Boss, I don't mentor people who have their shit going well. The kids I mentor are really struggling and really need it. You don't need it." And he's like, "Well, I have an addiction problem." And three men have said the same thing to me. And I said, "What's your addiction?" And he said, "Porn." And it's really interesting. Porn is probably the least studied addiction because there's very little peer review or academic research because very few people want to be known as a porn professor.

You could do that. You could fill that space, but go ahead. I'm not sure that's a good idea. I am doing a lot of research. It's on brand. Go ahead. But it really is something that we don't talk about a lot. And I could see all three of these men when they said it to me, there was real shame in their voice. And it's like, there's much more shame. If you say, I have an addiction to alcohol, it's kind of like...

Okay, if you say you have an addiction to porn, people are a little bit scared of you. Yeah, they are. It's creepy. Keep their kids away from you. Anyways, and I've been thinking a lot about young men and where I go to around this is I think that, and this is more advice, is that I think the best thing in life, hands down, you know, economic security, relevance, that's all important, but it's a means to an ends. And the ends, in my view, are finding someone who,

and having kids and having a loving, prosperous family. That is the whole shooting match. And that starts with, in my view, for a lot of men, with wanting to have sex. And I think that's a wonderful thing. And I think we've pathologized it. I was thinking, I wouldn't have graduated from UCLA if I didn't think there was a non-zero probability I might meet someone on campus and eventually have sex with them. And I know that sounds crass, but it was the truth. That was a big motivator for me to get out of the house,

take risks, endure rejection. If I'd had porn on my phone and on my computer, I'm not sure I would have gone on campus every day.

That's what young men are dealing with, and that is a total loss or a near total loss of mojo and risk-taking to develop the skills they need. Here's the problem. You don't know. What you know is that your son and young men and some older men aren't getting out of the house as much, aren't taking risks, aren't developing skills, humor, kindness, demonstrating excellence. And as a result...

It's this low-risk, low-entry means of a reasonable facsimile of a relationship called porn. Yeah, I agree. And it creates unreasonable expectations on women. It creates an illusory vision of what a relationship actually is. That's my worry. Yep. And you don't—and I think about it. I spent so much time enduring rejection from women and developing skills such that occasionally—

I could get lucky in taking risks. And guess what? Those skills have served me well my entire life. It's also, you know, it is. And it's another thing I've been talking about here. It's frictionless, right? It creates a lack of friction. And friction is good for it. And tech people constantly talk about frictionless experience. They want everything frictionless so that you just sit there and

and don't go anywhere. It creates growth for them. Friction is the best thing that can happen to people, problems, friction, mistakes, and stuff. Just speaking of Kate Hudson, the reason romantic comedies are two hours and not 15 minutes is this shit is hard and it's worth it. Where I end up with is where I tell young men, modulate. I can't tell young men not to engage in porn, but modulate it such that you have the fire

to develop the mojo, the effort, the skills and willingness such that you can make your own bad porn. That's the key. Porn is great as long as you're involved with another being. Is it great? No, you know what I mean. Sex. I'm not a fan of porn. We've sort of demonized or chastised or pathologized sex

Young men wanting to have sex. That's a great thing. Want sex. I'd rather have them have sex than have porn. That is absolutely true. Anyway, here we are. And Kate Hudson's adorable. She really is. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We will see you in Texas, in Austin, with a live pivot. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out.

Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Severio, and Dan Shulan. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. I will see you in the great state of Texas.