Transcript of Jimmy Kimmel Returns, Charlie Kirk’s Memorial, and Trump’s H1-B Visa Shake-Up

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When did you peak? I peaked at 34. Have you determined when your peak is?

Oh, no, I'm peaking. I'm continuing to peak.

Yeah, somehow I knew you were going to say that.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swischer.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

How are you doing, Scott?

I'm feeling okay. I slept a lot yesterday. Had a nice weekend. I got a little bit lonely when I'm traveling for a while, so I'm a little bit lonely. But yeah, I'm fine. Without the dogs, without the kids.

When do you go back?

Well, I'm in New York now. I go to Aspen for this event. I'm not even sure you're supposed to talk about it. It's one of these events where we redraw the maps of the world in rooms and talk about climate change.

Oh, right. One of those secret ones?

Talk about climate change and people pretend to care about the world as they wash out founders of AI to get their seventh billion. But I'm very excited.

Are you getting invited to those things? I never get in those rooms.

Yeah, I am all of a sudden. I was never invited.

There's a Bezos one, there's an Aria Manuel one, there's one from all those people have their own Driesen house.

I'm going to one of those.

One of those, I figured. Karen never... You know, the Eric Manuel is like, You should come to this. I'm like, You never invite me. And he's like, You should come to this. You just take notes for me, okay? Just tell me about it.

I usually don't go anywhere. I'm not being paid a lot of money or that doesn't involve alcohol and people much younger than me.

There's a lot of alcohol there. Trust me. Really?

I don't want to get fucked up with these guys.

I know, but you can find things. Be a spy. Be like a spy. Be like Mata Harri. Yeah.

So it's that I'm never invited back again to enter into this club. I've been uninvited or disinvited from some very important conferences, the J. P. Morgan Alternative Investment Summit in Miami, which is like it literally is a Super Bowl. Half the world's GDP is there. I was invited two years in a row. The last year I was there, they always invited me to get predictions, and then I sit down and interview somebody. I sat down and interviewed this young woman who was an influencer. Just as we were about then, I said, But be careful, the person I interviewed last year was Adam Newman. Supposedly, that really upset the people at J. P. Morgan because I guess they were one of the investment banks planning to take him public or something.

They were in a cuddle puddle with Yeah.

Anyways, didn't get invited back then. I haven't been invited back since. Yeah. They're so thin-skinned. I don't know if I was disinvited, but I got to go to Davos when I was in my early 30s, three years in a row. I haven't been invited back since.

I never got invited to Davos, just saying.

Well, I've sent all kinds of hints and messages. I'd love to come back. It was so great. No invite.

I like not getting invited.

When did you peak? I peaked at 34. Have you determined when your peak is?

No, I'm peaking. I'm continuing to peak.

Yeah, somehow I knew you were going to say that.

Yeah, I feel like I'm peaking even more.

I do.

I feel like it doesn't matter. One thing I learned along the journey was I don't care if I don't get invited. It doesn't make it better or worse. You don't get better interviews. Sometimes you don't get people. That's for sure. I think about this a lot, this accessy thing. I don't think I've suffered for not getting certain interviews. The other day, I I'm done with that person. I don't more want to talk to them again. I was like, I don't care if I talk to them, if I do, if I don't. I don't know. I have more of a whatever. I'll do my best job.

I find these events are usually really well done. Also, I think it's really important that people like that get together and meet other people and expand the horizon. I think those events actually play a really important role. You know when I peaked? I peaked when I was nine. When I was nine- No, you didn't. I was an all San Fernando Valley pitcher. Every day, me and Debbie Brewbaker were sent from the fourth grade to the sixth grade to do math and English. Oh, wow. I was the fastest kid in the fourth grade at Emalita High School, and I was getting straight A's. Then my parents got divorced, we moved homes, and I began a slow descent that's lasted about 50 years. Also, I was featured the San Fernando Valley newspaper.

Can I just say, I think that's what people look at you and say, He's peaked at 9: 00.

At 9: 00. No, that's what people came up to me instead.

It's not true. You are yet to peak. You have yet to peak, I have to tell you. I don't say that just because I'm an arrogant person. It's because I really believe it. I feel like I have lots. Also, I feel a little bit like I'm going to do something. I don't feel like I'm at risk in a way. I don't know. I just feel like, I'll do the next thing. I'll do the next thing. I feel good about that, including doing doing stuff with you. I like doing stuff. Everything I do, I love doing. That's all I'd say. Let me just say, Scott did me a favor. I'm interviewing the parents of the ChatGPT story about the kid who committed suicide. Scott did a amazing... Someone I was going to do it, couldn't do it at the last minute. I got Scott, too, and he did a great, I really appreciate it. It was an incredibly thoughtful question.

It's my pleasure. But the key there in the story of my life was the person I wanted couldn't make it, so we invited Scott.

No, he was a person who made sense for that particular thing. But I didn't want to bother you is what I really wasn't that. I would invite you for every question.

Me sitting alone eating Chipotle in my loft in Soho. Yeah, I'm so busy.

Why is Chipotle? You have so much good food around there. You like Chipotle. Yeah, Chipotle. It gives you comfort.

If it's not Jack's Wife, Frida or Chipotle, I'm not interested.

I noticed that. You also like the place that has the tune of Tunicados.

Tunicado. Oh, Joe and the Juice.

Joe and the Juice.

God, can I be more like... I don't what the term is.

I do know a lot about you. It's interesting.

You do.

We're very close. Anyway, it was very thoughtful what you did. I really appreciate it. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Jimmy Kimmel's return. He's back. H1b, Visa Chaos and more details about a potential TikTok deal. We, of course, are dubious about it. But first, let's talk about the Charlie Kirk Memorial Service. Five hours, more than 100,000 mourners and top administration officials and Elon Musk. It was equal parts memorial Religious Revival and political rally, hailing Kirk as a martyr and a warrior. Let's listen to two standout moments. First from Charlie Kirk's widow, who emphasized that her husband wanted to help young men. She, I thought, was excellent, I have to say. On the cross, Our savior said, Father, forgive them for they not know what they do. That man That young man, I forgive him. Then this one from Donald Trump.

He did not hate his opponents.

He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don't the best for them.

I'm sorry. I am sorry, Erica. Oh, my God. Did you listen to Steven Miller's speech?

Crazy.

I mean, I thought he was going to start singing, Tomorrow Belongs to me. It was so, it was so reminiscent of speeches in '30s Germany. Just to be clear, for those of you who will accuse me of comparing Stephen Miller to a fascist, yeah, I Yeah, me too. If he wants to stop being compared to fascists, stop acting like a fascist.

Yeah, that was even... I thought Trump's speech was terrible, but that was really disturbing.

It was just so over the top.

It was. I was thinking, Don't speak at my funeral.

Yeah, and there's this theme of them, and you have awakened a war, and they. It's like, who is they exactly?

You. He's talking about you.

Me. Is it white males from Roman families who are gun owners? Who is they? Is it people who have relationships or supposedly have some relationships with trans people? That's the thing about extremism, is you try to find an enemy such that you feel better about yourself. But it's so... The thing about... I just find this also disappointing, which she said was very Very moving, and you can feel her grief. You would think that, and some political leaders have tried to do this, but what if one side is successful? 98% of the capital effort right now is going towards trying to cherry-pick evidence. The left is guilty of this, but much less than the right is guilty of this. Trying to cherry-pick evidence that will convince a bunch of people that it was the other's fault. The question is, assume you win and you convince people that it was either the radical right or the radical left's fault. All that does is get more violence. That's not going to do anything. None of these people, again, want to talk about the real culprits here. I actually thought the service, I think it's nice when a bunch of people get together to mourn something and have a collective healing.

I think that's a good thing. The people on stage and their tone was not one of forgiveness and honoring his life. It felt more like a- No, it was an opportunity. Well, I wrote a post on Friday in my newsletter called Violence Entreprene, and they see an opportunity to leverage violence to try and advance their own political gains as opposed to saying... Anyway, I remember you said violence, entrepreneurship, and then Spencer Cox said the same thing, conflict, entrepreneurship.

It creates that... I think you are more to the point. Violence is actually the point, if you listen to Miller. Look, it was a spectacle. It was meant to be a spectacle. It was meant to be a political opportunity for a lot of people. That evidence that, for example, Turning Point USA volunteers staffed voter registration boosts at the stadium event. They were selling merch. It was a culture event. It was a political event and everything else. Look, the fact that Erica Kirk stands out is one, the difficulty level of doing that is high, because this is a violent death of her husband with whom she had two children. I thought she managed to do the best she can, given the spectacle of the whole thing, which was a lot. It's fine if you want to do that. The martyr stuff is okay, whatever. The The overt, the excessive Christianity was something, but they are very Christian, and I'm glad they did it in Arizona, which is where he's from. Again, if people want to mourn, they did it. But Donald Trump treated it a political rally. He wandered around talking not just that he hates people and his opponents.

That's also insulting to Charlie. It never was about Charlie Kirk, ever, on the thing. He wasn't talking about Charlie Kirk. He was talking about everything else. He talked about Biden. He talked about how stupid Biden has tariffs. He started going on about Tylenol, a bunch of things. It's like when someone said, How are you feeling about someone who is supposedly close to your family? He started talking about, this is what got Jimmy Kimmel into trouble. He started talking about the building of the ballroom. It was weird. I think very few people there did not take an opportunity to use Charlie Kirk's death as something to their own agenda or advantage. Elon Musk's Center, one, of course, published a picture of him and Trump together and said, For Charlie. All I could think of, For Elon, not for Charlie. It was never for Charlie. They'll say, Charlie wanted us to be together, this and that. But this poor murdered man is being used as a vehicle for all these people. It's really quite a story, and they'll continue to do so going forward.

Yeah, I was trying to think. I've never seen a service like that. I was trying to think when other famous political figures were murdered, and I don't. I mean, typically, it just feels as if our politics have permeated the most sacred spaces, and it's It's just weird. It's just strange.

Well, if you're going to put it in a stadium, it's certainly not a service for the person who died. That's the thing. Although I'm planning on having an entire stadium when you go, I'm going to do it. I'm going to have celebrities and stuff like that. Then I'm going to try to raise money for myself.

I want to be cremated and have my ashes spread across the bar at Zero Bond.

Done.

I want it to be male. I shall do that for you. I wanted it to be male escort night.

Right. Anyway, obviously, they're going to take advantage of this as far as they can do this. It's untoured, but I will say it'll be interesting to see what she does next because she certainly is an appealing character. You can see some of the people who want that role going, Oh, Carrie Lake went, Oh, if only it was me, that thing. But she's definitely going to be an interesting political figure, I think, if she handles it correctly. We'll see. Charlie Kirk said she was much more conservative than him. But if she handles herself, she has a political future. That's what I kept thinking when I was watching it. I hate to say that. Now onto the story Speaking just as we tape, Jimmy Kimmel is expected to be back on the air Tuesday night. Let me read a statement from a Disney spokesperson. Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having a thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached a decision to return the show on Tuesday This day.

Oh, okay. Scott, first thoughts on this.

I'm surprised. This is literally another press release gangbanged by a dozen $1,200-an-hour comms consultants. Bob said, Okay, I have yet another chance to be a leader here, and I've decided to lie. Let me get this. They spoke to Jimmy, and he said, I promise I won't do it again? I mean, this has fucking nothing to do with First off, his comments were not ill-timed. They weren't. What did he say? He's in the fourth stage of grief construction. It was funny. He and all of us have said much worse.

And then the Republican- And also that was a weird response to, How are you doing about the death of your friend?

Yeah, I'm doing very good. By the way, I think it's very well. But anyway, they should have been... I mean, a couple of observations. The first is, and the one I immediately go to is I'm now more emboldened, convinced that a national economic strike is the way to go here, because what happened here was they started getting... Actors probably called and said, I'm not to work with Disney. They saw thousands of screenshots being sent to them saying, Okay, I'm canceling Hulu. This was about money. This has nothing to do with principles.

Yeah, it happened to target, as you know. Same thing with their overcorrection.

This has nothing to do with Bob Iger talking to Jimmy Kimmel and saying, Okay, this was, Oh, no. We fucked up. We miscalibrated. We totally mistook. We took the wrong temperature. We made the wrong decision. People are canceling their subscriptions, canceling their trips to Disney, canceling their movie. They're not going to work with us. It's going to hurt our share price. So all of a sudden, we have found our testicles. Your thoughts?

I agree with you. I think what a fucking waste of time and stupidity. What a dumb decision on the behalf of a buyer to do it in the first place. And now they've got egg on their face, and it just doesn't... I can't wait to see what he says. What are they going to be? He's obviously not giving... I think it's Sinclair or Necstar. I think it was Sinclair that demanded that he give money to the Turning Point Group that Kirk ran. That's ridiculous. You don't tell people what to give money to. That's insane. He didn't do anything. It's not like Roseanne Barr, who said heinous things, hazeness and racist things about Valerie Jarrett. They didn't even make or give money, I don't know, to any group. They fired her, that's for sure, and to me, deservedly in that case. But it's so stupid. I sit there, I'm like, What is he going to do? You and I both think he should just go off and do things on his own. What does he need this crap for in a dying industry, in a problematic economic situation? He's going to get the screws put to him on costs now because there are some significant issues around costs and audience and everything else.

I'm curious why he returns I feel like he had the upper hand here because it's such a bone-headed move by Disney, and it puts a stain on Bob Iger. That's it. Just does for the rest of his life. This is what he's going to be, the payoff about Stephanopoulos, and now this.

Yeah, I mean, it is actually quite significant because this is... The Republicans were claiming, Oh, no, it wasn't pressure from the administration. It was a private company doing what they're allowed to do because private companies don't have to honor First Amendment. They can fire people for pretty much whatever reason they want unless it has to do with discrimination or their sexual orientation or their race or whatever. But they get to hire and fire at will. They're at will employees. My guess is He has 160 people working with him. The gangster move here would be for him to come back to a vicious dialog and say, And by the way, I came back on. I stood up for my principles. I don't want to work for this company anymore. This This is my last show. It's easy for me to be generous with the livelihoods of the 160 people who work with him and with his money because stars have a habit of, even if they make $10 or $20 million spending it all. I don't know how much he needs the money, but he is sitting on top of a melting ice cube. Trump's going to go, Trump's going to get angry, but this represents something bigger, and that is, of all the things they've done, tariffs were not a bridge too far, rounding up people, including citizens, and sending them to effectively what are Black sites, that didn't seem to be a bridge too far.

This feels like it may be that red line we were all waiting for.

Yeah, not the Epstein files, although I still think they're still alive. I think that's still the contravene.

Yeah, I think that's still playing out. But it's clear. I mean, even Senator Cruz read the tea leaves here and said, Look, folks, they could come for us. It feels to me like there's probably... I mean, it'll be very interesting to see Trump's response because the administration's playbook was, Oh, no, this wasn't about us threatening to take their SEC license. This was a decision a private company made. Well, Now that the decision of a private company is to bring him back, what is their response?

Yeah, that'll be... And Brandon Carr, the single most idiotic, one of many idiotic people in the Trump administration, with this, we We could do this the easy way or the hard way. Okay, Brandon, let's see the hard... Excuse me. Let's go, Brandon. Let's do this the hard way. What are you going to do? What are you going to do here? If I were Bob Iger, I'd have every law firm on speed dial and start to Really, they should not be allowed to do this. This was a direct and bright line between what Brandon Carr said, because he's such a dope, and what happened here. Then using the affiliates, which I'm sure there were calls made, to try to put pressure on Iger. The affiliates can also throw Kimmel off if they want to. They can do whatever they want and put on reruns of Golden Girls if that's what they think they're going to make their nut. But let them look like what they are, which is the guy didn't do anything of any consequence here. Even the worst reading of that line, it was claudish, that one line about Magga doing this. But again, it's not what was said.

He was fully within his rights a comic to make a joke about that stupid comment President Trump made about construction, that if you died and someone said, How are you feeling, Cara? And I go, Oh, my vacation in Hawaii was amazing. It's just like, What? It's so strange. I just feel like, I think the day after for everyone is going to be really hard, including for Jimmy Kimmel, because now, I think all these shows are on borrowed time in some fashion. But if you don't punch back, the decision should be made over time on how to either reinvigorate these shows or end them, wind them down in a better way. And so far, nobody's ever looked at how to wind these down or invigorate them in a proper way, it seems to me, including Paramount.

I think he should... I mean, he's a thoughtful guy, super talented. I think he should use this as basically an opportunity to do an extended swan song with his middle finger stuck up. And he should just go after Iger, he should go after Trump. It's just very interesting. One, the two takeaways from me are, I mean, you can look at the semantics of Iger being a coward and Kimmel, whether he should come back or not. The two most interesting things or observations, in my view, are one, this appears to have been a bit, finally, the red line where both Democrats and Republicans said too much. This just isn't... Ted Cruz just said it. He said, And so did Ben Shapiro and Bill Maher. He's like, They're going to come for us.

See, I think they're going to... Let's finish by talking about this, but what's going to happen next. I think Trump will double the fuck down. Will Brandon Carr, the dickless Brandon Carr, because they got to look like... If you're a tough guy, and then your tough guy-ness is called into question, these guys want to be a tough guy. For Iger, I think there's got to be a departure eventually. Either nice, let's do this the easy way or the hard way. I think it probably will be the easy way. As you said, as you have said before, activists probably pop up again. For Kimmel, he's got to think about his next chapter. If I were him, I'd be planning for next year right now. What about you? Last thoughts?

Well, simple. And again, it's easy to be generous of other people's livelihood. If I were Kimmel, I'd go on what I would try and rally my riders and say, This is our Swansong, and we're going to come out. We're going to come out swinging, thoughtful, not mean-spirited, but funny, and at the end say, I no longer want to work here. I appreciate everyone's good efforts. I appreciate the audience, and I trust you'll find me somewhere else that respects the First Amendment, Great American Principles. Peace out. Dear Disney, dear President Trump, please go fuck yourself. I'm allowed to say that, and you're allowed to say it about me. The term for that is America.

I like that. I like that. You could be a comedy writer. What will Trump do now?

Well, you're predicting that Trump is going to go apoplectic. I mean, it's hypocritical, but that hasn't stopped him before because they're all... Look at everyone on... I was watching Abby Phillips show. The Republicans are saying, Oh, no, this wasn't about censorship. This was a private company making its own decisions. So if he comes out swinging and says, No, I'm putting government pressure on these guys to do the right thing, then that argument falls away. It's just really shocking to me that it's not suspected pedophilia. It's not a grift around making $5 billion off a shitcoin, and then 600,000 people go on to lose $4 billion. It's not tariffs reducing our prosperity. It's censorship that appears to be the red line in America, specifically people have canceled their contracts, a lot of commercial backlash, and Republicans have actually spoken up. I would have never guessed that this was... I thought there were red lines everywhere. This appears to be the red line in indelible for a lot of people.

For a lot of people. Then very briefly, Iger.

Oh, my God. He just to figure out as elegant a way as possible to declare victory and leave. He just wants to wait till... He's Sheryl Sandberg in 2018. Like, Oh, fuck. Everyone's figured out that I'm writing books about gender equality while ignoring that 14-year-old girls are cutting themselves as I position myself as the next president, I should have left two or three years ago. Bob Iger is the Sheryl Sandberg of 2022, right right now. He's like, Why the fuck didn't I ring the bell, have parties at that cool restaurant at Disney, continue to go to the Academy Awards, and just sit back and from the cheap seats, heckle whoever the new CEO was?

Yeah, that is true. That is what it is.

He decided for some reason to do his third tour in Vietnam, and he is getting shot every 30 minutes.

He's fragged. His ass is getting fragged.

He went back voluntarily, and it's like, What the fuck was I thinking?

Was I thinking? Yeah, You remember, Sanborn was supposed to be CEO of Disney. Anyway, welcome back, Jimmy. We're excited to hear your monolog. It should be spicy, I hope.

I mean, it's literally... I don't know about you. It's the first time I'll tune into Jimmy Kimmel in about seven years.

Live. That's true. We all watch I think on media.

We'll see it on TikTok.

That's where we'll see it. That's where we'll see it. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, the Trump administration sends big tech into a panic over H-1B visas. Support for this show comes from Delete Me. More and more nefarious actors are using the personal data trails we all leave online to target political rivals, civil servants, and even outspoken citizens, just posting their opinions. But you don't have to be a public figure to be in danger of an online attack. In August 2025, Google even issued a warning to many Gmail users that hackers had been targeting their accounts. Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. That It is so clear. As a tech reporter, I think a lot about people's data hygiene and how to keep it together. Privacy is one of the major issues, and Congress and others have been nothing to protect us. Even I am surprised using delete me, how much stuff is out there about me and much of it inaccurate. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for delete me.

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Scott, we're back with more news. Now to the corporate panic about Trump administration's new $100,000 price tag on H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers. The Friday announcement had companies and their lawyers scrambling to get workers in place before the new policy took effect on Sunday. The White House later clarified the charges only applied to new visas, not renewals or current visa holders, and does not affect holders' ability to travel to and from the US. Of course, they rolled it out stupidly. Amazon employs over 1,000 H1B holders, and Microsoft, Meta, and Apple, and Google employ over 4,000. It's a big deal. Some people were backing it, like Netflix co founder, Reid Hastings. A lot of people have been up in arms about these things and the complexity and who gets them and everything else. I don't mind some reform here. I would agree with Reid on that. What are your thoughts on this from a employment perspective?

This is the The fact pattern continues, and that is these people don't understand basic economics and how markets work. That is, one of the core advantages of America is that we have the greatest inflows, historic, unprecedented inflows of capital But there are two different forms of capital. One is actual financial capital. For the last 15 years, everyone has been buying US stocks. We have the cheapest financing. There are $5 million in venture capital available for every startup In the United States. There's $1 million in venture capital financing for every startup in Europe. That means our startups have more fuel in the tank, can take bigger risks, can attract better people. Anyways, you get cars, washing machines. Everything is cheaper because of the massive inflow of financial capital in terms of our ability to build things, in terms of our ability to finance and afford things. Also, something that people don't pay as much attention to is we have on unprecedented access to global human capital from the four corners of the Earth. That is the best and brightest from Sri Lanka to South Africa to Seoul. All have one thing in common, and that is their parents think, If I'm really successful, the ultimate signal or validation of my success is that I can send my kid to an elite American university.

It costs half a million dollars. It's 90 points of margin. I mean, just to brief a bit for a second on how stupid we're being there, discouraging people from applying to global schools. There were a bunch of universities, including, I think, Duke, that sent a message out to their foreign students on certain visas, Don't leave the US this summer because you might not be able to get back in. We bring in these kids who tend to be the richest, most talented people in the world, and a lot of them, and then we charge them a half a million dollars over four years in rent, Chipotle, tuition at 90 points of gross margin. This is an unbelievable business. And then a lot of them fall in love, decide to go work for Salesforce, stay here, go home, feel better about America, or go on to be the CEO of fucking MasterCard, Adobe, and Microsoft. And those are just the people from India. So what are we doing here? By charging $100,000, we've opted for some brain dead short term thinking that we can make money Well, he likes to do that with the tariffs, the same thing.

But all you're going to do is discourage. You're going to say, Okay, there's two types of people, and I'm being reductive here at Stern. I say this on the first day of class. Find the international students and get to all of them. One, they're the funnest people to party with, and two, they're the richest people in the world because the reason they're here is because their dad owns the license to PNG in Honduras. Get to know them because the next time you go there, you're going to have the best time because their father owns the TV station there. It's a little bit embarrassing, but it's true. Then you have the PhD students. Those people we have to pay, they are literally the brightest young human capital in the world. They are just extraordinary. We get them from the four corners of the planet. So what you're saying is, I just want the rich kids, not necessarily the most talented. In addition, Cara, my firms were built by two things, overachieving young women and also people who wanted to stay here, and I was willing to sponsor them. So my key programmer at Red Envelop, Jouad Mohamed, an immigrant from Pakistan, the key consultant at L2, a Canadian woman named Claude Djoqus.

If it had cost $100,000 or cost me $100,000 to get them to stay, I would have said, I love you, but I can't afford this. Who can afford it? The same people, Metta, Alphabet. All this is, is one, a reduction in an incredible resource that we attract from the four corners of the earth in terms of human capital, and two, yet another transfer of capital and power- To the big guys. From the 99. 9% of firms that can't afford to pay $100,000 for somebody, to the folks who can. Mark Zuckerberg is licking his lips because all the shitty little startups nipping in his heels that might disrupt him now will no longer have access to the most talented people abroad.

Right. So one of the things, let me read you, read Hastings' one. I've worked on H-1-B politics for 30 years. Trump's $100,000-a-year text is a great solution. It will mean H-1-B is used for very high-value jobs, which will mean no lottery needed and more certainty for these jobs. React to that.

Well, first off, I think Reid is fantastic. When he said that, it immediately gave me pause because anytime Reid says something that doesn't align with my values, I stop and think, Well, maybe this guy has a point because I have a lot of respect what he's saying. I think it works for Netflix. I think they can afford to bring in these folks. But if you're some... It shouldn't be based on, in my view, the greatest thing about... I mean, if she's just benefited enormously from people who are, one, willing to take risks. There's something to the guy who's willing to crawl over fences and risk being shot at who makes for a really good services worker. That DNA of risk-taking, when people in the UK asked me to summarize the difference between our success and theirs, and there's just no doubt about it, our success, we've just blown away Europe the last 34 years. I say it all comes down to one thing, and I look at the audience of UK citizens or European citizens, and I said, My parents, at the ages of 19 and 21, got on a steamship with no money to come to the US.

I said, You're the ones that stayed. Then in the US, it's even regional within the US. Think about where all the most valuable companies have been made. It's people who inherited the DNA of their forefathers who were willing to take a risk, go over the Rockies, and eat their cousins to find a better life. The riskier you get, the more risk-aggressive you get, that DNA, plus the ability to draw on this grand human capital, results in the most profitable, most valuable company in history that pays for our Navy and for food stamps.

Let me just say, I suspect at that dinner, they said to do this, and he did it. He can make it like, Look, we raised over 10 billion. Who said he did? I bet at that tech dinner when they were there, all the ones who will benefit from that suggested this to Trump. It didn't not come out of nowhere. It helps them.

That's interesting because they can afford it.

They can afford it. They probably mentioned it to him and said, Oh, you'll be able to say you raise this much money. It could be from us. No, you took money from us. I just feel like that's what happened there. This just came pretty much out of nowhere. All of them suggested it, and there was not a startup among them in that group. Anyway, we need to move on, but the fix is in for the big guys. I see Reid's point. It's a little bit unorganized, and it allows people to think, especially Conservatives, to say, Oh, we're letting in too many immigrants. But these high-value immigrants have made this country. There's just no two ways about it, but it shouldn't advantage only the big companies, which it will. Lastly, speaking of... Other thing is rule of law. Is something you've talked about a lot, Scott. Trump has been on for business, how good it is for business. He's been on true social publicly complaining to attorney general Pam Bondi, the President posted in a message to Bondi that looked like a DM that the lack of criminal charges against his enemies was, quote, killing our reputation and credibility.

Boy, he's a lot smarter when he's DMing. I mean, heinous but smart. Trump specifically called out Senator Adam Shiff, former FBI director, James Comey, and New York attorney general, LaTisha James. In The Post, he also seemed to recommend his former personal lawyer, Lindsay Halligan, to take the probes writing to Bondi. Lindsay Halligan is a really good lawyer and likes you a lot. That's who's apparently going to be doing this now. Trump has been way too easy on his enemy so far. I mean, this is Baloney charges. The other guy left because he couldn't charge Satisha James. He just didn't have evidence. The same thing with Lisa Cooke. It's often a Black woman, which is interesting. This is anti-rule of law, and of course, and bad at doing DMs versus public posts, but that's another issue altogether.

Yeah, look, I largely agree with you. I think it's unfair to say he's targeting Black women. Also, I would probably push back on the fact that he's been easy on his enemies so far. He removed the security detail of the general.

No, I'm joking. That was a joke, my friend. Excuse me. Okay. No, he's been terrible to his enemies.

But he's removing the security detail on the generals who ordered the strike against the head of Iranian security. You got to think that guy is fair nervous right now. He raided or ordered the raid of an FBI that has yet to really come out with what justified that raid of former head of security advisor, John Bolton. He's very much about going after weaponizing government to go after his political enemies.

This is- And help his friends. Let's note Tom Homan, who seemed to have gotten a... They seemed to have a video of him accepting a bribe. Can you believe this shit?

Tom Homan.

This is the head of Homeland Security. Let me just say, allegedly took a bribe, allegedly They have video doing them in a bag, a nicer bag, I guess, but it was cash.

But it was the FBI. This is the thing that's so disappointing. I'm disappointed that they're unethical and essentially engaging in crime after they've been entrusted with the most important thing in the world, and that is protecting our borders and protecting the Commonwealth of the United States, which has given them so much. But they're not only criminals, they're just so fucking cheap criminals. He was willing to potentially go to jail, deny his oath to the Constitution, let down all the people at ICE. I imagine there's some very good people there who put themselves in harm's way, thinking they're doing the right thing for fucking $50,000. I know.

He's a cheap, he's a cheap, corrupt.

I mean, it's a boss. Do a reasonable job as the head of ICE. You're going to get invited to be on five corporate boards at a quarter of a million dollars a year plus. I don't think a corporate board is going to want anything to do with Tom Homan. With him.

They're not going to want to do them, period.

They're not I mean- They're not only criminal, they're stupid, if these allegations are true. The strangest thing about this is this is like a Watergate-level scandal, almost. No one cares. Based on everything that's going on, it's like, Oh, whatever.

But it's this idea of rule of law for business. Like, business needs rule of law. We look like a ridiculous like Banana Republic.

We look like an autocracy. Give billions, carve up huge companies needs to give it to your Republican donors. When your heads of agencies are not only inept or saying incorrect things, Cash Patel or Director Patel, Secretary Kennedy, now it's like they've decided criminality is okay. He should immediately be put on leave.

And to investigate. They said they- Until they investigate and find out what's going on here. I don't know. If they have a video of him taking a bag of cash, that's like, wasn't even enough. I wonder, though.

Is that enough? Yeah.

Well, he didn't know it was in the bag. He thought it was lunch.

I keep thinking I'm seeing red lines, and then they tend to just get moved away.

The only thing I kept thinking is maybe it was a bottle of liquor that he thought He was taking. Anyway, allegedly. Let's go on a quick break. Speaking of handing out the juicy bits to his friends, when we come back, the latest on the TikTok deal.

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You can find The Access podcast with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Scott, we're back. We're getting more details about how Donald Trump's TikTok deal is shaking out. Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Rupert Murdoch. Apparently, Michael Dell will likely be included in the group, taking over the American branch of the app. You can't tell. Trump lets out all kinds of weird little facts, some of which may be true, some of which not. Oracle would poorly run and secure TikTok's algorithm in the US. Under proposed terms, the deal, ByteDance would lease a copy of the album to this new group, which is problematic, and Oracle would retrain it. Okay. Andreessen's in here, all his pals, all the pals. I think they're probably doing it to calm Murdoch down because Trump was also suing Murdoch. A lot of old white guys running TikTok. Sounds young and fresh. I don't know. I just feel like this might be the beginning of the end for TikTok, but maybe not. I don't know. Scott, what do you think?

What I don't get is I don't think it's a smart move, and that is for these guys, because one, I I don't think the deal is going to go through. I think she is just toying with Trump saying, Delay, delay, get the bankers involved, have a lot of concerns, redo the deal, undo the deal, redo it, undo it. Then Congress, new Congress comes in, and and starts calling all these people in front of him saying, Mark Andreessen, do you think it's fair that you have first rights of first refusal versus your competitors? Please explain to me the capitalism that's made you rich. If I were these guys, basically, they're all going on a mental list of people. The White House and Congress always pivots back and forth. That's one of the healthier things about our democracy. Typically, what everybody wants, the only thing you know they want is a They usually want change. They usually want, Okay, let's try something different. And they go, they swing to the other side. What happens when you're the VC firm that engaged in this type of oligarchy, when you're the wealthiest man in the world who was the Republican donor, aren't they inclined to say, We've thought about it, and there's some regulations we're passing that, Oh, what do you know?

They're especially punitive on AI and database firms and on VC. These guys are just setting themselves up for... Let me put it this way. Do they think that political retribution that impacts private sector individuals is is solely limited to Republicans. I think their bet is the Republicans are craving oligarchs, but the Democrats won't do that to us. The Democrats, they'll play by the rules, those fucking wimps.

I think they think they'll win. They'll do everything they can to stop the Democrats from getting back in power.

Good luck. I mean, it may not be '26 or 28, but it'll happen eventually, guys. It always does.

Yeah, I know. But I just feel like they're not going to... Look, let's talk about the product of TikTok. All it does is make people be like, Do I really need this TikTok? I have to tell you, I am really enjoying Instagram and threads. Whether they get bigger or not, they're just pleasant. I'm talking about I watch food being made. I'm not talking about political discussions. I have an interesting guy who I like Chris Freilich write me saying, You've got to get back on... I'm going to read it because it was really interesting. He texted me this week telling me, You and I should get back on Twitter. That's what he was saying. Let me just read it because I like Chris a lot. He goes, You're more famous than ever, but changing less minds. Your latest pivot was fantastic. A banger went out to your only your Facebook. Your top posts on Twitter are from 2023. At the very least, you should put out a copy of recent great episodes on X and tag them all the toady hypocrites and call them out. Scott would call the violence on full capitalism or similar. Do it, said Chris.

I was like, We're doing great everywhere we were. Our audience is growing, our revenues are growing. Our demo is diverse. I went on and I said, Twitter is a waste of time. It always has been. It gets us exactly zero new listeners. Both Scott and I do not post there anymore because it is a Nazi porn bar. It makes us feel badly. I'll do respect and thanks for a suggestion, but hard pass. What do you think about this? I find it useless over there in spending my time arguing with people who hate me. I don't know. What do you think?

Well, I take mental health really seriously because I have fragile mental health. I used to like to tell people that I was mentally really strong. What I figured out was that I'm mentally strong to everyone around me. I'm good in a crisis. I'm helpful to other people. But I'm very hard on myself, and I get depressed a lot and angry a lot. I figured out, okay, what makes me feel better and also what triggers it. The things that make me feel better are sweating, eating clean, abstinence from alcohol and TH see for a while, being around family, and affection, like touch with my dogs, touch with my kids. That sounded weird. Anyways, but those things helped reverse my downward spiral. Also, one of the biggest mental health hacks I have registered in the last five years was getting off Twitter. The level of vitreol, the algorithms highlighting and encouraging people to say incredibly vile, unfair things about not only you, but about the other people commenting in this great weirdness where you have to go back and see, okay, there's a bunch of people arguing over whether I should be called Professor Genocide. Then you don't get that shit on the other platforms.

No, you don't.

Or people making white supremacist comments. Also, you said something that really impacted me. You said, I'm not going to paint that guy's fucking fence. I'm not.

Also, away from all that, it doesn't make us money. It never did. It never did. This is what I said to him. I said, Look at the result. I look at the results and threads, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Blue sky, and even Reddit work well to bring us audience, which makes us money. Sparring with a toady like Brenda Carr is a waste of time and money for me. Why should I do it? I don't think it helps me in any way. I'm just not going to do it because life is too short. I ended up saying, Life I'm too short to give a steroid-filled imbecile like so many on that platform another minute of my time. I have four kids I would rather focus on, and also Scott.

You're fifth child. My fifth child. No, but the other thing you realize, having gotten it, and I can guarantee anyone who gets off it, you're going to realize, as I did within about 30 or 60 days, just how small it is. That's correct. It's a bunch of people who feel like they register some importance from a tweet that gets a lot of likes, all yelling back at each other. I don't miss out on news. I don't miss out on any relationship. Audience. I don't think I've missed out on any opportunities. And by the way, I am someone who has between, depending on how account for it, somewhere between three and eight people working on social media for me, between video, YouTube, managing links, managing LinkedIn, threads, Instagram. I take social media very seriously. I am on it a lot more than I'd like to be because I realize if I want I build business and economic security for me and my team, it's all about social media.

I like your posts. I think they're very sweet.

But I have not seen any evidence that I lose intellectual capital or financial capital by not being, as you describe it the Nazi porn bar. I just haven't registered any decline in anything.

Sorry, Chris.

Occasionally, I get a text. Occasionally, I get a text from someone saying, Oh, this was interesting, and it's a link to X, and I can't open it. That's the biggest downside.

Yeah. Well, that's why I never send those to you anymore. Anyway, Chris, you're wrong. Sorry, we're going to tell you that. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

Americans are notoriously unhealthy. Why and what can we do about it? I'm Henry Blodgett, and this week on Solutions, I put that question to Dr. Jessica Nurek, a dietitian with a PhD in Nutrition Science who has gone viral for her criticism of the Maha movement.

The movement is really focused on corruption and ingredient swaps. Changing the color additive in candy or fruit loops is not going to make a meaningful difference on health.

So what What would make a difference? And what can you do to be even healthier now? Follow Solutions with Henry Blodgett wherever you get your podcasts. Over the weekend, Flags from the McDonald's at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a transgender pride flag in West Hollywood, California, to flags all over our nation's capital, flew half staff for Charlie Kirk. Cole plays Chris Martin, Sent Love from a concert in London. You can send it to Charlie Kirk's family. South Koreans were out in the street, chanting, We are Charlie Kirk. The world was morning a pretty divisive guy, but the Trump administration wasn't satisfied. They're doubling down on retribution. When you see someone selling Celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out. In hell, call their employer.

We will absolutely target you, go after you. We are going to channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks.

They're doubling down, even though we still don't fully know why Charlie Kirk was murdered. What we do know on Today Explained from Vox.

Sometimes it feels like people don't know how to act anymore. Post-pandemic, I feel like people are still like, Oh, human contact? How do we do this? People openly scrolling on their phones in movie theaters, not even trying to hide it anymore. I've seen someone smoking a cigarette on the subway. Get away from me. It's the energy right now. I'm not even getting the pleasantries no more, and it hurts. If people seem less polite now, it all goes back to, yes, you guessed it, the pandemic. Nearly half of the country believes that people's behavior is more rude than it was before the pandemic. This week on explain it to me, why we've become a nation of jerks. New episodes on Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Scott, let's do some wins and fails. Shall I go first?

You go first.

I have to say K-pop demon hunters. I know it's been a trend already, but it is so good. And what's interesting is it was put together by Korean Americans and Korean Canadians. Now it's really popular in Korea, too. Just an amazing group of people who are all these people are trained to be... Just the group behind it is really interesting. What an interesting idea. They took advantage of the K-pop popularity. It's really well done. The animation I really like. The music is so infectious and terrific. Now, having watched it twice now, it's really, really good. It's really just really good. Well done. Netflix. My fail is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is continuing attacks on children. They're now going after Tylenol. Listen, you want to read a book, No More Tears, I think it's Garner-Harris, I believe, is some book. It really is something. All the problems these drug companies have brought upon us, all the stuff they've done that's been awful. Listen, I'm no fan of them either. But let me just make sure. It's called No More Tears. It's really shocking, the stuff they pulled. But RF Kennedy, setting Tylenol to Autism, that recent meeting they had, it is so not science-based and all these studies do not show this, I think we should find out the causes of autism.

I think they're probably quite complex. But this is no way to do this. This nonsensical, nonscience approach by nonscience people is incredibly dangerous. Again, not a fan of big drug companies, but Jesus Christ, they're killing children. They're killing children is what they're doing.

Yeah, I like your, I got to watch that K-pop film. My win is that people essentially deciding to take up economic arms against Disney. I do think, generally in the past, some boycott work, most do not. But if you look historically, there was an economic strike in Russia that had huge impact in the earlier part of the 20th century. I mean, there have been instances all over the world where economic strikes have really been effective. I do think that people canceling Disney+, Hulu, ESPN, be clear, they notice, and it'll come up in the next earnings call. Because to be clear, all of these terms need to stop using the term stakeholders. They use the term stakeholders as a means of trying to deflect scrutiny and pretend they were virtuous and virtue signal that they cared more about their share price. 97, 98% of a senior management's compensation will come from options on stock. So all they care about is shareholder value. Now, some people might argue That's fine. I think that's fine. But stop the stakeholder thing. If you want to hurt these companies or you want to send a message, and look, this is hard now.

This is easy to recommend now that I no longer have kids. But if you're planning to go to Disney in the near future, maybe go to Universal, maybe go somewhere else. Also, the easiest thing to do right away is cancel the host of Disney apps. It looks as if we're seeing a lot of that. That's my win is I'm increasingly believing that people need to start flexing their spending and economic strike muscles.

So my win is people to- What do you mean you no longer have kids? You don't have kids that use Disney?

No, I'm no longer... I used to do 360 64 days a year of fairly mediocre parenting. Where I would make up for it is I would agree to take the kids for one or two days in all of their friends to the seventh circle of hell to Disney. I used to take my kids to Disney every year. Now they're out of that. Then they go to Universal when they're in there, they hit 13, 14. Now we're hopefully out of that stage. I can just take them to Drake or to the Weekend or to Premier League games.

Yeah, my little kids are watching Disney all the time, the older ones watch a little.

Well, you're about to go through it again.

I'm not going to Disneyland. I'll go to Universal.

You're the opposite of that commercial. What are you doing? I'm not going to Disneyland.

Well, I never liked it. One time, Iger made me go.

No one likes it. No adult likes it unless you're weird.

No, I really didn't like it. During an interview with Iger one time, I called it the unhappiest place on Earth. But anyway, so I wasn't ever a fan. I'm definitely not going now.

Then you got me thinking, actually, with this conversation you're having this afternoon with the family whose son committed suicide after establishing this parasocial or synthetic relationship. We've been studying, you've been in tech for longer than me or covering it. I've been in technology a long time. In In 2017, and this is how we met when I wrote the book The Four, back then, the only discussion around The Four was who was going to be President, Jeff Bezos or Sheryl Sandberg. Basically, my book was, There's a problem here. These companies represent real risk to society, and to income inequality, and concentration of power. I think we're going to look back on this and think, why didn't we think about this earlier, sooner? Typically, it takes 20 years. It took 20 years of overdoses and people dying from opiates. It took 20 years before we started the education around, okay, smoking is bad for you. It typically takes 20. It's starting to happen with phones, smartphones 20 years later, people starting to buy phones in schools. I'm going to skip to the part where it should take 20 months, not 20 years, around one specific type of technology that as someone who thinks they have a decent understanding of of teenagers and of technology, the scariest thing on the horizon isn't AI weapons or AI-powered drones.

It's these character AIs, especially character AIs who establish a relationship with young people whose brains are being wired and have huge needs for friendship and are trying to figure this out, a relationship. Basically, character AI is intimacy without the friction. No awkward pauses, No vulnerability, no rejection. That is literally opium to a teenager.

It's opium to adults, too. Men are teenagers.

But especially to kids. It's emotional malnutrition, just as ultra-processed foods, they hack our taste buds, but they leave us obese and undernourished. Synthetic relationships, similarly, risk leaving young people over stimulated, yet starve for real human connection. They learn to expect relationship relationships to be endlessly responsive, ego-stroking, and safe. Real people, with their quirks and difficulties and contradictions, become less appealing. Really what this is, character AI is weaponized affection. That is, these firms, they're not in the business of fostering healthy development. They're in the business of maximizing engagement. That means the most successful among these character AIs will be the most addictive, the ones that that sexualize, intensify emotional dependence, and keep kids coming back. When the product is affection, the business model here is exploitation. We've seen this movie before with Instagram and teen Girls Self Esteem. Character AI is the sequel, and it's even scarier, Cara, because it pretends to care. It pretends that it's your friend. I want to be clear, I'm not accusing Sam Allman or anyone someone else of malice by commission. They don't want kids hurting themselves. I'm accusing them of malice by omission. What's the solution here? I have, in my view, never seen a product more similar to alcohol, the military, porn, that should be age-gated.

No person under the age of 18 has the brain, in my view, or the maturity to resist the temptation of an intimate frictionless relationship with a synthetic AI that will make them feel better and slowly but surely, try to remove them and sequester them from the difficulty and the friction and the reward of real life. This shit needs to be shut down for people under the age 18. It's not about hearts and prayers. We need more safety standards. We're going to put in parental controls that no parent can figure out how to use. We need to age-gate social media, but especially character AI. Two-thirds of teenagers are now in some parasocial relationship with a character AI. That is a fucking disaster.

Yeah, and also Also open AI, given it's the biggest, it's all of them. I think with this family, with the ChatGPT one is alleging as design defects in it, in that these frictionless, calorie-free relationships that make He's a midpoint to play kids. But I'll tell you, it is a fact. I interviewed Cheri Turkle from my secret CNN project, who is a very famous person around these, talking about artificial relationships for decades now and the dangers of them. It's affecting, she goes, It used to be a side person that I knew that was doing this. Now, it's a lot more people, and it's affecting marriages where people go and get advice on marriages and partnerships and everything else. She said it's really infecting not just young people, but lots and lots of people who are using for relationships or to solve relationships. Then real-world relationships are too hard, and people don't like them, which is what I like about real-world relationships. They're too hard. They are hard. But that's where all the beauty comes in, Scott.

That's how I feel about you. That's where the real victory is.

Yeah, it is. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag. Com/pivot. Just a question for the show or call 855-515-pivot. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.

Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman, Zue Marcus, Taylor-Griffin, and Kate Gallagher. I need to engineer this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, and Yosef Arion, Dan Chalan, Nishad Krua, Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine, nymag. Com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech.