In this live recording from Denver, Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher talk with Mayor Mike Johnston about data center backlash, immigration, homelessness, and universal childcare. The conversation also covers Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's reported affair with a suspected Chinese spy and the national security questions it raises, along with the Republican field for 2028, Attorney General Todd Blanche's warnings to congressional Democrats, and concerns that American scientists are leaving the country.
Listeners will hear the hosts' arguments and the guests' positions on each topic, including the view that federal funding for research and housing matters and that companies need stricter security standards.
In this episode Kara Swisher, Scott Galloway, Mike Johnston
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AI tonight, as we sit here, is hanging on by a leather jacket.
Hi, everyone, live from the Buel Theater in Denver. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway.
Wow. Holy Rocky Mountain oysters. Wow. That was great. My son was telling me to eat them this morning. I was like, as if. Anyway, but you clearly have. That was the loudest of all the cities, I have to say. You guys win.
Yes, it was.
It was. Before we start, I want to send a big thank you to our title sponsor, Beehive, the platform for building an audience and a business around your point of view, from newsletters and websites to podcasts and communities. Beehive brings your content all together in one place. It's where our Pivot post is. We love them because they believe in free speech. Anyway, thanks also to official sponsors, Tanium and Odoo. We're going to start with our guests. We've been having guests in lots of cities. We had Hillary Clinton in New York.
We had Gavin Newsom yesterday in San Francisco. We had Amy Klobuchar in Minneapolis. She's their new governor. She's their senator. And we're bringing to you a couple of different people tonight, but the first one, the main one, is going to be he's been a teacher, a high school principal, and spent eight years in the Colorado State Senate before becoming the 46th mayor of Denver. He's also running for a second term next year. Please welcome Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.
Thank you for being here.
We pretty much just dropped the mic on you with the welcome, huh? That's why everyone comes to Denver. Well done, Denver. Thank you for showing up.
So I'm going to start with an easy one.
Great.
As we tape, Lauren Boebert's house race. Still isn't called. She's down a few thousand votes, far outside the automatic recount range. Her lawyers are alleging unusual voting patterns, which, OK, whatever happens. Talk a little bit about this. Does she hurt trust in Colorado's elections? I'm looking up a tweet. I mean, not a tweet.
I'm not on that fucking Twitter. But I'm looking up something that I sent. But does she hurt Colorado's elections and trust in it? And whose job is it to defend the system? Because this is a state that has a range of different political persuasions.
I think she's hurt people's trust in Colorado is what she's done as a brand. Actually, she's no stranger to this performing arts complex, in fact.
Oh, is it here?
I think so.
Is it here? Wait a minute. What seat? Wait, what seat? What seat? Which seat? Who's in it?
She's not here currently.
No, but who's sitting in her seat?
The last time she was here.
Yeah.
This was a theater? She's not here currently. The last time she was here, she had to be escorted out by security for some inappropriate behavior.
This was that theater?
That was at this performing arts complex, yes. So funny that you started that as your first question.
Well, it's not funny.
New to Denver inside joke.
This is one of them. Lauren Boebert is refusing to concede the election. You got to give her credit. She tries to keep a grip on things until she gets a happy ending. Personally, I think it's going to end messy. Anyway, but seriously, I mean, it is an embarrassment. I mean, what is going to happen here?
Oh, we have great faith in our elections. The votes will be counted. It will be clear that she's the loser, and she'll have to exit stage left, as she did once before.
Yeah. And tell me why you think I mean, she moved from another area that she was losing in to another candidate, to a safer area. And obviously, what happened here from your perspective?
She's run out of congressional districts to find where she can win in Colorado, I think is what happened. But I think we were surprised that people didn't see it as more of a grift when she moved across the state and adopted as a home as a place where she could win. And I think those voters felt like she broke those same promises and said, we are ready for a change. And so I think it was part of the wave you saw across the country. But we almost took all eight congressional districts here in Colorado. We took back seven of the eight congressional districts, which is remarkable. Places like Colorado Springs that I don't think have had a Democratic congressperson in our lifetime will now be represented by a Democrat.
So is it a permanent thing, or is it just she's such an unpleasant political figure? Amusing, but unpleasant.
Is it a permanent state of being for her?
No. I don't. No, but I mean the idea that flipping these seats permanently.
Oh, I mean, I think that this election around the country and in Colorado was about a vote of anger, not yet a vote of trust. I think trust we have to earn, and trust we have to earn by delivering on the promises that we've made.
So let's talk about how to do that. Immigration made you a national name. Under Biden, migrants poured into Denver, and you said the city was near its breaking point. Under Trump, you said Denver moms might turn out to protect immigrants. His borders are threatened to jail you, and you ended up testifying for Congress and suing the administration. You begged Washington for help and fought Washington off. I'd love to know a couple of things. And tonight on 60 Minutes, in a rather soft interview of Donald Trump, though, he did say he thought he maybe was too tough on immigration, which was exactly right.
Maybe? I don't know. Yeah. What should Democrats learn from that before they take over and maybe reflect on the maybe too tough?
Yeah, I think that one of the reasons why Americans were so angry is they don't like to be taken for fools. And I think that they expect you to give a straight answer and keep your word. And Trump didn't do that. He said he was going to use ICE officers to round up violent criminals around the country. Instead, what he did is used ICE officers to kill innocent civilians in American cities like Minneapolis. He used it to arrest elementary school teachers and wives of US Marines and dads going to the NICU to drop off milk. That was not what America ever signed up for.
And I think when he did that, they were furious. And so when we said, we think Denverites will stand up in protest, we were right. But what was even more impressive was Denverites also stood up in service, which is when the governor of Texas sent 40,000 immigrants to this city in the middle of the night.
He's not the governor of Texas anymore. Almost, almost.
It turns out he tried to send a bunch of Latinos packing from Texas, and a bunch of Latinos sent him packing from Texas, it turns out. But when those folks arrived, I think this city showed up in tremendous ways. And people brought people into their homes. They cooked people breakfast. They found people jobs. And we were able to get those folks successfully to work. They're now paying rent, paying taxes, working, and supporting the city. And so I think our belief was the American spirit was always, if you arrive here and you're willing to work hard, you can find a way.
That was true for these folks too. And I think Trump made a dramatically wrong bet on how Americans would see people that showed up in their communities willing to work.
This happened during Japanese internment with your governor.
Yeah, Colorado has a real history of this, right? I mean, our citizen of the century for the 20th century is Ralph Carr, who is the governor who opposed Japanese internment and said it's un-American. And I think he lost the election over that, but he knew he was right. And I think that there were a lot of us who believed this was the right thing to do, whether it was the popular thing to do or not. And Trump said that all these immigrants, Abbott and Trump thought, would tear Denver apart. It would increase crime. It would increase homelessness.
As the city that received the most migrants of any city in the country per capita, in those same two years, we delivered the largest drop in homicide of any city in the country and the largest drop in homelessness of any city in the country.
So what do Democrats need to do now? What do Democrats need to do now to continue that? I mean, obviously, the citizens were upset about the borders, and Trump took advantage of that and then overstepped as is his way. But what do Democrats need to do to stress that they're interested in this issue, but not the way this was done?
I mean, we were clear from the beginning. We will absolutely collaborate with anyone to round up violent criminals in this city, no matter where they come from. We don't care if they come from Cleveland or Caracas. If you're committing a crime in here, we will charge you. We will prosecute you. We will hold you accountable. That's always true. We still partner with other. We have a task force that still disrupts international drug trafficking or other gang-affiliated crimes. So we believe that's entirely true. But we think what is also true is that people want to have a path to citizenship. If you're here and working hard and playing by the rules, that is the American dream.
The study shows that about 93% of the folks the Trump administration has rounded up had no violent criminal charges at all. Two-thirds had actually no criminal charges of any sort. They literally hadn't jaywalked. Literally, all they had was the status offense. And so what we know is those folks support our communities. They add to our economy. We want them to be successful. There should be a secure border. People should be held accountable for violent crimes. If you're working hard and playing by the rules, we should say thank you and put you back to work.
All right, Scott.
So Lauren Boebert's district is the reddest district in Colorado. And quite frankly, it's unlikely it'll stay below. And if we want this blue wave to turn into the way I would describe it is we're renting these voters. We don't own them. And I worry that the mistake that Democrats are going to make is they're going to get so hopped up on watching C-SPAN and Revenge and Accountability that we're not going to capture the swing voters that are primarily focused on getting a home, getting a job, forming a family.
I'll go to the hot topic. 41 of 42 ballot measures to restrict data centers passed. Very anti-data center. I look at Colorado and I see cold weather. I see a lot of power generation. I see big expanses of land, not near schools or public parks. Why wouldn't Colorado be the Saudi Arabia of the digital age and say, come one, come all for data centers?
I think there are we put a more.
That went over well.
Overwhelming support from your audience. I think what we believe is that there are real concerns. As you may know, in Colorado also, we say whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting in Colorado because this is a state with a major drought.
That's correct.
We are worried about any entity that uses a quarter of a million gallons of water a day is a major problem for this state. And so it's not to say that they shouldn't exist someplace. We put a moratorium on them in the city and county of Denver until we're able to get our hands around. Right now, they were used by rights. So anyone could just buy a piece of land and put up a data center there. We think that's not the right way to go about doing business. We think if a data center exists, it should make everyone's utility bills cheaper and not more expensive. They should be required to bring their own energy. And that energy should be renewable.
And they should make sure they have a self-contained system that doesn't use water. And I think there are places that do that, but the places that do that well need 500 acres to do that. I don't think you're going to put that in the middle of a residential neighborhood. And so I think we're working on a task force that will make recommendations for what to do in the city. I think there are places in the state where it could be a real economic boom to smaller towns. But those places should expect there's something in it as a benefit for their residents.
Right. And a lot of it was done via NDAs. I'm a little more conservative on this issue than he is. I think the way they did it, whether it was Kevin O'Leary in Utah, just forcing it and calling the people who are against him Chinese agents, whether it was Elon spewing toxic fumes in Tennessee, the way and we're Facebook down in Louisiana, all NDAs, all secretive, all forcing it through without community is just the absolute wrong way.
And very typical of these people that they just come in and tell you they're here to help and then do whatever they feel like, ultimately. And I think that's more the problem. And it should be done with local community input and, in fact, control.
People expect to have a say, and they have a right to have a say on what gets put in their neighborhood. And so I think that's the most important priority for us. And I think our folks are not opposed if it's done the right way. Three blocks from here, there's a data center. You would never know it's an adaptive reuse inside of an empty commercial building that's the power and light building. But it's been there for 20 years. It's not a hyperscaling data center that uses a ton of water. It doesn't create noise for the neighbors. It doesn't, I think, raise people's utility rates. So there are ways to find the right balance. But I think Americans are right to say we expect to get a fair trade out of this deal.
And that wasn't happening before.
Right. So one of the other issues you've been able to make a big impact is on street homelessness. The number of people living on Denver's streets is down 64%, and big encampments are down 91%. Your approach, police clear the camps, then you make sure there's actually somewhere to send people, like tiny homes or converted hotels. Los Angeles and San Francisco have struggled with this issue. I would say San Francisco is doing a lot better. I'm from San Francisco, and it's changed perceptively under Daniel Lurie, who's the mayor there. Los Angeles yesterday was pretty tough.
I was surprised. It's better, but it's really quite still a real problem there. Talk about what you're doing. Your shelters were built with federal ARPA funds and won't re-up, and Trump is trying to cut housing aid on top of that. So how do you keep this going?
Yeah, I think our first belief was we took the sun because it was the biggest humanitarian crisis in the city. No first world city should have people freezing to death on their streets in the middle of the night. And that should be an accepted truth. And I think the biggest fear was that people had come to believe that this problem was unsolvable, that people had just given up to the belief that every American city is going to have giant tent encampments in front of post offices and grocery stores. And we believe that's not the case. And so this whole city pulled together to prove we could do something different.
And we're proud of that. And we also know the work is not done. But for us, there were a couple of core commitments that mattered. One is the first thing is you have to get folks off the streets into transitional housing. You got to bring on a lot of units to do that. We brought on about 1,200 units in six months. And we had to do a lot of cutting of regulations and red tape to make that move faster. Then was to move people off the streets and not sweep encampments from block to block, but actually close them and close them by moving all the folks that are in that encampment into transitional housing. And then in each of those transitional housing sites, we offer wraparound services.
You have mental health support, addiction support, workforce training, long-term housing. And then our equal commitment to the residents of the city is there has to be something in this for the rest of the residents as well as the folks that are suffering. So whenever we would close an encampment, the commitment is we would not ever let another encampment return to that block or that neighborhood. And so block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, we were able to close those encampments around the city. And I'd be the first to say the work is not done. I mean, we have the benefit of making it farther than any other city has, that 64% reduction. But I often say we know that the last 36% of folks we're serving will be tougher than the first 64.
These are folks with.
And when this money is cut, what happens? And this doesn't look like administration is going to be particularly cooperative in the next two years.
Yeah, we've taken significant federal and state cuts. And the biggest challenge for that is it cuts our path for people to get into permanent housing. So we can get them off the streets into one of our tiny home villages or our hotels. But they need permanent housing, the same way a first-year teacher needs housing or a server in the city needs housing. And so the biggest impact of the federal government is to have cut that housing opportunity. I think the big idea for the new Congress, what they should do, is pursue what I would call the American housing promise. And it has to be a very concrete promise to say, listen, we're about 10 to 15 million homes short in this country.
We should say, we're going to build 10 to 15 million homes over the next 10 years so that every American can say they can live in a house where they don't pay more than 30% of what they make to rent. And you could do that. You could do that by partnering with the federal government and with cities. Say there's a bargain. If cities have to do their part, we have to cut red tape. We have to make sure permitting goes faster. We have to make sure we invest with local resources ourselves. We have to have pro-housing policies, like more density around transit and other things that make sense. But when we do that, the federal government will match it by saying, we'll do $35,000 to $50,000 a door for every unit that you need to meet your goals of affordability.
And you think, oh, that sounds like a crazy idea. No, the federal government could do that in this Congress for less than the cost of the Iran war. I tend to believe if we can find the dollars to bomb homes in Iran, we ought to be able to find the dollars to build homes in Denver. That seems like a reasonable proposition.
Scott.
I mean, you could do it for you could do it for less than the cost of the ICE surge. You could do it for far less than the cost of the Trump tax credits. These are accomplishable, reasonable, ambitious goals. But these are the kind of things Democrats will have to actually deliver on that's not a program you never heard of or couldn't name or can't remember, but one that you can see a direct impact on units opening in your city that house your friends and your family and your neighbors who will otherwise not be able to stay in the city. That's where we have to deliver.
So I'll put forward a thesis. And I'm generally asking this question to learn, not to make a statement, because you were on the ground. You're a high school principal. I didn't realize that until we met today. My thesis is that one of the reasons that young men are struggling in America is that K through 12 is biased against boys. That with 70 to 80% teachers and administrators female, that there are few male role models, a boy is twice as likely to be suspended for the exact same behavior as a girl, a black boy five times as likely.
Seven to eight out of 10 high school valedicatorians, girls, the fine motor skills, hold a pencil, ask and answer questions, leans towards the young female brain versus the male brain. So that thesis, that K through 12 is biased against boys, you might nullify it or reject it. And your thoughts on what we do, quite frankly, to start producing a more robust generation of young men?
It's a great point. I don't know that I think that it's intentionally or de facto biased against boys. I do think there is a crisis among boys right now. And I think there are more.
I don't think there's any malice there. I want to be clear. I don't think it's malicious.
I agree. But I think there are a couple of things. I think it is they see fewer male role models in their lives that they can connect to. They have fewer places where they can find a tribe of people who are going to support and sustain them. And that's in part because often that was sports for boys. But if you have a 4,000-student high school that has one football team and one soccer team, they're going to take 50 kids out of the 4,000. Those are a lot of boys without a place to belong. And so I think that is a collapse of some of the commercialization and professionalization of youth sports to being a private equity-backed venture rather than a collective process.
So I think we're looking and boys are more likely to be solitary and not to maybe individually feel drawn into the content of the way some girls are. And so I do think we have a real crisis here. And for me, it's a crisis of connection. It was one of the reasons why the high school that I founded was designed to be a small high school because we only had 100 kids per grade. And we had one teacher we called a crew leader, which comes from the quote that here we are all crew, not passengers. But that one adult had a responsibility for 25 kids. And he or she was that mentor for those 25 kids for often all four years of their high school career.
So if you were a parent, you only ever had one person to call if things were going well or weren't going well. We make it easy for parents to interface with the system and for kids to know they have someone always in their corner. Often, if you're a boy, you know my boys, you just make it through a class in high school. You find one teacher that you like and you feel close to, and you never see him again. For three years, that relationship's gone. So I think they need more continuity in those adult relationships. And those adult relationships are harder to find now for boys.
So one of the things you also push is universal childcare, which is a big thing of mine. If I was running for president, it would be, I'd like executive order the shit out of that.
Yes.
And I think most, not just women, no, most all parents understand that's the big issue. Even if you have money, and most people don't. Talk a little bit about this. What are the specifics? And it's interesting that you're putting up the idea of universal childcare, homelessness, immigration. It feels like you might be running for a higher office.
I'm not. I'm not. I love this office.
Mayor for life?
Maybe not that either. Well, we'll see how long my wife can handle this. But I do think that when we talk about pro-growth for cities, I mean, I had two very heartbreaking conversations on this childcare. One was talking to a 33-year-old black guy engineer. I think his race is relevant in the story. He and his wife went through college, both have good jobs, good degrees. And he said, we've been talking about for the last few months whether or not we want to have kids. And we both really want to have kids.
And we have decided we're not going to have kids because we don't think we can afford to have kids in this city and raise them here. And the same way I talked to a woman a week ago who asked me some very pointed questions about the budget. I was at a playdate. And I was like, you're not an amateur budget analysis. She's like, no, no, I teach high school chemistry. And she stopped and said, well, actually, I used to teach high school chemistry until we had our second kid. And I couldn't afford to pay two slots of childcare. So I'm not teaching anymore. We can't afford to lose talented people from the city. And you can't lose talented people from the workforce if you don't do this.
We believe there's a path to do this in a very practical way.
For everybody.
For everybody, zero to five. So we would do it from birth up to kindergarten. We already have it in Denver for four-year-olds. It's called the Denver Preschool Program. And yes, the Denver Preschool Program. And what makes it wonderful is our proposal is different than those you see in New York or others, which is ours is a sliding scale system, which is we don't propose that what you'd say is whether if you make 10 million a year, we're also going to subsidize all of your childcare. What we say is no one should have to pay more than about 7% of what they make to childcare. Most people now pay maybe 30%, 40% for their rent, another 20%, 30% of their income for childcare.
That's impossible. So what we would do is propose a sliding scale system where there is some public subsidy, but also people pay what they can based on their income. That makes it far easier for tax dollars to go a lot farther and us to get to a lot more kids a lot faster. And so we're going to work this year designing the system. We'll pilot it next year with the hope we can scale it in '28. And we might be one of the first cities to get to a truly universal program from birth all the way up to age 18.
Okay, I've just got a few more questions. You're planning a new Broncos stadium at Burnham Yard. And by the way, today, I just want to say Harrison Butker is really putting the mist in misogynist.
Last week, too. Thank you for the mist, Harrison.
This is someone from online. The whole country moved left, but Harrison Butker is still wide right.
You want to talk about the Broncos stadium or about Harrison Butker?
Yeah.
Still wide right.
Honestly, I'm sorry.
I got to see him this time in person. It was wonderful.
Love to see it. Love to see it. Anyway, you've said you've.
Couldn't have happened to a worse guy.
Or a better person for that to happen, too. Anyway, you're planning this stadium. You said you'd love to host the Super Bowl in 2033. The Broncos say they're paying for the stadium, but the city and state are covering roads, transit, and infrastructure around it. Now, we just talked a second ago about data centers paying their own way. These are billionaires. These are people that these team prices have gone up like drastic. How much and I was in a bit of a war with Ted Leonsis. I'm like, listen, you rich fuck.
Why aren't you paying for everything in DC? I did say it like that. And I've known him for a long time, so it was fine. But how much public money is going to everything around the stadium? And is privately funded really actually true?
Yeah, I mean, we're very proud of the fact that residents of Denver are not paying a dollar to build that new stadium, the Broncos stadium. Thank you. We're excited about that. And we have good partners. Our ownership group has said, yeah, we will build this. That's on us. And what we do with any development is we got to make sure there's sidewalks to get there or roads to get into the facility. But they will build the facility. When you look at all these other, I would say, very red cities and states who are putting billions of dollars of public subsidies into stadiums, look at Kansas or Missouri or Ohio.
The Bears moving to Indiana. Indiana's putting huge subsidies in. And so that is happening around the country. In Denver, it's not. And what we're excited about is it's not just about a stadium. It's actually about, for us, a strategy of growth. This is part of a bigger strategy of growth we call the Mile High Line, which is seven transformational projects, of which this is one, which is about driving growth. It's going to create about 100,000 jobs. It's about $10 billion of investment. But it's also going to drive growth in a way that matches our values. So these seven big developments include a women's soccer stadium we're also building.
The Denver Summit. By the way, trivia fact, in case you don't know, Denver is the only city in America that has six professional sports franchises in its city center. So welcome to Sportstown, USA. But we have a stock show complex. We have the largest piece of private property we're converting to a new big public park. But what we're doing is intentionally, we're going to try to build 20,000 homes across those sites. All those sites are located on public transit. So that means this becomes not just an economic development strategy. It's a housing strategy. It's a climate strategy because it means folks can live in these places and not have to live with cars all the time.
It's an equity strategy because they're in underinvested neighborhoods. So our belief is you should have really aggressive growth plans. But those plans should fit your values around climate, around transit, around equity, and around housing. And we'll try to do that at the Broncos site and that at the rest of these sites as well.
Very last question from me. There's all these pretty cool mayors around. And we got on all different. Daniel Lurie is very different from, of course, top mayor New York, Mamdani, who's the most popular right now. Whether you like him or not, he's very prominent and stuff. There's all kinds of mayors all over the place of different kinds. Do you all hang out?
Not only do we hang out, we have a text chain. Yeah, we have a group chat. I think because it's actually it can be a lonely job, but it also is a really rewarding job. And it is a job where you're ultimately accountable for delivering results every day. And that's a different kind of stress than being a senator or a congressperson where you can host a press conference and blame somebody else. And this job, you fundamentally have to just fix it or it's your fault. And so people get real practical real fast. So every one of the folks you've named, I talk to regularly to either ask for ideas from or to share ideas with.
And so, yeah, mayors feel like the last bastion of kind of nonpartisan get shit done people. And it's fun to work with them.
So you have Republican ones, too?
We do. Yeah.
You have Republicans. Who is the most annoying texter?
There are not that many. You have to just sort of sometimes you'll get 20 or 30 texts and you got to just skip them and go to the bottom. But some people have more time than others. But the ones that don't have a lot of time always I'm going to use.
Who is that? Who is that?
I can't remember. I scroll through those texts too often.
Anyway, let's have a round of applause for Mayor Mike Johnston.
Thanks for having me.
OK, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, is Jensen Huang getting fired?
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Scott, we're back. Oh, good. Thank you. Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, has admitted to an affair with a woman who US intelligence believes was a Chinese spy. You literally can't make this up. Nvidia's board was he is the top AI executive in probably the world. Nvidia's board is investigating, but already says it has full confidence in him. Wow, they've already not investigated, but they've decided that.
That's really interesting. Silicon Valley boards are such anxious toadies. Anyway, the problem is Huang has been Washington's loudest voice for selling AI chips to China. And that's what the alleged spy was reportedly recruited to push. It's so problematic on so many levels. If any other CEO had an affair with a suspected Chinese spy, they'd be gone yesterday. And of course, the company tried to downplay it and pretend it wasn't happening. Then, oh, wait, it was. And then he released a statement saying, you know, please give me privacy for my family.
And I'm like, no, you asshole, no. This is a big deal. He's been very tight with the Trump administration. Now we understand why when they took a trip to China, he was left off the flight and then brought back on in Alaska because Trump is now saying it's OK. It's fine for him to do it. Trump apparently knew about this. And it's not clear whether they told Jensen Huang she was a spy or not right now. So there's a lot of questions here. But is Jensen too big to fire? And should Washington still trust him on issues around China besides the personal sloppiness?
It's a lot here. So first off, I think they blew an opportunity. He should have just said, same last name. It's my wife. So just some right? Missed opportunity.
Her name is, I think, Alice Huang.
OK, so just some insight, and this will be illuminating. Sometimes men make bad decisions with their dick.
Yeah.
I think a decent form of evolution would be every time a man has an erection, it looks like a tombstone, and it says good judgment, born 10 million years ago, died the same day. Look, as you get more powerful, you start believing, you start mistaking kindness for sexual interest. And this is, as Kara said, the CEOs of McDonald's, Nestlé, and Intel were fired for relationships that didn't involve security concerns.
This is literally shipping potentially uranium or nuclear secrets to the CCP. And this reflects a couple of things. One, not only I think Jensen's mistake is meaningful, but the profound mistake is supposedly there's rumors that the administration had Intel on this and didn't warn them because they wanted to keep the revenue and the stock price flowing. So I see this as a defense department. Look, if we're thinking that men aren't going to continue to make and they should face the ramifications, this is going to continue to happen.
It always happens. I serve on a lot of public boards. I point that out because I'm desperate for your affirmation. But we deal with this all the time. And the general rule on a board is below a certain level, you put young people in a closed space working hard, they're going to pair up. One in three relationships begins to work. And that's actually a wonderful thing. Once you get above a certain level, your fly is up in lock boss. And anything resembling an affair now, this wasn't in the company. This was a supplier. But a supplier who was potentially.
No, not a supplier. It was someone they were selling chips to. And they may have taken the chips and sent them to China.
A customer.
A customer.
Excuse me. A customer who was potentially putting these very sophisticated chips in and potentially that were being using processing for Chinese companies, which we wouldn't ordinarily sell to. This is what we have. And this is the gap. And I see it not only I see it as a failure of governance. And it's the following. When you're talking about a company like Nvidia, OpenAI, you're talking about nuclear weapons. You're talking about uranium. You're talking about CIA, Langley Defense Department, Pentagon level risk.
And we have WeWork-like security. And just the extraordinarily level of poor judgment for this individual. And I want to be clear. I've always made good decisions around this type of thing, said no man ever. And you can empathize. But this, in my opinion, this involves national security. Now, here's the issue from a governance standpoint.
It was very interesting. Today, they said he's going to continue to operate as CEO. And they've hired a special counsel to investigate it. Typically, on a board, what you would do in anything of this gravity, you would ask him to take a leave of absence until you got the report back from the independent counsel. And here's what's going on. And I think I have some insight into this. The board is human. And I did some research on the board today. And it's a group of what I'll call the talented, accomplished executives, but not what you would typically see on the board of the most valuable company in the world.
I don't know a one. They're mid-level.
So example, we give CEO scrutiny. I don't think board members get enough scrutiny. John Hudson, talented woman. She was a senior executive at Pepsi. Her last job was eight years ago. She was the CMO of NFL. That's her real job. Not dissing her. She's probably not she's probably made a good living, but she's probably not a wealthy woman. I looked at the filings. She's made $80 million in Nvidia options the last eight years. So let me ask you this. If you're on the board and you're flying private and you have just an extraordinary life because of your role on this board and because of Jensen, aren't you going to find a lot of reasons why you're going to forgive Jensen?
And this is what happens on boards. And this is why you need mandatory churn on boards, is typically the CEO is the most he's the rush chairman. He's a really likable guy. And let's be honest, it's almost always a he. 80% of the time, it's a he. And he purposely cherry-picks people who are smart. But that's who they play golf with. That's who they know. And if you've made someone $80 million that left a job probably at $600,000 a year as the CMO of the NFL and you haven't had a full-time job in eight years, you really think that person's going to be focused on national security?
So I worry. I think this is a failure of governance. We need mandatory the NSA, the CIA should be screening every employee at these companies.
At these kind of companies.
And just I've been on the board of two companies where there was quote unquote sensitive information. Just as we need to have very open and raw conversations with our sons, you need to have raw conversations with the CEO and just say, boss, assume if a woman's interested in you, she's a spy.
Yeah. So let me interject because it's bigger than that. It's not just this board, which I think is, I would say, bees. It's a lot of bees, some seas, and weak, designed to be weak so he can run it and wears other jackets.
How a lot of boards work.
Yeah, I get it. But some boards have some pretty prominent people on them.
Agreed.
And this doesn't have any. I was sort of because you go to Google, there's some big names and strong figures.
Yeah.
So this is from Bill Ackman, my least favorite person. I know you like him. In alert, Jensen Huang is.
Well, you said you know I like him.
No, you like him, don't you?
I like Bill. I think he's a good investor.
OK, I think he's an investor.
We're in a purple state. We're not in a woke-a-stand.
No, we're not woke-a-stand. But this guy no, no, no. We'll have a Bill Ackman discussion later.
But he's a great investor. I don't like his politics.
OK, fine. He's a good investor. I don't really care what he thinks about DEI. And he should hush up about it. But nonetheless.
As we do.
I don't go on.
We're so measured.
Can I just say I don't go on and on about hedge fund investing. He should back off about the media.
We talk about business and investing all the time.
Anyway, so I'm going to read what he said on this topic. Jensen Huang is a human. And he's an incredible human. Even incredible humans make mistakes. He takes full responsibility, as he should, which he didn't. We should all support him and his family onward. Onward, OK? The US government thinks she's a Chinese spy. And these people have lost the narrative and lost the message of the recent election, which was about accountability. This is a self-interested take by a Wall Street person who's done well.
What's coming? Shareholder lawsuits, congressional investigations, endless scrutiny. And at the same time, a lot of he is at the center hub of a lot of investments. He just made $3 billion investment in Meta of this sort of round-tripping circle jerk that's happening among all the AI companies. This is a bigger topic.
It's much bigger.
It has implications. Do you think and I think they're going to circle the wagons on him, even though they shouldn't. It puts them at risk, like a Meta or any of these people or OpenAI, wherever he has these different deals that are happening. Should he be and getting to the White House thing, what did they know? When did they know it, et cetera, needs to happen. But what does it do to the bigger industry? Because this guy is at the dead hot center. And they're going to use every single excuse to say, well, he shouldn't have cheated on his wife and shouldn't have been with a spy and, oh, the congressional hearings and maybe they stole chips in China.
And these are the people who scream bloody murder about China all the time and how we have to compete with China. And now they're going to give him a pass on this.
I like Jensen. I don't know him personally. I've only met him a couple of times. I think he's a reasonable guy. I think he's an outstanding professional. I think he's only human. And he makes mistakes. And I think only humans who make this type of mistake should be fired summarily. I mean, how many people have been fired? How many people have been fired for less than selling exceptionally sensitive hardware to our adversaries? I mean, for God's sakes, it's not the worst thing in the world. By the way, I would like to hire Lauren Boebert as a nanny, too. I did some research into Jensen today.
He met his wife when he was at Oregon. And I love this story. He went up to her and said, if you study with me every Sunday, I guarantee you straight A. So as someone who's going through some tumult in terms of my own kids, I want to offer him a job as a tutor, a private tutor. For God's sakes, we're going to talk about this is some big fucking tragedy. He's worth $180 billion. Get the fuck out of here. You're going to be just fine.
Yeah.
And then our government. And then our government. And there's probably you can't build a $5 trillion company without having an amazing bench. Let's churn. Let's bring some new people in. The greatest thing about this election was that he brought some new people in. He's going to be just fine. And then we need standards for these companies that say, every time you have a relationship with anybody, anybody who gets hired, any vendor, runs a security check to make sure they're not fucking spies.
So talk about the impact because a lot of people feel this could be one of these tipping minutes with.
AI tonight, as we sit here, is hanging on by a leather jacket.
Right. I like that he dresses like a lesbian. But that's OK. You know I'm just looking at one more thing. What someone Ian Bremmer had noted that this is incredible that Trump is giving him a pass here. Why do you think Trump is doing that?
The only bright spot in the Trump universe is the S&P. That's it. And the only thing 40% of the S&P is seven companies. Five of those seven are directly focused on AI. So as goes AI, as goes the S&P, as goes the only bright spot of the Trump presidency. So what do you know when someone comes out at OpenAI or excuse me, at Anthropic and says a scientist comes out and says, I quit because I think there's about a 10% chance of a mass extinction event. And then the scariest part was when the CEO came out a few days later and goes, he may have a point.
And then what is our the whole idea of a government is you're supposed to defend our borders and prevent a tragedy of the commons. And what does our president do? He says, shut the fuck up. Keep shipping your AI. I need those stocks higher. And supposedly, I think this is the scandal. I think a dude in a midlife crisis believing mistaking men will always mistake kindness for sexual interest. Women will always mistake sexual interest for kindness. Call me a sexist. It's true.
I think you're right.
A guy we are going to see hundreds more of powerful men in powerful positions do really stupid shit around this. The real issue here is the following. You have to have a government that if you are in the iron if you are enriching uranium, you have to make sure there are certain standards and certain protocols across all senior executives. This wouldn't happen at the CIA. When you train a field agent, they say to you, if a woman with a Russian accent is making eye contact with you at the bar, just be wary.
Just be wary. Maybe you're not that fucking charming or handsome.
All right. Moving on to someone else who might be facing congressional.
I need another beer.
OK. Elon Musk.
Daddy needs another beer.
Yeah, bring him another beer. Bring him my beer. Bring him my beer, guys. OK, Elon Musk is facing congressional probe over Ukraine. Last month, SpaceX restricted its military satellite service there. And Ukraine's drone defenses took a hit. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who wants to know who made that call and he's pushing for the public interest controls on Starlink. If Washington can seize control of Musk's satellites over Ukraine, what does stop a future president from doing the same to any tech company they don't like? Now, SpaceX went public this summer at a valuation of $1.77 trillion.
Could the government even afford to nationalize Starlink? And what would happen here? I think you've called for it. I don't believe in nationalization of something like this. At the same time, there are zero guardrails. And the fact of the matter, it looks like a single person who has not been elected made this decision on Ukraine because they're all sort of passing the hot potato back. It wasn't me. No, it was Trump. No, Trump. It wasn't me. It was Hegseth. Here's your beer.
That wasn't for us. That was for the beer.
So what do you think is going to happen here? Obviously, just like with Jensen Huang, there should be an investigation to find out what happened.
Look, I think the biggest story that hasn't gotten enough media attention 80% of Americans support Ukrainians. And they don't realize we've abandoned Ukraine. And not only have we abandoned Ukraine, but if according to the Wall Street Journal, if their reports are correct, a private citizen decided to throttle back Starlink such that Ukrainian civilians incurred a level of death and destruction that they didn't know was coming. And Putin has a greater likelihood of a successful invasion of Europe. I think this is the biggest story.
I think there's no amount of attention. Someone has some splaining to do. And everyone's pointing at each other, right? That Trump is saying it was Musk. Musk was saying it was Trump. I think Mr. Musk should have the opportunity to come in front of a congressional panel and under oath clarify what happened or didn't happen.
Yeah.
Because and I would also offer that any of these new blue candidates I think they need to talk more about economic growth. All of these people who swung towards them, young men swung 38 points red to blue, but we're renting them. They're dating us. They are not marrying us. This is a lease, not a mortgage. If we don't figure out economic growth and also, I think the really powerful statement from Democrats need to be right now and I think there should be a bill proposed even if it doesn't pass. We are going we are the biggest economy in the world.
We make the best weapons in the world. We have saved Europe twice from fascism. We're going to go for number three regardless of how much money it costs. And we have more money. And we have more resolve than you have young Russians to kill. I think that is immediately what the Democrats should be outlining.
I agree.
But Starlink shutting off imagine the CEO of Northrop Grumman decides, I don't like what's going on in the South China Sea, so I'm going to shut off the guidance systems for Ohio-class submarines. Would we put up with that shit?
No. These investigations are going to go on and on because these are very the Ukraine issue, what happened with Jensen here is really important. And these are the important investigations that Democrats should do, along with Republicans. By the way, there's a lot of Republicans who agree with this, just so they're suddenly going to get brave. But there are. They happen to be there. Another thing, interestingly, RFK Jr. is celebrating Steven Miller's promotion. I know.
Oh, man. God, thinking of the two of them, I'm so glad I'm a lesbian. Anyway, vowing to unleash the Kraken. What is wrong with him, which is probably a new version of measles? Meanwhile, America's scientists are leaving. The New York Times just profiled a top astrophysicist who quit Vanderbilt for the Netherlands after Trump's cuts gutted her research. Europe, Canada, and Asia are all spending hundreds of millions to poach scientists like her. This is the top our top astrophysicist.
Some of them are even going to China. Speaking of that, they're going all over the place to Canada, to France, all over the place. Has America already and I profiled a bunch of mRNA researchers who are going elsewhere because of these cuts. Has America already lost a generation of research to Europe, China, everywhere?
Look, I actually don't think so. My sense is, first off, what we're doing makes absolutely no sense. If the Denver Broncos had the numbers 1 through 10 top draft choices every year, they'd be the best team in the world. And that's what America is. The best and brightest around the world all want to come here. That's a dream come true. I work with at NYU. I work with just such the MBAs are typically the elite and the aimless.
They're like smart, nice kids, but they don't know what they want to do, so they go back to business school. The PhD students and I was one of them. And the PhD students are literally the best and brightest from around the world. These are kids who found a way to get out of Albania. And they understand liquid dynamic flow. And they all have one thing in common. They're extraordinary human capital. And they think, I'd love to go hang out in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon and get my PhD. And then they like the Freedoms. They like the Soho House. And they like skiing in Aspen.
And they think, you know what? I think I'm going to ride this America thing out. And we get the top draft choices in the world academic. We get the best and brightest. And we've decided as the Denver Broncos, nah, let's treat them like shit and demonize them. I mean, it makes no sense. Having said that, what I have seen on the ground at the University of California and NYU is the defection so far and it might be different in the sciences. I'm not in the sciences that I think people see an end light and they see hope.
And I haven't seen that many defections so far that are like, I'm picking up my lab and I'm moving to NCID or Institut Impreso or the Bocconi or whatever. So I think it's a threat. And it makes no sense. What I'm worried about is that young men and women who are the best and brightest in the world because there's something about the young brain that's just too of art and science that is so crazy and so it has no guardrails. It takes such risk that occasionally it goes, well, what if we use cheese to try and cure infection?
So that crazy genius of young people, that is the ultimate resource. And you want to go everywhere in the world to try and find it and bring it here. My fear is that an 18-year-old who used to watch Baywatch and MTV and think, Obama, what a neat guy. I'm super smart. I dream of going to UC Boulder. I dream of going to SMU. Then not as many of them are going to dream about coming here.
Yeah, that's not true. Yeah.
So I think it's a supply problem. I think that people here are still pretty wed.
I think in the sciences, it's not. These cuts have been devastating. In the sciences, it's quite significant. But we really have to turn that around. And another opportunity for the Democrats if they do it. And good Republicans, the same thing, like ones who are going to stand up.
The greatest return just talking about venture capital. Someone did an analysis of every hedge fund, every VC, every investment ever made. And they looked at all different sorts of investments. The greatest return on investment capital since 1945 has been funding our great research universities.
Yep.
And most of that return.
Yep.
Whether it's diabetes medication, chemotherapy, nuclear weapons, it tends to start in a university. And for every dollar we've invested in universities, we've gotten a greater return than any asset class or any hedge fund.
Yep. I mean, you know how's the fucking internet working out for you, Silicon Valley? Fuck you. It was a government.
GPS.
GPS, everything. OK, we need to take another quick break. And we come back. Todd Blanche, how petty is he?
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Scott, we're back. From Denver, Denver, Colorado. Democrats haven't even taken over Congress yet. And already AG Todd Blanche, aka Trump's lawyer, is threatening to prosecute them on CNN Sunday. He said Democrats' threats of investigations, which is their job, could be a crime and said that he'd be very worried if he were on the House Oversight Committee that came after incoming Oversight Chair Robert Garcia told Trump officials to lawyer up.
It's not just Congress. Prosecutors told a judge they considered naming The New York Times as a co-conspirator in their leak case against James Comey. I mean, Todd Blanche aside, he's just such a like an e-gore. But is he baiting Democrats into becoming the party of subpoenas? Should some people think that, that Trump is trying to do all this stuff? And by the way, Trump said he was kidding about Dana whatever his name is.
Dana White?
Dana White, that he was kidding about.
He would have been the smartest guy in the White House, no.
I know. Honestly, I was like, not a bad idea.
Smart guy.
I think he was thinking about the other lady who was.
Deals with men who've been hitting the head too much.
Yeah. So is it a bait to do that? They want this was something that I think Gavin Newsom said to us. They want us to prosecute Trump. They want us to get into that game. But it was kind of appalling that this guy said this without any proof whatsoever. He's not acting like the person who should be looking into these things, any of the corruption. And he also said that he didn't feel like the Trump family was corrupt in any way, which was you know how Drew Biden's like.
I really should have been more ambitious. But talk about that. Talk about what's happening here because he's trying to sort of kneecap them. He's not going to work because he's such a wimp. But what do you think about that?
Yeah, I think on a broader level, I think if the way that Boebert's district goes back red right away is if we decide to go if Democrats decide to go on an impeachment nostalgia tour, I just think that's a mistake.
Well, Pete Hegseth's going to get impeached next week, supposedly.
That's not what I said.
Yeah, OK. You mean Trump.
I'm sorry. I think Hegseth is going to be impeached and the nation is going to be safer when he's out of office. But as it relates to the president, and this has been unpopular, people say no one's above the law. Unfortunately, I think the president is. And my attitude is an 82-year-old obese man with no one in his life who loves him, let his slept biology take care of him. And but with respect to Blanche, Attorney General Blanche, I can't figure out and I'm curious to hear your view if he's just trying to create distraction or if he's serious because we got basically 23 and 1/2 months.
And if they go after The New York Times or if they go after anyone, they can delay and obfuscate long enough until there's someone rational in the White House. So I think you're about to see all of a sudden a lot of backbone stiffening. You're about to see a lot of Democrats and Republicans just reach down and feel these giant spherical objects and just say, no, I'm not intimidated at all by this. I don't see it as a serious threat.
Well, it'll be interesting because in spite of their defeat last week, this is their answer, essentially. It's an astonishing answer. It's like, do you know you lost? Or is this are you just pretending?
This is what is so amazing. They take every point of light. They get in a room. The top strategists, they have to have access to really smart people. And they say, OK, based on all of the results, what do we do? And the singular answer they came back with was more Stephen Miller.
Yeah. So maybe there aren't smart people in the room anymore. Maybe that's the case. Maybe it's Natalie and Stephen. And that's this whole situation, which should scare the fucking shit out of you. And honestly, if I had to choose, I'd still choose Natalie. And I wouldn't choose Natalie. But you know look, all these people, Vance is trying to separate from them. They had a resounding defeat. We still have two more years of Donald Trump. And Vance is trying to move back. Hegseth will probably be out because they're publicly split.
I think Secretary Rubio is I think Secretary Rubio is going to resign.
Well, that's he said he wasn't. But I don't believe him.
I think he's going to resign.
Speaker Johnson, the other one is heading for the exit, good riddance because he abrogated Congress's very important responsibility. CEOs, law firms, and universities that bent the knee to Trump with ballroom donations and lawsuit settlements now have a new problem, of course.
Just to be clear, the University of California has not bent the knee to Trump.
What?
The University of California did not.
Yeah. Well.
They said, we'll see you in court.
Yeah.
You asked UCLA to give him the billion dollars. And he said, and the University of California within 24 hours said, we'll see you in court.
Many of them didn't, let's just say, especially law firms and companies. These Democrats are showing up with golden statues, Tim Cook, or ballroom donations, or showing up at lunch, or showing up at the inauguration. But now who flips first? The CE which CEOs who wrote the checks for the ballroom suddenly discovered they were never that close to Trump?
You had the best line on this. You said, I'm waiting for Zuckerberg to show up with a nose ring and a feathered earring and decide he's incredibly, incredibly like, you know.
In fact, I'm going to require it.
Start teaching gender studies at UC Boulder.
Mm-hmm.
All these I'm telling you, all these guys woke up at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday and decided they were Democrats.
Yeah.
They their.
Yeah, they will.
I mean, they made a big mistake. And I think, generally speaking, it's a mistake for companies to be political. I think tech CEOs personally.
They've gotten too much. They've done too much.
Well, it went the other way too. They were exceptionally woke thinking that would impress their younger workers. The best compliment I think you can get as a CEO of a private company is, I don't know your politics. Well, that's the whole fucking point. A company is a place to develop economic security for you and your family. And then if you want to go to a MAGA march or a No Kings rally on the weekends, that's your business. And we have become so focused on genderizing or politicizing every organization. Companies are here to provide economic value, have guardrails to ensure that there's not great externalities.
But all of a sudden, one of the things I liked about e-commerce or when I was starting internet companies in the Bay Area is we were a little woke, a little bit progressive because it was San Francisco. But we weren't very political. And I think.
They weren't either many years ago. I can tell you.
Yeah, they weren't.
I wouldn't have known Elon Musk's politics until this morning.
And when we talk about I think the politicization of everything is so it's not only damaging economically, but one of the biggest problems we have is we've been talking about declining birth rates. And I was on a panel talking about fertility. And people say, well, as the mayor said, young people can't afford to have kids. And that's a problem. But what's a bigger problem is people just aren't parenting. And we yet young people have yet another reason not to fall in love. And that is they are too concerned with each other's politics. Let me ask you this for anyone my age in here.
Do you remember the politics of anyone you were having sex with in your 20s? We didn't ask.
No.
They're like, you're hot.
No, wait a minute. You didn't. I did. But that's OK.
I don't think that's a good thing. I don't think immediately.
I am not dating Laura Loomer. It didn't happen.
I don't think limiting your.
That would make me struggle.
Pool of mates, friends, and mentors by 50%.
Yes, I agree.
Because of politics is a good idea.
I agree. So speaking of people who are shape-shifters, before the midterms, JD Vance was leading early polls for GOP nomination after last week's blue wave, though some allies are telling him to sit 2028 out. Vance, who I call the cybertruck of politicians, is blaming the Iran war and quietly distancing himself from Trump. Meanwhile, some big donors are having doubts. And DeSantis, Kemp, who I think is the most interesting of these people, and Ted Cruz, oh, our eyeing runs.
Oh, my god. More Ted Cruz. Less cowbell there. Brian Kemp is an interesting character. He actually did something which deserves kudos as they wanted him to bring in the legislature to take powers away from Keisha Lance Bottoms. And he declined. He also was very important to the last election, not letting Trump push he or Brad Raffensperger around to try to find the votes. So is Vance finished before he even starts? Can we hope?
So first off, Trump is political Chernobyl. Can you think of anyone from his first administration that's gone on to do great things? How did things work out for Pence? I mean, literally, he sent people with a he sent the DuckDog Dynasty after him with a noose. Anyone heard from Admiral Kelly? Remember Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State? He's political Chernobyl. You get political leukemia and you die. But the seduction of power is so great that everyone thinks they're going to figure it out. And that's why I think Rubio is going to leave.
I don't think Vance has any shot. But what's so unique and sort of fun about the political process and the campaign, first off, when you let it run and you let him cook, someone asked me should Kamala Harris or Vice President Harris run again. And I said, I personally don't think she'd do very well, but let her cook because the great thing about the political process is whoever can show up and pretend to like fried Snickers at an Iowa fair or put up with Fox News hosts or be talented. It's like Navy SEALs training.
We produce warriors if we let the process run. But what's interesting about the Republican side is that it's not even 18 months out. Here are some of the number one polling Republican candidates, the people who are polling number one at this point, plus six months, to be the nominee, the GOP nominee for president. Rudy Giuliani was number one. Remember him? Herman Caine. And this is my favorite.
Fred Thompson from Law and Order was polling number one. So the reality is, who has the greatest likelihood? If I had to pick somebody, I would pick Ron DeSantis because you may not like his politics. I don't. He Florida has done really well under his leadership. You may not like his politics. He's been a in my opinion, he's been a responsible, good executive and steward.
Oh, Alligator Alley is going to come and like, come on.
Look, Florida.
Oh, just got a concentration camp.
Florida's booming. He held every red he held the red seats. You may not like him, but just.
I think it's Brian Kemp.
Kemp or Junkin? But most likely.
Junkin? Oh, my god. Junkin makes me sleep.
But most likely.
Kemp is really interesting.
Hands down, the number one candidate polling for the GOP right now is TBD. It's someone we don't know. It's someone who will emerge.
And if Trump has his way, he'll try to control the whole process through money and everything. Anyway, we'll see what happens to poor JD Vance on his journey. But his next book is going to be called Hillbilly Eulogy. Anyway.
Yeah.
I saved that one. Oh, Meemaw. Oh, poor Meemaw. Rest in peace, Meemaw. Anyway, we'll take one more quick break. And we'll be back with audience questions.
The midterms will reshape Washington. Will they also change how President Trump wields power abroad?
You're not going to have Trump focus on domestic policy because he's not inherently interested in it. He is very interested in reshaping the world, making big plays on the global stage.
I'm John Feiner.
And I'm Jake Sullivan. We're the hosts of The Long Game, a weekly national security podcast.
This week, we speak with New York Times journalist Jonathan Swan, one of the best-sourced reporters covering the Trump White House today.
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Scott, we're back, recording live from Denver. And we're ready to take some questions from the audience. And we love hearing from you, but we're going to have to keep it tight. I have a flight to catch to see my kids. All right, let's bring up the lights. We have one person to start with. Where is he? Oh, Kyle Clark. Get the light on him.
Hey, Karen Scott, how are you?
Woo! Stand up for Kyle. Woo!
Thank you for coming to Denver.
Can I just say, I have been a massive Kyle Clark. I am a pretty fucking good interviewer. But quiet, quiet, quiet so I can compliment him. I am a really good interviewer. I'm known for that. You surpass me. I think you're astonishing, I have to say. You are amazing. And I keep telling him we need to bring him up to the bigs, but he wants to stay here, Denver. So anyway, go ahead.
Thank you for coming to Denver. Welcome to the theater where Lauren Boebert saw the first half of Beetlejuice.
OK.
But I have a serious thing that I'd like you to consider.
OK.
The only reason that anybody knows about that story or countless other far more important stories is because of local journalism.
Yes. Yes, sirree.
And the future for local journalism looks really bleak right now.
You're correct.
What do the two of you foresee for the future of local journalism in America?
Look, I have been thinking about local journalism for a long time. One of the reasons I wanted to buy The Washington Post from Jeff Bezos was to create a network of local journalism, use The Washington Post as the vehicle for helping local journalism. I was going to create a liable and legal foundation that covered people like Mississippi Today, lots of there's all these amazing things going on across the country. And it can't be at the behest of good billionaires, right? Because a lot of times that's the case. You have a good billionaire, whether it's in it depends.
There's a lot of these local things happening everywhere. But it's not adequate. And so I've often tried to get the people I think are good media owners, like Lorraine Powell Jobs, who owns The Atlantic and some other things, to start to support and invest in local journalism. But it's a very difficult economic prospect given the collapse of local businesses, the collapse of the advertising business. I wanted to create a nationwide advertising network that would work in a way. Sadly, Jeff wouldn't sell me The Post.
But it's really a difficult problem because it's critical. And when you don't cover these state houses, when you don't cover city councils, when you don't cover we know the problem, right? And we know the economic problem. And Google and Facebook have sucked all the oxygen out of the economy. The only thing I can say is that you don't want it to be a public service either because then you're captive of that. And you don't really want it to be billionaires doing it because you never know what kind of billionaire you're going to get. And by the way, even if it's the best of persons, it's not the greatest economic thing.
And so I do I am very heartened by a lot of stuff I see across the country with these smaller, whether it's Mississippi Today, the Baltimore Banner. There's one in Louisiana. They're popping up everywhere. But they are still too small to really be able to sustain themselves economically. And for some reason, I think a network of them across the country and not owned by Sinclair, these television stations, like by a single very conservative person who's just honestly, they're just putting out drag too. It's not even as conservative, although that's an issue.
It's that it's just they just do one story, and then it goes across the it's just so bad at what it does. It doesn't reflect the population. But I am heartened by a lot of these inexpensive tools that locals can use now that are much better to create things. But it's still going to be a really tough business. Anyway, Kyle, we love you. We think you're amazing.
Thank you, Kyle. Thank you. Thank you all.
Right here. Oh, it's a young man.
Originally, I was going to ask for dating advice. But.
Oh. It's for him.
Well, my girlfriend broke up with me yesterday, so.
Oh, my god. Oh, no.
Yeah. Well, now my question is, does failure ever get easier?
Oh, my god. You're killing me. My.
How old are you, young man?
I'm 16.
16. Oh, yes. Yes, it does. There's nothing we've all had a heartbreak. And it doesn't feel great. And it will get better. And that sounds stupid at this moment in time for you because you don't think it will. But it absolutely will. But here's what it is. You had a girlfriend. You made a risk. You took a risk. And you had your heart broken. That is a good thing. It's a real even though it seems awful right now, it does.
So.
You need to ask for money from him in a second. But go ahead. He's going to give it to you.
As someone who lost her virginity at 19, I think I'm qualified to talk about this. First off, I mean, look at you, brother. You're a tall stock handsome.
You're a handsome man, yeah.
Two, the fact that you had you were dating, and you had you approached someone, asked them out, established a relationship, had the EQ to maintain a relationship, unfortunately, puts you in the top decile of young men right now. So you are in the top 10%. Two, if you aspire, as I did when I was your age, to be rich and with someone much hotter than you and I've accomplished both those things, you need to get used to what you just went through, rejection.
The key to every great yes is a series of no's. You took your shot. And you don't get strength through avoiding risk, which a lot of young men are doing by not approaching women. You get strength by enduring rejection. Every great yes, this is why I'm not no one should be worried about you. At the end of your life, the only thing you're going to regret is not that this woman broke up with you, but how upset you were about it. Because the fact you are taking those sorts of risks and can establish a relationship means you have a ton of women and dates, and you're going to get your heart broken again, and you're going to break hearts, and you're going to end up with someone wonderful.
You should feel great about yourself. Every great yes, professionally and personally, involves a shit ton of no's. And the fact that you are willing to endure no's means you're getting to a great yes.
Yes. Yes.
Thank you, guys.
No, wait a minute. Scott, give it.
Wait, hold on.
Hold on. Hold on, sir.
Hold on.
Young man, come here.
So when I was your age, I worked all these jobs, boxboy. You know, I used to carry a woman downstairs. Longer story. An older Lillian Hellman, the great author, I used to go to her house and carry her down for dinner. Anyway, I know it sounds weird. I used to clean beer taps.
Every time you say it, I'm like, who's that?
I was a pool boy at the Mondriana Park cars at Beverly Hills Hotel. Anyways, occasionally, someone very nice, usually an older man, sometimes a woman, would give me a $20 tip, which back in my day was literally $3 million. And it would make my day. I could go to a movie. I could go out for dinner. I could have a date. And typically, and this one guy who I always remember, this big obese guy with big gold chains, I'd take out his groceries to his powder blue Cadillac, and I'd put his groceries in the back. And he'd give me $20.
And he'd always do the same thing. He'd look at me and catch my gaze. And he'd go, anyways, I'm about to give you a shit ton of money. I want you to take your mom out to dinner.
Yeah.
You can catch selected shows from this tour on YouTube and in your podcast feeds. That's all we've got time for today. Scott, thanks to our amazing teams, both on the road and back at the office, as well as all the people. We've had 10,000, 12,000 people who came out to see us. It's really it means so much to us. The in-person things are our favorite thing all year. We do like taping our shows. But this is gold to us. OK, one more quick thank you. Our title sponsor, Beehive, if you've got something to say, Beehive gives you the tool to publish it, grow your audience, and get paid.
Scott, thank you.
Thank you.
And thank you to Denver.
Thank you.
We really appreciate it.
Thank you.
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Kara and Scott are live in Denver for the final stop of Pivot Tour 2026! They unpack NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with a suspected Chinese spy and its implications for the company, the AI industry, and national security. Then, how the midterms are reshaping the Republican field for 2028, AG Todd Blanche’s threats against congressional Democrats, and why American scientists are leaving the country. Plus, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston joins to discuss data center backlash, immigration, and the Mile High City’s sports ambitions.This episode was recorded live at the Buell Theatre in Denver on November 8, 2026.Pivot Tour sponsor Beehiiv has a special offer! Get 30% off your first 3 months at beehiiv.com/pivot with code PIVOT30Watch this episode on the Pivot YouTube channel.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial.Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.socialFollow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email Pivot@voxmedia.com
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