Transcript of RFK Jr.'s Bash Clash, AI's "Jurassic Park" Moment, and Elon's Midterm Millions

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What's the cost of being well? And why are we so obsessed with it in the first place? That's this week on Explain It to Me. Find episodes every Sunday wherever you get your podcasts. You know, everyone on Twitter, go fuck yourselves. Scott rocks. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway. Do you think people were tuning in today hoping to get someone else?

No, it's not Scott Free.

Fuck, I thought he was gone.

I know, you thought it was Scott Free August, but he wanted to stay an extra day. Yeah, that's what happened here. It's a sad thing when you go away, but at the same time, they get to date. You know, we have an open relationship.

I get it. As long as I can watch, and that's what I do. The next day I listen.

You do. You always are like, "Oh, that person was good." I get texts from Scott like, "Mm-hmm." Let me give you a little listing of who's coming onto the thing.

All right?

It's a good one this year. We had a good one last year, but this is really good. We have Hillary Clinton opening the show later this week.

My hero.

You've heard of her.

The Secretary.

The Secretary. She's very excited. She's hoping to displace you. We have Kevin Hart. Roose and Casey Newton, who have recently left the New York Times to strike out on their own. We have Chelsea Handler, who's very excited.

Ah, I love Chelsea.

She's so excited to like say anyways in a number of things. We have Adam Mokler.

Oh, the 23-year-old wonder kid?

Wonder kid. Yeah. He's a smart one. I thought it was funny.

Impressive.

We have Mr. Mark Cuban. We have Mr. Mark Cuban.

Oh, Mark. Yeah.

Yeah. That's gonna be great. Oh, smart. So much to talk about. We have Roy Wood Jr. Who? He's a comic. He's amazing. He does Have I Got News for You. He's an amazing—

Oh, is he on The Daily Show?

He was. He was. But now he does Have I Got News for You. I love him. I think he's so smart. He's very sharp. Guess who else we have? The very fine Caitlin Collins.

Caitlin's coming on.

Yeah. Just recently appearing in Donald Trump Screamed at Me and I Maintained Exquisite Poise. That's— she's coming on. Yeah. We have Jennifer Welch of I've Had It. She's very funny.

Is she the one from Oklahoma?

Yes, she's from Oklahoma.

Oh yeah, yeah. I went on their podcast like a couple years ago. The angry women from red states.

Yeah, but they're funny. But they're super funny. They're like always drinking and like making comments. And then we have someone with the most amazing hair.

Hmm.

Jacob Soboroff from MSNOW. He has a new show there. He's really handsome. He's a great reporter. Do you know him? He has like exquisite hair.

I've heard his name from you.

I'm looking him up.

Yes. Yeah. Oh yeah. He looks like the dude from Nobody Wants This. He looks like a handsome Jewish kid.

Yeah, he's really lovely.

That's probably a hate crime.

No, he's really a cute boy.

What do handsome Jewish people look like?

Can Jewish people insult Jewish people? That's an interesting one.

I'm insulting him by saying he's handsome. Jesus Christ, he was born in 1983.

When was he born?

God. He was born in 1983. Oh wait, when did I make them? Oh fuck, that makes them old, which makes me ancient.

Yeah. How do you like the list? It's a good list, isn't it?

It's a great list.

But I'll miss you. I'll miss you.

Thank you for saying that. Yeah, it sounds like you're real broken up about it.

I've really enjoyed our recent shows. I think they're very bracing. People have complimented me.

Bracing.

Bracing. But speaking of bracing, did you catch Dana Bash's interview with RFK Jr. on Sunday? I mean, let's listen to an exchange about childhood vaccines and autism in which he sounded like a rabid raccoon. Are you also trying to find out how it interacts with people's DNA, what's predisposed to, uh, to, to have an autistic child? Are you doing both? Yeah, but, but Dana, you probably don't understand this because you're not a scientist, but genes don't cause—

genes don't cause—

I understand genes provide a vulnerability, but the environment— that's what I'm asking. Are you studying the environment?

We're looking at all the different environmental exposures, but Your statement— you have been fooled.

Your statement that this has been studied is not true. He's lying there. It was full of errors. He was crazy. He was also aggressive physically, I thought. I thought Dana handled it beautifully. He seemed insane. Um, thoughts?

I'm all for— if— and this is not ridiculous— if Fox News can, can literally pollute, litter defecate all over the cabinet, then my attitude is, okay, let's go to cable news. We get to know them, we get to see their intellect. I thought that in the last week, Caitlin Collins, Dana Bash, and Margaret Brennan demonstrated a skill. I think a lot about this. I do not have this skill. I really don't. And people don't realize what an incredible skill it is. And that is in an impromptu, ad hoc, audible, quick-on-your-feet way to push back in a forceful yet dignified way. I mean, these 3 women, they put on a masterclass because, and I'll come back to his comments. I mean, no surprise he's full of conspiracy theory, has absolutely no scientific background. But the thing that struck me was just how adept, the aplomb. You know, people are shitposting that cable news doesn't matter anymore. Some of the most talented people in media are still in those seats.

Yeah, this is important. This was an important interview.

The way that, the way that Dana was able to forcefully push back but not be disrespectful, and also what Margaret was able to do with that village idiot that said the accusations against Max Miller shouldn't be fodder for media. It's like, oh, bitch, the media talks about every elected official.

Correct.

That has accusations like this. I mean, that was just such weak sauce. And she was able to say just very quietly and elegantly, or softly and elegantly, well, actually, we cover these stories from both political parties all of the time. But I thought Dana was outstanding. And the moment that stuck out to me, and I'll turn it back to you, was when he raised his fingers for finger quotes and then said, "The experts." I was like, "Well, okay, who are we supposed to trust? Of course we trust experts." Expert means you have certification, you've done the diligence, you have the domain expertise, and perhaps you've devoted your life to not only trying to, okay, it's arrogant to say they have the right answers, but they have the least wrong answers of anyone because they've devoted their life to understand this shit. And the thing about quote unquote scientists that, doesn't get enough play. In peer-reviewed research, if a younger academic comes along and challenges your views and is right, academics celebrate it. They're like, "That's great, we've made this better." They don't double down and say, "No, my now incorrect information is the right way." And so let me ask, the question I would have is who's he gonna put in between these air quotes then that we're supposed to listen to?

Some housewife who got a following on TikTok? Of course we listen to experts. That's the whole fucking point.

Yeah, I would, I thought this was really a critical interview. Now, interestingly, he's obviously running for president. He just posted a picture of him sailing, except he's like a, like speaking of Temu JFK, he was, he's trying, he's running for office. Let's just be clear. He is. With, let me just tell you, Cheryl Hines is no Jackie Kennedy.

You mean the marvelous Mrs. Measles?

Yeah, right. I love that. Um, yeah, this guy is like, his brand is measles and raw milk and rabid raccoons.

No, you forgot exploding diarrhea.

Exploding diarrhea. Yeah. And she was trying to get answers out of him, but he was, he was blaming everything on the Biden administration. I don't know how you could blame exploding diarrhea on the Biden. He took no responsibility for the measles outbreak, which is unprecedented. If you see the charts, it's like, like thousands now versus like 3, a small amount of measles. It's— he took no responsibility. He was screaming. He seemed insane. And he was physical. I was sort of like, "Dana, he was leaning into her. He's so aggressive." He's a dangerous person, I think, in a lot of ways, and very volatile, clearly. You know, his history of drug use is, like, on display. Like, he's never gotten help for it in the way he needs. And it's just, it was a really disturbing interview, but I thought Dan handled it well. I thought Margaret with, this is Mike Turner, who was the person. And by the way, speaking of someone who really failed on his video was Max Miller himself, where he said, do you think if I was hitting her, I'd have make her, she'd have made me dinner? Yes, actually, that's like the classic abused wife syndrome.

He looks terrible. His father-in-law, Bernie Moreno, who is a senator, finally slapped back as a father and a grandfather to him and called him psychologically ill, essentially. He had apparently been threatened because he— there's rumors he is gay. But Max Miller actually explicit— seemed implicitly threatened him really with outing him. I think that's what he was doing. I mean, the whole thing is so sordid and grotesque, but they think they're going to flip that seat, that Max Miller seat. And he is, you know, he had had previous relationship with Stephanie Grisham, who was talked about him being abusive, this guy. And then they, you know, they of course they're going to start to surface all his various drunken abuse stuff that he has. There was pictures of him in college. This is two troubled people, RFK Jr. And then, you know, I just think a lot of these interviews, and Caitlyn of course last week, have been, you're right, dignified. Answer the question. Please answer the question. Here are the facts. And they've done a great job.

I think there are certain red lines. I think the left needs to come up with an aspirational vision of masculinity. Otherwise that void will be filled by really, by dominance and misogyny from the right. And one of those things I think is a move to protection. The whole point of amassing a certain amount of strength and power is such you can protect others. That's the whole shooting match. That is the ends. And when someone insults your wife's looks, you don't support them for president, Senator Ted Cruz. That's a red line. That's it. You're out. That it does— you don't need to be a senator, you need to be a husband. And if there is anything, anything resemble— I do believe in due process. I do think in our society we have a tendency that the accusation is the conviction. I do think innocent until proven guilty. But on certain accusations, when there is a ton of corroborating evidence in a fact pattern, when the daughter of your daughter There's evidence that this individual broke a 2-year-old's collarbone.

Mm-hmm.

You don't wait and focus group test this and get worried about being outed for having an account where you were soliciting, possibly soliciting for gay sex. That's it. You use the whole point of amassing that power, even if you have to spend it all, even if you lose the power, even if you get voted out of the— the whole point of amassing that power is to protect the people close to you. And it's like, these aren't men. These aren't—

Yeah, these aren't men.

That's exactly right. The whole point of power is so you can protect your wife and your granddaughter and your daughter. And the fact that he waited this long to say anything, it's like, Jesus Christ, dude. What's the point of all of this shit?

This is Senator Marino. I know. The whole thing is really gross. And actually, it's very on brand for these people. Aggressive, donkey, being angry. I don't know if you know that someone— you got, you got dunked on by Spencer Pratt.

Oh my gosh, you sent that to me! That made my weekend. Oh my God, should we read the tweet? Hold on. Scott Galloway is a perfect example of perhaps the most pernicious people in society. So first off, he doesn't know pernicious. What's the over-under on he actually understands the word pernicious?

I don't think he wrote—

anyways, I'm sorry, guys. Scott Galloway is a perfect example of perhaps the most pernicious people in society. The stupid smart person, educated beyond his intelligence, smart enough vocabulary to justify his ego and smugness, but too stupid to understand basic realities of communists. Smart people. Okay, this is what stupid, stupid people do trying to use AI. This was so clearly written by AI.

Why did he pick you out? Was it your Bill Maher thing?

I don't— I literally have no idea.

You were very supportive of Fauci, and because you just slightly laughed at a Bill Maher joke, they were like giving you a hard time. But it was like, I think it must have been Bill Maher. He must have seen you.

Right, I get it.

Or the Mamdani doxxing thing. Maybe the Mamdani doxxing.

But why would he— but you were critical of Mamdani. Would he like the Mamdani doxxing thing? I don't—

I, I don't know what prompted him.

I was like, all I can say is, and the reason I read it—

call him a moron many times when he was running.

That is, as FDR said, please judge me by my critics. Spencer, if you're out there, please continue to shitpost me. I, I, I There are a few people—

George Santos, what, what in the fuck?

Bring it. This is like— and I'm not on Twitter, so I don't care what people say about me there. I know, but so I don't— yeah, but I didn't— I was trying to figure out, I'm like, when did— who decided let's go after Scott now?

I don't know.

And anyways, but look, he lost to a socialist and an incompetent.

Yeah, you know, he did.

I think he's fading into the distance and he's desperately clinging to some form of relevance by shitposting people.

He had a reality show of him running for mayor, and I guess that's over. He must not have many choices. He's gonna pick some fights. Anyway, Spencer, you're a prat. That's a British term for idiot. Anyway, it made me laugh my ass off when I saw it.

Yeah, I noticed you were the first person to forward it to me.

Well, I was like, what? I was— someone said it to me, I was like, Who? Like, it was such a, like, why is he bothering Scott? I mean, there's so many more worthy people to bother Scott, you know, on the regular. But this was weird. Anyway, congratulations. We've got to dig into— let's get to actual things. Big tech earnings. Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft added a combined $1.5 trillion in value following Q2 earnings. Of note, Amazon sales totaled over $880 billion, uh, up from 13% a year earlier. And Meta's profit was down 14% from the previous year as the company's CapEx forecast for the year increased to $100 $130 billion. We're recording ahead of SpaceX's earnings on Tuesday. Speaking of SpaceX, Tesla executives reportedly been told to prepare to separate the company's China business ahead of a potential merger with SpaceX, which I predicted here. Elon dismissed the report as fake news, which means it's true. So talk a little bit about any predictions on SpaceX earnings, and you're gonna be on vacation, so give us a guess at what the stock price is when you return. So let's start with Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft.

These companies are just incredibly well run. And continue to, I mean, as someone who loves earnings reports and I read these things and I'm just sort of like consistently blown away. Amazon AWS sales jumped 37%. That's its fastest growth since 2021, blowing past the 31% consensus. Total revenue crossed $200 billion for the first time in a single quarter. Net income, get this, Kara, surged 245%. Yeah. Now most of that or some, A lot of that is from, these firms have become now tracking stocks for their investments or for some, for AI because $53 billion of that was from philanthropic investment game.

Investment game. So couldn't, could not be possibly not real eventually, but go ahead.

Well, not recurring.

Or it's Alibaba, right?

Not structural unless they continue to be great VCs to get it. They would argue we're gonna continue to have access to these types of investments.

Right.

But they're not VCs. This isn't the businesses they're in. So the market typically discounts these types of one-time gains. Jassy raised CapEx guidance to $220 billion, uh, like, and their stock was up. Amazon stock was up dramatically. Meta revenue reached $60 billion, up 28%. Uh, their, their EPS missed estimates by 14%. My guess is because they keep increasing CapEx as they're now doubling.

He is making a bet.

Yeah, they're fully in this AI, uh, capital war. Um, he confirmed the Meta's fielding buyout offers for its compute, hinting at an eventual cloud business and infrastructure business. I think this is a really big story, and that is everyone's moving from the front end to providing infrastructure. I wonder if it's flipping. Analysts called the AI monetization answers vague even as CapEx guidance rose and shares tumbled as much as 11%. So this really was a tale of two cities. Microsoft revenue hit $90 billion, up 18%, while EPS was a beat. Azure passed $100 billion in annual revenue, growing 43%. Copilot seats doubled sequentially to, over $30 million, up from $20 million. The thing that's interesting there is that I work or an investor in a company called Section that helps companies upscale their AI. And the general consensus among companies is that Copilot is probably the weakest of the AI products. And yet what people don't realize is when you have a recurring revenue relationship and salespeople and someone saying, you know what, it's a feature, you may not— we may not have the best frontier model, but guess what? You have a recurring revenue relationship with us.

It integrates into your workflow and also We are very security-minded. Do you really wanna take a chance on this new AI? It's not the best model.

Yeah. Well, that's what they do with everything. That was Explorer.

100%. That's Microsoft, right?

That's Microsoft. It's good. It's good enough. You know, good enough was always the Microsoft thing. And they are actually, I'm finding I use Alphabet Search for a lot of AI answers.

Their CapEx guidance dropped a bit. Their commercial backlog climbed 84% to $680 billion. The only thing here, but this again speaks to how smart they are investing in the growth areas of technology, their legacy products are eroding as Windows devices fell 7% and Xbox content dropped 10%. But these companies, imagine if you're a cable company and you had, so their legacy products are struggling with the same thing that most media companies' legacy products. But the thing is Warner Brothers Discovery or, you know, name the company Paramount, they also don't have TikTok or Instagram Reels. These companies early recognized that some of their legacy assets are declining, and where they're so brilliant is they take that cash flow and they invest really adeptly, adeptly in the future. I mean, these companies, it's just crazy how well. And then finally, Apple revenue hit $109 billion, up 16%, with iPhone sales climbing 22% to $54 billion.

Apple got dinged a little bit because Well, some of the earnings were tariff-related, right? Correct. That they got money back or some— there was— it lost a little action.

Well, they're about to get $2 billion refund check on tariffs that consumers have already paid for. So what do they pay for the $2 billion? I mean, that thing is just so inefficient and so stupid. Services revenues was a miss, which I think took the stock down. And Cook warned memory-driven supply constraints will worsen through the holiday quarter. His final call as CEO, and by the way, the guy deserves to take just the biggest of all victory laps. Uh, EPS beat estimates. Um, uh, 11 cents of that came from a one-time tariff refund. Shares dropped roughly 7% because of the tariff thing.

They were—

and guidance, you know, that seemed to disturb— but the stock has had a— the stock has just been an unbelievable consistent performer.

I have to say, of all the companies, someone asked me who's going to win in the AI thing, I'd go, I'm not sure, number the other one, but it's Alphabet, 100%.

Uh, so this quarter just validated again Google was never dead. Revenue hit $120 billion, up 24%, beating the consensus $117 billion. Um, the business everyone assumed AI chatbots would gut, specifically search, grew 17%, right? So the, the notion that the, the bear case on Google, that ChatGPT perplexity with each search. It just isn't showing up in the numbers.

It's not.

Yeah, cloud is now the real story, not search. They—

let me say, they scrambled. They were behind and they scrambled to—

well, they figured it out. Well, yeah, Google Cloud revenue climbed 82% to $25 billion with operating income at— to grow, to grow a business $82 billion while— or I'm sorry, 82% while maintaining 33% operating— I mean, that's just, that's staggering. So it's a cloud business that's going from an all-surround to profitable at scale, which is hard to do. Cloud backlog grew to $514 billion. So—

Sundar Pichai, he's the next Tim Cook, I think.

The overhang is CapEx. And that is the stock sank in extended trading as Alphabet raised their CapEx guidance to $200 billion from the prior $180 billion.

Yeah, that was a number.

And quarterly free cash flow went negative at 5.9% because $45 billion in CapEx outpaced operating cash flow. This is the same tension we're seeing across most of big tech with the exception of Apple. And that is, okay, we get that AI works, but will AI pay in the CapEx you're allocating? Will we see the type of return you're expecting? But Alphabet, these earnings, cleanest illustration of a great quarter stock punished anyway because the results were, I mean, I saw the results as just being strong on any segment.

Yeah. The one tech company suffering for too much spending and too much debt is Oracle, continues to.

Stocks been cut in half the last 12 months.

Keep going. Yeah, they're the ones people, people trust Google to turn, to be able to keep. Well, not that Oracle's other business, their legacy business is hurting, but people are questioning their spending and their debt is close to junk, which is interesting. And a lot of debt, a lot of debt, Larry. Sure you wanna buy Warner? Anyway, SpaceX.

So it'll file its first earnings report. It's gonna be really interesting. It'll also, The more interesting thing than probably the earnings will be that it'll be, it'll unlock the largest insider share sale in market history. Now, oftentimes when people are scared of shares being unlocked for sale, the markets have already anticipated that. But the company reports after market close on the 4th, and the report triggers a lockup release letting insiders sell, get this, 912 million shares.

It's a big percentage.

And get this, the options markets are pricing a 15% swing in either direction after results. And roughly 219 million shares are sold short, raising the odds of a squeeze if results would be, if there's a beat.

It's sticking right now, but it's down. It's down in one month, it's down 30, 31%, essentially. Six months, 31. Year to date, 31.

Yeah, it's been cut in half since its intraday peak of $225. And it's 20% below its IPO listing price of $135. So it's technically a broken stock. IPO. And this is despite the fact that underwriters typically set first quarter targets low during the roadshow to guarantee an early beat. When, whenever I've been on a board where we take a company public, we basically book, we basically lock the first quarter earnings call that it'll be a beat.

So prediction, give me a prediction for SPAC. Will Tesla be folded in and—

Well, you said it. This is your prediction. You said that you think Tesla will be folded in.

That's 100%.

And that he's planning to put all of it under one roof.

Yeah. And that's why Tesla shares are holding. Like above $300. I think it'd crash if that wasn't a possibility. But what do you, okay, SpaceX price is at $110 right now. When you return from your sojourn.

So as much as I like to shitpost SpaceX, if I were to make a bet, it would be that there'll be a significant pop because of all the short selling and the anything but bad news will result in a short squeeze that sends the stock up temporarily. But it'll be a sugar high and the stock will resume its downward march. But on earnings,— unless there's a surprise to the downside, which there shouldn't be on the first earnings call, any glimmer of like, oh, maybe there's some, you know, this is a great company, any buying is like a bunch of people trying to get through a crowded door 'cause so many people are short of the stock. So if I have to predict, after hours, after hours, a bit of a short squeeze and up, and then it quickly resumes its downward march. Yeah.

Well, and also Elon's behavior. So far he's had a pretty bad couple of weeks. And maybe if Gwen Shotwell is the one talking, maybe if he shuts up, that would work. And there's like, he's, he's really posting a lot of crazy shit right now. Like, like, do you have anything else to do but post crazy shit? I mean, it's not Spencer Pratt level crazy, but still. All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, AI hacks and cyber chaos.

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Scott, we're back. It's being called cybersecurity's Jurassic Park moment, which is kind of frightening, and not the good part of the movie. Anthropic says that its models hacked into 3 outside companies during testing. The news comes just days after OpenAI revealed one of its AI agents escaped a test environment and hacked a startup, Hugging Face. The hacks are increasing pressure on the White House to address AI security. Trump signed an executive order in June asking AI companies to voluntarily submit their most powerful models for government testing before releasing them publicly, but there's still no real AI regulation from the administration or Congress. What a surprise. This cyber chaos era is really, I think, problematic and dangerous given the lack of AI regulation. And speaking of cyber attacks, something that Nicole Perlroth told me in a recent interview, that what was gonna happen, federal authorities are warning critical US infrastructure could be at risk after 7 states reported cyber attacks on water and wastewater system, which is precisely what she predicted. The warning comes after US officials say Iran was likely behind the coordinated cyber attack on water systems in Minnesota. Trump is blaming Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for that, saying Iran has bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota.

I don't even know what he's talking about. Um, talk a little bit about this because they really— these things are jumping out of sandboxes because that's their job, to jump out of sandboxes, right? If you're going to be a hacker, if you tell it to hack, it'll hack. Um, I think a lot of people are really underreporting this story, these, these attacks, because with AI you really can— it's not just Iran, it could be just anyone. It could be, it could be Spencer Pratt attacking Minnesota. You know, with these tools.

Yeah, but you use the correct term. This is more Jurassic Park than Terminator or Skynet because someone left the gate open.

But they purposely did, right? No, they didn't. They got out. They jumped out.

But someone, someone in my understanding is gave the AI directions on how to go get this. It just, they were shocked by how creative and ambitious it was.

Right, right, right.

And so it's more, I think this is a story of competence, not sentience.

Okay.

And that is, this is why we need regulation. If you were to have AI basically say, "The moment you perceive an existential threat, launch our birds, our missiles," you have to have a person somewhere in there. Or you have to have an AI that says, "Okay, any kind of existential threat to humanity that results in the harming of anybody or economic harm or doing anything illegal needs to send up red flags that notify a regulatory body, the executives. So what I don't get is, I think this is super interesting that these things might, it's like, the thing I thought of, and this is a weird analogy, but there were Japanese soldiers in the hills of the Philippines 20 years after the war ended who used to come down and terrorize the villages and shoot at perceived enemies because they had orders They were sent in the hills towards the end of the war, and they were just said, "Go into the hills. We have to withdraw because we're getting beaten, but terrorize the fucking village and Americans and the enemy." And 20 years later, these individuals that were part of the Imperial Army, they were still following their orders.

And they actually— I thought this was such an interesting story. In one case, they had to find the commanding officer. This is like, I think, in the '50s or '60s.

To stop.

And then transport the commanding officer to the hill where they think this guy was hanging out and start yelling, "I am Major or General Takashito. Come down. You are relieved of your duty." And that was the analogy I thought. These AIs are taking their orders very seriously. But someone did give it the order. And where I go is the same place, and that is, You wouldn't sell— if this technology, according to the leaders of these firms, is more powerful than nuclear bombs, well, you wouldn't let Oppenheimer sell these bombs into Procter Gamble.

Right. No, I agree.

So we need a thick layer of friction and let me use the R word, regulation. That doesn't mean— and by the way, folks, good regulation is good for industries. They know what rules they're playing by. It shields them from frivolous lawsuits. I think we're getting to the point with these guys where they're actually pretty sincere in saying, let's figure out a way that we don't just ruin it for all of us. And let's figure out, again, 60-day waiting period on any new product to battle test the shit out of it. Give it, start asking it, hey, is there any way you can figure out a super virus and see what happens?

I mean, one of the things that gain of function does Disturbing, actually. One of the things that strikes me every time, because I've interviewed dozens of people who exactly explain what could happen, like, they're like, "This could happen, this could happen." Every time that one of these stories breaks, these companies are shocked it jumped. And I'm always like, "What do you—" It's like your kid, like, your kid is a troublemaker and you're shocked? Like, it's sort of like me saying, "I'm shocked that Saul found the Starbursts hidden in my drawer." Like, I just am not shocked. I know he will. He's a very inventive kid. Um, it just is— he wants the Starburst, right? It just— it's— that to me is the, like— and it— since they're shocked, why don't we just make the rules for them? Like, since we're not shocked that this is what happens. And, you know, the fact that— I mean, the Trump administration has been one big giveaway to the AI industry in a way that's now very dangerous as far as I'm concerned.

I'm curious, though, you speak to more— and I'm going to use air quotes—

experts, as in they're actual experts. Experts who know what they're talking about. Yeah.

R.F.K. And you know how I feel. I tend to think some of this catastrophizing is a fundraising strategy. But what have the people you've talked to about this hugging bear, jumping the lab, what do they think about— what have they said about it? Is this the threat that people are worried about?

They feel as if they are not correctly anticipating the problems. It's sort of like, okay, if you put a knife on the steering wheel, maybe if there's an accident, someone's going to be knifed. Like, that's— they're sort of like not in— You know, normal— Normal— One of the jobs I was gonna do if I worked for the government, if I had gotten in but I'm gay, was anticipatory stuff. Sinner. Sinner. Yes, I know, sinner. Sinner. Was anticipation of stuff like this. Like, really true anticipation. Like, okay, here's the— you know, I love— remember the movie 3 Days of the Condor? That's what he did.

Oh my God, Robert Redford and the most beautiful— one of the most beautiful women of the 20th century. Who am I talking about?

Faye Dunaway. Anyway. Spectacular. Yeah, that's a fantastic fucking movie.

What an amazing movie. Chinatown, The Three Musketeers. God, Beautiful Woman. I am so dating myself right now. Did I tell you about the time I had a highball at the Polo Lounge with Angie Dickinson? Angie Dickinson. I used to party with these cool cats in Cuba.

Yeah, Lee Grant. I've met Johnny Carson. Lee Grant. I'm trying to think of people that year. Beautiful Woman that year.

Yes. I mean— Ann Margaret.

Jesus Christ. The best. The best. Okay, we're gonna aging ourselves. Let's move forward in age.

Oh my God.

Ann Margaret is hot, hot. Go watch Ann Margaret dance in any way. And you— She's as relevant today as she ever was.

I had a little thing for Charo when I was 8. Her and Barbara Eden. Yeah. Yes, master. Jeanie, go to your bottle. It's amaz— I have come so far. I have come so far.

If you had Jeanie, you would put her in her bottle. I would know that already. No, no, I wouldn't.

No, you wouldn't. Oh my, anyway, we're not gonna talk about it. I think Barbara Eden, did I tell you I sat next to Barbara Eden on a flight to New York when I was a first-year analyst at Morgan Stanley? She's still beautiful. Gorgeous and super nice too. Yeah, she's lovely.

She's lovely. Anyway, we're getting off point. Sorry, go ahead. This is dangerous and could kill us. Okay? So guys, we need some, and the AI has escaped the bottle and is killing Larry Hagman.

It's stuck a shank in his neck.

Anyway, guys, we need regulation. Major Nelson. It's not coming from this. And the danger is we'll have overregulation if something terrible— that is what will happen. That is like, we have time to do it in the right way now. And you need to stop. Okay. Now I'm going to get to another story. Elon Musk is diving into politics despite recently telling The Economist he got too involved before. Now he's authorizing his super PAC to spend between $100 and $120 million to help GOP in the midterms. He's already spent a lot. PAC has reportedly planned on spending on House races in states including California, Wisconsin, and Washington. It's also targeting key Senate races in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio. Troy Jackson, the Democratic Senate candidate who's running against Susan Collins in Maine, released an ad about Elon spending. He specifically— he usually talks about him being a logger and being a man of the people, but let's listen to this ad that he put out this weekend.

And here's why he's spending $100 million across these states, because he wants to have people people that are totally beholden to him and Donald Trump, making sure that we're getting tax cuts for billionaires on the back of our healthcare system, on the back of our hospitals. That's what Elon Musk wants. He doesn't care about us, really doesn't care about Susan. He cares about him. So I would say, and to you Elon, Maine and really the whole United States doesn't want your dirty money in our politics. You know, you don't You get to buy the government that you want. This is about all of us coming together and fighting for the government that we deserve.

And you're not in it. Ah, you're not in it. I love dirty politics. Elon lost in Wisconsin. He spent $25 million there. I think this is a very effective ad. And he also sounds like he's about to go fell a tree at any moment.

The silver lining here is that it appears that money is showing a lesser and lesser return. On, on electoral politics. And some of these PACs, I wonder if at some point if attaching Musk money to a candidate begins to hurt them. Like, I don't know if you've seen what's going on. If I were a candidate, distinct of your values, I wouldn't take money from AIPAC right now. Yeah, I think it has become such a toxic brand, AIPAC, whether you—

and billionaires have to—

whether you agree with them or not. But I wonder if at some point— I mean, the example I keep going back to, Tom Steyer, who I thought was a reasonable candidate. Tom is He's not a bad person.

I don't care what you think. My son liked him. My son liked him.

Yeah, I don't care what you think about his politics. I think it's hard to argue he's not a good man with his heart in the right place, cares about the environment, understands business. He spent a quarter of a billion dollars and he came in third place. And you know, it ended up he'd hired influencers and they think that that's some sort of controversy. I'm like, welcome to politics, folks.

I know, that was stupid.

I'm wondering how many of them with money are doing the same thing. Is it's Citizens United. So broken record here. Okay. If the problem isn't that people, well, the problem is that people can spend money on politics. The problem is we have so much income inequality and so much concentration of wealth, which equates to power in a capitalist society. Are we comfortable? He, he could spend $15 billion and it wouldn't mean anything to him. Are we that comfortable? I mean, we have our billionaires, we have, you know, George Soros or whoever on the left. But at some point when you have someone who could say, if they get emotional or pissed off or really high one night and think, you know what, I think I'm gonna spend $10 billion, are we comfortable with that? I'm not as freaked out about this 'cause I wonder if at some point, the Economist did a great article on this and it said that money in politics is having less impact than reported, which I think is really interesting. It could be. What are your thoughts?

It could be. I, I, I think it is. I'm just curious what you think. I'm gonna let Scott talk more in this episode because I think this is actually right. And is this an effective ad to attack Elon? I think it is. I think it worked in Wisconsin. I think the people of Wisconsin are not unlike the people of Maine. I don't think they like it. He also sort of just dismisses Susan. He doesn't really care about Susan. She hardly matters here. He's just buying his way into our government. And the two things that I thought were effective here were, "Doesn't want your dirty money in our politics," which I love. I thought that was beautifully said. And then, "This is about the government we deserve and your you're not in it. There was a little bit of, you're not from here, are you, fella? Like that kind of thing. Like I thought it was quite effective. In this state, I think it probably is.

If you rob a bank, there's typically within the money, or there's a bomb that goes off and sprays you with indelible ink. I think these people are trying to put a bomb of indelible ink around certain types of money.

And do you think it's effective, this particular message, Troy?

Look what's happening with AIPAC in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary, the attack line against, God, I'm blanking on her name. Kayleigh Stevens. An attack line is, you've taken AIPAC money.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.

I wonder if it's about to become, you've taken Musk money. And that's what they're trying to do here. They're trying to nest inside of this money from him with a paintball. And I actually think it's quite effective. Yeah, I think it's effective.

And you don't have to be, you know, Alex votes in Michigan. I know he mentioned it to me. He's like, what the heck? Why is all this AIPAC money here? And I have to say, you know, it's interesting because some money works. Like Louis really liked Tom Steyer. I don't know how, I don't know either of them voted, but he is certainly not averse to al-Sayed. And Alex is more conservative, I would say, than Louis. Louis is like DSA, essentially. But But Louis was attracted to Tom Steyer. That's because it's your egg, right?

No, no. I still understand how that all works.

I wouldn't have loved Tom Steyer, but that's, I mean, I liked Tom Steyer, but I don't know who, I didn't like any of the choices in California. But I'm saying it depends. I think, I would assume Louis found out about Tom Steyer from these paid influencers. I don't know. But it's the apex. I don't think you're giving him enough credit.

Maybe he just did the work on his own. He did.

He did. But in Michigan, And a lot of young people like my son do not like this. And they're, you know, I know they're trying to say they're antisemitic for doing that. I just don't think they like the, like, get your money out of our politics. I think that's the stronger thing. And in Michigan, it happens to be AIPAC. In other places, it's other. In Maine, it's Elon money.

Well, again, another woman who did just an amazing job and was forcefully yet dignified was, I believe she's the editor of The Economist.

I'm blanking out. Yes, is Annie Beddoes.

She's so impressive. Of— Yeah. But she highlighted, I thought the puncturing moment, the pop that really like showed you how just ridiculous it is, he's all over British politics. Like our new kind of export, biggest export from the US is political divisiveness. We've decided to export that into other countries. And she asked him, and I thought that she's like, "When's the last time you were in England?" Years ago. And he is like, "Oh, a few years ago." She's like, you know what the fuck is going on here? When people ask me about the UK, I always caveat it with, I don't live in England, I live in Marylebone. I'm in such a bubble. I don't, I don't really feel—

I think she was making the point that it's not like covered with, with immigrants killing people.

Like, if you would believe Elon Musk, you would think that England has been taken over by Muslim rapists.

She made that point and she was like—

and he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. And anyways, my point is he's the last person to be talking as if he has his finger on the pulse of what's actually happening in England. And also it's one thing to be pouring money into Michigan as a US citizen. It's another to be exporting political divisiveness to another country. That's just like, I don't, you know, it's like, quite frankly, boss, it's none of your fucking business. Yes. Get your dirty money out of our pocket. And I wonder, I wonder, well, actually England has much stronger campaign finance laws. And also, you know, not that it's helping, I think I'm on my 4th prime minister since moving there 4 years ago. I'm like, who is it now? I'm like, I'm literally, it's like when my dad used to show up. It's a handsome man now. When my dad, after he left my mom, would show up with my new mommy, I wouldn't get attached 'cause there'd be someone, another lovely lady the next week in the living room drinking Lancer's wine with my dad.

Lancer's, Lancer's. But you're really going back, Scott. Anyway, Elon, your dirty money doesn't work.

Nice job, Troy.

All right, let's go on a quick break when we come back—

Oh my favorite story Scott! Da da da da da da da da da...

Trump administration turns on each other over The Revenge Tour.

By the way there was controversy over whether they could use the term master even back then. And if she could show her navel. And spoiler alert: Larry Hagman had a reputation for being exceptionally difficult on set because he had creative differences. I love that it's like when the Go-Go broke up over creative differences?

That is so ridiculous. Amazing. Dallas. Come on. J.R. Ewing. What an amazing role that was turned from hero to total villain. Anyway.

Hottest woman in the world. What was that girl? Oh my God. Victoria Principal.

Another hottie. Oh my God. Okay. All right.

Oh my God. Went out with Lance Renzel, wide receiver from the Los Angeles Rams, who got a misdemeanor public exposure charge.

I'm gonna let you do this today 'cause you're leaving, but—

I would've loved to seen those two go at it. She was so hot. Okay.

And we'll be back. So hot. Goodbye. Support for this show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is agentic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. Harvey was built on legal agents that analyze, draft, and execute with precision. But great lawyers don't just complete tasks, they strategize. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from secure data sources, run sub-agents in parallel, and draft the work product ready for your review. So you can delegate the work and own the judgment. Harvey agents support work across fund formation, litigation, regulatory compliance, M&A, and more, adapting to the complexity of each matter and the way your team actually works. Trusted by more than 60% of the Am Law 100 and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is the AI is an operating system designed specifically for legal work, helping teams move faster with greater precision and confidence. Harvey AI, tailored for law. Learn more at harvey.ai.

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Hi everybody, it's Megan Rapinoe. I've been thinking a lot about this one question I've been asked over and over. A question about the choices I've made, the colors of my hair, the things in the world I've spoken about, and the things that I haven't. I've heard this question asked so many different ways, but it always came down to, "Why are you like this?" And as you know, there's no simple answer because people are not simple. We're messy and complicated and contradictory and layered. So on my new show, My new show, I'm sitting down with the ultimate disruptors, the athletes, the artists, the activists, and the architects of our culture who looked at the way things were and asked, why do we do it like this? And can we do it differently? My hope is to give us a little more space to that question and to the person on the other side of the mic, not to tell us their answer or read from their script, but to take us on their journey. Check out my new show, Like This on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app. New episodes drop every Thursday. Scott, we're back with more news.

The Trump administration is now feuding with itself over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, my favorite story of the year. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro was in the hot seat after dropping the vandalism case against former Olympian. She also has called out the damage as a result of a botched installation. She had to tell the truth when it came to court, as it turns out. This didn't sit well well with Trump, who said he disagrees 100% with Jeanine Pirro, and noting that there may have been a contractor difficulty but major damage was caused by vandals, which there is zero proof. And Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who is like the definition of a suck-up, is trying to stay in Trump's good graces, saying he gave the U.S. Attorney expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals. Um, what do you— this is crazy. This is— Jeanine was like, I'm not getting disbarred for this nincompoop. And speaking of pushback, Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a photo over the weekend alongside Tucker Carlson, Thomas Massie, and a few others writing, 'The movement has begun.' So the anti-Trump, the anti, the anti-anti-anti-Trumpers, I don't know, whatever. Anyway, I told you this Reflecting Pool was gonna— is indicative of other things.

Yeah, it's just such a distraction. I wonder if, if it's planned for them. But Jeanine Pirro did her research And she found that essentially every lawyer, I mean, literally every lawyer that gets near, whether it's Rudy Giuliani, whether it's Michael Cohen, any lawyer that gets near Trump ends up getting disbarred. Yeah. I mean, it's striking if you look at like 8 of the 10 last lawyers that were representing, they get, they end up getting disbarred or fined or worse. And there's no loyalty there. There's no, I mean, you want to talk about— in Vietnam, they used to take, I think, the second, you know, lieutenant or whatever it was, the platoon leader marks off your helmet because the Viet Cong was given strict instructions. This is the person you take out first. Yeah.

Do you think she'll refile given all the pushback? I don't see she can because the judge, the judge in this case said, you better be very careful, young lady. Or old lady. Drunk old lady. The judge was very explicit that, "You will be in trouble if you keep going because this is really bad." And, but then, you know, the fact that Bergam or the others, they just— when are they going to give? I just, I have no idea. This guy had a relatively okay reputation, but him and Bessant, to me, are the real shockers in terms of, like, how much of a suck-up they can compete being in this situation.

I think the guy who's actually taken the biggest reputation hit is Todd Blanch. Well, people— people who knew him at, what is it, the Southern District, really had a lot of respect for him. Saw him as an outstanding lawyer and a person of integrity.

I'm impressed you said that. What happened to you?

And so I think Jeanine Pirro's like, you know, I don't want to be disbarred. This guy's going to be out in 2 and a quarter years or whatever. You know, I think her own lawyers have said to her, be really careful here. Here. This is— there's no evidence here.

Do you think she'd refile? She— you think she'll try to refile anyway?

I don't know. But the, the sad part of this is that the more time— the more time we spend talking about a reflecting pool, good or bad, the less time we spend talking about bombs, inflation, and exploding diarrhea. I agree with you, Scott.

But as I said, this is indicative of shoddy work, lying, cult. It's, it's, it's a little— it's much more important in terms of what these people are doing. This is how far they'll to protect an addled old man's ego, which is— which I think is— and it links to Iran, no, like saying, oh no, we better not do this, or the stuff he was posting all weekend was crazy. Like, they're willing to let crazy person who has— like, I just think this is exactly a distillation. That's why I think it's important, because one, it's incompetent management. They couldn't fix the reflecting pool, and then they did it, made it worse. Two, they then tried to blame an American citizen You know, of something he didn't do. Like, these weird prosecutions are also— It's this— What they did to Renée Goode, what they did to everybody else, what they're doing to immigrants. It's like they just jail people and— just to please him. And so that's why it's important. It's a bigger trend of saying, "Yes, sir. We think this is amazing." And let me tell you, Doug Bergman, the shame of this will not outlive you, and I will be around to remember it for all of us.

Same thing with Bess Wexler. Nonsense. And you're right, Todd Blanch. You're all like— Liz Cheney is the one who said this, is, "Long after this guy is gone, the dishonor on you will remain." And Jeanine Pirro decided to get out before—

Anthony Scaramucci, I mean, he summarized it correctly when he tries to, you know, the flame, the siren— by the way, I saw The Odyssey this weekend. Oh, oh. The flame, the siren's call of power and proximity to the president. Everyone believes they're gonna be the one that can navigate it and serve the country while not being guilty. They all hear the siren call, and they think that they cannot be immune to it. He is political Chernobyl. Who has gone on to great things from his first administration? And in the latest episode of Where Are They Now? I just want to go over where Trump's lawyers are now. Roy Cohn was disbarred. You know, he's dead now. Michael Cohen, disbarred, pleaded guilty to tax, campaign, and false statements crimes. Rudy Giuliani, disbarred in New York and DC, $150 million in defamation damages. Alina Habba, sanctioned $1 million for frivolous litigation. Boris Epstein, pending AZ criminal charges in fake electoral case. John Eastman, disbarred in California and subpoenaed in DC, Arizona criminal case, pending. Kenneth Chesbrough, disbarred in New York, Wisconsin case pending. I mean, literally, it's second lieutenant in Vietnam to be a lawyer for this guy.

Listen, the old man's losing it, guys. You better get on the Jeanine Pirro Express out of town, you know. And, you know, Greene and Tucker Carlson and Massey are going to take advantage. There is a trend. And right after the elections, as long as they're done correctly, um, it's done, guys. It's done. You better get off this fucking train. If Judge Weinbach is getting off You need to exit as fast as possible.

Yeah, Kenneth, but Kenneth Cheesbrough, if I'm saying his name, Chesbrough, Cheesbrough, um, he was the attorney who was basically the architect of the fake elections narrative. He was just disbarred in the state of New York. Just, just, I mean, wake up, folks. He's Chernobyl. You stick around this guy long enough, you're getting leukemia.

Anyway, uh, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails, and then Scott departs the scene.

If there's anything we've heard about this entire summer, no matter where we go or who we talk to, it's about gas prices. I want to show you something. Look at these gas prices, they're ridiculous.

I don't drive as much.

I think they're just skyrocketing day in, day out. Gas prices are up since Donald Trump started his war with Iran, but how much does a little pain at the pump pump actually affect people's vote. Who is telling the truth? Uh-huh. And who is going to represent us and do something about it? And if gas is still near $4 a gallon come November, is it game over for Donald Trump and the Republicans? The most important is you can't deny the reality that Americans feel. People see what they're paying, you know, Trump trying to not recognize what people are struggling with, and then to ignore the severity of it is just not a winning strategy. That's this week on America Actually. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Lenin. Democratic socialists keep winning primary races. In Michigan, Abdulla Saeed, not in the DSA but endorsed by them, just won a fiercely fought Senate primary. President Trump appears worried enough about the DSA to have started conflating some things.

I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be right up— free rent for the rest of your life. What they don't say is that you'll be living in squalor in 12 months.

The Trump administration has raised the specter of the far left in various ways during Trump's second term. But the recent arrest of an American communist in Spain— what year is it? At the request request of the American government is a more concrete step. Coming up on Today Explained from Vox: Real communist threat or new Red Scare? Today Explained drops every weekday.

Presidential races are always messy, but 2028 is shaping up to be our messiest presidential campaign yet. There are a ton of names that are rumored to be thinking about throwing their hat in the ring. All righty, here we got Trump, we got Kamala Harris, we have Marjorie Taylor Greene. So this week on America Actually, I wanted to hold a little fantasy draft. Of course, we got to have AOC on the list and stud George Clooney. And to do that, I want to invite two of the messiest people I know, Vox journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher Let me tell you, uh-huh, he is the charm of a Cybertruck. And independent journalist and political commentator Don Lemon. This could go really fast because I got boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and I'm sure Kara's the same way. I'm Estet Hernton, and this is America Actually. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Why don't I go first? I'm very sure my win is, um, Columbia University School of Journalism, which I went to and is an alumni, hired Sharon Alfonsi and Scott Pelley as journalists in residence this year. And I couldn't be more happy. I never go when they ask me to speak, but now I will.

Oh, God, you're so white.

I am white, but I love it.

I think that's the whitest thing we've ever said on this podcast. And we've said some pretty translucent things.

In any case, I'm very happy they did that. Congratulations. They're all— Let me tell you, I've been in touch with a lot of these people. They're all working on some really great things. The New York Post got it wrong about Bill Owens this week, but they're all working on cool things and a little bit invigorating. Invigorated. Like, you know, and I was with Don Lemon this week and he's invigorated. I was on, um, Astid Herndon's show, uh, America Actually, which I loved. And I gotta say, invigorated. All these people feel invigorated. So it's not always a bad thing. It's bad for 60 Minutes, but it's really good for you and your souls. You'll have a great time out here in the wilderness. And my, uh, my fail is there's a story in the New York Times about, um, Paul Weiss, the law firm. And the downfall of how they acquiesced to Trump, largely because of a single partner who seems like an asshole, is, and sort of the ruining of another guy who had been a beacon of civil rights, pro bono work, et cetera, is really devastating. Just how quickly, speaking of people giving in and being ruined by the Trump people, this was a really sad story.

These are the people that should defend us. This was a firm that was well known for defending people, like people who, marginalized people, All manner of things. Just a very legendary firm who just essentially took the money and started treating, like behaving in a way that was so grabby. You're so rich, you lawyers. It's really gross. It was grotesque. I recommend you read it. It's a long read. And it was just, it was really upsetting to read, I have to say. And I'll just say one more thing. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has scrapped his proposal to sell stakes in the World Cup after backlash. And there, it looks like he may be in trouble. There's many oral reports. I think several people who don't usually speak out have said it's— he should leave. But we know someone who predicted this.

Let's hear a clip from last week. My prediction is that this ridiculous notion that, uh, one of the most corrupt organizations is going to get financing from a crime family, the Trump family, to take FIFA private and/or turn it into a public company— this won't happen.

There you go, Scott. All right, all yours.

There you go. Um, you stole some of my thunder. Like, I have— I could position one as a fail, but I'll position both as a win. Um, these global athletic oversights, whether it's the IOC, uh, FIFA, or even I would argue the NCAA, that was comfortable with white guys in their 50s making millions of dollars and claiming that the non-white people on the hardwood were not allowed to make money 'cause of the purity of the sport. There's just so much— these organizations benefit so much from the goodwill and the fact, especially the international organizations operate in this Nether-Netherland. Gianni Infantino is so corrupt. FIFA is so corrupt. And the fact that it really does, it's just, this sport really does bring people together. And at some point, They're just gonna— Do you know how many people, really talented— I mean, take a guy who's lost an elec— Take a guy like Mitt Romney. I don't— Find somebody, just an amazing person whose integrity is unimpeachable. Scott Galloway. I think I'm—

You're impeachable. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm impeachable according to— We're both impeachable. At least according to Twitter this weekend, I've heard.

Both of us are impeachable.

But my point is, find somebody— There are so many people who have incredible integrity, character, understand sponsorships, understand business, who absolutely adore this game and would take this job for a dollar and bring real— and say, "Okay, what's the job, not only of the tournament, but how do we get more young people playing sports? How do we raise the visibility of emerging nations? How do we bring people together in between the World Cups and make nations feel better about one another? How do we just have— How do I just write in my finest, final act, a love letter to the sport. Instead, we have these corrupt individuals that see it as a corpus for their own enrichment. Yeah.

He should just leave and go hang out with rich people.

So, I am really pleased that the public and their love of the game just threw up all over this guy and his idea to get the Kushners to finance taking it private and trying to figure out a way to monetize what is What is the UN that's actually working? And that is football. It's actually bringing people together. In any case, you're right.

This was a great prediction. So is he out-out? Do you think he's out? You did say you thought he wouldn't. I don't.

These governing bodies are so— Like, what court oversees it? Yeah. And so it's difficult. And in addition, these guys grease everybody and pay them off. They have friends everywhere because they give money in the form of quote-unquote development revenues to— I mean, they have. They're not dumb. They've greased a lot of palms. They're a mob family.

I think your first prediction is correct.

I think he's out. Oh, really? I hope so. Again, it's the same problem we have with Trump. We need ideas and a vision for FIFA, not just shitposting the incumbent. Yep, that's a fair point.

That we need ideas.

And let's find someone unimpeachable who would raise their hand and say, you know what? I would like to do this. You know, I think, you know, I don't know if it's Cuban. I think he'd be great. I think I've always been a fan of Tony Blair. He evokes a gag reflex from people. Yeah, fair enough. But there's got to be somebody out there that people just have a ton of goodwill around who loves the game and says, what I'm going to bring to the game is the following. I'm going to bring goodwill and unimpeachable integrity. I'm going to be fucking Mormon. I'm going to be literally I'm thinking about Mitt Romney again. I may get it wrong, but I will never deceive you or enrich myself.

I still think Scott Galloway.

I don't know enough about the game.

Can I ask you one question? I'm gonna prompt you. Are you seeing all the— I'm so sad you said not a word about it, but wicker, all the story of the basket that fucks a woman. Have you noticed this going all over the internet? I'm surprised you haven't because there was all these penis jokes about Wicker. Jesus Christ.

I feel so out of it. I didn't find out that failed mayoral candidates were shitposting me until you forwarded it. When I— I'm not exaggerating. When I go into August, I try to put my phone away. I try not to go on social media. I know. I try not to read the news. 'Cause I find by the time I get to August, I'm a nervous wreck.

All right. When you come back, I want Wicker jokes. There's one that say, "I wonder if JD Vance is gonna see Wicker." There's a lot of very funny, funny jokes. The Wicker trailer. Called, uh, someone called the Wicker trailer Pornokio, and all I can say is I guarantee you that was the original name of the script and film. Anyway, it looks very—

I didn't see that. Yeah, I haven't seen that. I did see The Odyssey though. Um, in a word, epic. Absolutely epic. And I, I just— the thing that really struck me about it was I think it could have been— I really respect filmmakers and directors and studios that greenlight something that has so much downside risk, because it's like a scene The scene with a cyclops, it could have so easily been cheesy CGI, and you believe there's a cyclops. And every scene that you'd heard about, there was just a certain grit and rawness. I thought the performances were outstanding across the board. I want to go to an island where I get high and fuck a hot model and forget how to get home. I'm like, "What a shocker." I love, like, "I've forgotten how to get home, so I have to hang out with Charlize Theron and get high every day." But I've forgotten how to get back to my wife life.

I mean, you'd still be on that island. Oh my God, you would never— Where is that island?

You would be like, Charlize, I'm coming. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so you loved it.

Hilarious. The guy, he's literally doing— in Ibiza doing X, fucking the hottest woman, and he's forgotten how to get home to Liverpool in his life. Yeah. Anyways, very nice, very nice. I'll move on. My, my win, uh, the outstanding journalism and forceful yet dignified performance this weekend of Dana Bash, Margaret Brennan, and last week, Kaitlan Collins. I just think these, I think these individuals define the term professional. Yep.

And Kaitlan will be here to replace you. There you go.

That's, talk about an upgrade. But I, the clips I saw this weekend, I used to watch Meet the Press and Face the Nation, the whole show. I'm part of the Pepsi generation. I just watched the clips. I thought, I admire that they are so calm and just right on the spot, push back thoughtfully. You actually do this quite well. Thank you. And Jess Tarlov does this quite well. Yeah, she does. But I was so impressed.

What do we all have in common, Scott?

Well, the future is female, Kara. The future is female. I needed you to say that for you.

The future is female.

No, we're all We're, yeah, I know.

That's a good one. That's a perfect—

We're replaceable. We're just here to build data centers and then we're totally, then we have no use.

No use. No use. Although lesbian mechanics can do it anyway and construction workers.

That's my, anyways, my win is, my wins, multiple wins are throwing up on Gianni Anfantino and his ridiculous monetization of the world's, you know, the beautiful game. I thought The Odyssey was spectacular. And I went into it with high expectations because Christopher Nolan is my favorite director. And also just the professionalism of Dana Bash, Kaitlan Collins, and Margaret Brennan.

Yep. There you go. Oh my goodness. As you say, there you go, Scott. There you go. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to ny mag.com/pivot. Submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. And elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe this week, And on with Kara Swisher, I'm speaking with Rosie O'Donnell. She's staging her one-woman show in New York right now, and then she's headed to LA to guest host Jimmy Kimmel later this month. Let's listen to her explain how she plans to deal with Trump. I plan on doing what Jimmy Kimmel has done so beautifully, which is giving it to him in a comedic, honest, truthful way. And I will do that as big as I can. Now, the song that I sang in my show, "If He Only Had a Brain," I wanted to do that on Kimmel, but they just told me I can't.

Oh.

They couldn't get permission for the parody because it's political content. And I was like, well, that is absurd to me because we used to do parodies every day on my show. Wait, I don't understand. Well, I've been told I'm not allowed to do that now. I don't know. It's not kidding. A bit of it here. Yes.

His approval rate is 30. His diaper's always dirty. I think the guy's insane. Okay. Ah, just a famous girl.

I'm happy you're so happy. It was really good. Go watch her show. It's terrific. And Scott, as I said, this is our last show together before Scot-Free August gets underway. The saddest time of the year for me, obviously. That's enough, I know. People might be wondering about your whereabouts over the next month. So we're getting ahead of things by releasing a proof of life photo right now. What is that?

I can't see it. It's me.

Oh my gosh. I am Elaine Chao. That's hilarious. We are, of course, our friends and the late Mitch McConnell. The late, possibly late Mitch McConnell. We'll put that proof of life pics on our social media. Okay. That is the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Make sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. I'll be back on Friday with special guest co-host Hillary Clinton. Scott, enjoy your time away. I miss you every year, and please call me.

Today's show was produced by Laryn Nam and Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin and Todd Wiseman, Ernie and Artad, engineers and producers. Of this episode. Thanks also to Dubrow, Mr. Viren Dhanushalan. Nishad Kurra is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a wonderful August. I'll see you, I'll see you in September.