Transcript of Trump Takes Office, TikTok’s Brief Shutdown, and Crypto Cronyism

Hey, Megan Rapinoe here. This week on a Touchmore, Unrivaled is coming, and we're going to preview the teams to beat and what the new league means for women's basketball. Plus, our Bicker of the Week asks some tough questions about how one of us likes to cook in the kitchen. And we'll take you inside our experience checking out a professional women's hockey league game and why it really felt very familiar. Check out the latest episode of a Touchmore, wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube.

Hey, it's Andy Rodick, and I'm not just a former tennis player. I am a tennis fan, a tennis nerd. I just can't stop watching it. I can't stop analyzing it. I can't stop talking about it to anyone that will listen, which is why I started my podcast, Serve with Andy Today, now a part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. On the show, we talk about everything from new up and coming players to the champions dominating the narrative to whatever is on my mind. This January is the Australian Open, and you know I've got some thoughts.

So tune in for our Australian Open coverage, fined, served wherever you get your podcast or on our YouTube channel. It's Donald Trump's first week in office again, and it sure feels like it. There is a great deal of, as Heather said, a great deal of anger about oligarchs, about rich people controlling everything.

I'm Prit Barara, and this week I'm joined by Kara Swisher, Astead Herndon, and Heather Cox-Richardson for a special Inauguration Week episode of Stay Tuned with Prit. The episode is out now. Search and follow Stay Tuned with Prit wherever you get your podcasts.

Trump declared the beginning of a golden age of America.

I think Zocope is hoping it's the golden shower age. I think that guy's going dirty.

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

And I'm Scott Callaway.

Darkreetings from the USA. And Hale, Satan, Scott. The second reign of Trump has begun with a plethora of things. We'll talk about some of these ridiculous executive orders which have no meat to the bone, as they say. But let's get right to the inauguration. I know you were drowning your sorrows in '80s music and firefighter videos. Did you watch the inauguration?

No. One of the things I would recommend any dad does with his son, because it's a lesson or his 15-year-old son, it's a rite of passage in the Galloway household about culture, politics, homosexuality, culture, sex, is to watch the entire eight seasons of Game of Thrones. I believe in season five, Stanus Barathean decides to burn his daughter, Shirine, at the stake. It is such a disturbing scene that running through it the second time, I decided for my own mental health, I'm just not going to watch that entire episode. For me, the inauguration was the burning of Shirine Barathean at the stake. I thought, I just don't need to watch this. Although I will say, really, my one takeaway, and stay with me here, is the most important person on the planet right now or the person with the most potential to do real good for the world is Lauren Sanchez. Oh, all right. I mean, let's be honest, the Zuck is hornier than three bald cat.

Yeah, I went back and looked at that video because I thought it might have been unfair. It was not unfair.

He was catching a look. If she really wanted to the world is solid. She would seduce Mark Zuckerberg, the Zuck. He's down for it. Oh, wow.

I didn't think you'd go there, but go ahead.

Then Priscilla Chan gets half the voting chairs and boom, mental wellness and trust in institutions skyrockets.

I don't know. She was right there with him. She was right there with Mark at every event.

No, but she was in the overflow room because she doesn't have- No, she was there.

She was there. She was standing sitting next to him. She's in the rotunda? She was in the rotunda. She was next to him. You didn't notice her because she's wearing pearls and a very conservative outfit, but she was right next to him.

You're right. I did notice her. I did not notice her.

You didn't because Lauren was like, Bustier.

Here we are. Hello. Come meet the girls.

We hate to talk about clothes, but oh, my God. Melania Trump looked like a nun next to Lauren.

She looked like she was headed to the Capitol to force people to give tribute of the hunger names. She looked so... And I love the air kiss. They clearly are very fond of each other. Oh, that.

The hat. That was a strategic- But Lauren Sanchez is the leader we need right now. That was a strategic hat. All I looked at with ladies, I spent the whole time looking at the ladies there, all the different- I think the fashion was off the hook, the pictures I've seen. Well, some of it. Yeah, they definitely dress many of them.

I thought they look great. I thought that people look great.

Yeah, well, some of them do. I don't like that look. It's very shiny.

All those tech leaders and those beautiful knee pads they all had.

I know. I'm surprised they weren't exhausted by the weekends. Some of them really were trying not to smile. Tim Cook, he smile occasionally, but was trying to have a stern look. Sundar Pachai didn't know what he was doing there. He's like, Oh, Jesus. He was next to Elon. It was the whole thing. The whole panoply was so ridiculous. Then Trump, my favorite part was Trump putting them up there right in the front. Now I know he wanted it inside because it looked better. It looked better inside. It was actually a beautiful tableau thing in a repulsive way, but it was beautiful. If he was on the dias outside, you wouldn't have seen them all like that, and they would have been all bundled up. But instead, it's like, look at the rich people I collected one after the next, and the lady and the lady and stuff. It was really... He put them right there, right next to him, right over his shoulder, so you couldn't avoid them, and moved out, governors moved out.

Yeah, they were in the overflow room. Yes.

No people that were at his rallies, no people that he cared. It was all rich people. Money. Then he even stuck Miriam Adelson in the back, which was interesting, and Dana White. But he wanted to show, I have a trillion dollars of people right here, and they're at my behest. I own them. They were so played by this guy. It was like, kudos, Trump. I've never been able to neg them like that. I've never been able. But he did. He had them in their spot, I thought it was interesting.

The only point of light that brought a smell to my face was there's a rumor that this guy named JD Vance is vice president. Yeah, I heard. He did show up. Trump looked like he was going to fall asleep when they were swearing Vance in. But there's an image of Vice President Vance's daughter wearing all these bandaids on her fingers. It's really adorable. Do you remember bandaids for kids?

They were bluey bandaids, actually. I clocked that. That's a flex.

That's a mom flex.

I mean, they ignored him completely. And Interestingly, we'll get to the people getting out of jail, but Vance said they wouldn't let out violent criminals, and they have. Well, he doesn't know what's going on. I mean, Musk is the one, and we'll get to Musk in a second. But President Trump declared the beginning of a golden age of America, even though we're in the golden age of America after taking the oath of office on money, calling his inauguration Liberation Day.

I think Zouk is hoping it's the golden shower age. I think that guy's going dirty.

That guy's going dirty. Okay, all right. He said he was saved by God to make America great. Again, referencing last summer's assassination attempt.

But God decided to kill that fireman. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

You're right. It's all such bullshit. He made a series of announcements about his inaugural dress, including one that made Hillary Clinton visibly laugh. She was there. I love that Hillary just said, she's like... I know a lot of people are like, they shouldn't have gone, but I'm like, I'm down with her being right there. I'm down with Mike Pence being there. You tried, dude, and you didn't succeed. Let's listen to Trump. A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and we will restore the name of a great President, William William McKinley to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs. It's so ridiculous. It's so fucking ridiculous. It's so laughable and stupid. I ran into, of all people in the CNN Green Room, Elizabeth and I thought she'd be all have her dander up. She's like, That was so frigging laughable. What in the world? So dumb. He also said that we're going to expand. He says this Manifest Destiny thing, but not just on this planet, but let's listen to that. The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.

We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars.

Okay, not exactly JFK, but this is what Musk has been after the whole time. The penny dropped, and I went back and listened to a couple of interviews I had done with him many years ago, in 2016, 2018. His neat to get to Mars seems to have been his goal here in a lot of ways. It's not money necessarily with this guy, but it is this whole Mars thing. What did you think of these Gulf of America and Mars situation?

Well, first off, the notion that America will again be the most prosperous, most admired, most powerful nation in the world. Well, good news, boss, it already is. It's all of those things. It is. That's right. The naming stuff is... I mean, it's just ridiculous. The Gulf of Cheaper eggs It's just dumb, right? The thing that really struck out to me, and I would imagine... First off, this guy is full Putin. Did you notice we're going to expand new horizons for our flag? What? We're invading Canada? Where are we going? And by the way- Mr..

Antiwar wants to take on other countries.

Yeah, we want out of bad wars, but we're becoming imperialists. I'm down with Canada becoming the 51st state because that means Democrats in everything. That's correct. I thought that was really unusual, but I get the sense that he really has decided that Russia is the role model, both in terms of kleptocracy and expansionary vision. On the whole, I thought the stuff I've seen, I think Republicans do optics better than we do. Oh, absolutely. I thought the esthetics, the fashion, the get famous rich people up front and their hot wives, and if they're hot, I give them a better seat. I think they just understand that shit better than Democrats.

Though I have to say a lot of people who are at the parties felt it was a lot of cheap tricks. A lot of people had to go. They just had to go a lot.

I think it was made for TV.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean. People were there, it was joyless and cheap tricks. And these were Republicans. They were like, This is gross and not cool. It wasn't cool, someone said to a friend of mine. What was interesting was the visuals. It was all for visuals. I did find his speech petty and small-minded as he is. He's in a perpetual campaign. This guy who's never running for anything again, he just can't get out of the campaign mode and get into the governing mode ever. Now, Elon Musk, of course, is getting to go to Mars, and we hope he goes first. We're very excited for his travels there, never to come back, because you can't come back, by the way, just so you know. He told me that. But he gave a speech at the Capital One Arena where they did They usually have this inaugural parade that goes by the White House. They cancel that. Again, for spectacles' sake, leaving aside Billy Ray Cyrus at one of the things, it was quite a spectacle. Let's hear Elon's speech.

There are elections, the elections, they come and go.

Some elections are important, some are not. But this one really mattered.

I just want to say thank you for making it happen. Thank you.

At the noise at the end there, that's Elon thumping his chest and doing what appeared to be a fascist, Nazi-style salute. Some people are calling it a Roman salute, but a Roman salute was a Nazi salute. Some people are saying he was doing his heart goes out to you. That's not how you do it. It was weird. Some people are blaming it on him having Asperger's. I'm sure in the sound of music, Rolf was just showing his heart went out to the Bontraff family when he did that signal. But it was stupid. I don't know what to say. It's like, Oh, we're going to be on the incoming of a flood of this bullshit. Given he's in the public eye so much, he should be very careful about his signals that he does. I think a lot of people are letting him off because of the flood of other things that happened. I don't know if you had any thoughts.

I'm Like you, I'm not a huge fan of Elon Musk, but I actually think he did a decent job. I thought he looked good. I thought he seemed enthusiastic. He captured the audience. I think the hand gesture was unfortunate, but I would give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think- Except the Nazis were getting let out of jail.

That's the only... I don't give him the benefit of the doubt. I assume you want to.

You're connecting the two that he's- I don't know what he's doing.

I just think if you're in a position of that much power and that much influence and you're in the public eye, you should try not to do things that could be construed that way.

I just think that- I agree with you, but I don't think it's fair to conflate what he did with anything supporting the Third Reich. I think that's a bridge too far. I think that's unfair to him.

Which is, I think what he might have wanted to happen. Honestly, he loves to troll people in some way to get people. He's expecting us all to go, Oh, how dare he? I think as usual, it was sloppy and obnoxious is what it was at the very least. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. To attribute it. It's interesting when everyone was like, he is autistic or on the spectrum. A lot of people on the spectrum are like, I've never done a Nazi-type salute things.

Yeah, but I mean, okay, again- I agree.

I'm not going crazy. I think he got caught up in the moment and made to the moon. He did it twice. Let's just be clear. He did it twice. If you watch it, it's weird. It's as weird as can be. Look, there's nothing to be done with this guy. He's going to continue to try to troll us and try to do all kinds of things that like, tickle liberal's outrage. This is his thing. This is what he's going to do till the end of his life. He likes to do it. He likes to make memes. I think he absolutely knew what he was doing. I don't think he cares. I don't necessarily think he's... I don't know what he is. I don't know why he did it, but I thought it was badly done at the moment, definitely. I think you have to be careful about signals and things like that. But I agree. I'm moving on. Like, whatever, Elon, it was weird. In addition, as I said, they all had prime seats, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, better seats than cabinet nominees who were find them, I believe. What's incredible is the other notable attendees, too.

Joe Rogan, Rupert Murdoch was there. I didn't see him there. I don't know where they put him. Lvmh CEO, Bernard Arnault, TikTok CEO, Show2, Really full of business people more than anybody else. Even Miriam Adelson, a big donor of his, was shoved, even though a business person shoved in the back, which was interesting. I don't know. It was quite something, and it was definitely made for TV. Trump quickly got to work on Monday evening, issuing sweeping pardons to over 1,500 of the January sixth rioters. He was thought to have not... J. D. Vant said he wasn't going to let off people who had violent things, but that's exactly what he did. He let out people had beaten up cops very clearly, people who had gotten 20 years to life, people who were obviously there to cause mayhem. But he let them off to one woman who was just inside and was a non-violent protester wouldn't take the thing. She said, I committed a crime. I thought that was pretty honorable of her. Yeah, that was weird. But he led off some very dangerous people. I know a lot of people that worked on those cases, and they are terrified now that these people are out and Humboldt.

They essentially said, Trump now has his own private militia at his behest. I think that was pretty upsetting. I don't know what you thought about. That one, to me, was the most seriously disturbing of all the many executive orders.

Yeah, I don't know. There's a few trying to revoke birthright citizenship, trying to override the 14th Amendment that feels... I can understand declaring a national emergency at the border. Declaring a national energy emergency is just dumb. Gas on an inflation-adjusted basis is cheaper than it was 50 years ago. We are the largest oil producer in the world. Biden issued a ton of drilling permits. That's nothing but just a false narrative. It goes back to the notion we were talking about. America will be the strongest this most respected. We're there. Unfortunately, Biden was unable to communicate that effectively. Correct. Some of the stuff that this expansionary, visionary stuff seemed very strange to me, felt like we're colonists again.

What do you think of this strategy of flooding the zone with shit? Now, I know all presidents do this. They put out executive orders. These are just one outlandish idea after the next. Most of them have no force of law. Most of them are just press releases, as they said, on better letterhead. But it is this flooding the zone with shit to get Democrats completely flummoxed. How dare he? How dare he? How dare he? How dare he? How dare he do that?

They shouldn't just not respond. Most of this, I think a lot of it was throwing red meat at populace, symbolic. I do think it was a baller move to have a ton of executive actions as he was on the desk. It visually represents leadership. Some of this stuff immediately said, I promise these things. I'm making do on these promises day one, even if they don't hold or even if they- I tried. I think he's being... One of the more generous things I think you could say about Trump's tenure the first time around was that he proved to be more of a pragmatist than an ideologue. I do think he could have had an executive action around tariffs right away, but he didn't do that. He's obviously using it as a negotiating tactic, which, again, is a pragmatist. Some of this is just... The people who got out of prison are not comfortable with it. It's awful. I'm almost like, just give it to them so we can stop fucking talking about it and having museum exhibits where Taylor Green goes into a zoo and holds the hands and praise.

I get the move-along idea. I get it. It's just some of these people are dangerous criminals. That's a fair point. He talks about dangerous criminals on the street. He just let out some day. There is a point to moving along. Washington let off the people who did the Whisky Rebellion. He did it, right? People who had done. That happens over and over again. You just say, That was wrong. Let's move on. In the case of us, he could have picked out a you, and even Jody Vance said so, that were dangerous and beat up cops.

The violent criminals, the proud boys, the oath keepers.

That once it beat up cops- Fled guilty to sedition.

Jail you go. Yeah, the stuff around There's only two genders. There's male and there's female. I almost see that as just unimportant but mean. It's just, okay, you're just thumbing your... You're just waving the middle finger at a group of people. Fine, have at it. Be who you are. I don't think that's going to much effect. I found this was mostly like, most of these things were where's the beef or what actual impact on the ground is this going to have?

I agree. I thought it showed weakness sexually. I was like, there's too many of them. There's too many ones, and all of them are empty. It was performative. I thought he should have been much more strategic and stronger. I thought they were all... I think they all showed... You know how Mark Zuckerberg is like, I'm drilling I'm shooting Buffaloes. That's what it was like. I was like, you're not a man because you have to performatively man at us.

There is one, though, just real quick. There's one I actually thought was good. The singular one I thought was good was reclassifying federal employees, making them easier to fire. I don't see any reason why federal employees shouldn't be subject to the same standards and anxiety that the private sector is.

Okay, but he's using it to put loyals in. But yes, I see your point.

A return to work mandate, it's a quiet firing. But just in terms of actual data, this notion, this trope that the right likes to circulate, the government state, or what you would call it, the social state. What's the term that is? Deep state. Not the deep state. The government state or the welfare state, whatever it is, that the government's too big. The percentage of employees represented by government employees has toggled between 14 and 17% for the last 15 years. It's at 14.2% right now. The majority of those employees are state and local government. Actually, employment amongst government employees is at a bit of a low right now. The notion that it's just our deficit and our spending has exploded because the far right and the far left come together to agree on reckless spending and deficits and interest and entitlements. But the notion somehow that the employment base has bloomed, it just isn't accurate.

Yeah, I know. It's just their way to attack people and try to scare them. That's why I don't like it. It's not done to make things better. It's done to terrify, which is stupid. All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, We discuss what is exactly going on with TikTok after Trump's latest move and talk about the meme coin and other things.

This week on Profitry Markets, we speak with Andrew Ross-Sorkin, Editor at large of Dealbook at the New York Times and co-anker of CNBC's Squarkbox. We discuss the key economic trends he's watching for Trump's second term, the evolving landscape of the AI market, and the rumors that China is considering selling TikTok to Elon Musk. If China is prepared to sell to Elon Musk and only to Elon Musk, what does that say about the leverage and influence that China must think that they have over Elon Musk by dint of his factories and Tesla business in the nation state that is China.

You can find that conversation and many others exclusively on the Profjee Markets podcast.

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Scott, we're back. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday to delay enforcing the TikTok fund for 75 days. Though it's unclear if that order will hold water legally. Most people think not. This follows TikTok briefly shutting itself down in the US for about 14 hours over the weekend ahead of the ban going into effect, which was just a performative piece of bullshit on behalf of the TikTok executives. As he signed the order, Trump attempted to explain the new plan where the US would run TikTok as a 50/50 joint venture with its current owners. It's inexplicable, but let's listen. The US should be entitled to get half of TikTok. And congratulations because TikTok has a good partner, and that would be worth. It could be $500 billion or something. It's crazy. The numbers are crazy. But it's worthless. If the President doesn't sign, then it's worthless. If the president does sign, it's worth maybe a trillion dollars. I think like a joint venture, I think we would have a joint venture with the people from TikTok.

We'll see what happens.

I mean, that's one of many ideas I have. I don't mind ideas here, but this EO is just pointless. It just is. He doesn't have very many options because there's a line. By the way, people like Tom Cotton and others are like, You're not going around this law, Apple. And guess what? Right now, you You cannot download TikTok and other ByteDance apps on the Apple Store or the Google Store. These people have good lawyers. They understand that Trump is all latherer. He can't do that. Now, he gave some assurance to, I guess, Akamai and Amazon and Oracle, but they are liable, very liable right now for billions and billions of dollars if they don't comply with the law. So I think Trump can really do is pass a new law. That could happen, which is not going to happen. He He could try to get some deal done with the Chinese. There's no reason the Chinese need to do this. I don't care what he threatens them with. He doesn't have many options. He just doesn't. As a president, he doesn't have a lot of options except for following the law. He doesn't have to follow the law.

You can order the Justice Department not to follow the law. But as you can see, as I said, Scott, they'll pick the Supreme Court and the Congress over Donald Trump in this situation. You can't download TikTok now. But talk about this 50/50 joint venture. I don't even understand. The American public owns it? I don't know. Maybe give every American a share in TikTok, that would be great. Whatever.

This isn't unusual. The government owning a stake in what was a private company has happened all the time, and there's a word that describes it perfectly. It's socialism. Communism. Socialism is the government owns the means of production, whether it's the UK government deciding it's a good idea to invest in an innovative car company called DeLorean, whether it's Obama, who fell under a lot of criticism for making low interest loans to Solandra. This is- And Tesla, by the way. This is pure socialism. This is the government picking winners and losers. The notion that the government, one of the basics tenets or pillars of American capitalism that has proven to be right, is the government is not good at picking winners and losers. That when we have full body contact violence in terms of competition with an operating system or rules, that produces unicorns in prosperity, and hopefully you tax them at a good rate, and we can reinvest in our Navy and seniors, et cetera. But the notion that the President could decide which companies were going to be JVs with and which ones were not. In addition, this goes to a much larger point here, and that is, are we a serious people?

We had a law passed by 79 senators, 350 congresspeople, one of the most bipartisan unanimous laws of our elected representatives That was in recent history.

They can't agree on lunch, and they agreed on this, but go ahead.

Signed into law. We gave them six months to divest. Then when it comes, you know what we do? We blink. We say, Oh, wait, we're going to extend it. By the way, on a Dimes notice, TikTok, which legally has to listen to the CCP, was able to inspire, rally, and motivate tens of millions of people to talk about the TikTok ban, voice their opposition I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the good folks at TikTok decided to tweak the algorithm and elevate all of that content, such as 170 million Americans were all of a sudden inundated with a certain Second viewpoint that then resulted in political pressure that resulted in presidential action, what happened on Saturday and Sunday is exactly the reason this thing needs to be banned. What is the next issue that the CCP/Tiktok can decide to inspire, rally, and motivate tens of millions of Americans to exert pressure on our elected representatives? The notion that somehow China now, we gave them six months. Here's a law. Our elected representatives, we passed it. You know what they said? Hold my fucking beer. You are not a serious people.

We now think that they're going to come to the table?

They're expressing interest in working with Trump. This is going to be done by... What they're going to do is, I call it the Elon faint. They're going to get it into the hands of someone they like who they can manipulate or that it's going to be fake. They're still going to be there. And it's still going to be... The two people I trust on this whole thing, one is Tom fucking Cotton. I think he's speaking some truth about the dangers of China and manipulation of the United States. And AOC, who did a fantastic thing on, I think it was Blue Sky, where she's like, look, I didn't see any substantive manipulation here. I'd happy to do this if they would show it to us. Both of them are like, this is all we look like fucking idiots. Both of them said the same thing. You either put up or shut up. You either follow the law. If you're going to pass this law, pass another one. That's what they can do. They'll do something behind the scenes, but it will result in much less security, much less privacy when they should have gone back and done a broader law about all these companies, all of them, and have a thing in there saying, Foreign adversaries can't own this much of a big media property.

That's all they had to do. They wouldn't do that because they get all their bank from those, let's switch to, photo of all those rich people, tech people on the dais. This is all fake. Let me just say, one person wrote a piece, Kevin Bruce wrote a piece, What if no one misses TikTok? He was like, there isn't that much anger as you think. The only people I feel for is the creators who are making money on this platform. I do love entrepreneurs doing that. They can go somewhere else. They'll go to YouTube or wherever they can go to do things, and I'm sorry about that.

The economics are really interesting because I have a 14-year-old son. The average 14-year-old American boy spends 17 hours a week on TikTok. If you take out sleep, basically without TikTok, you're getting an an entire day back for a 14-year-old boy. Now, unfortunately, he's not going to use that to study or play the piano or hang out with his dad. He's likely, the calculation is about 10 or 15% goes to Snap, 20% to YouTube, and 70% to meta platforms. There's $23 billion up in advertising revenue for grabs here. About 15 or 13 of it would go to Facebook, 10 times revenues, 130 billion. You're looking at essentially, Mark Zuckerberg is about to get $20 billion wealthier personally with a banning of TikTok. But I think all of this goes to a different issue, and that is, one, if a Chinese-owned or a CCP-influenced company can exert massive political pressure, I don't need to see evidence of whether or not it's a security threat.

I agree. That's where I part with- That's okay. I think she's making a good point is that they voted too quickly and didn't do a broader one. Really, that was her biggest beef, is that it just was jammed through. Nobody got to really think about it, and nobody did a broader one. And I agree with her on that.

The American word and American laws no longer have veracity. It's like, okay, we can buy off their politicians, we can invest, make people wealthier. It's now a kleptocracy. When they say something, do they mean it? I don't know.

Well, they do mean it because Apple and Google are not following this thing. That's where I look at. These lawyers are like, no fucking way we're going to expose ourselves to this. To me, the fact that you can't download it says everything to me. Trump has no power here in this thing. He will do some jazz hands deal with his pals, but they've got to get Congress and the Supreme Court to approve it. I think in this case, the two other branches of government are prevailing in this case. Let's go to some very, very quick highlights. I do want to talk about that meme point. But first, President Biden's last hours. He pardoned his family members, Dr. Fauci Members of Congress who served on the January sixth Committee, General Mark Millie. I didn't mind the last parts of those. The family members really wasn't a great thing. I thought it set a terrible precedent. In a statement, Biden did say the pardon should not be mistaken as an admission of guilt, but that's exactly what it'll be mistaken as. I mean, any quick thoughts on that?

It's a race to the bottom. That is when you're worried your family members or someone who you may not agree with their policies, but did their level best as head of the National Institute of Health or the CDC could come under political prosecution or just by virtue of somebody doing their job, it's a race to the bottom. We've become that nation now, and you're just going to see all sorts of, I don't know, abuse of the powers of the presidency, but I don't blame them at all.

That's exactly how I feel. I was like, God, did he really have to do this? Being the stand-up guy hasn't worked for him, so I guess he thought, well, fuck it. He did it right before. John Sert was joking about it. Did he auto-pardon? Because he was sitting in the room when it was announced, when it was done.

No one wants to disarm unilaterally.

Well, speaking of disarming, the Department of Government Efficiencies' first cut ended up being Vivek Ramaswami. You're fired. Ramaswami was reportedly parting ways with Doge to launch a campaign for governor of Ohio, which he's not going to win.

He's not running for two years. He got fired by Elon Yeah, exactly.

No, totally. The news came just hours after Ramaswami posted a photo with Elon on the caption, A New Dawn. There's tons of reporting that they didn't like this guy, essentially, and Elon didn't like him. Actually, a lot of people didn't. In the meantime, moments after the swearing in district Court filings alleging DOGE doesn't comply with Federal Advisory Committee Act, I would agree with it. They're using Signal. They're using signal. They should do that. If it's so transparent and such a good thing, why don't they do it in the full light of day? What do you think of DOGE now, Scott? I know you want to cut government waste, and there's been a lot of these commissions over the years, but this seems like a ridiculous circus at this point. I mean, I don't know.

Doge is one of the lesser offensive things. I don't want to pre-hate it. I think it's important on a regular basis. They call them different names. Every president is at his own rule on efficiency or better government. It needs to happen on a regular basis because government spending is like a barnacle on a boat. They're just hard to scrub off. But they've already eliminated waste by 50% on this commission. I think it's hilarious soap opera. The idea that this guy is trying to spin the narrative that he's leaving to run for governor. The word is, Musk- Then the governor, Ohio, gave it to another guy.

He wanted He could be appointed for the Van seat.

Well, that was for Senate. Now he's saying he's going to run for governor.

I know, but he wanted that seat, apparently.

Yeah, but supposedly the word is, Musk and his team were like, This guy is all had and no cattle. What's the term he used? The Brian Williams term?

Yes, all hat and no cattle.

That he was just couldn't find a mic he didn't like, which you can imagine Musk and him fighting. That's like Ryan O'Neill and Farah Fawcett fighting for a camera. That was a good '80s reference. That was a good '80s. Anyways, I can't imagine the two of them Musk is wealthier and more powerful, said, I don't like this guy. He's out. This notion that he's doing it to run for governor in 24 months. He would have loved to stay in this high-profile position. That would have been the best thing he could have done in terms of name recognition. This is not his idea. Yeah.

Man down. First man down. First to irritating man down.

That's right. The first firing. Actually, this is the first firing of the Trump administration, is Vivek Ramassani.

God, he's so irritating. I couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Anyway, I don't really. It's like, as you were saying, when Banon and Musk were fighting, I'm like, I'm rooting for the bullets. Anyway, this is the most important story. I think Scott and I were both totally offended by this, and I think it is actually a serious problem of of corruption. Trump and Melania have released their own individual crypto meme coins. Just so you know, meme coin, these coins are called shit coins. There's a fart coin in case you're interested, and many others like it. As of Tuesday morning, the two coins were worth $8.4 billion combine President Trump's reported planning executive order to make digital assets a national priority while he promises to release $1 billion of his own coin in the next three years. They don't have to stay at the Trump Hotel anymore. They can just bring the receipts for buying his shit coin, essentially. This is really bad.

Staying at the Trump Hotel or playing golf there where he saw the ledger of golf officials buying stock in Donald Trump Media, that was all checkers compared to this, Jess, because with Donald Trump Media, he has to while with the SEC a public document saying, I'm selling shares, the price would crash. Now, the following conversation I would speculate will or already has happened, and that is, President Trump, congratulations on your enormous victory. It's your good Vlad. And guess what we're thinking of doing? The treasury here in Russia is thinking of investing $600 billion for a variety of reasons in cryptocurrency, specifically the Trump coin. My economists, wouldn't you know it, have calculated that based on the small boat of a half a billion dollars, when we pulse in 600 billion rubels or $10 billion, that's going to take the market cap of this thing easily to $50 or $60 billion. And should you decide to sell 20% of your stake overnight? What do you know? And I just bring this up, you'll become one of the five wealthiest men in America. And you don't have to say. And nobody will know. In unrelated news, President Trump, we would like you to seize arms shipments to Ukraine.

I mean, this is just so- This is bribery, writ large. They have created It's a bond.

This is what they thought Bitcoin would be used for, bribery, corruption, pornography.

It's a great point.

I'll tell you, a lot of crypto people are horrified because they were like, great, we're finally getting our legs under us around some really the important legislation and regulation.

What if you can't get two or three Republican centers on board for a federal ban of abortion, and he just calls them and says, Hey, on the down low, you're old, you're leaving. I can give you 10 million in crypto to your fund or to another account you name, and no one will ever know. No one will ever know. Oh, Taiwan or China, you're about to invade Taiwan. We don't need to do it, Covrularly. Just call them, Oh, Sudan, the largest, arguably humanitarian disaster globally right now. More people are dying in Sudan every day than in Ukraine. What if he just calls both of them and says, It's eBay for geo politics. Whoever buys more Trump coin gets US intelligence and some of our heavy armaments.

Or Smelania. It's called Smelania.

Nobody has to know. I can sell it. I can buy it. Buyers and sellers, totally opaque. This is Drifter City. America is more from a platform that used to be about prosperity and making money. I think that's wonderful, such that we can tax these people and again, invest in the middle class. It's important to have that ambition. It's important to make money. It's a wonderful thing. But we also were a platform for civil rights, for rule of law, for electing a group of people that had laws that recognize conflicts of interest such that they could think with some level of patriotism about preventing a tragedy that common long term and do what was right for all Americans. Then we could project those values overseas and try and advance women's rights, try and advance democracy, try and do away with honor killings, and do away with child marriage. We could project art. Now, all of that has been crowded into a tiny little box, and America is essentially becoming a platform for how do you make the jump to light speed, and it's a hunger games. If you make money, you have a remarkable life, and you get to sit up front with your hot wife.

But everybody else, unless you have money, sorry, folks, you're not on stage. This really has gone.

Then they run media, they run everything. They have a lock.

The meme coin, his coin is literally the democratization of kleptocrat. I see.

This is the thing people must pay attention to and do as much reporting on as possible as this bribery system that they've put into place.

It may have already happened.

We don't even know. We don't even know. We don't even know. We don't even know. Of course, they've now captured the IRS, so there's not going to be investigation by the SEC. They've captured the SEC. There's no way to... It's up to reporters who they're putting the pressure on to be silenced. A lot of people are definitely pulling back. I mean, a lot of the coverage was like, Look at the pageantry of normalcy of power. They didn't mention felon once. They did mention the insurrection several times. Isn't it ironic? This is where the insurrection happened and they're sitting there. They're all sitting there as if nothing happened. They did mention that, but For the most part, everyone's going to be pulling back. They are. They're absolutely going to be pulling back, and you're not going to see it. That is what Russia is. Russia is a broken, hollowed out state full of people, haves and have nots. Of really making nothing, no innovation. Instead, just that tableau of the tech people up there should tell you every single thing you need to know about this particular, what's about to happen. Hopefully, Really? There'll be pushback.

We'll talk about that in the next episode. What is the actual pushback? What is the way to control it? Because they do have their hands on the AI, they have their hands on crypto, they've got their hands on me.

Which, by the way, they revoked that executive order. That was one of the executive orders they undid.

They did. Biden's AI. Biden's AI, which was quite a good, fair one, I thought. They just don't want any business. This crypto thing is really bad. It's just, as you said, Scott, democratized corruption. All right, one more quick break. We'll be back for Wins and Fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some Wins and fails. I think I'll go first. Sure. Yesterday, someone who I really had a high regard for, Cécile Richards, who I recently interviewed in June, died of brain cancer. She had suffered from it. She used to be run Planned Parenthood. She did an amazing job. She's the daughter of Anne Richards, who was the legendary Texas governor. Just an amazing woman, just devoted to public service, devoted to helping women, very articulate, moved Planned Parenthood forward in terms of health care. Everyone always focuses on the abortion part of it, but it's a very important healthcare system for a lot of people. Just a tireless fighter and a decent person. I know the left has a reputation being scoldy or anything like that. She just was dignified. She She was strong. The fact that she died on this day, let's remind you, it's MLK's day, too, and it is his day, period, not just two, was really sad.

She was an inspiring figure to me and many other people, and so her life was a win. I would contrast that to the demented interview that Andreessen did with the New York Times, where all manner of inaccuracies, but mostly a poor, broken man who had something happen to him in his childhood, which is unclear, just is taking it out on the rest of us. What a ridiculous victim mentality he has. It's so sad. Please read it because you can see the problems I've had with him over the many years is never his fault. It's always someone else's fault. Someone's getting in his way. He has to use inaccurate historical and other references to make his points. Just comparing the two of them, I just couldn't think of a bigger contrast. Someone who is dignified and a real contributor to society, and this guy who certainly has contributed, but just can't bring everybody else with him in the journey of his life.

There you go. My win is, I just think you got to give it to the guy. My win is Trump. I think his just trying to call balls and strikes. I think this is arguably the most iconic, remarkable political comeback in history. I hate to acknowledge it, but the guy left under the cloud of an insurrection. Since then, he's been a convicted felon, and yet he managed to exploit weaknesses. There were many in the Democratic Party who were seen as totally out of touch with real-world issues that affected Americans, and he legitimately won the presidency back. I think it's bad for America. I did not vote for the man, but I just think you got to give them their due. I think they ran a masterful campaign. To say we'd be sitting here four years after this mob invaded the Capitol, I think it's remarkable. It's the most remarkable political comeback in history. That's my, I don't know, awkward or uncomfortable win. My fail is, again, we are not a serious people. We're in the World Health Organization, we're out. We're in the Iran nuclear deal, we're out. We're in the Paris Accords, we're out.

We're in, we're out again. We're banning TikTok, bipartisan legislation, Commission, signed into law, oh, just kidding, we want to do a deal. Our ability for our enemies and our allies to take us seriously around anything has been so dramatically diminished. No, you can If you do this, if you don't cooperate with our enemies, we have your back. Do they take us seriously when we say that? No. You can turn over information to protect American service people if you give us information on the Taliban's movements, and we will make sure that you are safe and we get you out. Will they take us seriously now? No, you should not invade Taiwan. We will reciprocate. We will defend Taiwan as an ally, and we will defend them. Do they take us seriously at our word? We are not a serious people. The back and forth, the lack of consistency, the lack of respect and regard for established treaties, precedents of the previous president is hurting us. We are no longer a nation We're a platform for making money in dividing the spoils amongst an increasingly few number of people, such that they can take their third wife or second wife or whatever it is to the inauguration, and whoever's richest gets to sit at the front as first lady Melania asks for someone to give tribute in her...

We have fallen so far, so fast. I'm also, quite frankly, a lot of blame resides with traditional Democrats for providing just an opening here for being this, in my opinion, out of touch with regular Americans' real issues. Anyways, my fail is that we are so inconsistent around our policies, even our laws we don't want to enforce, and we are blinking left and right. We are not a serious people.

Yeah. I think there has to be a different political leader among the Democrats that is really either just... I don't know, because then you do the tit for tat thing. You do what Biden did with the pardons. You lower yourself. That's right.

Race to the bottom.

You have to lower yourself. It does have, speaking of Roman salutes, it has an end of Roman Empire vibe to it. It definitely does. Never been more powerful, never been more prosperous overall, not for everybody.

Karl Marx, capitalism collapsing on itself.

Yeah, it's a disappointment because we have so much. But the panoply of those tech people, I cannot believe. That's what I can't believe, having covered these people. I wrote in 2016 that they were sheeple. Boy, are they sheeple? Boy, was that a good call?

But let's be even handed here. Aren't you really disappointed in Tim Cook?

I'm really disappointed in Tim Cook. Absolutely. I know why he did it. I get it. But Satya Nadella wasn't there. He didn't have to be there. Maybe he did. Maybe he did. There's all kinds of behind-the-scenes things happening that I don't know, that we're not privy to. I'd like it to be in front of the I'd like an explanation. I think it's probably just shareholder thing. Sam Altman was there. There were lots of people there that didn't want to be there. That's for sure. I told you, I got a text from someone saying, I hate myself more than I think you hate me right now for being here. I was like, I doubt it. I see why you are, but it doesn't mean I hate you less than you hate yourself. But there is a point where you have to say... The thing that Democrats do is they this huffy indignance about it. How dare they? This stuff. Just don't show up like Michelle Obama. That's what you do. Mother Pence didn't show up, too, by the way. I bet they were throwing back shots at a bar together. Fuck that guy. You have to create a whole new narrative and story about America for people that gives them hope and makes them feel like it's fair and not that panoply of bullshit with those people.

They looked good, but it did look like the hunger game, Scott. I think you're right, 100%. Anyway, on that happy note- Lauren Sanchez, we need you. I would rather her be President. She's very smart.

I heard she was an impressive woman.

She's smart. I've met her. She's smart. I think she could do a lot more with her intelligence.

I don't know. I think she's doing pretty well.

All right, whatever.

I don't know. I think she's doing pretty well.

She's an adjacent, brilliant person, but she should be in the center of things. More Mackenzie Bezos. I'm sorry, Lauren, but I think she's running circles around you in the end. Historically, she's going to run circles around you. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag. Com/pivot. To submit a question for the show or call 8-5-5-5-1-pivot. By the way, if you want to see more Lauren Sanchez, go check out her thread, Scott. She really put them up. She put up a lot of photos you might like of herself. Really? Oh, yeah. I'll send them to you.

That's all I need is Kira Swischer sending She's giving me nude photos.

Well, it's almost nude, but just go watch it. It's very performative. I'm going to keep my words to myself. It's unusual to look at, but she does it all the time. Anyway, good for you. Good for you, Lauren, if you want to do that.

I'm in favor of that. I'm going to send her a Trump coin.

Okay, all right. Elswhere in the Karen Scott universe, I recently spoke with Yonder CEO, Graham Degoni for On with Kara Swisher. You'll like this, Scott. Yonder is the company behind those pouches getting used at concerts and in schools lock away phones. It's a physical manifestation of the problem. We have these things. I really like this product, and this guy was fantastic. Graham, explain to me why it's so important for kids to be separated from their phones in schools.

What's really important for young people in education, I think, is mostly developing critical thinking faculties. Absolutely. When you think about the type of assignments they're getting, the tools at their disposal, I think the risk is that young kids are becoming information retrieval machines, and that's not critical thinking. No matter where we think we're going as society.

I love that idea. Information retrieval system.

Without that, we're not going anywhere fast. That's not necessarily a native faculty. It's a muscle that has to be flexed.

Anyway, it's great. He was so interesting. I thought you would like him a lot, Scott. I kept thinking of you throughout the show. In any case, Yonder, Jonathan Haight loves Yonder, for example. You have to really just get these things out of your hands because they're so addictive. They're addiction machines. I love this business. It's pretty simple. He's doing a bunch of other things around on getting your phones out of your hands for just a short time of the day, at least. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Would you please read us out?

Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Irtad, engineer of this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms. Severio, and Dan Shulon. Nishat Kruwa, Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcast. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at mymag. Com/vox. Com. Magazine at nymag. Com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great week.