Transcript of World Cup Controversy, Trump Accounts, and DOGE Farewell

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Have you ever thought about it though? Has it ever, like, gone into the brain?

Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott is off today, so I brought in the one and only Anthony Scaramucci, the Mooch, podcaster, founder of SkyBridge Capital, and author of the upcoming book, which is getting a lot of kudos, All the Wrong Moves. And I think I gave you a blurb, Anthony, didn't I?

I got a blurb out of you. Hey, listen.

I never give blurbs. You know that.

I gotta, you know, I had to use the crowbar, ladies and gentlemen, to get the— I pivoted on pivot. I had to use the crowbar to get the blurb out of her, but it worked.

No, it's a big deal when I give a blurb. I gave one to you. I've given one to Ari Emanuel. Those are the only two. But I used his to insult him, so.

I'm looking forward to his book, actually. I think I—

It's good.

I feel like you're gonna learn a lot about Hollywood in that book.

Actually, you learn a lot about him, I have to say.

Okay, better yet then. If I'm learning more about him, then better yet.

It's got a sadness to it, actually. It's got a depth to it. How about a depth to it? Like struggles that he had, and he never shows it.

Oh, yeah.

I think what you and I love about people is authenticity and honesty, and it sounds like we're gonna be getting that from Ari. So I look forward to the book.

Yeah. All right, but so be honest with me. You were at Taylor Swift's wedding, weren't you?

Well, I'll be really honest with you and tell you I would've liked to have been invited to Taylor Swift's wedding because when you look up in the dictionary, name dropping and star fucking, there's a picture of me. But alas, I was not invited to her wedding.

It made no sense, the invitations. I mean, I got the dancers and everybody else, like her, all her friends and her cousins and everything, but the celebrities were just odd. It was so— they were, some of them were obvious, like, You know, Bradley Cooper and those kind of people. But, you know, like Adam Sandler being the officiant was interesting. It was such a dog's breakfast of celebrities. It was fascinating. What do you think?

Well, what I love about it is it was original and it was true to whatever they wanted to do. You know, at the end of the day, it's your wedding. Have at it.

Oh, I liked it.

And they went crazy. I mean, I one time got married with a lot of fanfare in a Roman Catholic church. The second time I got married, Deirdre and I got married in our living room. So, I mean, you know, you— It's a time in their lives. They're both first-time married. I wish them nothing but great success with their marriage. But you know what? If you don't mind, I'm gonna give them a shout out because they did list 20 charities. And I'm on the board of City Harvest, which is one of the largest food banks in the country, if not the largest. And they gave $1 million to City Harvest. And so God bless them for doing that because we have a lot of food insecure people in our great city, Kara.

Yeah, they gave a bunch to Dolly Parton. They gave a bunch to all these like amazing, they gave $26 million, which is 13,000,000 15 times 2 if you're a Taylor Swift person, which is her favorite number. But it was really interesting. What was interesting is how they handled it. I was gonna compare it to the Bezos wedding. I wanted to be fair, but for some reason that one felt awful and this one cracked me up. And I don't know why the difference, 'cause it was obviously an over-the-top wedding. It was directly in the middle of New York City, which I loved. And of course they did it to protect them. You've been to Madison Square Garden 100 times, right? Presumably.

Yeah, no, I consider Madison Square Garden one of my homes. I'm a Knick and a Ranger fan, but I, I think the difference was the Bezos wedding was trying to be the Venice Film Festival, but for the Bezos family. And this was like, hey, we're corny people and we're gonna have a little bit of a cornball situation go on and we're gonna do whatever we want. But oh, by the way, we're good people. We're gonna write some big checks to charity. So, and listen, you know, I'm all about if Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Bezos, if they wanna spend money like that, God bless. I have no problem with it. I know other people get very upset with it. My attitude is, you know, You know, you make the money, spend the money, no problem. And people forget how many jobs are tied to events like this. You know, you've got porters and waiters and you've got people in the hotels. And to me, I like people spending their money because it goes into the system and it takes care of a lot of people.

On an experience, right? Now, what's really— it was to me was interesting is one is theirs was rather private, even though it was in the middle of New York City. One, there weren't— you haven't seen pictures, very many. You've seen very few pictures come out, and the ones that are out are just people, "Hey, I'm going to this wedding," and sort of bragging about, which I'm fine with. The Bezos one was so performative, like waving from the docks and the outfits and everything else. And I think that was one of the differences. I suspect there's gonna be a movie of the wedding. I suspect that's coming for all of us.

Let me ask Kara Swisher a question though. Would you have promoted that you were going to the wedding? Would you have had like a selfie, a Swisher-like selfie?

I kind of would have to, 'cause it was such a strange group of people.

I'm totally shameless. I would've been promoting it. Promoting it. I would have had— I maybe even gotten a drone for myself.

Yes, you kind of have to. Yeah, following you.

Because I'm a revolting person.

Yeah, I think they wanted that. I think they wanted that. And I did like that even the celebrities were like showing off, right? Like, "I was there. Oh, by the way, I was there." And showing off their dresses. And it was a little bit like the Met Gala. But what was fascinating to me is very little leaked, and it seemed adorable. It just seemed— I like everything Taylor Swift, and Scott doesn't. But I felt like— Now I'm thrilled for you here, because you probably like her. What's not to like?

What's not to like?

I mean, let me, and I like success stories, you know, God bless her. What's not to like? All the girls, every kid likes her. God bless, you know? And by the way, he's won, you know, how many Super Bowls did the kid win? He won 2 Super Bowls. 3. 3, okay, there you go. Come on.

I know, they're a very handsome couple.

Although I will say this about him and he can respond to me. He can direct message me on Twitter, probably be mad at me. He has the thinnest arms.

Really?

And the least amount of biceps of any tight end.

He's a hunk.

Well, take a look at his orbs, okay? I'm just saying this kid is very slender for a tight end, which made him, in my opinion, faster, quicker, and a better receiver. I don't see him as a blocking tight end. He's almost like a third receiver for Mahomes, which was part of the warfare there and part of the offensive success story.

Yeah, I guess. I don't know what you're talking about. He looks handsome to me, and I'm a lesbian. I think he's hot.

Am I allowed to say that I'm also a lesbian? Or probably it's not appropriate.

Yes, you may say that if you'd like.

Okay, yeah.

That's my pronoun.

But anyway, I was happy for New York to do it. And it actually was in juxtaposition of something happening down in Washington, which was just a disaster. But first, let me start first, since we're talking about sports. President Trump's officially inserted himself into the World Cup. This is really bad. I even— I know this is bad. U.S. soccer star Fulleran Balogun is set to play against Belgium after FIFA overturned his one-match suspension from a controversial red card. Trump personally called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to push for a review of the decision. Trump posted on Truth Social saying, "Thank you for doing what was right and reversing a great injustice." As we tape on Monday, Belgium has been granted the right to appeal the ruling, so things may have changed by the time you listen to this. I mean, why did he do this? It seems like it's just sort of sullies. And by the way, reminder, Trump was awarded the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize in December.

Thoughts?

Well, I mean, I think we, if you're ever on Jeopardy, they don't answer the, they don't ask the questions like this, but they say, What organization in the world is more corrupt than the Donald Trump White House? The answer is boing, FIFA.

Boing, yes, FIFA.

That's the answer. So, I mean, so, you know, it's like the two of them got married and did something very corruptive and delicious to the world's most favorite sport. But to me, 'cause I wanna channel Trump for you, so get the barf bags out, guys, 'cause I wanna tell you exactly how he thinks. I am the man. Everything is about me. Let's insert ourselves. Where's the attention this week? Oh my God, there's billions of people watching the World Cup. Well, I gotta get myself inserted into that.

Right. And Taylor, he tried to insert himself into the Taylor Swift wedding. You saw that. He tried to do that.

He tried to do that 'cause she hates him, he hates her, blah, blah. But let's just roll. Hello, Butlick. Howard. Howard, are you there, Butlick? Okay, get some evidence together. Okay? And then he calls Infantino, who we're calling Sick Infantino, and he says, "This is what I want done." And he basically does it. And everyone's looking around scratching their heads and saying, "Wow, this is low for America." Because it just makes us look crass. But to Trump, he's patting himself on the back. You know what he's saying?

Really?

Wow.

"Nobody could have done this other than me. This is like another war that I solved. I need another FIFA Peace Prize." Look, FIFA is very corrupt.

And I did a whole show on this about the corruption and the ticket sales and everything else, but the games seem to be going well, right? People seem to be enjoying. The people here from other countries, you had Cape Verde, you had Mexico last night. Even I am paying attention to this a little bit. But this sort of, it creates, does it create a problem here if this guy gets, by the way, just for people who don't know, this soccer star was born in the United States. His parents are from London. So he's the birthright citizenship that Trump rails against at the same time, which I think is kind of, of course, ironic. It's not ironic. It's typical.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's Trump. You know, he doesn't even— he's probably not even aware of that. And so that's another big irony of the whole thing. But just remember, it has to be about him. Enough of me talking about me. What do you think of me? And how can I get myself inserted into every situation?

Even if it's controversial, it's sort of— sullies a US win if there is one?

Yeah, you see that? Okay, so now that's FIFA's position. They're like, okay, the Americans aren't going to win anyway. It'll mean more ratings. But somebody, look, that was supposed to be done on the QT, and then Trump can't help himself. He's got these AI-generated Truth Socials, which are incredibly revolting, where the guy's pulling out the Trump card on the ref saying, yeah, you're trying to throw me out, but I've got the Donald Trump Trump card, so I'm back in. And so what happens is it's just a turnoff to people. And I gotta say this to you, Karen, and I'd love to hear your opinion on this. I thought the games were going great for America. I thought people were coming in very— I thought the place was so hospitable. And I'd be like, "All right, well, America's finally getting a slap on the back from Brazil." That's 'cause he was out of it.

He wasn't near it.

That's why. Exactly.

Exactly. And speaking of being near, I mean, I think it'll just— You're right. If the Americans don't win, it hardly matters, which is probably what Infantino was thinking. He also marked America's 250th birthday, which was up a dud by giving a speech. It was essentially a MAGA rally on the National Mall after storms delayed the event. He honored veterans and astronauts while also touting his own record and pushing for the Save America Act. He also focused on his latest obsession, communism, saying communism is a loser and it will always be. The night before at Mount Rushmore where there was hail, a lot of weather his way, which was interesting, he called communist menace a greater threat than Pearl Harbor and 9/11, arguing American identity is under renewed attack. I thought communists were losing. And speaking of threats to American identity, hundreds of masked members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front marched through DC on the 4th carrying Confederate flags and chanting, "Reclaim America." Those photos were kind of bizarre to look at. They were on the subway. Talk a little bit about what was happening. And also, you couldn't see the fireworks because there were too many of them and too much smoke.

And there's smoke all— We all have been advised to stay inside over the next day or two in DC because of the heat and the particulates from the fireworks, which nobody could see. Very easily. Talk a little bit about this communism thing. I hadn't heard communism from him. So thoughts on what's happening here?

Well, it's Mondani related. This is all related to the electoral success that the Democratic Socialists have had recently. And this is also related to the speech that the mayor of New York gave from George Washington's desk, which obviously was very polarizing to some people. My arch nemesis, Steve Bannon, somebody I can't stand, actually nailed it, in my opinion. He said, "Hey, you better pay attention to Zohra Mandani because he's a great communicator. He's got a vision for things. He understands where people are and how upset they are." Especially young people. Exactly. And Trump's response is to label everything with a broad brush that it's communism, Karl. And I think that's a big danger because when you do that, you're missing the elements of what's got people upset. And this isn't communism. If you listen to his speech, I sort of felt like it was Scandinavianism. It was Northern Europe. It wasn't communism. And Trump's trying to label it something that it isn't. And he does that very successfully at a lot of people.

Who's thinking of this? Who is this successful? Because everyone's like, communists? I haven't thought about communists since the Cold War, essentially.

Yeah.

So I don't think it's going to be successful because you remember Zohran Mandani is not flat-footed. When you're calling Hillary Clinton crooked or Joe Biden sleepy or Jeb Bush low energy, they're more like standard politicians and they're a little flat-footed. This guy, in my opinion, has made one mistake. I won't name the billionaire, but when he doxxed a billionaire in New York City with social media, I thought that was bad. I mean, because you don't want to put people in harm's way. If you want to put a peer-to-peer tax in and people can pay it, no problem, but don't name the people because you're going to get—

Agree.

You're going to make people in a dangerous position. But to me, this kid has only made one gaffe and I I wasn't a supporter of his. I think the city's a lot cleaner. The city looks very safe to me. You said to me last week that New York is back, New York is flourishing. Is that not true?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. When you go there, it's hard to walk the street. It's so full and vibrant and exciting. And along with the Knicks, the Taylor Swift thing, there's a lot happening there. But having the white nationalists show up again was sort of my— I was like, "Oh my God, them again?" In those weird outfits they wear, the blue shirts and the khakis. With the weird white mask that they have to hide themselves because they're not proud of who they are, presumably.

Yeah, well, okay, but you see, you see what's going on. Elon Musk said that this was a, uh, a false flag operation. This is, uh, hard left people that are sending out these white supremacists. And there was a photo of a young African-American woman on the bus with them, and people saying, okay, that photo was contrived. Okay, I don't believe— I don't believe any of that, by the way, but I'm just I'm just saying to me, they're doing that for publicity. They're doing that for the shock and awe effect. And unfortunately for this country and perhaps most countries, we do have racist assholes in this country and we do have white supremacists in this country. But unfortunately we have somebody in the White House that sort of blows the dog whistle for these people as opposed to denouncing these people or ignoring these people. He's like, "Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun. Can you guys bring the matches over here?" Right, right. "Let's light the doorframe log for the white supremacist." on fire. That's the stuff that I really can't stand.

It's all around the Save America Act though. I mean, that's really the focus. There's story after story of him, the desperation of either passing this or pulling some emergency powers, declaring a national security emergency around voting and everything else. To me, that's where everything funnels down to is this fear of November.

That's a good point. Yeah. I mean, listen, I mean, that's the goal, right? We gotta get Black and brown people not to vote. And so we're going to get ICE agents out, we're going to scare you. I've got to get this legislation passed, the Save America Act. And if we get that passed as well, hopefully you'll stay in your house and we can organize as much of the white vote as we possibly can to win these elections. And so Trump said something people should really listen to. If I can get this thing passed, We won't lose an election for the next 100 years. Did you hear him say that?

Yeah.

He said that. Pay attention. So now thankfully Thune is American enough still where he's blocking Trump and he's stopping him. But listen, what comes next is the answer, Kara, because I think we got Trump. I think the courts have knocked him to the ground a notch. I think his age is getting him. I think some of the podcasters have broken from him. Some of the traditional Republicans are just waiting out. Okay, so I think we got Trump. I'm worried about the next lunatic that shows up with the same message, you know?

Yeah. Any thoughts on who that would be?

None of the current lunatics, you know, they, they don't, they don't have the rizz, Kara Swisher. It would have to be a young lunatic that we don't know right now.

Not Tucker Carlson. I've never asked you about Tucker Carlson. How do you look at him?

You know, Tucker is a typical dweeb in the high school. Like, I wasn't a clique guy in high school. My uncle owned a motorcycle shop, so I did have a leather jacket, but I was also the captain of football team, so I was, like, not into the whole clique thing. But Tucker would've been that kid that was, like, a sneaky bully. And so, a sneaky bully is, "No one's looking, I'm gonna poke Kara in the eye." Okay? "No one's looking, I'm gonna do something devious or pranksterish to somebody that's weaker than me due to my insecurities." Right? So, Tucker wasn't the out-and-out bully because when you saw that guy, you'd just walk up to him, punch him in the face, and make him go away. And so, what Tucker does, he's like a dodgeball bully. Bully. Okay, so hear me out. You remember when you were in elementary school? You were probably the smart kid in the back lurking with the ball.

I was too small to hit. I was always the last kid before to get hit.

Of course. And you were always waiting for the big jock to hit the other jock, and then you snuck up and hit the big jock, and you won.

Correct. Thank you.

Okay, but Tucker is a dodgeball bully. Okay, he's been sneaking around bullying and terrorizing people, okay, for his adult life. And now he's got a very big, broad podcast that he can do this on. My buddy Chris Cuomo, people should go look at the tape. He took a karate chop to Tucker's Adam's apple as he was spouting his BS about Russia. Okay? And Chris doesn't give a shit, just took him to the ground. And so I say to myself, number one, is he on the take from Russia? I don't know. So I'm not going to say yes or no, but he uses Russian talking points when he talks.

He does. Yeah.

Now, number two, he's all of a sudden anti-Israel. Israel, and we can debate that. I'm not saying Israel's got a great brand right now. I think they've had a lot of mishaps. But you went from pro-Israel hanging out with Huckabee to now you're anti-Israel. And I'm like, "Guy, what are you doing exactly?" And you know what he's doing? He's feeding the ducks of his audience. Okay? So he's a dodgeball bully who feeds the ducks of his audience.

Does that give him a chance or not?

No, no, he's got no chance. And I think he's a complete tool. Also, if Trump is alive when he announces his candidacy, Trump is going to send orange-maned cruise missiles up to Maine and blow Tucker out of the water. Because one thing about Trump, he knows the Achilles heel of people like Tucker. And I predict Tucker won't run.

No.

Because listen, that is a big boy sport, as you know.

Yeah.

It's not podcasting, it's not hanging around waiting for your next massage. It's like, okay, we gotta get on the road. And you can hate Donald Trump, but Donald Trump is a grinder. I watched him, you know, 8 in the morning till midnight. Let's grind this thing out. Tucker doesn't strike me as that.

I see.

No, pass me the nail file. I'm about to get a mani-pedi. Tucker Carlson, the dodgeball bully.

Can I ask you one last question on this?

Yeah.

So what's Trump's move? We got July, August, Everything's quiet. What does he have to— He doesn't have much time till the midterms besides trying to stop the election itself. What does he do now? How does he get attention? What is he going to do?

Well, we have more revulsion coming. And so on July 19th, he'll be in the Meadowlands. He'll be at the New Jersey-New York Stadium handing the trophy to somebody who has won the World Cup because Infantino, Sicca Infantino, is going to let him do that. So that's going to be a big day for him. Lots of attention on him. He'll have billions of people watching. He'll be very happy about that. Right, exactly. And he's announced his grift to the public. Okay, so if you ever thought that he hasn't learned from the KGB, he has actually, because what does the KGB do? They spy out in the open, right? Remember John Le Carré would explain to you that the person shows up, they look like a KGB spy, they act like a KGB spy, so you don't think they're a KGB spy, but guess what? They are one. And so Trump is like, "Let me announce to you my grift." Drift. Okay, and so here's all the different things I'm doing. He even put the $15,000 of Infantino tickets that were given to him on his financial disclosure, the FIFA tickets that were given to him. So, so what he's gonna do is he knows he doesn't give a shit about his party, he doesn't care who wins the election as long as he's not overly investigated, he's going to pardon himself and his family.

He's going to try to make $10 billion over the next 2 years.

All right, well, that'll get us into— so that's what he's working on. That's what he's gonna do.

Yeah, he, he's about glory, self-aggrandizement, and moolah. Those are— that's the holy trinity inside his brain.

All right, okay, well, we'll talk about that because we're going to talk about something that you know a lot about, which is cryptocurrency. Okay, Anthony, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, millions of investors lost billions on Trump's meme coin.

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Anthony, we're back. Nearly 1 million people who bought President Trump's meme coin have lost a combined $3.8 billion. Guess where it went? At the same time, Trump disclosed earnings of $636 million from the meme in 2025. Trump profited whether the coin price rose or fell, collecting fees every time the token was traded, which he, which is called a vig, which he often prompted his followers on Truth Social to do. Meanwhile, Michael Saylor's Strategy has abandoned its famous never sell Bitcoin, wasn't a holder anymore mantra. The company is launching a $1.25 billion monetization program to raise capital with Bitcoin sales, already sold $216 million. Trump's disclosure, by the way, showed active trading of Strategy shares. Where, you know, for people who don't understand what's happening, we talked about this last week. He made several billion dollars largely related to crypto, very small amount in real estate, similar, similar to what he always makes in real estate essentially, nothing more or less. But there's a lot of, you know, and of course the kids have their own grifts going on and Jared and Ivanka have their own grift. So talk about how we should be thinking about crypto now and what happened here with Trump.

Well, I mean, it's important that people understand how dramatic this grift was. I mean, he needs an Academy Award or a FIFA World Cup trophy. Maybe FIFA will give him the grifter, you know, price of the— you know, we gave you the FIFA Peace Prize, but the grifting has been so good, here's the FIFA Grifter Prize. Because this is unbelievable. And just to put it into context for everybody, all of the publicly traded crypto companies combined made less than Donald Trump did in crypto. Just so everybody disclosed. He made more money than Coinbase, Kraken, put them all together. Kraken's not public, but you get my point. They do disclose their financials. And remember this, okay? Trump's disclosure was 927 pages. Barack Obama, his was 8 pages. Okay? So this guy filed a phone book. He didn't file disclosure. But the crypto stuff is so bad. It is so egregious. So many people lost money and the differential of $3.9 8 billion losing and him making 800. It's just to me insidious. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this to you, and I know you get this. The Emirati royal family bought $500 million stake in his company before the inauguration.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Okay. So I don't know, you tell me, that was just a, hey, that's a nice gesture. Hey Cara, how are you doing? You know, there's a Cara Swisher, it looks like it's from your longevity documentary behind you. I'd like to buy that from you for $500 million. $500 million just because, you know, you're a nice person, Kara? Is that how the Emirati royal family treated that situation? Right. So to me, it's again, I'm taking the money. And by the way, you stupid crypto bros, what did you think was gonna happen? Oh, you thought I was supporting you? No, no, no. This Clarity Act, which everybody would like to get passed, that can't happen because my opposition hates me and they're gonna vote against it to spite me. And oh, by the way, that spites you. Aha, guess what? I didn't care about you. I didn't care about your industry.

Right. So what happens to the crypto? What is happening? Like what Saylor has done, obviously he's been super aggressive and you've been deep into crypto and Bitcoin particularly. Where does this hurt the Bitcoin business? Because it was actually improving allegedly under Trump with all these, you know, the regulator, Gensler was gone, everything else. Where does this leave crypto now? 'cause it then has this taint as the World Cup has of Trump's finger, dirty fingers all over it.

Yeah. So nobody likes me in the crypto community for saying this, but I'm gonna continue to say this. Gary Gensler was a pain in the ass to the industry. But you know what Gary Gensler did? He blocked a lot of the lowlifes and a lot of the people, a lot of the scammers out of the industry. Trump has opened up the floodgates and became the scammer in chief in the industry. So people said, well, this is gonna be great for the industry. It's not great for the industry. You would want the mama bear. You would want propitious and ordinary transparent crypto regulation with a defense system against scumbaggery. We didn't get that. So when Trump announced that meme coin, Kara, I was at the World Economic Forum with Brian Armstrong on a panel and I said, "This is going to be very bad for the industry." Because this makes us look terrible. And his opposition, there are young Democrats that would probably support the cryptocurrency industry that are looking around saying, "I can't do it now because of what Trump has done." And so to me, I think it's a big issue. You mentioned Saylor, so we might as well bring him up.

Michael's got to be careful because he's an absolutist and he's an extremist. So he said at one side of his mouth, "I'm never selling my Bitcoin." You should sell one of your kidneys to buy and hold Bitcoin. But he's got pressure on him and he's got a cash imbalance. And so guess what he's doing? He's starting to sell his Bitcoin. Like Michael's not gonna take advice from me and I like Michael, but I would say, Michael, you become part of the story. Go on your yacht, sail off into Sicily somewhere, stop tweeting about Bitcoin, get out of the storymaking business. Because what happens in a situation like this is like a fighter squadron. Let's say we got B-17s, about to strafe Berlin and one has engine trouble and is lagging behind the others in the squadron, what are the Messerschmitts going to take out first? They're going to take out that one. And this is Michael right now. So get out of the story. I wouldn't sell any more Bitcoin, by the way. Your job is to have Bitcoin go back up and you getting out of the story will probably help that. I'm long-term bullish on Bitcoin.

I think we're in the typical 4-year cycle where we've corrected 50%. We could correct more, but I think the long-term bias for Bitcoin is up. And I think if you hold it for 5 years, you're gonna be well situated.

Here you have Trump sort of dirtying up the industry in a way. What needs to happen from a bipartisan? How can it return to a way where you don't have, you know, too much regulation and at the same time you zero out all the scammers?

So I, I, I think there's only one thing, and that is time and demography. So I think if you're above the age of 60 and you're in the Democratic Party, you hate crypto. I think if you're below the age, if you're in the 50 to 60, you're crypto bi-curious, but you're like crypto-skeptic. If you're below the age of 50, you're generally like, okay, I get this. And there should be an ecosystem allowing us for tokenization and for general improvements of the financial services system. Services/fin tech community. And so I think he set the industry back. I think it'll be 3, 4, 5 years before we see the right type of regulation. I wanna be wrong, you know, Cynthia Loomis, Tim Scott are saying that the Clarity Act is gonna get passed. If you go to the poly markets—

Explain what the Clarity Act is.

Okay, so the Clarity Act in the most simple elevator pitch is exactly that. We're gonna offer you clarity on regulation associated with crypto. Where is Bitcoin going to be regulated, at the CFTC or the SEC? Where are these other coins going to be regulated? What's going to be allowed in the industry? How are we going to deal with stablecoins? Are they going to be able to pay interest on their, the balances that you put at a stablecoin company? What will the banks be able to do? Will we charge the banks on their balance sheet, which they would do right now if I held my Bitcoin I can't hold it at JP Morgan, but if I was able to, they hit them with an overcharge on their capital account. But let's say they could segment it out. Will the money center banks eventually be able to custodian Bitcoin? And so why are we calling it clarity? Because the pendulum has been swinging back and forth between the administrations. You get hard left-leaning regulation from the SEC, then it swings back to hard right-leaning regulation light regulation. We were having regulation by enforcement under Gensler. Now we're having light-touch regulation.

This would provide a clear signal to Democrats and Republicans, here are the laws as legislated by the Congress, signed by the president. And so this is the interpretation bandwidth you have now as opposed to this, this wider bandwidth.

It feels like grift again. That's what it has more of a nervousness around it because the Trumps are around.

Well, let me explain why it does though, because all Gillibrand and these people are asking for is, okay, we don't want the president's family to steal another couple billion dollars of crypto. So can we at least legislate or create a rules-based system that's ethically guided? And the White House said, no, we like when the president steals. Scott Bessant said that the $2.4 billion that he took is a sign of US innovation is what he said in an interview, this guy. I mean, you know, you got to be kidding me. I mean, it's just literally unbelievable.

This guy, Jesus.

But you know what it is? It's like a sock puppet at this point. It's like that used to be a person, like Prince, formerly known as Prince, that used to be a person formerly known as Scott Bessant. He's now a sock puppet for Caroline Levitt and Donald Trump. Okay. And you're saying that with a straight face in an interview, guy? I mean, come on.

Yeah, I know. I agree. So small thing, July 4th officially marked the end of the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOJ. In a post on X, the agency said, while the formal mission of DOJ has come to an end, the mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse will continue. Good stewardship of taxpayer dollars and accountable government are not temporary initiatives. Researchers estimate DOJ's cuts to USAID and humanitarian aid contribute to hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. DOJ claims it saved taxpayers about $215 billion through spending cuts. The original goal was $2 trillion. Many people feel it costs the United States, actually. One thing we won't be getting is a final assessment of what actually accomplished. Budget Director Russell Vought recently told Congress, "We have no plans to publish a closing DOJ report." Of course not, because if they did a good job, they would tell you. I think this was just, as it turned out, as I said it would, it was a nothing burger of massive proportions and actually led to death of people around the globe, especially children. So any final thoughts on DOJ? Just another waste of time?

Well, I mean, again, There was a doge. It was the Clinton-Gore reinventing government.

That's right, yeah.

I just wanna remind everybody, we took 426,000 jobs and we eliminated them over 8 years through attrition and buyouts and process redesign. And what I never can understand for the life of me is, I think I'm a reasonably smart guy, but I know I'm stupid in a lot of areas. But if I had a B.A., B next to my name. You have to explain this to me, Kara, 'cause you hang out with these people more than I do. So I've got billionaires that troll me on Twitter 'cause they're smarter than me and they know more about everything than I could possibly know. Yeah, they do. But, and I understand that, yes, you know more about neurology than neurologists and more about the military than the military. Yes, you have a billion dollars, you're the smartest. I understand that. But why wouldn't you have gone 25-year veterans of the GAO, the Government Administration Office, and said, "Okay, where are the worms in the system? How can I plug a few holes? I'm not going to save a trillion dollars or $2 trillion, but you know from an engineering perspective, the structural design and the embedded costs of the government, what could we do to stop some of the bleeding and how could we do that gradually.

And they didn't want to do that because why?

Because they wanted to please Elon and let him jump all over the place with, I don't know, I think he just was to please Elon. I think Elon felt like this was important. And that's where they had the falling out over the tax bill when he started to show what he really was made of, which was spending more government money. And I just think it was just all an act. I thought it was all nonsense and idiotic and possibly gave Elon and his minions access to lots of secure government data. I always thought it was about the data, but that's just me.

Well, it was definitely a missed opportunity because we could have gone back to PAYGO legislation that got us to the budget surplus during the Clinton era. Yeah, sure was, yeah. We could have gone with a Clinton-esque, Doge-like system that was bipartisan. We could have said to our fellow Americans, Hey, we're not gonna fix the problem in 10 years, but you know what? Over a 20-year period of time, we need to deal with this. We could get the debt, we could get the spend in line with where the GDP is. And we didn't do that. And you know what's gonna happen? And you know this and I know this, my buddy Ray Dalio knows this. You're gonna have an American president in 2036, 2040 dealing with a $55 trillion budget deficit. Mm-hmm. And they're gonna be sitting there saying, okay, the money's not worth anything anymore because 'Cause the only way we can pay for this, guys, remember, unfunded tax liability is what a deficit is. That's what Milton Friedman said. All deficit spending, unfunded tax liability. And guess how we're paying for it? We're using the most pernicious and most regressive form of taxation because we're cowards.

We're using inflation. And so we're gonna blow out your bank account. You think you got $1,000 in your account. It only has $750 worth of purchasing power 'cause that's our way of monetizing our debt. And that's a problem. And that's one of the reasons why I am long gold and one of the reasons why I'm long Bitcoin, because I do think that these will be part of the, as we reinvent ourselves once again, they will be part of the answer to the way the monetary system works in the future.

Yeah.

This was a missed opportunity and it was all performative. Performative. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back, the pros and cons of Trump accounts.

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No one could blame you if you thought this Men's World Cup was going to be a disaster. The president of the United States isn't exactly a welcome mat for the world, and there have been plenty of embarrassing stories for the country. There was the mom of Cape Verde's goalkeeper who wasn't let into the United States to watch her son play until the team started doing well and people clamored for her entry. The team from Dr. Congo hadn't made a Men's World Cup in 52 years and hardly made this one because the United States was supposedly worried about Ebola, even though no one on the team had Ebola. If you were watching Senegal-Norway last week and were wondering where all the Senegalese fans were, they weren't let into the country. But you probably noticed we let in like a million Vikings. Grrr! I wonder what's different about their fan bases. Oh, and who could forget we're literally bombing one of the countries that, up until Friday, was playing here. "Missiles aren't the problem." But, but, somehow the vibes at this World Cup are mostly positive. The World Cup might just be healing us, on today's Explain from Vox.

Is Donald Trump still cool?

Well, at first, it was what he was promising to America.

He was promising change.

Yeah, he promised change.

That's a big thing.

Has he lived up to that?

No, no, I wouldn't say so.

I would say so.

I'm disappointed.

We're in Washington, D.C. for one of the events that Donald Trump is throwing for America's 250th anniversary, and it's UFC night.

Proud to be American. We got free tickets. It's just gonna be a great time.

That's about it. It's an opportunity to talk to a group that was central in the 2024 election, young men. Why do we think Trump and men seem to have a connection? I feel like he just knows how to advertise himself to the younger crowd.

It aligns with masculinity, I feel like, to a certain extent.

But if they don't like Donald Trump, what do they prefer politically otherwise?

I care about my family. I care about my country. I want people to be safe and happy where they live.

I care about my wallet too, man. I'm Estet Hernton, and this is America Actually. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Anthony, we're back. Speaking of trying to make money for American citizens, Trump accounts, which I hope will— the name will be changed after he leaves— the new investment accounts for children have officially launched. Trump marked the occasion by ringing the bell to open the markets from the Oval Office on Monday morning. 6 million Trump accounts have already been opened for children under 18, according to the Treasury Department. A fraction of eligible kids— it's a small amount, actually— babies born during Trump's term between 2025 and 2028 will receive $1,000 deposited seed money in these accounts. The Social Security Administration is introducing a process for parents to enroll their babies in these Trump accounts at the hospital as they register for Social Security numbers. We've seen a number of individual and corporate donors to these accounts, including Michael Dell and, as you mentioned, Ray Dalio. The latest is SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who just announced she's donating company stock. What do you think about these accounts? I'm not necessarily against them. I don't, I think it's, I just, I feel like grift will happen because Trump's involved with it. And at the same time, I feel like maybe we should just have, you know, childcare.

Maybe we should just have healthcare. Maybe if she would just have these kind of things that cost people. I don't mind forced savings, which essentially this is. And I have accounts for my own kids for college and things like that. But, and everyone should be able to avail themselves to them in a tax-free basis. And at the same time, relying on the stock market's problematic from my perspective. But go ahead, let's hear.

Well, I wanna listen, you know, I have to say this one straight for me as a Wall Street person. I like this because even if it's gonna be 6 million people, that's what it looks like right now, getting these people auto-enrolled in the stock market and the idea that they have some investment, which means they're technically invested in something. And if it could spark some aspiration, if it I think it sparks some interest in long-term thinking and saving and investing. I like those things. You know, listen, Michael Dell, I think gave $6.25 billion. I know he's a very wealthy man, but I think it's a very generous statement that he's trying to make. I don't like the Trump name on it, but of course, anything that Trump does, he's gonna have to put his name on it. He's trying to get his signature on your money. He's trying to get his face in your passport. He cannot help himself. But here's the thing I would say about this, and people should really be concerned about this. This number, 40% of the Americans own nothing in a retirement account. And I want you to think of the pressure on that.

And so that also, we do know this and we don't teach it in school, and perhaps we should. We know we have a lot of financially illiterate people in the country. And if you're listening to this podcast and you're financially literate, don't look down on those people. Figure out a way to educate those people because more educated people and more financially literate people will mean there'll be more self-sustaining people, and there'll be people seeking their aspirations. So I do like this one. Trump is taking more credit for it than he deserves. This was an idea that was proposed 10 years ago. Lots of people blocked it. I think, believe it or not, Vice President Harris, if she was president, would've accepted this at this point in our culture. You're making a different point though, and I would just say not to conjoin those. The point that you're making, which I agree with we need a platform of good food in the school so the kid doesn't go to school unhealthy or hungry. We need some sustainable educational ideas and we need some healthcare for these kids. That's more important than putting $1,000 in their savings.

I accept that. But I would just say to you, Cara, and people listening in, you gotta deal with the world the way it is, not the way it should be and not the way we want it to be. And so this one, I like, and I would like to see more billionaires, I'd like to see more people do this.

Giving money. So is this like, although some people feel like OpenAI doing it as a way to get a bailout at some point, or you give him the money and he takes credit for it and then you get some sort of break of something else, that giving money these things gives you something else?

Well, that's been the case with Donald Trump. I mean, we've learned that. You give him money, you buy a documentary from his family, you get more rocket contracts, You line up behind him, he takes care of you. You know, you've got people that have given him money or given money to his PAC and Howard Butlick has written them out of certain tariffs and has gotten them an exemption on certain things. So yes, we know that there's a pay-per-play system going on. And so yeah, there's people thinking, you know what, I'm gonna give this, I'm gonna get the tax cut and Trump's got 2.5 years left. I may need a favor from him and he's the guy that pays for play and I can get in there and ask for that favor and probably will get it done. There's a queue of people, and I'd be very interested, I'm not an investigative reporter, but I would love somebody to work on this. There's a queue of people that are lined up for pardons. And I know it's in the tens of millions of dollars is being paid to get these pardons. They're hiring lobbyists, they're hiring attorneys, they're buying, I don't know, fragrances from the family or they're buying—

Right, all manner of Kellyanne Conways.

Yeah, they're buying meme coins, I don't know what the hell I don't know what they're doing. But I'm sure there's a legion of people, they're like, "Hey, we got a 2.5-year window. We broke a lot of laws, but this guy could pardon my ass." And this is Trump's personality. Rather than using the norms in the system, he breaks the norms and then he brags about it. "Only I, only I could have gotten our player back on the field. Only I could take in billions of dollars for myself. These other presidents were stupid. They could have made billions of dollars for themselves, but I'm the champ." Genius. You see what I mean? And it's very corruptive. And let me tell you what it does, which pisses me off the most, if you don't mind, because we grew up similarly. When I was a kid growing up, maybe Richard Nixon was corrupt, but he wasn't so corrupt that I thought the system was broken and unfair.

Right, absolutely.

I looked up at the system, I said, "All right, the guy's probably corrupt, but you know what? If I go to a good school and work my ass off, I can move classes in this country." This guy is putting a suppression on middle and lower income people. They're like, "Holy shit, there's a two-tiered justice system. You're either one of the president's crony friends or you're not. And if you're not, you're not going to make it. And I'm going to do way less economically than my parents did. And I don't have any hope and I don't have any chance. That's what the corruption does in a society. And that's what pisses me off the most.

Yep. I would agree. I would agree. So we're both sort of for these things, but it just seems like I'd love to get the Trump name off of it. I almost signed up for one. I almost did. But then I was It seems like I have enough stock holdings. So last thing, very briefly. So Mark Zuckerberg told Meta employees the company's AI agents aren't advancing as quickly as expected. Like a lot of corporate people, Zuckerberg said Meta's AI reorganization hasn't delivered the results the company had hoped for, though he expects progress over the next 3 to 6 months. In May, Meta laid off around 8,000 employees and reassigned about 7,000 to AI-focused teams. Zuckerberg said this move is not as clean as it should have been. Meta is expected to spend as much as $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year. Everybody's a little worried about it. Even Palantir, the Palantir, even though he said it in a crazy way, was making a lot of sense around the high price of tokens, the effectiveness, the safety of your data, whether you wanna hand it over to these things. All signs of possible highs of this spending.

Do you think, how much impact, how much patience do investors have if companies keep saying progress is slower than hoped, including the center companies? Companies in this?

Yeah, well, I mean, you, you know the answer to that. I know the answer to that. They have patience until bam, they don't have patience. And this is very reminiscent of Global Crossing and very reminiscent of Cisco. And you and I are old enough to remember Web 1, where we're building the infrastructure, we're putting all the switches in, we have all these transatlantic, transpacific cables, we've got cables coming down the, uh, Persian Gulf all the way into the Strait of Hormuz, and we are going to electrify and globalize everything. And they overspent and they had too much leverage in the system as a result of which, like a real estate speculation, the system got built but it collapsed and the people that were owning the equity and were buying the hopium at that time actually got crushed. And so what I'm fearful is also the way this stuff is booked, right? 'Cause if you're spending on the R&D and then someone else is booking a profit at the same time, to me you've artificially stimulated some people's earnings, particularly the data centers and things like that. And so I'm worried about that because that's exactly what happened in Web 1.0 and you and I are old enough to remember that movie.

And that movie ended in tears. Yeah, that wasn't a happy Hollywood ending.

Oh no. Then there was Google, then there was Meta, Then there was, you know.

Well, yeah, well, that's the bet. So now you've got your cards, you're playing this hand, you gotta hopefully you can close your position out before the thing blows up and then you wait for whatever replaces it, right? You know, listen, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves.

Yeah, I'm just saying.

Okay, you remember the search engines, right?

Remember Internet Capital Group? Scott and I were reminiscing about that.

Remember Internet Capital Group? Remember the boom in Internet Capital? They named the page, I knew it was over when they named the Patriots Stadium the Internet Capital Group Stadium or whatever the holding company was. And so, so to me, what I'm worried about here, and I think it's fair to be worried about this, is this is a great technology. I think it'll add to productivity, it'll boost things. The internet certainly did that. But as we invest, there were pockets in the railroad industry that blew up, pockets in telecom, that blew up. And there's gonna be pockets here that blow up.

Do you expect to blow up? Because a lot of economists are suddenly sounding alarms now. It took years before that happened in the one you were talking, Global Crossing and everything else. It took several years before it broke essentially.

Well, you gotta tell me where rates are going. You, you tell me where the rates are going and I'll tell you where the fuse is. Because if we manage to stave off, despite the economic data and the specter of current inflation, and remember we, we've had 100 basis point differential on rates meet expectation. So if you and I were doing this podcast January 1st, "Anthony, what are you expecting? 3 25 basis cuts this year." What is it now? We flipped it over to 1 25 basis point hike. So that did affect a large part of the markets. It did affect crypto and obviously gold also sold off as a result of that. But if you're telling me we have a 50 basis point, 75 basis point rate increase due to the quagmire in Iran, all the assortment of different things, things, you're gonna shorten that fuse. Somebody could say, "Hey, I'm gonna miss a bond payment here, sorry." I think it's very telling, Kara, that Facebook, which mints money, and Google that mints money, I think they combined went out to raise in bond market activity something like $140 billion in the last 6 weeks.

And so that's telling you something. They're like, holy shit, we're spending so much money, we better get another $100 or so billion in reserves. Curve here to protect ourselves and to create a layer of protection on the interest rates that we're going to be paying.

We're going to be paying. So we'll see where that goes. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

1, 2, 3. I'm stand-up comedian John Marcos Cerezi. And I'm actor, penis model Russell Daniels. The Downside is our podcast where we bring on guests to talk about about how miserable their lives are, because let's face it, things are not getting better. Every episode we talk about what's wrong with our lives, our guests' lives, the world, but in a fun way. Bottom line is you're gonna walk away feeling better about your life. We've had so many cool guests: Caleb Hiron, Busy Philipps, Stavros Halkias, Laverne Cox, Hasan Piker, Ilana Glazer. I promise you're gonna have a good time.

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A lot of us probably grew up with mountains of video game stuff.

Cartridges, consoles, discs, other discs, broken discs, more discs, everything. And now it seems like those discs are gone.

This week on The Vergecast, we're talking about why the gaming industry is going all digital and what it means that that's going away.

Plus, whether Rivian can take on Tesla, whether whether any of us can figure out how to vibe code, and much more on The Vergecast, wherever you get podcasts.

Okay, Anthony, let's hear some wins and fails. You go first.

Well, listen, I mean, we talked about it, so I think the win of the week is the Trump accounts. Actually, I, I don't like to call them that, but I want Americans to get into the saving and the investing mindset. Mindset, and certainly if you can get children into the saving, investing mindset, it could be a life changer. So I think that's the clearest win for me. The second clearest win, which is obscure to people, but I think it's meaningful, is the birthright citizenship. And we talked a little bit about that last week on my show. I think that is the big message. I say, "Sorry, you know, you pushed and shoved us around. We are afraid of you here at the court." But you know what? It was a 6-3 decision. And we're gonna stick with the Constitution over the orange maniac. And I, and I think those are two big wins. All right, so losses for me are FIFA and sick of Fantino. I think this is a big loss for him. And I think, and I think weirdly, you know, and sadly, I think he's, I think he's hurt the game. And I, and I think it sucks because the World Cup to me is about togetherness.

You know, when you wanna love people and you wanna love I think of the World Cup. I'm like, "All right, look at all these people." The happiness and the sadness is based on a sporting event. It's not based on a war. I love the whole environment. I love the whole carnavale of it. And I just think the notion that this guy poisoned that too, it's like he won't stop at anything.

Yeah, he won't stop at anything.

So those are the wins and those are the losses.

That sort of goes into my fail is the continued sucking up of people like Bessant and others about like, "Yes, there's plenty of people behind me." The cultism is so strange and it's so, at some point, when are you gonna say the emperor has no clothes? That kind of, which I don't wanna see Donald Trump naked necessarily, but this is—

Have you ever thought about it though? No, no, please don't. Is it ever like, 'cause you're an imaginative person, has it ever just gone into the brain?

I have a sense of what it looks like and it's not good.

And the whole like, it's like an open Spam can. Like you just opened a Spam can and there he is. There he is.

Have you thought of that?

Open Spam can with a penis, which a bent penis, of course.

Well, you don't know.

Confirmed to deny that. It just could be an open spam.

I believe this. I believe porn stars is what I do. Um, but, uh, I, I— the sycophancy is just astonishing. And Douglas Burgum in particular, with the whole thing around the reflecting pool— I mean, first of all, everything, like that fair, nobody was there and they were pretending they were there. That was hysterical. But he was going on and on about these cuts and without any proof. And then when the— why are you meeting people? Why don't you "Accept this." And they're like, "'Cause you're a liar, Doug Burgum." Like, to me, he seemed to be a— Even though he's an obvious suck-up, obvious suck-up, but the level of suck-uppery is really— And I'm like, "You're not stupid and you're sucking up." And that, to me, was really a fail. I thought that— I just can't believe it's gonna continue. I just don't know when it's gonna stop. And I'm sort of waiting for the moment where somebody points to him and says, "You're naked," essentially. My win is— So, over the holiday, I went to see Supergirl 'cause everyone didn't want to see it, right? 'Cause it's You know, it's this big disaster for Warner, and people aren't going to see it.

And I have to tell you, it's a pretty good movie. It's a pretty good movie. I know it's not gonna win. I see the numbers. I could see why it would be hard to get a man to go to it. It's pretty woman-focused. There's a sex trafficking thematic. It's dark. But I do think this actor who's in it, Millie, I think it's Alcock, is amazing, was amazing. And I think it's a lovely, I think it's a good, it's a really solid, it wouldn't, There have been some bad movies in this genre, in the superhero genre, and lots of bad ones. This is not one of them. And I'm sorry it's not doing better. I bet it has a life outside of this time. Later, it'll become a cult favorite, I think, 'cause it's really an interesting and strange movie.

Oh, I'll definitely go see it. Look, I'm a big Superman aficionado, and I love Supergirl.

Yeah, she's really interesting. It's dark. But it's dark, and I can see why people wouldn't necessarily go to it. So I get it. I get it.

I get it.

Anyway, and of course, the biggest win of the week is Taylor Swift. Congratulations. Congratulations with you and Travis getting married. It's just—

Nice. I mean—

Two crazy kids. You two crazy kids. I hope for the best. I hope you can make it, both of you.

That's great. But you know, if guys, I would like to be, if you're probably not gonna have another wedding, but if there's an anniversary party, Kara and I would like to be invited because—

We will go. We will send for you.

You may have invited me to this, but I may have just missed it in the mail, but I, you know, I would like to be there.

Agree. We will be there for you. Anyway, Anthony, I really appreciate it. Just for people know, we wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Www.pivotsmag.com/pivot. Submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, that is the show. Thank you, Anthony. As always, people can check out your book, "All the Wrong Moves" this fall. It's a really terrific book. Thank you for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Again, Anthony, thank you so much.

It's always great to be on with you, Kara. Thank you guys.

Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin and Todd Wiseman. Ernie Anderjadt engineered this episode. Thanks also to Kate Gallagher and Brad Sylvester. Nishat Kurwa 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. And hello, Scott, whatever yacht you're sailing on in whatever fancy sea, we miss you.