Pivot

Iran War Spin, Trump's Legal Losses, and TMZ Targets Politicians

68 min
Apr 3, 20264 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Anthony Scaramucci joins Kara Swisher to discuss Trump's Iran war speech, multiple legal losses in federal courts, the SpaceX IPO valuation debate, and the Kristi Noem scandal. They explore whether the U.S. is functioning as a rogue state, the role of social media in political tribalism, and predictions for Trump's remaining term including ground troops in Iran and potential self-pardons.

Insights
  • Trump's legal losses across 10+ cases suggest institutional pushback is working, but even defeats expand constitutional boundaries for future presidents through maximalist legal arguments
  • Memification and personality cults around tech founders like Musk create valuation premiums disconnected from fundamentals, but retail investor loyalty has proven more durable than short-sellers predicted
  • Political repression of personal identity and sexuality among conservative figures manifests as projection of anger onto broader policy, suggesting psychological roots to authoritarian governance
  • Citizens United created a 'separate but equal democracy' where gerrymandering and unlimited corporate funding make politicians unaccountable despite 14% Congressional approval ratings
  • Every 80-year cycle America enters crisis requiring systemic reset; social media tribalism may prevent the post-partisan redemption needed this cycle
Trends
Maximalist executive power doctrine being tested across multiple courts simultaneously, establishing precedent regardless of individual case outcomesTech IPO wave (SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic) driven by personality cults and retail investor memification rather than traditional valuation metricsInstitutional resistance to executive overreach showing resilience across federal judiciary despite political pressurePushback against social media and AI relationships growing among younger demographics and parents concerned about mental health impactsBipartisan political accountability through media exposure (TMZ model) emerging as informal check on congressional hypocrisyBitcoin bear market cycle following predictable 4-year patterns despite geopolitical volatility and regulatory uncertaintyLongevity and wellness becoming depoliticized common ground issue across ideological dividesGrifting through political action committees normalized with 15-30% consultant skimming becoming standard practice
Topics
Iran military escalation and ground troop deployment strategyTrump executive orders and constitutional challengesBirthright citizenship and 14th Amendment interpretationSpaceX IPO valuation and Starlink business modelOpenAI and Anthropic competitive positioningBitcoin 4-year cycle and crypto market regulationSocial media addiction and mental health impacts on youthPolitical repression and MAGA movement psychologyCitizens United and campaign finance reformCongressional accountability and gerrymanderingLongevity science and genetic testing (methylation defects)Political action committee fraud and consultant skimmingKristi Noem scandal and political hypocrisyUnitary executive power expansionPost-partisan leadership and systemic redemption
Companies
SpaceX
Filing for IPO with $1.75 trillion valuation; Scaramucci disclosed personal investment in private rounds
Starlink
SpaceX subsidiary providing satellite internet; Scaramucci sees potential in orbital data centers powered by solar en...
OpenAI
Planning IPO as soon as September; competing with Anthropic in AI market with significant market share advantages
Anthropic
Now most valuable AI company; Scaramucci disclosed 140x return on early investment; Claude competing against ChatGPT
Tesla
Discussed as example of lost competitive moat; market share declining from 70% as competitors enter EV market
Amazon
Referenced as missed investment opportunity; $10k IPO investment in 1997 worth ~$20M today
Berkshire Hathaway
Scaramucci holds as core portfolio position; Buffett historically skeptical of internet and crypto investments
Microsoft
Dropped nearly 25% in value in first three months of year amid broader tech volatility
Oracle
Stock fluctuating after laying off thousands of employees
Palantir
Hit by market downturn alongside other tech companies
xAI
Scaramucci disclosed investor; merged with SpaceX; Grok AI competing in LLM space
Saudi Aramco
SpaceX IPO would exceed Saudi Aramco's record IPO size by 2-3x
Kuiper
Amazon's satellite internet competitor to Starlink; example of future competition in space data
TMZ
Publishing photos of lawmakers on vacation during shutdown; expanding political coverage at intersection of politics ...
People
Anthony Scaramucci
Guest discussing Trump administration, markets, tech IPOs, and political dysfunction; disclosed investments in SpaceX...
Kara Swisher
Co-host of Pivot; author of Burn Book; launched longevity-focused limited series
Scott Galloway
Regular co-host absent this episode; referenced as potential post-partisan transformational leader
Donald Trump
Central figure; Iran war speech analyzed; 10+ legal losses discussed; cognitive decline debated; predicted to pardon ...
Elon Musk
SpaceX IPO valuation debate; memification effect on stock valuations; Tesla market share decline discussed
Sam Altman
OpenAI planning September IPO; competing with Anthropic in AI market
Dario Amodei
Leading most valuable AI company; Claude competing against ChatGPT
Kristi Noem
Subject of scandal involving husband's fetish community involvement; grifting through political action committee with...
Corey Lewandowski
Involved in Kristi Noem scandal; allegedly leaked story to deflect from their grifting activities
Lee Zeldin
Predicted to replace Pam Bondi as DOJ head; described as formerly reasonable but now MAGA-aligned
John Thune
Criticized as cowardly for not challenging Trump; bypassed TSA at Reagan Airport; called 'poster boy for cowardice'
Pam Bondi
Predicted to be replaced; DOJ described as becoming Trump family law firm
Mark Cuban
Suggested as potential post-partisan transformational leader capable of systemic reform
Warren Buffett
Historically skeptical of internet and crypto; admitted being wrong about internet investments
Harvey Levin
Publishing photos of lawmakers on vacation; expanding political coverage
Xi Jinping
Predicted to play role in Iran resolution; Trump delaying meeting to negotiate oil and uranium access
Teddy Roosevelt
Referenced as model for transformational leadership breaking up monopolies and holding robber barons accountable
Abraham Lincoln
Referenced as model for heroic leadership required to reframe political argument
Peter Thiel
Described as intellectual driving maximalist constitutional interpretation; dislikes Constitution's messiness
Lindsey Graham
Referenced in context of MAGA repression; spotted at Disney World with bubble wand
Quotes
"He's going to bomb them back to the Stone Age speech. So this is going to be the speech when historians look at the wreckage of Donald Trump. They're going to say, what were you guys doing when you let somebody that inhumane into the White House?"
Anthony ScaramucciIran war discussion
"Trump cares about manipulating the market. Trump cares about making money from the market for himself and the people around him. He doesn't care about your portfolio or your market."
Anthony ScaramucciMarket discussion
"The number one indicator of longevity is don't be poor because you don't get the right food. You don't get the right healthcare. You don't get the right living."
Anthony ScaramucciLongevity discussion
"We're living in a rogue state. Parts of it. We're living in an executive that wants to take more power than ever, which is something that happens in Silicon Valley."
Kara SwisherConstitutional discussion
"It requires somebody that doesn't care about the power structure. And that's why I can't name somebody because everybody that's in the power cares about the power structure."
Anthony ScaramucciLeadership discussion
Full Transcript
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Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. When it comes to home improvement, even the most experienced DIYer has a limit. I'm not going to come in here with the blow torch and get it hot and solder and put the copper pipes to come. I'm not doing it. I call it a very nice man to handle it. When to call the experts and when to do it yourself. That's This Week on Explain It To Me. Find new episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Think you're Scott Galloway? I don't think so. Why, is he ever late, Scott Galloway? Oh, is he ever late? I'm sorry. She's yelling at me like she's my mother. She's my Italian mother. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. Scott is off today and I'm joined by the man who may or may not be running for president. It's Anthony. It's Kara Mucci, the Mucci lawyer, podcaster and founder of Skybridge Capital. Hello, Anthony. How you doing? All right. I'll stipulate right here on this show. You're my running mate. We're going to go for it, Kara. You and me the day after April Fool's. I'm your running mate. Let's go. I'm your running mate. Let's flip that, strike that, flip it. Oh, okay. You want to be the president? Okay, Craig. I'll be your running mate. Okay. I'll grow a beard like JD Vance. Okay. Oh, please don't do that. A emphasis on the word beard. Okay. What are we talking about today? Anthony, there's so much going on. I just don't even know. Explain, people. You put up a fake April Fool's thing about running for president, correct? Yeah. I thought it was fun. I mean, the reaction was sort of crazy, actually. But I thought I was just going to be fun. I know. I was real for a second. Like, why not? Given the craziness of this world. Well, I mean, the truth of the matter is we could be doing better than we are doing right now. That's my honest opinion. You think? But I've never felt that political calling, but my staff made up that Moose 2028 hat. Yeah. Yeah. And they said, let's put this out for April Fool's. I said, okay. I know how to play the jokes. Yeah. It was good news. Last year, I wrote that Elon Musk had given me a job at Doge. A lot of people thought that was true. You know, I don't know. I don't engage in April Fool's. It's a hot. I don't. I get tricked by them a lot. But I like it. I believed it for a second. Honestly, I was like, what? And I sent it to the staff. I was like, is he running? I mean, again, you never know. Anyway. Let me stipulate. I'm not running. I'm running for reelection of my marriage. Yeah. Okay. And the parrot knows my wife. How's the polling going? Is it bad and strong? The polling is going up. I could be term limited. That's the one problem with my marriage. I'm worried about that. That's true. I'm not running for reelection of my marriage. My wife has a political platform of castration. Yeah. I'm not. I will not be running for president. Yeah. But anyway, it was a good April Fool's job. We're getting into marriages in a second. But I don't know if you're aware. I've taken over Times Square. Have you seen my giant billboards in Times Square? I love it. I'm going to be coming to your thing and congratulations. Yes. They gave me two billboards. Have you ever been on a billboard? It's freaky. Not that I'm aware of, actually. I don't think I've ever been on a billboard. Yeah. Well, it's very exciting. They're all digital now in Times Square. As you know, in the old days, they used to be actual billboards. When I was a kid, they had the Marble Man. Remember, he smoked in Times Square. Yeah. The little puffs of smoke came out of his ... Yeah. You and I are roughly the same vintage. Yeah. I'll share something with you that's obscure, but it'll just tell you how we were raised compared to how the people are being raised now. I went in March of 1972 at the age of eight to the Godfather Premier. What? My uncle Orlando Scaramucci. Wow. Okay. And I sat in the balcony. I didn't understand anything about the movie, of course, but I thought it was a cool thing. When we were waiting outside the theater, I saw the Marble Man puffing the smoke. Yeah. Now, we would never do that to our kids now because we helicopter them and we shelter them, but I was watching ... I think that's a good helicopter. That feels like a really acceptable helicopter. But everything's digital now. It was quite something. All these people sent me pictures of me with them. And it's like nine feet tall. It's a weird ... It's definitely a weird feeling. Well, first of all, congratulations. Thank you. The show looks awesome. It is good. I love the ads on the show and it's a very topical, lively thing. Yeah, longevity. You know what's cool about that show? Everybody wants that. It doesn't matter what your political stripe is or who you are as a person. If you're enjoying this life on planet Earth, you want to add a few years to it. Yes, yes, exactly. I want everyone to come together. That was my whole goal in the sand. It's true though. Everyone is asking me, but I do want to be for everyone and not just rich people. And that was the goal. It's like, what's working? What's ridiculous? What did you tell me the other day? There was a bunch of stuff that you were doing that I thought was too much. What was it? I think I've learned a little bit about ... I have that methylation gene defect where I can't methylate certain vitamins. That was actually very helpful. I took that genetic test and then they give me different types of vitamins that I'm able to absorb better. That actually lowered my blood pressure carousel. Oh, good. Good. So that I think does work. Which ones do you take? Can I ask you, would you mind telling me what you take? You take methyl guard, I assume? That's exactly what I take. Yes. So 70% of the population, according to my doctor, has this genetic issue where they can't methylate certain vitamins. This is valid science. Okay. So that's all valid science. What that did was it brought down something called Homocystine in my blood, which is an inflammation marker. It makes your kidneys a little bit tense. And so it was creating a little bit of high blood pressure and it was creating a little bit of inflammation in my joints. So by taking that down, my blood pressure dropped and it wasn't anything more. And by the way, it's a natural amino acid that they give you. It is indeed. And that methyl guard that reduces it. You know, look, I'm 62. You look good. And I got the good Italian skin, thank God. But I'm keeping it together, but I think that stuff has helped me. And it's not the, you know, I've gone into some life transformation cell and coming at it or anything like that. No, you're not that guy. I'm not that. But I have taken the genetics. Scott takes, tries anything that goes by, any crazy shit that goes by. He's always like, I'm trying this and he abandons it and stuff like that. Anyway, it's an interesting issue and I want more people to be more healthy because actually the number one indicator of longevity is don't be poor because you don't get the right food. You don't get the right healthcare. You don't get the right living. It's stressful living conditions and stuff like that. And that we can help more people out of poverty or get them to a level of feeling not stressed. The healthcare savings are massive. We're going to live forever. That's what's happening. There are certain people on planet Earth that don't want you and I to live for our carer swisher. I want you to live forever. Thank you. It's mostly a joke. But so speaking of someone like that, Donald Trump says the war in Iran is nearing completion, but the U.S. will hit Iran extremely hard over the next two to three weeks bombing the country back to the Stone Ages, which is just a lovely term. A 19 minute address to the nation on Wednesday night, Trump tried to justify the war but didn't offer anything new. It was rambling. It was problematic. He lied a lot. He also downplayed concerns about economic fallout, calling the spike in the gas price a short-term increase and saying the Strait of Hormuz would open up naturally after the war. He said the same thing about COVID. It would end naturally, which he really didn't. He didn't say anything about putting troops there or falling through on threats to leave NATO. He talks about it but then doesn't do it. Talk about this speech because I thought it really was a big flat zero. It really was flat and nobody was paying attention to it in a weird way, although the markets certainly were. Well, I mean, the speech is about power. CBS News, still in Trump's mind, the Tiffany Network, said, hey, no problem. Our reality show that's been on the air for 25 years, Survivor, we're going to interrupt the programming to bring you this speech. It's not just going to be a cable news speech. It's going to be a network speech. Trump was like, hey, definitely doing that. That shows you a little bit of the corruption of the media. I think he has decapitated. The reason why your show is doing so well is that he's decapitated corporate media. He's got them chilled. He's got their lawyers triple checking everything they say. Trump's looking at it saying, hey, I'm going to get attention and people on me. I'm going with the speech, even if it's a speech about nothing. But to your point, the market said, whoa, we're likely going to have ground troops in there. We're likely going to have a really tough time and a result of which it was full risk off after the speech. People saying to me, they always say, oh, Trump cares about the market. Trump cares about the market. Trump doesn't care about the market. Trump cares about manipulating the market. Trump cares about making money from the market for himself and the people around him. He doesn't care about your portfolio or your market. He doesn't even care about the polls anymore because he's not running for reelection. So guys, get off of those notions of first term Trump caring about the market and the poll numbers. He has worse poll numbers than Jimmy Carter did at the peak of the oil crisis in 1978, 1979. The poll numbers are terrible. He doesn't care. He doesn't care. So what was the reason for the speech? What is he doing? Why is he making such efforts if he doesn't care? The reason for the speech and as an American- It was a weak speech. I think we'd agree. But there was something he said in the speech that people should be listening to. And as an American citizen that's still exercising my first amendment, right? I denounce it as an American citizen. He said he's going to bomb Iran into the Stone Age. Right. Okay. That was the reason for the speech. And let me explain why that was important. Tell me. That was important because I'm putting the ground troops in. I have a 12-year-old's mentality and when I'm moving stuff into the region, guess what, guys? I'm not using that as a leverage point. I'm using the stuff. So the 82nd Airborne is going in there. So are the Marines. Yeah, 50,000 troops, right? But by the way, General Cain told me that they've booby-trapped Carg Island and they've got all these little Vietnam-like guerrilla things they're going to do to our troops. And our troops are really set up for Cold War Army-to-Army battle. So I've got to spend the next three weeks blasting the living daylights out of Iran before I can get the troops in position. So I'm going to give you this speech and it's going to be, I'm going to bomb them back to the Stone Age speech. So this is going to be the speech when historians look at the wreckage of Donald Trump. They're going to say, what were you guys doing when you let somebody that inhumane into the White House? And so in preparation for this, I prepared something for you. Can I just go over this very quickly? Sure, please. So it is not enough for MAGA the following. We're going to release the Epstein files. Oh, wait a minute. Trump's in the Epstein files. We're not going to release the Epstein files. We're going to bomb people to distract from them. We're going to bomb a school in Iran with young kids in it, mostly women. We're going to create alligator alcatrage, which is this disgusting penitentiary for immigrants in Florida that has sewage back up and we're going to laugh about it while we're down there. We're going to murder people in Minneapolis. We're going to kidnap children and not even know where we're sending them. We're going to manipulate the markets, Kara. We're going to take bribes, particularly a big $400 million jet, and I'm going to keep the jet after I leave. I'm going to excoriate our allies that have been our friends for over a century, and I'm going to threaten to attack a NATO country, Greenland. I'm going to shit all over Canada. And then I'm going to come after your first, fourth, fifth, and 14th Amendment rights in the Constitution. Oh, and oh, by the way, every price in America is going to go up as a result of my tariffs. And I'm going to lower corporate taxes, big, beautiful spending bill. And so if you're making a million dollars or more, you're going to get a $7,000 benefit. And if you're making $50,000 or less, I'm taking $500 of benefits away from you. And this is what I'm going to do, and you're going to shut up and you're going to like it, MAGA. You're still going to support me 34%. But let me tell you what's going to kill them. It's the gas prices. So it turns out that the red line from MAGA, Kara Swisher, are the gas prices. Because they don't want to go into the 250th birthday of America grilling hot dogs at $8 a gallon in gas. And so his approval ratings are going into the gutter. But everything I just read, including the gutting of the Department of Justice, and we could name 50 other things, hollowing out USAID, was acceptable to these people. Scientists attacking lawyers, attacking media. No NIH grants anymore. We're not going to do any cancer research in the country. But you said he doesn't care. You just said he doesn't care. So why do it? It's self-promotion, self-aggrandizement, self-interest. He's doing it because he likes putting people in pain. He's doing it because he's a miserable SOP. And he's doing it because anybody in his path gets destroyed. Some people say nihilist. Other people say nihilist. But that is him. He's attacking Macron this morning. Macron is in his field division today. Then he'll attack another person. Last yesterday afternoon, he said, you know, J.D. Vance is out there negotiating this thing. If it works, I'll take all the credit. If it doesn't, I'll give him all the blame. That is Donald Trump. Can I ask you, is it cognitive issues? I mean, you've spent, it seems like that. That speech last night was like, I hate to say it looked like my mom on a bad day at the nursing home. Okay. So I'm the contrarian on this because I've known the son of a bitch for 20 years. It's slight cognitive issues, but he's not in full on dementia. He's an 80-year-old guy that's a little bit forgetful. He's stooping a little bit. He's lost some posture. Maybe his spine is a little bit weakened through old age. A whole bunch of inflammation. Speaking of inflammation. Yeah, inflammation. His ankles are swollen, but he has not lost it. And whether people like it or not, he has a lot of energy for an 80-year-old. He's moving himself around. And so, but what it is, what it is, is hatred of self and projection of that hatred onto others. And you've got to see it for what it actually is. The other thing is, let's say that, I'm not saying anybody's an agent of Putin, but let's say I was an agent of Putin. Let's just say hypothetically. I happen to be an agent of Putin. And I happen to, oh, I happen to be the president of the United States. So, let me do the following. Let me go after the NATO allies. Let me threaten to pull out of NATO. Let me to pull aid and material from Ukraine, excoriate the Ukrainian president. Let me, oh, here's a good idea. Let me attack Iran. And then a result of attacking Iran, I'm going to lift the sanctions on Russian oil. I'm going to lift the sanctions on their ally, Iran's oil. So, now the Russians are going to make billions and billions of dollars off of this, which will help my buddy Vlad. And I don't know. You tell me. I don't know. How does that sound to you? I don't know what he's doing. I felt like it was slightly cognitive. But he is having a rough week in course, because courts are pushing back on him everywhere you look. It was like 10 of them yesterday. Let's go through some of his losses. A federal judge temporarily halted construction on his beloved White House ballroom, saying it needs Congress's authorization. And Congress doesn't seem to be moving on it. Trump's executive order cutting funding to NPR and PBS was struck down. A judge ruling it violated the First Amendment. Another judge ruled that civil suit against Trump for his actions on January 6th can go forward and that the presidential immunity does not apply to his speech that day, talking to supporters before they march the Capitol. And one more, a judge in Texas blocked a Trump-backed deal allowing churches to endorse political candidates. Trump also was at the Supreme Court on Wednesday very briefly listening to arguments that whether his executive order will limit to limit birthright citizenship is constitutional. The justices seemed skeptical and that's being kind. His latest order, restricting mail-in voting ahead of the 2026 election, is already facing legal challenges and he's going to lose. He's going to lose badly on that one. So pick a case, any case. And I mean, this is what he does. He transgresses with illegal actions and then everyone's picking up the pieces and pushing back legally and he does damage in that wake. He's going to lose on every one of these things, it seems like. Penny, does it matter or would...? Well, I see I don't... The only one he cares about is the ballroom from what I can tell. Well, see, I actually think there's a bigger thing going on here because remember, Trump to a group of right-wing intellectuals is an empty vessel. Okay, so they bought call options on him on January 7, 2021. Low point for Trump right after the insurrection. Everyone said he was politically dead. And so these right-wing lunatics that couldn't get the time of day of Amit Ramney or George W. Bush, they said, let's team up with Donald Trump. He's probably going to come back. He still has lots of mega-popularity and if he comes back, we can take all of this intellectual nonsense that we believe and we can run the card table with Trump. So let's talk about one of the cases, which is the argument against birthright citizenship. So remember, everybody's looking at the case like, oh, he's trying to repeal the 14th Amendment, blah, blah, blah. He's going to lose the case. Oh, ha, ha, ha. I don't see it that way. This is a maximalist position. Okay, this is a group of people to Trump's right, these intellectual imbeciles that want to expand article two, executive power, and they are pushing for a maximalist position. Okay, so every fight, whether it's win or lose, expands the boundaries of what future presidents will try, Kara. And I think this is the point that people need to think about. Even if he loses, like, dead loses. Even if he loses, you just put on the table that everything in this constitution is negotiable. You see what I just did? I went to the court to intimidate them for my base. Didn't work. My base hates black and brown people, and they hate anchor babies, and I'm sending my base a message that I'm fighting for them. Okay, but imbecile, let me just point out something. If you, let's say they ruled with you, you would create a situation that is ridiculous. Okay. And what is that situation? You would have children born in the country that actually have no citizens' rights anywhere, because a lot of the parents' states- Yes, the justices pointed that out. The justices- Okay, so you would have that. They wouldn't be able to work legally in the country. They wouldn't be entitled to schooling. This is a constitutional intimidation. Why do the maximalist thing, when the minimalist thing is how do they get things, that's how they got to abortion. They slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, ate at it. This is going to never be brought up again for 20 years, 50 years. Kara, Kara, I got three years to push and shove you guys. Okay? Now, if I can only get control of the elections, what I can then do is install another right winger to further weaken everything in the Constitution. You know, Peter Teal, these guys, I don't like the Constitution. The Constitution's very, very messy. I don't like these people that I don't agree with. I want the things to go my way or the highway. So I need the orange wrecking ball. I've got three years left. I got to smash into that Constitution as hard as possible. By the way, good news for me, I've already weakened the Constitution in the eyes of 30, 40, 50% of the people. So I got to keep going on this. So they're going to just keep trying to smash until they can't. Even if they don't win. But I have a question for you, if you don't mind. Are we living you and me? Are we living in a rogue state? Meaning. Okay. Well, let's go over what a rogue state is. No, I know. Who's the rogue? Him or us? Well, I have to say that our government is the rogue. Yes. Yes. Our government is the rogue. Parts of it. We're living in a rogue state. We're living in an executive that wants to take more power than ever, which is something that happens in Silicon Valley. It happens in the, which you're trying to apply their Silicon Valley. You spoke of Teal and the others, Silicon Valley management style to the government, which has been growing for decades and decades and decades. That's not a new fresh thing. Some used to accuse Franklin Dental Roosevelt of a similar thing. If you were, you know, I was not alive then, but if you read history. I think there's always been this push for unitary executive power. It just tends to get pushed back every single time because of the Constitution. Let me ask you a different question then. If a smaller nation was indiscriminately striking another nation in direct violation of law and was applying this type of violent behavior, would the Americans, the old school American governments be designating that country a rogue state? Yes. Yes. I would think so. But I think it's a rogue group of people within the state because what I've been struck by is how enduring some of it is, right? You see him push back everywhere. And I know it's, I think one of the things that I think about a lot is it's very easy. When you, when you run for office, you can be, and I don't like to use this phrase as much, but a bomb thrower, right? You can make trouble everywhere. And when you are governing, you change as a governor, right? To govern things and you, you aren't a bomb thrower. So this is a, this is a government that just never governs. It bomb throws and breaks and doesn't fix. Just like, I mean, the White House ballroom is a perfect, like it's, it's a construction pit. They just destroy and I don't even know if that ballroom is ever going to get made. It's a, it's a kind of a physical manifestation of the mentality of just destroy. And once we've destroyed, we've won the fight already because now we have to do the rest of us pick it up. But I am struck by the power of the pushback actually. Yeah. Well, there, there's symbolism in destroying that, by the way. You know, I'm here as a wrecker of everything. And this is the thing that the Americans have to answer for. The American people have to answer for the following. You got a system that got put in place, tremendous checks and balances, tremendous processes. You had statesmen and women abide to the system, even Richard Nixon. And the system made you the most prosperous country and arguably one of the most, if not the most powerful country in the world. And you've now decided that you want to wreck that system. And so, so, and I understand it because you and I grew up with these people. So I understand it. You want to wreck the system because you think the system is unfair to you. There's a few fat cats getting super rich and you're in a full on affordability crisis for yourself. And you've gone from economically aspirational to desperation. So Trump is your avatar for anger. Systems not working for you. Blow up the system. Yes. Yes. Yeah. OK. So but but that's going to be very bad for people. The people that want to blow up the system, it's going to really hurt them. Yes, it will be. I mean, I know that sounds crazy. When I was in college, two guys ran for the student body presidency, right? And they had a whole they basically had a nihilistic thing like we just want to party, we want to spend all the money on ourselves. And they won, right? They won. People were kind of sick of the, you know, the student body president types who wanted to do good government. And there is a moment where I think voters do like chaos, right? But at some point, they don't. They absolutely do not. And I think it does. I think we'll be picking up from this guy for centuries, like it's not a century for decades. And I think it's not a good thing, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing to have to be battered, right? For a second, just to see what holds and what needs to be fixed. And it does allow us to reflect on who we are and what we want to be. I mean, it is it's kind of interesting that we're in this 250 years and it says, OK, what doesn't work? What does work? What do we need to think about? And it does knock everyone into a sense of what matters to them. And I don't think I think it's a painful way to learn something, but I think it's a way to learn things. I do. All right. So this is a big question. OK. And I follow you and I love your podcast and I read your writings. And so I'm going to stipulate something. They're going to ask a very big question. All right. So I believe that this is a very young country and we don't have the cultural mores of Italy, France, Germany. Not a bad thing. OK. Not saying it's a bad thing, but I'm trying to explain to you what happens in our country is we go into the shitter every 80 or so years. Yeah, we do. OK. So 1776 into the shitter civil war. We've lost all the institutional memory because 80 years is enough for the generation dies off. And then we go 80 years out from the civil war. We're in the Great Depression. We go into the shitter again. We have to pull ourselves out of it. And then we build the post-war war to society along with our allies. And we have this moment of great peace, generally great peace and prosperity. But we're 80 years out again, Kara. And so now we're going into the shitter again, which we've been in the shitter. But go ahead. All right. Well, we're in the shitter, but but America has been always in these moments to your point. That you just made reflective, redemptive, and then it renews itself. However, however, there's something going on right now. And this is the Kara Swisher question. All right. Something going on right now, the proliferation of social media. Right. And the addiction of the social media, which has created this tribalism and created these stove pipes. You are correct. The silos. Is this going to prevent us from coming out of the shitter? Are we going to be able to have a post-partisan moment? I think they're finished. These cases that are starting to build up, I think people are it takes, you know, as you know, six cigarettes, 20 years. So this is Philip Morris then. This is Philip Morris again. And everybody is like just a fucking second. And I think I know it sounds crazy, but I have so many people now coming up to me after I wrote Burn Book, which at the time people are like, oh, you're so mean to them. They're such important innovators. People coming down, they're like, you weren't mean enough. You weren't mean enough. Like you weren't tough enough on them. And I think people are suddenly taking control of themselves, whether it's social media. I think young people are. My sons, I see. And that's an anecdotal thing. But I see people pushing back across the globe against the tech. And I think the fact that the technology is put theirs in with Trump was the final moment of, oh, they are the villains, like the Marvel villains. And I think I really do think there's a very healthy pushback happening. And I don't think I feel positive for the first time that people understand what I. It's very optimistic. Look, I'm I hope so. It's very optimistic. I'm going to say something does not reflect well on me or Deirdre. Yeah. I let the kids have the iPad and it was ruining their personalities. And I let them have it for too long. I've taken the iPad away from them and the phones and all that other stuff. I've got my children back. They have been desombified by that process. OK, so a shout out to Jonathan Hayes. Is that how you say his name? Jonathan Hayes. And a shout out to Kara Swisher. A shout out to Kara Swisher for putting out the Surgeon General's warning label before the Surgeon General did that these stupid products give your kids' brains lung cancer. I know it's a mixed metaphor, but you get my point. I'll tell you one one of the themes in this series I did, the Kara Swisher on Slay the Trigger is about the danger of chatbots with kids. You know, I've been talking to the parents and and doing interviews with them. I think the most dangerous thing right now is relationships with AI bots and the sycophantic relationships. And I'll tell you that I'll do a plot spoiler this entire series. Guess what the number one indicator of longevity is? You'll know. Money, right? I don't know. Money, money, of course. Yes, don't be poor. But what's the actual number one? Genetics. No, not sleep, not diet, not exercise. Trust. Friends and family. Friends and family. Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. Community, not just people you know, but walking to a coffee shop and saying, hey, how's your day going? I do that now all the time. People, you know, they look down and you go, hey, how's your day going? They go like this. Like you can see them go, oh, I'm OK. And I go, are you sure? Is everything good? It's it's amazing. If you talk to people you don't know and you have friends and family on you, you live longer. You're happier, you're healthier. It's less costly. It's in and it's not it's not co-relation. It's causation. It's absent. And the more time you spend with bots and online, the sicker you're going to be. Kara, I'm loving you more every every day. Can I put out a public social message to billionaire Dick Weeds? Can I just have a public social message? Hey, hey. Hey, billionaire Dick Weeds, are you out there? Listen to me. OK, no more asymmetrical relationships. OK, if you don't call me, guess what? I'm not fucking calling you. You're not that important. OK, you have to take a crap every day. You have to go to the bathroom. You're really not that important. So you know what? I want to live a long time. So I'm going to have symmetrical relationships and bilateral relationships with people. If you think you're too fucking important to call me back. Yeah, you're never getting another call from me. OK, all right, let's go to the next topic. Speaking of this, we're going to go to Kristi Noe because I brought props. Not yet, not yet, not yet. OK, let's go on a quick break. So we come back, SpaceX officially files for an IPO. Support for the show comes from ShipStation. As much as we talk about AI, it's only as smart as how you use it. 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SpaceX has confidentially, I don't know confidentially, everyone knows about it, filed for an IPO. The filing puts the company in track for a June listing ahead of other upcoming massive IPOs from OpenAI and Anthropic. There's a lot of them coming this year. SpaceX will reportedly seek a valuation of 1.75 trillion. It's not making that much money. The company will reportedly allocate as much as 30% of the offerings to small investors. That's nice. It's really, I'm going to go through a whole bunch of market things, but that's it. I think it's $15 billion in revenue and the numbers are really crazy for this. It's highly overvalued at the same time people will probably run into it. A couple things. Oracle stock has been fluctuating after laying off thousands of employees. Microsoft dropped almost a quarter of its value in the first three months of the year. Worse quarter, OpenAI is beginning to let individual investors access the stock months before its planned IPO. Lots of companies got and hit. Palantir has gotten hit. It's really an up and down thing. Talk a little bit about the SpaceX IPO and where the markets are from your perspective. Of course, if you'd like, Bitcoin, tell us what's happening there since you're Mr. Bitcoin. Let's start with SpaceX. Listen, the cult of personality around Elon Musk is such where he gets an excessive exogenous premium for his companies. They are off of the scale of what- Even if they're suffering like Tesla. Even if they're suffering like Tesla, they get enormous metrical valuation numbers. You're talking about a $1.675 trillion valuation. He's going to raise apparently $75 billion. That would crush the Saudi A rampo IPO record. It's two to three times larger than any IPO ever. He does have a good product with Starlink. He does. We have to tell people that- Same thing with the rockets. We don't know the revenue splits yet between Starlink, the launching business, the defense business. We don't know the breakout of the profitability. We also don't know the capex burn because it would feel like the Starship stuff is a blast furnace, if you will. A blast furnace of capex. Having said that, I want to disclose this to people. I do own SpaceX. I have participated in one of the private rounds of SpaceX. Why did you do that? Because you thought they were far and away the biggest provider? I did that because I see this Starlink being worth a fortune for him. I see this idea, and I'm not saying it'll happen. This is why it's venture capital in my portfolio. I see the notion that creating interstellar or orbital data centers where you're getting the energy from the sun and not from the electricity grid, and you're beaming it back down to Earth using satellite technology, I think that's near science fiction. I think that becomes science fact, and I think he's well positioned to do it. I also think that he's merged Grock into this. I think Grock on its own, which I, again, full disclosure, I was an investor in XAI. I think this Antonio Grasius and I worked together at Goldman. Obviously, I would have been smarter to invest earlier, but he's been helpful in getting me access to these investments. For me, in my venture portfolio, that side of my portfolio, I think this guy has done a very good job of executing. The valuations may be high, but what I've learned in life, and you and I are 40 years as an investor, I missed out on a few things early like Amazon because I was reading Warren Buffett's annual reports, and the valuation for Amazon was too high, but ultimately, the guys that bought Amazon were right. I missed it, and it was a big miss for me. A $10,000 investment in Amazon on the May 15, 1997 IPO is worth almost $20 million today. Right. And so I want to have a few things in my portfolio. Although it could have been touch and go. There was a point where Amazon... 100%. We could be five years from now if you're kind enough to invite me back on. We could be saying that was a big miss for SpaceX. That was a big miss. But again, what I would tell investors is you got to have a little bit of your portfolio in the dream, because it is America, and we have to believe in that dream. Now, I have most of my portfolio in stocks and bonds, and I have most of my portfolio in the Garden variety, S&P 500, some Berkshire Hathaway, etc. But I do own this stuff. Would you buy OpenAI in comparatively... Now, they're in a much more competitive position now with Anthropik and others. Or would you buy Anthropik? So I own both. And I had this nightmare situation with Sam Bankman-Freed, which I've well documented and talked about. But one of the things he did for me... He bought Anthropik. He told me to buy Anthropik, and I bought Anthropik very early. And let me tell you how this works in life. Anthropik is up 140 to 1 from where I bought it in terms of its current private market valuation. So Anthropik is a larger percentage of my net worth than certain legacy assets that I have, Kara. And so this is another reason why I always tell people, it's okay. And by the way, you don't have time in the day for all my zeros and all my stupid decisions and stuff. I had Travis Calanek, because that is... I had him in my office, $50 million valuation for Uber. I said, wait a minute, an unknown guy in an unknown black car is going to drive my 16-year-old daughter around Manhattan. Get out of my office. Get out of it. Get out of it. Yeah. And I missed it. So I can give you all my losses as well. But you got to me... I believe that you have to have some of these in. So OpenAI has its challenges. Obviously, he's fighting it out with Elon and all the different things that we could describe. But I think he's got lots of market share and I think he's going to grow his market share. And by the way, I think Claude is going to win... Anthropik is going to win this case against the government. Trump's going to lose that case too. Right. So when you look around, you look, take these risks. As long as it's not a situation where it's not a real business, right? And in this case, Starlink is a real business. The rocket business is a real business. It's a much smaller business than the valuation by far. Yeah. Especially when you zero out against a Facebook. It's worth more than Facebook. And Facebook has talked about a real, real business. That's significant and ongoing business. And the threats... Scott feels like there's a real moat that they have. I never think there's any moats ever, especially when you look at Tesla, how quickly... A couple of years ago, I was like, Tesla's going to get killed by China and competitors. And everyone's like, no, Tesla's the winner. I'm like, there's no way they're keeping a 70% market share. It's not happening. And of course, it's gone down and down and he lost interest in it. And instead of putting out really innovative cars, he put out the Cybertruck, right? And so once I saw the Cybertruck, I'm like, this thing is, watch out below. But his particular, as you said, he has a lot of misses, but he has a lot of wins. And so you kind of have to go with him in that regard, in this particular thing. Can I add just one thing? Because this is something we have to accept and that's called memification. And so we have to accept that there's a prolific number of B-swarming retail investors, Wall Street bet-like investors that are with Elon, and that there's a personality cult around Elon that is affecting valuation. And by the way, they are way sturdier than any of my short-selling buddies thought. And they've knocked out a lot of my short-selling buddies. So I would just tell people, listen, I'm a market realist. I'm not a market purist. I guess I've read Buffett and Buffett is the papal, edict giver of value. We're going to get the Bitcoin, but Buffett thinks Bitcoin is rat poison or rat poison squared and all this other stuff. But the point I'm making is that I'm a market realist, not a market idealist. And this man, Elon Musk has a memification embed in him. It may not last forever, but there's a memification embed in there and that I am not too proud or too idealistic to take advantage of it. I get it. I get it. You know, it's interesting. One time I called Berkshire Hath because he had never made an internet investment. This was a decade ago or more. More than that. It was more than that. And I called up to ask him. I was doing a, I was the Wall Street Journalist. It was a long time ago. And I call up and I said, I'd like, you know, I thought I was going to get a PR person and the phone rings through and it's him. And I was like, oh, hi, hi there, Warren Buffett. And he's like, I just don't believe in this internet thing. And I was like, I think you're wrong. I can't believe I'm giving you advice, sir. But he was very much against internet investments. And he admitted he was wrong about it much later, like that he was wrong about all of them. And there is some value in understanding it's going to take a while for people to catch up to Musk in this area. But as I always say, they will catch up because it's a great market, right? As you say, if we have these data centers in space, if you think he's going to be the only one running the show, you're absolutely wrong. Greedy people will rush into the business, whether it's Amazon with Kuiper or whatever. It's going to be a lot of people, but it'll take his attention, which it fell away from because I think he got red-pilled in many ways. If his attention wanes, it's in trouble. If it doesn't, it's hard to compete with him and his memocation as you talk about, I think you're right. Well, again, portfolio approach. I own a lot of them and some of them will work, some of them won't. But my lesson from 30 years ago is I wasn't bold enough. Yeah. Okay. And again, I'm talking about 5%, 7% of the capital. Right, not the whole thing. Yeah, that's right. Right. Very briefly, Bitcoin. Where's it at today? Bitcoin is in a significant bear market. Bitcoin got hurt by Trump. I know the Trump lovers and the Trump crypto lovers don't like me saying this, but I said when those meme coins came out, Trump and Melania meme coins, he's going to crush us. He's going to hurt us because he hurts everything that he touches. What are that are happening is the regulation that should have been passed didn't get passed because of the hatred of Trump. So, a result of which we're in a typical Bitcoin bear market. So it's 66,000 almost 67,000. It's 66,000, but it's been pretty sturdy during the Iranian war. Yeah, it has. But it hasn't rushed upwards, which one would think it would. No, but I would say to Bitcoin enthusiasts, this is a typical four-year cycle, having cycle situation. This point in the cycle, Bitcoin loses roughly half of its value. It did. I'll make a prediction on your show. Sure. I've been humbled by markets, probably could be wrong. I think the $60,000 bottom is in for Bitcoin. And I think that Bitcoin starts to rally in the fourth quarter, which would be consistent with the four-year cycle of Bitcoin. So even though you've got more buyers in Bitcoin, you were offset by whale selling in the last 12 months. And guess what? You got the typical four-year cycle of Bitcoin. And since I'm a long-term holder, I'm okay with that. I mean, you're right. Trump came in and made a mess of it by all the shitcoins, all the scams. And so, it linked to Bitcoin quite. And he sucked so much money, political donations into his coffers from guys that thought Trump was going to help them. He doesn't help people. He doesn't help people. He don't like people because he don't like himself. So this is the trough. We are in the trough of Bitcoin. I'm going to keep that prediction. We'll find out. All right, Anthony, we're going to quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about those photos of Kristi Noem's husband. Support for the show comes from Hems. If you have weight loss goals, you already know how difficult it can be. Enter weight loss by Hems. It's designed to support you not only in losing weight, but keeping it off as well. And now Hems is offering access to affordable range of FDA approved GLP-1 medications, including the Wagovie pill and the Wagovie pen. With Wagovie at Hems, you can lose up to 20% or more of your body weight when combined with diet and exercise. It can help you regulate your appetite and eat less, so success is within reach. Plus, Wagovie is the first ever GLP-1 pill for weight loss, so there are no needles needed. Plus, Hems has everything online. 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Anthony, we're back and Scott is going to be very sad. He's missing this one. Kristi Noem is quote, devastated and blindsided by the allegations that her husband, is it Brian's activities in online fetish communities early this week, the Daily Mail published an investigation into Noem's husband, which included a photo of him wearing pink hot pants and fake breasts with nipples. The story also alleges he spent at least $25,000 communicating with women in the bimbofication scene. I didn't know about this, but fascinating, which fetishes people with surgical enhancement, Republicans are a party of family values. This couple was particularly performative. I don't know what to say here. I just don't know. Well, I'm in hot water with my mother-in-law because last time when I came home, I said, Ma, were you in one of those chat rooms? She got pissed. Oh, no. It was bad, right? Well, look at me, because I know Scott Galloway isn't here, but I brought props. What is that? Is that them? Those are boobies. They're actually dodgeballs that my kids play with. Oh, my God. But you can put the boobies on. Do you want me to send you them? No, I don't. Do you want to wear these later? No, I do not. Don't you dare put them on? I'm not putting them on because I don't want to make fun of somebody, but I'm just saying, I did bring props. Let me say what I think. I feel sad for this guy because I think he has... Listen, I'm from San Francisco. If you want to marry a goat, I'm pretty okay with it. Not great with it, but that's okay. I'm okay with it? Yeah. I think it's... He obviously has an interest, and I find fetishes somewhat interesting, and I think you should express yourself, and it's not hurting anybody, right? Is it really hurting anybody that he likes this? No. My part is he seems very sad about liking it, right? And that some of these... Actually, some of the women he hired are actually quite wise. I have to say some of these sex workers are like, well, he really liked it, and he seems sad, and I was trying to make him have fun because he seems stressed, and they're the most reasonable people in this entire affair. So I felt bad for him that he had this furtive life, and he couldn't express himself. That's one. I also think he's a huge hypocrite in that all this performative religious stuff when he has a life that's more interesting and more unusual, and he should have that life without feeling shamed, shame himself. In her case, I do think she did know about it. I suspect she did. I don't think it's any excuse for her behavior with Corey Lewandowski. I think I put this stuff up, saying I felt sad for this guy, and everyone's like, don't you know that Corey Lewandowski leaked this to get the focus off of them and their... And what we should be focusing on, not this poor guy, which is sad, but for him, I wish he enjoyed himself more, as I said, but on their grift, right? Their enormous grift and what happened there, and the investigations into the two of them and their behaviors in there. And by extension, Donald Trump should continue and focus in on those two. We've normalized corruption, which is, hopefully, we'll have to come back from that as well. But here's three quick things I would say. Number one, you're coming down from heaven and you're on the assembly line and there are some fetishes like feet fetishes or eyelash fetishes. I know what the fetishes are, but then the supervisor stops the assembly line and brings out the inflatable boobies. He said, hey, we're sending you to earth with these. I mean, that was a rough one. So I feel bad for the guy because I think you're born with that maybe. Number two, MAGA men are repressing a lot of stuff. And you know that, my buddy Don Lemon tells me that the grinder stuff lights up at all these Christian conservative things. We spot Lindsey Graham with the magic wand down in Walt Disney World. Yes, just so people don't know, he was Disney World with a little mermaid bubble wand in one photo and waiting in line for Space Mountain in another. He said he was meeting with Trump and Steve Wittkoff and then went to Orlando to meet friends just for a quick, you never go quickly to Disneyland. Look, look, look, the problem is the repression is the problem. Right? Like so to me, I'm going to tell you that MAGA men are repressing a lot of stuff and then they're taking it out on the rest of us. Like if you read The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs, okay, guys, relax, whatever it is, whatever your orientation is, let it go. Nobody cares. Okay, we're in a totally different environment. In the fine words of frozen, let it go. Yeah, exactly. I think these guys are- Can't hold it back anymore. Let it go. You know this, Kara. I do. I let it go a long time ago. Born in the 40s and 50s. And with all of that repression, okay, and who the hell knows what Donald Trump's father did to him as a kid and the guys have repressed that guy. Okay, he's decorating the Oval Office like Liberace. He wants the ballroom. He took over the Kennedy Performing Arts Center. He wants to take his pain out on us. Calm down, let it all go. Okay, and I feel bad for this guy, but I'm telling you this type of repression, for some reason, has found its way into our politics. And then the last point, because I had three. That's a serious point. The last point, look at me. Look at me. I thought you were just going to make booby jokes, but go ahead. Last point, look at me. Look at me. Look at me, too. I'm a normal fucking guy. I can't believe. I thought I was a loony tune. I'm in the bell curve of normal male nuttiness. I know. I love that. I was crazy. I thought I was nuts until I met these fucking people. No, no, you're totally boring compared to most of these people. What does it do to... She has no political prospects now, correct? Or will she go the I didn't know I'm a victim rude? They took the couple hundred million dollars off the ad thing. So what did they do? They put the 200 million dollars into the ad thing. They hired a consultant. The consultant skimmed like they do with these political action committees. Let me tell people from Pivot. Guys, never put any money in a political action committee because what they do is the cronies at the top, they skim all the money and they charge a 15, 20, 30% advertising consulting fee and they're laughing at you. They're laughing at you. So what Noam and Corey did was took the money and it diverted it and they're going to go live somewhere. God bless them. They got some money. I don't want to make the money like that. They'll be. They will have a problem. They'll have legal problems. The two... She has no presidential prospects, correct? Because I know that was not all... She's got no presidential prospects but she's also... Come on. These are the people that we want running the country. Come on. No. No. I mean you're shooting at... You're shooting at people... You're kidnapping kids with ice and you're proud of it and you're riding around on your horse. I did see one great meme though. though, you mind if I share it? You know, we had to fuck Mary Kill. And so we had to marry the guy with the big boobies, we're fucking Corey and we're killing the dog. I thought that was really funny, okay? But anyway, sorry. That's a good one, that's good. Sorry. It's interesting though, it's really interesting. Someone, a company that I didn't think was gonna do it, I'm friends with Harvey Levin from TMZ, but he's been publishing photos after asking people to submit pictures of lawmakers on vacation during the DHS shutdown. And I'll note it's a bipartisan shaming targeting Democrats and Republicans alike. It's part of a larger push by TMZ, which has amped up its political coverage, showing what it calls the intersection of politics and pop culture. I kind of like that they're doing this. So you can let us see you, what you're doing versus how you're talking, right? So you're exposing the hypocrisy, you know? Yeah, exactly. And here's the thing I would tell you, they had Thune last week bypassing the entire TSA at the Reagan Airport, I think he was in, or maybe Dallas, and guy, you're hypocrite, you know? Fix the country, you know? There's a 14% approval rating for the Congress. It's just slightly above Kim Il-Jung, okay? But you know what? 95% of these guys get reelected because of gerrymandering and Citizens United. They pick the voters. That's not a thing they're able to do. Where are we in a real democracy cara? Where the politicians pick the voters? I thought the voters supposed to pick the politicians. And they get unlimited money from the corporates. And so they can stay in power. It'd be like you and I opening a restaurant, our food sucks, we got one star Yelp ratings, but we can't ever get fired. Right, right. Okay, it's appalling. Yeah, it is. And I think they're paying the price for it though. I love that these pictures are there. I think people should do more of this exposure. Like here's how they live, here's how they behave. I did like when Delta said, we're not gonna let them jump the line if they're on Delta. We're not gonna let them have special things. And now I think things are calming down at airports, apparently TSAs sort of started to organize it a little better, but it's still the fact that they can't pass a basic funding bill is really quite something, without making everything partisan. All right, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. Big news this week for all my Gordon Gekos, my Robin Hooders, my Klaude Squad, and Thropic, which is newly the most valuable AI company in the world, announced it would be going public. That news follows reporting that open AI plans to go public as soon as September, and that that news follows reporting that SpaceX, which also considers itself an AI company, will be going public in maybe just a few weeks from now. Welcome to the era of the Omega IPO. We are about to see millionaires, billionaires, and yes, probably even the world's first trillionaire created overnight. And yes, it's that guy. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. Chainsaw. But all the tech bros who are gonna make all the money, they need our money way more than we need their products. And we're gonna remind you why on Today Explained from Vox. I'm Seth Matlin. My new show, Creator Destroy Reimagining Marketing, explores how every decision a company makes, not just the marketing ones, but the HR, IR, pricing, org design, and planning ones, the ones most don't consider marketing at all, contribute to either creating value or destroying it. Each week I sit down with CMOs, COs, founders, cultural thinkers, the people building, breaking, and reimagining how businesses grow, or don't, for conversations about what creates value and what destroys it. It's a business show, it's a marketing show. Creator destroys the show that argues they've always been the same thing, from the Vox Media Podcast Network and the Wisdomist Company. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. All right, so listen, first of all, happy Easter and happy Passover to you and your family. Thank you. And I'm gonna make three predictions. Okay. So the first prediction, Pam Bondi's long gone. Okay, Zeldin will replace her. This is Lee Zeldin. They have gutted the Department of Justice and it's become the Trump family law firm. And so that's actually good for these folks. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. They're a law firm. And so that's actually good for these Supreme Court decisions because they got nobody there to argue these stupid cases, but it's just very bad for the country. Number two, and I think this is also one that I don't like, is that we're gonna have ground troops in Iran. And again, the bomb, the people back to the Stone Age which had degrade them in such a way where we can put the ground troops in. And then my last prediction is that the Chinese are gonna be involved in a resolution of this. And so what Trump is gonna do, and this is the reason why he delayed the meeting with Xi, he's gonna get the people at the car garland, he's gonna get them in the street, he's gonna shut off the oil. He's gonna pick up the phone and call Xi and say, listen, you're getting 40, 50% of your oil out of here and this is a satellite state of yours. You gotta secularize that state and you gotta let me and the UN, whoever go in there and take the uranium out of there. And when we're done doing that, I'm gonna open the oil spigot again and you can have the oil. I understand that you gotta run your economy and I wanna be a cooperative economic competitor of yours and I do need those rare earth minerals. But that third prediction is where we're going on the chessboard because there are some smart people in the Pentagon and now that they're in this thing. Now that they're here, why not take advantage of it? That's where they're going. So those are my three predictions. My as well, but that could cause a lot of deaths, American deaths, which could be problematic. Well, the law won't intend to consequence it, but they don't care. He doesn't care. You're an object in Trump's field of vision. You're not a person, so he doesn't care. Right. So for there, we might as well take advantage of this situation. Let me ask you, what do you think of Lee Zeldin? Well, Lee, I know a long time. Lee was a district one out here on Long Island. He was? Yeah. He was the House of Representatives guy out here. He's a conservative guy. He ran for governor here. Lee is? Formerly reasonable as I recall. That's where I was going. And became crazy. That's where I was going. So Lee is in that group of people that went into the MAGA chamber and came out with the red hat and the long tie and the cuckoo lala, but he was not that way. But now he is. And so we'll have to see him. For now. Yeah, we'll have to see how many pirouettes he's willing to do for Donald Trump to destroy his reputation too, because that's what we do. You go in, I want the power. I want the significance. Trump moves the goalposts on you. Hey, Kara, prices are going down. No forever wars. We're ending our involvement in the Middle East. Okay, well now, are you guys loyal to me? Yes, you're loyal to me. Now we're going to do the opposite of that. Right. We're moving the goalposts. You got to stay loyal to me. And so that's Lee Zeldin is the type of kid. He's going to look back on this because I know how he grew up, he's out here on Long Island with me. He's going to look back on this and say, wow, I really screwed this up. I shouldn't have done the things that I'm doing. But he'll be a lackey for Trump. So is there a redemption? There are a lot of Republicans. I just interviewed Tom Tillis. He's sort of run out of Fox. There's a lot of people that to me, even Marjorie Taylor Greene, do you see a pushback anywhere? And what are the implications of that? Are you seeing, and I'm not talking about like the Jeb Bush Republican. No, Thune goes down as a scarecrow. You know, it goes down as one of the worst of the worst. You know, like when we have, you and I will be dead, or maybe because of the red light therapy on your new show, you and I will be alive, but it'll be 50 years from now. And the people are going to look back and say, what the hell happened? And John Thune is the poster boy for cowardice. Okay, because he could have called Schumer and he could have said, hey, we're shutting this down. Okay, we are Article I of the Constitution for a reason. And we're shutting this down. You and I are going to the White House today. And we're going to tell this asshole that he's the most un-American president that's ever lived. And we're going to go in a different direction or we're going to blow him out of the seat. But he didn't do that because he's got no caillons and he wants personal power over the serving of the public. And he wants to bypass the security line. Okay, and guy, he used to be a good guy. I knew you a long time when I was on the Romney campaign, you were a good guy, but you are now a loser. So what happens? Very briefly, what happens to these? Because something's going to happen after November. They've lost in Palm Beach. They've lost in Kansas. They've lost, they're losing everywhere. They'll lose the midterms on the house. They won't lose the Senate. Maybe. Trump will go, maybe they'll lose the Senate, but they won't lose it enough for Trump to get impeached because they need two thirds vote. Trump will strong arm everybody. The last two years will be about grifting and making money and market manipulation because they tell them people they want to be the richest family after they leave. And on the 19th of January, he will pardon himself and his family members and the people that are close to him. It'll drop that in the lap of the Supreme Court and the Congress as whether or not a president can pardon themselves. And he will leave an unbuilt ballroom and a complete catastrophic shit storm for whoever the cleanup crew is going to be. And by the way, as people have said, in a democracy, you sometimes get the people that you deserve. And we'll have to look at ourselves and say, how did we let that happen? And this is the point of the book that I'm writing, which you've been nice enough to read for me, is that we let this happen through bad decision making, but we left out the people, Kara, that you and I grew up with who once felt unbelievable about the American dream and unbelievable about the... My father was making money by the hour. He was a union guy, but he was like, you know what, my kids are gonna live the American dream. Let's get to work. Now those people are like, hey, man, I can't get a job. And by the way, my kids are not gonna get a job. Fuck you people, burn it down. And we've got to go, you're talking about burn book. How about burn the whole thing? Burn the social contract. So it's burnt. So now. So now we gotta get some people in there that are postpartisan, transformational leaders that gonna run a restate a vision for the country. Like I said, we go through this every 83 years. We're in our 250th year anniversary. Here are the things that we need to do to redeem ourselves. We have to clean up these certain things that have happened. We have to take big business, big pharma, big zillionaires out of the political equation. We created a separate but equal democracy with Citizens United. That's the Plessy versus Ferguson case of our democracy. Brown Board of Education overturned that. We're 16 years out from Citizens United. We have to overturn it. And we gotta put these rich people back in a box where they belong, where one vote equals one vote. All right, I'm gonna ask one final question. Who are, pick two people who would be on each side. Two people, you are like, those people could do that. I mean, listen, you know, here's the thing. Okay, like your roommate, Scott Galloway, okay. He's the type of guy that could actually pull it off. Honestly, I think he could pull it off. Cuban, why you laugh? You don't think he could pull it off? I think he could actually. Not Scott, but Cuban, yes. Okay, Cuban. I mean, somebody like that could probably pull it off. But then they have to do something that is ridiculously Lincoln-esque in terms of its heroism. You gotta piss every single person off in power to reframe the argument. Okay, Teddy Roosevelt got the robber barons in place and said, hey, MFs, we're gonna break up your trust. We're gonna knock out your monopolies. I got at these poor people, the tenements are coming down on them. And they're gonna come after you with a pitchfork and a torch. You want them to set fire to your mansion? Knock it off, knock it off. So it requires somebody that doesn't care about the power structure. And that's why I can't name somebody because everybody that's in the power cares about the power structure. I don't give a shit about the power structure. It has to be you and me. It has to be you and me. That's what's gonna happen. Well, you can have the top job, by the way. Okay, I will give you the top job. I don't want the top job. I would be so bad. You'd be the red light therapy president. Oh, no way. Those things don't work. You'd be the longevity president. Don't work, don't work. The sauna president, the sauna president. Just being a sauna naked, I'll do from there. Anyway, Anthony, as always, fantastic. I love being with you. Thank you for inviting me back. And tell Scott I miss him and wish him happy Easter. I will. Listeners, we wanna hear from you. Let us know what you think of Anthony. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash PIVOT. Submit a question for the show. Or call 85551 PIVOT. This is a big week for both of us. We got nominated for Webby Awards, PIVOT and On with Kara Swisher got nominated. And your limited series podcast with Scott, Lost Boys also got nominated. We want your vote, because we're not too proud to beg. Go to the link in the episode description to vote for us. I'm very pleased for you and congratulations. And I will see you next week. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to PIVOT. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. I will read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Anderjad engineered this episode. Manolo Moreno edited the video. Nishat Kuruwa is Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow PIVOT and anything Anthony does on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to PIVOT from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash POD. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thank you, Anthony. Great to be on with you. Thank you. Happy Easter again. Support for the show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is egentic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from the secure data sources, run subagents in parallel, and draft work product ready for your review. So you can delegate work and own the judgment. And you can also use the data source to create a new project. And you can also use the data source to create work and own the judgment. 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