Trump Threatens Insurrection Act, Paramount Sues Warner Bros, and Apple Teams Up with Google for AI

If you give someone a cookie, they may eat three more and then feel horribly guilty. How did sugar become the boogeyman? And is it as bad as we're led to believe? That's this week on Explain It To Me. New episodes out Sundays wherever you get your podcasts. When is the AI bubble going to burst? How do you AI-proof your job? How should colleges handle AI and prepare students for a shifting job market? I'm Henry Blodgett and on my show Solutions, I've been exploring all of those questions and more with experts who have actual answers. We hear enough about our problems. Let's solve them. If HBO is cocaine and Netflix is edible, CBS is literally like fiber supplement. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. How you doing, Scott? I'm doing well. How are you? This has been quite a week. This, what's going on in this country is really disturbing on so many levels. Yeah. It's been disturbing. I don't know. How are you doing? How's everything going? How are you feeling? I feel better. Yeah. Everything's good. It's good to be in New York. Yeah. What are you doing in the city, the greatest city in the world? Oh, God. Whenever I'm here, I've got like a ton of... I mean, my professional center of gravity is in the US. So whenever I'm here, it's just like meeting after meeting after meeting. So, and I'm doing a meeting with the team tonight from Propgene Markets. We have our meeting tomorrow, our big strategy meeting. So we do. Just, you know, stuff. Yeah. We're being strate... It's called strategic, just so you know. Strategic. Nice. Do you have any big ideas that you're going to bring to bear? Big, big ideas. Band dancing, I don't know. Obviously, our tour this year turned out very well. Yeah. Our version of the tour and it was very profitable and fun also, most importantly. But we have to think of something cool. Any listeners who have ideas of which one Scott and I to do, pole dancing, a show about, you know, gay hockey players, whatever you want. I just think the next tour should involve white tigers. Oh, you're going to see. This is a little puppy. We just got Bobo. This is the first time on stage. She's very... Did you ever see like all that stuff in Roy and Siegfried? I never went to the tiger shows. No, I always got talked into another type of performance down the road. Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. All right. I love them. I love them. I love them. Anyway, anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. So let's get started. Donald Trump, and I can't believe I'm saying this, is threatening to invoke the insurrection act as anti-ice protests intensify in Minneapolis, largely because they've been egged on by ICE itself. The latest protests in the city began when a federal officer shot a man on a leg on Wednesday just a week after an ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Goode. I don't quite know what to say. The word in Washington is Stephen Miller wants something that he can invoke the Insurrection Act and then declare martial law so they can't have midterm elections. That's the conspiracy theory running around Washington right now. I got to say, they are causing the problem that you can look at these videos and see absolutely pushing over old people, asking for people's papers. I feel like I'm in the middle of a Nazi movie or something at this point. Thoughts? Well, we talked about this the last time. The very founding of America was meant to avoid this. Not wanting a monarch that could have unilateral unchecked power and start harassing and terrorizing the population is the basis of the founding of America. The question is what do you do about it? And what's really disappointed me and I've been on the phone with a couple Democrats is I believe that people at ICE and the officials and administrators who have ordered them and created a context around this, I think that they potentially could be guilty of second or third degree murder of manslaughter, of criminally negligent homicide, and absolutely of assault. And what I would be doing very publicly in the Congress and Senate is passing two types of or proposing two types of laws which will not pass now, but should we have the kind of momentum we believe we're going to have in 26 and then in 28, make sure that these officials ordering this type of behavior and the people executing it understand that this is absolutely a possibility and those two bills are the following. One is criminal charges and resources that will be allocated to and vary with a fine tooth and comb go through all of this video and be willing to charge these individuals. And two, something that says potentially that for certain types of crimes, including anything with a word homicide in it, that from this point forward, once the pardons are no longer valid, there has to be, I do find that the Democrats, the strongly worded letter kind of defines in my opinion and Democrats will say, well, look, there's very little we can do and I'm sympathetic to that because they do not, they're the minority in all three houses. I get it. But these folks need to be reminded very swiftly that, okay, the same overrun of judicial power and co-equal branches of government that you've committed, we could do the same, but we're going to do it to who quite frankly go, we believe the law just enforced as it is correctly, could put many of these people behind bars or at a minimum impair their careers, which would be justifiable and begin laying the groundwork. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that's hard is that they keep doubling down, right? I'm sorry, it's a specious report from CBS News, no surprise at this point. With a relying less on experts in academics speaking to you. God, I hated that. Don't make me onto that ridiculous disaster over there. Can I just rant on that for a minute? Please, go right ahead because you can nicky-glazer this for me, my friend. Go ahead. Well, I actually like it. She made a joke. I'm referencing a Golden Globe joke. I like the guy's next head is the anchor. I actually think he's a great pick. I think he's handsome, which I think- That's all they could get, but go ahead. I think he's really solid. He's really handsome. I get it, but it's all they could get. They were looking at elsewhere, but go ahead. And I assume that he's a good person because I like Katie Tour and assumed that anyone, she decides to spend her life with is a good person. But that opening monologue, it was fine except for the part, and we're going to less, we're going to rely, it's something along the lines, we're going to rely less on the academics and the experts and more on what the people think. That's saying, okay, we're going to start entertaining conspiracy theory and misinformation. And by the way, folks, the word expert in the U.S., might as well be the word meritocracy. And that is you can be a kid growing up in the poorest village outside of Hyderabad in India. And if you were just so talented and hardworking and smart and end up at, I think it's called IIT, you can end up being one of those experts at Harvard that they're not going to listen to, that knows more than anyone else in the world on mRNA vaccines. You can be the son of a single mother who lived and died an expert and someday quote, unquote, work your fucking ass off to be considered an expert in brand strategy. So this notion that they're not going to listen to expertise, it's like we want an excuse to impose political values or fucking Ouija boards or horse gobs or whatever trending on Twitter as opposed to listening to the people who've actually fucking earned it. And one of the great things about America is it is, in fact, a meritocracy. Sometimes it's a bit too much of a meritocracy and that is the people who aren't talented or unfortunate live a very harsh life here. But be clear, meritocracy means capitalism, means expertise. People who are experts or science, people who get paid a lot to provide input. So if we're not going with the experts in the academics, I don't mind and they've done this forever. News does a lot of kind of quote unquote man on the street. Let's talk to people in the community and see how they feel at the barber shop of the diner. But we're going to start listening to them about vaccine safety, not epidemiologists who have written peer review research for the last 30 fucking years. Let me interject here because I'm going to because it's repulsive. I know you're being very kind to this guy, but he's done six or seven things that are really problematic. One is talking about more transparent than Walter Cronkite, doing this kiss ass, all the interviews. I'm so sorry, but their PR for the Trump administration is what they are. They're terrible interviews and he is an opportunity given they're sucking up to do an actual tough interview. He is doing a disservice to journalism in these interviews given that he's got this access. But it isn't any worse than Fox. Yes, exactly. Thank you. Fox is entertainment. This is CBS News saying he's more transparent than Walter Cronkite. We unapologetically love America. What does a news organization need to do? That's not their job. One they did this week is really another one he said this week was just equally idiotic. There was a story in the New York Times that everyone should read like, we want to be the news. News does not want to be the news. News reports the news. This is a stunt. This is all stunts all the time flying across the country. I know a lot of people at CBS News, they're beside themselves is what's happening there. And it's depressing to watch and this guy is doing it. I'm sorry, whatever you think of him as a nice person. And I think he probably is. I know Katie. Katie's terrific. But it doesn't matter. This is just a disservice. It's a state organization. It's a state media organization. It's what's happening. And this story, let me get back to what we were talking about. This ice officer has all these internal injuries. You get internal bleeding from or whatever, internal bleeding from taking Advil, everybody. We don't see this guy. There's no proof of it. And they just all they do is say federal officials say it here, here, here, Pravda, here's what we want you to say. That's it doesn't have any reporting involved in it. And it's in order to create this, this ridiculous and everyone has seen the video that this guy had has it was more hurt than her. I'm sorry, she's dead. And he has, I don't know, a bruise. Then to facilitate that is really bad. And so I think what they're trying to do is create equalization and trying to sort of smear this woman who seems to have been in the PTA, calling this whole thing about women, wine moms, angry wine moms or white women who are smug, lectured by men, white men who are smug, who actually invented smug. It's just this equalization. And again, one person's dead, one person's shot in the leg, and the others aren't. And I just, it's, I don't know what to say. And for a news organization to go along with that is really an embarrassment to the legacy of Walter Cronkite. It's a good news. It's fucking irrelevant. If it's true. It's true. If HBO is cocaine and Netflix is edible, CBS is literally like fiber supplement. I mean, if you were to visit one of their editorial meetings, right? Yeah. You'd go in and you'd see a giant whiteboard and they'd write, okay, our audience is tired, scared, and eating a lot of soup. I mean, who can't, it just doesn't really fucking matter what a lower middle income 83 year old in Iowa. I know, but Fox does it well. I have to say, they do their heinous shit well. Well, they've gone full, you know, stripper pole, cosplaying, political news. I mean, and they're also very talented and they've leaned into. They're entertaining in a really heinous way, I would say. Anyway, you're right. No one, the numbers are down. I would even know how to find CBS on my, although I have been watching, wait, is landman, that's CBS, that's Paramount. That's Paramount. Yeah. That shit's really good. But he's leaving. He went over to Universal. Yeah, but he produced, I really enjoy, I'm really enjoying Landman. Yeah, that guy is super talented. I've tried to get him on my show. I love all the shows. I watched Yellowstone from the start, but they're all go, he's leaving, going over to Universal, but I don't know, some fuck up by the yellowsons. Let me guess, more money. Anyway, it's good for him. But anyway, Landman is really good. But I want you to, where do you think this goes from, I get that you want Democrats to speak out more, but what is the, I mean, because the numbers for Trump are cratering on all this stuff. So it's obviously, he's got to go to Marshall Law. Yeah, but here's the problem. The numbers are cratering for Trump. They've almost plunged to the levels of Democrats. Who are going up? Who are going up? Oh, not a lot, Kara. Well, no, with young men. No, there's a few polls out that show really significant shifts. But go ahead. It's the worst cocktail in the world for democracy. And that is you have a fascist who doesn't have a credible opposition. I just think we look weak and feckless. I don't know. I want you to focus on the fascist and not on the feckless for a minute. Well, I want to focus on being effective and what the fuck we actually need to do to push back on those fascists. And if you don't have an objective group of leaders emerging who are powerfully talking about creating a series of incentives to stop this bullshit, it doesn't matter. And just sitting around thinking, scolding them and saying, isn't this awful and voting 2026? It's like, that's not exactly leadership. I want to see legislation of how we're going to track down and prosecute and indict subpoena these people, including all the crypto scammers. And a series of laws or proposals and legislation that does not give the retroactively can unmask protection from pardons because they have been so hugely abused. Unless you give these people the sense that there's a non-zero probability that they will be held accountable for these actions, they're going to continue. And we don't have anyone with a moral authority right now or the charisma of the leadership to stand up and quite frankly rally America more than the images they're seeing on social media that just horrifies them. Anyway, moving on, the US has started evacuating some troops from a base in Qatar ahead of a potential military conflict with Iran, though Trump says he's been told the killing in Iran has stopped. No executions are planned, indicating moving away from taking military action. I don't know what's going to happen here. There's all this weird betting happening by individuals, again, very similar to the Venezuelan invasion. There are insiders in the government making money off of these military actions and maybe influencing them too. That's another scary thing to think about. What do you imagine happening? And at the same time, Denmark, Greenland and their NATO allies, including France and Germany, are increasing the military presence in and around Greenland. I can't believe I'm saying this. The move comes in the wake of a meeting at the White House between JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and foreign ministers at Denmark and Greenland. The Danish foreign ministers of the talks were constructed, but fundamental disagreement remains ahead of the meeting Donald Trump posted on True Social. Then anything less than US control of Greenland is unacceptable. It feels very nerve-wracking. At the same time, there was an interesting article, and I forget where it was, that JD Vance and Marco Rubio maybe slow rolling this into the grass so that Trump, they don't want it to happen, this Greenland thing. And so they're just dragging it out so that Trump loses interest in the situation. But I don't know, seems very strange to go to war with France. I mean, first off, there's a few things here. The potential for insider trading is just so insane on polymarket and calcium right now. So polymarket right now puts the likelihood that Khomeini will be out of supreme leader before 2027 at 63%. So if you're part of the inner circle, and by the way, there's reports that they are transferring, the senior leadership is transferring millions of dollars out of Iran, which is a very helpful sign because I think they need to get the hell out. But if you know, okay, on Wednesday, we're all headed to Moscow, easy way to make 50% on your money would be betting on one of these markets. So just be clear, folks, just as the casino has figured out the odds of these numerical games that on average over time, they win. When you don't have inside information on these things, eventually, you're playing at a disadvantage. I, and the footnote here is the following or the disclosure, I have not had any substance of conversations before I say that, because this is such a hot topic with anyone senior in the Israeli government. This is pure speculation on my part. But I talk a lot about Israel, my background is in brand. And I would consistently get calls from people in Israel, in the government, and in the private sector saying, what can we do about our brand? The brand Israel is so terrible around the world. And the general belief is, if you look at actually what we're doing relative to other wars, it's just being characterized unfairly. And we think a lot of it, we're shocked at how poorly our brand, or how dramatically our brand has eroded. And I remember when I was a kid, the Israeli brand was one of the strongest brands in the world. And Tevi, Munich, they were just seen as the good guys. They are no longer seen as the good guys. And so they're constantly calling and asking, what can we do about the brand? I think the most brand-ocretive move that Israel could do, the biggest opportunity for Israel right now, would be to go in and do what they did when they decided to take out their air defenses, or something along the same lines. And that is when they decided to take out their air defenses and basically neuter Iran, who has been the primary sponsor of terror across the region for a couple of decades. They said, okay, they are basically, when our jets fly in, the service to air missiles, the air defense systems, are operated by this group of people, and there's six to eight people that need to give the order to fire missiles at alien aircraft. You know what they did that day? They killed them. They had targeted assassinations. Within like an hour, six of the eight were dead. And then when the radar sensed these F-15s flying in, there was no one to give the order. And I know that sounds really macabre and ugly, but in my opinion, these are murderers right now. I think if they were, it's clear that the Mossad has deeply penetrated soft assets at the highest level in Iran, but coordinated military strikes of centers of civilian suppression with the U.S. Air Force and on the ground soft assets that wreak havoc across what is a murderous IRGC right now. I think it's not only geopolitically very smart over the long term, but I think we'd be very good for a brand Israel right now. Well, they've got a lot of things to do. Well, right. But I think this, you know what, I thought, I found really heartening these protests in New York, where I see Iranian and flags of Israel. I actually find that quite encouraging to think that we might start- You saw Mamdani pushback, you saw AOC pushback on a lot of these Hamas supporting stuff. They were very clear about what happened. I think one of the things is that with Iran, you and I both agree that Iran is a menacing country and also would be a really huge opportunity for the democracy. The leadership, the IRGC, the Islamic Republic. Yeah, it would be a thing. I think it'll be interesting to see, I think the juxtaposition here is Trump trying to create and foment protests by brutality here in this country and it brutalizing protesters and then supporting protesters in Iran. I think that's the obvious. Yeah, I'm connected about your right. And then going after Greenland, when you have something like Ukraine sitting there blaming, again, Zolinski in what's happening. But the idea of us going to war with France, or France having to send military thing, what an insane moment. These are our friends, these are our allies, these are places we like to go, we like to be part of. And so I think, let me get the reason, I think all this foreign policy chaos is conveniently distracting from the story Trump doesn't want to discuss, which again is Jeffrey Epstein. It's been nearly a month since the deadline for releasing the Epstein files came and went and the Justice Department appears to be going nowhere close to making a full files public. I think they have 1% or something that you just said in a filing last week that it reviewed more about 12,000 documents out of more than 2 million incredible amount of documents. Democratic Representative Ro Khanna and Republican Representative Thomas Massey, who is really quite a badass these days, had filed a complaint with a federal judge. They're asking for the judge to appoint what they call a special master to force the DOJ to release the files. I actually spoke with Ro Khanna on the latest episode of On with Kara Swisher and asked him what happens next because this is actually a process. They have gotten the law passed, the DOJ has to comply, the DOJ didn't comply, now they have to do this. Let's listen. We will see some of these millions of documents because the Justice Department has said to the judge they're releasing them. The question is the quality of that and will they have excessive redactions. And then Thomas Massey and I are planning to introduce inherent contempt. Inherent contempt, if it passes the House, it just requires the House would find Pam Bondi personally $10,000 a day for every document that she didn't release. Whether that passes and is enforced, the point is it's showing the crack in the MAGA base. Which is interesting. Let me just finish this up. That's actually doing something. Yes, exactly. Yes. And also they're trying to get this special master, which I think is another thing, which is probably the right thing to do here. Meanwhile, Bill and Hillary Clinton released a scathing letter to the House Oversight Committee this week saying they will not testify in the Epstein investigation. I will say Ro Khanna said they should testify at the same time. They are having quite a good point noting every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles as people, no matter the consequences. For us now is the time. The House Republicans are moving to hold both Clintons in contempt. Of course, they don't think Trump should testify, which is a good reason for the Clintons maybe not to. This continues to be the story that doesn't go away. And talk about what's happening here because he is doing a lot of this to get the focus off of Epstein, which is going to come out no matter what he does. This is not to be quashed at this point is my feeling. Well, I just want to go back to Denmark for a moment. I'll talk about Epstein. So my favorite meal in the world is In-N-Out, Animal Style at the Sepulveda, the In-N-Out on Sepulveda near LAX because what it means is I've just gotten LA, I'm about to roll into the Beverly Hills Hotel, roll up to the bar, perhaps get my eye contact return from a lovely woman who perhaps might be from Russia, but it just signals a bunch of good things are about to happen here. And I'm about to roll with my buddy Mike. I absolutely love LA. My second favorite meal is a latte and grapefruit and yogurt at Jack's Fried Frida just sitting out there watching the world go by. I feel like I'm an author in, I don't know, 1920s France. My third... Can I just note, if we were on the New Lord game, I would know all this, but go ahead. I can't know all this. My favorite would Bob Eubanks, outstanding talk show host asked, what is, what is somewhere, recently you've gone that you was interesting or what do you, where do you want to go or where have you visited recently that you and your husband enjoyed? And she looked down and then she looked up and said, in the ass. And they didn't even bleep it out because they were so, they were so shocked. So my third favorite meal is anything from Chipotle. The fact that Chipotle is not a sponsor of everything I do is a crime against commerce. I can go walk into Chipotle with a blindfold and I walk out with a smile on my face. This, Denmark is similar to me showing up with an AR-15 and zip ties and a military vest and saying, if you don't give me a burrito bolt with pork, extra gacamole and sour cream and brown rice for $14.73, I'm going to kill everyone here. And they'd say, well, sir... So this is Trump, is the president right? Right. Sir, we, we would do this anyways. There's no need for guns. There's no need for military vest. You, there, there is absolutely an argument around why Greenland is strategic. It's a passage for not only all kinds of commerce, maritime commerce, but also for nuclear submarines. It would be a staging ground for any attack. It's, it's hugely important. It also supposedly has about, is it 17% or 12% of rare earth materials? But all of this is ours. All of it is, or not even ours, the whole point of the New World Order post-1945 was we said to nations, rather than going on conquests, try this thing called reciprocal mutually beneficial trade and commerce. And it's less expensive than firing at tanks. Also bases. We can have as many bases there as we want. We used to have, I think 11 and we closed them down. 17. 17. And now we have one. We have one. They're like, they're 57,000 people. They, up until recently, really liked Americans and they liked the jobs. Like, sure, put a, put a nuclear submarine base here, put a tracking, put a radar station, whatever you want. If you want to start, you want to come up with- Do trade deals around the minerals? Yeah. Whatever you want, sir. We will give you your burrito bowl. You don't need to bring a gun into Chipotle. Yeah. I like this Chipotle metaphor. I was expecting it. You were wondering where I was going with that. I was indeed. By the way, my new favorite restaurant in New York is a place called the Corner Store. Oh my God. So many fabulous people there. The French dip. You heard it here. You're welcome. All right. Okay. Um, anyways, this just makes no fucking sense. Like the EBSCME files, there's no getting around to Kera. It's probably, President Clinton looks really bad here. There's just- This is what Roe noted, but nonetheless, it was a great fucking- There's just no getting around here. But again, Roe is right, except for the following. And one of the reasons why one of the other, you know, pieces of material that's been stained indelibly by the Trump administration is that many of the activities testifying in front of Congress, not having your children trade and crypto and leverage the presidency to get multi billion dollar deals, there's actually few laws against them. What they are is they've been enforced by norms. And we've had norms in this country where if you're called before Congress, you go regardless of who you are. Yes, you do. You don't act like a jackass. And because Trump has just waved the middle finger at so many, so many norms and- Well, we could get this week in Detroit, but go ahead. And because we have abdicated, as Barry Goldwater warned back in the late 60s and early 70s, because we have abdicated and quite frankly, recklessly and ignorantly transferred so much power to the executive branch, did this guy is not only being able to blow through stop signs, he can mow over children in the crosswalk and say, yeah, fuck it, there's no law against it. And so I think, and this is how societies kind of just digress. So, understandably and justifiably, the Clintons are saying, oh, these norms no longer apply. We don't have, if what's good for them is good for us and any other administration, if the Clintons had called, been called before Congress, they would have said, absolutely, will come testify. They would show up. They're very smart. They're very well prepared and they would have performed excellently. Instead, they want to make theater and connect Epstein more to Clinton and a Democrat than to- I don't know. I think they want to get arrested and show that Trump doesn't have to testify. I think that's precisely- They want to get arrested. I'm sorry. They want to get arrested. The Clintons. Yes. They want to make a spectacle of it. They want to make a spectacle and they want to point out that they want to have the Clintons testify, but not Trump. Have the Clintons testify but not Trump? Yeah, think about it. You know more about this than I do. Trump is not, the committee doesn't want Trump to testify. Why wouldn't they? Trump was closer to Epstein. I mean, on a long- The committee is controlled by Republicans now? No, I get that, but I'm just saying that they want to do this. I think they wouldn't write a letter that- The Clintons want to do this. Yes, the Clintons want to make some fucking noise. That's my guess here, if I had a guess. Because I think they both, they also noted they gave a lot of information. They've been cooperative, but they're not going to appear, essentially, if Trump doesn't. And I think that's, I think people can grok that pretty clearly. You know what I mean? And I do think they want to be tried for this. I think that's what they're doing. I don't think William Jefferson Clinton wants to be tried under oath for anything to do with Epstein. You don't write a letter like that if you don't want. It's a dare. It's a dare. Well, they're both lawyers, my guess is the best lawyers in the world reviewed it, whether they've signed it or not. Got it, but it's a dare. You wouldn't send a letter like that if you didn't want something to happen, if you didn't want to make some noise. Well, they and you are smarter than me, so I defer to your strategy. Yeah, we'll see. Nonetheless, the Epstein file should be released, and what Trump is doing is distraction, distraction, distraction. There is something that he does not want to come out. I don't know if it's about him. It's definitely about his friends. So this is what's happening here. He's trying to get it out. And by the way, the people that want it out the most is the MAGA base. So, and now me, and now Scott, and now the rest of the country. So we'll see. All right, we're going to have a quick break. We come back. Paramount sues Warner Brothers. For a brief period of time in the beginning of the pandemic, a time that I'm very sorry to make you have to remember, there was this hot new app that promised to reinvent the way that we thought about social media forever. Clubhouse was going to be the thing. And this week on Version History, our chat show about the most interesting and important and best and worst products in tech history, we're talking about why Clubhouse took off and then ultimately, why it went away. That's on Version History, available on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts. Scott, we're back with more news. The battle for Warner Brothers is continuing. And as Paramount continues to fall downstairs on this in doing deal making, Paramount filed a lawsuit against Warner Brothers and his CEO, David Zaslaw, this week, trying to get them to turn over details of their sale process and the Netflix deal. Warner Brothers is calling the lawsuit meritless. Paramount also announced plans to nominate its own slate of directors to Warner Brothers board devoting its next meal. This is very typical in these fights. Netflix is making some moves ahead of its own reportedly amending its offer to an all cash deal, very savvy, which could speed up the process significantly. The stock is down, so it makes sense and it makes it more attractive and gets that problem out of the way, the stock declining. I'd love you to talk about the board dynamics. I talked to Bill Cohen last night and he was like, I don't understand why you would sugar, give the money, give $34 a share, you don't do vinegar here after doing so many stupid things in this deal. And actually, let me note, lengthening the timeframe because Trump is, if martial law doesn't happen, Trump loses the House and the Senate, this deal is fucked for the Paramount people. So the timeframe is really bad for them at this point. They're taking too long to get this, if they got their hands on this, Trump will be damaged by the time and not able to help them. But what do you think of this proxy strategy? You've been in the middle of these things a million times. Yeah, Bill's exactly right. At some point, I mean, they went through a long process and disaster law, when there are bankers credit, they got the number much higher than anyone, including me had anticipated. And at some point, they have to say, okay, this is why we're picking this deal, you have to be able to economically justify it for shareholders there was justification for a lot of reasons that the Netflix is the superior bid. And I have never been on a company that's been acquired or has acquired another company, or has gone out of business where there's not lawsuits. I was on the board of Eddie Bauer, when we declared bankruptcy, I was on. Really? You're on the board of Eddie Bauer, I forgot. Okay. Yeah, well, because I'm such a great outdoorsman, it just made sense. I can't see you hiking, anyway. You're going on a hike someday. Go ahead. Anyways, but there's always lawsuits. So, folks, these guys don't scare easily. They just send the law. The lawsuit's not going to have any merit. It's just my in my tied up or delay it, but it just adds another moving part to what is already going to be a complicated messy situation. The only thing that talks here is they got to put $34 to share on the table. They've got to... De Niro. De Niro. And not only that, it has to be increased. The incremental offer has to be great enough to justify a potential breakup where I believe WBB would have to pay Netflix $2 billion. Yes, exactly. And also, all those loan covenant things they have to get their nose out of. They have to let Warner Brothers do those loans. So, the only way this happens is... $2 billion or something. The only way this happens, they're not going to block this deal with lawsuits. The only way this happens is if Larry Ellison goes, whatever, I'm 81 fucking years old. I'm worth, I don't know, I think he's the third richest man in the world. I know he's less wealthy now. He went down, yeah. But that he just says, or Saudi money shows up and says, Larry, if you're willing to put in another 10, we'll put in another 10. And they show up with a 15% premium to the current offer. That's the only way the board is legally, because of Revlon laws. I don't even think... Can he be incremental? If it's a 3% or 5%, they would say the additional risk injected into the deal and the break of fee means that this is a wash and we are just going with this dance partner as committed. There was a really interesting note. You and I both know VB Nevo. He's a funny little guy who is a very big investor in a lot of stuff. And he's very amusing on many levels and has been sort of a quiet whisper to lots of muggles. He was sitting next to David Zasloff at the Golden Globes, which was... And not with... And he's a Warner Brothers shareholder, and not with David Ellison, who apparently was seated in the back. But as he's being insulted by the host of a show that's on his network, which I loved, it was really interesting. That was a really interesting Zasloff sort of flexing a little bit there, having VB next to him. And I think this... I get lawsuits are typical, but it seems like not the way to do this. Like just give them the money. I keep going. And same thing that Bill says, give them the money. Just give them the money. That will work. Why aren't they giving them the money? That's... Well, you mean offer more money. Offer the best of it. Top their bed. So in 25, my big tech stock pick or my stock pick was Alphabet. This year, it's Amazon. You know what my stock pick in 24 was? What? Warner Brothers. Oh, interesting. And at the end of the year, it was down 10%. I wish you had it now. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And I thought these assets will go... What will be interesting... And this is going to come back to my prediction. What will be interesting is, I think all of these bankers and financiers figuring out they could in fact... They can in fact do whatever $100 billion is a 12-figure deal. Once this thing is done or has left the station, you know who they're going to turn their sights on. Disney. 100%. Disney's going to be put in play by somebody. Yeah. Yeah. And then I will be doing the lovely exit interview with Robert Eiger. So yeah, I agree. But it has to be done interestingly at the same time. Say, Apple is the obvious candidate for that particular purchase. I agree. 100%. There's going to be a new CEO at Apple relatively soon and a new CEO at Disney. So those can... Which do you think will come first? Disney. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Disney. I'm pretty sure I'm right. And but Apple's coming. Apple, Tim Cook has been less there from what I understand from people and is starting to move away from it. I think he'll still be involved in a question. Both of... Well, maybe Eiger will sail away on his beautiful ships. But I think that they're both preparing. So whoever the CEO is, is going to have to helm this thing and therefore be part of the decision making, right? That's presumably... You don't want to like, here you go. I just did a massive deal kind of thing. But in this case, just pay the money, Larry, or not. Like, should or get off the pod is kind of the situation here. I think they should rename Disney to strip mining nostalgia. God. We're so creative, we're going to put out a prequel, a sequel, an aquel, a night... Let me just say, I'm going to push back on that. Both Disney and Apple have given us so... This group, these groups of people have given us so much great stuff over the many decades. It's okay that they aren't perfect all the time. No, and so is Ford Motor and Dow Chemical. That's a long, long time ago. Although, you know, as you know, I have a Chevy Bolt and I love it. Anyway, so what's the next move, Mr. Board member, since I've never been on a board? Well, people don't realize they're on board dynamics. And this is more relevant or impactful as it relates to Chairman Powell. Chairman Powell, you know, he's off, he's no longer the chairman as of May 2024. But you know who's in charge of the Fed? 26, 26. I'm sorry, May 20, 2020. 26 and... God damn it. Where does the time go, Kara? The cats in the cradle. Where does the time go? You never played ball with Mace God. Where does... Oh, wait, my... I need to pee. That's right. It's 2026. Okay. So... What's gonna happen now? The only time I feel like I don't need to pee is when I'm peeing. Anyways, just... And now the stream is so weak, it's like missed. You could be the anchor of CBS News with that line, but go ahead. Don't trust the experts. Hey, Billy Bob, fucking Yander, what do you think? They are concerned with the audience of CBS is concerned with whether they can pee or not. What did Fort Chan tell you? What's gonna happen here? We have to move on. Okay. So this is the thing. Why does Trump want Chairman Powell out so badly into resign? Because while his chairmanship expires in three and a half months, he remains on the board of governors... And he's influential. ...until 28. Who do you think's gonna control the fucking Fed next year? Chairman Powell. Chairman Powell, because this is how boards work, Kara, but what I've learned, first there's a quote-unquote board meeting where we all sit around with the CEO in the room and we eat salad and everyone listens to themselves talk and we approve, we do whatever the fucking CEO suggested. And the only time that board matters is two. Two times. Either hiring part of the CEO or you decide if and when to sell the company. And usually when things get spicy, there's a second board meeting. And the second board meeting is the board members who matter meet usually in the parking lot after the board meeting and start talking. Because the dynamic on a board is the following. Everybody talks, everybody's smart, says their shit, poses for the cameras. It's a bunch of fips, formerly important people saying intelligent things, you know, and then going back to the, you know, their country club in Naples. And then usually two people speak and everyone stops and listens and agrees with them. And the two people are usually the following. The largest shareholder, because bottom line is they control the company and especially if it's a private company and they might need more company, everyone kisses this guy's ass and it's always a guy. And there's usually an export member. What I mean by export member is there's someone who quite frankly has proven themselves over the course of the last two, three, 10 years on this board. It's just fucking smarter than everybody else. Has more gravitas. And when this person speaks, everyone just starts nodding their head. And guess who that person on the board of governors regarding interest rate decisions is going to be. The chair communicates to Congress. The chair is the visual figurehead. But at the end of the day, the people deciding if interest rates go up or down, it's the board of governors. And you can bet regardless of who the chair is in June of this year, everyone will talk. And then chairman Powell, probably one of the greatest economic minds in history will say, yeah, these are all great points, but I think we should keep interest rates where you are. You can bet other board of governors are going to decide I'm with chairman or former chairman or governor Powell right now. So here, let's go to Warner. So the board chair is a guy who used to be chief executive of Price Waters Cooper. It's right. And he's the one that's been on TV saying there's, so him, he's like, he's a white guy, David Zaslov, Richard Fisher, independent director, who was this guy, I don't even know who this guy is, served as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. So a big swinging. So that's him. I'm sure it's a very competent board. Right. Okay, it is. I'm just saying, but who's that? It's Zaslov, right? Presumably is running the show here. Paul Vould. Debra Lee. Oh, shoot. That's interesting. Zaslov has gained a tremendous amount of credibility because he's almost gotten everybody's money back. Yeah. Ken Lowe is on it. Wow. It's an interesting, Anthony Noto's on that board. Ooh, I know a lot of this board really well. Wow. Oh, Jeffrey Yang's on this board. Malone. Malone's the big swinging deck on this board. Oh, Bob Malone's on this board? Yeah. Yeah. He's the guy that's going to listen to. John, sorry, John Malone. He's the guy. He's arguably the brightest guy or one of the brightest minds in the history of meetings. There's a couple of tech people. Jeffrey Yang, the the the Vege capitalist. I've been that guy. Anthony Noto. I've been that guy. I've been the tech guy they bring on and over a while just because we started a tech company doesn't mean we know how to implement tech at Disney. No, I get it. But there's a couple of interesting people. Anthony Noto was on it. Anton Levy is another person who's really interesting venture cap. They've got a lot of venture capos. Anyway. I don't know. They really have the thing about Disney is that I've been- It's Malone. I'm going to layoffs, but Disney's announcing so many remakes. They had a bunch of original ideas that fell for unemployment. Oh my God. That's good. Anyway, all right, we're we'll see what happens next. We can get pay up kids. Let's pay up. So moving on. The FBI searched the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson on Wednesday, seizing laptops, a phone and a smartwatch. Natanson has spent the last three years covering the Trump administration's efforts to fire federal workers. The search is part of an investigation, they say, into a Maryland system administration accused of taking home classified intelligence report. It's a pretext, rightly. The Washington Post has been told neither Natanson nor the outlet are the target of the investigation. The editor of the Washington Post, Matt Murray, did a terrific letter. It took a while to hear from the CEO, Will Lewis. Jeff Bezos has not said word one and he's getting enormous amounts of criticism, but readers remain quiet in the hours following the news. I think the newsroom leaders have been done the right thing and everything else, but this is a Trump administration trying to really go for the press at this point and going for their sources. There's no reason to take this woman's information on another investigation and it's pretext as all this. But Jeff Bezos not standing up is what another, he's busy partying in Aspen presumably, but another reason why he's a terrible owner for the Washington Post, you need to stand up at times like this. Yeah, I stopped listening about 37 years ago. I'm bored. It matters. You're just masturbating. You know what, you talk about demotivating. Journalism, where's my vibrator? No, journalism. We have rules in this country. Why is mice? Let's talk about Bob Iger. Hold on. No, why does my stuff not, why does press, you talk about this important of democracy? Are we married now? No. Why does my stuff not, you don't touch me anymore. Press is an important part of the entire thing. You don't notice me. State media is being created even as we speak. Jeff Bezos, if he wants to own this fantastic newspaper still, despite his best efforts to make it suck, should stand up. Come on. I'm trying to get what's less relevant than CBS, oh, the Washington Post. No, it is not. Relationship advice to the young men out there. Women don't want money and height. They want follow-up questions. No, they do. No, no. Yes, they do. Women want follow-up questions. They want to be noticed. Let's talk about Bob Iger. Just let me get a few Bob Iger things back and then you can go back to talking about how important the Washington Post is. No bad. I'm not saying it's important. It's an important moment that owners just step up. No, no, no, no, it's terrible what's going on here. Oh my God. You're literally, when you're reading Provda every day and getting updates from... Provda. I'm sure you'll enjoy that. I'm just saying. I'm getting a tattoo that says Al Jazeera. No, no. Listen to me. I'm going to ignore you completely. The Mrs. Graham went out on a fucking lamb all the time for this country and so did Don Graham. Yeah, to your point, I probably shouldn't be glib about it. The Washington Post reporter had developed, I guess, or it's reported well over a thousand confidential sources inside a variety of government agencies. So this is an attempt, not only an attempt to put a chill around the press, which is obviously totally contrary to everything America is supposed to value, but it's really meant to unmask sources and put a chill around anyone who talks to the press outside of normal propaganda channels. It really is upsetting. Federal agents, they've knocked down the door of the journalist. Her name is, as you referenced, Hannah Nathanson. The Petropeller House, they don't ask for a comment. They don't call her. They just kick down her door and take her computer and her phone. So again, we just continue to find violations of the very principles that America was founded on. So yeah, you're right. I shouldn't be glib about it. Look, this is a long line in media companies acquiescing to the government. Thank you. CBS, whether it's CBS, whether it's making payoffs to him, whether it's Sherry Redstone, whether it's whatever, Jeff Bezos is a long line of shitty owners of media. I agree. We agree that he's probably, I think he probably agrees that he shouldn't own or bought the Washington Post. He should go and get his chin implants or whatever he wants, but he shouldn't own the Washington Post. But here's the thing. Bob Iger, he doesn't ruin childhoods. He leases them back to you monthly. And also, he's not evil. He's worse. He's the kind of guy who can ruin something politely. No, no. You don't have a child. And Disney does wonderful stuff, as do many people. Anyway, you're not going to get the focus off of shitty Jeff Bezos. All right, Scott, well, go on a quick break. You do not care for the things I care for. You know, his big innovation was making you pay $27 to skip the line so you can stand in a different line? That's his innovation. When's the last time you were at Disney? Oh, it's a 364 days a year. I do not show up for my kids. And then my partner says, all right, bitch, so I take my, we haven't done it in a couple of years because now they want to go to Universal with their buddies and not have dad around. It's like the only time I would go, they want to go to Halloween night. I'm like, I'll go. No, no, dad, you're not about it. I used to take all the kids and their friends to Disney once a year for a long time. Yeah. All right, but no longer. No, I haven't been in a while. Have you been in a while? I've been on a Disney cruise. Oh, you've been with them? I've heard they're great. My kids wanted to do a cruise with their grandparents. It's endless soft serve. That's all I have to say. I've heard it's fantastic. It's very good. It's very well done. I wanted to kill myself, but it's very well done. Well, that's called a cruise. Yes, exactly. It was endless soft serve. Actually, you're getting to that age now, though. No, I'm not going to. You're getting to that age. I don't like boats. I'm not a boat lady. And they have deals for you and your nurse. Okay. Anyway, all right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. We'll talk about Apple and Google teaming up on AI. Scott, we're back with more news. Apple and Google have announced a multi-year deal for Apple to base its AI products on technology developed by Google. Upcoming versions of Apple intelligence will be based on Gemini AI models, powering Siri and other AI features. Alphabet stock jumped on the news making it the fourth public traded company to be worth over $4 trillion. It's interesting because they were mobbed up a little bit with open AI, as you know, for a little bit. And of course, there's many criticisms of Apple being behind. Meanwhile, several publishers, including our own Vox media, the Atlantic, Penske Media are suing Google for antitrust violations over its dominant ad tech business. There's a case happening, too. Meta has named former Trump advisor, Dean Powell McCormick, to serve as president and vice chair. Powell McCormick served as Trump's Japanese national security advisor during his first term. That's when I met her. But President Trump posted truth, social congratulating Powell McCormick calling it move a great choice by Mark Z. I'll comment on that at the end because I think she's highly competent and she's worked for Goldman Sachs. I want to leave that out. Is it married to Senator David McCormick of Pennsylvania? They're a power couple, obviously. But talk about the Google Apple thing and the lawsuit. I think you know more about this than I do, Kara. I'll mention it to your thoughts. I think Apple's been criticized for being behind in the AI stuff. They haven't been developing it. They've been losing staff in that way. Obviously, they've decided not to participate in the money's bending in this area that Google and others are doing. I think it makes sense. They have strong relationships over mapping and search and everything else. I don't know. They've gotten in trouble over the mapping and the search, making them the default search. They may be just doing it again if Google and Apple do this. I think they don't have the capabilities. Gemini has gotten a lot better, I have to say, even on Google Search when I use it very rarely now. They have to be mobbed up with an Apple because that's where people get their information. We'll see. I think it's in the light of that there is still an ad-tech case by the federal government and then now this one. These people have complained about Google but never done anything and now they've done it. I think this is exactly what they should do is sue them. I mean, I've always thought they should sue them in this regard because Google is on both sides of the ad trade and shouldn't be. I do think the case that the government has is a strong one against Google. Any thoughts? Well, I thought Apple not entering into the capital wars of AI was a really deaf move because I thought they were going to pull a search and say, all right, you guys fight it out for search and we'll just sequester access to the most valuable billion consumers in the world that really are the only... They did that with maps too. So what is it? There are now more phone contracts than there are people on the planet and a billion of those or 1.2 billion of those I think are iOS and quite frankly, they're the only people that matter because they're the only people with money. When you're carrying Android phone and I've said this for a long time, you're communicating to the world that things just quite haven't worked out for you. And so Apple and iOS is responsible for something like 80% of online commerce. You can get a free phone. You can get an amazing phone and a free phone as long as it's Android and these things cost three months salary and hungary now, the iPhone. The ultimate signal as you're worth as a mate is whether you have iOS or not. And so what they do is they know the value of that and they said to search if you want to be put in front of the billion most powerful consumers in the world, you got to pay us not five, not 10, but $20 billion a year. I thought they were going to have the same type of leverage with these LLMs. One of these LLMs was going to pay them a massive amount of money to be the default. Well, that may be the case here, we'll have to see. But it looks like it's sort of that the technology is so differentiated and they needed so much that Apple doesn't have the leverage at least I thought because what it looks like, it looks like they're going to actually pay, my understanding is pay alphabet about a billion dollars to use Gemini. So the leverage is sort of switched back to the provider here, to the content as opposed to the distribution. What's interesting is why they've decided to support, I mean, if you look at the market share, there's a couple of things, I've been giving all these talks about AI, there's a couple of things about LLM market share that are just sort of interesting. It's likely and obvious and understandable that open AI would be seeding its 80, 70% share that other people would be chipping away with. Yeah, now it is. Google's come up and they've come down. And the two that have been eating share have been one Gemini and two, the LLMs, the open weight LLMs coming out of China. And it makes sense that- That's it, by the way, that's it, the others are not growing. And by the way, Google search still gets about 90 times the number of queries. Yeah. Just on a different point. They've done a good job integrating AI. They have, there's no- Greg showed the CEO of Section AI that upskills corporations for AI adoption has said something to me that I thought was really bang on, he said, the billion people out there that might use AI in the next couple of years, only 40 million are going to be willing to pay it. So really, open AI right now is one of two forks in the road. They either get massive, massive enterprise adoption or they go bankrupt because there's no way there's enough consumers willing to pay 20 bucks a month. They're saying, let's get for Google, which one are you going to be? So anyways, but this is, I think this is a huge win for Alphabet. They're going to be put in front of the most valuable consumers in the world or the ones that have money. And I would imagine the reason they're doing this is they're thinking that this is going to give an enormous boost to Gemini. So they either strategically have decided they don't want open AI as a viable competitor and two, they've also, I wouldn't be surprised, people forget, these are people with enormous egos. And I say that in a good way. They are so, they will not spend time with their families, they will ignore their health because they want to win so badly and they want to be relevant in the world. And one way to do that is to be the CEO of a company and beat everybody else. I wouldn't be surprised. And I'm curious what your thoughts, if Tim Cook, quite frankly, is a little pissed off at I've in this whole bromance of how in the implication that opening AI is going to build products. And so, and they've kind of, Alphabet for Apple is the devil, is the devil they know, but this is going to absolutely elevate or accelerate the market share of Gemini relative to open AI. I didn't have a lot of insight there. No, you had a lot of insight. I was just going to say, you actually did have insight. Let me, what about the lawsuit very quickly? I don't have a view on it. Yeah, well, they should sue them. That was quick. They should sue them. They've been sucking away their value forever and doing it in a monoclystic way. So, yes. I'm up for any lawsuit against Pitek at this point. Yeah, I like a lawsuit. Oh, and then, Dina, the way I read that, and I'm curious for you. I do know a lot about this, but go ahead. Yeah. See, my thing is that essentially Metta and Jensen and Juan all realize one thing, she's not in charge of partnerships with the government around data centers. She's in charge of figuring out a way to elegantly get them, the government, to pay for it and ultimately bail them out because their plans around data centers, even they cannot finance. So, what is she there to do? Finance. Yeah, I think Dina is there to go to the Treasury Secretary and the Commerce Secretary. You know why it makes sense for the government to issue bonds and backstop $4 trillion in debt for us? Because it'll grow the economy. I think she's there with the world's most elegant, biggest fucking hat to try and get Trump to justify and announce that he's going to backstop. See, you know. You know, Scott, very well. So, you agree. Yeah. Oh, I think so. I think she's there. She's a goldman. I mean, they'd leave out. A lot of the reaction was, oh, it's a soft to Trump. I don't think that's the case at all here. I think she's actually a very deft networker. She left the Trump administration rather early and has a very good reputation as a networker. She was a Goldman Sachs, very tight with those people, was there for a long time. She knows everybody and actually across all party lines, which is really interesting. And so I think Metta doesn't have much capital experience in figuring out how to capitalize these things, these data centers, and has been very far behind. The other thing is, I think the soft to Trump is too easy. I think she's the right person, especially if Trump starts to lose power. She has been close. Everyone who's participating has to have a relationship with Trump, but she hasn't gone over the edge in the way that some others have. So there's that. I think she has some credibility with Democrats from what I can glean. She's now the head of the Big Tech pack and she will orchestrate the largest bailout for tech since COVID. Possibly. Or else figure out how to capitalize this stuff, right? How to get the money for it. Which is a bailout if it comes from the government. Yeah. So the other thing I think she has to avoid being this Sheryl Sandberg too, right? Like seen as that way. And so I think that's- I don't think she will though, unless she's gonna like claim, you know, let me just be honest, unless she's gonna pretend to promote gender equality while depressing teens all over the world. She will not. She's actually interestingly, she's very close to Nikki Haley. She's definitely Republican, a very interesting background. But I agree with you. It's all about the data centers. You're one hot, good for you, Scott, not knowing everything. You're absolutely financing and- Give me the money to start a paper. And actually- I love Aspen. I love Aspen. As much as I hate to come, Mark's every is a very sharp choice. Oh, one of the better business minds of the last century. Yeah, I gotta say, he's made the right choice here. He's made a lot of bad choices. This one's a good one for him. And it's too easy to say it's just to suck up to Trump. It's not. It's absolutely not. It's to suck up to everybody. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, let's hear up prediction. The only thing I want to say is, I thought that XAI is just to disable the ability for GROC to create sexualized images of real people, including children, falling a wide backlash. It's pretty easy to generate those by the way. But I think I got it right that he was going to give up, even though he was pretending he wasn't on this stuff. I think he's going to continue to double down. That's my prediction, because I don't know what else to say. This guy is a really heinous character and he thinks he's quating free speech with sexualization of children is really where we are right now with him. And that Apple, I don't think Apple and Google will do anything about it, which they should have before this. But he's backed off. So there you have it. Maybe they did behind the scenes. I don't know. Go ahead. Yeah, so we've been talking about Warner Brothers Discovery. It's about to go into boring mode where they're just trying to get the Siphyas and Antitrust and all the lawsuits and reviews for the next 18 or 24 months. The next thing that's going to preoccupy us is there's going to be most likely an activist because it's so bad, but Disney's going to be put in play. The leadership transition here is uncertain. He says, Igor says he plans to retire, but succession issues have traditionally invited shareholder activism. And a moment of a leadership change is an opportunity for an activist to kind of pop up and play CEO. Have you been called? Scott Galloway? There you go. Yeah, I was literally the world's worst athlete in the history of UCLA. And I imagine I'm like the world's worst activist. They'll get pressure from activist investor, whether it's Nelson. Basically, it's at its flat. In a market that's tripled or quadrupled, it's flat over the last 10 years. And you look at this IP in these parks. There's very few companies that have more assets than Disney right now. Nobody has it. Warner would be the second, but Disney's top. You're right. There's just something about, I mean, look at Disney. These parks, these cruises are singular and Netflix can't spin up a Disney park in two, three decades. It would take 50 years. Obviously, the IP here, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, theme parks, ESPN. Why is it flat then? Because they haven't been able to grow earnings. And there's just, you can't get around it. You'd have to argue it's been poorly managed. It's like, how on earth is Intel worth less than it was 25 years ago when it was the leader in microchips? I mean, and also the thing, the biggest reason why Disney will be put into play, it comes from that movie, what was it called? Wall Street, where Charlie Sheen is saying, why did you have to go after this company? Why do you want to break this? And he finally loses his shit and he goes, because it's breakable. And Disney is breakable in the sense that unlike most media companies, it has very modest anti-takeover or poison pill provisions. It has an annually elected board. It doesn't have a starter board. Once you get on a board and you decide, you know, we're smarter than everybody else, including our shareholders, we'll start. I was on the board of Gateway Computer and we finally found a fucking bidder to buy that joy bag and donuts company. And all the board members sat around and said, including the guy who went on to be the governor of Michigan, they tried to put in a poison pill and they're like, we just want you to come in through the front door. And I'm like, all the like Yahoo, you know, farm speak just means you think you're smarter than shareholders. You now think you own this company as opposed to shareholders. Disney has not done that. That means a bidder only needs to persuade the majority of shareholders to replace directors, which can make hostile approaches. He's been through this. He has been through a few hostels, as you know, with our mother and a whole bunch of people. And also the other thing that I think is lined up here is I think people look at Disney and go, yeah, a fucking a Disney, someone should go in there and acquire 2% and be an activist. And that's probably what happens here. But what Warner Brothers has probably shown the market that, oh, if you find the right billionaire and the right pockets of money and the golf and the right bankers really hungry for fees, you can assemble this type of money. And there's so much money on the sidelines. Yeah, I don't think they'll let the Saudis into this one. It's going to be an apple. It's going to be someone who doesn't need the Saudi Hill. I'm just trying to think. Disney's an American brand, such, I mean, Warner is too, but Disney. They're there's no way. Aren't they opening it? They're opening a Disney and the golf, right? They are, but they're not going to let the Saudis own Disney. Well, I don't know. I think all you need to do is make is give Mickey Mouse a beard and a moral and a morality police. Okay, who? I think it's Apple. It's got to be Apple. If they were, if they had it set. By the way, can I make another prediction besides these? They just have to change the name of the ride from it's a small world to something like it's a small world and more restricted that we live in. I think I was at this dinner and farmer guy was there. And as I was sitting here, I thought, because they're doing pharma and tech are doing all these deals together, whether it's open AI or all of them are doing deals, these health deals. I think big tech is going to go after pharma next and own. Oh, that's super interesting. I was like, oh, I looked at a niece going on and on about Trump or something. I said, you know what, you're going to get owned by tech in that you're the next frontier. They're doing the media stuff, but it's peanuts compared to you. And actually, in terms of doing great things, AI combined with pharma is an amazing huge opportunity. I think actually the golf funding Disney is a bigger fit than you think, especially with the Star Wars franchise, Desert Planets, Dynasties, Family Drama, done fits perfectly. They can have the golf. They're not getting Disney. So they can have golf and tennis or whatever the hell, but not Disney. It's going to be hard. That'll be made. There'll be a lot of pushback on that. Well, I like that. They'd have to ban gay days. They'd rebrand them as imagination maintenance closure. Also, that's on Warner. He's a robber who's on Warner. Anyway, in HBO. Anyways, my prediction is Disney is about to be the object of our obsession. It's most likely going to be an activist because it still is a very big pill to swallow. But they have good for them. And I hate poison pill provisions and anything that shifts accountability and authority from shareholders to a bunch of people who think they're smarter than everyone else on a board because they show up for a cob salad and get paid $300,000 a year called Boards of Directors. You would not believe how arrogant we become when we go on Boards. I'm going to go on a board this year. That's one of my little goals. All right, board people, I'm interested. Anyway, that's a great prediction. And you will and may steal my idea of tech buying big pharma. Okay. But I just to come to your, I thought of you and you'll like this because it makes you look good. But you got a ton of shit on one of the social platforms. Someone insulted me about my take on masculinity. And then someone weighed in and said, yeah, and we should have known this. He partners with Kara Swisher who's been a total corporate shill for big tech. And I thought immediately, I've been on the nominating committee. When you go on a board and they don't like you, i.e. Scott Galloway, they put you on the stupidest committee. They put you on the nominating and governance committee. And the one thing the nominating and I always end up on the compensation committee because it's the worst fucking committee or the absolute worst is the audit committee because they have to do real work. But anyways, on the nominating and governance committee, the thing you do is find new directors when directors roll off and good boards, you know, kick, polite. We have a conversation with his golf buddy who's been there 24 years. Maybe it's time for you to move on or we talk to their nurse. But anyways, the, I'm not exaggerating. I know exactly what they're looking for in directors. You check every fucking box literally and figuratively, except you're unafraid and you're a pain in the ass. If you were not speaking truth to power and totally unafraid, I'm not exaggerating. I think you'd be the chairman of fucking open AI or Tesla right now. So the notion, I think you're abrasive truth kind of tell truth to power has cost you Kara hundreds of millions of dollars. So for anyone on any social media platform, they can say they don't like you. They can say you're arrogant. There's some truth, whatever, fine. But to say that you are a corporate shill. I know they do that. I don't know what the opposite of that is. I was close to Elon and wasn't and they just can't. These are these sort of sensors. And if you'd stayed close to them and kissed his ass, you'd be on the board of Tesla and were $200 million. And I'd be standing at your place and so on. Exactly. I know. I'm aware. I'm aware. But most of the criticism I get is from being with you. That's good to know. Board people. Come find me. Anyway, we don't care that we're shrill or dislikeable or anything else. We don't care. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com.pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-pivot. Yes, we do not care because we like ourselves and we like each other. That's the way it's going to go. You're not going to split us up. We are going to do that ourselves. 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. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Suey Marcus, and Taylor Griffin, Ernie Nertout, and Jannette Nertout, this episode. Manolo Moreno edited the video. Thanks also to Dubro's Mr. Vera and D'Anchealon. Nishat Kuroha, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you 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.