The Cost of Corporate Silence on ICE, Trump's Health, and TikTok USA

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1:06

This week on Explain it to Me from Vox, our crisis of stupid and how to get our brains back. New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.

1:16

You know, I don't give a shit. I'm ready to fight, you know, cuz I grew up here on Long Island. We were doing push ups in the parking lot outside of discos. Getting ready to fight people. Okay? I don't give a shit. I will fight Trump every step of the way.

1:28

Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media podcast network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott is somewhere on a plane. We did an emergency pod yesterday and I'm glad you all listened to it. We thought it was critical to do it. So today I'm joined by a friend of the pod, the one, the only, Anthony Scaramucci, also known as the Mooch. Anthony, welcome.

1:46

Gary. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me. And I saw Scott last week in Davos. I enjoyed his commentary and, well, I enjoy your commentary.

2:05

Thank you, Anthony. Anyway, I'm gonna call you Anthony, not the Mooch anymore, okay? I like that better. You sit up straight when I say Anthony.

2:14

I'm sitting up straight. You yelled at me before we started to sit up straight. Thanks, Mom. Anytime.

2:21

But we are in a serious zone today. And actually I'm glad to have you here because I do want to talk about business people and their reaction to what's happening in Minnesota and elsewhere. But before we do anything, I'd like to point out that as the episode drops, it's been 39 days since the deadline passed for the DOJ to release all the Epstein files. Again, Pam Bondi is in violation of a law and they have not released them. And part of this, what's happening has to do with this too. So let's not forget that they are out there and probably as someone noted on one of the social media sites, they're safer than anything in America right now are the Epstein files. Anyway, we've got a lot to discuss, so let's get to it. Donald Trump says his administration is reviewing everything surrounding the shooting of 37 year old ICU nurse Alex Preddy in Minneapolis this weekend. He's also now sending his border czar, Tom Holman to Minneapolis. The leading GOP candidate for Minnesota governor just dropped out of the race, saying he can't support the national Republican retribution on the Sydney citizens of his state. And as we record, a federal judge is hearing arguments on temporarily halting the immigration crackdown in Minnesota. On the latest episode of on with Kara Swisher, I spoke with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry. This was before the Alex Preddy shooting, but Frey knew another incident was inevitable. Let's listen.

2:27

For over a month before Renee Goode was shot, the chief of police and I were both privately and publicly expressing concerns that somebody was gonna get shot or killed, that either a civil resident, a police officer, or an ICE agent was going to get shot and killed. And tragically, that happened. And then it happened again. And by the way, it's going to happen again on top of that, because this is the kind of conduct that we're seeing that inevitably will lead to people getting hurt. It's deeply concerning. But it's not just Minneapolis that should be concerned right now. I have a deep concern for the endurance of our republic when the constitutional norms and these mainstays of good governing principles are thrown in the trash can.

3:47

Unfortunately, he was pressy. And although I think a lot of people did understand the escalating tensions there, I'll also note I've been calling out CEOs for their silence on this. As comedian Steve Hofstadter put it on threads, if speaking out against fascism damages your brand, that means your Brand is fascism. But since our last recording, some execs are speaking out, at least in Minnesota. On Sunday, more than 60 CEOs of Minnesota based companies, including Target, Best Buy and 3M released a letter calling for de escalation. It took them long enough. And more than 450 tech workers from Google, Meta, OpenAI and other companies have signed a letter urging CEOs to demand ICE leave cities and cancel company contracts with ICE. Scott and I talked about what happened this weekend as a turning point. Anthony, I'd love your thoughts on this because again, you were just at Davos, tons of business leaders. You obviously are tuned into the political system. You are a Republican who has turned away from the Republican Party very early, I would add. Talk about what is happening here from a, you know, obviously we're all worried about the republic itself, as the mayor had, but it's an on the ground moving situation. So I'd love you to look at it from the business point of view, from Trump's point of view and your own.

4:43

Well, I think it's important to understand what they were trying to do and how it backfired. Then we'll talk about the business people. Okay, so what they were trying to do, because I know these sons of bitches, is they were trying to set up a great media exposition for themselves else in the culture war. And so here the narrative, the Minnesota blue state, blue state is bad. Corruption in the blue state is conjoined. This is that conspiracy nonsense. Yeah, exactly. But it's a conspiracy.

5:53

It is the greatest issue our nation faces. A group of people who committed fraud. You should just look at the White House on any given day. But go ahead.

6:23

I understand the pushback and we can talk about the Democrats, how they should be responding better to it. But I want you to understand what they're doing. So they're sitting there saying, okay, this is great. We're going to send the ICE people up there, there. They're going to rough these people up and this is going to be great for our culture war. We're going to send a signal to our red meat eating, law abiding people that we're getting tough on people, particularly in the blue states where they're doing quote unquote, all the fraud. Now they send inexperienced ICE agents up there and we saw the videos and Trump saw the videos, which is why he's panicked and they murdered the guy. I mean, that's basically what happened. And now the whole thing has blown back on them. And so this media imagery that they were looking for has been a negative media imagery the problem.

6:30

So just pictures, you're saying? Just photos.

7:16

Yeah. They wanted a Fox News day of programming where the day set from the 8 block for 12 hours. Look at the Trump administration, how tough ass in action. And we're defending the republic against fraud and we're mean and we're tough and we're taking five year olds because that's what we're supposed to be doing. And their tone deaf to the overall optics. And then they created a Kent State like moment for the older listeners, the younger listeners. A National Guardsman shot a student at Kent State and it flipped the entire political landscape at that time. And so what's happening here is the landscape is starting to flip. But concomitant to this is the chilling effect that Donald Trump and his Department of Justice and, and his jackbooted people have on business leaders. So hear me out for a second. If you're on a corporate board and you have a public CEO, you're telling the guy or the woman, chill out, take a backseat. There's 1,000 days left for Trump. If you're the managing partner of a law firm, negotiate with him. If you're a president of a university, negotiate with him. He's not, quote unquote, Adolf Hitler. He's a lame duck president. And while he's flexing on you take it, don't overly criticize him because he could do damage to our long term brand and damage to our long term stock market performance. Okay? And that's up actually, short term, short term, but that's up against the stuff that you just said about your brand is fascism. Okay? So the mistake that they're all making is you have to reject Donald Trump. If you don't flex on Donald Trump and reject Donald Trump, you'll be at a disadvantage. He'll continue to roll you. European leaders, wake up. Business leaders, wake up. Somebody pick up the phone and call Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada and get some executive coaching, some leadership coaching from him because he gets it. Okay? You know, Newsom is close, by the way. Newsom would be number two in terms of getting it. You have to shove and push Trump back if you're going to get any respect from Donald Trump.

7:18

Can I ask you, you're a Davos. What if, Let me just say, I talk to them behind the scenes, including people that are close to Trump. Let me just say, like, couldn't. So close. They wouldn't. They could be on the other side of him. They abhor him. It's really at 1.2 people I ran into on a plane and they spent 20 minutes trying to tell me, no, we really can't stand him. And I go, you need to shut the fuck up if you're not gonna say it publicly. Cause I don't. You're not gonna win, my love, because what you're doing is so complicit. And so talk a little bit about that because you're at Davos, they obviously do. They still shrug and say, because initially it was sort of the shruggies with business, we'll have to deal with it. And then he'll be gone. Like this, too will pass. Did that change at all the Europeans? It's gotten worse.

9:38

Tell me why. Because he's willing to do things that other politicians were not willing to do. He's willing to fudge the Constitution. He's willing to overstep. He's willing to detain you at the airport. He's willing to put a sanction against your business. He's willing to do things that are outside of the realm of due process, Right? So you have to remember to be in a safe and free society, you have to be subordinate to a set of laws and you have to have due process. Did the young man that was murdered this past weekend have due process? No, he did not. They made a decision to murder him indiscriminately. Okay? That's authority, authoritarianism. When leaders are turning guns on their citizens, they care more about power than they do their citizens, right? And so these corporate leaders are making a very big mistake. They're kowtowing to Trump because they feel he's got all the power. And he's gonna use the power in an unpredictable, indiscriminate way to hurt them. But if they were smarter, they would all team up. The Fortune 50 would team up like the 60 CEOs in Minnesota and say, hey, listen, I'm sorry, guy, we're not gon take this anymore. We're going to flood the zone for democratic donations. We're going to try to get rid of your regime. And he's one man standing. You see, this is the problem.

10:26

Why don't they do that? Where are they from?

11:50

They don't do that because they're operating in their own silos. Okay? And so when you operate in your own silo, Kara, you go to your board and say, what should I do? And they say, get out of the way.

11:53

Okay, but if you were operating either Duck.

12:04

Or if the law firm, Paul Weiss called Fifth 50 other law firms and said they're Coming for me. They're eventually going to come for you. What do we do? And they all teamed up. Now they've got a voice, then they can push back. If the Fortune 100 got together like the Minnesota CEOs, you see, he got frightened. I know this son of a bitch. He's a baby. Most bullies are. He looked at the video, he said, holy shit, we murdered the guy. Which is why he told the Wall Street Journal last night. He's reviewing everything. Yeah, he called Governor Waltz this morning, and he put out a friendly truth social about Governor Waltz because he knows he's in trouble, okay? Now he's got these CEOs, he's looking at that, saying, Whoa, that's 3M. That's target. These are big companies. If they're coming for me and I get wiped out in the midterms, okay, or they start to reject Republicanism, I just took a couple billion dollars for myself. I'm gonna end up. And my family's gonna end up in wild investigations. So you see what he's doing? He's pulling back. That's Trump's nature.

12:06

Okay, let me, let me. And yet they continue. On the day of the shooting, this happened in the morning. All these CEOs, including Tim Cook, who is getting blowback like you can't believe for being at this Melania movie. Have you seen it, Anthony?

13:15

The Melania? It's not on my list, actually, but if you see it, you can report back.

13:29

It's selling out, according to Donald Trump.

13:34

Of course it is, you know, but.

13:36

It'S like old lady with Alzheimer's who wandered in by accident. Is the group of people watching.

13:38

I want to tell you something from history that your viewers and listeners should think about. When Chamberlain headed for Munich to discuss with Adolf Hitler his annexation and what was going on there, the German bureaucrats, okay, we've discovered this in their diaries. 50, 60, 80 years later, the German bureaucrats were, with great relief, they were writing to each other. And in their diaries. Oh, this is great. The British Empire is coming to Munich, represented by Neville Chamberlain, and they're going to flex on Adolf Hitler. It's going to scare the daylights out of him and it's going to knock him out of power. Thank God. This last five years have been a disaster for Germany, and he's going to get tough and knock Adolf Hitler on his ass. Did that happen, Kara? No, it did not happen. He went there and he totally capitulated. And he came back with a sheet of paper said, peace in our time. And Churchill said, this is ridiculous. You're allowing him this birth of authoritarianism. And five, six, seven, three years later, two years later, you're at war. Five, six, seven years later, 60 million people are killed. I'm not comparing Trump to Hitler. I'm just talking about behavior, okay? If these CEOs and these business leaders and political leaders got together and said, f you, we're not going to take this anymore, they'll scare Mike Johnson, they'll scare the Republicans in the Senate. They'll push back and they'll flip it. But they won't do it as long as Trump is intimidating you one on one. Kara, he's going to beat you because he's got the force of the presidency and the federal government, but you have the economy. If you're calling, see Jamie Dimon, whom he's suing.

13:45

Whom he's suing.

15:43

Oh, yeah. Well, let's just talk about this for a second. He said three or four things that Trump did not like, okay? Number one, he wants the Fed to be independent. He doesn't like the lawsuit and the criminal investigation against Jerome Powell. Number two, he said, I'm not giving money to the ballroom because if I give money to the ballroom, the next administration is going to say, hey, jackass, you were trying to blackmail. You were getting blackmailed, and you were paying bribe money to the president. So he's pretty open, pretty honest guy. Full disclosure. I know Jamie personally. I love Jamie. I think he's one of the more brilliant financial services executives in our history. So he pretty honest. And then what does Trump do? He can bring the hammer down on him. He's going to bring a $5 million lawsuit, which, of course, he'll lose. And he's bringing a lawsuit against Jamie personally and the bank. He'll lose the lawsuit. But this is a massive chilling effect.

15:44

Does this. Or would Jamie say, you're gonna fucking lose?

16:40

Chilling effect. Did you see what he just did to Jamie Dimon? Yeah, but you listen to me.

16:44

Do it. Nothing is gonna happen. That's the thing. I just don't. I don't know why they don't get the next step.

16:49

Okay, Kara, you know, you grew up like I did. You know, you're Italian. You don't give a shit. Okay? You know, I don't give a shit. I'm ready to fight y. Cause I grew up here on Long Island. We were doing pushups in the parking lot outside of discos, getting ready to fight people. Okay? I don't give a shit. I will fight Trump every step of the way. Okay. Which is probably why he hasn't come after me, because he knows, okay, if he sues me, we're gonna have a great time. I'm gonna pick up a million Twitter followers. Let's go. These guys are afraid of him because they see themselves as having too much to lose. But what they're missing is society has too much to lose if they don't get together and they don't coalesce with each other.

16:55

I don't even think that they're gonna. I mean, he's suing Capital One, too. For people who don't know. And again, this comes after Dimon warned Trump not to interfere with the Fed and called his proposal, by the way, the third thing. To cap credit interest rates and economic disaster. So he was critical. Normally as any CEO is allowed to be. But I just. It's like he's not gonna.

17:38

But, Cara, you understand human nature. I've read your books. Burn book. Ba Ba. You understand human nature better than you're letting on. There's a impulsive weakness up against authoritarianism. There is people.

18:03

Someone like Jamie Dimon. I'm surprised if he's not pushing back behind the scenes very strongly.

18:18

I think he is. Oh, no, no, no. I think he is.

18:23

He does look like he's. He's easily cowed.

18:26

No, he's looking at the situation, snickering, and he's like, I'm going to wait this guy out, which he's going to do. And he'll win the case, which he will. But it's a message. It's a message to others. You don't want to get in my crosshairs. Okay. When a cabinet member from Trump one comes to my office, sits on the sofa and says, listen, most cabinet members are trying to avoid a Trump tweet and some level of humiliation. Why is that, sir? Well, it could be career ruining for us if we do that. No, that's okay. But, Kara, that's how they think.

18:29

Kara, I get it. I just got a poker. I want to play poker with these people. Now. Let me ask you about. You mentioned the Democrats. All right, so the business leaders are going to accurate. The ones that I think think are in trouble are like a Tim Cook, because Apple has a different set of values that it's pushed for so long. And here he is doing this, and particularly. And he's standing next to Brett Ratner, that piece of shit, you know, at a movie nobody wants to see. Right. I don't. I get that he wants the taro sauce. I get that he wants things. But you don't have to go this far. Right. You can sort of hide like Bob Iger. You don't see him. He doesn't show up there. He doesn't say much, but. But he's not there. Right. He's not present. Why be present is what I wanna understand.

19:10

Well, okay, so in Patrick McGee's book, Apple in China, we learn. Okay. It's a phenomenal book. I thought it was the business book of the year. And he talks about how entrenched Apple is in China.

19:55

Yes.

20:08

And so Tim is saying to himself, I gotta get Trump off my back. And Apple's back because I'm minting money with this iPhone 17. I've got new products coming out, whether people like it or not. Most of the manufacturing is in China. I can virtue signal that it's moving to India or other places, but that's where it is. And if Trump is off my back, that's really good for my shareholders. Okay, but where is the line? And you're better at drawing the line than he is, obviously, because he's looking around and saying, no problem, I'll show up at the. The screening. Okay, but he happens to be showing up at the screening where there's a murder. Where there's a murder taking place. He happens to show up at a screening where Trump is telling our NATO allies that he's going to invade Greenland. And he's sending out maps on social media where he's got the provinces of Canada flagged alongside of Venezuela, Cuba and Greenland. Right. And also Iceland. I don't know if you notice that Iceland was in there as well.

20:09

That's because it confuses them and makes sense.

21:14

That's the trolling of Donald Trump. I get it. He's a culture warrior. He wants to troll everybody. He wants to set all the liberals hair on fire. I get all of that. But where Tim is sitting there, he's saying to himself, I'm gonna give this guy a gold amulet like I did a couple of months ago. I'm gonna shove my whole head up his ass because of the situation.

21:16

That's the new. That's the next season of heated rivalry. Go ahead.

21:38

No, no, but I mean, come on, you can barely see Tim's ankles hanging out of Trump's ass. Right? I mean, you know that. Okay, okay. So to me, I'm not their advisor and they would never take any advice from me, but maybe they would take advice from Mark Carney. Because to me, if you collectively push back on him, he folds like a Paper suit, you know, he looked at the letter coming in from Minnesota, he looked at the video, he said, I gotta move out. Jailhouse Barbie, Christine Noem. I gotta get Jailhouse Barbie off the playing field. We're going to take the bribe, Honan back on the playing field to 50 grand in cash.

21:42

Jungle. I call him Jungle.

22:22

Okay. All right. We're going to put him back in. Okay. And I'm going to acquiesce here, and I'm going to find a way to exit this disastrous situation. But, but you see, the, the real question, though, for me is how are we letting Stephen Miller correct. Who couldn't get confirmed as a dog catcher, forget about anything else.

22:23

So you explained you were there with him this evil.

22:44

Well, I'm gonna tell you how. Because Stephen Miller bought call option on the worst day of Trump's political Life, which was January 6, 2021, where Kevin McCarthy said, He's finished. McConnell said he's finished. They told Pelosi, we don't need to impeach him, remove him from office because he's politically finished after what he did. Mr. Miller bought call options on Trump's electoral success in 2024. Nobody else bought those call options. And then is fantastic. I'm an evil guy. I hate people, and I want to inflict pain on people. And Trump is my empty vessel to get back into the White House. And, oh, by the way, we're going to have four years to prepare ourselves to be even more dastardly and more evil and to remove more normal people out of the checks and balances of Trump. One, we're going to have lap dogs in Trump, too, like Besant and Buttlick or Nut Lick, whatever the. I mean, the biggest asshole on earth. We're going to have these people in position, okay? And then I'm going to rule the roost. I'm writing all the speeches. You know, you can throw this shit through ChatGPT. You say, who. Who does this sound like? It's the writings of Stephen Miller. And so he's writing the speeches, he's promulgating the policy. How is he.

22:47

Because he bought those call options.

24:04

Does he bought those call options? Does he see that?

24:06

I mean, he is, whatever he is, he's like an old crocodile. He's got to see that.

24:08

The. The only way Trump will see it is if you start saying Trump. Trump is the lapdog of Stephen Miller. The administration's being run by Stephen Miller. Trump will absolutely hate that. Okay? And it's like when they were saying President Bannon, when the President Bannon, Time magazine cover came out. He got hit with a ray gun, knocked out of the administration. But Miller is running the administration. He's running domestic policy, he's running international policy. He's writing the speeches about Venezuela in Greenland, and he is sitting.

24:12

Does he have any foe internally? Give us one insight into him. You have spent time with him, so give us one insight.

24:48

One. Look, I used to fight with the guy.

24:55

Besides that, he looks like a cartoon.

24:57

You know, him and I were not friends. I used to fight with him left and right. There was one situation in the 2016 campaign where I called him up and read him the riot act because he was treating donors with this, like, you know, lack of emotional attention in this sort of caustic, arrogant, supercilious way. So, look, he's a terrible person. I think we can stipulate that just by his behavior and his actions. But it fits Trump's narrative, okay? Because Trump likes hurting people. Trump likes humiliating people. He likes hurting people. He wants to denigrate people and make them feel bad. And then when he gets himself in trouble, he will walk it back like he did with the UK war veterans. He had to send out a missive to Stormer because it was ridiculous, the heat that he was getting. But this is what these people are like. And the problem is the waiting it out strategy. If you're a corporate board official and you are on one of these corporate boards, Fortune 500, and you listen to Kara and Scott, let me tell you what you gotta do. You gotta get your CEO in position to join. Join forces and create alliances with his other CEOs, he or she, and push back on Trump. You cannot wait 1,000 days, Cara.

25:00

Nope. We've said that. We talked about an economic boycott.

26:25

You got to get your shit together. You got to get your shit together right now and on behalf of the American people and channel what those German bureaucrats wanted from Neville Chamberlain. Don't be a Neville Chamberlain and wait the 1,000 days too late. It's gonna be too much existential damage done to your company and the United States.

26:28

And by the way, let me tell you, what they do think is the Democrats won't do anything, right? Trump will punish them. Democrats won't. I'm here to tell you, I'm gonna make sure the Democrats punish you all. All you tech executives. I promise that. We have long memories, as they say, and I will make certain of that. I won't bother these Democrats forever. But let me ask you, what should the Democrats.

26:49

The Democrats suck, though. Let me Just hear me out for a second. We all agree the Republicans are evil, okay? So they suck more, but the Democrats suck because they can't get their shit together. If they could get their shit together, they would channel Newt Gindrich, okay? And hear me out for a second because you're old enough to remember this. So 1994, Newt Gingrich said, hey, we're going to combat Clinton. Clinton. We're going to all unify and we'll get our ducks in an order. Here's our 10 point contract with America. Everybody's signing onto this and then when we get power, we're going to flex. The Democrats have to have the doppelganger of the 1994 Contract with America. And even though they don't like each other and AOC doesn't see eye to eye with Gavin Newsom. Get it together, fellas. Get in a room.

27:09

So they threatened to trigger a partial government shutdown. Withholding dhs. That's funny, but that's small ball. That's what you're saying.

27:58

But not only is that small ball, that's a disaster. You're a capital markets person. Look at where the US Dollar is trading. The Japanese yen is trading. Look at where gold and silver is trading. We're in full on currency debasement. Trump thinks he can get out there and do his reality TV nonsense without consequence. But people are pulling away from the dollar. They're forming unnatural alliances. Carney's going into China, the dollar weakening. Gold is going up. People are finding ways to barter with each other outside of the petrodollar system. And Ray Dalio is going to be right, guys. You want to shut the government down, you're going to further weaken the US Dollar. Don't do it. That is small ball.

28:04

What other choice do they have? They can't fund dhs.

28:48

Correct.

28:51

They also can't politically fund them. What's the choice? There is no choice.

28:52

Correct, Kara. There's no choice because we're in accordion, not with each other. But if they shut the down, I would rather have them fund DHS and have the help of corporate CEOs and law enforcement. You know that local law enforcement is against ice.

28:56

Trust me.

29:15

Get together, people, okay? Develop a communication strategy, fund it, but have an overwhelming group of people push back on it. You don't want to shut the government down when we are facing our own economic peril. We're sitting on a debt time bomb that's running towards $40 trillion.

29:16

Doesn't that hurt Trump? More like you have to sacrifice the Village to save the country kind of thing.

29:38

I don't. It's not gonna hurt Trump himself more, it's gonna hurt the man on the street more.

29:45

Correct? Yeah.

29:50

Our dollar has lost 28% of its value since January of 2020. Okay. If you own assets, Cara, you're fine. But if you' deceased father who worked an hour and got an hourly wage and had no assets, you took 30% of his life away from him. We've got three or four things happening in parallel tracks that we can control the card table and we can maintain our mantle of financial services leadership and our mantle of global leadership. But we've got to change the narrative. And the way you change the narrative is through cultural coordinated opposition. Trump is banking on the fact that the liberals are so self righteous and so picky you with each other that they'll have internescent fights with each other as opposed to coordinate and go after him. But they could do that. They could go to the cooks, they could go to the CEO of 3M and they could say, okay, listen, this is not good for America. We don't want our people murdered in the street. It's bad for economic innovation, it's bad for capital flows into America. We have to fight back. There are two people, Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, and there's us. And there's a force majeure of us that can overwhelm them if we coordinate with each other.

29:51

What's the actual move then besides let's coordinate what precisely from a business? Scott and I talked about an economic boycott, et cetera.

31:15

Yeah. Wholly and totally denounced ice alongside a local law enforcement push back on them. You create resistance, civil disobedience, resistance zones. Okay. Alongside side of citizens that are willing to protest. They gotta show up unarmed so there's no excuse to shoot at them. You then have to push the President into a box and you have to go to the Republicans and say, sorry, no more money for Republicans for reelection. Because all these people really care about Kara is the money going into their reelections.

31:23

So the way to affect those business leaders could be an economic boycott, a really sustained one. For example, we're going to get the Democrats have to say, we will hurt you also in different ways.

31:54

I just think, and I heard you guys and I understand where Scott's coming from and he's right. It's a very good civil disobedient move. I would like to try something else first before we go there because that's going to harm the people that we don't want to harm the Most. Do you understand what I'm saying? I get it and I understand what you're saying. You got to burn down the village sometimes to save the whole state. I get all that, but let's try something different. These are two people. We know this from the schoolyard. The bullies. When you team up against the bully.

32:07

Yes, we've seen that movie.

32:41

You knock the bully into next week.

32:42

All right, last question. Is there anybody in that White House that has control other than Stephen Miller? Susie Wiles doesn't seem to. She tried to get out, it looked like.

32:44

Susie Wiles doesn't give a shit. She's looking for her next lobbying gig. You know that. Read the interview. She's like, I'm trying to say this shit and about these people so that when I get out on the outside, you think I'm quasi normal.

32:53

By the way, Susie, we see you. So anyway, come on.

33:04

I mean, Mrs. Doubtfire. I mean, this lady. This lady ruined herself.

33:07

Anybody.

33:12

Come on.

33:12

I'm just curious.

33:13

Anyway, the only good news here is that just dumb Vance, JD Vance is so delusional. He thinks he's the heir to Trump and he thinks he's gonna be the 48 president. And I'm telling you that J.D. vance is actually sitting on a bomb that's going to blow up on him. Okay? Just give it a year or two and this whole thing's going to blow up on him. He's going to be the poster child for the Trump menagerie of evil. And so that is good news, by the way, because he'll get.

33:14

He doesn't like himself very much.

33:49

Well, well, he's going to get. He's going to get knocked out of the game. Okay, so that's very good news.

33:50

You know, I called him the cybertruck opponent politicians.

33:55

But go ahead, tell me why.

33:57

Because he's. It's. He repels people. He repels voters. Like he looked. I. I'm telling you, I was. When you. When you see a cybertruck, it repel people. You could see people pull back when they see it. And whatever you think of Elon, it's still a repellent vehicle, right? You may like him and you don't like that thing. I was driving a Volkswagen id, Buzz. And everybody like runs towards you because it looks like a dinosaur driving down the street. Unhappy dinosaur.

33:59

I'm a minor player and all, I said, but when you used to light my ass up on Twitter, I used to laugh. But I gotta tell you, when you're lighting Elon musk up on Twitter or you're saying this shit about him on the podcast. I don't think he's laughing. Okay.

34:26

I think you're like, you know what?

34:39

Inside, I think you're deep.

34:40

There's a little boy inside who missing the love of his parents who's laughing. Trust me.

34:42

All right, well, hopefully maybe.

34:49

Not that I want to help him at all.

34:51

If you ever repair your relationship with Elon, I want to be there to smoke the peace pipe with you.

34:52

Never.

34:56

I knew that was going to be not happening.

34:57

You took it well. That's all I'll say. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, what Trump is saying about his health or lack thereof. Support for this show comes from Dell Every great idea deserves the power to bring it to life Meet the all new Dell XPS laptop. The perfect combination of style, power and performance designed to elevate everything you do with this modern ultra thin design. It's as stunning as it is functional. And the battery? It's built to last all day long. From the first sip of coffee to your evening wind down without missing a beat. The Infinity Edge display captivates with vibrant colors and crystal clear detail, pulling you into an immersive experience whether you're working or streaming. And when it comes to performance, the XPS doesn't just keep up, it leads the way whether you're tackling your biggest projects or bringing your creative vision to life. That's built for editing photos, mixing tracks, and designing masterpieces. Powered by the Series 3 Intel Core Ultra processors, the XPS gives you the freedom to create without limits all day long. The Dell XPS proves there's no need for compromise. Style, power and reliability come together in one expertly crafted machine. Check out the all new dell xps@dell.com XPS support for this show comes from Delete Me. The new year can be a perfect time to get your digital house in order, and a great way to do that is by making sure your data is protected. DeleteMe makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Deleteme does all the hard work of wiping you and your family's personal information from data broker websites. All you need to do is sign up, share the details you want removed, and their experts take it from there. And it's not a one time fix. DeleteMe will continually monitor and remove the personal personal data you don't want online. Throughout the year. I've used Elite Me and I really like it. I did it again at the beginning of the year and I'm always shocked to see how much information is about me out there and I am a privacy nut, but it's always out there. A lot of it inaccurate, but a lot of it gathered in ways that are troubling. I get updates all the time and I really think their dashboard is easy to use, which is why Wirecutter named Deleteme their top pick for data removal services. You can take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com pivot and use the promo code Pivot at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com pivot and enter code pivot at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com pivot codepivot support for the show comes from Vanta. Customer trust can make or break your your business. And the more your business grows, the more complex your security and compliance tools get. It can turn into chaos. And chaos isn't a security strategy. That's where Vanta comes in. Think of Vanta as your always on AI powered security expert who scales with you. Vanta automates compliance, continuously monitors your controls and gives you a single source of truth for compliance and risk. So whether you're a fast growing startup like Cursor or an enterprise like Snap Snowflake, Vanta fits easily into your existing workflows so you can keep growing a company your customers can trust. Get started@vanta.com pivot that's V A N T A.com pivot vanta.com pivot. Anthony we're back with more news. There's been speculation about Trump's health for months and a news story in New York magazine has him going on the record about it. Trump Trump talks about his father's medical history at one point struggling to come up with the word Alzheimer's, then insisting he does not have it. He also blames women's fingernails and rings for cuts on his hands. Trump's doctor says he actually did not have an mri, but an MRI like scan of his chest and abdomen. I don't know what that is and the results were, quote, perfect. And of course Trump threatens to sue the ass off New York magazine if he decides he doesn't like the story. I don't think New York magazine, as one of the shareholders, gives a Shit. So what do you think is really going on here with this discussion? He's gotta face the healthcare stuff, right? Because Biden didn't.

34:59

He's physically. I mean, listen, you know, it's prima facie. He's unwell. You don't. You know, if someone gets busted on a football field and the bone is sticking out of the uniform, you don't have to be an orthopedic surgeon to know that the bone is broken. You know, it's not like that. The guy is unworthy. Unwell. Okay, he's unwell physically. He has an unsteady gait. They put the red carpet out for him in Davos. He wobbled down the carpet like he did in August with Putin. He's got bruises all over his hands, which looks like they're infusion bruises. They're not bumping up against the signing desk. When you have that level of contusion on your hand, he looks terrible. If you look at the orange makeup and you contrast it to the pallor of his hands, he looks. Looks absolutely terrible. I'm not a doctor. I'm just telling you prima facie. He looks unwell. He's forgetful. He doesn't remember the word Alzheimer's. He doesn't remember people standing in front of him. He's getting interviewed and they say, you said the following. He said, I never said that. Then they play the recording of him saying it, but he looks like he's telling the truth. Meaning he's demented in a way he doesn't remember it. Yeah, he's demented in a way. You could probably pass the lie detector test.

39:10

I mean, he's a liar, but it seems to me that he doesn't remember it, actually.

40:29

Yeah, I'm sure he's lying knowingly, but I think there's also lies coming out of his mouth where he doesn't remember anymore. So. Also, the New York Times reported something which I think is very critical and very similar to Biden. They're managing his schedule for five hours a day. They said it's 12 to 5, and then they pull him out of there. Or if he's got to go late night, they'll start him at five and they'll end him at 10. Okay? He's an elderly man. He's about to turn 80. It's arguably the toughest job in the world. He hauls himself around, okay? He's moving himself from national football game championships to Davos, back to Florida, back to Washington. He's moving himself around a lot. And that in itself is tiring and dehydrating. And so to me, they're going to lie about it like the Biden people lied about it. Okay? That's just the facts of it. And this is why I'm saying Miller advantage to me, Miller, because if Trump's got five. And again, whatever you think of Trump, I can tell you, if you show Trump a video of a guy getting innocently murdered, even his egomaniac narcissism is like, shit, that's not good for me. He's looking at the video. He may not have any compassion for that man or the man's family, but he's smart enough to know that ain't good for me. Stephen Miller's not smart enough to know that he's calling the guy an assassin and a domestic terrorist and all this idiocy. But the point about the illness that people should really focus on is that if he's only got five hours a day where he's present, the other 19 hours are going to Stephen Miller. Don't forget that, okay? Stephen Miller is writing the policy. Stephen Miller's talking to ice. Stephen Miller's on the phone with Marco Rubio. The joke inside the White House is hey Steven, and we got a question for you. We're gonna make you Viceroy of Venezuela. But then when you get down there, where are you gonna deport this Venezuelans to? Right? That's the joke inside the White House. And of course Miller looks at them and he's all pissed and he doesn't answer them right. But the point is Trump's weakness. There's a vacuum and the void is being filled by a very horrible, by a very evil. This MF. He couldn't get dog catcher confirmation, this MF, okay? And he's sitting there. We had a 250 year experiment with a republic with real checks and balances. And this guy, cuz he was hated in high school and he still wants to take it out on the rest of us, is going to run roughshod over all of us because you have willing accomplices, Kara. And those willing accomplices are the Republicans and the secondary willing accomplices are the private sector smarty pants billionaires that are afraid of Stephen Miller. How could you guys be afraid of Stephen Miller? Are you guys serious? Were you that big of a nerd group in the high school cafeteria to be afraid of Stephen Miller? What are you guys doing take on.

40:32

Stephen Miller back to his health? What do they do when it becomes, I mean it is apparent that he's. I'VE been saying this for a year because relatives, I've seen it like I've seen friends who had Alzheimer's. And the signs are rather significant of some sort of dementia. But what do they do when it gets. Is there something that could. Besides him falling down, which seems inevitable, and breaking a hip, what's the next thing? If 5 hours is all you can get? Doesn't matter. They just hold him up like Weekend at Bernie's kind of thing.

43:42

Do your reporting. You've got excellent sources. We know that Vance met with Musk and told Musk, please call out on America's Party. Trump's time is coming to be the 48th president, likely by default. And all the tech oligarchs will be in there with me. Drop the America's Party. And Musk said, no problem.

44:14

They're getting ready.

44:38

They're all statisticians. They're looking at 1,000 days and they're looking at a declining mental acuity of a president. And they're saying, is it a year from now where people look around and say, hey, man, 2015amendment, in comes Vance. Is it two years from now? Can Trump make it to three years? I think he'll be alive in three years, but the question is, will he be mentally cognitive to the point where it's not overwhelmingly obvious to everybody how bad it is? And so I don't know the answer to that, but if I'm a betting person, there's a percentage. If you're a tech prologar, you're like, okay, just a 10% to 30% chance that Vance is going to serve out Trump's term and run for reelection in 28. And that's also another reason why they're not fighting as hard as they should be, because they're waiting the thing out.

44:39

Right? Because of actuarial tailboos is what you're talking about, essentially.

45:35

Exactly.

45:39

As Scott says, biology is undefeated. So it's a terrible choice to have to make. But if you could pick Trump being in office in a disabled way versus Vance becoming proud president, which one would you choose?

45:40

Okay, let me get the vomit bag out first. Let me blow chow into the vomit bag. Hold on a second.

45:57

That game you play, what you're supposed to do.

46:02

Okay, all right, now let me now make the. Let me tell you what, you gotta go with Vance, okay? Let me tell you why. Okay, all right. Because Vance has no power. And even if he's President of the United States, he doesn't have a personality cult around him. Okay? And Vance cannot keep that coalition together. He doesn't understand how to do it. Trump kept Nick Fuentes, Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson in the same coalition. Imagine that. Okay? Because it's the strength of his personality and the personality cult around him as a political figure. Vance has none of that. Let me give a specific example. When they were fighting over the beef quotas or the Argentinian beef quotas and they were fighting over the beef coming in from Argentina, they excoriated Vance in the Senate. They would never do that to Donald Trump because they're afraid Donald Trump would send out a tweet and say, I'm now supporting this person. To the far right of Bill Cassidy. I'm no longer supporting Bill Cassidy. The senator from oh.

46:04

Who found balls recently somehow.

47:10

Well, thank God, him and a few others, but very small. Okay, but let's. You know what? When someone finds their balls, I'll take it. Let's give it.

47:12

I'm not one of those left leftist that's like, no, you should never come in. I'm like, come on in.

47:21

Kara, send him a magnifying glass. The balls will look bigger in the scope. Okay, let's go here. Okay. But honestly, Vance does not have the power and they will push back on him and they will flex on him. Now the negative devance is he's tied to some evildoer broligarchs. Yeah, okay. And the negative devance is that they're going to pump him with money and they're going to get executive orders from the stuff. See the problem with this nation's tech, they don't give a shit. They only care about themselves and their mission quest to make a trillion dollars. If they were a smarter group of people, they would think about what Henry Ford once said, which is, I'm going to make stuff. My workers are going to make stuff that they can afford. I'm going to pay them enough money so they can afford it. They're going to have a single family house and a good school system system so they don't attack me with tiki torches and pitchforks in my dearborn Michigan mansion when I'm eating caviar and carving my filet mignon and being an anti Semite.

47:25

But go ahead.

48:26

Well, I might say he was a bad guy, but he understood social engineering.

48:27

I would agree with you. I think I was with one of them.

48:32

What do you guys don't. What are you guys doing?

48:34

I literally was like, you know they're coming to get you if you don't start acting more generous. Like I literally have had more arguments with them about this. I'm like, you will. I said, look at they don't read history, Anthony. They don't read history. It's really kind of fascinating in a lot of ways. They think they're self absorbed.

48:36

Self absorption.

48:53

They'll get in a rocket ship. Anyway, we're going to go on a quick break and when we come back, TikTok strikes a US deal. This is really interesting.

48:54

Right now in the world of AI, two things are happening simultaneously. One, the technology is getting better fast. People are finding new uses for it. It's more popular than ever. And two, every company that makes AI is absolutely hemorrhaging cash. On the Vergecast this week we're talking about what OpenAI and other companies are doing to try to finally figure out how to make some money off of this technology. Spoiler alert. It's mostly ads and we're talking about whether any of it's actually going to work. All that plus some stories about the Chinese company that appears to be beating Tesla on the Vergecast. Wherever you get podcasts.

49:10

This week on Net Worth and Chill, I'm breaking down the essential money tips for every stage of your relationship, from the first date to forever. Who actually pays on the first date? How do you split rent when you move in together? If one of you makes way more than the other person? And yes, we need to talk about prenups.

49:49

Plus, I'm sharing why I believe in.

50:05

Equity over equality when it comes to splitting costs. Whether you're single and swiping, moving in with your partner or planning your wedding, this episode will help you navigate the uncomfortable money conversations that can make or break your relationship. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com YourRichBFF. Anthony we're back with more news. TikTok has dodged a potential ban and sealed the deal to create new American entity with investors like Oracle 15% and Silver Lake also 15%. I believe in the deal. ByteDance keeps a small stake around 20%, but the algorithm will be retrained on US data to address national security concerns about Chinese control. Oracle's sort of been doing this for a while, by the way. And by Oracle I mean Larry Ellison. President Trump praised the deal and thanked China's President Xi for proving it so that he hopes to be remembered by TikTok users for making it happen. But the service is enormously buggy in its first couple days out, with users reporting login issues and feed disruptions. Other people's see a conspiracy theory in Larry Elson trying to shut down anti ice stuff. I am not of that camp. I think that it's just buggy and they're having problems. I wouldn't put it past them to do all manner of shitty things. But in this case, I think it's just this shift over talk about this because there are also indications that TikTok's user base is declining and that its momentum is declining. Talk a little bit about this because a lot of people are worried about it becoming a propaganda tool. I am worried because I feel like it has. I know I'm going to get a call from Zenya Mucha in a second, but I feel like it has a MySpace vibe to it. But your thoughts. It's big. It's still enormous, but I don't. I think it, I think Meta has the momentum with Instagram and threads, et cetera.

50:07

Well, well, a couple things. I mean, they. They've neutered TikTok, okay? So it'd be like taking your dog to get spayed. You know, the, you know, the, the virility of TikTok is over and, and so maybe it'll work and maybe that's a good investment for these people. I don't know.

51:56

They got a discount.

52:14

But here's what I do know. I do know when I was in the White House for that very short period of time, the intelligence stuff was TikTok was weapons grade intelligence gathering and it was weapons grade crowd propaganda. Crowd propaganda. 30% of the white males below the age of 21, they don't think the moon landing happened. 15% of the white males below 30 think Osama bin Laden is a freedom warrior. All this stuff being generated by the algorithm on TikTok, and all this stuff of fomenting conspiracy theories which caused people to doubt and distrust their government and cause them to doubt and distrust the institutions of our democracy. All of that worked to the point where the court said shut it down. The Biden administration said shut it down. And it was getting shut down. But some of the owners of TikTok had a lot of money. They gave the money to Donald Trump and Trump defied the court orders, okay? And he kept TikTok open. And so we're sitting here now where I don't think the secret sauce of TikTok, despite what they're saying, is gonna get replicated, okay? It's not gonna get transferred. We do know, we do know when the deal, and I believe this is the case because intelligence agencies in this country stole, have teeth, even though Trump, I guess, is Uber alles. But the Intelligence agencies are telling us that Bidance is walled off from the information now they own 19.9% of the company and they're not going to get the information from the US anymore. So they have other backdoors, by the way, Chinese intelligence has other backdoors. So I'm not worried about Chinese intelligence gathering. But I think this has been spade to use a veterinarian analogy. And I think these guys are going to wake up five years from now. It may not be 100% MySpace but it could be like a Yahoo that was like very prominent in 1998, is still with us in 2026, but really isn't relevant to the way it was once relevant. That's my guess. That's my guess with TikTok.

52:15

Yeah, I would agree. I think the energy has dragged out of it and the question is what's effect as these things and as much, you know, I have so much disdain for Mark Zuckerberg, although he has an opportunity. See, I was thinking this. He remember when Gates, everyone hated Gates, he was Darth Vader, et cetera. Mark has an opportunity to turn himself around. That's my feeling with these products that are quite good. Obviously he had a real, real fuck up on on Met the Metaverse and spent a lot of money and wasted. Here's one thing I love. This guy spent $56 billion on a mistake and then all these tech people complain about the government misusing funds. They misuse funds all the time. It's their own money. But that's fine. It's actually shareholder money. If he wanted to Zuckerberg, to me, especially with Musk behaving like a cartoon villain, has an opportunity, especially with these products, threads and Instagram, et cetera, to really dominate in a way that he already does. But I don't know. I have this notion that if he decides decided to stop being such a ridiculous figure that he could certainly revive himself and that's not an opening for him. But I think the hiring of Dina Powell was interesting. I thought a very smooth operator. As you know, it just is an interesting time. But TikTok I think really is. You're right. I think it's not on the upswing, that's for sure when these guys are buying it. Although again, they got it at a discount, so who cares.

54:26

I'll say something that people. It's a little contrarian. So just hear me out for a second, okay? I think that prima facie you put Dana White on the board because you think he's a Trump guy and you're sending a message to Trump that you're no longer gonna bash Trump. You put Dina on the board. Her husband's a senator from Pennsylvania. I mean, she was on the board, but you put her in that presidency. Vice chairman position. Sends a message to the right. But I'm gonna say something about both those people. I think they're less Trumpy than people think.

55:57

Oh, absolutely.

56:30

Dana has already told people, I'm done with the politics. I'll do the UFC fight with Trump on 14 June, but I'm done with the politics. Dana is more of a libertarian. Okay. And Dina, if you really follow her life, she is a Trump whisperer today, but she's really more of a garden variety. And so was David, by the way, a Republican. So, you know, there could come a moment here, one, two, three years out where Zuckerberg is influenced by these people. Okay. And you could be right. And so I think the prima facie look is, oh, he's putting Trump lackeys in place to calm down.

56:31

I don't believe that. I agree with you on that.

57:09

But they're not Trump lackeys if you really know their personalities. And I listen, I don't know Dana. I have friends. I've met Dana a few times, but I know Dina very, very well. David. David and I know each other very well. Dean and I have worked together, and she was polite enough to call me and give me the heads up the Sunday night before the job was announced. And she's a special person. I like her, and I think that this could be a positive for some people.

57:11

It's interesting choices. Everyone's like, trump thing. I'm like, that's not what's happening here. It isn't. Just to be clear, Dina left the White House early in the first term, and I think probably Charlottesville and other issues were impactful to her in lots of ways, but I do think it's much more complicated. I thought it was an interesting and probably the best move of Zuckerberg to bring himself back into the light. I guess he wasn't ever in the light.

57:36

Listen, listen, David Solomon, Lloyd Blankfein. There's a reason why Dina was at the top of the food chain in and around the hoop. She's got good judgment, She's a very smart person, and she also has good diplomacy skills. Okay? And so let's see what happens. I like her a great deal, and I wish her well at that new.

58:03

Job, but the TikTok thing gives to me meta the biggest opportunity here to return itself to Although I do think.

58:25

I know it's your podcast, but can I ask you a question?

58:34

Sure.

58:36

The international version of TikTok, in my opinion, opinion is now going to be way more robust than the American algorithm.

58:36

Absolutely.

58:45

Okay. And so then the question is, where does the real innovation live? Does it live outside of the United.

58:46

States in China, along with electric cars?

58:52

Along with all that's important for your viewers and listeners to hear that message. You see, because for all of our bravado and all the nonsense and jingoism, take a look at the Chinese, Chinese cars, take a look at the Chinese algorithm, take a look at the Chinese AI process that's in place. And the thing that upsets me the most is take a look at the 10, 15, 20 and 25 year plans that China has where the US government has UGATS. Okay. And you know what that means. Your viewers can look it up, what it means, but we've got ugats because we are playing to the cable news cycle as opposed to a 15, 20 or 30 of your plan. But I just think it's very important people to understand that issue, the innovation and the excitement. You agree with me, right?

58:55

Yeah. I put more to the point. I think that Trump has done more damage to the technology industry. They've done it to themselves, let me just say, by their lack of interest in safety. But what's coming for them? They were so scared of Biden, who was toothless as far as I could tell, said a lot of things, but. And maybe we'll pull back on crypto a little bit and that's over, obviously. But writ large, I think Trump is more damaging to the tech industry and his reputation than anything else. And it's set them back. And I think China has moved into the breach. And Mark Zuckerberg used to always talk about the challenge from China and in affiliating so tightly with Trump, I think it really changed. It creates a backlash that's gonna be sustained, especially not doing anything about teen girls, about kids, around chatbots, around everything. I think they are, you know, they're essentially putting themselves as the bad guy, the baddies. And they don't have to be like there's an opportunity for them to, you know, I suppose Carnegie did that. As evil as all those people were, they, as you said, they moved into a more.

59:44

No police obliged. They realized that they had to take care of people. But Carol, let me just say this to you and get you to react to If I'm a CEO and I'm spending 0 to 15% of my time thinking about how to handle Trump 0 to 20% of my time, anytime. Isn't that less time of me thinking about how to innovate?

1:00:53

That's what I mean.

1:01:11

And how to create plans.

1:01:12

Yeah.

1:01:13

Do you see the dragon effect of Donald Trump for all these companies?

1:01:14

Exactly. That's exactly. Except for the sort of true believers who are just terrible people when this happens. Our tech industry has been the leader in terms of the stuff stock market. Where does this go? Because the numbers still stay even. Tesla with sales numbers are falling off a cliff and obviously that's a meme stock. So there's nothing to be done about that. But what happens with these tech numbers even as they grow higher?

1:01:17

The Fed is going to drive this, in my opinion. So if you're telling me, and I know Rick Reeder a long time, if he's going to become the Fed chair and he's a dollar realist, okay, if you read any of his work or look at any of his PowerPoint presentations. But if he's going to cow to Trump in order to get the job and drop rates, Stock market's going higher. The stock market is not going higher priced in gold, Stock market is not going higher priced in silver, but a weakening US dollar stock market is going higher. And so I'm worried about the market because of the constant concentration. I'm worried about the market because Mr. Buffett took $400 billion out of the market when he looks at certain levels of valuation metrics that he looks at. And I'm worried about the market because Trump single handedly is taking the marginal dollar that used to flow into America's safe and secure markets and liquid markets where rule of law was predictable and people now want to punish America. You talk about a boycott, an economic boycott. I'm talking about a capital boycott. There are people, you think the sovereign wealth fund of Norway is like, okay, let me put my incremental dollar into America right now. I'm telling you they're not, they're like, hey, hey f you guys, we'll find other places to go with the money. And look at the tourism numbers are down. Look at the flights from Europe, look at the flights from Canada into Florida.

1:01:42

Tourism is a bigger industry than manufacturing. Manufacturing everybody. Let's just.

1:03:13

Exactly. So, so, so to me what I'm worried about is the knock on effects of Donald Trump. Okay. I, I think the tech guys are going to be okay probably for the next 12 months because of where race are going. Okay. Unless you're telling me Rick Reeder's getting the job. And he turns to you and says something that a traditional Fed chairman would say, which is, hey, I'm probably raising rates. 50 basis points. Wait, what? Well, gold's at 5,000, the dollar is falling, the yen carry trade is fakacta, and I'm going to raise rates here to put the thing back in equipoise. Okay? So the market is not sensing that. And by the way, bitcoin is not doing well because it's not for the market, it's not structural. If you told me that this is a structural end to the dollar, then bitcoin to be wackadoodly rattling. What's happening right now is it's a short term crisis. And so that's why people are piling into gold and silver. Bitcoin is the next step. That's when people say, okay, full on currency displacement. The dollar is now the Zimbabwe dollar. We gotta get the hell out of the dollar. I have one of those. Yeah, look, I'm a. Hey, you better be nice to me. I am a billionaire in Zimbabwe, okay? I have a $10 billion note in my wallet. Okay, but my, my point is the money is there to drive the market higher for the tech people.

1:03:17

Yeah, if they behave anyway. All right, Anthony, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Anthony, let's hear some wins and fails. You go first.

1:04:42

Okay, so you're not going to like this one, but. But the win of the week is actually Elon Musk, and I'm gonna tell you why. He shows up with a haircut, he looks like he lost a little bit of weight. They give him 31 minutes of airtime at the World Economic Forum, a place that he disdained and criticized woefully for a decade. His buddy Larry Fink, who's now the interim chairman, brings him on stage and he was articulate and he explained the vision for these data centers up in space. And, and he was the normal Elon and he was the aspirational Elon and you could like him or dislike him, but that's the win for the week.

1:05:00

All right? The only thing I'm saying is a lot of his predictions, he makes them up, you know that, like you could track them at this point. He said it so much, I'm going to have robots in your house in a year. And then 10 years goes.

1:05:40

I understand that, but I'm talking about imagery. And, you know, the world is about imagery. I think he won. Do you want the loss or you want to go for The.

1:05:51

All right, go ahead, I'll give it to you. I'll give it to you.

1:05:58

Okay. All right. All right.

1:06:00

I heard his cool.

1:06:01

The loss, the loss, the loss is actually Donald Trump. No, Neil Ferguson said that he won Davos and he explained this MAGA esque way that he won Davos, but he actually lost Davos. Carney won Davos. He would have been number two on the win category for me. Although Carney has a going to have a harder time because of what where he sits north of the American border. But Donald Trump lost this week. He lost because he looked like an imbecile on Greenland. He lost because the marginal dollar is now moving away from the United States because of his imbecility. And the situation in ice, the situation, the tragedy in Minnesota, Trump has lost that too, because he's smart enough to know that the public opinion, opinion. He's negative 17 on ICE and immigration in the United States and he's got a 36% approval rating. But when people ask their friends about Trump, they don't like what's happening to their neighbors. And so Trump is losing right now and we're not even addressing his health issues. So that's the win and that's the loss. Despite the appearance that Trump quote unquote won and all the MAGA people like Buttlick would say that he won. He did not win. He lost. You call him nutlicht. Coward. Coward. I cannot believe it's the same person that I was talking to at Davos 10 years ago. I mean, dude, you lost it, man. And you're never coming back from this, by the way. You're never coming back from this.

1:06:02

Never coming back from this. All right, my fail. I'm going to do the other side of the Elon thing. The EU regulators are investigating X over sexualized AI images. Any reporter who does not ask him about this in every interview is not doing their jobs. What is happening on X is repulsive. I have four children. You have children? You have many children?

1:07:40

Five of them.

1:07:58

Yep, five of them. What is the fact that he has not gotten a hold of this on this one issue? I will continue to pound. I hope he gets investigated everywhere over these sexualized AI images because they have to stop. They have to stop whether they there non consensual AI images of women, especially a child pornography is what it is. To be known as a child pornographer is not the image you want. That's what I would say. So I'm gonna take the other side on that. I think it's Very. People are sick of this shit of this. And it's enough. It's enough with them running roughshod over us. They're not gonna sexualize our children. And I'm not a qanon person. It's just. It's so dangerous to do this. My win. You're also not gonna like, but I'm gonna to do it. Zoran Mandani telling New Yorkers to stay home and read heated rivalry during a snowstorm. I thought was very funny and actually did a good job on his first snowstorm. He did. Anthony, you'll have to say he's doing. He's focusing in on New Yorkers. And I.

1:07:59

Let me. Let me tell you so I am a New Yorker. I am not moving to Florida. I've got my home here in New York. I've been in New Yorker for 62 years. I want him to do well. Okay. Honestly, if he does well, it's better for the rest of us.

1:08:59

I agree. I think he handled the snowstorm beautifully. Put out a great information. He did his. He knows what his job is right now, which is making New Yorkers have a. All New Yorkers have a better life. I think that's a really.

1:09:14

If he does that, he'll win reelection and God bless him. I just want the city to be safe, you know, for all the obvious reasons.

1:09:25

Yeah. I love New York City. Anyway, I'm questioning. Have you watched either rivalry, Anthony?

1:09:33

I haven't, no. Is that something I need to do?

1:09:39

You need to do it?

1:09:41

Yeah, I've been watching it.

1:09:42

It might be vaguely uncomfortable for you, but I think you'll like it.

1:09:42

No. Why would it be very. What do you think I'm homophobic?

1:09:45

It was. No, I don't. But there's a lot of sex happening.

1:09:47

I don't. Baby. I want everybody to be happy. Okay.

1:09:51

All right. You should watch Eat Arrival and we'll have a discussion about it. You are a pleasure to talk to.

1:09:54

I always say I can't be quiet at this point in my life. It's like my kids say, dad, you got to speak up, because.

1:09:58

Speak up.

1:10:04

You got to help people speak up. I think what I love about you and Scott is you're helping people speak up. You're providing a little bit of a ceiling for people to come. God bless you for that.

1:10:05

And God bless the people of Minnesota who are doing that. They're not organized protesters. They're not being paid for by George Soros. These are people who are seeing what's happening in their community, and they won't.

1:10:17

Put up with it. Trump would not be responding the way he responded this morning if that were the case. Carol.

1:10:27

That's right.

1:10:32

Trust me, he would have gone crazy with evidence related to that. He's looking at the situation saying, I'm losing here. I gotta pull this back.

1:10:32

What a decent group of people and helping their fellow citizens. And Minnesota, he's actually breathed life into Tim Walls again. I have to tell you, it's incredible. But we'll see.

1:10:40

That's one way to look at it.

1:10:52

Yeah. Well, actually, he's handled himself well. And just so you know, I urge everyone to listen to my Jacob Fry interview. Very interesting interview. Unfortunately, he did predict exactly what was going to happen and let's hope it doesn't happen again. And my heart goes out to the family of Alex Preddy and also the family of Renee Goode and all the families who are subject to both. Brutality in this manner. It's repulsive.

1:10:53

You can't have your government killing its own citizens.

1:11:15

That is correct.

1:11:18

Not form some level of coordinated resistance to that.

1:11:19

Yep, absolutely. Anyway, 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 send a question for the show or call 85551, pivot. Thank you. As always, never a dull moment. And thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be be back on Friday. I will read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin and Kate Gallagher. Ernie Enderdot engineered this episode. Rich Shibley edited the video. Nishat Kura is Vox Media's executive producer. Podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine@nymag.com podcast. Be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thank you, Anthony.

1:11:23

Thanks, Kara.

1:12:11