Stephen Miller’s Promotion Throws More Gasoline on the Fire

Scott Galloway 0:00 I wanna take you all back to the last time I felt this much joy in this city, and it was UCLA, about four miles that way. [cheering] 1986, banging out Cs and Ds.

Kara Swisher 0:12 Wait, did you have hair?

Scott Galloway 0:14 I had a ponytail. [laughs] Serious.

Speaker 0:16 [upbeat music]

Kara Swisher 0:22 Hi, everyone. Live from the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway 0:29 And I'm Scott Galloway.

Speaker 0:30 [cheering] [clapping]

Kara Swisher 0:41 All right. Before we start, I'm gonna thank our sponsors. Our title sponsor is beehiiv, the platform for building an audience and a business around your point of view. We just started the Pivot post there. We love beehiiv. From newsletters and websites to podcasts and communities, beehiiv brings all your content all together in one place. It's the only one of these platforms I would've been on and proud to be on. Thanks also to our official sponsors, Tanium and Odoo. All right. We're gonna start off with our guest, which we did in Minnesota with, with Senator, uh, Klobuchar, who's now Governor Klobuchar. Um, but today-

Speaker 1:14 [cheering] [clapping]

Kara Swisher 1:14 ... she was amazing. You should listen to it. Um, we wanna do something a little more Hollywood, so our next guest made his name chasing celebrities out of restaurants. Recently, he's been showing us that politicians are just celebrities with worse publicists. Um, so w- we wanna talk about this because Harvey Levin is someone who really has, has really evolved over the years and done all manner of interesting things, and a lot of his, uh, stuff, I have to say, his coverage, the coverage in Washington is quite good and, and asking a, a lot of important questions, which I was... I'm really fascinated about where it's going. Um, so we'll find out. So

Kara Swisher 1:51 please welcome the executive producer and founder of TMZ, Harvey Levin.

Speaker 1:55 [cheering] [clapping] [upbeat music]

Kara Swisher 2:07 So, so Harvey and I met each other a long time ago when I was at the Wall Street Journal. I did a profile of a very nascent little site called TMZ that I was noticing was growing very quickly and was doing some interesting things online.

Harvey Levin 2:21 I was so frightened-

Kara Swisher 2:23 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 2:24 ... by her because sh- she is small but fierce. And, and it's sort of like Cracker Jacks.

Kara Swisher 2:32 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 2:32 And I wasn't sure when we first interacted, um, I, I thought she was gonna tear me apart. [laughs]

Kara Swisher 2:38 Yes, and I didn't 'cause I was really interested-

Harvey Levin 2:40 No, you were really great

Kara Swisher 2:40 ... in the business 'cause it was sort of, I was looking at all kinds of new things, and this was in the early internet. Um, but let's start now, right now. Trump is the first president who was a TMZ story long before he was a political one. Um, did covering him as a celebrity for decades shape how the media covers him as president, and how did, how did you think of it? 'Cause you wanted a DC bureau for a long time, and it finally happened. Um, and your big, your big story was Lindsey Graham at Disneyland, I think.

Speaker 3:09 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 3:09 Disney World.

Kara Swisher 3:10 RIP. Disney World. RIP, but he looked great with that wand. Um, and, and, uh, and TMZ viewers flooding you with photos and members of Congress on vacation during the shutdown. Talk a little bit about Trump as a celebrity moving into presidency and why you guys decided finally to go to DC.

Harvey Levin 3:31 As for Trump, I've kn- I knew him for 20 years.

Kara Swisher 3:35 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 3:36 And I knew him in a totally different way. I mean, he was the star of The Apprentice. He was, you know, a businessman, and I never thought of him as a politician. And he was a very different person from what you see, and-

Kara Swisher 3:55 How so?

Harvey Levin 3:56 Because he was the most laissez-faire guy-

Kara Swisher 4:00 Mm-hmm

Harvey Levin 4:00 ... that you could imagine. I'm gay. He couldn't give a shit.

Kara Swisher 4:05 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 4:05 Um, he would talk about other people, um, and just, you live their lives the way they wanna live their lives.

Kara Swisher 4:13 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 4:13 Um, I saw him treat people in his building-

Kara Swisher 4:16 Mm-hmm

Harvey Levin 4:17 ... um, really well.

Kara Swisher 4:18 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 4:19 Um, and, and people who worked there loved him. And to a person, the people I know who knew him and then saw this radical change-

Kara Swisher 4:34 Mm-hmm

Harvey Levin 4:34 ... um, when he ran for office, uh, we were... everybody was just dumbfounded.

Kara Swisher 4:39 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 4:39 And, you know, what Bill Maher said, um, was just so smart because he's, he acts the role of president. It, there's, it's, I, I think that there is an act here, and I'm not saying, uh, that I don't ascribe bad motives to what he's doing, because I do, but the person that I knew before is just not this guy.

Kara Swisher 5:03 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 5:03 And something either changed or he's putting on an amazing kind of Barnum & Bailey act.

Scott Galloway 5:10 Hmm.

Kara Swisher 5:11 Well, well, I'm not so sure that's the case because a lot of it is quite toxic and angry and has it repercussions all over-

Harvey Levin 5:17 For sure

Kara Swisher 5:17 ... the world.

Harvey Levin 5:18 For sure.

Kara Swisher 5:19 Uh, the world. But when you think of covering that, p- politics has become a celebrity thing right now. So talk about going to Washington. Why did you decide finally to cover it? And, and your reporters do actually ask questions. A lot of Washington, and the reason I didn't cover Washington and covered tech, was because it was so, um, incestuous the way, uh, the press a- and politics were together, and they were at the same parties. And your reporters really do ask, uh, pretty good questions of these people as they're moving. Some of them are funny. Some of them are tough, um, because some of it is interesting. Uh, talk a little about why you decided to go there.

Harvey Levin 5:55 Well, I have passion for politics.

Kara Swisher 5:57 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 5:57 And I wanted to do this when TMZ was part of Warner Brothers, and- Twice I was on the eve of launching it, and Warner Brothers killed it 'cause they were nervous, and they thought that we'd piss off a congressman who had a regulation, um, that Warner Brothers needed, and they would... The congressman would vote against it, so they blinked at the very end. And both times they shut it down. This time, um, I was able to do it, and the reason I wanted to do it is, you know, you say incestuous, and I think it is. It's also cookie cutter.

Kara Swisher 6:32 Mm.

Harvey Levin 6:32 That when you look at reporters in DC, they are cut from the same cloth.

Kara Swisher 6:38 Mm.

Harvey Levin 6:38 They kinda look the same. They ask the same questions. The cadence of interviews are the same. So what I wanted to do for a long time was zag. And I have these two guys who have worked for me for a long time, and they are [laughs] , you know, I mean, y- y- if you looked at them you'd call them ragtag reporters. Um, they dress differently. They're young. They, um, they, they speak to c- politicians the way they talk to each other.

Kara Swisher 7:14 Mm.

Harvey Levin 7:14 And they don't interview, and that is, to me, the secret sauce. They don't do interviews with people. They have conversations with people, and there's a huge difference. They don't have five questions in mind when they talk to somebody.

Kara Swisher 7:27 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 7:27 They just go with the flow, and the flow can go in all sorts of places. And a lot of people can't do it. These guys, I th- I, I just, I love them, and they are brilliant. And in two days they won Congress over, and people wanted to talk to them. And what they found was that when we posted this, it got millions and millions of views because the politicians showed a human side. And it doesn't matter if they're Democrat or Republican, but my guys are just really good at bringing things out-

Kara Swisher 8:04 So-

Harvey Levin 8:04 ... because they're really, they're just authentic.

Kara Swisher 8:06 Is it a good thing that politics has now become entertainment? It does feel a little like The Hunger Games at this point in a lot of ways 'cause it has real-life implications

Kara Swisher 8:16 for people. And I get the idea. I think cable news is boring. I think it is cookie cutter. I don't think they're particularly tough. Corporate media just isn't, hasn't been. But does it... Is it a problem that, you know, and now we have all these politicians who are very comfortable, especially these new Democratic ones, very comfortable online. Is that a good thing, or is there, should there be some gravity? Because there are, again, real things happening across the country with people.

Harvey Levin 8:40 Politics and entertainment has intersected for a long time.

Kara Swisher 8:43 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 8:44 George Murphy was a senator from California. Ronald Reagan-

Kara Swisher 8:48 Mm-hmm

Harvey Levin 8:48 ... um, Gopher from The Love Boat.

Kara Swisher 8:50 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 8:51 Fred Thompson.

Kara Swisher 8:52 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 8:52 And you know, and I can go on and on. And you know, celebrities, John Glenn was a celebrity-

Kara Swisher 8:57 Mm-hmm

Harvey Levin 8:58 ... and became a senator. So entertainers have been part of DC.

Kara Swisher 9:05 Right. Absolutely.

Harvey Levin 9:06 Um, and-

Scott Galloway 9:07 Sonny Bono.

Kara Swisher 9:07 Sonny Bono.

Harvey Levin 9:07 Sonny Bono.

Kara Swisher 9:08 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 9:09 Um, who ended up being kind of a formidable congressman.

Scott Galloway 9:12 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 9:13 And, um, and so I... It, it's not, they're not strange to politics. Entertainment and politics have always kind of intersected.

Scott Galloway 9:23 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 9:23 But I don't see it as that. I see it as pop culture.

Kara Swisher 9:26 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 9:26 That politics to me is part of pop culture. Um, and pop culture is, you know, has a big tent, and it's sports, and it's celebrity, and it's business. It can be technology. It could be anything.

Kara Swisher 9:38 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 9:39 And so I, I just think it fits in pop culture because so much of what they do really involve... It, well, it should involve everybody's lives.

Kara Swisher 9:49 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 9:50 And, um, I just don't see it as strange, and I don't think-

Kara Swisher 9:54 Mm-hmm

Harvey Levin 9:54 ... it's necessarily new.

Kara Swisher 9:55 I, I do think that stuff you did about the congressman on vacation had an impact, had a, had... Was really interesting.

Harvey Levin 10:00 But that came out of anger.

Kara Swisher 10:02 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 10:02 That, you know, I... Well, it did. I was interviewing, um, a TSA agent during the government shutdown, and the, and Congress was about to go on a two-week Easter break, and this woman was telling us that she was losing her home. Her mental health was going down the drain. She didn't know what she could do with her kids. And I just got so angry. I just said, "If you guys see pictures, if you guys see your congressman on vacation, take a picture, and we'll put it up on our, uh, platforms." And two days later, [laughs] Lindsey Graham's at Disney World with a bubble wand.

Kara Swisher 10:39 Yeah. [laughs]

Harvey Levin 10:40 And, and, and all of a sudden, everybody started sending these pictures, and it had an impact. And, and honestly, um, I launched TMZ DC in a week because I realized this is the moment that I'd been waiting for, and literally in a week I got Jacob and Charlie to move to DC.

Kara Swisher 10:58 Wow. Okay. Scott?

Scott Galloway 11:00 So I think of TMZ as being singular. Like, I have trouble even identifying who your peer group is. So

Scott Galloway 11:06 traditional media, a- and L.A.'s paid a price for it. Traditional media, I mean, we keep getting nostalgic for a dead cat bounce, and oh, theaters are back, and, and the reality is media, traditional media is really hurting. And w- if you were starting, if you said, thought, "Okay, I'm a talented person," you graduated from New York Chicago Law School, decided to... You taught, I know you taught for a while, and then you decided to go into media. If you were starting a media company in L.A. and you thought, "You know, I wanna carve out a distinct new property. I wanna do something different," right? Take, go back to you're just in L.A., and you wanna do something singular and different. What would you start right now in the media space? What would the content be, the category?

Kara Swisher 11:46 The platform.

Scott Galloway 11:47 How would you approach it? Build a, build a business 30... Take yourself back 30 years ago, and you have a mandate to start a new media company. What would it look like?

Harvey Levin 11:57 We're doing it. Um, look, I, I s- speak at journalism schools, and the idea that they're still teaching television is insane to me. Tel- I mean, television You know, you look at news on TV, and the median age is somewhere between 67 and 70.

Kara Swisher 12:16 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 12:16 And, and people, and people under 30 have, don't have cable.

Kara Swisher 12:21 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 12:22 And so there are no new people coming in, and you know how the story ends, right?

Kara Swisher 12:26 Death.

Harvey Levin 12:27 Yeah. And so-

Speaker 12:28 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 12:29 Well, a- and so television is legacy, and even websites now are legacy. So my focus, uh, is, my focus is on social and especially on YouTube. Beginning next week, we're launching a documentary a month on YouTube, and we're, we're not only putting it on YouTube, but it's a YouTube style. It looks different.

Kara Swisher 12:52 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 12:52 And the people in-

Kara Swisher 12:53 What does that mean? What is a YouTube style from your perspective?

Harvey Levin 12:55 There's, it, it, there's w- it's raw. It has, it, it, it's rawer.

Kara Swisher 13:01 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 13:01 Um, and there's more of a connection. The people we have just have a way of connecting. There's feedback that you get.

Kara Swisher 13:11 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 13:11 And we can do things that you can't do in traditional media. Um, we can take chances and go out there, and we have an amazing documentary coming up next week, and we're gonna do one a month. So my focus is YouTube. My focus is social. We have content creators that we're developing. I'm merging all of it as one, so the legacy stuff and the social stuff is all kind of merging.

Kara Swisher 13:38 Do you stay on the legacy?

Harvey Levin 13:38 Pardon?

Kara Swisher 13:39 Would you, do you stay on legacy?

Harvey Levin 13:40 Yeah. It's sort of like riding a wave into shore.

Kara Swisher 13:44 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 13:44 You know, if you can ride it in-

Kara Swisher 13:45 Wow

Harvey Levin 13:45 ... as far as you can-

Kara Swisher 13:46 Right

Harvey Levin 13:47 ... you do it.

Kara Swisher 13:47 Right.

Harvey Levin 13:48 Um, I'm not gonna give up our TV shows.

Kara Swisher 13:50 Right.

Harvey Levin 13:50 But TV's gonna go away. It, it's gonna go away, and I think websites, you know, I mean, it's crazy to say, but websites are legacy right now.

Kara Swisher 14:00 What do these big legacy media companies do? I mean, obviously, the biggest one was the merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers recently, and you used to work for them. Um, e- the two biggest studios-

Harvey Levin 14:11 You, you too. [laughs]

Kara Swisher 14:12 Uh, I used to. After Halloween, I did not. Um, happy Halloween. Boo. Boo, David Ellison. Um, uh-

Harvey Levin 14:21 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 14:22 He's fine.

Harvey Levin 14:22 I'm leaving.

Kara Swisher 14:24 No. No.

Speaker 14:25 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 14:26 No. It's, "I've left." Thank you.

Speaker 14:30 [cheers] [applause]

Kara Swisher 14:31 Um, so you know what? I said what I... No, I m- I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, an elephant certain 100%.

Speaker 14:42 Whoo.

Kara Swisher 14:42 Thank you. I have children. It's from Horton Hears a Who. Thank you.

Harvey Levin 14:45 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 14:47 Um, so, uh, but these two big newsrooms, there's HBO. They've got enormous amounts of debt, and by the way, Oracle stock has declined rather precipitously, which is problematic 'cause Daddy Bank is going down.

Harvey Levin 14:59 Right.

Kara Swisher 15:00 But talk a little bit about what... G- use this as an example because here's, they've making a big bet, and you've got Disney, obviously. You've got Universal, um, and then all the small ones. What, what, what does a company like that do? You used to work for them, as, as I said.

Harvey Levin 15:15 Well, you know, it's interesting. I don't know if you guys watch Dancing With the Stars.

Kara Swisher 15:18 Yes.

Harvey Levin 15:19 But I... What... They did something really fascinating. That show was tanking, and they decided to kind of embrace social media and bring on these social media people and required them, it was part of the contract, that they go on TikTok every day, and it's become incredibly successful again. It, the, the show is a huge hit.

Kara Swisher 15:42 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 15:42 And what they've done is recast it using relevant platforms.

Kara Swisher 15:47 Mm.

Harvey Levin 15:47 And you could use, still use a legacy platform, and if you can tie the legacy platform to something more relevant, it lifts the legacy.

Kara Swisher 15:58 Right.

Harvey Levin 15:58 And I think that happened with Dan- I think Dancing With the Stars is a good example of it.

Kara Swisher 16:03 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 16:03 But I think that's a model of what... You know, I've always had this feeling, I m- and my office, everybody thinks I'm... They, they hate the term, but when we started T- when we started TMZ Live about 15 years ago, what I wanted to do was blend, um, I wanted to blend digital with linear, the television with the internet, and I was, I always thought, you know, you have a screen in your living room, and now you can integrate it, and you can have, um, you can l- you can go online and look at websites, and then you can also watch television. And I'm just thinking, "Why do you have one remote for one and one remote for another, and why are they separate?" Because you could take the best assets from, uh, from websites, from digital, and then you can apply them to a linear experience, and it becomes so much richer with photo galleries and comments and all that.

Kara Swisher 17:00 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 17:00 So I kept, I, I kept telling my o- my office, "We're gonna, we're gonna call this Intervision."

Kara Swisher 17:05 What?

Harvey Levin 17:05 "It's gonna be a combination of the internet and television."

Kara Swisher 17:09 Intervision.

Harvey Levin 17:10 Intervision.

Kara Swisher 17:11 Okay.

Harvey Levin 17:11 It never took.

Kara Swisher 17:12 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 17:12 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 17:13 Yeah.

Speaker 17:13 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 17:14 But the concept of it is still, I think, the goal, that you can take all of these assets and produce better products.

Kara Swisher 17:26 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 17:26 Because all of a sudden, I mean, wouldn't it be more interesting to be able to, you know, have this split screen where photo galleries appear and comments appear almost in real time, and that, you know, by bl- why not blend them?

Kara Swisher 17:39 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 17:39 I mean, why do you have to have these two separate things?

Kara Swisher 17:42 I'll let Scott answer too, but it's 'cause of the huge cost. They have these massive studios, these massive costs, and you know, in my experience of doing stuff for CNN, I kept think- I kept adding up the dollars they were spending.

Harvey Levin 17:53 Yep.

Kara Swisher 17:53 And I did my little podcast in my studio that cost $25,000 and was making more mo- you know, it was... I, I didn't underst- I didn't underst-

Harvey Levin 18:00 You're right

Kara Swisher 18:00 ... I didn't understand how they could possibly bring the costs down.

Harvey Levin 18:03 No, and look, as T- as, as media gets more fragmented, um, and audience get, gets more fragmented, um, you know, it's gonna be really hard for these studios to survive. It just is.

Kara Swisher 18:15 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 18:15 I, I mean, I shouldn't tell you this-

Kara Swisher 18:18 Mm-hmm

Harvey Levin 18:18 ... but I'm so fucking proud of this, that- My staff produced this thing that we're doing on YouTube next month, or next week, for $1,000. These are, these should be $300,000 productions, and we did it for $1,000. And, and we thought about how we were gonna do it. I'm, I'm really excited about this because it's different.

Kara Swisher 18:44 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 18:45 And so that's kinda where we're going.

Scott Galloway 18:47 You're, what you're tapping into is w- podcasts, and now YouTube. We get more v- views on YouTube than we get downloads, audio listens. Basically, podcasts are the new television shows with a lower cost means of production. It's just arbitraging the means of production.

Kara Swisher 19:02 Also, we're uglier.

Scott Galloway 19:04 I'm sorry, what? [laughs]

Kara Swisher 19:05 [laughs]

Speaker 19:05 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 19:06 Um-

Kara Swisher 19:08 Thank you

Scott Galloway 19:08 ... face or podcasting.

Kara Swisher 19:09 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 19:09 Uh, what is your view of, um, Instagram features? Are you gonna go hard at that? Do you think it's gonna be disruptive or...?

Harvey Levin 19:17 Disruptive how?

Scott Galloway 19:19 Well, long-form content will be available on Instagram now. They're clearly going after YouTube.

Kara Swisher 19:24 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 19:25 I see it as a additive.

Scott Galloway 19:26 It's gonna grow the pie. You don't think it's gonna, you don't think it's gonna cannibalize Netflix or YouTube?

Harvey Levin 19:31 You know, it's funny. Our experience has been that, you know, we can po- we, we, like, today, I mean, we, we talked to Pete Buttigieg.

Scott Galloway 19:41 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 19:41 We put it everywhere. We put it on YouTube. We put it on our TV shows. We put it on the website. We put it on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook. And it, it, it's additive, that ultimately, you know, for example, if you wanna go to a sponsor, uh, uh, uh, and, and get an advertisement, you don't say to them, "This is..." I mean, you could say, "Well, this will... You know, buy a pre-roll just on X." But what if you go to them and say, "Yeah, you can get one million views, uh, uh, one million set of eyeballs on X, but if you get, if you, if you work with us on all of our other platforms, you could get seven million sets of eyeballs."

Scott Galloway 20:21 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 20:21 Well, that's good for them. It's more money for us, and it's cumulative. It's not, it's not a zero-sum game with these platforms.

Kara Swisher 20:30 Yeah. You're talking about being media promiscuous, really-

Harvey Levin 20:32 Yeah

Kara Swisher 20:33 ... is what you're talking. I always say that to staffers. I'm like, "Be as promiscuous as possible." And I... You can do it in your personal life, too. I don't really care.

Harvey Levin 20:40 [laughs]

Speaker 20:40 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 20:40 But I have thought about this a lot. It doesn't really matter. And years ago, when I was at the Wall Street Journal, I'll never forget, they were talking about doing another print version, which I, I was, I was the young person at the time. And they, they brought y- brought me into a meeting, 'cause they're like, "How can we get young people to read the newspaper? Kara, what do you think?" And I said, "Uh, you could tape a joint to every page."

Harvey Levin 21:02 [laughs]

Speaker 21:03 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 21:03 And they threw me out of the meeting. They threw me out of the meeting. And my point was, like, it doesn't matter if it's on salami or wherever it is, it's where people wanna get it. But they couldn't think, get out of the distribution system.

Harvey Levin 21:14 Right.

Kara Swisher 21:14 So just be everywhere.

Harvey Levin 21:15 Be everywhere.

Kara Swisher 21:15 And see what works, and then abandon what doesn't.

Harvey Levin 21:18 Can I just say one other thing?

Kara Swisher 21:19 Sure, sure.

Harvey Levin 21:20 One of the things I found so fascinating in the last couple of years is the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial.

Kara Swisher 21:26 Oh.

Harvey Levin 21:27 That was dominated-

Kara Swisher 21:29 Yeah

Harvey Levin 21:29 ... by TikTok.

Kara Swisher 21:30 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 21:30 That, forget about websites, forget about television, any other platform. Forget about it. That was a TikTok trial.

Kara Swisher 21:39 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 21:40 And people got invested in it.

Kara Swisher 21:43 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 21:43 And it was just, people would spew opinions.

Kara Swisher 21:47 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 21:47 And it brought this thing to life in such an unbelievable way.

Kara Swisher 21:51 Was it, was it that different than the OJ trial, though, which was on television?

Harvey Levin 21:54 Well, yeah, because OJ was just TV.

Kara Swisher 21:56 Right.

Harvey Levin 21:56 And OJ was gripping, but it was television.

Kara Swisher 21:59 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 21:59 Period. Television. This, you know, the news covered it. You could watch this on NBC Nightly News. You could watch it on CNN, rest in peace.

Speaker 22:09 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 22:09 You could watch it, you could watch it, um, you could watch it anywhere. You could look, go to websites.

Kara Swisher 22:15 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 22:16 TikTok dominated it.

Kara Swisher 22:18 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 22:18 And it's because of this user experience and this kind of, um, I don't know. It, it, it, it, it, it was almost like a town square for people.

Kara Swisher 22:27 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 22:27 And when I w- when I looked at that, I thought, "Traditional media is gone."

Kara Swisher 22:32 Oh.

Harvey Levin 22:33 When I saw that trial.

Kara Swisher 22:34 This is a great message for LA. Um, all right. So, um, well, the one last question I had, Amazon just, uh, Amazon, the other tech player in this, um, just announced, uh, a Melania series, which is streaming soon. [laughs]

Speaker 22:48 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 22:48 Wait a minute. Wait a minute. No.

Kara Swisher 22:49 Yes. Yeah. Yes, it's not a bribe at all. Um, that's even after they spent the money on the movie that shat the bed at the box office. Um, when you think about sort of, you're, you're basically saying death of traditional media, uh, which has been long predicted, and it's, it's been a downward slide. That's absolutely true. Um, but two of the most powerful media owners in the country, um, seem to have been doing the president favors. Um, with the Democrats about to have subpoena power that actually sticks, uh-

Speaker 23:19 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 23:22 Who should be more worried, Amazon or the Ellisons?

Speaker 23:25 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 23:29 Hmm.

Kara Swisher 23:30 Or Rupert, you can add in him, too. Although that old crocodile, no one's getting him.

Harvey Levin 23:35 Well, I don't know. Do you f-

Speaker 23:35 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 23:36 Do you think this sub... I, I don't... I, I, that doesn't seem on their bingo card right now any-

Kara Swisher 23:42 It is

Harvey Levin 23:42 Is it?

Kara Swisher 23:42 Yes.

Harvey Levin 23:44 I would guess Ellison more than anybody, just because of the alliance with Trump-

Kara Swisher 23:48 Mm-hmm

Harvey Levin 23:48 ... and the merger, and they're gonna wanna see-

Kara Swisher 23:51 What happened

Harvey Levin 23:51 ... what happened. But, you know, as important as that is, they got a lot of other things to look at.

Kara Swisher 23:58 Right. [laughs]

Harvey Levin 23:59 I mean, they have got a lot to look at.

Kara Swisher 24:01 Right.

Harvey Levin 24:02 Although, uh, you're gonna boo me for this, I am really pissed off at R- uh, Congressman Robert Garcia, that it w- uh... No, no, but let me tell you why. When, when the first thing after the election is lawyer up, it's-

Speaker 24:18 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 24:18 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 24:18 No. I get it.

Kara Swisher 24:20 Let him have his peace. He can-

Harvey Levin 24:21 I get it A- and, and they should, but the messaging is so important. Donald Trump lost the plot.

Kara Swisher 24:29 [applause]

Harvey Levin 24:30 He didn't get that people cared about, they wanted their lives better.

Kara Swisher 24:35 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 24:35 And that should've been the first message out of the gate.

Kara Swisher 24:38 [applause]

Harvey Levin 24:38 This other stuff can happen, but it's like, "Don't fuck it up. You won. Don't fuck this up."

Kara Swisher 24:47 [applause]

Harvey Levin 24:47 And I feel-

Kara Swisher 24:47 Yeah, yeah

Harvey Levin 24:47 ... like that was the wrong message.

Kara Swisher 24:49 Yeah. Well, as a lawyer, you're sort of giving away the game, right? We're gonna get ya, and-

Harvey Levin 24:53 Yeah

Kara Swisher 24:53 ... makes you the--

Harvey Levin 24:54 And I don't think that was-

Kara Swisher 24:54 I see your point

Harvey Levin 24:55 ... what you say Wednesday.

Kara Swisher 24:56 Yeah, probably Tue- probably Monday, next Monday. [laughs]

Harvey Levin 24:59 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 25:00 Maybe just issue the subpoenas and say, "Get your ass to Washington," essentially.

Harvey Levin 25:03 I'm really sorry, by the way.

Kara Swisher 25:05 No, that's all right.

Harvey Levin 25:05 No, I'm sorry because you told me I should be funny, and I'm not.

Kara Swisher 25:08 Oh, well you are. Okay.

Harvey Levin 25:09 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 25:09 Last question from Scott.

Scott Galloway 25:11 So you're, you're a, a self-identified political junkie. You, you know a lot of these people. You're kind of at the helm of the bobsled in terms of seeing what's going on. I don't know your politics. Well, actually, I think I do a little bit.

Kara Swisher 25:23 They change all the time. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 25:25 Um, but did you see this coming on Tuesday, and what surprised you? Or did anything surprise you? Like...

Harvey Levin 25:32 I didn't know it would be this big, but I knew it would be big.

Kara Swisher 25:36 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 25:37 But Donald Trump, when he came out Wednesday, and he decided to go to the ballroom-

Kara Swisher 25:46 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 25:46 ... and talk about the ballroom, and all he did was just rhapsodize about how beautiful this thing is. I, I swear to God, it rem- uh, what I was thinking was, "This is like when your grandfather has a bad day, and you take him out to the garden so he can kind of enjoy his hobby and forget about what happened."

Kara Swisher 26:07 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 26:08 And it felt like that to me.

Kara Swisher 26:10 Mm-hmm, yeah.

Harvey Levin 26:10 It really felt that way to me-

Kara Swisher 26:11 Right, yeah

Harvey Levin 26:12 ... when I watched that. He doesn't get it. And with Stephen Miller, he's, he's just gonna... See, my problem is I'm afraid that he's gonna double down now and just-

Kara Swisher 26:22 Right

Harvey Levin 26:22 ... defy everything. He can't be prosecuted. Supreme Court said that.

Kara Swisher 26:25 Mm-hmm.

Harvey Levin 26:26 So he doesn't go down without a fight.

Scott Galloway 26:28 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 26:29 Yeah.

Harvey Levin 26:29 And now Stephen Miller is pulling the strings, so I think-

Kara Swisher 26:33 We're all gonna-

Harvey Levin 26:34 ... we're in for trouble.

Kara Swisher 26:35 Trouble. Well, we'll-

Harvey Levin 26:36 I think we're in for trouble.

Kara Swisher 26:37 All right. To leave it on a happy note, are you gonna miss Lauren Boebert?

Harvey Levin 26:40 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 26:41 [laughs]

Harvey Levin 26:45 Well, you know, it's, there are, there's always another movie in a theater, right?

Kara Swisher 26:49 Yes, that's true. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 26:50 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 26:51 All right, on that note, Harvey Levin. [instrumental music] Support for this show comes from Beehiiv. In today's media landscape, it's not only possible to create a different connection with your audience, it's necessary. Your people are out there. Beehiiv helps you find them. With Beehiiv, you can build an ongoing connection with readers who care about your work. For journalists, experts, and anyone with a perspective to share, that relationship is valuable, and it's something you should own. Beehiiv helps you build your own brand and subscriber list, giving you more control over how you reach your audience, which is critical. Visit beehiiv.com/pivot, that's B-E-E-H-I-I-V.com/pivot, and start building your newsletter today. Support for this show comes from DeleteMe. The size of your digital footprint is bigger than you think. Everywhere you roam on the web, socials, emails, forums, retail sites, the list goes on, you leave behind data. Unfortunately, all that info is vulnerable to data brokers who buy or scrape other people's data to sell. DeleteMe knows your privacy is worth protecting. When you sign up, you provide DeleteMe with exactly what information you want deleted from people search sites, and their experts take it from there. I've tried DeleteMe myself. I use it all the time, and I think it's really surprising how much data there is out there about me and how much it's collated and controlled by all these data brokers, and you don't know who they are. I think it's critically important that you protect your digital privacy, and DeleteMe helps protect it. 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, code PIVOT. [instrumental music]

Kara Swisher 28:50 Scott, we're back live from L.A., but before we get to local news, Trump is taking a break from ruining the White House decor to shake up his inner circle. Susie Wiles is out as chief of staff, moving over to his political operation. Allegedly, she's out. Replacing her is, uh, someone, someone said, "Evil life-sized thumb," Stephen Miller.

Scott Galloway 29:13 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 29:16 That's accurate.

Scott Galloway 29:16 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 29:18 Here are some of my favorite Stephen Miller jokes today. The internet never fails to deliver. Um, "Stephen Miller hasn't even heard about his appointment yet because he needs to wait for the sun to go down."

Scott Galloway 29:28 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 29:33 S- Stephen Miller can't see himself in the reflecting pool.

Scott Galloway 29:35 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 29:38 And that's not just 'cause of the algae.

Scott Galloway 29:39 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 29:40 "Naming Stephen Miller chief of staff is like looking at a five-alarm fire, fire and deciding the problem is a shortage of gasoline."

Scott Galloway 29:47 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 29:48 "Message from the American people received by Trump. His response: 'Let's go with little Himmler.'"

Scott Galloway 29:53 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 29:54 That's from Anthony Scaramucci, so it's not mine.

Scott Galloway 29:57 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 29:59 What does a Miller-run White House look like for the next two years? I wanna talk about that. What is it gonna be if he's, if he's there for two years? And the other one is, "Stephen Miller couldn't even win a primary with his family."

Scott Galloway 30:10 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 30:11 Um, which is actually true. His family really dislikes him. Um, talk a little bit about this. This was quite... I, I, I, I was... It, it's interesting 'cause, uh, in the podcast I do with Hillary Clinton, she goes, "Kara, he's gonna be more deranged." 'Cause he seemed a little docile looking at the ballroom in the first day. Um, and I said that to her, and she goes, "Don't-"

30:30 kid yourself. This is, this is going the wrong direction. And she talked about a concept about when you lose, you keep losing. You keep moving into that direction. And it becomes almost, you know, self-har- self-harming yourself to do so.

Scott Galloway 30:45 Look, I, I think Susie Wiles arguably, given what she was working with, is one of the most talented politico operatives. She won... She likely orchestrated the greatest political comeback in history. And for him to bounce her, you get rid of the person, one of the few people who seems to have had any luck managing him, to someone who's enabling him or making him crazier. D- I, I remember taking my dad's driver's license away, and it was a very emotional time for him, and upset him. Like, "Like, you're gonna kill somebody." And the next morning, I'm like, "What do you wanna do?" And he said, "I wanna go gar- go-karting."

Speaker 31:22 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 31:22 I'm like, "No, you didn't get... No, we can't go to a place with children where you can run them over."

Speaker 31:27 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 31:28 So y- yeah, I don't... I... It... To me, this is, you have a f- a five-car alarm, so what do you do? You send in someone drenched in gasoline.

Kara Swisher 31:39 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 31:39 I just don't get the thinking around-

Kara Swisher 31:43 Mm-hmm

Scott Galloway 31:43 ... sending in someone who embodies the very things that the nation gagged on.

Kara Swisher 31:50 Right.

Scott Galloway 31:50 It, it just... It really doesn't make any sense to me. I don't... I don't get it.

Kara Swisher 31:54 So what happens here? Because one of the rumors that Susie Wiles is trying to force out Pete Hegseth, and by the way, there's gonna be impeachment.

Scott Galloway 32:01 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 32:01 Uh, there's gonna, there's gonna-

Speaker 32:01 [applause]

Kara Swisher 32:01 And he's gonna be impeached. Um, from the senators in... Both Republican and Democrat senators I've been talking to, they're gonna impeach Pete Hegseth.

Scott Galloway 32:10 Yeah, that sounds right.

Kara Swisher 32:10 That's the plan. Um, and s- very soon. Next week, Thomas Massie has put in these impeachment things.

Speaker 32:15 [applause]

Kara Swisher 32:16 But the first thing Pete Hegseth did was say, "P- patriots" or whatever, that the, the pa- So it looks like the circle is getting rather small and disturbing. It's Natalie, Stephen, and Pete Hegseth.

Speaker 32:29 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 32:29 And Mario is m- Mario is wonder- wandering around. Marco. Marco, not Mario.

Speaker 32:34 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 32:34 Marco Rubio. Doesn't really matter, he's just... [laughs]

Speaker 32:38 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 32:39 I, I think it's gonna be very interesting to see if, um, Secretary Rubio decides to resign because, I mean, ev-

Kara Swisher 32:46 He said he isn't

Scott Galloway 32:47 ... Okay, every morning since he could walk, he's looked in the mirror and said, "Hello, Mr. President."

Speaker 32:53 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 32:54 That is, that is what he wants. And right now, you know, Trump has always been a bit of Chernobyl. Anyone who gets too close to him doesn't survive. And he's now Chernobyl where the reactor has blown.

Kara Swisher 33:06 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 33:07 And I don't think... I think Ri- Rubio's really trying to do calculus, like can he come up with a reason to, to distance himself? 'Cause all of a sudden, it looks like the top GOP nominee, or the one who has the most likely prospects, it used to be Vance, Rubio, or Rubio, Vance. But all of a sudden it looks like it's DeSantis or someone else because everyone says these guys are near... You know, these guys are ground zero for the Ebola virus right now. So I don't... I, I, I just can't figure out, um, what the, what the thinking is here. And also, I mean, I hate to be... I'm, uh, I gave myself 72 hours of joy, and I've immediately gone back to the real me, which is angry and depressed and catastrophizing.

Kara Swisher 33:48 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 33:48 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 33:50 Um, I think Stephen Miller is a dangerous person.

Kara Swisher 33:52 Yeah.

Speaker 33:53 [applause]

Scott Galloway 33:54 And, and-

Kara Swisher 33:55 I agree

Scott Galloway 33:56 ... the... If you think about what has really damaged our nation, it's not having a megalomaniac who's corrupt and not, and incompetent. It's been a lack of guardrails.

Kara Swisher 34:05 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 34:05 And these... It's the boring shit that gets you. Barry Goldwater said this 50 years ago, that we were ceding too much power, legislative power and actual laws, to norms.

Kara Swisher 34:15 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 34:15 There were just a series of norms that the president would never do that, and then he came in and said, "Sure, I can do it. I don't need to check with Congress. I can bomb a country. I can fire people. I can cut veterans' benefits. I can cut off aid to single mothers. I can cut food stamps. I can send 23 years old, 23-year-olds into the Department of Veteran Affairs and just start canceling contracts. If the keyword trans comes up in a contract, you cancel it." And everyone said, "You can't do that." And we found out he can.

Kara Swisher 34:44 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 34:44 And so the idea that we now have somebody who r- appears even less shameless and more... I mean, we all knew that guy in junior high school, right?

Kara Swisher 34:54 Right.

Scott Galloway 34:54 The guy who became hall monitor and used it to terrorize people.

Speaker 34:57 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 34:58 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 34:58 It, it... So I think he's... I'd... I would argue he's-

Kara Swisher 35:02 You know, he's from here.

Scott Galloway 35:03 What's that?

Kara Swisher 35:03 He's from Santa Monica. He went to Santa Monica.

Scott Galloway 35:05 He went to San Mo High School?

Kara Swisher 35:07 Yeah, someone in the audience, fr- friend of mine said-

Scott Galloway 35:09 Your fault.

Kara Swisher 35:10 Your fault, yeah.

Speaker 35:11 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 35:12 Yeah, I don't... I think I, I've said-

Kara Swisher 35:14 It's a bad joke, but someone said there's, there wasn't clearly enough bullying at Santa Monica High School.

Speaker 35:18 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 35:20 Um, in this case, I'll allow it. Um, but, uh, but one of the things that's interesting... Well, uh, I don't quite know why he d-... I, I, I was fascinated, 'cause I did text Hillary. I was like, "You are absolutely right." And she goes, "It's gonna get worse." Because it's this, it's this circle of losing that you keep losing even more. Like you... It's... Uh, she had a very technical smart lady term for it, and I don't-

Scott Galloway 35:42 The, the only thing is I think he's bored with geopolitics and domestic policy. The analogy I'd use is remember in the '80s and '90s, they had those TV shows where they said... It was like, it was capitalism on steroids. It was literally the worst of us, and it was so entertaining, where they said to some middle class dude or lady, "Here's a shopping cart. Here's a store. It's been emptied out. You got two minutes to grab as much shit as you can."

Kara Swisher 36:03 Yeah, that was a good show.

Scott Galloway 36:03 And you'd watch this person throwing in stuff and then figuring out, "Wait, clothes are not high value to weight. I need to go to the jewelry department." I think Donald Trump for the next 23 months and three weeks is l- is in a snatch and grab. I think he's gonna be totally focused on trying to steal as much money from the American public in terms of our reputation and our assets as possible.

Kara Swisher 36:24 Yeah, I would agree.

Scott Galloway 36:24 And I'm hopeful that he just ignores domestic policy, ignores geopolitics. That's my hope, is he's just totally focused on-

Kara Swisher 36:31 Well, except you have s-

Scott Galloway 36:31 ... "Where's the jewelry section?"

Kara Swisher 36:32 Except you have someone like Stephen Miller. To me, I think it's a little more disturbing. We're gonna move on in just a second, is-

Scott Galloway 36:38 He's an 80-year-old man in clear cognitive decline, and you have this one person with access to him who's aided by another aide, Natalie. It's the, the two of them are as tight as ticks, and, and an emphasis on ticks. [laughs] Um, but they are tight as can be, and they're controlling all information to the person who has the nuclear codes. So I find it more disturbing because he is not... There's nobody, uh, there's nobody in that White House now who is not... There's not a press secretary. There's not, there's not a person except for Marco Rubio, who has his own ambition. But, but the good news is, as of Tuesday, there now is an actual legislative branch that has subpoena power, has oversight power. Yeah. Well, that's a good thing. And, and this, you know, the new, the new heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the oversight committees, are adults and will not... And are very prone to disagreeing and marching up there and saying, "No, you can't do this." Well, one hopes the rep- some of the Republicans will be doing that because it doesn't work. [laughs] That's what... [laughs] Now- Oh, you. Oh,

Scott Galloway 37:43 I know. That, but that's what happened during Watergate. Yeah. I'm gonna move on to local news. We, we are not as intelligent about Los Angeles, like, but you, but you just have a new mayor, progressive Nithya Raman. First Mamdani, now Raman. It, it... Talk ab- I, I confess, I don't... I, I, local politics here, I don't know as well. I know my, my, where I live, DC. I do, I know San Francisco well with Daniel Lurie, very different kind of mayor. There's all these very interesting mayors across the country. Um, but talk a little bit about this idea of these, uh, sort of progressive mayors in these big cities, in these various... Now, she hasn't done anything yet because she's not mayor, so we can't judge- Yeah ... her on anything, uh, as being a mayor. But there are worries, and there was a real fight there. There was a real fight, um, between them. Um, so talk a little bit about where you think stuff like this is, what's important. Yeah. 'Cause the Olympics are coming here. Yeah, look, I don't, I don't think Nithya Raman won. I think Karen Bass lost. I think it's similar to... Uh, uh, look, I don't- [applause] And I think the false signal that the media loves is that this is some sort of referendum on socialism. No, it's not. Uh, Bass didn't lose to a socialist. She didn't lose to Nithya Raman. She lost to the Palisades fire. And- [applause] And also, there'll be a lot of media about how the two biggest cities are now run by a socialist. Folks, L.A. mayor is basically feckless and neutered. This is... The L.A. mayor oversees 17 billion. New York oversees 112 billion. It's the county supervisors that have all the power, and this wasn't about socialism versus whatever the politics were. This was about renters versus owners. This was about a 45-year-old versus a 72-year-old. No 80-year-old should run the country. No 72-year-old should be overseeing cops that have to retire at 55. Enough already. This was- [applause] This was... Whatever you think, like, uh, uh, look, uh, and I, the, it doesn't sound like this audience there. I, I think socialism has never worked on this planet, the true definition of it, so I'm not a fan of her politics. What I think people mistake socialism for in terms of the momentum it has right now is capitalism with more empathy and a redistribution of social programs in the middle class. [applause] And practicing the type of socialism, at least economically... And by the way, with Mamdani, my attitude is let him cook. If he wants to plant trees, if he wants to be a great role model for young people, if he wants to, you know, uh, make the city feel good, have at it. I don't, I don't care what he thinks about public policy, quite frankly. But to believe that this is some sort of signal about America embracing socialism, no. This was about renters versus o- owners, young versus old, and quite frankly, uh, I mean, this was, this was... Democrats didn't win this election, folks. Trump lost it. This wasn't a blue wave. This was a red riptide. [applause] And we are right now renting the people who awarded this election, specifically, and I'm switching gears, but the, the three groups that went hardest, hardest, every group, huge wave, right? Uh, white women under 45. The three groups that pivoted hardest, I mean, massive piv- the kind of pivots we haven't seen in 50 years, were three groups. Uh, Hispanics, 28 points. Young people, 18 to 29, 30 points. Young men, 38-point swing. That's just- [applause] ... striking. But here's the news. These are swingers. These, these guys- And not, and not in a good way. But go ahead. [laughs] These, these are the swingest swing voters in history. They're not Democrats or Republicans. Their vote is up for grabs. And the thing that scares me, and Harvey alluded to this, is the following. I think we need accountability. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to seeing the Witkoff kids in front of some committee in, in Congress explaining what they had to give up or what Dad promised such that they get, get a billion dollars into their crypto fund based out of Luxembourg. I, I will be up watching C-SPAN really into it. [laughs] For every ounce of quote, unquote... It shouldn't be retribution. It should be accountability. For every ounce of subpoenas and accountability, there needs to be a pound of economic policy plan because those people- [applause] Mm-hmm. Yep. We need to transition. If the Democrats don't move from being the party of indignance to ideas, those swingers are gonna take another key home and another spouse home in two years. Right. So yeah, for the wonks like us, and if you're here, you're politically motivated, have at it. Call people in front of Congress. Make people, make people explain themselves. But for God's sakes, what's your plan for universal healthcare coverage? Right, right. $25 an hour minimum wage. One, uh, one- Housing credits, vocational programs. Get rid of the cap on Social Security. If we don't- We think these people are animated by social issues. No, they're not. They want a job, they want a house, they want a spouse. That's what we need to be focused on.

Kara Swisher 42:35 So, so in that regard, California's new governor-elect, um, Becerra, says his biggest priority is cost of living. Beyond that, he isn't committing to much. He says everything's on the table on taxes, energy, and healthcare, and he's already backing off a campaign promise to reverse medical cuts for undocumented immigrants. Um, but y- I mean, I mean, I think that is what a lot of them are saying. Even someone like El-Sayed, the thing that attracted my son to vote for him was Medicare for All. Like, it was not anything else. It was not any of the other stuff. It was, it was Medicare for All, it was housing, and, and things like that. So I do think they are talking like that. You saw Talarico right after doing thousands of interviews, and they were all... None of them were about revenge. They were all about delivery.

Scott Galloway 43:16 That's the right message.

Kara Swisher 43:16 I mean, I think the messaging is the correct messaging, but one of the, uh, one of the issues is one, one would assume that Trump might have been cooperative, right? And that he would want... And one, one Democrat was joking, let's just put his name on the Trump, uh, you know, the Trump $25 minimum wage bill, the Trump, uh, [audience laughing] SNAP Returns bill, the Trump Transfer Everyone bill. Um, so Transfer Anyone Who Wants It bill, and he would be cooperative. But with Stephen Miller there, it does change the equation. This guy is, you know, the original, uh, besides being, looking like Nosferatu, he is the original [audience laughing] not wanting to cooperate. He's, his aggression is s- scary and also freaky when you see... Like, there's a, every time he goes against Jake Tapper, I, I'm, I'm just, like, nervous because Jake Tapper's like, "Oh, what the fuck?" [audience laughing] And he's just, he keeps going. It's like he does not wanna cooperate, and I don't think there's a, a second Stephen Miller behind the scenes. I mean-

Scott Galloway 44:18 Yeah, but I, I think, I don't wanna say it's, it's a no lose situation, but let Trump veto $25 an hour federal minimum wage.

Kara Swisher 44:26 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 44:26 Let him veto-

Kara Swisher 44:27 Yeah. Yep

Scott Galloway 44:27 ... a commitment to Ukraine to refund the war in Ukraine.

Kara Swisher 44:30 So-

Scott Galloway 44:31 Majority of Americans, I don't believe, understand we have totally abandoned Ukraine.

Kara Swisher 44:35 So very quickly, Becerra opposed the billionaire wealth tax, which didn't pass. Um, y- did you think that was, uh, uh, uh... Can he fix affordability without going after Silicon Valley money?

Scott Galloway 44:47 The billionaire ta- i- that was populism gone, gone wild. I live in London, and thi- this is one of the problems with the progressive side of the Democratic Party, which I'm a proud member, and that is we would rather tickle the sensors of upper middle class white liberals than actually figure out a way to have pragmatic growth such that we can fund p- social programs for, for low income residents. We'd rather say, "Stick it to the billionaires," than actually... And then watch them leave London and go to Milan and Dubai. The Treasury, we passed something called non-dom in the UK. It emotionally and philosophically makes all the sense in the world, and billionaires left, and this year they're gonna collect less in the Treasury. So a... And by the way, billionaire taxes or wealth taxes, I get the logic. They don't work. 13 of the 16 countries in Europe that have passed them have repealed. So alternative minimum tax, absolutely, but we have to be honest. You're paying 13 and a half percent if you're an upper income, uh, earner here in, in California. It's gotta be worth it. And this isn't popular, but is the question, do you have to raise more revenue or cut programs? The answer is yes. And for all the populist rhetoric about how to spend money, somebody has to be... I personally think, we were talking to, uh, senator and now Governor-elect Klobuchar in, in Minnesota, and I said to her backstage, "If I were you, I'd become the Saudi Arabia of the digital age and welcome all data centers." It's cold as hell up there. They have power, and they have massive land. They don't need to put these things near cities. The best message Democrats could be, do right now is say, "We're open for business, and sensible regulation and accountability [audience clapping] builds great businesses. We can walk and chew gum at the same time." They wanted to unplug, they unplugged San Onofre, and what happened? The next year we spent $350 million more on power generation and put millions of, of, of tons of carbon into the air, but the activists celebrated. And they were gonna unplug Diablo, which is 14% of electric power. Great. Feel-- I, I hope blue people and activists are really excited as their electricity bills in California are now 60% higher than the average in America.

Kara Swisher 46:54 So I think what you, what you, you are talking about is the way this was rolled out. The data centers, as you and I have talked about for a long time, which was completely predictable, is the way they were rolled out. It was NDAs-

Scott Galloway 47:04 Terrible

Kara Swisher 47:04 ... it was Elon Musk rolling over citizens-

Scott Galloway 47:07 Yep, yep

Kara Swisher 47:07 ... and doing whatever, or Kevin O'Leary, that moron in Utah-

Scott Galloway 47:10 Yep

Kara Swisher 47:10 ... accusing, [audience laughing] accusing people of being Chinese communist officials.

Scott Galloway 47:15 Terrible.

Kara Swisher 47:15 Instead of doing things with the communities-

Scott Galloway 47:17 Yep

Kara Swisher 47:17 ... it created an anger which was expressed in this election.

Scott Galloway 47:21 Agreed.

Kara Swisher 47:21 And it's not so much that... I think, you know, one, one of the things, like, when I was talking to people from Virginia, there are hundreds of data centers in Virginia. It's just the way-

Scott Galloway 47:30 The most, the most in the nation

Kara Swisher 47:30 ... this was done out with... It, it has to be d- done, one, closed-loop water systems-

Scott Galloway 47:35 Yep

Kara Swisher 47:35 ... two, no NDAs, three, guaranteed property taxes, four, no... Every rate increase will be paid for-

Scott Galloway 47:43 Closed-loop water

Kara Swisher 47:43 ... everything.

Scott Galloway 47:44 Yeah. Yeah.

Kara Swisher 47:44 And so I think that's where the discussion begins, begins in how it should be done, but it certainly shouldn't be decided on by the seven AI companies who-

Scott Galloway 47:54 Agreed

Kara Swisher 47:54 ... managed to get to the White House for lunch every Tuesday.

Scott Galloway 47:57 Agreed.

Kara Swisher 47:57 And that's, [audience clapping] that is the issue. And I think you're right, Democrats have to look like, not pro-business, but like, "Look, billionaires, maybe we won't do this billionaire tax, but alternative minimum tax? You're gonna start paying up-

Scott Galloway 48:09 Agreed

Kara Swisher 48:09 ... your fair share of taxes. Corporate people, you're gonna start paying up your fair share of taxes."

Scott Galloway 48:14 There needs to be thought... If you were to describe the economy into three buckets, it's owners, shareholders, it's earners, the workers, and it's consumers. Pretty much every piece of legislation in the last 40 years, from Democrats and Republicans, has done one thing. It's transferred power and prosperity from the, from the earners and the consumers to the owners Full stop. As a percentage of GDP, corporate profits have never been higher. As a percentage of GDP, wages have never been lower. It's pretty basic. Why on earth, I mean, there are just some obvious solutions here. An analyst who works for me and makes 180 grand pays $9,000 a year in Social Security tax. I make a lot more than that. I pay 9%. Let's flip it. You pay zero until you get to 180, and then you start paying-

Kara Swisher 48:59 Yeah

Scott Galloway 48:59 ... 6%.

Kara Swisher 48:59 These are kind of things. All right, we're-

Scott Galloway 49:01 We need to reverse-

Kara Swisher 49:02 And let's stop you

Scott Galloway 49:02 ... the flow of capital and opportunity from, from the, from the earners and consumers to the owners through antitrust. I mean, it's the boring shit that moves the needle here. It's tax policy. There's a $750 billion tax cut.

Kara Swisher 49:16 All right, stop. I'm gonna have to stop you soon, but keep going.

Scott Galloway 49:18 Fund the IRS, for God's sakes.

Kara Swisher 49:20 Well, that is true.

Scott Galloway 49:20 Collect the $750 billion. There's two point, the biggest expense in America is not the Navy, or it's not the military, it's not interest on our debt. It's the $2.2 trillion in loopholes we give to corporations and rich people.

Kara Swisher 49:35 Yes.

Scott Galloway 49:36 There's just some-

Kara Swisher 49:37 All right, all right

Scott Galloway 49:38 ... basic fixes.

Kara Swisher 49:38 Bernie, Bernie Sanders, stop. Um, okay, we're gonna get to that, so we need to take a quick break. When we come back, how Big Tech and the markets are responding to the blue wave. Support for this show comes from Beehiiv. Whether it's writing, podcasting, or starting a business, sometimes the best way to learn how to do something is to just start doing it. Beehiiv is a publishing platform that helps you find your audience and your voice. It also helps you manage your website, track subscriber growth, dig down into your analytics, and build a community. And when you're ready to get revenue flowing, Beehiiv lets you offer paid subscriptions, connect with advertisers through the ad network, manage direct sponsorships, or sell digital products. You don't need a huge audience or a fully formed media company to begin. Start with your expertise, curiosity, or a subject you think deserves better coverage. Beehiiv gives you both a place to publish and tools to find your next readers. All you need to bring is your unique perspective. I'm excited 'cause I am about to start a Pivot post Beehiiv newsletter with Scott Galloway for Pivot. I really like the platform for a lot of reasons, especially 'cause it focuses in on the creator more than anything else, and I really appreciate that about them. I'm very excited to start up Pivot post on Beehiiv, and it's the only place I would do it. Visit beehiiv.com/pivot, that's B-E-E-H-I-I-V.com/pivot, and start building your newsletter today.

Scott Galloway 51:01 Support for the show comes from Tanium, agentic defense at machine speed. IT and security operators can't protect what they can't see, and they can't fix what they're still waiting to find out about. Tanium closes the gap with real-time visibility and machine speed endpoint control. Tanium provides endpoint management, exposure management, and security operations on a single unified agentic platform with speed and confidence no other vendor can deliver. The full power of the platform is unleashed with Tanium Atlas, the AI-powered intelligence layer with deep integrations into external data sources and other agentic models. With Tanium Atlas, one single operator can control millions of devices in seconds using natural language prompts and a generative user interface. From the beginning, Tanium was built for machine speed defense. Today, large organizations and growing companies alike trust Tanium to protect their critical data from today's threats and be ready for what comes next. Learn more at tanium.com/pivot. That's T-A-N-I-U-M.com/pivot.

Kara Swisher 51:59 Scott, we're back live from L.A. [audience cheering] [claps] Uh, Democrats aren't wasting any time lining up investigations of Big Tech. Possible probes includes Trump's use of Mu- Musk's Grok to plan the Maduro operation, Apple hosting tracking apps used by ICE, Meta requiring local governments to sign NDAs on data centers, uh, everything DOGE did, speaking of the IRS, and where the data went, that's another one. Um, there, the, the different meetings, everything, all these things. In anticipation of subpoenas, Washington law firms are meeting with executives, and several are pitching to become Musk's personal counsel. Um, t- talk about this because after, as of this taping, the markets are taking a breath after Thursday's brutal sell-off of tech, which wiped out about $2.5 trillion. Chip stocks led the recovery with a strong jobs report helped. Anthropic's IPO is now a big test. Major investors are skeptical can hit its $1.5 trillion valuation. And Calci odds on an IPO announcement before December fell from about 85% to 57% this week. Um, I, talk about these two things because they're clearly, you know, from those CEOs, those tech CEOs standing in the front of the inauguration, which was, to me, one of the most reprehensible pictures I've ever seen, because they were in front of elected officials in the cabinet, even though the cabinet is, I didn't mind them blocking those people, but that's fine. They shouldn't have. They should have been in the front row 'cause they were elected. Um, and so, um, what, what is gonna happen here with these, uh, with, obviously, there's been a big memes about, you know, Mark Zuckerberg is now gonna be d- you know, uh, drinking kefir and, um, wearing earrings and calling himself they, them. Um, what, what is actually gonna happen here with these companies? They're gonna be much friendlier to Democrats, of course. I, myself, have gotten a lot of calls from them recently, um, and before, they didn't call me. I'll be going to a lovely Facebook party on Tuesday in DC, for example. I'm going 'cause I make them super uncomfortable. Um, but what happens now, and especially with the markets not knowing what to do, and the only other thing I would say is w- someone asked me this morning on a radio show, they're like, "Well, the markets are really now, th- this AI bubble is getting, and it's the voters that did it." I said, "No, it's these ridiculous Ponzi scheme fundings that did it, and Wall Street realizes the time has come to stop them." So talk a little bit about this, all these, the different interacting stock market, the numbers, the IPOs, and these subpoenas that are going out.

Scott Galloway 54:33 Okay.

Kara Swisher 54:34 All right? Is that enough?

Scott Galloway 54:35 Um-

Kara Swisher 54:35 It's all interrelated

Scott Galloway 54:37 I believe the biggest myth, uh, since nineteen forty-five, and the GOP has done an amazing job since Reagan of branding themselves as pro-growth and pro-business. They're pro-- Now, it's largely people have figured out it's pro billionaire, not pro-business. 'Cause if you look at economic growth, if you were to average the economic growth and job growth of Democratic administrations versus Republicans, Democrats have-- Democratic administrations have actually kicked the shit out of Republicans on job growth, stock market, GDP growth.

Kara Swisher 55:05 [applause]

Scott Galloway 55:05 So we've done a bad job of branding. The thing that spooked the market, I think-- One, I think a lot of it is they, they were just looking for an excuse to let some air out of the bubble here, and that might be a good thing rather than a crash, if you will.

Kara Swisher 55:17 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 55:17 But the thing that spooked the markets is that forty-one of forty-two measures on the ballot that were anti-data center, forty-one of forty-two passed. And so the compute companies or the pure played, the pure play levered AI companies, whether it's Anthropic, whether it's OpenAI, whether it's CoreWeave, the compute companies that are totally focused on AI and then levered up with a lot of debt, that got scary or that has gotten... This election looks scary for them because if they all of a sudden run up against populist rhetoric that basically shuts down their business, the companies that have not done that poorly are, I mean, quite frankly, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, you know, the big guys that are diversified. To a certain extent, and this is the sad thing about regulation, is regulation, while it feels good, tends to be a moat for the incumbents.

Kara Swisher 56:12 Yeah, that's what-

Scott Galloway 56:13 And that is, if you look at-- I mean, basically, Bezos and Zuckerberg and Nadella and, and Sundar are all saying, "Yeah, shut down all new data centers. I've already got my compute."

Kara Swisher 56:28 Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 56:29 And it's the new guys that need incremental compute that are really screwed if this regul-- So unfortunately, regulation ends up, quite frankly, buttressing the advantage-

Kara Swisher 56:39 Mm-hmm

Scott Galloway 56:39 ... of the current incumbents. And you can see in the performance the last few days, there's a bifurcation while wind has come out, some oxygen has come out of the market on the whole. The guys that's really hurt is the new guys who are very levered and a pure play on AI 'cause Amazon's a diversified business, and then the best performing stock of all the Mag seven year to date in twenty twenty-six is the player that decided to sit out of the AI arms race.

Kara Swisher 57:05 Apple.

Scott Galloway 57:05 Apple.

Kara Swisher 57:06 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 57:07 So I think the market is just respond. It's, it's hard to get a signal on two or three data points, and I think it's still trying to figure it out. But I would say again to Democratic, to my progressive brothers, brothers and sisters, be careful what you wish for because think about the hyperscalers. They're planning to spend it... One of the things I hate-- I've been on a bunch of public boards. I say that 'cause I'm desperate for your affirmation, wanna sound more important than I am.

Kara Swisher 57:32 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 57:32 But I hate, I hate stock buybacks. I'm like, "No, no, no, no. We're, we're not out of ideas. Let's grow. Let's hi..." And by the way, the public should hate stock buybacks. I think stock buybacks should be taxed because you want companies being promiscuous, hiring more people, taking risks, buying property, plant property equipment people, right? We had massive stock buybacks the last twenty years, and now these guys are convinced that AI is the future, and they're spending a trillion dollars on CapEx. By the way, that's great for the economy. And if they're taking the risk with their companies and their balance sheets to pump a trillion dollars into the economy, we want some of that juice. Every state should want some of that-

Kara Swisher 58:17 I think what they're worried about is that it, it, that the revenues don't appear, right? That, uh, you know, that it becomes a version of what happened to the first internet crash except in a quantum level. And I-- That-- L-let me, let me read something, actually.

Scott Galloway 58:31 Yep.

Kara Swisher 58:31 What I, what I do think is happening

Kara Swisher 58:33 is the, is this popul-popular and voter-fueled anger towards tech and what it does to society, and this includes social media. And let me read something Ed Elson posted on Threads, uh, which I thought was great. Uh, you've trained him well, and he's now much smarter than you. Um, "Of the more than forty data center proposals on US ballots this week, only one passed. Americans resoundingly reject them. This is partly why AI stocks are tanking. We can debate whether data centers are good or bad for the local community. There are genuine pros and cons, but that might be besides the point. The truth is that this is the first time regular Americans ever wielded leverage over Silicon Valley. For decades, they've been powerless, powerless to monopolization, regulatory capture, and unprecedented societal control. Now, Silicon Valley needs the American people's permission for something. Not just something, but the very thing they bet the farm on, and the American people's answer is a simple no. This is a dramatic shift in power, a dynamic Silicon Valley never experienced before. It'll be fascinating to see how it plays out." Um, which I think was great. I think that's pretty much says it. So, uh, speaking of that, um, I do think-

Scott Galloway 59:44 I'm sorry. Can I just... I, I, I, I know you're gonna get angry at this. You know who's been amazing at saying no and making everyone feel awesome?

Kara Swisher 59:49 What?

Scott Galloway 59:50 Europe.

Kara Swisher 59:51 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 59:51 And by the way, Anthropic, founded six years ago in America, would be w- already one of the three most valuable companies in Europe.

Kara Swisher 59:59 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:00:00 And here's the thing. We have a tendency to look at everything through a shareholder lens. The railroads benefited all of the US and humanity, and a bunch of companies went bankrupt going at it. Have at it. A bunch of companies went bankrupt and sh-- and there was a crash in the market with the internet, and we've all done better. No companies made a lot of money really in vaccines. No companies made a lot of money producing jet manufac-- uh, commercial jet man-manufacturers. I believe the big winner of AI Is all of us, 'cause I do believe the majority of those companies are gonna go out of business, and along the way we're gonna have a big market correction. I'm gonna get a lot less wealthy, and you're gonna figure out ways to have a better life with AI.

Kara Swisher 1:00:39 E- e-

Scott Galloway 1:00:39 That's okay

Kara Swisher 1:00:40 ... except, Scott, as long as it's not decided on by seven of the same men in a room with Trump. [audience applauds] I'm sorry. No, I, I know you love this idea of the Gilded Age.

Scott Galloway 1:00:49 Great good governance.

Kara Swisher 1:00:51 What hap-

Scott Galloway 1:00:51 Absolutely. Have at it

Kara Swisher 1:00:52 ... what hap- but we- they don't want good governance, and the Gilded Age was followed by the Progressive Era. It, this is where we're headed. I think Ed is 100% right. I'm gonna disagree with you and just move along-

Scott Galloway 1:01:01 That's fine

Kara Swisher 1:01:01 ... 'cause I'm running the show.

Scott Galloway 1:01:02 That's, that's why people tu-

Kara Swisher 1:01:03 So, so [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:01:03 ... that's why people tune into the-

Kara Swisher 1:01:04 Let me just say-

Scott Galloway 1:01:05 That's why people tune into the show

Kara Swisher 1:01:06 ... we need to-

Scott Galloway 1:01:06 By the way, 93% of GDP growth has been CapEx from the hyperscalers. I'm not suggesting it shouldn't be thoughtful regulation and you shouldn't make sure that you're, these are good for the communities, but folks, be careful what you wish for.

Kara Swisher 1:01:20 All right. At the same time, the creators are saying 10, it could have a 10% chance of killing all of us. We should have some guardrails. Um, th- but the person who's gonna get the most attention here, and this is our last

Kara Swisher 1:01:30 item, Elon's had a bad week that's getting worse. [audience applauds] Um, uh, Texas, uh, gover- Texas Governor, uh, Gina Hinojosa says Musk can work with the state, but on our terms. She's asking Texas to hold off on a possible sale of a state park to SpaceX. [audience applauds] Meanwhile, and I know... Listen, I've seen quite a few of them here in Los Angeles, but the Cybertruck is done. [audience applauds] Uh, Musk says, uh, Tesla will wind down production in Texas around the middle of next year to make room for its Cybercab robotaxi. [laughs] The robovan. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:02:03 Robovan.

Kara Swisher 1:02:04 As if. Sales have been falling almost since launch. It's, it's, uh, it's less successful than the Edsel, um [audience laughs] which is true. It sold a lot less. Some of them, Elon bought a bunch of them, too, so we don't know the real sales. To top it off, the White House said SpaceX donated the Starlink service, but records show the Pentagon paid SpaceX nearly $1.2 million for Starlink work at the White House since last year. Incoming Democratic investigators will wanna know why. Um, there's a great story in The New York Times about the beginning of the end of Musk's political power. He spent, of course, $500 million on the midterms, and got back, um, nothing. [audience applauds] Nothing. [laughs] Um, but, but I don't know if you know this, he's very wealthy, and the amount of money he spent, if you were a millionaire, it's about $400. Uh, so he has plenty where that came from.

Scott Galloway 1:03:00 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 1:03:00 And does he just... And he's lost, uh, he's lost $80, $90 billion in value right now, so have a lot of the tech moguls, but does he just buy his way back in by 2028?

Scott Galloway 1:03:10 B- your point's the right one. Like, the f- I think I... One of the first bills that should be proposed is campaign finance reform. [audience applauds] Like, you have... You know, we, we like to hate the politicians, but hate the game. The person that typically, until recently, raises the most money wins. What's very interesting and heartening about all of this is that someone can spend almost half a billion dollars, and the ROI just seemed to plummet. The candidate, the candidate is bigger than, than the capital. I... Look, I now, I've gone, speaking of Europe, um, I think a lot about m- the relationship between money and happiness, and the reality is there is a relationship. Upper income people are happier than middle income, who are happier than lower income. That's the bad news. The good news is that it tops out. Once you get to a point, if you live in Los Angeles where you have a home, can take nice vacations, enjoy, uh, absorb an economic shock, send your good kids to good schools, have good healthcare, you get no incremental happiness for anything above that. In L.A. that's probably about 1 million or 2 million bucks a year, by the way. But where I am now is that in a capitalist society where, that has become so obsessed with the idolatry of the dollar and innovators, that power, so much power can cede to unelected private individuals, that the adage of power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts is more true than ever. And I now believe that really progressive taxation is our Kevlar against billionaires who are turning off and on warfare technology as Europe's been invaded. So it- we need, first bill out of the gates, campaign re- finance reform, and I'm now of the mind [audience applauds] I... And I'm, I'm gonna sound like a socialist here, uh, uh, and I'm not. America was capitalist in the '80s and in the '70s, and the top tax rate was 80%. And by the way, if you get into that top t- tax bracket of 80%, you're not any less happy, because you're making so much bank that your happiness has already peaked. So we have become out of control in terms of one man, a private citizen's ability to control the government and make decisions-

Kara Swisher 1:05:16 Yeah

Scott Galloway 1:05:16 ... that only elected officials should be allowed to make.

Kara Swisher 1:05:18 Yep, I agree, and he's become a car- he's become a, a cartoon villain, and he, he really has been- become that way. And it do- it, it d- it doesn't really matter if it's Elon or any of them. I, I always say, someone's like, "Oh, you don't like Elon," and, uh, that's not actually the case. I don't think... A- if I liked him, I wouldn't want him to have that much power. Like-

Scott Galloway 1:05:37 No individual should have that much power

Kara Swisher 1:05:37 ... no individual should have that, and, and he is not elected, he is unaccountable, and he should work on his, not the Cybertruck obviously, 'cause that was a shitty product. Um, but he should work on those kind of things and not have this... It, it, it would be a really good thing for him and for the rest of us for him to go away for a while, get off Twitter, and stop talking. [audience applauds] Okay, um, w- are you gonna buy a Cybertruck now that they're not gonna make them for, like, an investment?

Scott Galloway 1:06:03 As a true story, I had, um, I had a Tesla. Great car. You started shitposting me on Twitter, so I sold it, not before taking a giant dump in the passenger seat. [audience laughs] True story.

Kara Swisher 1:06:16 [laughs] Okay.

Scott Galloway 1:06:17 Not good for resale value.

Kara Swisher 1:06:19 [laughs] Okay. On that note, um-

1:06:25 We need to take another quick break. Support for this show comes from Beehiiv. Have you ever thought about putting your work out into the world but weren't sure where to begin? Beehiiv can help. Beehiiv helps you build your audience and your business while giving you more time to actually create your content. Their recommendation network helps new people discover you, while monetization tools like paid subscriptions, digital products, and a built-in ad network let you experiment with different business models and find what works best for you and your audience. Because creating your content is hard enough, let Beehiiv help you with everything else. Visit beehiiv.com/pivot, that's B-E-E-H-I-I-V.com/pivot, and start building your newsletter today. Support for this show comes from Whatnot. Remember back in the day when you'd have your favorite shopkeep, or maybe there was one person at your favorite department store who would help you shop? Well, just because most shopping has moved online doesn't mean we still can't find ways to recreate that kind of connection. Enter Whatnot. Whatnot is the leading live shopping platform. Millions of customers buy in real time from real sellers. You can find everything from fashion, to trading cards, to house plants, to baked goods. What sets Whatnot apart from other retail platforms is it's part sales, part entertainment. When you sell on Whatnot, you have the potential to not only sell your wares, but to build an engaged audience as well. And as a shopper, you can keep up with your favorite sellers and get to know them when you shop. One of our producers tried Whatnot. It takes a small learning curve, but once you're in, you're in. As a buyer, you can lurk in the chats with real people and save sales that you've got an eye on for later. Search Whatnot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T, in the App Store, download, and start selling right away. Support for this show comes from Quince. There's nothing like having pieces in your closet you know you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that same feeling. This holiday season, Quince is where you can find those pieces. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. And when it comes to gifting, Quince has a lot more than clothing. They have leather bags, hotel quality bedding, chef grade cookware, and five-star luggage. You can find something special for everyone on your list. I really love Quince. I actually use it a lot. I love their bedding. I just gave that to my son, uh, for his, uh, new home. Um, and I gave him some cookware also. I have a piece of their luggage I use a lot, and I have this blue cashmere sweater that I have worn far too many times. It's incredibly comfortable. It feels rich. It was not expensive. Uh, I would give that to, mostly just to Scott Galloway 'cause he needs to be softer. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Pivot. It's the best way to support the show.

Scott Galloway 1:09:17 Kara, on all these tours, does surprises for me, and the last one she brought my fourth grade girlfriend.

Kara Swisher 1:09:23 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:09:25 Debbie Brubaker, who it ends up went on to be high school valedictorian and then marry a woman. Insert joke here.

Kara Swisher 1:09:30 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:09:32 Um, but, uh-

Kara Swisher 1:09:33 That was why I did it

Scott Galloway 1:09:34 ... let's put a picture up. Kara travels and works harder than any person I know.

Kara Swisher 1:09:36 Oh, no.

Scott Galloway 1:09:38 This is Kara's luggage.

Speaker 1:09:40 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:09:41 And I would describe this not as luggage, but a cry for help.

Speaker 1:09:44 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:09:45 And, and I'm very into appearances. I wanna be more impressive to people. I wanna be more interesting to men and more attractive to women, and the, the brand that does this in luggage, they're not a sponsor by the way, is Rimowa. So I went to Rimowa today.

Kara Swisher 1:09:58 Oh, no. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:09:59 And she and I have entirely different taste, so I bought a piece of Rimowa luggage that I would never buy.

Speaker 1:10:04 [laughs] [clapping]

Kara Swisher 1:10:11 Oh. [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:10:12 That's my surprise.

Kara Swisher 1:10:14 Oh.

Scott Galloway 1:10:14 She, she brings my girlfriends who are married to women, I bring her luggage.

Kara Swisher 1:10:19 [laughs] What the fuck?

Scott Galloway 1:10:21 This is awesome. Look at this bad boy.

Kara Swisher 1:10:23 What do you mean it's awesome? It looks like a car.

Speaker 1:10:25 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 1:10:26 Look at... Thank you.

Scott Galloway 1:10:27 You know, I expose myself and you jab. You jab.

Kara Swisher 1:10:31 [laughs] Can't we send someone to college for this amount? [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:10:34 I got a gift receipt. You can go get some bad things.

Kara Swisher 1:10:37 Thank, I know, I'm teasing. Thank you, Scott. Okay.

Scott Galloway 1:10:38 You can-

Kara Swisher 1:10:38 In any case, thank you. Thank you so, so much. I love my piece of luggage that I will use.

Scott Galloway 1:10:42 Yeah, you seem thrilled.

Speaker 1:10:43 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:10:45 I make an effort. Someone's investing in this relationship.

Kara Swisher 1:10:48 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:10:49 I'm taking the kids. I'll be at my sister's.

Speaker 1:10:51 [laughs]

Scott Galloway 1:10:53 Would put a ribbon on it.

Kara Swisher 1:10:54 Oh, you're very sweet. I'd give you a kiss, but I'm not going to. Anyway, on that note-

Speaker 1:10:58 [clapping]

Kara Swisher 1:10:58 ... you can catch selected shows from your, on the tour on your YouTube and your podcast feeds. One more thank you to our title sponsor, Beehiiv. If you've got something to say, Beehiiv gives you the tools to publish it and grow your audience and get paid. Uh, Scott, I'm gonna get inside this suitcase in a second.

Speaker 1:11:14 [laughs]

Kara Swisher 1:11:15 Um, I really appreciate it. Thank you. You-

Scott Galloway 1:11:17 You're very welcome.

Kara Swisher 1:11:17 I, you, you-

Scott Galloway 1:11:18 Thank you, Kara

Kara Swisher 1:11:18 ... you, you invest in our relationship-

Scott Galloway 1:11:20 I do

Kara Swisher 1:11:20 ... and I really appreciate it. Scott is a wonderful partner even though we often disagree about things, but he's incredibly generous and, and, and is a g-

Scott Galloway 1:11:28 Thank you, Kara

Kara Swisher 1:11:28 ... and is a work in progress, which is all we should hope to be.

Scott Galloway 1:11:31 Thank you so much. Thank you, Los Angeles. Thank you, California. Thank you, America.

Kara Swisher 1:11:35 Great. [upbeat music]