The Chaos of Donald Trump's Cabinet Picks | Pivot

Kara Swisher 0:00 Donald Trump is back at the White House this week meeting with President Joe Biden and promising a smooth transition, unlike what he did, by the way. Trump has also been busy with lots of announcements about his cabinet advisors. The one that is... They started off normal, Susie Wiles, Marco Rubio, and now we're at the Matt Gaetz's pick for Attorney General. Um, uh, and, uh, Fox News weekend host, Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. Um, we'll get to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's leading the Department of Government Efficiency, or as I'm calling it, the Department of Grotesque Egomaniacs, or the Department of Grandstanding Edgelords. Um, I don't... This is like, gets weirder and fucking weirder. And this is, uh, you- your initial, uh, your initial thoughts on this cadre of offensively unqualified sycophants, as one writer called them. Also in the mix, Tels- uh, Russia's best friend, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, and Kristi Noem, killer of dogs, for Homeland Security Secretary. Chuck Todd posted these confirmation hearings may just save cable TV for the short term. He got sort of dinged for it, but I would have to agree. Uh, first, before whether they'll make it through, overall thoughts? It just degenerated. It was like, "Okay," and then, "No." Like that kind of thing. What do you think?

Scott Galloway 1:16 Well, he's made... There's some additional announcements that have come out. He's announced that Sue Sylvester, Jane Lynch's character from Glee-

Kara Swisher 1:23 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 1:23 ... is gonna lead the Department of Performing Arts. Um, uh, and also Lea Michele will lead the Department of Punctuation and Spelling.

Kara Swisher 1:31 Uh-huh (laughs) .

Scott Galloway 1:32 Um, also, I don't know if you heard the most recent one, but Gab Bluth from, um-

Kara Swisher 1:36 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 1:36 ... Arrested Development, Will Arnett's character-

Kara Swisher 1:38 Uh-huh.

Scott Galloway 1:38 ... is gonna be the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Kara Swisher 1:41 Oh my God.

Scott Galloway 1:41 And also, Baron Harkonnen from, uh, Dune will head spice production on the planet of Arrakis.

Kara Swisher 1:48 Nice. Nice. I like it.

Scott Galloway 1:49 Uh, look, uh, I now believe, I now believe that the appointment or the, the floating of the idea of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, within about an hour, Lisa Murkowski or Senator Murkowski, who I love, uh, basically said, "This is... That Matt Gaetz is an unserious candidate and I look forward to vetting a serious candidate." I don't... I think this was them saying, "You're a loyalist, give him something." And what they've done, I think, is run cloud cover for just a shitty pick as opposed to-

Kara Swisher 2:20 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 2:20 ... a fucking crazy, stupid pick. And that's what Matt Gaetz is-

Kara Swisher 2:23 Right.

Scott Galloway 2:23 ... to be AG. That just makes no sense. And then if you really want to talk-

Kara Swisher 2:27 It's been called a loyalty test for Senate Republicans and their newly elected reader- sen- like leader, Senator John Thune. They all were pushing for Rick, uh, whatever the Florida idiot, um-

Scott Galloway 2:37 Rick Scott?

Kara Swisher 2:38 Rick Scott. He was, he was the one that MAGA was pushing. Absolutely.

Scott Galloway 2:42 Yeah, I don't think Rick Scott is an idiot. I don't love his politics, but-

Kara Swisher 2:44 Oh my God, he made a mess of the Senate committee he was running, uh-

Scott Galloway 2:47 100%. But he's, he's at least competent. He's elected. I- I don't know. Uh, uh, look, look, perfect is not on the menu here. I mean-

Kara Swisher 2:54 Right.

Scott Galloway 2:54 ... when Senator Rubio looks like a thoughtful pick with gravitas-

Kara Swisher 2:58 Right.

Scott Galloway 2:58 ... for Secretary of State, everyone's just hoping for someone who has some administrative and some leadership experience. But my favorite is that there are not one, but two heads of a committee on efficiency.

Kara Swisher 3:10 Right.

Scott Galloway 3:10 I mean, that kind of tells you-

Kara Swisher 3:11 Yeah, I know. I know.

Scott Galloway 3:12 ... this makes no fucking sense.

Kara Swisher 3:14 (laughs)

Scott Galloway 3:14 And I-

Kara Swisher 3:14 Are you kidding? It's like-

Scott Galloway 3:15 And I just want to-

Kara Swisher 3:15 It's like the Grace Commission, right? Do you remember the Grace Commission under Reagan? He was gonna drain the swamp, and he created that commission of leaders to cut everything.

Scott Galloway 3:23 The Private Sector Survey on Cost Control to Reduce Government Waste.

Kara Swisher 3:26 Yes.

Scott Galloway 3:26 Clinton had it, launched the National-

Kara Swisher 3:28 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:28 ... Performance Review.

Kara Swisher 3:30 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:30 George W. had the President's Management Agenda. Obama had efficiency reforms. And Trump created the Reform Task Force to Eliminate Inefficiencies. He attempted unsuccessfully to shut down 19 agencies.

Kara Swisher 3:43 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 3:43 And it... This is a popular political move. Two thirds of Americans think the federal government is wasteful and-

Kara Swisher 3:48 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 3:48 ... bureaucratic. And... But let's just look at some data here.

Kara Swisher 3:52 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 3:52 Trump is by no means our most efficient president. Federal employment, fl- federal employment under Trump rose 3.4% during his first term, compared to an increase of 1.3% in Obama's, uh, second term. Um, uh, it did increase, federal employment did increase by over 6% under Biden. Despite all the rhetoric, the US government spends less as a share of GDP than its peers. Uh, US government spending is projected to be about 38% of GDP. That's less than Japan, which spends 42%, UK, 43%, and Germany at 48%.

Kara Swisher 4:30 Wow.

Scott Galloway 4:30 The US public sector, which they claim is overstaffed-

Kara Swisher 4:33 Well, they do more for their citizens, but go ahead. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 4:34 True. The US public sector employs 14% of workers, which is more than Germany's 13% and Mexico's 12%, which connotes, based on what you said, as probably inefficient, but less than France's 21% and the UK's 23%. Now, let's just specifically go to the pick of, of, uh, Elon or Alania, First Lady Alania to head efficiency.

Kara Swisher 4:57 Alania.

Scott Galloway 4:57 Let's just talk about efficiency at Tesla, the automobile industry. Revenue per employee is 1.07 million per employee at BMW. GM, 1.2, 1.- excuse me, 1.02 million per employee. Ford, $980,000 million per employee. Mercedes-Benz, 950,000. Toyota, 760,000. And pulling up the rear as the least efficient-

Kara Swisher 5:20 Mm-hmm.

Scott Galloway 5:20 ... of these companies is Tesla-

Kara Swisher 5:23 Tesla.

Scott Galloway 5:23 ... clocks or registers revenue of 740,000 per employee. So the least efficient car company revenue-

Kara Swisher 5:30 Sure.

Scott Galloway 5:30 ... per employee is Tesla. So, uh, anyways, I find the whole thing... It'll be very interesting. They claim they're gonna cut this thing by, I don't know, $2 trillion, which means they'd have to, like-

Kara Swisher 5:41 Yeah. No, but he didn't mention it in the press release. No numbers or... Like he went on and on on Twitter, but of course, like that's just nonsense. It's just nonsense. It's just nonsense.

Scott Galloway 5:49 Anyways, I, I'm finding... This thing is so... If you're gonna be dumb, be dum- don't be dumb, be outrageous. No one's really taking this seriously, because it just seems-

Kara Swisher 5:56 No.

Scott Galloway 5:56 ... so outrageous.

Kara Swisher 5:57 No, well, even congressmen were like, "Yeah, he can ask. We're not doing it." Um, you know, even the Repub- the Republican ones. It, the, the Gaetz nomination is interesting only because, um, he... What's interesting about this is, of course, his behavior with young women, women underage. He resigned from Congress on-

Scott Galloway 6:14 Alleged, alleged.

Kara Swisher 6:14 Alleged, whatever. Okay. Alleged Gaetz, whatever, uh, resigned from Congress on Wednesday, days before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on releasing a highly critical report of their investigation into him.

Scott Galloway 6:25 What is your take? I agree with you that I, I think-I, I just think there's a lot of Republican... First off, the thing I don't think the market or people have absorbed is, as of today, Donald Trump is a lame duck president.

Kara Swisher 6:37 Yeah, that's what I mean.

Scott Galloway 6:38 And he's not gonna have, he's not gonna have nearly the power to intimidate Republicans. And I gotta think it's gonna be very tempting for Republicans on a pick like this to go, "No," to basically pull a Murkowski and say, "This is not a serious candidate." I gotta think the Trump administration realized he probably wasn't gonna be able to get Gaetz through, but they did it anyways. What do you think they're trying to do here? What's their endgame?

Kara Swisher 7:03 I, I don't know because they're frittering away an amazing victory, right? You know, it seems like now they're like, now we're like, "Oh God, the idiots are back." Like, I don't know, he has such an opportunity to not fritter away what was a spectacular return to power. And now we're talking about Matt Gaetz and, and, and, uh, and, and jailbait. That's what we're talking about now. Like, as opposed to, like, what he could be doing. And Elon doing these stupid, you know, he's gonna, calling it the Manhattan Project of our time. You know, it's gonna blow up in their face, that's, that's why it's the Manhattan Project of their time. Like, it's such a waste of opportunity here. And largely because I think he is of the mind as, "I'll say something crazy and then I'll say the next thing that's crazy, and the next thing that's crazy." But it's, I'm talking about being effective, and this is not effective in any way. If he really, you know, maybe over to the right they're, like, gonna be deporting people and hoping that people no- don't notice that if it's particularly ugly-looking. And so I, I, honestly, I think there's no planning here, and I think they're just letting

Kara Swisher 8:03 people in. Interestingly, um, you know, I think the Doge thing is just fucking nonsense. It's just ridiculous. And, um, you know, you can't really, uh, there's not gonna be a government department, which is kind of ridiculous, and you'd need to be created by, with Congress's authorization. They're not wasting their time on that, and they're not, they're gonna cut what they want, right? Um, so one of the things that's interesting is that he's been down in Mar-a-Lago, and as I said was an issue, everyone's now reporting, um, how irritating he is. Um, and NBC News quoted a source saying, "Elon is behaving as if he's co-president." People are irritated by him, the guests that won't leave. Um, I think this is just... They're frittering away what, what was clear and definitive win, and I'm not sure why they're doing it. S- suicidal nature? I don't know. I have no idea.

Scott Galloway 8:54 I don't know, I do think that the appointment of the Bass Pro Shop swimmer guy as head of US Fish and Wildlife Service makes sense.

Kara Swisher 9:01 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 9:01 I don't... (laughs)

Kara Swisher 9:02 Just, it's...

Scott Galloway 9:04 Um, oh, and Roman Roy-

Kara Swisher 9:06 It's certainly making sense.

Scott Galloway 9:06 ... will be the new deputy administrator of NASA.

Kara Swisher 9:09 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 9:09 Yeah, I just don't, I don't get... Hannibal Lecter as the new Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kara Swisher 9:15 Services. Oh, God.

Scott Galloway 9:16 I don't, I don't get it. By the way, I'm, I'm still on BuzzFeed right now.

Kara Swisher 9:18 Kristi Noem? What a laughable, ridiculous personality she is. They're all Fox News people. It's like-

Scott Galloway 9:23 You know who I like though, who's now the new...

Kara Swisher 9:25 Who, who?

Scott Galloway 9:25 ... uh, Senate majority leader, is, um-

Kara Swisher 9:28 Thune.

Scott Galloway 9:28 Thune.

Kara Swisher 9:29 Yeah, Thune. He's very reasonable.

Scott Galloway 9:30 I like him. I think he's reasonable. Uh, and not only that-

Kara Swisher 9:33 He pushes back on Trump.

Scott Galloway 9:34 And not only that, he's very handsome, Kara.

Kara Swisher 9:36 Yeah, you like him? Did you go-

Scott Galloway 9:37 Oh-

Kara Swisher 9:38 ... for drinks with him?

Scott Galloway 9:39 He's very handsome. I don't know if he'd be up for impromptu drinks with me and George Hahn. I'll try. (laughs) But I'm not sure.

Kara Swisher 9:45 Yeah, all right, I'm gonna give, I'm gonna give you a word of the day. It's called kakistocracy, government by the least suitable or competent citizens of the states, a state or society governed by the least suitable or competent citizens. It's, the modern regime is at once a plutocracy and a kakistocracy. That is the word of the day here at-

Scott Galloway 10:04 Okay, no joke, I heard that word an hour ago. Scott Burns, who's the showrunner and the writer on this, this show I'm working on-

Kara Swisher 10:12 Oh. Yeah.

Scott Galloway 10:12 ... said, uh, was talking about rebranding the Democratic Party, and someone suggested kakistocracy, and he's like, "Are you crazy? No one's gonna, no one can spell that word." Anyway, I-

Kara Swisher 10:22 Right.

Scott Galloway 10:23 No joke, I feel like I should throw salt over my shoulder or whatever it is you do when you're-

Kara Swisher 10:27 Yeah.

Scott Galloway 10:27 ... when you're, I don't know, superstitious. But I heard that word, no joke, 90 minutes ago. Kakistocracy.

Kara Swisher 10:32 It's the word of the day. It's the word of the week. Well, we'll see what happens.