PivotTrump’s Health: Cause for Concern or Convenient Distraction? | Pivot
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,171 words- 0:00 – 12:06
Intro
- KSKara Swisher
What did you think of the death rumors? 'Cause they, they des- they kept, they kept coming back.
- SGScott Galloway
These are just the-
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- SGScott Galloway
... average, you know, ailments-
- KSKara Swisher
It's just attitudes, yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
... of a really old man.
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- SGScott Galloway
And it's anything to keep Epstein out of the news cycle.
- KSKara Swisher
Yep, yep.
- SGScott Galloway
That's all they want. He might disappear again for five days and create rumors. (laughs)
- NANarrator
(instrumental music)
- KSKara Swisher
Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And we're gonna get right to it because there's been endless speculation in recent days, questions swirling about his whereabouts, and with many people believing the worst. But he's here now with non-bruised hands and shapely ankles? Welcome back, Scott Galloway.
- SGScott Galloway
Uh, thanks, Kara. Look, there's a lot going on. And I don't like to talk about myself, I don't wanna make a big deal out of this. Oh, no. That's right, ladies. That's right. You've been so good in August. You've been deprived. I know what's gonna help.
- KSKara Swisher
(laughs)
- SGScott Galloway
A little bit of Scott. (barks)
- KSKara Swisher
(laughs)
- SGScott Galloway
You're thinking, "How do I resist fascism?"
- KSKara Swisher
(laughs)
- SGScott Galloway
The key is not to resist. It's to surrender to the dog.
- KSKara Swisher
(laughs)
- SGScott Galloway
What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do, ladies?
- KSKara Swisher
(laughs)
- SGScott Galloway
That's right.
- KSKara Swisher
You're not going to the store.
- SGScott Galloway
We're going on a field trip down to where Kara hangs out. We're going to this big white house and we're screaming, "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!" And then we're gonna party with RFK Jr., as I like to call him, The Marvelous Mrs. Measles. By the way, how do you get this body? True story.
- KSKara Swisher
(laughs) Okay.
- SGScott Galloway
17 vaccines by the time he was 12.
- KSKara Swisher
Okay. (laughs)
- SGScott Galloway
What the fuck are you thinking? By the way, by the way, I'm like your Xanax and your HBO+.
- KSKara Swisher
Oh, God.
- 12:06 – 20:58
Trump Health Rumors
- KSKara Swisher
uh, obviously Donald Trump is still alive. He offered proof of life at a press conference Tuesday after going six days without a major public appearance or saying something, which I think we're not used to because he's such a, a fucking diarrhea mouth. The internet went wild over Labor Day Weekend with rumors about Trump's health and speculation that he died. All these conspiracy theorists (laughs) had... They were trying to put it together like they were detective, essentially Clouseau. The hashtags were, uh, WhereIsTrump and TrumpIsDead were trending on X. People were sharing their... All kinds of conspiracy theories on Reddit and TikTok. One of them, I, I actually said, "That's the way the White House website is always." And people got mad at me 'cause I was like, "Sorry, this is not right." Same thing with closing of Walter Reed. I was like, "It's not closed. I just drove by it. It's not closed." Um, but people had all these different theories. He claimed, uh, at his Tuesday presser not to have heard of the rumors, even though he posted he never felt better in his life. Of course he heard them. Um, were you... Um, I, what I was...What I was kind of irritated about, because you and I have been really t- we're tough on Biden, you as particularly at beginning of it. Uh, and it was, turned out to be true, in that if they had they listened to many people, not just us, things might have been different right now. But, um, I don't see... Uh, one of the things that bothered me, besides the, the exaggeration and conspiracy theories on social media, was n- you didn't see a story in any of the newspapers talking about this as a phenomena and then actually doing digging, and what's going on with his health? 'Cause something is going on with his health, right? With the hands, there's actually visible things, his ankles, um, you know, he, he looks not well. Uh, he, he misses a lot of things. How do you, how do you look at this? And I'm amazed that reporter... I'd like a good reporter to tell me what's happening, actually.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, uh... Okay, so sometimes the obvious explanation is the, is the right one. He's suffering from a condition that's only gonna get worse, and it's called 79.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
And, uh, I listened to Sanjay Gupta yesterday on CNN, and I think Sanjay, or Dr. Gupta, an actual expert (laughs) who's done the work, you know, his, his explanation was very reasonable, and that, that there are reasonable explanations. And in this instance, and a rare instance of the truth, his doctors have let out information. He has that condition where you, if you bleed, it comes right through your skin, it's just skin, thin-skinned, I think. That sounded very logical to me. The vascular condition that older people get where their ankles swell, that sounded very logical to me. But if you, if you try to figure out, or if you look at an actuarial table and say, "What is the likelihood from insurance companies..." Which, by the way, have been... You know, they predicted the LA fires. If you wanna talk about people who can predict the futures, future, talk to people in the actuarial-
- KSKara Swisher
'Cause they're, they have to pay for it, yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
'Cause they're trying to figure out what can we afford, how much should we be charging for-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
... c- certain outcomes around health and death? And if you go into an LLM, you say, "I have a 79-year-old who is obese, under a lot of pressure, but access to the best medical care in the world. What is the likelihood in the next three and a half years they either die or become incapacitated, couldn't work?" It's towards 50%. So I don't think there's any big conspiracy here. I just think we're dealing with someone-
- KSKara Swisher
I, I'm not saying that.
- SGScott Galloway
... who's 79.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. I, I, I'm not saying that. It's just that it was interesting to see they continue not to... And, and, I think they sh- Look, imagine, like, Roosevelt or, or Wilson, it's not just them, or, or Kennedy had a number of health issues, right, that were, including drug use, that was, sh- probably should have been reported on on some way. I just, I find it really interesting that especially the people who were like all in on Biden, being like, "How dare they hide it?" Why don't we know more about the health of all our leaders, right? Like, like, uh, you know, Jerry Nadler just s- stepped down from Congress 'cause, 'cause he obviously is old. Like, that's the kind of stuff. I just wish we had more of a, an insight so we could assess... I, I get it about privacy, but not for these people. I feel like we should know quite a bit more and not rely on, like, Ronny Jackson, who really needs to sit down as a doctor. But yeah, really independent assessments of our leaders so we have some sense. Maybe I'm wrong.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, there's, there's two things going on here. Um, the first is, applies to everybody, and the second is more mendacious and unique. And the first is that ageism is still an -ism. And we, uh, as progressives or thoughtful people or media, uh, are seen as ageists or worried about being ageists if we reference that biology doesn't give a shit about how politically correct you are. I mean, we (laughs) , we essentially, Democrats potentially lost control of Congress and weren't able to block shit because we were unable to be honest and say to the five members who died in Congress, "You are no longer capable of serving in this important role." And we've decided, we decided to ignore it with Biden, and we're ignoring it again with Trump. People this old shouldn't be asked to get on planes to go to Singapore to negotiate trade agreements or have to get up at 3:00 in the morning and decide whether or not they're gonna, uh, strike a terrorist cell and start calling... Th- they just don't... Presidents should probably be in their 40s and 50s just because of the physical and mental acuity it demands. And we have decided that it is politically incorrect to be ageist. And biology says, "Hold my beer." And this happens across both parties. The second thing is more mendacious, and that is Trump has deftly, meticulously, and bluntly taken a page out of the autocrat's handbook and said, "Anything you say negative about other people, that's First Amendment, have at it. Anything you say negative about me, you better get ready to lawyer up."
- KSKara Swisher
Right.
- SGScott Galloway
And it, it'll be thrown out of court-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
... but I'll sue you.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, nuisance.
- SGScott Galloway
I'll try and ruin your reputation. And it's working. There are... People in the media, the biggest media companies in the world... I mean, y- you can point to so many examples, not only of it sending out a shill, but him actually extracting payments and barter from law firms that technically should be the least scared of this guy. So he's put a chill, and it's like, do we really wanna be the media company that leads with saying, "Something is wrong here, and it looks like congestive heart failure"? Because if it's not-
- KSKara Swisher
Right.
- SGScott Galloway
... they're gonna have to in te- you know, in two or three years potentially settle with the guy. And he's not afraid to weaponize the DOJ and raid homes-
- KSKara Swisher
Right. Right.
- SGScott Galloway
... and have the head of the FBI, who wrote a fairytale kids book about a king that was wrongly prosecuted going and, you know, dunking the, dunking the basketball after someone's house is raided without even saying what sys- how they got the indictment. I mean-
- KSKara Swisher
Right.
- SGScott Galloway
... he's weaponized institutions we never thought were capable or would be weaponized.
- KSKara Swisher
Right. Absolutely. Absolutely.
- SGScott Galloway
So yeah, people are... It's working. He, he has put a chill on euro criticism.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, he's energetic, that's for sure. He's energetic. That's, that's-
- SGScott Galloway
He's very robust as well, I'll describe him.
- KSKara Swisher
... robust. Well, robust is... He looks sickly but energetic. It's a really weird combination, and I think some of it is cognitive decline. That's very clear. I mean, again, let me put someone on the le- on the left, An- Eleanor Holmes Norton, who's supposed to be the representative from DC while not having a vote, or is certainly involved, is just been out of it 'cause she's old, and she might be running again, which is just like-
- SGScott Galloway
... insane.
- 20:58 – 34:34
Trump’s Crackdown Threats
- KSKara Swisher
Trump is floating the idea of sending National Guard troops to a lot of cities, but now it's New Orleans, the latest target in his crime crackdown. He's also still fixated on Chicago and Baltimore, calling both cities "hell holes" this week and asking the governors of those states to invite him to deploy troops, which they are not doing. Uh, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker fired back, um, "I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump." Trump did hit a legal setback this week. A federal judge ruled his use of troops in Los Angeles was illegal. What a surprise. The judge warned that Trump appears intent on creating a national police force with the president as its chief. Uh, Newsom himself said the problem with the troops in Los Angeles is they had to waste their resources protecting them from citizens, um, which was, I think, probably accurate. Um, uh, talk a little bit... but by the way, uh, we'll, we'll get to the foreign stuff in a second, but h- how do you look at what's happening here? I mean, they're trying to obviously push back in San Francisco, in Chicago, Baltimore. I think he must've gotten news that people were mad about that there wasn't a red state that got looked at-
- SGScott Galloway
Mm-hmm.
- KSKara Swisher
... 'cause most of the murder statistics are in eight of 10 red states are-
- SGScott Galloway
Mm-hmm.
- KSKara Swisher
... per- are more murderous than blue states. Um, talk a little bit about w- what was it like from afar? 'Cause we haven't really talked about this increasing militarization.
- SGScott Galloway
It falls under the basic pattern of all politics now or actions at a political level and that is, one, Democrats either ignore a problem or aren't honest about it or let it go too far. In my opinion, they let the DEI apparatus go too far on campuses. They sweep in with an overcorrection and under a false flag of antisemitism, try and pull funding and ensure that our populous stays uneducated because educated people have a annoying tendency to ask why. They overcorrect. We do something really stupid. We let a 6'5" swimmer born as a male show up to a women's national NC2A competition, sweep every medal, taking medals away from women who've been training their whole lives, have bike competitions or a transgender woman crosses the finish line five minutes, five minutes early and all Democrats kinda look at each other, you know, not knowing what to say and say it's inspiring. And then they sweep in with an overcorrection and start demonizing transgender people and kicking us, kicking them out of the military, people who have saved bravely and consistently, making us less safe. Democrats have ignored or not addressed what are very real lifestyle issues, quality of life issues in cities.
- KSKara Swisher
Yes. Newsom talked about this.
- SGScott Galloway
That's the bottom line.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. Newsom talked about it.
- SGScott Galloway
And so what do they do? I know. Let's sweep in with an overcorrection under the false flag of trying to reduce crime such that we can normalize military in cities in case I decide to deploy the military if it looks like I'm gonna lose the election. First off, it's just wrong. The military is not right... is, is not there... they're not there to protect people. They're there to accomplish missions that oftentimes mean killing people. They're trained in combat-
- KSKara Swisher
Actually, in DC, they're there to pick up the trash, but just so you know.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah. But they're trained in combat, not crime or law.
- KSKara Swisher
Right.
- SGScott Galloway
They have the wrong attitude about civilians, the wrong complexion of civilians. Cops are taught to protect. The military, uh, sees people as potential threats. That's what they're trained to do, and they're untrained in collecting evidence and building a case that will hold up in court. Even, even if they're able to arrest or prevent crime, they won't be able to put criminals behind bars. But I feel like as Democrats, we, we get the right idea. We take it too fucking far. We decide there's a narrative. We have a knee-jerk reaction to everything. We are not as focused as we should be or we prioritize social virtue or trying to achieve social virtue and ignore the actual material and psychological wellbeing of Americans. And then the Trump administration sees that hole and runs right through it with a fucking bullet train of mendacious, awful behavior to accomplish-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- SGScott Galloway
... something else that's unrelated.
- KSKara Swisher
Also an overreaction.
- SGScott Galloway
100%.
- KSKara Swisher
With other sticky problems with it. So what would you do if you... I, you li- do you think the governors are responding correctly and the mayors?
- SGScott Galloway
Well, look, uh, I said, and I'm patting myself, I said six months ago who, uh, I thought would be the Democratic nominee in '28 and I said the most likely person is TBD. We didn't know who Barack Obama or Bill Clinton were at this time. The democratic process when it's let, it, when it's let, it's r- when we let it run its course is like Navy Seals training, in that as few people get through it, but the people who get through it are, are fucking deadly. They're very good. If... the people who can survive all those fairs in Iowa and get on debate stages and, uh, and stand up to podcasters like you, they just get battle-tested and they just get very good.... and so it's probably we don't know. That's probably the leader right now. I said if I had to bet on anybody, people consistently underestimate Governor Newsom. He survived a recall effort. If you look at California since he's been governor, it's passed Japan to become the fourth-largest economy. The technology and companies literally driving the S&P-
- KSKara Swisher
Are back.
- SGScott Galloway
... and global markets are back stronger than ever. And by the way, where are they?
- KSKara Swisher
San Francisco.
- SGScott Galloway
Oh, they're, they're, they're in that unlivable state called California.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
People are moving back. Supposedly on the ground there, you said, and I have friends in LA, the fires were bad, but people are saying in some of the cities on the West Coast now, they've gotten the memo and they are saying, "Okay. Maybe, maybe calling people the unhoused versus the homeless isn't going to solve the fucking problem, and we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to move in and make some uncomfortable decisions for the rest of our lives."
- KSKara Swisher
May I just interject very quickly?
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah.
- KSKara Swisher
I have to say, uh, you know, uh, uh, San Francisco is, is, the, the, e- excitement or with the AI companies of all different kinds, there's new re- everywhere you go there's new stuff. Now, I had said this was gonna happen 'cause this is the way San Francisco goes, right? Um, but everybody is back. Everybody is back, and it has a real, um, energy to it that's, that had been missing for a little while during COVID particularly. And there was no, there, I think it, you know, I was talking to a bunch of AI people and, um, and, and, and they were sort of like, "There's no better place to do it than here," like with, with Stanford and Berk- I was in, I was both at Stanford, I was at Berkeley, I spent some time with Steve Jobs' son, uh, Reed, who is doing a bunch of, uh, stuff in biotech with, with AI involved in it. It's just the place to be, if that makes sense. And Newsom feels very muscular, and I think he used that word, right? It feels very muscular, California, right now, for some reason. Um, is this a good thing for people like him and Pritzker and Wes Moore to show off muscularity around, um, these Trump attacks on cities?
- SGScott Galloway
Look, i- this has been the s- this has been the August of Newsom. His, his pushback by mocking and holding up a mirror to how ridiculous Donald Trump's communication style is has been hilarious and really effective. And that is, it just basically says, "Okay, look how fucking ridiculous this is, the way he," you know, the all caps, um, uh, pushing back. W- that w- he was kind of the leader we wanted, right? We wanted someone to push back. The next part of the program needs to move to ideas. J.B. Pritzker's giving off really nice dad energy and being thoughtful, but the reality is Trump hasn't done anything illegal and they're somewhat hamstrung around, um-
- 34:34 – 44:11
Putin, Xi, and Modi’s Message to Trump
- KSKara Swisher
chat. Uh, Indian Prime Minister Modi entered the summit, uh, in China this week holding hands with Russian President Putin before the two formerly formed a friendly circle with Chinese President Xi. Meanwhile, President Trump who had a message for Xi, Putin, and North Korean leader, uh, Kim Jong-un as they appeared together, uh, for China's largest military parade, which he wishes he had, 'cause it was a pretty good military parade, writing on Truth Social, "May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration. Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un as you conspire against the United States of America." These are people he cozied up to, like cozy, like scary cozy. Um, and, and fun fact, uh, was interesting. Xi and Putin were caught talking on a hot mic about the possibility of becoming immortal via organ transplant. And I (laughs) , which was pretty funny given I, what I'm working on. Um, but, uh, this, this to me was like, how, how did we drive these players together? In the, in the decades this hasn't happened. We've been managed to keep them apart, to, to be close with India? We should be clo- we, it's been a struggle over the many years for various issues, but it's a country we should be close with. But here we are shoving them into the hands of Putin and, uh, uh, literally in the hands of Putin. And the same thing with Xi. That picture really g- gave me the chills, I have to say. And then he goes conspiring together. That's right, Donald Trump, they are fucking conspiring against the United States of America. And that's why we should have been in there and not allowed this to happen.
- SGScott Galloway
You're exactly right. Bu- Bush W. said that the axis of evil was North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. They had some energy combined, a willingness to sacrifice, you know, they're, they're crazy, some decent science, some decent science, and scientists, actually formidable scientists in Iran. India, that image, the image of 2024 was Trump pumping his fists in the air. The image of 2025, in retrospect, will be that image you just described of the three of them looking like their little brothers, ganging up against Lofgren. It's like the siblings of the Murdochs saying, "We're sick of this shit. We can collectively, we're strong, and we can push back on our big, fucking crazy, asshole brother." They have a combined GDP of $20 trillion. They have unbelievable energy. They have unbelievable technology and capital out of China. They have the largest emerging consumer population in the world, India. Those three nations together are a formidable, frightening alliance.
- KSKara Swisher
With a side order of Kim Jong-un, right? Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
And, and to your point, I mean, the thing, there's some weird stuff protecting Taiwan. One of the things that's protecting Taiwan is China has had to, to divide and deploy a great deal of military resources to its northern border on the, what's called the Amur River because China and Russia have always had territole- territorial disputes. We take for granted the fact that if we in Canada were having territorial disputes up around Montreal, Toronto, it would cost us about $100 billion to fortify that border, another 25 to billion a year. And China and Russia were spending a lot of money on fortifying their borders in the north across the Amur River. There was zero bridges 10 years ago. Now there are three bridges and there's a quarter of a trillion dollars in trade.
- KSKara Swisher
Trade, so that stops the war.
- SGScott Galloway
So all of a sudden, they're getting along and liking each other. And the biggest own goal, the biggest own goal...... was that the new swing votes geopolitically, that were kind of playing both sides, but emerging economies who are incredibly important, similar to that soccer mom in Madison that might decide the next presidency, the two swing votes were the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and India. And we have a fantastic relationship with India.
- KSKara Swisher
Have had. Not now.
- SGScott Galloway
I'm, I'm getting there. You're stealing my thunder. It's a democracy, and in addition to that, and I can speak to this firsthand, we have this connective tissue with India. In addition, if you walk down the hall of NYU Stern and you wanna find someone fucking amazing at research that could be making tens of millions of dollars being the chairman of Millennium or some other great quant trading firm, but instead decided to teach, that's someone most likely with a multi-syllabic last name who came out of, uh, you know, came out of Delhi and somehow managed to get to IIT and is one of the smartest people in the world. And what do the smartest people in India do? Or a lot of them? They come teach at our elite universities, and look at the way we are treating academics, universities, and foreign PhD students, many of which come from India. We had this amazing vehicle for goodwill. We have torn it up and we have done the absolute stupidest thing possible, and that is we have taken three enemies, or three people who didn't get along very well, and we've said, "No." Nothing rallies your enemies like being the bigger dick enemy.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
That photo of the three of them, what do they have? They have massive amounts of energy. They have massive amounts of technology, technology and capital. In addition, Russia and China have something that the EU and the U.S. don't have. They have a willingness to kill their own people.
- KSKara Swisher
That's right.
- SGScott Galloway
Russia has been willing, uh, uh, uh, I don't care if it's good or bad or wrong or right, it just is. They are willing to kill and/or injure a million of their own people.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, they want to put in a dam, whate-
- SGScott Galloway
Europe is being in- Europe is being invaded, and the EU will never... will not put any of their young men and women on the tr- tr- boots on the ground. I mean, to a certain extent, uh, the, the, the most intimidating people in your class and who get a disproportionate amount of power are not only the people with the biggest fists, but the people who are willing to actually throw blows.
- KSKara Swisher
Right, throw hands.
- SGScott Galloway
(laughs)
- KSKara Swisher
I mean, one of the things... I was talking to a guy like Dmitry Alperov. He started Crowd, um, what... CrowdStrike. He was saying the enthusiasm... He was talking about Ukraine. He's very... A big supporter of Ukraine. He's like, "The enthusiasm of Russian troops still putting hundreds of thousands of people..." They need the jobs, right? 'Cause the economy is more troubled than it was before, uh, for a variety of reasons. But he's like, "You know, it's hard because Ukrainians have either no more people to give or they're just exhausted or they don't wanna do it anymore, and the Russians just keep throwing bodies after bodies after..." Like, and they just let them die, like, the way they treat them. But some of these people need the money, so they're, they just continue to just toss people into the void, uh, uh, in Ukraine, for example. I th- I think you're 100% right. It's-
- SGScott Galloway
But, but we're so... Instead of stupid tweets that are performative and look like, "Oh," it started, that tweet started out, "He's trying to be presidential. Oh, wait, his friend showed up with ketamine, and now what the fuck is he talking about?"
- KSKara Swisher
Right, they're conspiring against us.
- SGScott Galloway
They should be doing... He and Rubio and Hegseth behind the scenes of the Joint, the Joint Chiefs should be doing the following. The Ukrainians have come up with a Flamingo missile that can go deep into Russian territory, and there's one number that matters, 17. 17% of Russia's energy infrastructure has been damaged. If 50% of their economy is energy-based and you start... If you get that number to 18, then to 19, then to 20, then to 30, Russia's out of business and Russia has to come to the table. F-15 pilots and, and planes, fantastic on, you know, uh, anti-aircraft, fantastic radar systems, and then help them with those, that new Flamingo missile. If, if that 17 number goes to 27 and maybe 30-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
... Putin shows up with a different attitude because this is an economy.
- KSKara Swisher
He does. He's so playing Donald Trump too. I mean...
- SGScott Galloway
It's basically a g- It's basically a gas station posing as an economy. He shouldn't be sending out tweets. He should be figuring out a way to help the Ukrainian Army with their unbelievable technology and brave army figure out a way to take that 17 number up a half a percent every week for the next six months-
- KSKara Swisher
Yep, slap the shellac on.
- SGScott Galloway
... and then all of a sudden Putin's gonna change his tune.
- KSKara Swisher
100%. But what, but more to, more to the point, we gotta move on, but would you like an organ transplant for eternity? Would you like one?
- SGScott Galloway
You know what? I, I, I forget that name of the Mexican artist that, um, Salma Hayek played.
- KSKara Swisher
Uh, Frida Kahlo?
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah. She... I love what she said. "I want my death to be glorious, and I don't wanna come back." I'm not, I'm not one of these people that wants to live forever. I don't...
- 44:11 – 53:26
Google Gets Off Easy
- KSKara Swisher
back with more news. Google will not be forced to sell off Chrome or Android. We thought they might. That's the ruling in an antitrust case which determined the company was operating an illegal online search monopoly, which was determined. The company will, however, have to make certain search data available to competitors, sharing essentially. Um, not necessarily the algorithm itself, but search data itself and let people use it, and they'll be barred from having exclusive contracts related to distribution of products. They still can pay a lot, uh, to, to have, uh, placement, et cetera. Google said, in a statement, that it had concerns about the data sharing could affect the privacy of users. They should shut the fuck up and, like, do a little dance in Mountain View. The company can now appeal the finding that it is an illegal monopoly. They just, they should just sh- hush and move along. Google shares are up 12% in the last five days as I'm taping. I know you are a big Google fan. Um, uh, I think w- you thought this verdict would be more harsh. I, I wasn't sure, uh, because it, it, 'cause things have moved on and one of the things the judge did, uh, Judge Mehta, I think is very smart, uh, talked about AI sort of s- changing everything, so they should send a big basket of flowers to OpenAI. Um, uh, which was interesting, uh, which was interesting to me. I don't know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, every year, we pick a, or I pick a big tech stock pick and this year, I picked Alphabet because-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm. You did.
- SGScott Galloway
... it was trading at 17 times PE until a few weeks ago. The S&P trades at 24. So let me get this. Take the average S&P company, Dow or Procter & Gamble. Google is still growing like crazy. They still get 96 times the traffic of a ChatGPT. Largest streaming service in the world, YouTube. Three o- three other businesses that do over 30 billion in annual revenue, five products that have at least two billion users and they're the number one in what is probably the most interesting application of AI and that is autonomous driving. And they're trading for less than the average S&P company. Why? Because of this overhang of this cloud of uncertainty around antitrust and AI. Yeah, AI is gonna create a lot of value, is gonna be a formidable competitor, but they also have very strong AI offerings. Maybe not in an LLM similar to ChatGPT, but they'll find other ways to leverage their amazing IP and their interface and their custody of the consumer. And, uh, w- what this was, with this overhang, has now been solved and, uh, let's talk a little bit about the case. You know, I, I, the, uh, the, the FTC and the DOJ always break my heart. Finally, it's been rendered a monopoly.
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- SGScott Galloway
Finally.
- KSKara Swisher
Finally.
- SGScott Galloway
But this is what happened.
- KSKara Swisher
Too late.
- SGScott Galloway
This is like your kid comes home and he, he went out high on meth and started killing dogs and knocking off 7-Elevens and you come home and say, "That's it. You've been found guilty. We're gonna punish you. We're not letting you go on Snap for 30 minutes."
- KSKara Swisher
I mean.
- SGScott Galloway
This was... There's two things. Finding them guilty and then there's the remedy. We found them guilty, you've been taking meth and holding up convenience stores, you're guilty. Oh, you gotta wear an ankle monitor for 10 minutes.
- KSKara Swisher
What would he have done though? I mean, eh, pulling it off is sort of looking backwards, right? There is this push from AI. Like, things have changed. Now I think Google's gonna dominate here, by the way, FYI. I again think they're gonna move their search monopoly into a AI monopoly. Most people feel that Google's the one to beat ultimately. Um, uh, e- OpenAI will see if they can make it 'cause given they're, they're, they're the only independent one, uh, relatively independent one. Um, but I, I feel like what is he gonna do? How, how can you look backwards at remedies? That's the problem, right? Like-
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, but they've alwa- they've always faced these existential problems where-
- KSKara Swisher
They should have done it sooner is what you're saying.
- SGScott Galloway
But, but let's go back. Let's reverse engineer to, to big ideas for the Democratic Party.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
One of those big ideas needs to be, to say, "I'm this great, environmentally concerned Republican called Teddy Roosevelt." I love Republican, traditional Republican ideals of which there's none left in Congress and one of those traditional ideals was trust busing to bring down costs for everybody. The big four, they should be 11 different companies. I'm gonna turn the three biggest pharmaceutical companies into nine. I'm gonna break up cable. I'm gonna break up big chicken. I'm gonna break up big ag. And we are going to see a decline in inflation over the next 10 years consistently because we're gonna create the greatest sucking sound downward of prices in history and that is competition. Google, if, if YouTube was spun, forced to spin from Google, within three months, YouTube would announce their own search engine and Google would announce their own video platform immediately overnight creating a competitor that would lower the cost on the greatest tollbooth in histories, in the history, that is Amazon, Meta and, um, Alphabet. There should be... there needs to be a candidate that says, "I'm fucking Teddy Roosevelt. I am going to break up so many big companies." Look at what's happened to the price of chicken.
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- SGScott Galloway
Look at what's happened to the pri-
- KSKara Swisher
It's freaking.
- SGScott Galloway
We charge four to eight times for different medications than you can get it for in Dubai de- despite can't... or Toronto despite the fact-
- KSKara Swisher
It's the same product.
- SGScott Galloway
The fact that it's the sa- or we invent it, we invented it. I'm going to go through all of these industries, I'm gonna get Jonathan Kantor and a bunch of economists and we are going to break up and lower cost. It's affo- it goes to affordability. Uh, uh, consumers don't like these companies and by the way, these products are gonna get better and shareholders are gonna get richer as they have in every breakup. What has happened to the price of long distance phone calls?
- KSKara Swisher
Long distance calls.
- SGScott Galloway
I remember when I was-
- KSKara Swisher
Remember how much it costs? Oh.
- SGScott Galloway
I used to... I spent summers with my father, right? When my, my mom and dad were divorced and when I wanted... when I, uh, uh, once a week, we lived in Glen El in Chicago. My dad worked for Vigoreaux after he got laid off from Owen Scott's selling shit for a different company, literally. Fe- fertilizer. He had an office in downtown Chicago. We would take the train in on Sunday when he wasn't working-... into Chicago, go to his office so I could call my mom on the-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- SGScott Galloway
... Watts line-
- 53:26 – 1:03:14
Newsmax Sues Fox News
- SGScott Galloway
- KSKara Swisher
... um, Newsmax has filed a lawsuit accusing Fox News of acting-
- SGScott Galloway
What is going on there? Do you know what's going on there?
- KSKara Swisher
... as a monopoly and suppressing... I mean, it's... They, they... It looks like they had detectives following Chris Re- Reddy or whatever his name is. A monopoly and suppressing right-wing competitors. The lawsuit alleges Fox News coerces distributors into exclusionary agreements and had used intimidation tactics to hurt Newsmax, including, uh, hiring private detective firms to investigate Newsmax executives. I mean, this is a rooting for the bullets here, Scott, situation-
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah. Agreed.
- KSKara Swisher
... but I don't know how you win this law-
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah.
- KSKara Swisher
This is insane.
- SGScott Galloway
I agree.
- KSKara Swisher
So they were... They were a sharp elbowed competitor? Oh, you're kidding. It's Fox News. What? I mean, so they sent detectives? Too bad. Like, it's Rupert fucking Murdoch. What do you think he's gonna do? He's gonna find out that you like dat- are dating a goat. That's what's gonna happen here. Like, that's... And he's gonna use it or use it in some fashion. I just... I don't know. And then pushing, um, coercing distributors into not distributing it. I don't know. I mean, people wanna have s- Fox News on their programs. I don't know. OAN just got on YouTube, so... I mean, to me, that's the, that's the end of this case. OAN just got on YouTube, right?
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, I don't, I don't see... I-
- KSKara Swisher
Who cares?
- SGScott Galloway
You know more about this than I do. I don't see any legal merit in this.
- KSKara Swisher
All right.
- SGScott Galloway
Uh, it... To me, it seems like a play by Newsmax just to be in the news cycle-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
... and get, get PR.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
Uh, I don't think this case is gonna go anywhere, but-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
... what is happening here is really dramatic. I mean, Fox News viewership down 30%, MSNBC down 27%-
- KSKara Swisher
Yes.
- SGScott Galloway
... CNN down 42%. Do you know what happens when your business is down year on year 42%?
- KSKara Swisher
Yes, I do.
- SGScott Galloway
You literally can't fire people fast enough. That's, that's a meltdown. What? Your business has been cut in half and a third to half your costs are fixed costs, meaning all of a sudden you have literally no money? And you know who's... You know who's doing this, Kara? You know what the... who the culprit is?
- KSKara Swisher
I don't know. It's not me and Rachel Maddow 'cause were great. But go ahead, sorry.
- SGScott Galloway
It's Kara Swisher.
- KSKara Swisher
(laughs)
- SGScott Galloway
Okay, hold on. Let's just do the math. The 25 to 54 demo-
- KSKara Swisher
Uh-huh.
- 1:03:14 – 1:10:41
Predictions
- SGScott Galloway
- KSKara Swisher
Okay. Scott, let's hear a prediction. Can I do a short one?
- SGScott Galloway
Of course.
- KSKara Swisher
May I do a short one? Um, so I, um, uh, th- th- t- Right now as we record, Trump is set to host the big tech leaders, including Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman in the Rose Garden Club, as he's calling it. I think he's paved it over and put up a parking lot. Um, interestingly, Elon was not on the invite list, and Trump had s- had just recently given an interview with Scott Jennings, speaking of food fight, uh, who's on that Abby Phillip show. Um, and, uh, and he wasn't on the list, which was s- somewhat interesting, but Trump said that Elon has to come back into the fold. He has to. And I thought, "Does he? Does he have to?" Anyway, I just was interested to see what would happening... I'm not so sure he'll come back in the fold. He may back JBD Vance. He may back someone else. He may stay in the Republican fold because the Democrats won't be having him anymore. Uh, but, uh, but it was just interesting to me that Elon wasn't there, and I- I- I'm not so sure he's gonna be as cooperative as they think he is. He's not a cooperative person. That's my prediction.
- SGScott Galloway
I think he's got bigger fish to fry right now.
- KSKara Swisher
Right, exactly. His business is-
- SGScott Galloway
I think he's on the verge... I think he's on the verge of losing 60% to 80% of his net worth. I was in Brazil last week. Every time I got in an Uber, it was like this nice clean little Tesla-like car.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
Called a BYD.
- KSKara Swisher
BYD.
- SGScott Galloway
Do you know the BYD Sunny that goes for $8,000?
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
I mean, what they are doing-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, all over the world.
- SGScott Galloway
The- the CCP has asked auto- automobile manufacturers to stop lowering their prices.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
You can get a decent brand new car in China-
- KSKara Swisher
8,000 a buck. They are cool. They have all these-
- SGScott Galloway
... for $8,000.
- KSKara Swisher
... cool features. Yeah, and they're cool.
- SGScott Galloway
The average, the average price of a car in the US, new car, is $50,000. The average price in China, 21,000. You wanna make things more affordable for young people? Uh, partner with the Chinese and adopt these types of a dark, you know, dark factory manufacturing techni- uh, competition. Anyways, he's got bigger fish to fry.
- KSKara Swisher
Hey, by the way, Elon said that 80% of Tesla's value will eventually be Optimus, the humanoid robots the company's been developing. I don't know if you saw.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, look over here.
- KSKara Swisher
Mar- Marc Benioff put one up and it couldn't get him a Coke, which-
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, look-
- KSKara Swisher
... I was like, "Marc, stop it."
- SGScott Galloway
I- I don't want to talk about my core business-
- KSKara Swisher
(laughs)
- SGScott Galloway
... 'cause it's about to... it's imploding, so-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, yeah.
Episode duration: 1:14:36
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