Will Ghislaine's DOJ Interview End MAGA’s Epstein Obsession? | Pivot

Tim Miller 0:00 I do laugh at hear- her- having- hearing her call Trump, he was a gentleman in every respect.

Kara Swisher 0:04 Gentle.

Tim Miller 0:04 Like, even Trump's friends don't think he's a gentleman. (laughs) Like, even Trump-

Kara Swisher 0:06 No.

Tim Miller 0:06 ... wouldn't describe himself as a gentleman, I don't think. (instrumental music)

Kara Swisher 0:15 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and welcome back to (radio sound) Scot-Free August. (air horn) I never get tired of that. Uh, it's the final week of Scot-Free August though. He is coming back soon. He's been texting me lately, so we know he's getting a little jumpy on his vacation in his expensive house, wherever it happens to be. Um, but I have yet another amazing co-host. This has been an astonishing month. Tim Miller, welcome to Pivot.

Tim Miller 0:47 Hey, Kara. I've just been kind of warming up, uh, some takes about narcissism and the crisis of-

Kara Swisher 0:53 Uh-huh.

Tim Miller 0:53 ... young men and Cialis-

Kara Swisher 0:54 (laughs)

Tim Miller 0:54 ... and stuff to help people, you know, kind of transition back into Scott September.

Kara Swisher 0:59 Okay, go for it. (laughs) Do you have anything?

Tim Miller 1:01 Uh, yeah. Well, no. I just- I think it's important-

Kara Swisher 1:03 You're just gonna-

Tim Miller 1:03 ... to encourage-

Kara Swisher 1:04 ... encourage young men.

Tim Miller 1:05 ... to encourage older men to use Cialis and encourage younger-

Kara Swisher 1:08 (laughs)

Tim Miller 1:08 ... men to get out there in the world and, uh, find women to sleep with bec- or men, uh, whatever-

Kara Swisher 1:13 Yeah.

Tim Miller 1:13 ... because we don't- you know, we don't want incels, and I think it leads to-

Kara Swisher 1:16 Uh-huh.

Tim Miller 1:16 ... other problems in society. And- and-

Kara Swisher 1:18 Yeah.

Tim Miller 1:18 ... I think Scott's really-

Kara Swisher 1:19 Yeah.

Tim Miller 1:19 ... really good on this point.

Kara Swisher 1:20 Yeah. Okay, good. Well, thank you. You are also the host of the Bulwark podcast, where you do a great job, and former GOP strategist. I cannot believe that at this point. Anyway, welcome.

Tim Miller 1:30 It's been a decade.

Kara Swisher 1:30 Um, yeah. Of the decade.

Tim Miller 1:32 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 1:32 Yeah, so talk about, uh, your podcast a little bit. And what's the most interesting conversation you've had on there recently?

Tim Miller 1:38 Oh, boy. Ever or recently?

Kara Swisher 1:40 Rec- ever is fine.

Tim Miller 1:41 Um, uh, you know, I- look, I- I- the- the podcast intere- it's a daily podcast, which is a bit of a grind. It's like I feel this obligation to, like, be on the news and get in the news while at the same time, like-

Kara Swisher 1:53 Right.

Tim Miller 1:53 ... if it's fucking Trump is awful porn every day, you know-

Kara Swisher 1:57 Yeah.

Tim Miller 1:57 ... I'm gonna kill myself. And I think that-

Kara Swisher 1:59 Yeah.

Tim Miller 1:59 ... the listeners will too. And so-

Kara Swisher 2:00 (laughs)

Tim Miller 2:00 ... you have to kind of have a balance between that. So I- I don't know. And like, for example, on the Trump porn one, I loved my Jon Lovett conversation recently 'cause I made him cry. I think he's-

Kara Swisher 2:08 Oh.

Tim Miller 2:08 ... I think mine's the only podcast he's cried on, so people who want to get in touch with their feelings, you can-

Kara Swisher 2:13 Yeah.

Tim Miller 2:14 ... listen to two gay men who hide our feelings underneath sarcasm-

Kara Swisher 2:17 (laughs)

Tim Miller 2:17 ... uh, try to expand. I had your boy J-Cal on a couple weeks ago.

Kara Swisher 2:21 Oh.

Tim Miller 2:21 I thought that was interesting, um, just because-

Kara Swisher 2:24 My boy?

Tim Miller 2:25 ... it's- uh, it's a gag. It's a gag. Um-

Kara Swisher 2:27 Okay, good, 'cause he's a loathsome person.

Tim Miller 2:28 ... I- look, I don't know if you feel this way. It's hard. I really want to, in the second Trump term, like, have people on who are less radicalized against him than me, just to kind of hash it out. I think it's important to hear-

Kara Swisher 2:39 Sure.

Tim Miller 2:39 ... of the other perspectives. The problem is most Trump supporters are full of shit. And so-

Kara Swisher 2:44 Yeah.

Tim Miller 2:44 ... it's har- and I don't want anybody in the podcast that's full of shit. I know you guys do this too. I just- I want only people on who are gonna say what they really think.

Kara Swisher 2:50 Right.

Tim Miller 2:50 And so I- I- I can't have somebody on who, like, will say one thing on the podcast in the green room-

Kara Swisher 2:55 Right.

Tim Miller 2:56 ... and be like, "You know, he really- he really has gone too far on this thing." I- you know, that doesn't work.

Kara Swisher 2:59 Right.

Tim Miller 2:59 And so J-Cal-

Kara Swisher 3:00 Which they do. Just for people who-

Tim Miller 3:01 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 3:01 ... don't know, they'll come up to you in a green room and be like, "I agree with you."

Tim Miller 3:05 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 3:05 And you're like, "You fucking asshole."

Tim Miller 3:06 (laughs) Exactly.

Kara Swisher 3:07 Like, that's when I truly hate them. Jason's an int- this is Jason Calacanis, right?

Tim Miller 3:10 Yeah, Jason Calacanis on All-In podcast.

Kara Swisher 3:12 I've known him for 30, 40-

Tim Miller 3:12 He at least will say when he disagrees with Trump, which he- uh, which- I think he's at least telling the truth to me. But you know what? I don't know.

Kara Swisher 3:17 Well, well.

Tim Miller 3:18 No?

Kara Swisher 3:18 He's an interesting... I've known him for 30, 40 years now. Um, when he- he was a media person. He ran a bunch of tech-

Tim Miller 3:24 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 3:24 ... stuff. And, you know, he's kind of a- a, you know, jazz hands kind of fella, like that. I don't know how else to put it. He's really loathsome to Scott for reasons I, undetermined, probably jealousy. Um, but, um, one of the things... We used to be friends, I would say. I would stay at his house and stuff like that. And his- his need to suck up to power is really quite distasteful to me. A- and, you know, he's alw- he's sort of like the clown to Elon or whatever that group of people he's on the podcast with, All-In. Uh, I- I feel bad 'cause I thought he was very clever and actually one of the early media entrepreneurs, um, and a really enthusiastic person. But, y- you know, one of the things where I always had a problem in our relationship was that he was- he couldn't do hard things. Like, w- he was a very big proponent of Travis Kalanick until everybody turned on Travis Kalanick.

Tim Miller 4:14 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 4:14 And then he was against Travis Kalanick, and then when he came back, he was for Tr- I'm like, "Do you have any lasting values, if anything?"

Tim Miller 4:22 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 4:22 Um, uh, but it- it- that's what bothers me is that-

Tim Miller 4:25 Well, I thought that was an interest- it's interesting you say that because one of the interesting things about the interview was, like, uh, bec- because that's his nature, he was totally candid about the fact... Like, one of the things that I try to get to, I'd be interested in your thoughts on this, is like, why did all of these billionaires become putty in Trump's hands? Like, I get that in some s- in some cases, they want access, it's about power, it's about money.

Kara Swisher 4:45 Self-interest. Right.

Tim Miller 4:45 If Trump's gonna act like an authoritarian, they need to do it. But like, in other cases, they didn't really need to, uh, and- and they did it anyway.

Kara Swisher 4:51 They didn't.

Tim Miller 4:51 And why? And he- and he's just blunt about the fact that, like, Trump, you know, ret- responds to their phone calls, Biden never did.

Kara Swisher 4:59 That's right. Right.

Tim Miller 4:59 Their feelings, their little fee-feels were hurt that- that Elon wasn't invited-

Kara Swisher 5:02 Yeah.

Tim Miller 5:02 ... to some summit.

Kara Swisher 5:03 Right. Yeah, the- the car summit.

Tim Miller 5:04 And like, and so I thought that was, like, interesting-

Kara Swisher 5:06 Yeah.

Tim Miller 5:06 ... just how blunt he was about that. That, like, sucking up to power-

Kara Swisher 5:09 Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Miller 5:09 ... was, like, the reason why these guys do it, like, basically a- and that's it. It's no deeper than that.

Kara Swisher 5:13 Which he is very good at, let me just say. And again, I like Jason 'cause I s- I feel bad we don't speak now, and 'cause he won't speak to me because they're mad at me. And I'm like, "Don't you have any fucking balls, Jason? You know, we had a pretty good relationship." And he won't 'cause he's like- 'cause- 'cause it's sort of like the- the court jester in a lot of ways to those people. I think, you know, he doesn't have as much money as they do. He has a lot of money-

Tim Miller 5:33 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 5:33 ... but not like them. Like, and so I- I think he's often wanted to monetize that podcast better-

Tim Miller 5:39 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 5:39 ... than they do. And it's- it's degenerated into... He used to run a bunch of other startup events that I really liked actually. I thought they were very clever. They were sort of, again, jazz hands a lot. But, um, I just feel like he had- he just has made a trade that I don't love. And I wish he would call me because I'm- I'm like, it's fine to argue, Jason. But now even he's gotten hurt. Like, you said something and it hurt me. I'm like, "Oh, fuck you."

Tim Miller 6:03 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 6:03 Like, you know what I mean? Like, come on.

Tim Miller 6:04 Call Kara, Jason.

Kara Swisher 6:06 Call Kara, Jason.

Tim Miller 6:06 Now I feel bad that I mentioned that. You put me on the spot about recent-

Kara Swisher 6:08 No.

Tim Miller 6:08 ... recent interviews. I'm like, well, I mentioned the Jason one-

Kara Swisher 6:10 No, no, no, I think, but I think he's really smart.

Tim Miller 6:10 ... and I was like, "I should have mentioned s- like, somebody who's a little- who would've, you know, not- not triggered you."

Kara Swisher 6:14 No, but no, but he's really smart and insightful.

Tim Miller 6:16 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 6:16 And I- you know what I'd love? I'd love him to be Truman fucking Capote and write a book when it's all over.

Tim Miller 6:21 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 6:21 Turning on all of them. I would love that, 'cause I bet he has some really good insights. He won't-

Tim Miller 6:26 Anybody to turn on Chamath, I'm for, so I've- I've signed up for that too.

Kara Swisher 6:30 Chamath. Oh, that's another long-

Tim Miller 6:30 But, um, I-

Kara Swisher 6:30 That's another relationship vibe. That is-

Tim Miller 6:31 ... I should've mentioned E. Jean Carroll. Her-

Kara Swisher 6:33 Yeah.

Tim Miller 6:33 That was one of my- that was my favorite interview recently 'cause I was worried-

Kara Swisher 6:35 Yeah, she's great.

Tim Miller 6:35 ... you never know. I didn't actually know her. I'd never met her. She is such a spitfire.

Kara Swisher 6:38 She's a salty bitch, isn't she?

Tim Miller 6:39 Oh my God, the c-

Kara Swisher 6:40 I love her salty bitch characters.

Tim Miller 6:40 ... the podcast started with her listing all the people that she had had sex with 'cause she included that in her book.

Kara Swisher 6:45 Yeah, yeah. She wrote a sex column.

Tim Miller 6:46 It's the best list I've ever heard. I forget what it- it's like six people-

Kara Swisher 6:48 Yeah.

Tim Miller 6:48 ... but they're all famous. And I'm like, it's the- it's-

Kara Swisher 6:50 Yeah, they are. All-

Tim Miller 6:51 ... it's-

Kara Swisher 6:51 Yeah. She's a salty bitch, as they say.

Tim Miller 6:53 Yeah, all the time.

Kara Swisher 6:53 Like, you know, kind of thing. Um, what- tell me, you do it daily?

Tim Miller 6:56 Daily.

Kara Swisher 6:56 That's crazy.

Tim Miller 6:57 Yeah. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 6:58 Daily. What the fuck?

Tim Miller 6:58 Well, now you've revealed yourself as not a daily listener, which is fine. My feelings aren't hurt. That's a lot of-

Kara Swisher 7:02 I can't.

Tim Miller 7:02 ... that's a lot of material. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 7:03 I listen to it. I listen- you know where I listen to it? I listen to it on social media. Like, I listen to pieces and pieces.

Tim Miller 7:08 Great. Yeah, great.

Kara Swisher 7:08 I definitely listen to it every day 'cause I- when I- you know, I go through my feeds.

Tim Miller 7:12 Sure, in the feed. Yeah, it's how people consume stuff now.

Kara Swisher 7:13 Yeah, and stuff like...

Tim Miller 7:14 Yeah, no. It's every day. I think it's import- like, look, it's important for people to be in a rhythm. You guys have a rhythm. Uh, you're still doing it, Scot-Free August. Like, this was my- when I started- when I took it over, I called some of my sports podcast buddies-

Kara Swisher 7:24 Yeah.

Tim Miller 7:24 ... um, who do like Pardon My Takes.

Kara Swisher 7:25 That's a-

Tim Miller 7:25 The most successful one's the guy who did the podcast with JJ Redick. And I asked them-

Kara Swisher 7:28 Right.

Tim Miller 7:28 ... like, "What's the deal?"... what's, like, your main advice? And their main advice was consistency. That the listeners know that you're going to be there with something new.

Kara Swisher 7:35 Yeah.

Tim Miller 7:35 You know what I mean? And so, I, like-

Kara Swisher 7:37 Uh-huh.

Tim Miller 7:37 ... I kind of took that to heart. And, uh, yeah, no, it's on every day.

Kara Swisher 7:41 One of the things that people are, w- with, with media is you've got to be promiscuous in a way that, you know, in, i- and in their ear and in their head. Because, uh, a- and in genuine ways. It's very different than a TV appearance, which you're also on.

Tim Miller 7:55 Right.

Kara Swisher 7:55 Um, because it's you. Like, this is my take, and they get to trust you. And that's the critical part of having a daily relationship. One thing you said I want to poke on. Th- this Trump porn.

Tim Miller 8:06 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 8:06 Trump porn stuff. Talk about that. Like, that idea is you don't want to just be endlessly reacting to this.

Tim Miller 8:12 Yeah, I, it's tough.

Kara Swisher 8:13 You know?

Tim Miller 8:13 I, I made-

Kara Swisher 8:14 Long Dong Silver.

Tim Miller 8:15 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 8:16 Or Short Dong, maybe.

Tim Miller 8:16 (laughs) Short Dong Silver. My, um-

Kara Swisher 8:17 Yeah.

Tim Miller 8:18 ... my, my pledge to myself after he won was like, I'm only going to get mad about what I'm mad about. And there's going to be a lot to be mad about, you know, but I'm not going to ... Like, if he does something that is like, you know, that I know I could do a little bit on that would be fake or fun, I just am not going to do that. Because like, A, life's too short. B, it kind of helps him, I think, frankly.

Kara Swisher 8:37 Yeah.

Tim Miller 8:37 Um, you know, 'cause oftentimes those topics are things that he wants to be out there. Um, and I just don't think it does listen- like people that are tuning in any service, you know, to, to do that. So, I, that's, that's what I think. I, it's hard. Like, look, like, there's, there's so many indignities every day. And so like there's sometimes an obligation to bring up stuff that I feel like is, that's not getting enough attention that's in the news, right? Uh, but if it just becomes, you know, one day it's like, "Oh, well, Trump did this thing that's horrible. The next thing he did this other thing that's horrible. The next thing he did this other thing that's horrible." And there's no, the frequency doesn't, isn't any different, right? If it's the same frequency the whole time, then-

Kara Swisher 9:14 Right.

Tim Miller 9:15 ... uh, you know, everybody, you become numb to it.

Kara Swisher 9:17 You do.

Tim Miller 9:17 And so, like-

Kara Swisher 9:18 You get acclimated.

Tim Miller 9:18 I, yeah, yeah. So I, I just, I think it's important for everybody. And I don't even really mean this in a political sense, like it's important politically. I do think it's important for the Democrats to figure out ways to keep people from becoming numb to it. But I just mean in like a, now that I've, now that I'm a former Republican, I've switched sides, I can use lib terms like this now.

Kara Swisher 9:34 (laughs)

Tim Miller 9:34 I mean it like in a self-care way (laughs) . Like, don't become numb to this and just have it be like, "Oh, every day I just wake up and I get my fix of how awful it is."

Kara Swisher 9:42 Well, I think the problem is Trump is oxygen, right, at this moment?

Tim Miller 9:46 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 9:46 He's everywhere. There's now, with the climate change, you could do a thing. Vaccines, you could do a thing.

Tim Miller 9:50 Sure.

Kara Swisher 9:50 Like, all kinds of things. And he, and, and it's hard when you're talking about other things not to be aware of it. Because it's like nothing matters except this. And that's what he's done really effectively. Um, but let's see what you get really mad about. We've got a lot to get through today-

Tim Miller 10:04 Let's do that.

Kara Swisher 10:04 ... including what Ghislaine Maxwell is saying about Trump. All good things, what a surprise. And Jeffrey Epstein. Uh, and MAGA is melting down over the stupid Cracker Barrel logo. But I do think that's a much more interesting story than p- than just the logo, which is interesting.

Kara Swisher 10:17 But first, President Trump is threatening to send National Guard troops to Chicago, New York, and Baltimore as part of his effort to crack down on crime. The Pentagon has been planning a military deployment in Chicago for weeks now, according to The Washington Post. Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker is accusing Trump of trying to, quote, "manufacture a crisis." While over in Maryland, Governor Wes Moore sent Trump off at, set Trump off after inviting him to walk the streets of Baltimore. He offered a golf cart, by the way. Meanwhile, uh, Guard troops are now carrying weapons on the streets of DC. A Pete Hegseth directive makes me feel more unsafe as a DC resident. A CNN analysis of government data found a moderate drop in reported crime in DC during the first week of Trump's takeover, a far larger surge in the arrest of immigrants. Um, uh, Bill Maher has been talking about a slow-moving coup for a while now. In his latest episode, he laid out how Trump's recent actions suggest a coup may already be underway. It's a little long, but let's listen.

Narrator 11:09 Uh, first, create a masked police force. Get people loo- used to looking at that. Uh, normalize snatching people off the street. Get them used to that. Uh, normalize seeing the Guard, the National Guard and the military on the street. Then start talking about crime in the capital, which is basically, you know, it's always been a fairly crime-ridden city. This is our nation's capital, where elections are decided. And then have, because the crime is so bad, have other states start sending their troops. Not just the National Guard there in DC, but now at least six other states are sending their troops, which then Trump can then federalize. So you're having many states' troops on the ground there, and now they're under federal control. So you have in the capital a sort of permanent police presence.

Kara Swisher 12:01 So, let's talk about this. I live here. Uh, I just took my daughter to the first day of public school today. It, uh, couldn't, the images couldn't be different. It's a very, it's a, it's, he's not a crime-ridden city. It's actually, crime has been improving as Democrats have been pointing out. There's crime in every city. There's a lot of crime in Houston, for example. There's a lot of crime in Alabama in the cities. And wherever, it doesn't matter. Cities are like this. Uh, the second thing is this idea of people on the streets with guns. Um, but there haven't been a lot of protests. And it's not because people think this is a good thing. I know this. I've talked to lots and lots of people. Um, there's been a real, um, icing of the workforce around ICE, uh, people not coming to work. I just talked to one, someone who works, does some, some yard work for me. They can't come because of ICE, um, 'cause they're worried. They're, their workers are worried. Uh, shutdown at restaurants, et cetera. Talk a little bit about this, 'cause, you know, and then the threats to go to Chicago, um, to Baltimore, to, um, to New York, obviously, if Zaron Mandani wins, for example.

Tim Miller 13:04 Yeah. Um, I like that Bill Maher. Uh, I don't, you know, I was, I felt like he was kind of lecturing people about their (laughs) ... He was mad that people were mad at him for going to visit Trump, uh, earlier. And it's like, this is why. I- he's like consolidating power, and it's important to just be clear about what it is and what he's trying to do. Um, and, uh, to me, like the thing th- about this that, that makes me the most upset is this combination of this kind of like military, state military theater like with-... the actual, you know, mass thugs hassling, uh, people that are here sometimes illegally, sometimes not. I, you know, and they, they went and they tear gassed that guy and, like, banged, through his window in California, who is a US citizen, uh, Geor- George Rattus, and, and so, we'll kind of... You know, he's now gonna be able to sue. But, like, this is what they're doing, right? Like, it is, they're acting with impunity and, and the imagery of it, like, feels very un-American and it's just, it's wrong. It's like not, it, it feels like it's in a banana republic. It's like what we have, we've got these new trucks now with Daddy Trump's name on it and, you know, like, uh, people are walking through the streets in their military uniforms and, and, and then they're jumping out of unmarked cars with masks. Like, that's not how things should... Uh, you know, that's not what this country should be about. People should be outraged and, and, and pushing back on it. And I think that, to Bill's point, like, there's, like, this slow burn element of it about, like, getting people used to it-

Kara Swisher 14:24 Yeah, he talked about that earlier. Yeah.

Tim Miller 14:26 ... um, that I think is really, is, is really alarming. So I, you know, uh, we'll, we'll kind of see how this stuff g- continues on in Chicago and, and, and Maryland are, are invol- and, and what else they decide to do in New York maybe, Baltimore, Chicago. Uh, but, uh, he's not, he's not being subtle a- about it, and it's important, I think, at each lever, so I was happy to see what Wes Moore was doing this weekend to, like, s- to, like, stop and say, like, "This is n- no." Like, "We're gonna push back on this now," you know, because otherwise it, it just becomes a creep where he is able to do more and more.

Kara Swisher 14:55 These, these cities have an ability to d- although LA had mixed, mixed ability to do it.

Tim Miller 14:59 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 14:59 No. The, the, DC is a unique entity because it's also-

Tim Miller 15:02 Right.

Kara Swisher 15:02 ... a federal center and they don't have states' rights. There's no voting. Our, our representative happens to be out of it, actually, so you're not hearing from her. Um, and, and people, um, it's a unique situation here. In the other states, it's gonna be harder to try this-

Tim Miller 15:18 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 15:18 ... to try these numbers. But how do you... Uh, y- uh, why aren't there more crackdowns, uh, and especially these visual images of e- either people, you know, being taken off the street, like, on moped and things like that-

Tim Miller 15:31 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 15:31 Or... Everyone has a story here. Um, people are, are not... I don't quite know what to do, right? What do you do? You go yell at these people? O- okay. That doesn't really have an effect. What is the, what is the response beside... In cities, I could see them pushing back on Trump-

Tim Miller 15:48 Sure.

Kara Swisher 15:49 ... uh, but not DC.

Tim Miller 15:51 Yeah. No. I mean, look. And A, the response from Democratic leaders is that they have to say no and not, "We're gonna work with you on this." Right? Like, and that was... I mean, you know, Did that. Again, the DC thing is a little bit different. It's a little bit complicated, but when you get to these other cities, you know, saying n- uh, no, and they have to have showdowns over states' rights. I mean, like, this was... Like, J.D. Vance was on the shows over the weekend where he's talking about how this question of the red state National Guards coming there, coming to DC and how he's like, "Well, this is our system. We have states' rights. If the (laughs) Republican governors wanna send us troops to suck up to Trump, then, like, oh, well, we'll, we'll just do that." But that's not how it works, and there's other blue states and, and even purple states that have Democratic governors. Right? You notice Philly isn't on the list. Josh Shapiro is there. Detroit Commissioner Whitmer. Like, what... Eventually, you know, you would get a showdown in these places. Um, but I, I think that's important. I think it's important... Um, I, I think that the protesting is important itself. It's important for people to call their leaders. Look, I, I think a lot of people feel like, oh, the pushback has been limp, and I get that. I, I feel that way as well. There are things I wish people were doing more of. Um, but a part of that, I think, is because people feel like the pushback is hope- is not wi- is not with point because Trump has total power in DC and there's total power of Congress. But I, I point to this imm- the immigration thing in El Salvador as, like, a prime example of, like, how, like, pushing back on legal, political, and action on the streets grounds can slow them down. I mean, like, their initial plan was to send lots of people to that El Salvador prison, but they initially sent the three planes. There was immediately pushback, political, legal, people in the streets, and, uh, you know, the, the courts slowed them down and what ended up happening, like, about a couple weeks ago now, the, the, the w- the Venezuelans that they had sent there got sent back to Venezuela. No more planes have gone to El Salvador. No more people have been sent there. And, like, that is an example of resisting the administration that isn't maybe s- that satisfactory because it's not like a win for Democrats-

Kara Swisher 17:42 That's doing it- that's gonna try everything. You heard about the-

Tim Miller 17:43 Yeah. But it slowed them down on that vertical. They gotta do the s-

Kara Swisher 17:46 Yes.

Tim Miller 17:46 They gotta do the same thing across all these other verticals.

Kara Swisher 17:49 The slowdown.

Tim Miller 17:49 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 17:49 The idea of slowdown. You've heard about the white ladies putting Mexican flags on their cars to get ICE to stop them. Uh-

Tim Miller 17:55 I have not seen that. I like that.

Kara Swisher 17:56 People are making fun of it. It's like, why? It's wasting their time, and then the white ladies can chat away with them for the longest time.

Tim Miller 18:01 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 18:01 And, like, that's six hours. Like, I could talk to an ICE person for six hours-

Tim Miller 18:05 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 18:05 ... and be difficult, but not arrestably difficult. You know what I mean? Like-

Tim Miller 18:10 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 18:10 ... kind of, "Why are you doing this? What's happening? What's your name? How you doing?" Like, irritating in the way only white ladies can do it. Um-

Tim Miller 18:15 Well, and they should, you should irritate the local politicians. Look, and I think... Like, so here in Louisiana, I live in New Orleans now, and so the, the, they sent 135 National Guard troops to DC to guard the Shake Shack or whatever, and I'm like, this is ridicul- Like, even Republicans in Louisiana should be calling their legislators and, uh, the, uh, the, and the governor and annoying them about this, saying like, these are people with lives.

Kara Swisher 18:34 Yeah.

Tim Miller 18:34 Like, these are 135 people that have real jobs, that have families. They're in back to school. Like, they're, they've been sent away from their kids to, to fucking sit outside the Georgetown Cupcake.

Kara Swisher 18:45 Yeah.

Tim Miller 18:45 Like, this is ri-

Kara Swisher 18:45 Yeah.

Tim Miller 18:45 Like, it's ridiculous. It's preposterous. And, like, and, and, and shining light on how ridiculous it is is an important end in itself.

Kara Swisher 18:53 A waste of money. A waste of money.

Tim Miller 18:55 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 18:55 Yeah. Is there any pluses for the Trump administration doing this? Like, crime is bad 'cause people do ou- from outside cities all think crime is... Like-

Tim Miller 19:02 Sure.

Kara Swisher 19:02 ... the whole San Francisco narrative-

Tim Miller 19:04 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 19:04 ... was so bullshit. There was problems. They f- they're starting to really fix them. The city is very vibrant now, but one of the... It's just the cycle, right? The COVID cycle, the people moving out, et cetera, et cetera. And the, the more, the... But, you know, they're aiming at homeless people, which is really interesting, here in DC and elsewhere-

Tim Miller 19:23 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 19:23 ... as if that's really the actual problem.

Tim Miller 19:26 I, I think it hel- uh, look. I think that-... you know, there, there are people, like, Matt Yglesias expresses this view that it's, like, bad for Democrats any time to be talking about crime and immigration, because if crime and immigration are in the news, that's good for Trump, because those are issues that are good for Trump. And I-

Kara Swisher 19:38 Yeah.

Tim Miller 19:38 ... I take that point, right? Like, I think that you have to be, uh, clear-eyed about how-

Kara Swisher 19:42 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 19:42 ... the fact that there is a, you know, uh, political benefit to what they're doing, they're good at picking enemies. You know, Kilmar Gario-Garcia is not that particularly sympathetic as a person, right? Like John Bolton is not particularly sympathetic as a person in different ways. But, but I, I think that, like, finding the most extreme examples and wri- and, and winning the fight on those ba- uh, on those grounds is better than ignoring it if you're a Democrat and moving on. And I mean, this happened in the first term on child separation, like his numbers tanked on it and they had to backtrack on it. That was a worthwhile immigration fight. Is fighting over, like, border security worthwhile? Like, no, probably not. Like, similarly on crime, like, uh, is pushing back on some of what they're doing on crime and cleaning up cities, that's not my cup of tea. Is pushing back on that worthwhile? Maybe not politically speaking. Activists or individuals can. But the Democrats should push back on masked guys jumping out of unmarked cars and tackling DoorDash drivers. Nobody's for that. And, you know, I was listening over the weekend, do you know Tim Dillon? He's like a comedian.

Kara Swisher 20:39 Yeah.

Tim Miller 20:39 Magazine com-

Kara Swisher 20:40 And Joe Rogan. They're both on there.

Tim Miller 20:41 Yeah, yeah. I was listening to The Tim Dillon Show over the weekend, and he's like, "If you're a libertarian-minded Republican gu- don't-tread-on-me Republican guy, uh, you can win those guys over with this." Like, he's looking at this, he's going, "This, what Trump is doing is everything Alex Jones warned about," is what he was saying. It's like-

Kara Swisher 20:55 Right. Right.

Tim Miller 20:55 ... you know? It's, it's get-

Kara Swisher 20:56 Yeah.

Tim Miller 20:56 We're giving Palantir our, our information.

Kara Swisher 20:59 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 20:59 We've got masks, you know, we've got ... We're militarizing the streets, we've got masked cops, you know, going after people without due process.

Kara Swisher 21:06 Yeah.

Tim Miller 21:06 Like, this is a f- big government security state. Uh, you know, if, if, if framed correctly, I think Democrats-

Kara Swisher 21:13 Yeah.

Tim Miller 21:13 ... could use it right.

Kara Swisher 21:13 Yeah. As you know, every accusation is a confession with these people.

Tim Miller 21:16 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 21:16 So, um, the Trump administration, th- let's move on.

Tim Miller 21:19 Okay.

Kara Swisher 21:19 Another thing they're grappling with,

Kara Swisher 21:21 the Trump administration has released transcripts and audio from the DOJ's recent interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime associate and convicted sexual, uh, offen- sex offender. In an interview, Maxwell, who is seeking a pardon, praised Donald Trump, what a surprise, and also downplayed his involvement in Epstein's activities. What a surprise. Let's listen to what this heinous bitch said.

Ghislaine Maxwell 21:41 I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman, in all respects.

Kara Swisher 21:56 So said-

Tim Miller 21:58 Mm.

Kara Swisher 21:58 ... the pedophile.

Tim Miller 21:59 The gentleman.

Kara Swisher 21:59 So said the pedophile. Maxwell also denied the existence of a client list and dismissed a number of Epstein's theories and allegations. Also rather kind to Epstein. He can rot in hell. She did, however, say she doesn't believe Epstein died by suicide in prison. Ho- honestly, why are we listening to th- I'm sorry, she's a heinous bitch. Why are we listening to her? Um, will it ap- it is ap- will it appease the MAGA folks? And what do you make of the timing? The DOJ also gave Congress thousands of Epstein documents, though Democrats are pointing out the majority of these documents were already public. They're trying to sort of s- slow roll the thing. A posthumous, uh, unquote unsparing memoir by Epstein accuser Virginie, uh, Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, is coming out this fall. And also some of the victims are now have fucking had it with this, again, HB, heinous bitch.

Tim Miller 22:45 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 22:45 Um-

Tim Miller 22:45 No need to apologize for saying heinous bitch. We can say-

Kara Swisher 22:47 Now she's-

Tim Miller 22:47 ... that again now, is what I-

Kara Swisher 22:48 ... a heinous b-

Tim Miller 22:48 Was that what I heard after the election?

Kara Swisher 22:50 Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Miller 22:50 That, that those words are allowed again. So nothing's-

Kara Swisher 22:52 Yeah, okay, good.

Tim Miller 22:53 ... wrong with you.

Kara Swisher 22:53 I can say whatever I want-

Tim Miller 22:54 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 22:54 ... about her.

Tim Miller 22:54 Um-

Kara Swisher 22:54 So anyway, um, uh, you know, I'm hoping Elizabeth Holmes, like, like smacks her a little bit (laughs) in the s- they're in the same prison, I guess. Um, talk a little bit about this and where it's going. I still think it's got a lot of legs, this, this story. I don't know.

Tim Miller 23:09 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 23:09 I feel like it does.

Tim Miller 23:10 I, um, I do laugh at hear- her having, hearing her call Trump, he was a gentleman in every respect.

Kara Swisher 23:15 Gentleman.

Tim Miller 23:15 Like, even Trump's friends don't think he's a gentleman. (laughs) Like even-

Kara Swisher 23:17 No.

Tim Miller 23:17 ... Trump wouldn't describe himself as a gentleman, I don't think. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 23:19 Right, exactly.

Tim Miller 23:20 And it's just, it's so, you know, fucking preposterous. Um.

Kara Swisher 23:23 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 23:23 No, she's aw- I mean, she's awful. Uh, it's, like, important to just say that, like ... And she was involved in the sex crimes, like-

Kara Swisher 23:30 That's correct.

Tim Miller 23:30 ... accor- I just read in some of these reports, like, she was there-

Kara Swisher 23:32 Hm.

Tim Miller 23:32 ... in the room when it was actually happening, so I could not-

Kara Swisher 23:35 She wasn't participating in it.

Tim Miller 23:35 You know, I mean-

Kara Swisher 23:36 Yep.

Tim Miller 23:36 Yeah. And she was bullying, intimidating these women. They were in th- they were in a quasi-sex slavery with him, like essentially saying, well, she was, you know, saying, "Oh, I'll ... You know, you're not gonna get ..." You know, there would be financial pressure she'd put over them or access or threats. So, and she is as, as bad as they get. Uh, and to- and a liar and totally unreliable, um, in, in all these cases. Her only effort here is to get a pardon. I don't, I don't think anything really comes out of this. Um, I, I think it's, um, it sh- maybe should be used against Trump politically, the fact that she's been sent to a n- a club fed as the only sex offender in the entire prison system, in such a, such a nice prison with Elizabeth Holmes. And, um, and so I think there's maybe some political juice there. Not a ton, but there's something. I, I think that, to me, the potential story here is that, um, is it l- like, there is an actual traditional cover-up, right? Like, a lot of Trump's other behavior is, like, very, is sui generis. Like, (laughs) it's just Trump. Like, he's doing stuff that doesn't really happen before, it's different. People are ... Like his crypto scheme, it's like, "What?" Uh, you know, like, there's not, there's not a history of this type of scandal, you know, for folks to, like, you know, br- um, uh, connect to. That's not the case here. Like, this is just a straight cover-up that many other politicians have done. Like, they have a list of all the times Trump is mentioned in these files. They s- they've admitted it. They said there's a Microsoft share file with the FBI agents that went through and marked his name. So this exists somewhere. You know, a file where t- of where Trump is in there. And they don't want to release it, and they're not going to. They're gonna cover it up to protect the boss. Like, that's just a straight cover-up story. And I think that ... I asked Hakeem Jeffries about this when he was on the pod the other week, and I was like, "So will you have a special committee on this if you get back into the leadership, uh, the-"... and, and he kind of said yes, like he wouldn't commit to exactly to a special committee, but he said, "We will be investigating this." And I think they can then now then just do a s- again, a straight old school cover-up investigation. They can subpoena the FBI agents that were involved in this, you know, the, what the DAs, what Bondi did, what she briefed Trump on, um, and, and who knows where that could lead, right? And so, you know, I, I, the example I always use of this is all those Benghazi oversight hearings. In this weird convoluted way, the Benghazi hearing led to the Hillary email server, you know? And, um, and oh, so you don't exactly know what will s- come-

Kara Swisher 25:51 Right.

Tim Miller 25:51 ... from oversight.

Kara Swisher 25:51 Right.

Tim Miller 25:51 And so I think if the Democrats are willing to actually do it, um, if they, w- well first if they win in the midterms, and then if they're actually to do it, like this is a story that we'll be talking about in August of 2027.

Kara Swisher 26:01 Yeah, they're trying to push it down, and they didn't push down very easily. I don't think this, this guy continues to resurface, Epstein.

Tim Miller 26:08 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 26:08 He's like the, the corpse that wouldn't be buried, essentially.

Tim Miller 26:12 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 26:12 You know, and he keeps showing up in some fashion. I think the Ghislaine Maxwell, I know a lot of them are saying Trump is clean, like J- Jim Jordan who (laughs) who's good at defending pedophiles and covering up for them, um, you know, would say he's not clean by any stretch of the imagination, like at all, 'cause this lady says it? Not so. I just, one photograph, one, another, uh, accuser, that's all it's gonna take to really revive this, 'cause it really does animate the right in ways that it didn't animate the left, by the way. It doesn't animate liberals, this story.

Tim Miller 26:46 Yeah, and I think that's because the right got animated by it ... uh, the, the, the pretense was kind of like this concern about c- child sex trafficking, and I, there are some, obviously there are people on the right who are genuinely concerned about child predation and, but I, I think that why it sort of like, you know, tickled their, um, you know, the lizard part of their brain was the, the death side, it was like the conspiracy side of it, is like, "Oh, was there a deep state effort to protect whoever?" The Clintons-

Kara Swisher 27:13 Yeah.

Tim Miller 27:13 ... uh, you know, you name it.

Kara Swisher 27:14 The basement of Comet Pizza.

Tim Miller 27:14 Like, whoever. And, and it was, and, and that like plot side of it i- is what like elevated the story from what would have been a very, like, serious, no doubt, like real story with like real victims and all that, to something that like, like had this life of its own on the right.

Kara Swisher 27:29 Right.

Tim Miller 27:29 Um-

Kara Swisher 27:30 Right.

Tim Miller 27:30 ... and I, and I think that like for that same reason now, like there is a, there's a, not really a conspiracy but a cover-up that I think will animate the left-

Kara Swisher 27:38 Right.

Tim Miller 27:38 ... that kind of gets lopped on to the more straightforward story about what they were doing-

Kara Swisher 27:41 Right, that's a really good point.

Tim Miller 27:43 ... to these young girls.

Kara Swisher 27:43 That, that will be the thing. This, this, uh, you know, the, the, the, there are str- attempts at slow rolling, and they still fight among each other, with Laura Loomer still calling Pam Bondi Blondie, et cetera, um, I, I suspect this is still gonna keep going with this guy. Um, okay Tim, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump makes a deal with Intel. (guitar music) Support for Pivot comes from Grüns. If you've ever done a deep internet dive trying to discover different nutrition solutions, you've likely had the thought, "Surely there's a way to improve my skin, gut health, immunity, brain fog, without offending my taste buds." Well there is. It's called Grüns. Grüns are a convenient, comprehensive formula packed into a daily snack pack of gummies. It's not a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic, it's all of those things and then some for a fraction of the price. In a Grüns daily snack pack you get more than 20 vitamins and minerals, six grams of prebiotic fiber, plus more than 60 ingredients. They include nutrient-dense and whole foods, all of which will help you out in different ways. For example, Grüns has six times the gut health ingredients compared to the leading greens powders. It contains biotin and niacinamide, which helps with thicker hair, nails, and skin health. They also contain mushrooms that can help with brain function. And of course you're probably familiar with vitamin C and how great it is for your immune system. On top of all, Grüns are vegan and free of dairy, nuts, and gluten. Get up to 52% off when you go to gruns.co and use the code PIVOT. That's G-R-U-N-S dot C-O using the code PIVOT for 52% off. Tim, we're back.

Kara Swisher 29:23 The US government is taking a 10% stake in Intel with Trump calling it a, quote, "Great deal for America and a great deal for Intel." Under the agreement, $8.9 billion in unpaid Chip Act grants will be converted into equity, making the government Intel's largest shareholder but without board seats or governance rights. It's a turnaround from a few weeks ago when Trump was calling for Intel's CEO to resign over ties to China. Intel als- move also comes on the heels of Nvidia and AMD agreeing to hand over 15% of their China chip sale revenues to the government. Not clear whether they should be selling chips to China. There's also that, quote, "golden share" in US Steel. Uh, Senator Rand Paul called the Intel deal, "a step towards socialism." I, oddly enough, agreed with Senator Rand Paul. Industrial policy is not my favorite thing. Even the Washington Post and also the Wall Street Journal, but the Washington Post editorial board came out against this saying the United States should not be trying to beat China by becoming China. Um, you know, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders wish they could have this much control over companies, right? And, Mark Cuban's interested-

Tim Miller 30:22 Bernie endorsed it, actually. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 30:24 Yeah, yeah, of course, um, and, um, Mark Cuban said it's just a wealth tax in a different way, right? They're w- they're taking money. I, uh, you know, as part of it, I'm like, I thought the government should have not done the giveaways to car companies or banks. Um, I thought they should have taken a piece of Tesla and then sold it back and made money on it for the US... There's nothing wrong with it but industrial policy in general is always a bad idea in a, in a capitalist and vibrant, uh, economy. Um, thoughts about this and how it, how it shakes out?

Tim Miller 30:55 I'm curious of your thoughts on the tech side. I, I'll just give, 'cause this is like also a little bit outside my wheelhouse, but my, the politic- and obviously there is the chief but true political observation of the, you know, MAGA socialism, and like it's okay if Trump doesn't, we're gonna panic about the five city-run grocery stores in New York but (laughs) we're, we're gonna let the government take over a 10% stake in a major company, uh, you know, so I, there's like the obvious hypocrisy on its face there. Um, and uh, you know it's kind of funny, I think back to my like heyday as a Republican when like one of, like back, like 10, 15 years ago there was this big controversy on the right over the EXIM Bank, (laughs) like a federal bank providing loans-

Kara Swisher 31:31 Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Miller 31:32 ... that I, how that was all government picking winners and losers and crony capitalism-

Kara Swisher 31:36 Picking winners and losers, yeah.

Tim Miller 31:36 ... and like here we are like literally taking a stake in the company now. So uh, um, I mean I think that is-... outr- outrageous. The thing that worries me about it more than the act- than, like, the substance of what's happening with, with the po- with Intel is like, it is another lever for him to use power to bully kind of who knows, right? Other people, right? And so whether that be Intel customers, competitors, right now, like, so it's like, "Well, we aren't gonna take a stake. We're not gonna take a, we're not..." Or excuse me, "We're not gonna have a governing responsibility in the company." But the government now still has an interest in this doing well, and Trump does. Trump has an emotional interest. He's, he's posting about how the stock's up and how that's good and how the sales was good. And so, like, the downstream effects of that is something that is not, like, all the way to China but, but has some of that flavor where, like, the government can start to-

Kara Swisher 32:26 Yeah.

Tim Miller 32:26 ... intimidate certain other companies into using-

Kara Swisher 32:28 And decide which are the national winners.

Tim Miller 32:30 Yeah. Yeah.

Kara Swisher 32:30 Right? Like, but except you don't want the government in your business essentially. And one of the issues is Intel's been suffering for years and years. Lack of innovation, bad management, et cetera. You know, for a very long time. Ver- it used to be the dominant chip maker, and then just got, got ... just fell by the wayside. So there is an argument to be made for, like, helping US companies in the chip area, largely for national security.

Tim Miller 32:52 Well, there was the CHIPS Act that was gonna do that. That-

Kara Swisher 32:53 Yes, exactly. But the issue is, it's not gonna make them more innovative by having the government investment. It's just gonna prop them up, right? And the problems with Intel run a lot deeper that maybe they should go out of business. Maybe they should restructure.

Tim Miller 33:06 Hm.

Kara Swisher 33:06 Maybe they should ... We shouldn't have the government deciding to keep them on, uh, on, on life support, right? And it's not life support, but it's just been, it's been sucking for many CEOs for a long time. And so, you know, the natural thing is let it die, and then something else comes up. The problem is we ... our chip manufacturers are weaker, and they're, they're stronger in, in Taiwan and China and elsewhere. And so just the fact that governments makes choices like this, they shouldn't. They should, what they should do is provide research money for all kinds of things. Th- they should provide, uh, encouragement and innovative grants to help people start businesses all k- of all kinds. Those are fine by me, and I think government has-

Tim Miller 33:46 I'm fine with manufacturing-

Kara Swisher 33:48 ... advocated.

Tim Miller 33:48 ... money, right? Like, we want to-

Kara Swisher 33:49 Yeah.

Tim Miller 33:49 ... make sure that they have, you know, loan guarantees to build plants so, you know, if-

Kara Swisher 33:53 Right.

Tim Miller 33:53 Like, there's a reason interest rates are high right now, so, like, it's, it's in the national interest that we're building chip plants. Companies don't wanna do, take the risks.

Kara Swisher 34:01 Right.

Tim Miller 34:01 The government backstops that. Uh, it's not, like, my ideal free market system.

Kara Swisher 34:05 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 34:05 But that, that's like a defensible thing for the government to wanna do.

Kara Swisher 34:07 On this particular market.

Tim Miller 34:09 On this particular market, yeah.

Kara Swisher 34:10 But it, it, but it's just a hop, skip, and jump to other markets, right? Like, let's own this, let's own that. And, you know, the-

Tim Miller 34:15 Well, they said ... Kevin Hassett is on CNBC this morning saying, "Now we might start to take chips, uh, stakes in other comp- companies." And again-

Kara Swisher 34:20 M- no.

Tim Miller 34:20 ... this is a very ... this is the bullying part, this is the authoritarian part where it's like, oh-

Kara Swisher 34:24 Right.

Tim Miller 34:24 ... if you're another company that took money from the CHIPS Act or from the IRA-

Kara Swisher 34:28 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 34:28 ... maybe those were good decisions, maybe they were bad decisions. I think that there was probably a bunch of wasted money in, in both of those (laughs) bills, by the way. But, like, the co- the companies then at that point that made that decision should not now be worried that, "Oh, I can't do anything, say anything that might upset Trump. I can't go on TV and have the, you know, Grandpa watching his stories see that I'm critical of some policy or else they might try to take over a stake in the company."

Kara Swisher 34:51 Yeah, it's very, uh, meddlesome in a way that's not ... anti-capitalists. I can see them in their room. I can see this, especially that dumbass, um, Howard Lutnick, like-

Tim Miller 34:59 Nuttless.

Kara Swisher 34:59 ... "We should've gotten a piece of Tesla. We should've gotten a piece of this." But they're bad busi- no, Howard Lutnick is not a bad business person. Trump is, uh, arguably one of the worst-

Tim Miller 35:07 Are you sure he's not a bad businessperson? Uh, he seems very stupid.

Kara Swisher 35:10 Well, he s- he, uh ... listen, he was sort of the discount guy on Wall Street. When you talk to Wall Street people, they s- like, "He built a big business, but what an idiot." I think that's usually-

Tim Miller 35:19 Got it.

Kara Swisher 35:19 ... what you g- but it was like a business nobody wanted. They were like, "Oh, that guy's business." Like, sort of like Crazy Eddie. Like, remember Crazy Eddie a long time ago who was ... you know, of course, it went bankrupt, that business. Um, I think people don't love Howard Lutnick on Wall Street. They don't have much respect for him. That said, Trump has ... he actually has built a business that has lasted, and Trump has, of course, has r- run the ... this is the idea of real estate dealers, real estate people running the government. Like, "Ah, what can I get? What can I get?" Like, "What's the vig?" And so it feels mobstery. It feels like, you know, corrupt. It feels r- meddlesome, and it creates a, you know ... it, it ... the fact that Tim Cook has to give a gold statue to Trump is a bad thing. Even if he's doing it for shareholders, it means we live in a banana republic. That's-

Tim Miller 36:05 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 36:05 ... what it means.

Tim Miller 36:06 And the whole thing is-

Kara Swisher 36:07 And so it's never good.

Tim Miller 36:07 ... I laugh at, like, how those guys are all, like, um ... and it's ... I shared some of the critiques of woke identity politics in, in, in big, uh, you know, in corporate America. But it was funny. The, uh, it was like Trump, uh, uh, or Cook rather kind of gave him, like, a woke right statue. Like, he felt, it felt important for him to say in the presentation, was like, "This was made (laughs) by a-"

Kara Swisher 36:29 Yeah, a veteran.

Tim Miller 36:30 "... you know, this was made by a MAGA Republican veteran." (laughs)

Kara Swisher 36:33 Veteran.

Tim Miller 36:33 You know? (laughs)

Kara Swisher 36:34 Yeah, as in, like-

Tim Miller 36:34 And it was like, you can imagine the inverse where Tim Cook comes in to calm him and is like, "Here's a statue-

Kara Swisher 36:38 Yeah.

Tim Miller 36:38 ... made by an indigenous bisexual." (laughs)

Kara Swisher 36:40 Lesbian, bisexual.

Tim Miller 36:40 You know? Like, "We felt like we needed to do that."

Kara Swisher 36:42 Yeah.

Tim Miller 36:42 Like they, they felt like he had to do the whole-

Kara Swisher 36:44 It's ... (laughs)

Tim Miller 36:44 ... identity right politics stuff too.

Kara Swisher 36:47 Yeah.

Tim Miller 36:47 The whole thing was very gross.

Kara Swisher 36:47 Unnatural acts. They're cre- they're, they're letting n- people who should be running their companies do unnatural acts, and it is bad for shareholders in the end. It's not ... even if they're doing it to help shareholders so we don't get a bigger tariff, it's an unnatural act, Tim. Stop doing unnatural acts. Um-

Tim Miller 37:02 Can, uh, can I ask you one, uh, natural-

Kara Swisher 37:04 Sure. Sure.

Tim Miller 37:04 ... nationalization thing?

Kara Swisher 37:05 Sure.

Tim Miller 37:05 Because-

Kara Swisher 37:06 Yeah.

Tim Miller 37:06 ... you know, I'm a, I'm a passionate capitalist, um, but uh-

Kara Swisher 37:09 Uh-huh. Me too.

Tim Miller 37:10 I ... there's one moment, there's been one issue kind of in this realm that, uh, has tickled my, uh, socialist pickle, which was the idea-

Kara Swisher 37:17 Hm.

Tim Miller 37:17 ... that maybe we need to nationalize SpaceX. I was w-

Kara Swisher 37:20 Oh.

Tim Miller 37:20 Like, is that sort of related to this? That's, like, kind of a different conversation where that is-

Kara Swisher 37:24 I uh, I'm not for that.

Tim Miller 37:24 ... in the national security interests.

Kara Swisher 37:26 No.

Tim Miller 37:26 No?

Kara Swisher 37:26 Yeah, maybe.

Tim Miller 37:27 No interest in that?

Kara Swisher 37:27 For some ma- they, they should be working hand in glove. I mean, I think the issue is NASA sort of got-... out of control in terms of bureaucratic and not innovative.

Tim Miller 37:35 Oh, yeah. No doubt.

Kara Swisher 37:35 The only thing is, when you're a government agency, you can't make mistakes the way SpaceX can.

Tim Miller 37:39 Right.

Kara Swisher 37:39 And the minute you nationalize it, it can't blow up rockets. And as much as it seems like a failure to blow up rockets, the way you get to places or get to better innovation is by taking risks. And if you're a government agency, you cannot take risks by, by the definition of a government agency. So, I see that they have to be working very closely with ... This is the kind of close relationship that-

Tim Miller 37:59 It's not really a free market, though. You can't have unlimited companies in space.

Kara Swisher 38:02 No.

Tim Miller 38:02 It's kind of like how NBA team ownership-

Kara Swisher 38:04 Yes.

Tim Miller 38:04 ... is not a real free market. Like-

Kara Swisher 38:06 Yeah.

Tim Miller 38:06 You know? Right?

Kara Swisher 38:07 Yeah, yeah. I just don't ... I feel like they're, they have brought the cost down because they're, they're not a government agency.

Tim Miller 38:12 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 38:13 There's no interest in the government-

Tim Miller 38:13 No, they've done well, no doubt, but I don't know. If Elon-

Kara Swisher 38:15 There, there's no interest in the government to making things cheaper.

Tim Miller 38:18 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 38:18 That's what

Tim Miller 38:19 Crazy Elon having that much control over the po- ... over some of our policies.

Kara Swisher 38:21 He does. That's one of the worries, of course.

Tim Miller 38:23 That's a worry.

Kara Swisher 38:23 I suspect that's what they're worried about, is you got ... It's like a bond villain, essentially-

Tim Miller 38:26 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 38:27 ... running critical infrastructure. Same thing with chips. We have to have a real chip policy, and this ain't it. Um, speaking of something that seems troubling, FBI

Kara Swisher 38:36 agents raided the home and office of former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton on Friday. The Trump critic is the subject of a national security investigation in search of classified records. Vice President J.D. Vance says the raid definitely doesn't have anything to do with Bolton's criticism of Trump, which means it does. Or rather, stems from a, quote, "broad concern about the im- ... about Ambassador Bolton." You know, the Wall Street Journal's against this. Everyone's against this. Like, doing ... You know, I think what they're doing is what they thought was done to them. So, if it ... They didn't like it done to them, why are they doing it to others? Um, very retribution, revenge. He just threatened Chris Christie, I think, today-

Tim Miller 39:12 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 39:12 ... or yesterday.

Tim Miller 39:12 Yeah. Threatening to jail-

Kara Swisher 39:13 Thoughts?

Tim Miller 39:13 ... Chris Christie, too.

Kara Swisher 39:15 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 39:15 Yeah. Uh, the Wall Street Journal editorial board ... This kind of cracked me up, um-

Kara Swisher 39:19 Yeah.

Tim Miller 39:19 ... since they've been very Trump-friendly. They talked about how one of the concerns of him coming back was that he'd run vendettas. And, uh, they wrote, quote, "It's turning out to be worse than we imagined." (laughs) It's like-

Kara Swisher 39:28 Yeah. (laughs)

Tim Miller 39:28 ... oh, you don't say?

Kara Swisher 39:29 You don't say?

Tim Miller 39:29 Not me, actually. It's going quite, quite bright, uh ... Just about exactly how we told you it was gonna go, not, not, uh, not any worse.

Kara Swisher 39:35 Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Miller 39:36 Um, the Bolton thing ... I, I just think it's important to say this because, like, it's obviously preposterous that, like, th- this is not a political attack, but if y- if you just replace John Bolton with, like, uh, Mark Meadows or Corey L- ... Like, imagine it was somebody from the Trump first term that wrote a book, that who is still in good graces with Trump, and the accusation is that there were classified materials in that book that was written five years ago. There's no imaginable world in which the FBI is raiding the home of a f- Trump 1.0 Cabinet member who is still an ally, right? Like, you just ... Nobody could imagine that. If there were a legitimate concern that he had some classified materials they shouldn't have, like, there's a process for this sort of thing. FBI calls, DOJ's lawyers call their lawyers, you set up a meeting.

Kara Swisher 40:18 Right.

Tim Miller 40:18 Like, all ... You know. Uh, so this is, this was purely to either hassle or intimidate.

Kara Swisher 40:23 Feels like prosecutorial overreach, right? That's just the thing that Trump complained about. And it does ... I think it brings up what Trump did. Like, again, like, "You did it." This is, this-

Tim Miller 40:31 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 40:31 It's-

Tim Miller 40:32 Well, the Trump-

Kara Swisher 40:32 It's really quite-

Tim Miller 40:33 The Trump example is im- ... It's important to just explain the differences. Like, in the Mar-a-Lago raid, which I, I would listen to the idea that, that maybe that could have been handled in a less aggressive way, but like, it's a- it's not comparable to the Bolton situation. Like, the, the, the Mar-a-Lago raid, the a- ... The, you know, the archivist or whatever, like, you know, um, said that, that Trump, you know, brought some materials that, that, you know, sh- ... Are the property of the United States. He shouldn't have. You know, they asked for, um, a meeting, denied. Then they provided a list of what the materials were. Trump lied and said that it wasn't there. They tried to move some of the materials to a different place, right? And so Trump was obstructing the, the effort to do this in like the good faith way that is u- ... That this is generally done, and that's why the raid happened. Like, that was not the case with John Bolton. They just showed up at his house. I think because the statute of limitations, I suspect, is running out on the stuff from the first term, which would be five years now. And they did so just to intimidate him. Um, Panjwandi puts out a tweet about it. I don't have it in front of me, but it was something like, "Our national security," (laughs) you know, "comes first." It's like nobody thinks that America's security was at threat 'cause of whatever John Bolton has in his house. Um, and, uh, you know ... And, and I- and I think that it, it ties kind of to the intel thing. Like, the thing that worries me about everything is eventually s- ... And ties to the Bill Maher thing at the top. Like, slowly but surely, people just decide it's not worth the hassle, right? Like, you get into authoritarianism not through violent coup necessary, but by slow burn-

Kara Swisher 42:02 No, that's exactly ... Yeah.

Tim Miller 42:02 ... towards everyone deciding, you know, "I'm gonna go bring him a trophy to keep him happy. I'm not gonna say anything wrong 'cause I don't want the FBI to come after me." And, you know, eventually you consolidate power, and that's closer to like what you've seen in Hungary and other places.

Kara Swisher 42:15 Yeah. Uh, w- uh, well-known centers of innovation.

Tim Miller 42:18 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 42:18 Hungary, Turkey.

Tim Miller 42:18 Exactly. Economy's really, really thriving in Hungary and Turkey.

Kara Swisher 42:22 Thriving there. (laughs)

Tim Miller 42:22 We want the Turkey model for our country. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 42:24 Turkey, the Turkey model. Anyway. Uh, we'll see what happens with this. I suspect it'll peter out. They're, they're r- ... They have such little follow-through, but they do cause dam- ... They ... What they do, they're like toddlers. They come in and cause damage and little follow-through. All right, Tim, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Cracker Barrel makes an enemy of the right. Support for this show comes from Framer. Kids today, they never understand what we went through back in the day. Building a website, for instance, used to be a lot of time and a lot of money, so you only did it if you could afford the overhead and really needed it. Nowadays, there are incredible tools like Framer that can build the website of your dreams fast, no coding required. Framer is a design-first, no-code website builder that lets anyone ship a product-ready site in minutes. That means you have the freedom to build a website that is professional, polished, and uniquely yours, no code and no compromises. Built-in AI will handle the heavy lifting by generating starter layouts and then coding behind the scenes. You'll be able to A/B test your design, set up funnels, see exactly where people click, all from one place. Ready to build a site that looks hand-coded without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at framer.com and use the code PIVOT to get your first month of Pro on the house. That's framer.com, promo code PIVOT. Framer.com, promo code PIVOT. Rules and restrictions apply.Tim, we're back with more news. Please make

Kara Swisher 43:46 sure you're seated for this next emotional topic, Cracker Barrel's logo change. Uh, the chain has removed the barrel and the man from its logo, and conservatives are horrified. Change is hard, conservatives. Cracker Barrel stock was down 12% in the last five days at the time of taping. And that's because it's mostly... Like, I haven't been in a Cracker Barrel because they're so anti-gay, right? That's what I remember. Um, so-

Tim Miller 44:07 No, they did a ... Oh, obviously, you don't remember their effort to appeal to your care.

Kara Swisher 44:10 (laughs)

Tim Miller 44:10 A couple years ago, they-

Kara Swisher 44:11 Today?

Tim Miller 44:11 ... they did a rainbow rocking chair out-

Kara Swisher 44:13 Today?

Tim Miller 44:13 ... uh, during Pride Month a couple years ago.

Kara Swisher 44:15 Oh.

Tim Miller 44:16 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 44:16 Whatever.

Tim Miller 44:17 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 44:17 You know, I, this is fucking ridiculous. This is like... It's just a logo change, and the old man seems, like, old. Like, for ... They want young people to come. That's my presumption, is they've got too many fucking old people in the place and they need a new, they need a new demo. It makes sense for... Again, meddling in the business. Like, if they wanna get rid of the old fucking man, they should get rid of the old man. And the fact that they're all horrified. Like, they're so, they're so censorious, the right, when they accuse others of being censorious. And, you know, they'll either live or die by the stock going down, and maybe they'll put the man back or whatever. But it's just... I, I don't, I don't care.

Tim Miller 44:52 I've got to take a, a contrary view to you on this one.

Kara Swisher 44:54 Okay. You tell me.

Tim Miller 44:55 Are you ready to fight over Cracker Barrel?

Kara Swisher 44:56 Yeah. Okay.

Tim Miller 44:56 Uh, the logo, the new logo is awful.

Kara Swisher 44:58 When's the last time you went?

Tim Miller 44:59 I haven't been to Cracker Barrel in years.

Kara Swisher 45:00 Oh, it's an ugly logo.

Tim Miller 45:01 That's an ug-

Kara Swisher 45:01 Correct.

Tim Miller 45:01 Yeah. Yeah. I've been ... I haven't been in years. We ... Every once in a while, I'll go, I think, on the drive from DC to the beach, there's a Cracker Barrel somewhere. But that was many years ago now. Uh, so I haven't been in a while, so I don't actually have any personal stake or, or care about this. But I do, just as an objective (laughs) observer of the world. The new logo is awful.

Kara Swisher 45:18 It is.

Tim Miller 45:18 The picture that they put out of the new inside of a Cracker Barrel, which is more minimalist or whatever, is also awful, and it is part of-

Kara Swisher 45:24 Yeah.

Tim Miller 45:24 ... a broader corporate trend where every logo has to be minimalist now, and every store needs to have clean lines. And, and we get ... We need d- ... We need diversity of views. You know, you need a diversity of experiences. Like, the human spirit, you know, yearns for different types of ... You know, we don't all-

Kara Swisher 45:41 Yes.

Tim Miller 45:41 ... want Scandinavian clean lines. There's some places call for Scandinavian-

Kara Swisher 45:45 No, but I think they probably realize most of their clients are about to die, right?

Tim Miller 45:48 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 45:48 I think, I, I think companies should be-

Tim Miller 45:49 You think new people are gonna come in though because they wanna make it look more like Applebee's?

Kara Swisher 45:53 No, I think that's what they're-

Tim Miller 45:53 I don't think that-

Kara Swisher 45:53 I think that's what they're ... I think-

Tim Miller 45:53 ... like the Millennials I know are like. "I'm excited now that we're ..." You know, they're changing it from the old man-

Kara Swisher 45:58 (laughs) Wow, it's kind of like-

Tim Miller 45:58 ... old Southern view to a more of a modern, Applebee's aesthetic.

Kara Swisher 46:01 Yeah, but I think at some point, you have to change. I j- ... It's like it's ... But again, this is again, it's up to the company if they wanna do this, and they'll either live or die by it, right? That's the ... my whole thing, is-

Tim Miller 46:09 I agree with that.

Kara Swisher 46:10 I suspect they're looking at the numbers, and they're like, "All the old people. We don't have any young ..." They probably know exactly who's coming into their restaurants. And young people are not coming into the Cracker Barrel. They're just not. And, you know, the name itself would probably be changed, Cracker Barrel. Like, who, what is a-

Tim Miller 46:26 Honky Barrel.

Kara Swisher 46:27 ... Cracker Barrel?

Tim Miller 46:27 (laughing) Um, the, um-

Kara Swisher 46:28 Honky Barrel. Um, you know, I kind of like what they're doing at Hooters. They're going ... Now, uh, you'd be surprised.

Tim Miller 46:32 What are they doing at Hooters? I know nothing about this.

Kara Swisher 46:33 They're going back to cheesy and booby, and like, wings. Like, and I'm, uh, I'm vaguely offended by Hooters. I don't care. Like, if people wanna go to those stupid places and they pay those people enough. I don't know what to say. I think it's gross, but whatever, people. If you wanna go to, you know, that and you wanna f- ... By the way, all the Hooters waitresses, uh, in my experience, have been fan- fucking-tastic people. And they know the whole fucking deal with the guys leering at their breasts, which is like their toddlers looking at them. Um, but, um, I, uh ... There was a great story. A, a gay guy. Who was it? Who talked about going to Hooters with his dad.

Tim Miller 47:08 His, his Twitter name is Peter Twinkledge. It's a good Twitter name.

Kara Swisher 47:10 Yeah. Great story of, of going to-

Tim Miller 47:12 Yeah, that's right.

Kara Swisher 47:12 ... going to Hooters and the Hooter waitress helping this guy. I mean, she knew he was gay, right?

Tim Miller 47:16 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 47:16 The father didn't ... Of course the father did, 'cause that's why he dragged his poor sorry ass there. Um, but, you know, I, I kind of like that they're going back to it, 'cause I thought their me- ... Like, just be ...

Tim Miller 47:25 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 47:25 Hooters just be Hooters. And if they do a nice job of it and the wings are good, I'm fine with it. I just think this is a company, much like ... Oh, there's probably a bunch of them facing real secular change in their usage.

Tim Miller 47:39 Mm-hmm.

Kara Swisher 47:39 So, they must have studied this. And the people that are-

Tim Miller 47:42 I guess.

Kara Swisher 47:42 ... making noise are all-

Tim Miller 47:43 I don't ... Sometimes-

Kara Swisher 47:43 ... the old folk.

Tim Miller 47:43 ... though, you can overstudy stuff. It's like, I feel this way-

Kara Swisher 47:46 Yeah.

Tim Miller 47:46 ... about political ads, where it's like, you know, p- ... I, I'll be in a meeting where p- ... you know, uh, where a super PAC will be like, "We decided to do this ad 'cause we tested it." And I, and I'm like, most of these tests are so dumb. It's people that are, like, playing video games or something, and then they show the ad during the commercial break, and then you have to say whether you like it or not.

Kara Swisher 48:04 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 48:04 And it's like people don't know them- themselves. We're, we're trusting this. Like, they're, they're just trying-

Kara Swisher 48:08 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 48:08 ... to get through the ad, have the ... Like, a lot of these, a lot of these, you know, corporate testing things is a lot of hoey-fooey.

Kara Swisher 48:13 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 48:13 Um, can I just ... Can I give you one admission, since you've admitted-

Kara Swisher 48:16 Sure.

Tim Miller 48:16 ... the Hooters? Uh, you know, come clean on your support for original Hooters. The Cracker Barrel thing, for me, is tied to the new Oval Office design, and I like-

Kara Swisher 48:25 Oh, yeah.

Tim Miller 48:25 ... the new Oval Office design, just like-

Kara Swisher 48:26 Do you?

Tim Miller 48:27 ... I like the old Cracker Barrel, because I think more is more.

Kara Swisher 48:30 (laughs)

Tim Miller 48:30 Pro-Hooters, pro- pro-Liberace Oval Office, pro-original Cracker Barrel. That's where I'm landing.

Kara Swisher 48:36 Oh, who's not pro-Liberace? Come on.

Tim Miller 48:38 Well, the Oval Office has a Liberace aesthetic now, I think.

Kara Swisher 48:41 Oh, it does.

Tim Miller 48:41 Which I like.

Kara Swisher 48:42 But it's okay with-

Tim Miller 48:42 As a gay man.

Kara Swisher 48:43 See, I don't. I think ... I didn't like ... When I saw the comparison, I was like, "Look how awful." I'm like, the first one was kind of dull.

Tim Miller 48:48 It was drab.

Kara Swisher 48:48 Like, the Biden one.

Tim Miller 48:49 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 48:50 Drab. Right? And you know I like a, like ... Listen, Showgirls is about to have its 50th anniversary or whatever, and I'm up for anything like that. I like excess. I like, um, all kinds of stuff like that. But it's too much over here. Now there's way too much fucking gold. Like, gold is best, like if you ever saw that Apple thing. Um, so, I think it's too much. I ... There's a-

Tim Miller 49:11 Okay.

Kara Swisher 49:11 ... there's a ... There should be pomp and circumstance-

Tim Miller 49:14 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 49:14 ... but there's way too much of that. And it's-

Tim Miller 49:16 It's a little ouden couche. It's a little much.

Kara Swisher 49:18 (laughs)

Tim Miller 49:18 It wouldn't be my preferred aesthetic, but it is definitely-

Kara Swisher 49:20 Right.

Tim Miller 49:20 ... an upgrade when you look at the comparisons.

Kara Swisher 49:22 Right.

Tim Miller 49:22 A great -

Kara Swisher 49:22 What else would you put in there? What would your Oval Office look like?

Tim Miller 49:26 Oh, uh, it's not really in the, in the cards, I don't think. Um, so-

Kara Swisher 49:30 I know, but say it.

Tim Miller 49:31 I don't know. Yeah. I mean, kind of like the bird cage? (laughs) I don't know.

Kara Swisher 49:36 Oh. (laughs)

Tim Miller 49:36 I don't know what it would be.

Kara Swisher 49:37 Like gay. You gay it up.

Tim Miller 49:37 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 49:38 You gay it up.

Tim Miller 49:38 Well, gay. Yeah. It, it'd combine all of my conflicting interests, you know? We might have a Reagan-

Kara Swisher 49:43 Yeah.

Tim Miller 49:43 ... portrait, but also-

Kara Swisher 49:44 Yeah.

Tim Miller 49:44 ... a lot of gay stuff. They would live in conflict together.

Kara Swisher 49:46 Yeah.

Tim Miller 49:46 Maybe just Nancy.

Kara Swisher 49:47 You know who I'd, uh, design it? You know Ken Falk? The, he's-

Tim Miller 49:50 Oh, yeah.

Kara Swisher 49:50 ... a San Francisco designer.

Tim Miller 49:51 My husband loves Ken Falk.

Kara Swisher 49:53 Yeah. Everything he does is just a little louche, but I love it. Like, you know, it's just a little bit too much velvet and stuff like that. There's a occasional dead animal on the wall. I kind of love it. I love ki- it looks a lit-

Tim Miller 50:04 I like wallpaper.

Kara Swisher 50:04 I also like the Nancy Meyers aesthetic. That is kind of a nice one. Do you know, you know the director? Those houses that Diane Keaton-

Tim Miller 50:11 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 50:11 ... always lives in? Those are nice. Maybe dull.

Tim Miller 50:14 Yeah, they're, they're a little-

Kara Swisher 50:15 Dull.

Tim Miller 50:15 I don't know. It's not really for me. I'm not, I'm not trying to-

Kara Swisher 50:17 It's too white gay, yeah.

Tim Miller 50:18 That might be trigger, this might be those little suburban-

Kara Swisher 50:20 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 50:20 Kind of triggered by my suburban upbringing. I don't want anything-

Kara Swisher 50:22 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 50:22 Like the '90s suburban, like Tuscan aesthetic. Anything like that-

Kara Swisher 50:26 Yeah. No.

Tim Miller 50:26 ... is, uh, I have a natural, like, physical revulsion to.

Kara Swisher 50:30 Yeah.

Tim Miller 50:30 So...

Kara Swisher 50:30 Yeah. I think I would do, do more funny stuff.

Tim Miller 50:32 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 50:32 A bit more color. Anyway, I think they should've kept the barrel, gotten rid of the old man.

Tim Miller 50:38 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 50:38 The barrel needs to be there.

Tim Miller 50:39 Yeah, the barrel should be there.

Kara Swisher 50:39 And there should be crackers. And crackers. All right, last thing. Elon

Kara Swisher 50:43 Musk's X has agreed, uh, to a tentative settlement to settle a lawsuit filed by former Twitter employees who say they are owed $500 million in severance. Musk fired around 6,000 employees after acquiring Twitter, and of course he didn't pay them. In other Musk news, he also asked Mark Zuckerberg to help him finance a $97 billion takeover of OpenAI in early 2025 according to court filings, in a case between Musk and OpenAI. Obviously it didn't happen, uh, thank God, but, again, uh, Mark makes his-

Tim Miller 51:08 Thank God, I guess. Isn't that kind, isn't this kind of like an Iran-Iraq war situation?

Kara Swisher 51:11 Right.

Tim Miller 51:11 Who are you rooting for in Altman-

Kara Swisher 51:13 Right, yeah, the bullets, as-

Tim Miller 51:13 ... versus Musk versus Zuckerberg?

Kara Swisher 51:15 The bullets is what Scott always says.

Tim Miller 51:17 Yeah. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 51:17 You're rooting for the bullets. Um, you know, this, I know a little bit about this payment, and I'll just say really briefly, uh, y- I've met with a lot of the people who they owe money to, and it... Look, if you wanna fire people, Elon, that's fine, that's your business. But pay them what they're owed. That's it. That's, y- it just makes you, like, an asshole not to pay them their severance, even if you don't like what they did before, that was the agreement they were taken over. As to his OpenAI thing, just stop... Y- you know, Sam Altman is not interested in you, so stop bothering that company. You, you walked yourself out of there like an idiot when you were there from the beginning, 'cause you have your ego, a- and your need for control. You don't have it. Just try to make a good company on your own. That's my feeling about it. Any thoughts?

Tim Miller 52:00 I don't, I don't have any thoughts on the Twitter filings, so I agree with everything you said. Um, while we're admitting to bad opinions that we have about aesthetics, I also kind of like the, the Zuckerberg fuckboy rebrand. I think that that's-

Kara Swisher 52:11 (laughs)

Tim Miller 52:11 ... been good for him, so I support that.

Kara Swisher 52:12 Is he a fuckboy?

Tim Miller 52:13 Uh, kind of. I mean, the gold chain-

Kara Swisher 52:15 Would you fuck him?

Tim Miller 52:15 ... and the, and the, and the, what do they, what do the kids call it?

Kara Swisher 52:17 Then you're not answer.

Tim Miller 52:17 The lettuce hair.

Kara Swisher 52:19 Yeah.

Tim Miller 52:20 Um...

Kara Swisher 52:20 Okay, would you go out with him? Do you think he's attractive?

Tim Miller 52:22 Not really for, well, not really for me. Um, no, I don't think so.

Kara Swisher 52:26 Okay, so...

Tim Miller 52:27 I d- I, I guess I had to pick between him and Alt- I probably would, originally would've said Sam Altman, but I don't know. The, Sa- Sam's recent interviews are pretty creepy. Like he's starting to move into the uncanny valley for me a little bit.

Kara Swisher 52:37 Oh, interesting. How so? Tell me. Explain.

Tim Miller 52:39 I don't, I don't know. I just, I, like, the, um, um, the, m- like, the, I, I, I get him in my TikTok a lot, I guess kind of how you're consuming me, like he does all these podcast interviews where he's talking about what we want the future of OpenAI, like did you see his Theo Von interview?

Kara Swisher 52:56 I did see it.

Tim Miller 52:56 And his, and like wh- and his-

Kara Swisher 52:57 Oh, I saw it. I saw that.

Tim Miller 52:57 ... projections about what is coming, uh, you know, and how, um, you know, people are just going to have to get used to a world where there are like robot humans walking around on the street everywhere and where like a lot of people's real friends are-

Kara Swisher 53:14 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 53:14 ... compute- are computer-

Kara Swisher 53:16 Yeah.

Tim Miller 53:16 ... friends and w- and where he's... I, I, uh, just the, the whole thing is getting a little creepy for me.

Kara Swisher 53:21 Because?

Tim Miller 53:21 And he seems to kind of be leaning into that, like that he-

Kara Swisher 53:24 Yeah.

Tim Miller 53:24 ... uh, and I, I think, I just think I'm misaligned with him, uh, for what I would like to see an AI future look like.

Kara Swisher 53:30 Well, it's just one man's opinion, for one. And...

Tim Miller 53:31 Well, it's an important man's opinion, kind of.

Kara Swisher 53:33 Yeah, but n-

Tim Miller 53:34 No?

Kara Swisher 53:34 ... there's been... OpenAIs have come and gone. Like I don't mean to be ru- but like remember Yahoo was huge and then it wasn't?

Tim Miller 53:39 Sure.

Kara Swisher 53:39 Like these things... And they are definitely in a more precarious position. They're either Netscape or they're Google, right? That said, Google didn't run the show on everything eventually.

Tim Miller 53:48 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 53:48 N- and even they struggled at various times. I feel like, look, he wants to, he, he's sort of styling himself like Steve Jobs, so he's trying to say important-

Tim Miller 53:56 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 53:56 ... controversial things. And so nobody is Steve Jobs, but everyone's trying to grab that mantle, and there will be not another one like that. And so that's what you're hearing, right?

Tim Miller 54:07 What's your alarm level on all that stuff, on these, on these guys, these egomaniacs deciding what our AI future is gonna look like?

Kara Swisher 54:14 W- we've already seen what happened. W- eh, so we're gonna see this... I think the government, in this case, needs to be much more involved with, with guidance, guardrails, and regulations, as you know. Um, I don't like a small group of people, not diverse in any way, making decisions for the rest of us. That's all. Just like I didn't li- you know, as much as I like Train Daddy on, on The Gilded Age, they decided where the roads went, they decided where the things went, and our whole country has to live in the reality they create, and I'm not so pleased with that either. Although I like Train Daddy quite a bit, oddly enough.

Tim Miller 54:48 I don't have any takes on Train Daddy, but I, I'll learn about it. I'll-

Kara Swisher 54:50 All right, you need to watch The Gilded Age, 'cause all the gays love Train Daddy, just so you know.

Tim Miller 54:54 Okay.

Kara Swisher 54:55 He's really great. Uh, speaking of which, it cracks me up when, if Gavin Newsom every time, uh, that Jesse Waters calls him daddy. (laughs) He's like, "I'm not interested." (laughs) His, his use of like gay taunts-

Tim Miller 55:07 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 55:07 ... is so... I, I'm not a f- everyone's like, "Aren't you offended?" I'm like, "No, I love them." I don't know about how you feel.

Tim Miller 55:13 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 55:13 I like a gay taunt.

Tim Miller 55:15 I, I like a gay taunt too. I, sometimes, the only time I get offended on this t- thing is sometimes I feel like, and maybe it's just because as a gay former Republican I get a lot of incoming on this, sometimes I feel like the liberals in my life are like way too excited to make like gay slurs about Lindsey Graham and like-

Kara Swisher 55:32 Yeah. I, I-

Tim Miller 55:32 ... the MAGA gays. And I, and I like a little, a little joke about-

Kara Swisher 55:36 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 55:36 ... Lady G. I'm fine with that. But sometimes it's like the tone where I'll, like I kind of feel-

Kara Swisher 55:40 Yeah.

Tim Miller 55:40 ... like you're just, you've just been very, you've just had this pent up desire to make homophobic jokes-

Kara Swisher 55:45 Correct.

Tim Miller 55:45 ... and now you feel like you can-

Kara Swisher 55:46 I agree with you.

Tim Miller 55:46 ... because Lindsey Graham is the target. And, and-

Kara Swisher 55:48 Yeah.

Tim Miller 55:48 ... and it, and it comes out a little too enthusiastic for my taste, I guess, would be all I'm saying.

Kara Swisher 55:52 I would agree. I am 100% on your ti- I'm talking about more like when they actively go out of their way to like-

Tim Miller 55:57 Sure.

Kara Swisher 55:58 ... to, to slap back at it. But I agree with you. I just, uh, look, whatever journey Lindsey Graham is on is his journey. It is hypocritical, obviously, but h- when has that not happened? Do you remember during the Reagan administration, they were crawling with gays.

Tim Miller 56:10 Oh, my God, half the administration.

Kara Swisher 56:11 They were crawling with gays-

Tim Miller 56:13 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 56:13 ... and they were doing anti-gay things. In that case, I think it's perfectly okay. But the stakes for, you know, with AIDS were so massive at the time, it seemed like. They are massive now too. Um, their, their attacks on gay marriage right now are really quite disturbing.

Tim Miller 56:26 Are you worried about that? I don't know. I, I keep telling people, I think that the trans ... If I, I, I'm, I am acutely worried if I'm transgender, if I'm a migrant, and I think those are very acute crises right now, and we should, we should really focus on them.

Kara Swisher 56:38 We should.

Tim Miller 56:38 The gay marriage thing, I kind of ... I, I just would be ... Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know.

Kara Swisher 56:42 Uh, I think that there are people that are, uh, very intent on, uh, uh, still angry about gay marriage. And they are-

Tim Miller 56:50 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 56:50 ... they, they just sit there and they seethe, and they work and they work and they work-

Tim Miller 56:53 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 56:53 ... to overturn it.

Tim Miller 56:54 That's right.

Kara Swisher 56:55 Even if most-

Tim Miller 56:55 I just think it's a losing fight for them. The abortion thing, I think a lot on the left thought the abortion thing would be a losing fight for them.

Kara Swisher 57:00 Yeah.

Tim Miller 57:00 And, and, and, and they, and they compare the, the two issues, and they kind of conflate them. And I just, I think for a variety of reasons, like gay marriage is like a 70% issue in the country, and I think it would be a pretty big, uh, loser.

Kara Swisher 57:11 Well, it hasn't stopped them on a lot of things, right?

Tim Miller 57:13 That's true.

Kara Swisher 57:13 Gun control. That's ... Uh, I think there is a group of dedicated anti-gay people that have never ... I've always thought they've never gone away, and everyone's like, "Now we won." I'm like, "Have we?" You know, I think you should be vigilant with these people.

Tim Miller 57:26 I agree with that.

Kara Swisher 57:26 I think they would very much like to do a lot of things to women and gay people that are really disturbing. And so, uh, and set them back, and they, they articulate it now, and you see it. Even f- the things Vance pushes.

Tim Miller 57:39 Yeah. But like, it's noteworthy the change in how unbridled they are now. Like, they feel totally now unshackled to say their real feelings about gay people. Like, there was a period of time where I think people were like, "Uh, this is, there'll be backlash against me," or this, that, and-

Kara Swisher 57:54 Yeah.

Tim Miller 57:55 And you're not seeing that anymore.

Kara Swisher 57:56 No.

Tim Miller 57:56 And I think that's, that's revealing. In some way, I think it's bad. I, I worry about it for younger, uh, LGBT f- uh, people. Um, but, um, I also, in some ways, I think it's, it's nice for it to be revealing, that we can see the score a little bit.

Kara Swisher 58:09 See, I've always thought they were like this. I never thought they were friendly to us for a minute. And by the way, they d- they are committed to overturning marriage, some of those people. And guess what? We're committed not to. So, that's the o- the part that the, I think, uh, uh, you can, me- you'll see how that's gonna go, trying to take my marriage-

Tim Miller 58:26 Yeah. (laughs)

Kara Swisher 58:27 ... away from me. All right, Tim, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

Kara Swisher 58:31 Okay, Tim, let's hear some wins and fails. I will go first. Um, I think, uh, i- it's sort of a fail, this Trump's cankle thing. I know people are like, "Ugh." It's really odd. I have to say Alex Jones is concerned about Trump's health. He warned last week at the current trajectory, Trump is going to have some sort of collapse within the next 12 months. Thank you, Dr. Jones, you terrible, heinous-

Tim Miller 58:53 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 58:53 ... speaking of heinous bitches. Trump's hands are also looking questionable with all those odd smears of makeup. You think he could do better as the president. He had a weird walking thing. The age is ... As I have said, the cognitive decline and the age decline is real. And he ... Let me tell you, he's a lively old man, that's for sure. Like, he's the, he's the guy in the, in the, in the nursing home that's just real lively, but still gonna keel over at any moment, could keel over at any moment. Uh, I think that's, uh, I think they ... I'm not sure why they aren't controlling this, um, s- especially with the makeup and everything else, l- largely because he's probably very vain and everything else. But he's, he's obviously aged rather significantly in so many ways, and I think it's taking its toll on him. Um, it feels like he's rotting. It feels like when Voldemort was starting to rot, like when he wasn't getting enough dead people, that, or his Horcrux.

Tim Miller 59:41 We can't, uh, we can't see his real face is something that's true. Now, now-

Kara Swisher 59:44 Yeah.

Tim Miller 59:44 ... the leader will not show us what he really looks like, because-

Kara Swisher 59:47 Right.

Tim Miller 59:48 ... um, it's, you know, he's, uh, he's so fragile now. Decaying.

Kara Swisher 59:51 He, he looks like he was o- on Ozempic, but now he looks fat again. I'm like, "Hm, something's going on with his health." I think, I don't think that's a win or a fail. I just feel like-

Tim Miller 1:00:00 You just wanted to mention it? (laughs)

Kara Swisher 1:00:01 ... I don't think it's ... I just want to mention it, because I-

Tim Miller 1:00:02 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 1:00:02 ... I think people are like, "Oh, let's not mention it." I'm like, "No, no."

Tim Miller 1:00:04 Yeah.

Kara Swisher 1:00:04 "He looks ... If we're gonna ..." Like, we should've mentioned more things about Biden, and Scott and I did, and gotten a lot of crap. This, he looks ... There's something going on with this guy.

Tim Miller 1:00:12 Cankles are noteworthy. And if the-

Kara Swisher 1:00:13 Noteworthy.

Tim Miller 1:00:13 If the cankles-

Kara Swisher 1:00:14 Cankles.

Tim Miller 1:00:14 ... are as wide as Alex Jones' neck-

Kara Swisher 1:00:17 Yeah. (laughs)

Tim Miller 1:00:17 ... you know that there is something concerning there.

Kara Swisher 1:00:19 Remember when they attacked Hillary Clinton's cankles? You know, I'm just saying.

Tim Miller 1:00:22 I don't recall that.

Kara Swisher 1:00:22 It's good for the gan-

Tim Miller 1:00:23 I hope that wasn't me.

Kara Swisher 1:00:24 It's good for the gander.

Tim Miller 1:00:25 (laughs)

Kara Swisher 1:00:25 No, it wasn't you. It's good for the goose. Um, and my, my win is the fantastic, once again, we have the new version of Wicked coming, and it's only in three months, and I think their social media campaign is fantastic. And they've done a great job. I love Jon Chu. Um, he's gonna be here in DC next couple, uh, next week. I'm gonna see him hopefully. Um, I just, I'm very excited about, uh, about that movie, and I just can't g- I'm not gonna hide it. I love it, and I love the actors in it, and I think they're doing a spectacular marketing job on it. And I just love to watch, uh, people use social media in a really positive way, and I like that, and it gives me pleasure. Your win and fail?

Tim Miller 1:01:04 All right. Well, I wasn't planning this one, but, uh, if we're doing, you know, musical shout-outs, I should win for ... I, I have to give my Oasis guys a win. I mean, they, they reunited. Nobody said they could do it. They're coming to America now this week. They'll be back.

Kara Swisher 1:01:15 Yeah.

Tim Miller 1:01:15 Nobody ever thought they'd be back together like that.

Kara Swisher 1:01:16 Explain why this is a big deal.

Tim Miller 1:01:17 There's the brothers-

Kara Swisher 1:01:18 They hated ... They're brothers.

Tim Miller 1:01:18 ... Noel and Liam Gallagher. They are brothers. They were very, um, C word in the British sense. I still won't say that in your presence, uh, Kara, but, like, kind of Englishmen who, uh, drank a lot and fought together. And obviously folks will know Wonderwall or, or Champagne Supernova, some of their famous songs. And so they've been broken up for 16 years, and they spent most of the decade and a half shit talking each other in the press, and the idea was like they never would get back together. They're back together. I went to one of their shows in Manchester, and then their reunion shows, and now they're, they're, now this-

Kara Swisher 1:01:45 Was it good? Are they good?

Tim Miller 1:01:46 It was amaz-

Kara Swisher 1:01:47 Or are they sad?

Tim Miller 1:01:47 It was ama- it was amaz- it was biblical. It was unbelievable.

Kara Swisher 1:01:48 Oh, really? Okay.

Tim Miller 1:01:48 It was amazing. He sounds amazing. I think he wants to quit smoking or got a vocal coach. 'Cause I, I, you know, I, uh, sometimes you'll go to see the aging rock stars.

Kara Swisher 1:01:56 Mm-hmm.

Tim Miller 1:01:56 I hate to, I, I went to see Pearl Jam-

Kara Swisher 1:01:58 Yeah.

Tim Miller 1:01:58 ... at Jazz Fest, and it's like, "Ugh."

Kara Swisher 1:01:59 Oh, that was bad.

Tim Miller 1:02:00 You know, you can just tell-

Kara Swisher 1:02:01 Yeah, yeah.

Tim Miller 1:02:01 ... sometimes, you know-

Kara Swisher 1:02:02 The last Madonna concert, that's how I felt.

Tim Miller 1:02:04 It was rough.

Kara Swisher 1:02:05 I was like, "Oh, no, no."

Tim Miller 1:02:05 Yeah. So, um-... not the case with Liam. He sounds amazing, they sound amazing. Everyone was so excited because people who are into ISIS are really into it. Like, the crowd around me knew every word. It was wonderful. So that was a win.

Kara Swisher 1:02:14 Good. Great. So they're coming here.

Tim Miller 1:02:15 I had the one that I, uh, that I planned on doing was I was go- ... It was the, on a more sp- serious level, I was gonna give Putin a win in their little summit-

Kara Swisher 1:02:22 Okay.

Tim Miller 1:02:22 ... in Alaska.

Kara Swisher 1:02:22 Go for it.

Tim Miller 1:02:23 Not because ... No, I, I don't really have much there.

Kara Swisher 1:02:24 Which is a fail for the US, right?

Tim Miller 1:02:24 It's just obvious now. When it had happened, there was like ... You know, I, I feel, I think