How Foreign Trolls on X Are Manipulating U.S. Politics | Pivot
Kara Swisher (host), Scott Galloway (host), Scott Galloway (host), Guest (guest), Narrator, Marjorie Taylor Greene (guest), Kara Swisher (host), Guest (guest)
In this episode of Pivot, featuring Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, How Foreign Trolls on X Are Manipulating U.S. Politics | Pivot explores foreign Troll Farms, MAGA Grift, And America’s Vulnerable Information Ecosystem Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway dissect how foreign troll farms and opportunistic MAGA accounts on X (Twitter) are manipulating U.S. political discourse, especially around Ukraine, and how platform owners like Musk and Zuckerberg have failed to mitigate it. They connect Russia’s information operations to GOP behavior, focusing on Marco Rubio’s contortions over a Ukraine “peace plan” that mirrors Russian demands. The conversation then widens to Google’s AI push with Gemini, market jitters over an AI bubble, the explosive rise of GLP‑1 weight-loss drugs, and the broader danger of incompetent political leadership and unaccountable billionaires. Along the way, they analyze Trump’s calculated embrace of New York mayor-elect Mamdani, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation, and the cultural implications of America’s elite losing empathy for everyone else.
Foreign Troll Farms, MAGA Grift, And America’s Vulnerable Information Ecosystem
Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway dissect how foreign troll farms and opportunistic MAGA accounts on X (Twitter) are manipulating U.S. political discourse, especially around Ukraine, and how platform owners like Musk and Zuckerberg have failed to mitigate it. They connect Russia’s information operations to GOP behavior, focusing on Marco Rubio’s contortions over a Ukraine “peace plan” that mirrors Russian demands. The conversation then widens to Google’s AI push with Gemini, market jitters over an AI bubble, the explosive rise of GLP‑1 weight-loss drugs, and the broader danger of incompetent political leadership and unaccountable billionaires. Along the way, they analyze Trump’s calculated embrace of New York mayor-elect Mamdani, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation, and the cultural implications of America’s elite losing empathy for everyone else.
Key Takeaways
Foreign troll farms are deeply embedded in MAGA discourse on X.
X’s new ‘About This Account’ feature exposed that many prominent “America First” and MAGA accounts are based in Russia, Nigeria, India, and Pakistan, illustrating how cheaply and effectively foreign actors can shape U. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Comments and engagement patterns are as weaponized as original posts.
Galloway notes that hostile comment swarms—often from tiny, suspicious accounts—create a false sense of public consensus, nudging influencers and ordinary users toward self-censorship or more extreme positions driven by perceived backlash or praise.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
GOP foreign policy rhetoric increasingly tracks Russian interests.
They argue that Russia, China, Iran and others largely favor divisiveness and often the GOP, citing the Ukraine “peace plan” Rubio handled—which senators say resembled a Russian wishlist—as emblematic of Republicans echoing Kremlin talking points.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Platform owners have consistently downplayed or ignored foreign interference.
Swisher highlights Zuckerberg’s early denial of Russian influence on Facebook and Musk’s indifference to X as a “Nazi porn bar,” arguing that both prioritize influence and revenue over mitigation, even as their platforms become core psyops tools.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Google’s Gemini 3 may overtake rivals by combining quality with distribution and ads.
Gemini’s benchmark performance, integration into Google Search (AI overviews), and early move to monetize via ads rather than subscriptions give Alphabet a powerful path to scale AI, though open models like DeepSeek are looming competitive threats.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Markets look fragile, but hype cycles can overshoot long after warnings start.
Despite pullbacks in NVIDIA and crypto and rising “AI bubble” chatter, Galloway notes that historically, once everyone agrees valuations are crazy, markets often continue to run before the real correction hits—hence his own move to gradually de‑risk.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
GLP‑1 drugs may be more transformative than AI for everyday life and the economy.
Eli Lilly’s trillion‑dollar valuation underscores how weight-loss drugs could slash healthcare costs, reduce heart disease and depression, and change population health; Galloway advocates a massive federal purchase and rollout as a true economic ‘moonshot’.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
America is trading competence in government for loyalty, with real security risks.
Galloway contrasts historically top-tier public servants with current cabinet-level appointees who peddle pseudoscience or fumble core policy, warning that replacing expertise with acolytes makes the U. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
The ultra-wealthy are increasingly detached from the American experience.
They argue that billionaires live in a separate system—private schools, clinics, airports—so their policy interventions often lack empathy for middle-class realities, and we should stop reflexively treating wealth as proof of broad wisdom.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Notable Quotes
“Why would you spend $4 or $5 billion trying to build an aircraft carrier when you can spend $100 million and essentially create a pretty strong narrative against providing more weapons and aid to Ukraine by weaponizing troll farms?”
— Scott Galloway
“Your MAGA hat was made in China, and your MAGA hate was made in Russia. Nothing about you is America first.”
— Kara Swisher (quoting a Threads post and endorsing its point)
“We are so desperate for some semblance of sanity from the GOP that we love this person because she’s good on the Epstein files… Do not trust this woman. Good fucking riddance.”
— Scott Galloway on Marjorie Taylor Greene
“The super rich lose their empathy… They have their own airports, their own healthcare, their own schools. Rich people are losing touch with the American experience.”
— Scott Galloway
“People have felt more and more hopeless about the enormity of the wealth and the impossibility of fighting it. Mamdani has shown how to get your fight back. Money doesn’t buy everything.”
— Kara Swisher summarizing Tina Brown’s comment on Mamdani’s win
Questions Answered in This Episode
How should U.S. regulators and platforms realistically tackle foreign troll farms without infringing free speech or turning tech companies into de facto intelligence agencies?
Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway dissect how foreign troll farms and opportunistic MAGA accounts on X (Twitter) are manipulating U. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If comments and engagement are so easily gamed by bots and foreign actors, what new literacy or product design changes are needed to protect users from manipulated ‘public opinion’?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
To what extent are current GOP leaders consciously aligning with Russian objectives versus being pulled there by domestic political incentives and media ecosystems?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Could Google’s ad-driven AI model ultimately create new risks—like opaque sponsored answers in AI overviews—even as it undercuts subscription-based rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What would a serious, large-scale federal GLP‑1 rollout look like in practice, and how might it reshape U.S. healthcare spending, labor productivity, and politics over the next decade?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
This is a huge story the media's not paying attention to, and Scott and I have been stressing this for years. (instrumental music) Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and I'm stoked. I just ran and worked out, and I'm drinking kefir. That's what I'm doing.
Uh, I'm Scott Galloway. Uh, I did none of those things. I, I don't even know what kefir is.
Mm.
I've heard it.
I think some people pronounce it "kah-fear." I don't know, I just love it, let me just say.
I just, I'm just pretty sure anyone who drinks it also includes their pronouns at the end of an email.
No, it's just so good for you. It's full of protein. It's full of all kinds of good... Fermented. This is like... I- I am so much healthier.
I do like fermentation, I'll give you that.
I like fermentation stuff. I'm gonna get you some sauerkraut for Christmas 'cause it's a perfect gift for someone like you.
Hmm.
Um, I just wanna keep you alive. That's really what it is, and it's not-
You got it.
... a metaphor to your personality in any way. How was your weekend?
It was all right. It was nice. The boys were home, it was really nice. A lot of Premier League.
I had an interesting... First of all, I went on a date with my lovely wife, which was nice, and some friends. Um, many people in the restaurant love Pivot, by the way. Um-
That's good to know.
And then, uh, and then, um, my friend from sixth grade, Trebby Williams, came over for brunch with her husband, Chris Keeney, who was my eighth grade boyfriend. So it was really fun. It was-
Wow.
I know.
That's a lot.
They're wonderful people. They found love, uh, uh, th- this is their second marriage, both of them. And I have to say, um, both of their spouses died. Um, and they are wonderful. They're, I, I am, lo- I love having friends from that... I know you have those friends, and I really, uh, value it quite a bit.
Do they have, did they have kids from their previous marriages?
Yeah, mm-hmm. Yep. Older kids. You know, the, her daughter's a professor at Berkeley, or associate professor. Uh, her, uh, her other daughter's a really well-known tattoo artist in, um, in Los Angeles, oddly enough. Interesting.
Huh.
Um, and, uh, and he has kids. I don't know his kids as well. But, um, yeah, they did. They're just, there's, they're, they're a wonderful couple, I have to say.
That's nice. Sounds like a, sounds like a, sounds like a nice, um-
It was. It was a Sunday brunch-y thing, and it was really, it was quite lovely. It was quite lovely, right?
Install uListen to search the full transcript and get AI-powered insights
Get Full TranscriptGet more from every podcast
AI summaries, searchable transcripts, and fact-checking. Free forever.
Add to Chrome