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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Hello, Scott. How you doing? Good, Cara. Back in London. Oh, I'm finally back in D.C. for a very short period of time. Oh, good. And where are you headed next? Boston to do one with the governor and Princeton, New Jersey to do one at my old high school and also at Princeton University. And then I'm going to see Louis and Buenos Aires.
Oh, yeah, that's right. You're going to be late. I'm so excited. Yeah. Yeah. Did you like me on Bill Maher? I'm serious, Kara. I thought you were outstanding. Thank you. I thought that was one of your better—I thought you just nailed it. I sent you a text message that you should take a pause and reflect on the moment. Yes, you did. That was very sweet. I thought you were really, really smart. And not only that, I thought he was great. Yeah. I thought the way he interviewed you—
The banter was good. He made a couple of really, I thought, really interesting points. - Yeah, yeah. But more to the point, do you like my new best friend, Justin Theroux, who also knows you?
Just FYI, I was friends with Justin first. Well, not anymore. Just so you know. I gave him the Bill Maher vest. Just so you know. Just so you know. I gave him the soft, lovely vest. He looks really good in it. You're literally, you're like the girl in high school that when I like a guy, you start fucking him. I mean...
You're, Justin pinged me. To be clear, I am not fucking him, but go ahead. Well, you know what I mean. Anyways, Justin Dorell reached out to me and said, let's get together and da-da-da, we're both...
And then all of a sudden you're taking him to Bill Maher. Yeah. Well, we had lunch before the Chateau Marmont. He's very substantive. He's very soulful. He is. He's a beautiful, he's a writer. He's really interesting. That's a pit bull too. Oh, really? Oh, I didn't know that. We don't know each other that well yet. So we will in time, of course. You're not good, good friends like me and Justin. I'll dial you in on his fetishes. We'll all go out. He's a lovely guy. By the way, just in case you didn't know, he's circumcised.
Okay. Good to know I did. Anyway, thank you about Bill Maher. It was fun, actually. It was really well done. You did great. You were really good. It was very helpful. And of course, the freaking out because of the Elons. I got attacked by Elon over the weekend. And then also I was on Jen Psaki's show and she was noting that he's for Trump, but pretending he's not. And then they...
You know, I said, "Hello, he lied." And they say, "I said he was a liar. I just was making a joke." In any case. Well, let me just clarify. He is a liar. He lies all the—he's the lying fuck of lying liars. And there you have it. Either that or he's so high on some disassociative drug, he can't disassociate with the truth any longer. Yeah, that could be possible too. All right. Anything else? I'm sorry. Go ahead. I thought you were great on Bill Maher. Justin Theroux has great hair.
That's great. Anyhow, we have a lot to get to today, including what's in the DOJ antitrust case against Apple and how true social is factoring into Donald Trump's money issues. Plus, our friend of Pivot is Jim Sciutto, CNN's national security analyst. There's a lot going on, including what's just happened in Russia.
And he's the author of The Return of Great Powers, Russia, China and the Next World War. It's a good week to have him on given this attack in Russia and, of course, everything that continues to happen in Ukraine and Israel and Gaza. But first, employees at NBC News and MSNBC are not happy after the announcement that former RNC chair Ronald McDaniel would be hired as a political analyst. The move has been met with disappointment.
internally, I would say more than that, including Chuck Todd, who said McDaniel has credibility issues. Chuck went to town on Meet the Press. Christine Welker had to interview McDaniel, who had been booked before she was hired. So she continued with it and gave her a pretty tough interview. But Chuck Todd sort of unloaded in a relatively polite style, but pretty tough about what people inside NBC feel. She's an election denier. And then she suddenly isn't. She's obviously going back on everything she said because
It's just her talking now, not as the head of the RNC. In an effort to address the backlash, MSNBC's president, Rashida Jones, told anchors they would not be forced to have McDaniel on their shows. I mean, just the stink of her is a problem, though. So what do you think? Okay, I'll go, but I feel as if you have more domain expertise here. No, no, I want to hear what you have to say first. I'm really curious because you're a regular Joe, so to speak. I'm just a Joe.
It strikes me that in this era, being a spokesperson for the DNC or the RNC or being – there are quite a few spokespeople from the Trump White House who have recovered and gone on to get decent jobs. And they acknowledge that what they said a lot of times –
It's like Republicans seem to grow testicles about the time they're out the door, right? Bill Barr can't stop talking about what a bad president he was serving. And I mean, so the question I would have if I were in the MSNBC war room trying to deal with this is how much of this is the duplicitous, hypocritical, disingenuous previous behavior of someone? And do we apply the same standards to people who come from Democratic organizations who have taken license with the truth?
So it's a tough one because generally speaking in media, they kind of give you a little bit of a hall pass when you're in a political position before that. I agree with you. They're all over the place. Look, George Stephanopoulos worked for Echelonese now, quite a good host of the Sunday show. Same thing with Jen Psaki. Excellent. I was on her show. She's quite good. She does disclose it. And she's not, the issue is she's not across purposes to what she said then, right? This was an astonishing interview with Christian Welker. Like this woman is a
is a full-scale election denier. Not just a little bit, not like questions, we need to ask questions. She was an election denier, and now she isn't. So which one of, I mean, so she's a liar at one point, whichever one. And even now, she's, why did she change her mind? I'd like a long explanation from her as to why she did. Because she's no longer being paid to lie. And that's the same as other people. That's right. But I'd like her to say it out of her
out of her meat flaps. That's what I'd like. For her, there's certain people, I get it, they come in, you know, whether you've got, I'm trying to think. I mean, they do it over on Fox. They do it on all of them. They bring in these generals, et cetera, et cetera. I think holding their feet to the fire when you're talking to them, this woman seems...
You know, there was a controversy at CNN over Sarah Isker, who was actually on Marr this week. I think there's a smell test with some people more than others. And I think you're not going to prevent this from happening because, you know, their experts are often people who worked, you know, like David Axelrod. But you don't have an issue with David Axelrod because, you know, he says what he thinks. It's just that this woman went really far. Like picking this lady is...
I don't know. It's sort of like if you took in, if you made Pence one, that would be a problem for me. I don't know. Just there's a couple people where they just don't get to come back in that regard. And, you know, they'll say they're not allowed to speak, but they should go on Fox News if they want to do that. She could do that.
they have no standards over there. So I think this is a real black eye to NBC, like a real black eye. And I'm surprised that they did it with her because she's so egregious. She's like beyond egregious. So we'll see. I think it's going to have a backlash forever. And I think the right will say, oh, you know, they're trying to cancel her. But she deserves to be canceled in that regard, especially because she said things with Trump and now she's trying to backtrack because this is me. And I'm just like,
You have no credibility issues. She has none. So anyway, we'll move on. Speaking of credibility issues, Boeing's chief executive, David Calhoun, will step down at the end of the year following several plane safety failures. In addition, the company's CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes will resign immediately, and its chairman, Larry Kellner, will not seek leave. It's a clean out. So you
Other people pay the price, Scott. This is interesting. The announcement comes less than three months after the door plug blew off a Boeing MAX 9 during the Alaska Airlines flight. The FAA audit of production found dozens of issues and gave the company 90 days for fixes. I mean, it looks so sloppy. Will this help the Boeing brand bounce back or do they take too long? I think they move quickly because...
Look, as you say, there's never been a perp walk for tech. There's never been someone arrested for a girl's self-esteem, but one door blows off and everyone goes to jail, essentially, or gets fired or investigated or lawsuits, et cetera. What do you think? So first off, you could argue it's a bit unfair because he's been the CEO since 2019, and there's very little he could do
When there's literally thousands of these very complicated machines in the air, there's little he could institute in four years that would turn this thing around. I guess. Having said that, having said that, this was absolutely the right thing to do. Because here's the thing. We always make excuses for CEOs when they make three or four hundred times the average worker that that's OK. It's the market. They benefit. He got a bit of a raw deal. But the bottom line is when your planes start having malfunctions,
mid-air, heads got to roll. Is it a little bit unfair? Was he at the wrong place at the wrong time? Yeah. But guess what? The majority of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies tend to be constantly in the right place at the right time. And there's only three things you have to remember about crisis management, and then I'll get to a broader viewpoint on aviation. And that is,
In crisis management, you just got to remember three things. And everyone always gets it wrong because they sound easy, but they're not. The first is you have to acknowledge the problem. This is unacceptable. This is what happened. Two, the top guy or gal has to take responsibility. They need to be out in front. And then third, you need to overcorrect. And this is what the board is doing. The board is saying, look, it's probably not fair.
They could probably make all sorts of excuses for why he's actually trying to address these problems and turn around a tanker of a culture that resulted in these things. But they're like, you know what? We have to overcorrect. We're sorry, but we have to show we're really serious about this. And then the larger point around aviation is people don't appreciate
Global aviation, which is really only several decades old, the majority, I mean, people really didn't start using the lubricant of global commerce in terms of face-to-face meetings and diplomacy via commercial jet transportation literally until the 60s or 70s. It's a fairly new thing.
It is also fucking frightening and unbelievable that you can skirt along the surface of the atmosphere at 8 tenths the speed of sound and get to your destination safely. It is literally a wondrous feat, and it is so important to the global economy that the FAA decided—
We're going to make this so ridiculously safe. We're going to impose a set of standards that are so over-engineered. Imagine your car, a mechanic showed up, and this isn't an exaggeration, every 30 days and said, I'm going to change the spark plugs, the tires. I'm going to test everything. I'm going to deploy and redeploy the airbags. I'm just going to make sure this thing is absolutely bulletproof.
That is what they do in the FAA. And the success of that approach is that people have absolutely no issues saying, I have to go pick up my kids at camp. I'm going to get on a plane. I have an opportunity to sell software into a company in Toronto. The most neurotic –
You don't even have to be that neurotic to get on a plane and be scared. Oh, my brother doesn't fly. My little brother doesn't fly. But that's unusual. The majority of people... Yeah, it is. It's a pain in the ass, too. The majority of people take the risk and get on planes because it is by far the safest form of transportation in the world. And it's lubricated the global economy. So their attention, neurotic, obsessive, compulsive, anal retentive focus on safety has paid off.
huge dividends globally. Listen, he didn't deserve, may not have deserved it, doesn't really matter. He took the big job. He's, the buck stopped there. The buck always stops there and it should happen in tech more often. Okay, last one. The Kate Middleton mystery has been solved and it has us remembering that the internet is bad. By now, we know she has cancer, is going through preventative chemotherapy for weeks. Conspiracy theories and jokes have been floating around online about Middleton's whereabouts, even reaching the late night shows. I,
There was a big piece that we should all feel bad. I don't know about that. I think it's a combination of really bad PR on the point of them. I mean, she's a global figure. And as much as she might expect some privacy, they made it worse. And at the same time,
You know, now you look like idiots for making fun of a cancer victim. So it kind of it's sort of the Internet is this way. And I don't really know if we have to if we have to blame the Internet at this point because it does it on every story. And I don't know. I don't know. What do you think?
I think you can hold two thoughts in your mind at the same time. The first thought is a 42-year-old woman who is battling cancer, who has three children, it's very sad. Yeah, 100%. You want to feel empathy for her. You want her. The last thing you'd want to do is have anything add to that pain. I mean, you can absolutely have empathy for her and respect it and understand why she may have made the decisions she made. At the same time, with all due respect, when you pick a life that includes wearing pants
the crown's jewels and going to every cool event and being called the Duchess of whatever. Sorry, there's incredible downsides. And one of those downsides is if you get sick, the public's going to find out or they're going to go fucking apeshit trying to figure it out. So bottom line, whoever's handling comms for the palace, fucked up here. Because they should have said, we're very sorry, Kate. This is awful. We feel for you. This is going to come out.
And until we're straight with the public about what's going on here, it is going to be a shit show. And it's going to make things worse. So I'm not talking about what should be. I'm talking about what is. Right. Agreed. I don't even think what should be. They're the most famous family in Britain. And they're going to look at it. They get covered on everything. Let me just tell you, her video was classy. It was lovely. It was appropriate. I don't think she needed to say anything else about her cancer. Everyone's now wondering about that. That's fine.
I'm sick. I have cancer. And I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I'm going to tell you I'm trying to deal with my family. It's a combination of bad things. We wish her well. And she's young and healthy. And so from what I understand should be, hopefully, this will be one of those like
like my own strokes. It'll be your footnote, hopefully. You're right. Kate is young. We've made remarkable progress against cancer. More people actually survive cancer now than die from it. Yeah. Four of my friends, they're doing good. I have four friends who have cancer young. But the analogy I thought of with Kate, and I realize it's a different situation, but
If Biden goes, is out of public eyeshot for 24 hours, everyone's going to start freaking out. I mean, you want to talk, everyone will start turning into, you know, Sherlock Holmes. Wouldn't it be nice if Trump was out of eyeshot for 24 hours? But he won't be. He's always sort of eating breakfast at Mar-a-Lago. Anyway, we feel badly for her and King Charles. Let's get to our first big story. ♪
We're learning more about the Justice Department's lawsuit against Apple, which accuses the company of maintaining a monopoly over the smartphone market. The suit, which the DOJ filed with 16 states, argues Apple violated antitrust laws that make it difficult for competitors to integrate with the iPhone, ultimately driving up prices for consumers. The DOJ cites the App Store, smartwatches, cloud-based gaming, and messaging apps, that green dot, as some examples of Apple's monopoly. You know, interestingly enough,
Mr. Walt Mossberg made a case that this is a ridiculous thing. Apple said in a statement that the lawsuit is wrong on the facts and law and the company will vigorously defend against it. The side that Walt was on is that it's not unusual. He said on threads, that's like calling the best-selling expensive wine a monopoly when it actually has a modest overall market share. He is correct about that. The iPhone US market share is 62% in Q4 of 2023 in terms of shipments, according to CounterPoint Research.
The DOJ argues that Apple is more than 70% market share in the U.S. measuring by revenue and other metrics show Apple's dominance, particularly in terms of young users. Let me just get through this and I just love your thoughts. A comment made by Tim Cook at Code 2022 is also mentioned in the DOJ suit. Cook was responding to an audience question about improving communication with non-Apple devices. Let's listen to what he said exactly since we've been mentioning it. I don't hear...
our users asking that we put a lot of energy on that at this point. And so, now I would love to-- - Follow-up, let's continue. - I would love to convert you to iPhone. - It's just, it's tough.
Not to make it personal, but I can't send my mom certain videos or she can't send me certain videos. And so we leave her-- - Buy your mom an iPhone. - The DOJ is making the case that Apple's messaging interface with those green text bubbles for non-iPhone users created a social stigma. So let's go through it. - First off, if you're a guy and you send an attempt for a late night hookup or a booty call, and it comes from an Android bubble,
I think the likelihood you end up having sex at night is literally diminished dramatically. Oh, it's usually, you go right to the heart of it. Go ahead. Well, look, this is all, look, Apple's all about sex. It's a subtle way of saying I'm creative and I'm wealthy. And by the way, this is also clearly, this is Walt saying,
You know, listen, kid, move out the way. Daddy's back. I think he's a little bit jealous of your attention. No, he isn't. No, he's right. I know. I know. But he covered them a lot. But go ahead. Sorry. He's caused a bit of a stir on the Internet. Yeah. It's like, well, here's Waltz.
Yeah.
Their investment in going vertical here, I think, gives them the right to inhibit or diminish or whatever the term is. If you have Gmail from Google, if you have the Gmail app, it's better.
So is that anti-competitive? So I think they're focusing on the wrong thing here. I agree. I think they overdid it. I think the App Store is a slam dunk and that they went overboard on the other things. And, you know, I think Apple has a very good argument that, you know, we're just a good product that people like. I think the App Store, that 30 percent, the inability to do payments, these are things that they've won and lost on in the
It's not fully clear what's happening here, but that's the fight to fight. Now, I haven't talked to John Cantor or anybody else yet. Maybe I will. But I do think they gilded the lily here. It's a very good case because the DOJ is making the case that you were just talking about, that this green bubble is in there. It's the beginning of a legal fight that could go on for years. And I think they're going to have...
I think they're going to have a hard time with a lot of the things that they, I think they're going to lose on a lot of the things. And I think the app store, just drilling down on the app store seems to be like, because they had all those amicus briefs. And I do agree that they don't, you don't have a choice. That said, you don't have a choice in Google either. So they kind of go hand in glove. There's only two systems. So what can you do to make, since this is the situation we have with phones, it's oligopoly essentially, right?
What is the way we make it better for everyone to be able to be surfaced? I think looking at their competition with Spotify, just like in Europe, I think that's a way to look very strongly at it when they create products. It's very much like when Microsoft did MSN and was going after AOL. I think that has a much more of an opening. So it's just a little... I think Walt really did sort of take it apart in terms of the stuff they were doing, but not the App Store. I think that is...
as you said, is really the important part. The most powerful part of the complaint is
was the following. It says,
We're accepting billions of dollars each year for choosing Google as its default search engine when more private options are available. In the end, Apple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple's financial and business interests. Jesus Christ. Everyone, go to law school and learn how to write like this.
Anyways, but whoever wrote this, whatever, I just, if anyone thinks the government is incompetent, someone at the DOJ, some junior, junior lawyer wrote this. I know who wrote it, but go ahead. Yeah. Who's really talented. There's a deputy. And the three of you are going out with Justin Theroux. Anyways. We are. And then we're going to have a cuddle puddle, but go ahead. I knew him first.
You know, he loves me better. I knew him first. He actually loves me desperately. Anyway, go ahead. I couldn't believe I saw you. You are so invading the few things I have in my life. You're at Bill Maher with Justin Theroux. Literally, you're like, what, are you going to start going to Premier League games with Emily Ratajkowski now? I mean, come on. You haven't met her yet. I know because you sequestered her from me. We were meant to be together. I'm not sequestered.
Who else do you really like? Who else do I really like? I'm not going to go into who I like and don't like. I had another one of these douchebag CEOs get me on the phone this week. I have a big tech company and talk about how nice he is. Now I get it wrong. I'm like, how did I end up here again? Was it Elon? Yeah.
No, it wasn't Elon. I'll give you that. It wasn't Elon. Anyway, you're not going to say who it is? I'm sorry. All right, back to Apple. It wasn't Tim Cook. Okay. All right. So look, this is a case that they have drawn, I think, probably too broadly because people do have an affection for Apple and the uses of it. And if you're in the system, you like the system. And so that's what's... I don't think people don't feel like they have choice. And the stuff about the bubble...
If you want to buy that iPhone, they don't have to make it easy for it to interoperate. They just don't. They just, they absolutely, in that case, I find that to be kind of a ridiculous argument. But that said, the App Store is certainly, I think both the Google App Store and the Apple App Store have to go over and above to make it easier for competitors and not to charge things because they're the only toll keeper. And they're going to get, they're going to have to do it whether they like it or not. So in that way, that's, that to me seems very easy to remedy. And, yeah,
We'll see where it goes. But it's going to go on for years and years and years. But I think they overstepped. And that's the privacy thing. Look, you can both use it as a marketing tool and also actually be quite committed to it. So I think they're both, right? That's why they're talking to Google about AI because they don't collect a lot of data. So I don't know. I think they are committed to privacy, but I think they use it as both a marketing thing and a cudgel for people. It all bubbles up. And I like to go meta on this stuff.
The thing that ails our country is that for the first time, a younger generation is not doing as well as their parents. That's never happened before. And Jonathan Haidt just wrote this amazing book called The Anxious Generation. So they're not only not doing as well, but every day they're reminded of how they're not doing as well with constant benchmarking from algorithms that convince them that everyone's making a shit ton of money vacationing at the almond and dating someone much hotter than
And so the question is, how do we solve this? Through a lot of things, tax policy, vocational program, but also we break these motherfuckers up. And it all rolls up to the same thing. Our country is angry. People don't believe in America. They're not mating because they don't have economic opportunity, because we are totally weaponized by big corporations and the wealthy and the incumbents. And I'm all of those things, and I see how terrible it is.
All right, Teddy Roosevelt, thank you for that lovely speech. I agree with you. I agree. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. But we'll see. I think this case is going to be a long time, a long time. I don't think this one's going to work. Yeah, I'm not so sure. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk about true social going public. And we'll speak to our friend at Pivot, CNN's Jim Sciutto.
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Scott, we're back. He's being called Don Porleone on social media, but Donald Trump's finances are about to get a big boost. Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of True Social, will likely become a publicly traded company this week following Digital World Acquisition Corp's approval of a merger last Friday. As we record this, Trump just got a lifeline for that judgment in his civil fraud case. The bond was reduced from $454 million to $175 million by the New York Appeals Court. Trump now has 10 days to pose that bond.
I don't know why he gets a break, but what do you think about this deal? The Trump Media and Technology Group has a market value of around $5 billion based on a $37 share price at Digital World Acquisition Corp. Trump owns 60%. His overall net worth will increase by about $3 billion.
That said, you know, this is a meme stock, no matter how you slice it. There's also a lockup provision in the merger agreement that would, in theory, prevent Trump from selling his shares for at least six months. He can, the lockup agreement could be waived by the board, which includes his son, Don Jr., Devin Nunes, the CEO, and Linda McMahon, who used to run WWE or whatever she did over there. They're all friends of Trump.
So, but if he sells, you know, the price will go down. If he sells, there's going to be lawsuits aplenty. I'll say the last thing, two last things. DWAC, the SPAC that merged with Trump's company, was already a meme stock to start with. As Fast Company put it, Donald Trump's true social could be the memiest meme stock that ever memed.
And once again, Republican mega donor Jeff Yass was the biggest institutional shareholder of DWAC, according to a report in The New York Times. He's also a major investor in TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, as we discussed last week. I don't know. This is just a feels like a lawsuit, like a securities lawsuit waiting to happen. But your thoughts, Scott, this is your area of expertise.
So say you were running for president and you needed a bond of half a billion dollars and you knew someone who was the largest shareholder on TikTok. And you said, if I become president, I'll make sure it isn't banned or whatever it is. You could get someone by virtue of the White House. You could get them billions of dollars in shareholder value. And you met with them on a golf course and you said, oh, and by the way,
There's a very small float in this SPAC that I have a large interest in. If you were just to throw, say, $10, $20, $30 million, maybe $50 million at this thing and keep the stock price elevated, that would make me very happy. Because when you look at Digital World Acquisition Company, the SPAC that's, I think, de-SPACing to take over Trump's true social...
Truth Social, the numbers I've seen, where the year to date it's done 3.5 million in revenue. The hottest AI companies stocks in the world are trading it like 60 or 70 times revenue. But Donald Trump's Truth Social, which has 5 million active users, which is literally nothing, made $3.5 million. That's worth 600 times revenue. So something, maybe it's just a meme stock.
Does it feel like a way to give them money? Like, it just totally does. It's like, this is going to be so investigated, I can't even stand it.
There is corruption on both sides of the aisle here. This one really stinks. He has the right to start a company as a private citizen. He has the right to merge it with a SPAC. He has the right to sell it after six months. I'm just speaking purely. I have never seen a company that feels like a better short. And this isn't financial advice because you have non-economic interest in this thing, and it could go to 100 if he's elected president.
But this is a company with $3.5 million in revenue that's trading for billions of dollars in value. He has the right to start it. He has the right to sell that stock. It's not going to happen in time unless maybe he can borrow against it. I don't know. The whole thing stinks. Who's going to take it? I mean, it's got to be donors that take it. This is so legal. I want to file a lawsuit right now. The president should be paid $10 million a year.
Every senator should be paid $1 million a year, if not $2 million a year. And they can't take money. Every representative should be paid $1 million a year for the following. All of your stocks go into a blind trust and they're held there for five years after you leave office. And you cannot go to work for anyone, anyone that's going to benefit for a government contract. Pay these people a shit ton of money so they don't have to paint their fence while they're in office for when they get out of office. It's just,
The corruption here is just it's just too tempting. Yeah, I don't know if they I think I just again, when he sells, it'll drop the stock. I think it's a way of giving him money. This is what it feels like. It's like a back way to do it. The fact that you're mixing social media, Donald Trump, TikTok and.
And stock, mean stocks is just like literally it's the peak 2024. It's peak 2024. This guy, as always, has found a way out. He's got to be the luckiest fuck in America. He really is. That said, I think this is just aching for litigators to come at this and
investigators and it'll be our, it's our next thing, whatever happens here, whatever the emails they're trading. By the way, this company is also embroiled in all kinds of legal action with its current, with the people who started it. There's all, and the, and the DWAC guy, there's all kinds of, he's now suing, he's now anti-Trump and they are kind of anti-Trump also, the ones that love Trump. So within this, there's also more lawsuits. There was a good piece in the Washington Post about that and they've been following it.
So there's lawsuits inside of lawsuits inside of lawsuits, which is sort of the brand of Donald Trump. So we'll see what happens here. But I don't think you should necessarily rely on this, but it's a damn good way to
get him money, you know? And of course it totally explains his flip-flop on TikTok. Give me a break. You just have to follow the money with this guy because he's, he's for sale and he loves money. And so he'll do whatever it takes to hold onto it. He'll do what you'll, he'll sell a steak or water or a piece of shit university to do so. So it's kind of gross, grotesque, my feeling. I don't have anything to add except I want to know what Walt thinks.
And Justin. And Justin Theroux. Yeah, together. Maybe Walt, Justin, and I will have dinner together. You're so like, I just look at a guy and the next thing I know, you're sending me photos of you in a hot tub with them. Well, you chose to live in London. We'd like to invite you, but you're not around. I didn't choose. I'm an influencer, not a decision maker. I didn't choose to live here. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Pivot.
Jim Sciutto is CNN's chief national security analyst and the author of The Return of Great Powers, Russia, China and the Next World War, which is really a happy title there, Jim. Welcome. But before we go, we're going to talk about the book in a second. But we have to talk about this attack of the concert hall in Moscow late last week that killed at least 137 people, a branch of ISIS called ISIS Kandahar.
K claimed responsibility for the attack. And if U.S. officials have confirmed that claim, the U.S. officials did warn about this, but born Russia, both publicly and privately about intelligence pointing to an impending attack. There's no indication that Ukraine was involved in any way, despite Putin trying to make that link in an address this weekend. It underscored vulnerabilities in Russia and Putin himself. And at the time the U.S. warned him, he called, called the warning blackmail, slander,
Can you just talk about this? Because obviously you're talking Russia's a big character in your book. For sure. Well, first of all, let's take Ukraine off the table. This is not a Ukraine style attack. They have no incentive to carry out an attack like this. So let's set that. And that's the U.S. intelligence assessment. Ukraine had nothing to do with this.
This group, ISIS-Horasan, as it's known, or ISIS-K as it's shortened, is a highly capable group. And we think of ISIS having disappeared as a threat, and it was greatly reduced following this U.S.-led campaign in Syria going back several years.
But ISIS-K is an offshoot of it based in Central Asia, so kind of away from Syria. And they're still able to generate plots, including plots overseas. It's ISIS-K that the U.S. believes is behind this terror attack that took place in Iran a number of months ago, which interestingly, the U.S. warned Iran about that attack previously.
prior, much like it did with this attack, which shows you a couple of things. One, the US Intel has a pretty decent handle on the activities of this group. But two, also, it shows you that
Even in the midst of this worsening standoff between the US and Russia, China, but also these kind of middle powers that are situating themselves- The proxies. The proxies. Well, and the friends, like the sort of like middle power capos, right, in the larger kind of organization in Iran or North Korea.
that even as that's happening, there is communication between those sides, right? And here you have an example of the US reaching out, making a positive step, say, hey guys, Russia, watch out for your southern flank here. You know, this is planning. Iran, watch out. These guys are planning something. And in each case, it kind of looks like Russia and Iran were like, I don't want to listen to you. And it didn't end up well for them. So what's the implications right now? Because I want to use it to get into your book. What are
What are the implications for Putin? Because he's had a lot of he's had the guy he ended up killing in the airplane accident, but got pretty close to Moscow. He's got you know, he's got all kinds of issues. He's obviously just won the election, so to speak. So where is he now? Because being safe in Russia was, as I recall, when I was there, the prime directive of keeping people safe by instilling fear in them and protecting them.
This is his whole basis of legitimacy, right? Is I'm the strong man, I'm going to keep you safe. From the various boogeymen, you know, terrorists certainly, but the US, NATO, the Ukrainians, you know, the Nazis in Ukraine, all this kind of stuff that he creates as his enemies. I mean, oddly enough, the real one is this terrorist group. The other ones are exaggerated to his own benefit. And I think it's also important to add this to our larger picture of Putin because there's this impression of him
as being 10 feet tall, right? And you remember this leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, you had a lot of folks, including in this country who said, he's too smart, he's too wise to invade Ukraine. He would never do that. He's playing three-dimensional chess. Lo and behold, he made a dumb move, right? And here you have him again, making what appears to be a dumb move. He had a warning from the US, he didn't heed that warning.
And we should not invest him with any more brilliance or, you know, wisdom than he actually has or has demonstrated. And so it is, as you say, you had a guy that drove halfway to Moscow in Progojin. You know, Putin later took him out, but it's not like everybody was standing in the way of Progojin when he was, you know, when he was doing that. So he's got weaknesses. He is not bulletproof. So speaking of that, in your book, you write that the current world structure, you say, for U.S. and its allies, this is a 1939 moment.
What do you mean by that? I do truly believe that. And I'll tell you, the idea for this book came to me while I was in Ukraine in February 2022, as the invasion was underway, as the tanks were coming across the border and the cruise missiles were falling on Ukrainian cities. It just struck me that while relations between the US and Russia and the US and China have been deteriorating for a number of years, and while we had had
warning signs, major shots across the bow, like Russia's partial invasion of Georgia in 2008, its partial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, other steps that China has taken, for instance, in the South China Sea, and a full-scale invasion of the largest country in Europe, an attempt to redraw the borders of Europe by force of arms,
presents many of the ingredients that we saw in 1939. You have an aggressive leader who views himself as an historic leader, righting the wrongs of the past by force of arms, and really is insatiable. He takes a piece, and then if the resistance isn't so great, he takes another piece, and he keeps going. I speak, Kaya Kalas, the Estonian prime minister,
who I speak to a great deal in this book, she likes to quote Churchill on Putin. That quote, and I'm paraphrasing, but that an appeaser is someone who feeds the crocodile expecting that he or she will be its last meal. And I think there's wisdom in that when you look at Putin, particularly today when you have the accommodation list who say, "Let's just give them Ukraine. Man, it's not our war. It's going to be fine."
Actually, based on recent history, that's not the way he operates. He takes some and he's like, "Ah, I'm going to take the next piece and see what you do about it." Jim, it's nice to meet you. I really appreciate and enjoy your work.
So with respect to Ukraine, and then I have a broader question, even if it were to be a stalemate and end up in sort of a North and South Korea situation where unfortunately we had to redraw the map, but we agreed, all right, you have this, we have this. Hasn't this been an enormous victory for the West? Unified Europe's a union for the first time. NATO's out of a brain coma.
Putin looks terrible. I can't think this has been good for his economy. Isn't this a rallying point and something that, you know, at the end of the day has burnished the brand and the power of the West?
I think it's a great point, Scott. I think it's, to what I was saying earlier, we should not imagine that they, Russia and China are 10 feet tall or invested with this special wisdom or that we are falling to pieces, right? To just a straight up military point from say the US perspective, 5% of the US defense budget
in supporting Ukraine without any boots on the ground, well, at least acknowledge boots on the ground, but no US soldiers who've been killed in this conflict has effectively neutered Russia's entire ground force capability. It can keep churning up, sending
cannon fodder to the Eastern Front, but it has brought that paper tiger down, right, in effect for a very small investment, at least from the outside. Of course, the Ukrainians have made an enormous investment in blood and treasure and losses, but from a purely military perspective, enormous victory, but also a diplomatic one and an economic one.
The thinking going in, and this was part Putin's miscalculation, but even folks here in the West was like, oh, NATO is going to break under this pressure. It didn't break. It's been unified. Yes, you have Viktor Orban. It's expanded, right? Finland?
You know, this, you know, with our history, yes, we've been invaded before, but we're going to find a way to kind of balance out. They've now added 800 miles to the frontier between NATO and Russia, which Russia has to defend. And economically, too, you know, Russia lost its entire energy market in Europe. China and India are happy to buy cheap Russian gas at a discount.
But Germany just said it went cold turkey off of Russian energy. I mean, from that perspective, I think we have to step back and say, you know, we're not doing bad. So what is the biggest danger, though, out there for the U.S.? And talk about specifically about the relationship between Russia and China, which you wrote about in this book.
U.S. officials told you about the, quote, nightmare scenario with Russia and China both deciding to make moves at the same time to regain territory. But talk about their relationship. And because I think China probably looks down upon Russia in that regard, just as it
a useful idiot in that regard. But maybe I'm wrong about that. Well, you're not wrong. Bill Burns agrees with you. I interviewed him, the CIA director for this book, and he said that Russia has to be careful over time that it is not the junior partner in this no limits partnership that Russia and China unveiled, notably just weeks before the Ukraine invasion, Xi and Putin hand in hand.
It's interesting because that relationship has developed and become closer over a number of years. I wrote a book a few years ago called The Shadow War, which is talking about this conflict between the great powers taking place below the surface. And now I would argue it's very much above the surface. But at the time, that relationship was largely a...
relationship of convenience. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours here and there, but they're definitely tighter now. It's not a love match, right? Because they have their own disagreements, but they see benefit being together in terms of
undermining the US and the international system that they see as aligned against them to some degree. And it's pretty tight. The one step that China has not taken that the US was very worried about, and it still is, is that providing direct weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine. But it's done a lot. It's providing a lot of dual use technology, a lot of things that
the war wouldn't be allowed to continue. It wouldn't be able to sustain it without that Chinese support, as well as buying a lot of Russian oil and so on. So it's getting closer. But over time, look at that. Russia needs China more than China needs Russia. And Putin, probably aware of that, but he kind of needs them now. And China's looking to take advantage where it can't.
So the title of your book, The Return of Great Powers, Russia, China, and the Next World War. First off, I do want to know how you see the next world war unfolding. And no one knows this, but what your scenario is there. And two, in the last 10 years, I mean, we're now spending a lower percentage of our GDP on the military than we have typically historically. And yet we spend more than the top 10 powers globally.
Combined AI is all encapsulated or being captured here. We're now the largest energy producer in the world, food independent.
I mean, isn't the last decade, if you look at the data, GDP growth, inflation, isn't the data kind of reflect that the return of the great power singular and that great power is the US? We have a lot of advantages, no question, economic among them, military, technological advance. We're still, you guys both know this much better than me, but we develop technology enormously well across the board, although China's competitive in a lot of spaces.
The weaknesses, right, are that China, first of all, Russia, while it is that, to quote John McCain, the gas station masquerading as a nation, it's got more nuclear weapons than anybody. And it's proven a willingness to disrupt to a degree we just haven't seen for decades.
states, including invading the largest country in Europe and including, as I talk about in one of the chapters of the book, coming very close to using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, to breaking that seal on nuclear conflict for the first time in 80 years. So while their economy is decrepit and their population is shrinking and all the wealth for what it is is concentrated in Moscow, and if you go to the hinterlands, it's a mess, they still have enormous capability to disrupt.
And China, China of course has become an internationally formidable economy. Again, not 10 feet tall and that economic growth, as you know, is flattening out and their population's getting older, et cetera. But its nuclear arsenal has been doubling, tripling over time. It has created a blue water navy to project power around the world.
You know, we may have, and we certainly do have advantages over them, but individually and together, they have enormous both capability and willingness to disrupt what we hold dear to a degree that we haven't seen. Yeah, disrupts the only, and speaking of disruption, looking ahead to the election, you described Donald Trump as a geopolitical wildcard. I think that's a kind way of putting it. But what could you see him doing if he's reelected besides ranting on Truth Social?
Concrete moves, right? And in that chapter, I speak to the folks who served him at the most senior level in the last administration. Who will not be there. Who will not be there. They will not be there because they've said that he would be a disastrous president. John Kelly, his former chief of staff, quote unquote in the book, it would be fundamentally a catastrophe for the country.
John Bolton, former national security advisor says in the book that Trump doesn't have a brain to contemplate national security policy around the world. So they say a few things they expect in another term. One, they say Ukraine aid ends. I think that's kind of to be expected based on what we've heard the president say, the former president.
They believe he would take the US out of NATO. And if congressional legislation, which we know was passed recently, that would require congressional approval to do so, he would neuter it effectively if he can't do it formally. And all a commander in chief would have to do to neuter NATO is say, I'm not going to defend.
I'm not going to go to war for the Baltics. Not my problem, too far away. Talk about it the way that he talks about Ukraine. And a similar view of US defense partnerships with South Korea. Trump, you'll remember in his last administration, already talked about reducing the US military presence there, stop joint military exercises. Same with Japan. And with Taiwan,
across the board, his former advisors say, I would be very nervous if I were Taiwan, because John Bolton tells a story in the book where Trump, when he was president, would sit in the oval, hold a Sharpie in his hand and point to the tip of the Sharpie and say, see that? That's Taiwan. Then he'd point to the resolute desk and say, that's China, to make the point that Taiwan has no chance against China, and therefore we have no business defending them. So those are
That's a big deal. You know, it's a big deal. So disastrous, in other words, disastrous. And Israel? Israel. So he's, you know, it's interesting. I was in Israel in post-October 7th and October, November, and my manuscript was largely done, but I started reaching out to context to see how is this war another battlefield if they were seeing it for, you know, in the larger conflict.
And they were absolutely seeing it. One sort of hard example of that was that Russia took it upon itself to send a SAM missile system to Hezbollah in the midst of it, calculating, it seemed, that, hey, if there's a northern front in this war, I want to make it more difficult for Israel, America's ally. Just to make it, to some degree...
They just like to throw fuel on the fire of the conflict, right? That kind of thing, because it occupies the US. It weakens a US ally. And by the way, it's not just...
secret stuff, he invited the leaders of Hamas to Moscow, you know, repeatedly. Putin did. So, you know, these are not, they're not good actors. He does like to get his filthy fingers into everything. He really does. What a thug. Scott, last question. If there was a threat that you didn't think we were paying enough attention to, what would it be?
Is it AI or anything else like that? Well, on the AI point, I talk, for instance, to Richard Moore, the head of MI6 on this in the book. And I think he describes it in a good way. The AI is a force multiplier, right? For every weapon system you're talking about, you talk about drone warfare, which we're seeing everywhere.
play out before our eyes in Ukraine. When those drones can be controlled by AI more so than you're talking about swarms as opposed to individuals that can overwhelm, say, the defenses of a US aircraft carrier, can turbocharge cyber attacks, which are already consequential and already show weaknesses in our system. So AI is certainly one of them, but I suppose what strikes me is that this is a multi-fronted
conflict technologically in a way we've never seen before. Nuclear weapons, three nuclear armed powers. And by the way, no treaties with China that govern nuclear weapons and fewer treaties with Russia. Everybody has tremendous cyber capabilities that could impact not just our military, but our civilian technologies that we depend on every day, GPS and train signals, et cetera.
Space weapons, because we depend on space technology, our military certainly does. Smart bombs aren't smart without GPS, but you and I do. We just know, you know, our communications and so on, which is deliberate, right? These space weapons can impact both the military and the civilian population so that
As we were reporting a few weeks ago, when Russia talks about putting a nuke in space to zap our satellites, right? We take that seriously. We better take that seriously. So I suppose to answer your question, Scott, is that we've never faced a multi-front war like this before with so many different technologies, both old school technologies, just a
the largest land war in Europe in 80 years, but super powered technologies like nuclear, cyber and space weapons that would all be used together and create a whole spectrum conflict that would inflict pain, not just on our military, but you and me. So this impression that we could retreat behind the ramparts and say,
Taiwan's not my problem. Ukraine's not my problem. The Baltics, yeah, they're nice, but I'm not going to go to war to defend them. We can't really think in those terms because very quickly any conflict like this would impact you and me. I would say that's the threat that we need to be aware of. What a happy thing to do. Do you have anything happy to say? Anything? Well, to Scott's point,
We writ large writ large have done a pretty good job in the last couple years, right? And I spend the whole last chapter of the book talking to folks involved every day in in responding to this conflict for ways forward and and and Communications are important redline communications sharing information about say pending terror attacks, you know this kind of thing de-conflicting
That stuff matters, treaties matter, negotiations, but also standing up and defending what we think is important, and clear red lines and defending those red lines. And just to be clear, I'm not a warmonger. I got a 15 year old and a 13 year old, right? They're not many years away from draft age if we go to war. So from a personal standpoint, I want to communicate as best I can what smart people are saying about avoiding conflict.
In any case, thank you, Jim Sciutto. And again, the book is The Return of Great Powers, Russia, China and the Next World War. And I'm going to put a parentheses that we all hope to avoid. Anyway, thank you so much. Truly enjoyed it. Thank you, Karen Scott. Nice meeting you, Jim. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.
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Hi, everyone. This is Kara Swisher, host of On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We've had some great guests on the pod this summer, and we are not slowing down. Last month, we had MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on, then two separate expert panels to talk about everything going on in the presidential race, and there's a lot going on, and Ron Klang, President Biden's former chief of staff. And it keeps on getting better. This week, we have the one and only former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. As we get closer to the end of the year, we'll be talking about the
After the drama of the last two weeks and President Biden's decision to step out of the race, a lot of people think the speaker has some explaining to do. And I definitely went there with her, although she's a tough nut, as you'll find. The full episode is out now, and you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. ♪
Okay, Scott, why don't you do your win and fail? Well, I mean this sincerely. I thought you were fantastic on Mars. So that's my quick win. I thought it was a great show. And also the show was good. I thought Beto was good. I thought, I forget her name. I thought she was quite good. Sarah Isker. I thought she was quite good. And I thought he was on point. Anyway, I thought it was a great show. And I thought you were especially strong.
My win is my colleague, Jonathan Haidt. I think right now Jonathan is arguably one of the most influential scholars in the world. In his new book, "The Anxious Generation," the thing I just love about it is he went after cancel culture and now he's going after phones, and it's really actionable. He's basically saying that for reforms or new norms to build a healthier childhood in the digital age,
And he has four things, no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, phone-free schools, and more independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world. And these sound like simple things.
But there are things that are actionable. There are things schools can do. I've been getting more involved in my kids' school to just say, how do we promote these four things? But we've talked a lot about this age gating. There's no reason anyone should be on social media before the age of 16. Schools, there's a big problem there.
and anyone with kids knows this, people without kids say, well, it's your fault. Just don't give them the phone. Kids are ostracized if they don't have these devices and are on those platforms because everybody's on them. So the only way to solve this problem is to get everyone universally off of them. And you do that through age gating and taking their phones away. I don't, I've really, my son going to boarding school has been
And it's quite frankly, it's been awful for me. I really don't. And it's not about me. Of course, I'm making about me. But it's wonderful for him because they're too busy and they're too programmed and they have too many sports and too much studying and too much socialization to be on their phones. And they hand their phones in and he doesn't miss it. Anyways, his book is I think it's going to have a real impact on the way we approach life.
or think about new ways of approaching this incredible uptick in teen depression and anxiety at the hands of not only just social media, but handhelds. Apple plays a role here. The platforms play a role. Parents play a role. Schools play a role. But anyways, my win is Jonathan Haidt's new book and his very actionable strategies here. My
My fail is I don't think that people are taking seriously enough or just along the lines of Jim Schuto. I think the biggest threat to our national security is not, and I've talked about this before, is not Russia. It's not ISIS. It's not an invasion of Taiwan by China. I think our biggest threat is a series of factors that have come together to create the loneliest generation of young people in history.
And I think lonely people, specifically lonely young men, specifically lonely young men who serve in our military and at our soft tissue of our ports and our infrastructure, I think they're going to become especially prone and vulnerable to bad actors.
And I think there's not only a moral obligation to get more involved in their lives, but I think it's a defense threat. I think these young men can be weaponized very easily with AI bots and disinformation when they don't have the guardrails of relationships, friends, family. You've spoken of this many times. You've spoken of this. I think it's a huge threat. There are a lot of things we can do to fix that, whether it's economic opportunity, after school programs, national service.
I think it is. I think if we're not going to do it for moral reasons, I think we should do it just out of what Jim was talking about as a defense threat. All right. Well, okay. My fail, I think, is pretty clear, is Rona McDaniel. I mean, this is just...
And this, we talked about this earlier. I just am like, come on, like, stop it. Like, there's, you know, you could go on about cancel culture. This woman deserved to be canceled in some fashion. And that, and actually, you know what? I didn't blame her. She wants to make money. She got like zeroed out by Trump. She served him loyally. And of course he screwed her, which is what he does. Rona, Rona, whatever, however you pronounce it. I don't care.
You should change your name back to Romney, by the way, which it was. She was the niece of Mitt Romney. You should spend more time with your uncle, who has a lot more backbone than you do, and ask for forgiveness from him. I just...
Literally. But I blame the executives at NBC for this. I'm so glad I got rid of my contract with them. Now, look, CNN's made a lot of dumb choices, too, in its history. But I would be embarrassed to be there and I would have to quit, I guess. I don't know. It's just something. Do you think they should pull our offer? Do you think they should say we screwed up? I don't know. I don't know if they can. Like, the damage is already done.
I don't think they should have her on and I think no host should have to have her on. This woman has no credibility. She's literally changing her tune every five seconds, like drastically changing her tune. It's not even subtle. And then, so anyway, just in this case, it's at some point like,
with Donald Trump, I'm like, I'm not even blaming him anymore because we know who he is, right? It's just, it's the people who support him that know better and they're repulsive. And she is repulsive to me in that regard. Not physically, just repulsive as a character and a liar. She's a liar. She's a mendacious fuck. She wins the mendacious fuck.
Rock Award of the Week. And then my win is all the fantastic stuff around the movies that made me cry, which you still haven't gotten me on. Hoosiers. No, I'm sorry, people. I didn't cry at Hoosiers. But speaking of which, I'm doing this thing in Washington, and I wish Scott would do it sometimes, where you pick a movie and then discuss it at this event. It's a movie night kind of thing. And I was trying to decide what to do, and they're like, oh, broadcast news, which I also love, or the net, something to do with...
But I am going to stick with the ones I want to, which is Roadhouse and which made me cry because Patrick Swayze is a genius or Gladiator. And now I may have to do Omen, the original Omen movie, which I love because the first Omen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the Omen. That didn't make me cry. I loved it. I love all the Omens as bad as they are. But there's a new one coming out called The First Omen where we find out how it got to the Omen.
It looks terrible and I'm going to see it. So there you have it. Anyway, I thank you for all your things. Keep them coming. I'll try to cry at something. And before we go, I just want to flag a new piece in New York Magazine called Andrew Huberman's Mechanisms of Control, The Private and Public Seductions of the World's Biggest Pop Neuroscientists. Very popular podcast. I find it to be a smart Joe Rogan kind of thing. It looks fascinating. We can't wait to read it. If you do, let us know what you think. We'll read it this week and perhaps discuss it next week.
We do want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday with more. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Saverio.
Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a great rest of the week. Have a question or need how-to advice? Just ask Meta AI.
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