The silver lining here is that we all got to witness Katie Leavitt's first day on Earth yesterday, and I'm excited to see day two.
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
Scott, I have a new date. Did you notice?
I know you're cheating on me.
Talk about the ultimate co-host upgrade.
I know. I know. I know it's true. It was striking.
I mean, look, I didn't even mind. It's like I'm the worst kid on the Bad News Bears, and A-Rod shows up. I'm like, play second base. I'm like, okay, I get it. I get it.
It's true because like once he one thing, it's like sometimes we talk about political or national issues and like we're talking about the execution thing and then she's like, but you know, we're in the room when we killed Osama bin Laden and this is what we did when we had to deal with issues of whether to show his picture or not. And you're like, oh, she was in the room. And then somewhere else she's like when we were dealing with that on this issue and I was like, Scott does not have this background. She's like, Zelik.
I'm like when I was in the fraternity, drinking, and saw it go by on television or whatever it is. Oh god. Um, she was great. She's she was it's racing up the charts. I got to tell you it's racing. I knew it would.
What's really unusual about it is about this is for you to talk about the success of something you're working on. So that's that's really unusual and just making money for the Vox Media Podcast Network. That is
They are. Got to pay the bills. Got to pay the bills.
All kidding aside, I think people are dying for substance. I really truly do. I think they're tired of this like this like clown car of a Trump administration and intelligence is making its way back. You talk about that a lot.
She has a newfound affection because I think people appreciate intelligence and also she does hit it kind of straight down the middle. I don't I don't think people Fox essentially turned their sights on her for four years and tried to convince America she was like this incandescent blue candidate. She's actually pretty centrist.
But yeah, I I don't you know I don't like to listen to your work, but I forced myself to listen to that one.
Well, she's good. She You can listen to her and then just go fast forward through me. I decided I needed a piece of media with a woman who's been underestimated by men for 50 years and a woman who spent 50 years telling them they're wrong.
Well, it's working. It's working. Uh, it's working. I also got to spend the day with Keri Russell the other day, so my whole week has been really fantastic.
I like her and her husband.
I know. Well, her husband was there. It was the cast of The Diplomat. Anyway, um, lot of lot of strong badass ladies. Um, but we've got a lot to get into today. There is so much. Give some dating advice.
Um, speaking of strong ladies, um, the best advice that I've heard from a woman on dating, and I want you to pass this by the secretary.
Lure them in with the titties, feed them bacon, and then let the mental illnesses present themselves.
What did you just like drag women?
Oh my god, Shane. Kill us.
Just a little Just a little contrast. Just want to make sure you know you're on Pivot with Scott Galloway, not with the secretary. Bounce that one off the secretary. See if that makes her book tour.
Smart. I'm not saying a word to her. She likes you inexplicably.
She's got a sense of humor. There's no way she's not a little She's a little salty. No way.
She's She is She's really funny. We're going to do whiskey on the show at one point. She likes a good whiskey, I'll say.
Feed them bacon and then reveal the mental illnesses.
Oh my god. Did you And you said the word titties. Are you 12? You're 12. You are absolutely Oh my god, I got to go back to Hillary Clinton and Keri Russell. I need to rush to the classy dames that I am used to. Anyway, I'm going to get and and you know, soon I'll be interviewing Rachel Maddow and it'll just
What did you think of Shane Gillis's SNL thing?
Here's the thing. They like to get like all mad about, oh my god, he called women [__]. Like what? That's like another Tuesday for that idiot here. It's not funny. He wasn't funny. It was like such a lame joke told by a guy who essentially is the last person you dated before you become a lesbian, that guy. And he's just not funny. It It wasn't It was like such an old And I do think it's part of the same thing I'm talking about is people are just sick of this just like dumb dumb dumb misogyny. I don't know what else to say. It's just like it's things are too serious for this like subpar humor. And it wasn't funny. I I don't think it was funny. And that's the the real crime.
I think you're absolutely right. I think it would have been funny. People would have Bill Burr and
Look, there is a line there is a line of humor around around I get it around wokeness going too far and being irreverent. Comedians deserve a wide berth. This isn't this isn't dramatic social commentary that requires everyone to have their hair on fire. In my view, the sin was it wasn't funny. You can get away, you know, there's
I agree. I agree. We should laugh a lot more. I agree. But I do also think this anti-woke thing is go is done. Like everyone's like, 'Okay, we got it, but now you're annoying.' Like essentially like, you know, everyone's changing the tune. Joe Rogan all of a sudden is against the war. Trump keeps trying to part people. Like he said, he he literally sounded like a San Francisco lesbian on his last show. Um I think people are just tired of like the anti-woke stuff is over. It's done, I think. And I think everyone's learned their lesson, including the people who are being too like woke. Absolutely.
The only I I don't mind I I think it's funny. I like I think you give comedians a wide berth. They're supposed to be irreverent. They're supposed to be a wide berth. Fine. That's fine. I think misogyny is overused. I think misandry is underused. Quite frankly, I think the majority of female-driven podcasts are basically let's just talk about how incompetent and irredeemable men are for an hour.
The the what I do see misogyny
We're moving on. Anyways, where I do find I don't want to call misogyny, but it it gets the hairs up on my back. I find this group of uh broligarch comedians that are all like in that kind of uh Gillis, Rogan. I forget the other guy called Andrew. Not even I think the I actually think the Ovon has a song.
He has a new show coming out I think on Netflix.
I forget the other guy who called Puerto Rico
Oh, that guy. That guy. Yeah.
You know, I I I think actually they're funny. Have at it. Get your own audience. The the thing that makes me really rattles me is when they go after female comedians. They have this agreement not to go after each other, but it's open season on Chelsea Handler.
Yeah. Although she does take them down.
The right basically tried to drive who I think the the best comedian of our age right now is Michelle Wolf. I I find what I don't like is male comedians going after female comedians.
And there's there just seems to be a different standard for women who are successful on a comedic tour in irreverent. They they're it's like open season among the bro you know the broligarchy and com and amongst comedians. They all deserve the right to say really irreverent things. And if you don't it's like I love the statement you made. You don't like Chick-fil-A, don't eat at Chick-fil-A. By the way, the CEO threw up all over himself this past weekend. I'm jumping around a lot. When he was asked about the LGBT community, you didn't see that?
Oh my god, he missed a layup. He just should have said, 'We believe in equal rights for anyone. Anyone of any chicken [__] sandwich?' Gays eat chicken sandwiches is how it should like. We love you. We promise you the same dignity and respect as anyone else. You've missed a [__] layup.
Oh, we we love everyone. We have gay employees. We have non-white employees.
I know. It's really stupid. Like every I do think we are at a moment where people are like, 'Okay, enough with the woke stuff. Enough with the you know, everyone's like everyone's learned an idea. Let's meet in the middle, Kara.'
Yes. No, not in the middle. It's like everybody [__] relax. But there are some people with really bad intent and those people need to go away. They're just mean and nasty, you know, like an Elon, for example.
All right. Speaking of Elon, he's denying responsibility for limiting Ukraine's access to Star Shield, the military version of Starlink. He says the system is controlled by the US government and the restrictions are decided by the military and ultimately President Trump. Ukraine lost critical access to Star Shield this week, disrupting drone attacks and air defense operations. Service has reportedly been restored. This follows Trump calling on Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries and saying President Zelensky should be replaced. Zelensky is pushing back, telling the Financial Times he's done with Trump's energy ceasefire and that Ukraine will resume refinery strikes. He's also hitting data centers more. He said the Star Shield disruption was quote 'not a technical problem. It was the will.' In this case, you know, the problem Elon had is he went at Zelensky and then it suddenly shut down. And so I do I think he's it is unfair to put this on him. It is run by the government. The decision was made by Trump. That said, he was right in there, you know, slagging Zelensky and so not a surprise that and the way he sort of act, you know, peacocks around like he's the the shadow president. People are going to assume it's him and and a lot of people reached out to him. I I suspect he probably called Trump and said, 'Turn it back on,' would be my guess. Um but I don't know. What do you think?
This is unusual. I I'm usually the one defending Musk and you're the one going after him.
I think this is another example of how uh Musk in concert with Trump are the genus and Khan uh being traitors to the west.
Well, that shutting it off is insane. It shouldn't have never happened.
But but first off, Musk hides behind the notion of I don't control Star Shield. So, Starlink is the commercial venture. Star Shield is built on Starlink technology and is now the contract with the defense department. I think what's happened here, and I don't know this, this is my speculation, but Hanlon's razor, the obvious explanation is usually the right one. You have the bad news bearers of geopolitical strategy, uh, Kushner and Witkoff go over and say to Zelensky, 'We'd like you to surrender.' They're not asking for peace. They're asking for surrender.
And the terms that Kushner and Witkoff want Zelensky to sign up for where they basically say, 'Give him what he wants.' They think that's peace. That's not that's not a peace. That's scheduling the next war such that Putin can rearm and then decide if and when he's invading
Finland, Poland. I mean, this is
Poland's been particularly irritating to Russia. I think
let's sideline that for a second, but basically Zelensky said, 'No, I'm not surrendering.' And then I believe what's happened here is fairly obvious. Trump and Musk got on the phone and said, 'Let's throttle back Starlink and send a message to Zelensky that if he doesn't come to the table, he's going to lose the war.' This is this is a decision in my view between Trump and Musk that reflects something very dangerous that a man who is addicted to ketamine is now deciding geopolitical strategy and who gets to invade Europe or not.
I am in violent agreement with you in that. I have said that a long time. I mean that he's really what is this person doing in the middle of this and he's not like the head of Lockheed but he he is consulting with the president and the head of Lockheed they sell the missiles and move along right essentially they're not on the phone on where and when it should deploy and he's far too involved in everything we do 100% and speaking of which um related um Elon Musk said back in 2025 that in terms of political spending I'm do going to do a lot less in the future well so much for that. He's poured over $276 million in the Republican group and his own super PAC since July, making him the largest known donor of the midterms, and that's just the money that's been publicly disclosed. His donations include $158 million to the main super PAC back in Republican Senate candidates, one of the largest political donations in American history. It's also as much as the Democrats have raised from everybody. So, one single person is responsible. Another big chunk has gone to Ken Paxton. You know, the question is, will he get his money's worth around this time? He's not only trying to influence the midterms with his money, he's spreading disinformation on X, like the story that James Talarico was in a mental hospital. I mean, this guy is like all his his dirty fingers are everywhere in some in in some fashion. Um, another thing that he that was in the news was um these drone strikes that Ukraine did on three data centers operated by Yandex, which is essentially Russia's Google. Ukraine's president Zelensky suggested these Yandex strikes led to a drop in bot activity with less hate online, particularly on X, but experts say there's no evidence of that and that the drop in bots appear to be tied to Yandex's web crawlers, automated tools that index websites. It would be nice to get rid of Russian bots. That called attention to the problem with Russian bots, which I think is great, and they should continue to hit Russian data centers. But again, also linked with Musk because his platform is the one spewing out most of the much a lot of the information um out there.
With respect to Elon and political spending, are we comfortable with an individual who controls battlefield technology now and can spend a quarter of a billion dollars and potentially get people elected or keep certain seats in America? I mean is that is that what we want? I now believe that taxes a progressive tax rate protect us from corruption and that is power corrupts. Absolute power absolutely corrupts. We need protection from from the uber wealthy nation states or individuals cosplaying nation states. And the way you do that is with taxation. We we we need a con whether it's concentration of power amongst companies such that they raise the rent such that your chicken and your pharmaceuticals go up faster prices than inflation. Whether it's having a check on government so no narcissist can overrun Congress or the judicial branch. Whether it's someone worth a trillion dollars who can sweat off his brow put a quarter of a billion dollars into races. When you combine money with distribution, what you have is the most dangerous combination in politics. And that's what we have here. Also, I do not buy any of this misinformation push back on what was obvious when the Yandex server facilities were bombed by Ukraine. Tucker Carlson's engagement fell 72%.
A lot of conservatives engagement just fell off a cliff. Uh, do the math, folks. I mean, this is I've noticed it. The number of times people use the word genocide in my comments has dropped in the last week.
Right. But a lot of people who are experts said it's not it's not the same thing. You may think it, but that the bots were the bot traffic was not affected. Just I mean there's been a lot of very good reporting on this, but it does suggest that this is maybe a good place to push on this. This is a good place to push on the wound essentially.
They would be stupid not to be doing this. They can't afford to beat us economically. They can't afford to beat us kinetically. For a small amount of money, they can take advantage of the fact that we have porous platforms who will cash anybody's check. Using AI, you can spin up bots.
I mean, haven't you seen it? Look at look at the most vile comments in your feed.
They're people with three followers.
Yes. And you think about the bot problem and it's largely right-wing. That's cuz this is Russia or
I want to go the other way. When I say something like when I just put out a thread or something on social that says 25th amendment, that's me saying that the president is an incompetent and should be removed from audience. I get thousands of likes because the AI from an adversary says that's dividing them. Let's elevate that. Let's retweet it.
They don't care what's threat it.
So it works both ways. And then what happens to you as a person? Your incentives are, oh, people like me when I say this divisive thing should be removed. So, I'm going to do more of that and the more angry and incendiary I get, the more people like me.
Yeah. No, it's it's it absolutely is creating. Years ago, I I think I told you this when I was looking at some bot I interviewed a bot person. They were showing me how when Roseanne Barr insulted Valerie Jarrett, suddenly it got to be a big online thing. And then a week later, um, uh, Samantha Bee called Ivanka, 'See you next Tuesday.' That's what she [__] She said, 'Cut.' Um, and and and it was all the same bots that were doing the anger around it. Bots started, you know, oh my god, Roseanne's the best. Oh my god, Roseanne's the worst. They were on all sides of the game. And then people got attracted to it. It's like a traffic. It's like a digital traffic accident that they create in order to create people. The TikTok algorithm. If you want to gain, okay, so you take the top 10 best-selling um authors who are quote-unquote thought leaders any week, go on TikTok and do a video saying Andrew Huberman or Mel Robbins or Jay Shetty is a fraud, hundreds of thousands of views. So, anything that's incendiary and calls out people and dunks on people. I it it immediately and then if you say something mean about it, anything that divides us. I actually think one of the reasons it's so important that people spend more time out of the house and we demand that our kids basically get out. I've said to my kids, join a gang, shoplift, I don't care as long as it's out of the house. You need to get out and see how wonderful people are because if you're in your room on your phone, you're going to think the whole world sucks. You're going to think everyone is awful.
Because the incentives are I love the statement. We're actually not that divided. We're being divided
100%. But I do think it's because people stay on these platforms, right? And you know, I've been having beefs this week by all these dudes that are going back, both Casey and uh what's his name?
Casey who left Substack because he was offended and now he's going back to Twitter. That Casey Newton
Yes. And then he left because he was offended by Elon and now he's back.
I know. And the same thing happened with Gruber. Uh what's his name? John Gruber who's another day. They're like, 'Well, the tech discussion's here. Who got on Twitter first? Who got on Twitter first?'
You did. I just deleted all my tweets, by the way, this this week, which I was like, you know,
I don't. Some of those are comedy gold.
No, they're not. I downloaded them all. I have them. I have an archive of them. And
No, no, I meant mine, not yours.
No, I know. You can archive them to yourself and then not have them up. I'm just not painting this asshole's fence. But, you know, everyone's like, 'Why are you so mad about it?' I'm like, 'Because it's like for the tiny con. It's soul sucking and you are helping someone who is very bad. Like there there's few things you can stand up in life and I do I don't think it helps you that much for a bit for your business cuz you're in on the conversation of a small group of AI people or like oh it's not so bad in my area. That's like saying like I'm I'm living in the good part of of this country but over in the other side of town they're beating up on black people. Like like are you kidding me? Like it just I just can't take it.'
Look, I I believe generally speaking, you should separate the person from the politics. I don't I don't like boycotts generally speaking. I think unless there's you think you're going to have some real effect, if you think big tech is out of control, I get it. I think consumers should be made aware of their options as a capitalist. When you are on Twitter, when you own a Tesla, when you use Starlink, and I got to be honest, I'm guilty of this. I love Starlink and I use it. But I sold my Tesla. I got off Twitter because when you are on Twitter or when you are on Starlink or when you are using any of his platforms, you have decided to paint the fence, your term, of someone who cut funding for HIV positive mothers in Africa, who is turning off and on battlefield technology for Ukraine that is literally trying to defend Europe, who is being sued concurrently by two women when he denies and disavows his daughter, his own blood, because this this this young woman went through transition. That is who you're supporting. At some point there probably should be and everyone has to make their own choices.
And if you and also I don't have moral clarity on this. I use Starlink and I love it.
But I'll tell you if you if you don't have a much choice, right? And that's really in this case I it's a complex thing. But please don't flounce out and then slink back in. That's my I'm like enough of you.
But if you slink back in, at least be honest. I'm going back on because I need to be back on. I I'm an addict.
Let me feel Let me just feel for Casey.
Casey is a is a great journalist trying to build a business. He's younger than us. He doesn't have the following of Kara Swisher. He's decided he needs to be back on Twitter because that's where a lot of the action is for him. I get it. But just be honest about it and don't try and pretzel yourself into some sort of
He was He's embarrassed. He's He's appropriately embarrassed about But I just
I get it. He's a young guy trying to make a living. I guess although I was like, 'Oh my, I haven't raised my kids properly.' That's how how I feel about Casey.
You're out of the carriage house.
Oh, no. He has his own place.
And then saying, but you asked. I don't think he's going to get this is people call this a blue wave, right? You can't buy your way out of the price of eggs and everyone's saying this is a blue wave. It's not a blue wave. It's a red riptide. And it's not that the Democrats are doing anything that right. It's that the Republicans are literally have the mother of own goals. That's like Kara Swisher saying she's not gonna text Scott late late night with nasty.
I haven't this weekend not going to happen.
I'm texting Hillary late at night now. That's my new text. But I'm always like, 'Great job, girl. Well done, Secretary. Breath of fresh air you are.'
I did. I wrote her that. I did.
Oh my god. What a breath of fresh air. Like a warm summer breeze.
Oh, you're the best. You're so fantastic. That suit, that fuchsia suit. Fantastic. Anyway, uh,
one of us has knocked on doors for Secretary.
You should wear more fuchsia for me. That's all I have to say. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back, Trump's new press secretary makes an awkward debut.
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Scott, we're back with more news. You had a lot of fun with this this week. I noticed online. I do still pay attention to you. Trump's new White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, held her first briefing on Tuesday, which lasted a total of 14 horrible, awkward, terrible minutes. She read nervously from the script and answered just three questions from reporters, all of whom were in the tank for the Trump administration. When asked whether the US had stopped sharing intel with Ukraine, Leavitt said, 'I'll have to get back to you on that.' Let's listen to this particularly awkward moment from the briefing. In a briefing that was particularly awkward.
The idea of not spending evenings with my kid is kids are is completely uh unacceptable. So my president, excuse me, my husband. Uh that's a that's a good one. My husband is out here is out here for the week. Oh my. The former Trump adviser, which is also, by the way, Trump's falling off a cliff, has faced questions about her legal credentials with no record of being licensed to practice law in the US despite Trump describing as an attorney. Leavitt reportedly failed the California bar and, according to Wall Street Journal, when she asked where she did pass told reporters when I moved to China, though she now says she misheard the question. She did not. It was very loud and it was by Sean McCarrick. I heard it. Um, you may be thinking yourself, how many Scaramuccis is she going to last? So, we asked the man we've all been waiting to hear from on this to send us his take, Anthony Scaramucci, the Mooch, who served as White House communications director for a record-breaking 11 days. Let's hear it.
I am totally biased. You know, I really want her to make it because I would like this record to stand. It's been nine years and I have milked this thing like a dairy farmer. Uh, and so I obviously want her to make it longer than me, longer than the lettuce from Liz Truss. But here's what I think is going to happen. If he's keeping her, they're going to put her in a lock box and give her media training and then bring somebody like Vance out or Rubio to do the press conference with her so she has a crutch. If he's not keeping her, I think he's going to blow her out very quickly, which would put my tenure, my record tenure in jeopardy. So, let's see what happens. But I'm betting I'm betting he's going to keep her.
Yeah, I would agree. I think I said that too. She she seems to be settling in as well. Seen with special assistant the president Natalie Harp. Natalie gave her seal of approval joining President Trump on Marine One. And now there's rumor he's trying to ace out someone who's actually competent even if she's sort of a quisling. Um Susie Wiles. Um I I this I this is the most important job in the ad one of the most important jobs in an administration is the communications. And so talk a little bit about this. It's uh can you name a worse blunt rotation?
Well, something that's been helpful to me is I call my son every night uh who's a freshman in college and I know way too much about his life right now and I know he has a biology test today and I texted him last night. I'm like, 'Are you ready for your biology test?' And he sent me a picture of Karoline Leavitt.
Like like does any of this matter?
Yeah. Right. I didn't have a job as
and my favorite I think I saw somewhere on thread someone said someone needs to tell George W. Bush uh that it would appear that Karoline Leavitt was left behind.
I love that. No Child Left Behind.
You had a good time with this. Yeah,
You like it more than the Kelly Clarkson animatronic bird in Brooklyn thing.
I absolutely love her. I think first off I I got I I like hot people. She's hot. I I I think she's really really attractive.
Um kind of way, but okay.
I've been putting out all night. When I moved to China, any any question I guess when I moved to China,
when did you pass the bar? When I went to when I moved to China,
