'60 Minutes' Meltdown, Trump's Intel Chief Pick, and Apple’s Next Big Bet

20:33Kara Swisher:That's, I'm sorry, you don't just give a job. Like, you just don't. You just don't. And again, full of great, interesting ideas. I agree with you. But you don't give a job to someone who doesn't have the experience to run it. Well, okay. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there have probably been people with lesser qualifications who've also been asked to run important media properties. This isn't as much about his qualifications. It's about the context and how they've gone about this. If this had been a different situation at a different time and someone with those qualifications had come in and said, look, I promise to protect you from outside political influence that gets in the way of your journalism.

21:13I realize I'm in over my head. I hope you're patient with me. I'm going to do my best to help you continue. I think that person could be successful, distinct of their lack of a qualification.

21:23Kara Swisher:He was working for people who haven't been accused of meddling, you know, and the Ellis' themselves. But that's not him. That's a bigger issue. Yes, but he took the job with them. So anyway, it's not Nick's fault. You're absolutely right. But what you're saying is it's doomed. Anyone's doomed. And that might be a fair point, that there's no way for anyone to be successful in that role right now. I think in this case, it is. I think they have another, there's another game afoot here that is nothing to do with, they want to wreck this thing. That's my, that's the argument. You're saying it's being turned into, and this is the most damning thing several people have said who've exited the organization.

21:56It's being perverted and queered from a great journalistic operation that is arguably one of the most successful, perhaps is the most successful TV show of its kind in history. It's being used basically to become propaganda for the Trump administration.

22:12Kara Swisher:That's correct. That's correct. And I usually go away from those things, but it feels like Edward R. Murrow. Remember when he got screwed? You know what I mean? Like this is it has that feel to it. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. But let me just tell you, Scott and I don't know Scott. I don't know Cecilia, although I'm looking for a media. I think Sharon's is terrific. They're all terrific journalists. And I believe them. I'm sorry. I believe them over. They're just really good. And all the people there. And I've talked to lots of people. Netflix presents the hour. Yeah, I love it. The hour. They're going to be just fine.

22:45How about 59 minutes? 3 ,600 seconds.

22:46Kara Swisher:3 ,600 seconds. You know, this is the idea of lack of qualifications. I'm sorry. I'm sort of obsessed with it. President Trump named Bill Pulte, who runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as the new acting director of national intelligence, replacing Tulsi Gabbard, who's stepping down. Pulte is best known for accusing several of Trump's enemies of mortgage fraud, none of which went anywhere, including New York AG Letitia James. He has no known experience in intelligence. I'm not sure he's intelligent, defense or national security. He's called Little Trump. That's his qualifications. It's unclear whether Trump will ask the Senate to confirm Pulte by law.

23:19Kara Swisher:Anyone nominated for this role must have extensive national security expertise. Republicans are attacking him. You saw several Republicans saying he has no expertise. Democrats, especially like our friend Mark Warner, is losing his mind over this. It's not the same. Nick is very competent, but this guy is incompetent. This guy is incompetent at this job. And all he does is like, you know, he's he like steps on a rake every five minutes and hits his head. I mean, and the same thing with Todd Blanche, who Trump caved on his slush fund, acting attorney general Todd Blanche. Trump's personal attorney says the DOJ is abandoning plans for that$1.8 billion fund to compensate people who claim they're unfairly investigated.

24:01Kara Swisher:It was a rare instance of congressional Republicans pushing back and winning. Trump is still getting carte blanche on his tax issues through this deal. I can't believe that. We're giving him a free pass there. Your thoughts? So some context. The reason the position was created, the director of national intelligence, was after 9-11, policymakers concluded that there was a lack of coordination amongst our 18 intelligence agencies. So there was really great intelligence pre-9-11 that something like this might happen, but the lack of coordination meant the right information didn't bubble up to the right people in time.

24:38And I don't think it's fair to call him an incompetent. He's just not qualified, which is kind of the same thing.

24:45Kara Swisher:Incompetent to this task. Agreed. Agreed. So let's just review the past directors of national intelligence, their background. So let's start with Tulsi Gabbard to be fair. Combat veteran, military officer, member of Congress, House Armed Services Committee. Averill Haynes, deputy CIA director, deputy national security advisor. John Ratcliffe, congressman, House Intelligence Committee member, former federal prosecutor. Dan Coats. Dan Coates, Senator, Ambassador to Germany, member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. James Clapper, former Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Decades of Military Intelligence.

25:25Dennis Blair, four-star admiral, former commander of U.S. Pacific Command overseeing Indo-Pacific military operations. Mike McConnell, former director of the NSA, vice admiral, career intelligence professional. John Negropod, 40-year diplomat, ambassador to Iraq, UN ambassador, director of national intelligence created after 9-11 reforms. And Bill Pulte, I'm going to say this, he's a rich kid. He'll build fucking homes in Fort Myers.

25:53Kara Swisher:Yeah, that's right. And he might be a nice man. He might be very competent. He might be a brilliant businessman. He's 38 and he picks out sub-zeros for homes and retirement communities and scales. That's a big job. That's a big job, Scott. Well, okay. No, I'm teasing. It's not a big deal. The notion that we're going to put, look, this is going to put our servicemen and servicewomen in danger unnecessarily and recklessly. Two, do you think the Mossad or MI6 are going to continue to share information with our intelligence agencies? They must be cheering in Russia and China right now. They must be cheering.

26:31This is, again, one of the most dangerous things. And also, I think the American public is guilty of this. I think the American public has taken for granted the depth, experience, and commitment of what is the best performing organization in the world, and that is the U.S. government, and how deep the expertise is of people who decide to forego a lot of wealth and lifestyle to go to work for our intelligence community, our government, our diplomatic corps, our defense department. and we're putting in one of the most dangerous thing that is now starting to bubble up as we see in missteps in Iran and other places.

27:08Kara Swisher:They're unprepared for their meetings. They're sending in Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. Are you kidding? This is what Hillary was saying. They're running circles around us. The Iranians send in like very qualified people to these negotiations. And instead, we send in people that didn't have any idea they were going to close the Strait of Hormuz. Like, why would it occur to them since they're not? This is this lack of expertise. And it is a real thing. It's like, you know, it's like someone coming to me and saying, I think you need to lead the New York Knicks to victory. It's like, no, like I have no qualifications to do so.

27:39Kara Swisher:And this kind of thing, the reason he was hired, two reasons, I think, is one, he's called little Trump. He's, listen, I don't think he's a nice person. I've seen him interviewed. He seems like an idiot. But besides, he seems like a pompous ass. I think he was selected so Trump can control the whole thing. He has to put these unqualified minions into place. It's always the case with anyone who puts someone who's not qualified in place, which is they want to control the situation. And Trump himself is unqualified to run this situation, too, by the way. And this is what happens. And that's very dangerous.

28:15Kara Swisher:Same thing with Todd Blanche. He was his lawyer. And now he's doing his gut work for him, essentially. This slush fund, Are you kidding? Like giving him, you know, carte blanche in taxes. Terrorist immunization fund. Correct. That's correct. Yeah. The private militia fund is what I call it. You know, I never miss an opportunity to try and sound important. I've been on a bunch of public boards and a general unwritten rule. So think about it. The CEO answers to a board that's supposed to be a fiduciary for all shareholders. The president, everyone needs a boss. Everyone should and does answer to somebody.

28:52The president no longer answers to co-equal branches of government. Republican Congress has been neutered. The Speaker of the House is basically just doing the dirty work for the president. He's not in any way giving his Republican colleagues a seat at the table here. He's trying to run roughshod over them based on what the president wants. The Supreme Court, I would argue, has been politicized. I think a series of appointments have created certain decisions that I would argue don't have a hell of a lot of fidelity to the Constitution, but to conservative values or what the president wants. Not always.

29:29I do think they do hold a line on some things, but I would argue that it is no longer oversight for the president. The only people that provide any sort of checks and balance for Trump right now are voters. And the first thing you notice on a board, or one of the first things you notice with experienced board members in terms of how they evaluate a CEO, is a lot of CEOs have had to be in a closet in a knife fight for so long to get to where they are that a lot of CEOs have a tendency to shoot talented people on their team who might be the next CEO. and you end up with a talented CEO who has a really weak infrastructure of senior managers.

30:09And one of the first tasks on a board to see if a CEO is a good CEO is how often is he bringing in, highlighting and praising other senior managers. And if he were or she were to get hit by a bus, if you're running a public company and there aren't two or three people that could potentially be the CEO, you are not a CEO. And you see it all the time. You see these CEOs who all of a sudden start shooting talented people who are recruited away to go be the CEO of another company because it was clear they were not. Your job as a CEO is to immediately say to the most talented people, I'm going to be here three, four, eight years.

30:46And if you stick around, there's a shot you're going to be CEO and I'm going to help prepare you to be CEO of this company or somewhere else.

30:52Kara Swisher:Yeah, it always happens this way. They always sort of amass power. They don't want to be replaced. They shoot their minions in the head just so they can stay. I've worked with some CEOs who are very good at maturing managers and recognize it's a responsibility to move. I think Apple has five potential CEOs in the management ranks. More common is the CEO who cannot be replaced. But a good board makes that part of the compensation criteria. Right. Are you putting in place really strong succession planning here? The president, I mean, it's just insane. There is absolutely, I just love the fact that everyone's talking about Rubio or Vance.

31:36President Trump is fucking Chernobyl. If you stick around him long enough, you die of political leukemia. The notion that he gives a shit.

31:43Kara Swisher:He doesn't. He does not bring people along. He would rather see the Republican Party burned to the ground. That's what I now believe because he doesn't care. He doesn't care about a shit about the Republican Party or ideals. I'm like waiting for him to like invade. I don't know, Newark or something. He wants everyone to go. Oh, he wants everyone to say, oh, this Republican Party is nothing without Trump. He would rather see them go down in flames. He'd rather see AOC president than J.D. Vance. He wants it to go down in flames because he wants it not to outlive him. Anyway, it really interesting time.

32:15Kara Swisher:But please, people who aren't qualified, don't do jobs. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Lisa, national security. Yeah, National Security. I say go for jobs you're not qualified for unless it's the DNI. Let me just tell you, guess what? You would do a better job as director of National Security. You keep saying that as an example of how terrible Trump administration... Is this after I run for mayor of Los Angeles? That's the last job you put me up for. Yes, that you could be a good job. I think you'd be good at that. Anyway. Mayor of Los Angeles has no power. It's a terrible job. It's almost impossible to govern that city.

32:43Kara Swisher:That's why we need to put you there because you can swan around with the rich people and you love an Oscar party. I do like that. I do like swanning. can I just say, speaking of Oscar parties, so I was at this dinner for the Tribeca Film Festival and Bette Midler was sitting two doors down, like two seats down. And she listens to Pivot. And she's lovely, by the way. She's great. And she leans over Bloomberg to me and she goes, let me just tell you something in her Bette Midler voice. And she goes, I don't want you to get a big head. You went to the Oscar party, Kara. And I'm like, oh, I didn't go to the Oscar party.

33:12Kara Swisher:I said that. I said, Bette Midler, it was Scott that went to the Oscar party. And she goes, oh, you know, she does that voice of hers. She goes, oh, I still don't want you to get a big head. And I'm like, I didn't go to the Oscar party. I stayed home. I watched the Oscar with my kids. Like, what are you? Totally. I got accused of Scott things by Ben Midler. If it makes me feel any better at about 1130, I got anxious and I went home and raided the minibar and drank myself to sleep. Okay. All right. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, California primary results.

33:45Support for the show comes from Anthropic. Not every question has an easy answer. And when you're working through something complicated, it helps to have a thought partner to kick ideas around with and uncover what's really going on beneath the surface. That's where Cloud comes in. Cloud is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Cloud extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. Plus, Cloud's research capabilities can have comprehensive, reliable analysis and citations turning hours of research into minutes.

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35:52Kara Swisher:Golden Globe winners Iowa Debris and Don Cheadle make their acclaimed Broadway debuts in David Auburn's Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece, Proof. One of the best American dramas of the 20th century brought thrillingly back to life raves the Chicago Tribune. Deadline declares Iowa debris is utterly captivating, leading one of the best casts on Broadway right now. And Entertainment Weekly says Don Cheadle's portrayal is filled with sparks of genius. The Wall Street Journal says proof is a jolt of energizing surprise. The Strictly Limited engagement is on Broadway at the Booth Theater through July 19th only.

36:29Kara Swisher:Tickets from$99 are available now at ProofBroadway.com.

36:40Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back with more news. Let's get into the primary races of California. What a fucking mess this is. As we record on Wednesday, ballots for California's governor's race are still being counted with Republican Steve Hilton and Democratic Xavier Becerra in the lead. In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass holds the lead in results, but it became the city's first sitting mayor since 2005 to fail to earn 50 percent of votes required to avoid a runoff. As we tape, the race for the second runoff spot is too close to call, with Spencer Pratt currently in the lead. Let's listen to a clip we got from co-founder of Run for Something, Amanda Littman, about the situation.

37:12Kara Swisher:Hi, Kara. Hi, Scott. So I will say it's still a little early to have some hot takes on the California election results. We'll know more at the end of the day today on Wednesday. However, a few things I am noticing, how much money does or does not matter. You know, Thomas Steyer spent upwards of 200 million of his own dollars on this campaign, maybe more. Seems like unless the results come back differently and the ballots are counting now, he's not going to make it to November. Meanwhile, down in LA, Spencer Pratt, even if he doesn't make it all the way to the runoff, we'll see how these ballots come in for Nithya, really modeled a new way of doing this.

37:44Kara Swisher:Mega viral user-generated AI videos breaking through with really authentic take video capitalizing on the honestly candidate agnostic media ecosystem the right has built. We have to be prepared for this. We cannot just spend our way into victory. We have to capture attention in order to win. That means interesting candidates. That means engaging messages. It means sometimes a little bit more risk tolerance. We've got to be willing to lean in and be a little bit more unscripted. And that's something that is very, very hard for Democrats to do, but is the only way we're going to be able to capture the voters we need this fall.

38:19Kara Swisher:Interesting. That's very smart. I agree with her. I got to say, we talked a little sort of about Graham Plattner, the same thing is that, you know, you can expect perfection or results, essentially. Thoughts on this? Thoughts on this situation in California? My son voted for Tom Steyer. Interesting, I think. I shouldn't say that, but I think that's how he voted for him. Yeah, but I actually, people, the story will be about Tom Steyer couldn't spend a quarter of a billion dollars to get into a runoff. It reminds me a little bit of Meg Whitman's campaign for governor. Oh, yeah. Do you remember that?

38:46And that is on paper, they're very attractive candidates, but for whatever reason, they just don't resonate with voters. And I actually think it's a good thing when the biggest funder, it doesn't win. I think that that's actually a positive. But the biggest loser in this wasn't Tom Steyer. It's the California Democratic establishment. California is the bluest large state in America, yet the dominant issues weren't about bodily autonomy, Trump, or democracy. It was affordability, housing, energy costs, insurance, homelessness. And when voters are talking about quality of life issues and cost of living, ideology takes a backseat to competence, and Democrats are not perceived as the party of competence.

39:24That is true. That's a very canny. And national candidates need to take a page here and start – like J.B. Pritzker is really focused on shit like upgrading the bond rating of Illinois bonds. That shit's important. It's boring, but it's really important. So Steyer – the story will be Steyer just proved money is overrated right now.

39:46Kara Swisher:If you're not a compelling candidate. And Hilton's success is a symptom, not the story. He's not winning because California became conservative overnight. He's benefiting, again, from something much more dangerous for Democrats who think the current model just isn't working. So what does California have right now? The highest housing costs in America, some of the highest energy prices, persistent homelessness, despite enormous spending, net out-migration over much of the last decade. And, you know, these are governance problems, not ideological problems. and Hilton and to a lesser extent Pratt are vessels for that frustration.

40:26Kara Swisher:I think that's a very canny way to put it. They aren't something fresh. They're not rushing towards them. They're reacting against something. This is why mothers voted for Trump who have traditionally voted Democratic. If your son's in the basement playing video games and vaping, you don't give a flying fuck about territorial sovereignty in Ukraine or transgender rights. And at some point when there are homeless people everywhere, despite reports it's costing taxpayers$70 ,000 per homeless person, you don't care about how thoughtful, you don't want someone cosplaying Obama. You want someone who says, I'm going to come in and I'm going to be a lifestyle mayor and focus on competence and getting shit done.

41:06And by the way, anyone who does an ounce of due diligence around, which I've done a little, I've just started doing around what it means to govern in LA, all of the shitposting and criticism, a lot of it fair. The mayor baskets, a lot of it is unfair because some of it is about bureaucracy at the FEMA level. And whoever wins out the mayor of LA, a lot of this, it's actually the president of the LA County and the board of supervisors that have all the power. LA, similar to, you could argue about California has become ungovernable, but until Democrats at an executive level, start showing they can improve the quality of people's life and offer them good value for the money.

41:49Every state is a product. You pay for it in taxes, you expect a product. And right now, there's just no getting around it. Democratically run products aren't gaining share, they're losing share.

42:00Kara Swisher:Some of these, to be fair, homelessness is an intractable problem. It's one of these most difficult problems in California gets because of the weather and because people want to go there, you know, Los Angeles particularly, it's a great place to be homeless compared to like, I don't know, Montana or somewhere else. It is really bad. It is really bad. It is. But there's all these problems like, where do you begin? Because it's such, and it's also an interrelated problem. So they have the worst problem of the worst of a terrible problem that's already hard to fix in an easy, even if you had minor homelessness.

42:32Kara Swisher:But again, it's a complicated, multifaceted issue that you have to do piece by piece. And I don't think any, I mean, I don't think if Spencer Pratt, he's just going to arrest them. That's not going to work. That's not going to fix anything. You're right. It's not going to work. And by the way, your house burning down isn't a qualification to be mayor. No, not at all. Not at all. But he is canny. She's right. He's good. He's good at the stuff. Oh, by the way, he's run an outstanding campaign. Outstanding. We'll see where it goes. The silver lining here is Becerra. And that is he might be exactly what Democrats need.

43:07He isn't exciting. And quite frankly, that's probably why he won. If you were to summarize, you know, Democrats have spent a decade searching for charisma. Right now, it appears voters are searching for competence.

43:19Kara Swisher:Daniel Leary is that. He does videos every single day from a different restaurant in San Francisco. He goes somewhere. He makes some mistakes. He's not talking about Israel. He's not talking about transgender rights. He's not talking about bodily autonomy. He's not talking about Trump. He's just like, how do I get Munich to get people to work? But then he's also doing happy ones, too. Like, I just went to this great Korean restaurant. He's very good. He's, I would go, I'd follow Daniel Lurie's lead in a lot of these things. You don't have to be a douche nozzle like Spencer Pratt. He's basically a douche nozzle.

43:47Kara Swisher:Daniel's getting stuff done and using social media. And it really, I'd pay attention to what he's doing. Because he's not a compelling, like, wow personality. I mean, and he is. He's lovely, by the way. But he's not like, like, show, you know, hand waving at all. But I think he does use social media. He feels like upper middle management. Yeah. And he's also very, he seems confident. He gets things done. He's always on social media. I look at him. Anyway, maybe he'll be governor of California. But just to come back to California, the race became a choice between celebrity, Hilton, money, Steyer, and experience, Becerra.

44:24And experience appears to be winning. And the national lesson that Democrats need to draw from this is the Democratic Party keeps assuming every election is a referendum on Trump. Increasingly, voters are treating elections as a referendum on whether they can afford groceries, insurance, electricity, and a mortgage.

44:41Kara Swisher:And what your governor can do about that. Not governors or mayor can do about it. Anyway, last story here, Apple's smart glasses are now expected to launch in late 2027 after the company hit some delays. More glasses from Apple, Scott. Apple is reportedly following the playbook similar to Apple Watch, focusing on driving mainstream adoption of both glasses and sunglasses. These are things that look like glasses. First-generation glasses are expected to emphasize features like cameras, but Apple believes glasses could eventually evolve into a health device and incorporate augmented reality. Now, I know you've been critical of the Oculus and Apple Vision Pro.

45:10Kara Swisher:These are big, heavy units. These would be more like what Meta has with their Ray-Bans or their other different things. So I have a feeling Apple's going to come right up the back, up the middle, and take it all. Just like with the watch. I think they'll design the best glasses. They'll work the best. And this is a way it goes mainstream, if this thing is to go mainstream. You're exactly right. They weren't the first in the iPod. My colleague at NYU Stern is now at the Tuck School, Peter Golder. he has this he taught me something that stuck with me that i thought was just a brilliant observation and it's the focus of his research and that is the innovator doesn't win from a shareholder perspective the innovator gets mud on their face and arrows in their back it's the second mouse it's the person that learns from the innovator who wastes a lot of capital and energy and comes in and it's the second mouse that gets the cheese apple has essentially built the most valuable company in the world now number two on a second mouse strategy and that is essentially meta built this market but apple's going to collect the rent and this hasn't this is not a mixed reality headset that shit was like a prophylactic right that was just stupid just stupid meta has done the hard work uh ray band reportedly sold about seven million units in 2025 and owns 85 of the category and apple is now entering after consumer behavior has already been validated.

46:32Apple is the most aspirational brand globally. It says, I'm one of the 1 billion people who are the most creative and wealthy people on the planet. And the ultimate luxury item is an iPhone in terms of ubiquity globally. It means you can afford a$1 ,200 or$1 ,400 piece of equipment that does the exact same thing a$300 or a free phone does because you consider yourself part of the creative class and you have some, you know, riz, if you will, economically. So Palm built the smartphone market. BlackBerry validated it. Apple captured it. Fossil and Swatch built watches. Apple captured it.

47:12Kara Swisher:Remember Onkyo, the first wireless earbuds? No, you don't. I don't. Yeah, they were. I had them. There were a whole bunch of early wireless earbuds. And then Apple came in and stole it, but it was called Onkyo. I had them. There were a bunch before the AirPods that we showed a bunch of them at our conference. This is what I think is going to happen. Meta spent tens of billions proving people will wear computers on their face. Apple will show up late, charge 40 % more, and take 80 % of the profits here. and people the mistake people make is that people think the valley's greatest business model is invention it's not it's letting someone else prove demand yep yep yep same thing with the airpod they did they weren't the first of those those music devices they just were the best they'll come in with beautiful glasses they're not going to need ray-ban they'll design something gorgeous and you'll want to wear them it'll look beautiful and and if it's distinctly apple you'll wear them i'll wear i'll buy it and though you will totally have like 90 sets of them in your house because you'll lose them.

48:18Oh, look what I have here. Yeah, AirPods. One of my eight sets of AirPods that I consistently lose. Yeah, yeah.

48:24Kara Swisher:And remember when AirPods were thought as ugly? Anyway, they're going to take this area, I think. And if they shun... It has to be more than cameras. It's got to give you information and talk to you and record things and everything else. It's got to have more. I have a pair of the Ray-Bans. I don't find them useful at all. I don't. I don't. I just don't. It doesn't have an option. People like them. My kids enjoy them. It doesn't work that well with my Apple stuff. I will say it's like another one of the wearables that ends up in a drawer. Yes, that's where it is. But I bet Apple, if they could give me enough stuff to do with it, I'd rather, like, because I use my AirPods now for everything.

48:57Kara Swisher:Like, I don't ever look at my phone, you know, anyway. All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Trump quietly signing his AI executive order.

49:09Have we underestimated the damage Trump has done?

49:12Kara Swisher:It's easy, perhaps, to chuckle at a Donald Trump. There are times when he's sort of campy. I think there are things that he does, you know, his little dance and some of the other kinds of things, to come across as a rascal. But I think we have to look under those things at the real harm he has done to American institutions and the rule of law. I'm Preet Bharara, and this week, former U.S. attorney Barb McQuaid joins me to discuss this administration's mob-style governance and corruption. The episode is out now. Search and follow Stay Tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts.

49:51Who is actually winning the war between Russia and Ukraine? Right now, it's clear that Ukraine is much more confident. Time now looks increasingly on Ukraine's side. And there's no obvious reasons for them to negotiate a ceasefire in the near term just because the United States or somebody else wants it. I'm John Feiner. And I'm Jake Sullivan. And we're the hosts of The Long Game, a weekly national security podcast. This week, we discuss the war in Ukraine with Michael Kaufman, one of the leading analysts of the conflict who recently returned from the front lines. The episode's out now. Search for and follow The Long Game wherever you get your podcasts.

50:32Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back. President Trump has finally signed his AI executive order, and it's a paler shade of white. After scrapping a previous version at last minute a few weeks ago, the new order is scaled back version of the original. It asks AI companies to voluntarily submit their most powerful models to the government for review 30 days rather than, I think it's 90 day review window. It was in an earlier version, but Trump rejected that saying it would get in the way of competition with China. The revised order comes after a White House meeting on Monday with Trump, Scott Bess and Pete Hegseth and former AI czar David Sachs, who gave his blessing to the new timeline.

51:04Kara Swisher:David Sachs had gotten in the way of the previous one. I'll note Sam Altman is in D.C. this week making the round. It's just dumb. It does nothing. And that's my thoughts on it. Your thoughts? Well, the elites in the Trump administration think the regulation is controversial. But you know who's ahead of them is the American public. Voters don't think it's controversial. This is one of the few issues where Republicans, Democrats, parents, unions, and churchgoers all agree. I think this is the next great populist movement, for better or for worse. It won't be anti-immigration or anti-globalization.

51:42It'll be anti-AI, Kara. And this is an enormous opportunity for a Democrat or a Republican that figures out that the first person that really goes into a populist movement around regulating AI is going to have the political equivalent of beachfront property here. This is the next big populist movement.

52:03Kara Swisher:Yeah, I agree with you. I think that's absolutely true. I think you're 100 % true. Anyway, it's a really interesting – but this one did nothing. This one did nothing. It's a big whole lot of nothing. And David Sachs got his way. Congratulations, David. There were others much more concerned in that administration, as well they should be. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

52:29Kara Swisher:Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. I shall go first. I just want to say Missouri is reducing state funding for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and Early Child Reading Program that mails free books to children. My children get them. They're wonderful. And Dolly went on to complain about this online in a very friendly way. But this is a great program. And so reducing funding for kids getting books is the most idiotic thing I've ever seen. And I predict Dolly Parton will prevail here and the money will get to this group. Your thoughts, Scott? Well, first, just a comment on that. I was watching Bill Maher and they asked Neil deGrasse Tyson, who, if aliens landed, who would you want to speak to that person or who would be best selected to speak to aliens?

53:13And he said a great mathematician would make a lot of sense because he said any alien that gets to the earth would understand math. And that would be our common bridge in terms of vocabulary, which made a lot of sense to me. But I immediately thought, no joke.

53:25Kara Swisher:Dolly Parton. Send Dolly Parton. Send Dolly fucking Parton. She's super likable on a lot of levels, kind of represents Earth pretty well. The best of us. The first thing that went into my mind is that if aliens show up and we need a spokesperson, send Dolly Parton. I agree. She can sing. She's likable. She's smart. She's smart, charitable. Tells a good story. Boobs. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I won't get into other attributes that kind of represent America. She talks about them. You can say boobs with her. She talks about them. Anyways, but I thought, yeah, Dolly Parton, that's who should represent us when the aliens land.

54:01Kara Swisher:Well, give her her book money, you fuckers in Missouri. Anyway, go ahead. So my prediction is more boring. I think you're about to see the mother of all capital front running. What do I mean by that? As everyone obsesses over the valuation of OpenAI, SpaceX, and Anthropic, you're about to see Alphabet's already announced it. The next will be Amazon. Then it might be NVIDIA. Then it might be Apple. They're going to front run all these guys. They're going to cut the line and say, you want to give cheap capital to companies in AI? Our company is lower risk, not as much upside, but much lower risk.

54:37Kara Swisher:Google just did it. Alphabet just announced an$80 billion offering. They're like, if there's a quarter of a trillion dollars out there of dumb money or cheap money looking to get into AI, they're cutting the line. And they're going to suck the oxygen or some of the oxygen out of the room of the IPO market. Because you noted correctly there's not enough money for all of these things. I saw that from Alphabet yesterday. I'm like, oh, my God, that's such fucking genius. Explain what they're doing. They're raising money by. Well, usually these companies will do a debt offering at this point because they typically access such cheap debt.

55:12But I think Alphabet said, my God, these guys, there's people out there willing to invest at 20, 30, 100 times revenues to go buy NVIDIA chips and build out AI infrastructure. They're like, I think we'll take that. And so Alphabet, whose CEO or CFO is incredibly smart, said, no, we'll go get 80 billion of that cheap capital. And it's so smart. It's so kind of, if you will. And quite frankly, if I'm Apple, if I'm Alphabet, if I'm Alphabet and I have Gemini and I think, you know, OpenAI and Anthropic are competitors, I'm just going to kick them in the nuts. Yeah, yeah. And I'm going to step on their oxygen line before we've even hooked it up.

55:57By the way, they deserve it.

55:57Kara Swisher:They are as good, right? It's not like, why should they get the money? Kara, they're better. They're better. There's less downside. These companies have robust businesses. Why shouldn't they get the money? Why shouldn't they? And they have great management teams. Yeah. So they've basically - Lower risk? They're front running the IPOs here. I wish I'd thought of this. I think it's such genius. But my prediction is Alphabet's starting. I bet the CFOs of Apple, Microsoft, CoreWeave, NVIDIA have all got their pencils out and have said, why don't we go get some of that? Why don't we, if there's a quarter of a trillion dollars on the sidelines waiting to invest in AI, hey, come over here.

56:36I got an idea for you.

56:37Kara Swisher:To my little store. And by the way, we have other businesses to support it if you are worried. Yeah, and there's less downside here. If things don't work out in AI, we still got YouTube and iPhones. Yeah, exactly. And we still got PowerPoint. Yeah, excellent. Okay, that's a great one. I love that. That's a great one. That's an excellent prediction. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot. Just submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

57:06Kara Swisher:Scott, congratulations on a tour with Ed Elson. Thank you, Cara. Thank you for your support. It was really nice to, of course. You're a great partner. I really, you totally made the tour. So thank you. Thank you. You deserve it. It was a great tour, and it was really nice to see all your fans. They love you. Anyway, we'll be back next week. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus-Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Brandon McFarlane engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros, Ms. Savera, and Dan Chalant. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.

57:34Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, have a great weekend.

57:46Thank you.