Charlie Kirk Assassination Aftermath

28:00Was it an Epstein? I'm seeing now, was it an Epstein shooter because he backed off on the Epstein stuff? You know what I mean? And you sit there and it's like, could be anybody because they're all fucking crazy. We don't know. You know what I mean? Like, you're like, oh, my God. And I think the fact that we, one of the things I hate about this in a weird way is we have so much information and so much is bad, right? I have refrained from saying very much about anything online because I'm like, I don't know. I want to wait and see what happens here and then figure out what to do. Where I was going with this is, and I immediately took it down, and I need to be more careful.

28:33I saw this video of Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been, in my opinion, very courageous around all of the Epstein stuff. I saw this video of her coming outside of her office and putting up a picture of that card, right? And putting it on the front of her office and then hitting her hands together. I'm like, wow. And I immediately posted it and said, I have a lot of mixed emotions looking at this. And then immediately my files were like, Scott, it's AI. I'm like, oh, fuck. And I immediately took it down. Yeah. But not before it went out to 1.2 million people. I know. I know. I know. That's why I said I posted very little.

29:14Yeah, me too. Except for that Spencer Cox. Can I ask you one more question? We have to move on. But you said you'd nervous about appearing on college campuses. I'm not. And you said it. I'm not, but I have someone in very close to my life who knew I was supposed to speak at a public university. I don't have nearly the footprint and popularity of this guy, so I don't mean to create a false equivalence. But I'm supposed to speak at a university, a big public state university, and someone very close to me is like, no, you're not going. Yeah. You know, obviously this evokes an emotional reaction. And this person has said, well, yeah, I don't give a shit.

29:49You're not going.

29:53And comedians who used to be the pushback here, I think a part of the anger from the left, Charlie Kirk, was quite frankly because he was just more effective. We did not have an equivalent Charlie Kirk going on campus as organized, as youthful, quite frankly, as courageous. He was not afraid. He got in front of people. Sometimes he made a great point. Sometimes he looked stupid. He didn't care. He played a huge role in Trump's election. And I think part of the venom from the left around how pissed off they were about Charlie Kirk was, quite frankly, he was just more effective than us. Part of it.

30:21Some of the things he said were terrible. A hundred percent. He did it on purpose. Well, he did it on purpose. Like a lot of people, he would say incendiary things to get a reaction and get more YouTube videos, even if, I don't know, maybe he believes this shit, maybe, hopefully he doesn't. But anyways, who used to be on campus doing this was comedians. And now comedians won't go on campus because they're like, I don't need anyone shouting me down or waving a Palestinian flag in my face. Or I just don't need that shit. And so we on the left, I remember UCLA when I was there, everyone from Bill Murray to REM to, you know, I'm dating myself to Carl Icahn used to show up.

31:06And I know a lot of people like, I'm not going to fucking campus. Did you hear what happened to my friend on campus? And by the way, it happens just as much to people on the far right. Far left too. Far left and right. It happens both. Well, someone's upset and they feel on campus emboldened to interrupt them, try and make them look stupid or worse. Right. And it's really, I mean, we're probably headed to an environment where we're going to have, I would think at some point we might have metal detectors on campus. I don't know. I know. It's depressing in that regard. How would you feel if you were invited to speak at a campus right now in a large crowd, two or three thousand people outside in the square like that?

31:42How would you feel? Nervous. Because nervous. Just basic areas of disagreement that you or I might say strongly, because we're always like making jokes and saying rude things. I mean, we said someone had a micro dick. I forget who it was. You know, stuff like that. We're always saying that. But I was like, if one crazy fucking online incensed person with a gun shows up, yeah, I could see it now. And before, I could never see it. Like, they got mad at one little thing I said. It makes me nervous. It does. It does. Because it's not because I think, I don't want people to disagree with me. It's that I think some people have, something's happened to some people online and they have access to a gun.

32:32Yeah, it's nerve wracking. Yeah, I could see it. For a second, definitely think about it. Anyway, very quickly, I want to talk about the political violence the other side of the world, Nepal, which is really sort of shocking in a lot of ways. The country is now under nationwide curfew after mass protests led by teenagers and young adults turned deadly. The unrest began after the government banned social media, but protesters also were calling out unemployment, corruption, and inequality. It was a bigger thing than just social media, but social media set it off about this sort of culture of elitism.

33:02and it sort of manifested itself. And the only reason I'm talking about it is because what I'm hearing from lots of sources that they're about to announce the TikTok deal, it's probably going to Larry Ellison and a bunch of investors. I noted this online. And one of the things, of course, was it was supposed to be banned, right? And this is supposed to be the solution to it. And I wondered, what if it did get banned? Would something like this happen with young people? Probably not in this country, but I don't know if you have any thoughts on what happened, Paul. It was sort of, social media is what set it off.

33:32I don't think it was the root cause, but nonetheless. I don't know that much about it other than typically it's young people that start revolutions because young people are more risk aggressive and willing to go to a square and risk getting shot. And but I mean, quite frankly, I'm not trying to. Obviously, loss of life is anywhere. It's a tragedy. But I just thought they got their Instagram. That was the final straw. They got their Instagram taken away. It just felt like I would not have guessed that. I don't know anything about the Nepalese culture. I don't, but that's what sparked it. Countries not this country use social media as everything.

34:10Like it's TV, it's, and so including business, right? That's how they do business. It's basically like shutting down the newspapers and the TV stations when they take away your social media. Yeah, yeah. So for people that don't understand it, and I think this was a hugely corrupt sort of Nepo economy where these people had just about had it. And then they were like, now you can't say anything. And so, and it has a culture of free speech, this country. Anyway, it's just interesting to watch. Yeah, but I'll bet anything, you just summarize it. I don't even know what happened, and I think I know what happened, and that this was the excuse, but I'll bet you anything it's a lack of economic opportunity for young people.

34:44That was the kindling, and them taking away their social media was the spark. If you reverse engineer almost any uprising among youth, it's that they get pissed off that there's a group of people sucking oxygen out of the room from them, and that, okay, we're fed up. We don't see a future for us to find a family, be treated fairly, and it's a group of old people who are aggregating too much information. Or I'm sorry, too much power. Yep, exactly. And, you know, I often don't say this because I do think some speech is indeed hateful and damaging. But the solution to a lot of this is more speech and more dialogue.

35:22And I think one thing that really kind of stuck in my craw was that MSNBC let go of Matthew Dowd, who said some very factual things on the air, perhaps not good timing, about Kirk. And he seemed to blame Kirk for his own death. I listened to it. I wasn't really clear if he actually said that. But what he was talking about was, you know, what we were just saying is that there's so much hate that he was essentially saying if you put hate out in the world, don't be surprised if you get it back, which is probably not the nicest thing to say at the moment. He said you raise the temperature like on that, you might get burned, right?

36:00I felt like this was when I saw his comments, I felt that MSNBC was essentially the Democratic Party virtue signaling and kicking out Al Franken. I just thought, OK, good for us. good for us i i i don't i don't get it yeah i i didn't get that i wrote that some people there and i was like i'm sorry i just like again this is whatever you think about charlie burpee was about saying things right that's provocative as you want and i just i don't find that particularly provocative and maybe we should be a little nicer right when someone dies absolutely but it seemed

36:42overreaction in such a way. The good news is we can trust it no matter what Fox says and falsely accuses Democrats of being responsible. They will not get fired. Yeah. I know that. I was like, Jesse Waters, have you looked over at Jesse Waters? Like, what in the fuck? I don't. It's like, we're at war. I'm like, I'm not at war with you, Jesse Waters. What in the hell? Like, what is he talking about? And I know Bannon's just doing it to be Bannon. I didn't get it. When I first saw his clip, I thought there must be another clip for why he got fired. I think that was a bullshit move. And I love the leadership over at MSNBC.

37:13I think they got this wrong. Yeah, me too. Anyway, I actually told them this too. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Larry Ellison becomes the richest person in the world as Oracle Stocks soars.

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41:25from$18 billion to$144 billion by 2030. On top of all that, OpenIge has signed a deal to purchase$300 billion in computing power from Oracle. And again, I am understanding he's going to get control of TikTok or somehow be the lead person in that. And he's obviously very close to President Trump. And they had been involved with TikTok before, let me be fair. They were part of the last time they were trying to figure out what to do about TikTok. Who knows? We'll talk about that when it happens. But, you know, this is sort of NVIDIA too. I don't know. Oracle is now a major AI player. What do you think about this?

42:02I think Allison is a visionary, and he doubled down. I think he figured out that, okay, there should be one, the most valuable company in the world, NVIDIA. It would be okay to be the second biggest infrastructure company centered around AI. And he made a massive investment and it's paying off like crazy. Their cloud revenue is projected to increase 77 % to 18 billion. They expect their cloud revenue. It was their projections that got the market excited. They project that their cloud revenue will hit 144 billion by 2030. That's a 14 fold increase versus the 10 billion it brought in last year. It said credibly, the CEO said, we're going to increase our cloud revenue 14x in the next four years.

42:46Now, what's interesting here is a great deal of that comes from a deal with OpenAI, who will purchase$300 billion computing in for five years. So get this. Essentially, OpenAI has said, we're going to pay Oracle$60 billion a year for compute, despite the fact we are currently, OpenAI, only making$10 billion a year. They are so confident in their growth that they've just committed to spend$60 billion a year on compute. Yeah, I noticed that. despite only currently making$10 billion. So he became the richest person in the world for a brief moment, biggest one-day gain in history, 36%. He owns approximately 40 % of Oracle.

43:28And this is a good bridge to Apple. What he has done is, Larry's gangster move was Oracle was becoming a mature company, very profitable, and they were buying back shares. When the company went public, he owned 34%. Now he owns over 40 % because they've used that excess cash flow to buy back shares until two years ago when he said, uh-uh, the future's in AI. It's an arms race. I'm going to massively invest in AI. Who did not do that, Kara? Trivia question. 100%. Correct for 20. One guy said, it's time to put back on our growth pants, so to speak, and start massively investing in AI. And this was the gangster strategic move, arguably, of the last five years, was an old company saying, fuck it.

44:21And an old guy. And an old guy in an old company. We need to start dancing again. You may have gotten used to our dividend. You may have gotten used to our share buybacks. Uh-uh. I'm going large because there's no number two to NVIDIA, but there's going to be. and now squarely Oracle is, has basically put their elbows out and crashed the party and said, oh no, you may think we're old and dodgy or whatever. We're not. We're hip. Elephants can dance. And now, you know, I mean, this was an incredibly smart death move of Larry Ellison. I would never count him out. And also his CEO, Saffir Katz. She is really also very sharp.

44:59I mean, I think it's really interesting. I think, of course, they did also see the writing on the wall with the Trump administration, backing AI. You know, they've been very aggressive at showing up at these AI events. And you remember he showed up at that event with Sam Altman, with the president, that pissed off Elon Musk and everything else. And at the same time, he put a big investment into Twitter and probably he's about to double-cross Elon by owning TikTok, right? Or at least controlling TikTok. So this guy, just whatever it takes. And of course, his son, he funded the son's purchase at Paramount.

45:31And so this guy is just very vibrant for an elderly man, I'll say. Okay. Well, just in the price increase from yesterday, I mean, 36%, what is that? I don't know what they increase. I'm pretty sure they could buy 30 or 40 Paramounts with just the increase in Ellison's net worth yesterday. I mean, he said to his son, go play in traffic. Here's$5 or$7 billion. dollars, I've just increased my net worth by$100 billion, right? So yeah, go have fun with Paramount. I mean, the numbers here are so staggering. I mean, let's do the math. He's worth about$400 billion. The stock was up 36%, so went up a third.

46:20So he made$130 billion yesterday. I know. What did they buy Paramount for? Five or seven? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, so they could go buy 20 Paramounts with this increase. His son, if he has 20 kids out there, which is a possibility, given what I know about Larry Ellison, he could say to all of them, go buy your own Paramount with the gains from yesterday. I think it'll actually increase the chances. And I know you think it's small ball Paramount. I know you do, and I think you're right. But I think that it'll increase the chance they might buy Warner. They might do something to, as you say, consolidate and milk.

46:53and maybe have some growth somewhere along the lines. It gives them the heft to do so. You're going to see some, I think, very aggressive moves from Paramount.

47:04So, you know, we'll see. Larry Ellison, well done, Larry Ellison. There you go. I had the strangest evening with him once by myself. I don't know him at all. Have you had any interviews with him? Oh, yeah, I've interviewed him many times. We had him at Code several times. What's he like? I have no sense of him. Oh, he's very funny. I mean, sometimes he's awful, sometimes he's funny. I have always, I hate to say I enjoy spending time with him, but I do. I have to say he's really interesting because some of his views are not my views at all. Again, someone I don't agree with who I really enjoy talking to because he's so smart.

47:39And people will fry me for that, but I don't care. I interviewed him several times at Code and All Things D. One was just about his business, and it was interesting. And then when Steve Jobs died, we talked about Steve. He was very close friends. He was his best friend, I would say. And one time I said to Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison's your best friend? He's like, yeah, I know. It's so weird. Like, you know, they were very different in their political outlook, et cetera, and were very close friends. They had a very similar upbringing. I know why you like him. You relate to him. He's 81, and he married a 33-year-old.

48:16I get it. You guys have double dated. He married a lot of people. He's married a lot of people. I know. I'll tell two very quick stories about aeros. And so he was on stage. And then when he was doing the sailing thing, I met him over near where his sailing stuff was in the regatta in San Francisco Bay. And we spent the evening just – he was talking about his kids, which was really interesting, David and his daughter Megan. And, you know, he was like, they're really actually pretty okay. And it's nothing new to me. It's the mothers. And it was super, super interesting. and I'll tell the all right I'm gonna tell one more later I'll listen sorry so he had this house in San Francisco that he threw a party at for something or other and I went because it was one of these stunning San Francisco Pacific Heights houses and he didn't live in it I don't think I think he just had it for parties and um and I like looking at houses I'm like I like seeing what what they look like and so whenever I go to a party I wander around and look at things like I shouldn't I do that I do that at your apartment sure um I do that a lot and so I was I was wandering around and he has, I think he has Israeli security.

49:19I think that's what he has. He's very, he's a big supporter of Benjamin, I think Benjamin, not new in Israel. And, and they caught me

49:31upstairs and, and they bring me downstairs to him. And, and he looked at me, he goes, I knew it would be you. You know what I mean? Like he was wandering around and he goes, what were you doing? And I said, I was looking for the, the, the, the, the hooker and stripper room i just said a joke like that and he goes oh that's in the basement kara and it was like oops i just think he's funny he's a funny guy he's also definitely rich well not only that he became the richest man in the world he's like who who thought that like who saw that come yeah anyways yeah he also spends the money you know he had that hat he had that house that looks he imported it from japan he's got yeah he's he's he's a very stylish billionaire he was always the original billionaire.

50:12Well, you know why he spends that kind of money and married a 33-year-old? All right. Why? Because he can. Ah, ha, ha. Anyway, anyhow, we'll see what happens. We'll watch for that TikTok thing. Also, obviously, you just talked about Apple. It rolled out its newest iPhones this week, including the iPhone Air, which Tim Cook is calling a game changer. I do not agree with this. It's the thinnest phone ever, about a third slimmer than current models, though there are trade-offs in battery life. Apple also unveiled a new watch model as well as AirPods that can translate foreign languages. That was pretty cool.

50:44Meanwhile, AI barely came up with the event. A big shift from last year when Apple intelligence took center stage. Let me say this iPhone with the bump on the back. I saw it. I ran into Eddie Q at this morning show event, and he showed it to me. And I was like, it has a bump on the back. It's a big bump. It wobbles. Like, it's skinny, but then it has this big bump, which people are making. they're making a people are talking about it online a lot it's also it doesn't I don't want to buy it I have to say I don't know why maybe I'll buy the 17 but the skinny one is not attractive because it has the bump I don't know what to say anyway do you think it's a game changer from what you saw?

51:23I'm just sitting here thinking am I allowed to be crude the day after a murder? Yes go ahead whatever I mean okay the announcement what Cook called a game changer I would call a handjob and an Advil. It was like, yeah, all right. I don't, fine. Was anyone begging for a thinner phone? I don't. If it was without, if it was a thinner phone with capabilities and out the bump, sure, why not? The most exciting thing, and it's available on other platforms, is real-time language translation for the AirPods. I think the AirPods are the most underrated tech product of the last 10 years. I think essentially they're not even a tech product.

52:02to the most ubiquitous, expensive, high-margin piece of jewelry in history. People are now roaming around full-time with a pair of earrings called an AirPods that cost$300 and probably$110. I ordered them last night. I just leave them in now. They're just everywhere. What this signals, though, and where they will get scrutiny, per our most recent conversation, is that over the last decade, essentially Jobs is a builder. He did not believe in share buybacks. He wanted to amass a huge cash hoard and then such that they were durable and enduring. And if they wanted to, they could take big swings, either acquisitions or go very deep after certain product development.

52:41Tim Cook is an operator. And by the way, you got to give it to Tim Cook. He's taking the company from$300 billion to$3 trillion. The question is, have those$700 or$800 billion in share buybacks to date, they have bought back approximately 40 % of their outstanding shares, meaning over a 25-year period, they're effectively taking the company private. The question is, when you have these meh product announcements, have they gotten to a point where they, quite frankly, should be a little bit more aggressive, a little bit more promiscuous, and be spending some of that unbelievable cash generation and taking more big swings?

53:14Because yesterday, there were no big swings. There was nothing that compelling. And this is the difference. It's easy to play Monday morning quarterback, but let's do it. The difference between what Ellison did was a couple of years ago, he said, oh, my God, AI is a once in a lifetime generational tech innovation. I am shifting from being a share buyback company to an R &D company. And I'm going to take a massive swing here. And it became and the stock was up 30, 38 percent yesterday. Apple has basically said we are a mature company. And the problem with Apple being a mature company is that its stock right now does not trade as if it's a mature company.

53:52It trades as if it's a growth company at a PE of 33. So where there will be a lot of second guessing, as I'm doing now, is Tim Cook, quite frankly, not keeping up with his peers because he's decided we're going to go into kind of a rest home. We're going to continue. Icon started this by putting pressure on them for share buybacks and a dividend. They did both. And unfortunately, they aren't taking the big swings they used to under the jobs tenure. Yeah, this phone, I'm like, no, like, no. I mean, I'll wait for the Fold phone. I'm interested in the phone, that's for sure. It kind of becomes an iPad.

54:27I'm going to look at that, but it's going to be heavy. Like, I just don't see a compelling need to change my phone with these things. And I like changing phones, by the way. We'll see where it goes. One of the funnier ones was people made, social media was also joking about iMePads for Tim Cook, referring to last week's events. Well, here's a stat. Over the last decade, Apple has spent$500 billion more on share buybacks than on R &D. That's crazy. And what do you know? Their products are feeling kind of meh. Meh. I have to say, some people think the bump on the iPhone is presaging some glasses, some sort of glasses thing that's happening next.

55:03So it's sort of a signal. What's in there apparently would work quite elegantly apparently with glasses. But we'll see. We'll see. Let's see some products that really wow us, Tim. I have to say this didn't. Next up, let's talk about very quickly President Trump's contributions to Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday book. Obviously, the murder of Charlie Cook has sort of pushed that off, but it was getting a lot of attention. As previously reported, there was a letter from Trump to Epstein featuring a cryptic conversation within a hand-drawn woman's body. I would say a teenage girl's body is what it looked like.

55:34There was also a photo of an oversized check appearing to be signed by D.J. Trump with a note Epstein saying showed early talents with money on women and had sold a fully depreciated woman to Trump for$22 ,000. dollars. President Trump is calling it a dead issue when asked. You know, I think probably this Charlie Kirk situation is going to push it out of the headlines. But at the same time, I still think this Epstein thing has staying power. They're really Thomas Massey looks like he has the numbers to force a release. And in fact, Kirk, before he sort of went backwards a little bit, had said there should be, I was watching a speech where he said it should be full and full release of unredacted release to the public.

56:20So I don't know what you thought. I thought it just, Trump pretended he didn't draw and then they showed him drawings. He said this birthday book didn't exist. It exists. He said he didn't write a letter. It looks like he wrote a letter. I think the idea that it's fake is kind of ridiculous. Way back then, someone knew he was going to be president and decided to do a fake thing. This seems ridiculous. I think he did it and he should just say he was sorry and you won't do that. And they're doubling down on hoax and whatever. I still think it's very damaging to him. This remains damaging. What do you think?

56:52Well, the question is, is there a red line? Like, we knew he was a rich kid. Okay, that's a reason not to like him. We knew he was not a very good businessman. We knew he took companies bankrupt. We knew he didn't pay subcontractors. We knew that he was accused of sexual assault. We know he's an insurrectionist. I mean, and now there seems to be evidence everywhere that he was at a minimum cohorting with a known and convicted pedophile. And the notion that this is a forgery is like, well, okay, you mean somebody 21 years ago broke into the Epstein estate and decided to frame the president who at that time was a Democrat thinking when he's president, this will embarrass him.

57:33I mean, it's just like the logic, the math ain't mathing here. and I liked what, um, representative Moskovitz, I think said in the, uh, one of the congressional hearings said, why don't you guys, this is outrageous. Why don't we, why let's move to bring in, um, forgery experts and have them opine on this. I mean, the whole thing is just sort of at what point are we going to find, find out the guy is literally the dark Lord. I mean, what gets look at the things every time you suspect it of something, uh, we find out it's true and it doesn't seem to matter. The question is, is this the red line?

58:12And I am convinced that I'm going on the Times of London radio tonight. I'm convinced the only reason he's supposed to come to the UK, I typed into AI last night, name, if I were a president trying to keep Epstein out of the news, please name actions and policies that would push Epstein out of the news cycle every 48 hours. And it gave me a playbook for everything he's doing, some of which he's already done, some of which I think he's going to do. But he's coming over here to talk about free speech, which I think is ridiculous. But anything that pushes Epstein out of the news cycle is what he's doing.

58:49But I don't know. I don't have a, I think this is, it feels like this is the one thing that is sticking to the guy. Because he was a friend of his. Like, what I don't get, now look, I have no idea what happened. I don't have any idea if he's guilty of anything. But why not just say, oh, it was such bad judgment. I'm so sorry. Profane, stupid, locker room talk. Gross, that was dumb. Locker room talk, yeah, that worked last time. And I shouldn't have written this. And it was before anybody really knew. And I didn't know. I wasn't paying attention. And just say, oh, I'm so sorry. That was so dumb.

59:24Like, that's what Gates did. That's what, like, everyone who's been there, Linton said it. And it doesn't, I mean, it sort of sticks to them, but not like this. I know he's president, but just the drawing was so, like, I absolutely think he grew. I looked at it and I was like, yes. When I first saw it, everything about it supposedly being pubic hair, supposed to be an underage girl, I didn't even get it. I looked at it. And the creepiest thing about it is he clearly hired creatives. He organized resources to put this thing together. It wasn't like a stupid note between friends where you, an error in judgment.

1:00:06He gathered creative professionals around and said, this is what I want. This is what I'm thinking. And then they came back with a subtle image of a prepubescent girl and your signature will be pubic hairs. And he went, bingo. That's exactly what I'm trying to get across. Now, laminate it, frame it. Wait, what about this? What kind of paper should we use? You could tell that there was real thought that went into this. Thought into it, I agree. Scott sent me a similar thing for my birthday, everybody, just so you know. Okay. I agree. Anyway, it's going to stick to you, Donald Trump, no matter what happens.

1:00:49It's going to be on your record no matter what you do. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Kamala Harris's sizzling upcoming book, which is sort of getting lost here with all the news.

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1:03:55Scott, we're back with more news, an excerpt from former Vice President Kamala Harris's upcoming book, 107 Days, was published in The Atlantic, and it is spicy. In it, Harris says recklessness allowed President Biden to make the decision to run again. She also said the decision should not have been left to an individual's ego. The former vice president also said the president's staff fueled negative stories about her performance and often refused to defend her. That is true. I saw that in real time, you know. What do you think? I mean, I'm going to interview her, just so you know, at a live event in Washington in two weeks, I think.

1:04:31I'm excited to talk to her. This book was also written with the help of a very good author who's also a friend of mine, Geraldine Brooks, who is also a Pulitzer Prize winner and everything else. She's sort of going the Agassi route by hiring a really great writer. So thoughts? She really went there. I did not think she would, but there she did. Well, okay. Thanks, Captain Obvious. I feel the same way about Vice President Harris as I feel about all these Republicans who grow testicles after they leave office. We don't need you to decide it's reckless now. Had you demonstrated the leadership capabilities we hoped from a president, you should have walked in and said, I don't think you should run again, and I'm not going to support you to run again.

1:05:10Maybe you don't anoint me. Fine. But I have an obligation duty to the duty to the country and you should not be president. This is fucking ridiculous. And she saw up close and personal. But instead, like a lot of people around him, she decided to whistle, you know, whistle past the graveyard. She does talk about it in the thing. It's like, I think there is, when you're in those situations, everyone's like, well, it's up to Jill and Joe, right? You know what I mean? Like, even if, same thing with Trump, if there's something, no one will do anything. Like, those environments create overly cautious, very reticent people saying it's up to him.

1:05:49Like, even, you know, Newsom did it. They all did it. Newsom also did it. So did, like, all the Democratic. Also, someone who probably deserves more credit was Representative Dean Phillips, who very early said, I'm running because I don't think President Biden is fit to run again. And he got pretty swiftly pilloried and swept away. Didn't get a lot of traction, but he does deserve some credit for coming out early. I'd like to roll with that dude. Representative Phillips. You met him. We met him at the DNC. He came over to us. He came on my pod and came out. I actually seem like a nice man. Look, if two podcasters can say a year and a half before he's too fucking old, the vice president and the people around him should have enough fidelity to the White House or Democratic ideals to realize it's time for Pop-Pop to get a gold watch and retire.

1:06:41I know. I know, but you can imagine that environment. Everyone engaged in it. You remember the emails we were getting. Sign up. You don't understand the assignment. I was like, oh, my goodness. You don't think the world sees this? Well, we need to stop Trump. I'm like, not like this. This isn't going to stop Trump. He's going to fall over dead and then we're fucked. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't. Look, I think the vice president, I've said this before, I think the vice president, given a UK-style election format in an American environment, she was shortchanged. And President Biden, Supreme Court Justice or Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Senator Feinstein have stained their legacy because they let their narcissism outweigh what was right for the country.

1:07:30Full stop. And for her also, quite frankly, you can't blame an 80-year-old because he's 80 and his family, which can't see clearly because that's their dad and their husband. But the people around him, Secretary Blinken, Vice President Harris, they all should have sat him down. And finally, to his credit, I think it was Senator Schumer and Speaker Ember to Pelosi. By the way, he didn't exit voluntarily. He's not talking to Pelosi. I think it's Pelosi who did it. Because she went in there and said, I'm really sorry. We're both old. We both need to go home. And if you don't announce you're getting out of the race, every three days I'm going to have someone, a Democrat, announce they're not supporting you.

1:08:13he didn't want to leave. This was not his decision. Supposedly he's going through all this rumination and contemplation, but all this rumination and contemplation isn't about how badly he fucked the country. It's about, could I have won if I'd stayed in? The narcissism here of these folks, and again, it goes back to what we were talking about before with the shooter. People need guardrails. What I mean by guardrails is people who have the balls and the credibility to sit in front of you and go, no, you're wrong. You have to stop this. You have to stop this. You're not thinking clearly. I have no doubt that none of them did that, including her.

1:08:48And so what should I ask her? Give me a question for her. In 10 years, if someone could say to you in 10 years you can be a Supreme Court justice or be drafted to run for president again, doors one or two, what would you rather do? Oh, good one. I like that. That's a good one. And also, quite frankly, did you really let down the country by not having – oh, God, I'll be there in your ear like a producer with Anderson Cooper. You'd also never ask her. I have the guts to ask her. You'd be like, oh, okay. Oh, no, you're much nicer in person than me. Am I? You're much nicer in person than me. No, but on stage, I'll ask her.

1:09:18You know I'll ask her. Well, you can get away with it. Everyone's like, oh, that's her. There goes that Kara. There goes that Kara. That sassy Kara. Once again. And isn't she charming? But, yeah, I think the whole establishment did it. But I do like that she wrote it anyway. I'm kind of like, good, just tell us what happened, and then we don't do it again. um uh all right she she didn't have to do this and she did it so they all want to write books they're all i know but i'm telling you she wants to be drafted to be president again they all write books they get a big everyone needs to make a living she got two or three million dollar advance to write a book and she wants to make it interesting so people read it and okay wow what a revelation that it was reckless okay no shit no shit and now that doesn't help with Vice President Harris.

1:10:09Scott's review. No shit, Sherlock. No shit. No shit. Really? Really? Really? It wasn't the right move for him to stay as long as he did? It was reckless. Wow. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back from predictions.

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1:12:22Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Well, it's the boring stuff that moves the needle, but we have become kind of the master. We are the Messi of own goals. And for those of you who don't know, Lionel Messi, greatest football player in the history of the game. And the most recent one barely got any coverage. But earlier or last week, I think it was, okay. On September 4th, the Hyundai Motor Group met a plant in America was raided by ICE. About 475 people were detained, including 300 South Koreans who were here on a B-1 visa, visitor visa, which don't normally authorize certain types of manual long-term work, but they're used all the time for the type of work they were doing.

1:13:14And legal representations argue that many workers' contracts had the required specifications. So it's up for debate whether they had the right visa or not. And they're saying that Homeland Security, Georgia State Patrol, that their actions followed a warrant and investigation into unlawful employment practices at the plant. So what happened? These people who are incarcerated, South Korea immediately chartered a plane, has brought them all back to South Korea. And by the way, this factory is part of a, you know, this was going to be a$7.5 billion factory. This is exactly what the president claimed he was going to do, bring manufacturing and greater investment into America.

1:13:54South Korea is a fantastic ally. What if Germany said, you know, the US, you're just cleaning up with an AI. We need some of your great American companies to invest in Germany. And we opened an NVIDIA plant there and we had people over there under what looks to be a legal visa. And then German police raided it, incarcerated our engineers. How would we respond? So this is how South Korea is going to respond. LG, Samsung, Hyundai. They're going to substantially curtail any plans for capital investment in the United States. This was not only stupid, but it's basically going to set us back economically.

1:14:34So this was, again, yet again, another own goal. And then my other one is Russian drones. Russia is, everybody says, you know, Trump was fond of saying, oh, Russia would have never done this if I was president. Russia is poking Trump in the eye right now. Now, first, a cyber attack on an EU plane with an EU minister, fine. That's a test. And most recently, they have flown attack drones into Polish airspace. And to see how we or the EU respond. And I'm not going to get in. My prediction isn't a geopolitical prediction. My prediction is a following. The best stocks for the second half of the year or the last quarter of the year are going to be European defense stocks.

1:15:16because Russia sending attack drones into Poland. By the way, Poland is protected by Article 5 of NATO, meaning if they're attacked, all 32 member nations of NATO are attacked. What does this mean? Russia is contemplating or toying with military action against NATO. So what is the economic implication of that? You're about to see Poland has already increased its percentage of GDP going to defense spending. By the way, Poland is an economic miracle. is going to go to defense. Oh my gosh, you're going to see an increase in defense spending coming out of the EU nations. And they're going to say, you know what?

1:15:55We're not spending it on Northrop Grumman. We're not going to spend it on Andro. We're not going to spend it on Boeing. We're going to spend it on European defense companies. And guess what? There aren't that many of them. So the publicly traded, the 10 or 15 publicly traded European defense stocks are about to see the mother of all capital inflows. So the best performing stocks for the last quarter of the year are about to be European defense stocks because of these drones that Putin sent into Polish airspace. Wow. You're going geopolitical investing. That's really good. I love it. There you go.

1:16:27We 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. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week, Prof. G. Markets, Scott spoke with Justin Wolfers. I love Justin, professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. Let's listen to a clip. That AI is the most interesting technology of my lifetime, and we may be on the cusp of one of the great technological revolutions. I also might be wrong. That's fine, too. That debate is arguably the most interesting and most important economic debate, how to regulate AI, what role it'll play in our lives, how to cushion people for its impact, how to turbocharge it so that we get everything we want out of it.

1:17:12may be the most important economic debate of our lifetimes, and instead we're sitting around talking about tariffs. Ah, fascinating. Fascinating. You interviewed Russell Crowe. That's great. I am Maximus. He's coming out with a new movie where he plays, I think, Gurring, Herman Gurring, during the Nuremberg trials. It looks amazing. Wow. With Rami Malek. Oh, it looks so good. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot, and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher.

1:17:46Bernie Ayrton introduced this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Jubiroz, Miss Saverio, and Dan Shalon. Dishad Kuroz, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you 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 next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great weekend.

1:18:12Thank you.