Election Predictions, Comcast Spinoff Plans, and Guest Dan Harris

24:54area. Former President Trump has a watch party, where do we guess it? West Palm Beach. What are you going to do the night with hours left in the race? I think I'm going to go out because I'm going to try and not watch. I say this and I won't be able to do it, but the plan is I'm going to go out and I'm going to get up really early on. I mean, we're now, we were four hours ahead, now we're five hours ahead because you guys, I guess you guys fell back yesterday. but I don't want to look at it until Wednesday. I remember in 2016 when I was following it, and essentially I can do math, and they showed all these Florida counties, and I go, oh, immediately I could tell Florida's going to Trump, and then I did the broader math, and I'm like, Trump's won.

25:39And it was fairly early in the evening. And the thing I don't like about it is they try and create tension as if no matter. Yeah, they do. You know, that noise they make. Oh, and then they go to some reporter on a basketball court in a high school gym saying, we just found someone who's not that smart to talk to us about what they think about the election. Exactly. I'm going to watch Menendez documentaries. It reminds me of the IPO of Meta. This was like, I don't know, six or eight years ago. I was on with Stephanie Rohl when she was still at Bloomberg and Alex Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit.

26:14and we were supposed to go, it was supposed to go public at the open and there was a technical glitch and it didn't go public till noon. So we sat on air for two and a half hours trying to talk about Meta. And the producer kept coming out in a break and going, I'm sorry, maybe talk about WhatsApp. And me and Alex were sitting there like, we're out. We thought we were going to be here for six minutes and we're supposed to talk about this shit. And he was with Stockholm Syndrome. I'm convinced that's why Stephanie Ruhle and I like each other so much. We have literally been - Okay, because you were stuck.

26:42Yeah. We have been through - All right, let's get back to the election. Sorry, go ahead. Let's get back to the election. With hours left in the race, they're neck and neck, apparently, in swing states, according to the final New York Times-Siena poll. More specifically, it shows Harris marginally ahead in Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin. The poll has Trump slightly ahead in Arizona. Michigan, Georgia. Michigan is more Harris, actually. Georgia, Pennsylvania. Georgia and Pennsylvania are extremely close. One surprise, a separate outlier Iowa poll showing Harris three points ahead of Trump in a state he's won twice.

27:09This is not a state that was even considered being played, but the pollster is one of the most respected, the one who is not an irritating chode. J. Ann Seltzer, she is considered the best pollster in politics. And then there, of course, is Scott's favorite poll, which I do not agree with. Trump media stock price up 54 a week ago, down in the low 30s and headed down as we head into Election Day. You may use that. I'm not going to use that or the predictions market. So thoughts, right? Top line thoughts. Well, first off, that's misinformation. My favorite poll is a short one that has a non-switch and then I stick it up my ass.

27:43That's good. That's good. All right. Anyways, maybe I should try that. I'm so stressed out. Anyways, Xanax and ass play. There you go. That's a peanut butter and shot. You asked me what I was going to do tomorrow night. There you go. Oh, I didn't wish I had that.

28:27The momentum is squarely in Harris, on Harris right now, or for Harris. And this poll, this Seltzer individual, is probably the best pollster in the nation, hands down, in terms of her ability to predict stuff over the last eight or ten elections. And she has Harris up three to four points in Iowa. And in addition— I think it's all over the place. It's whether it's happening in other states nearby. That's the idea. I thought that's pretty interesting. And two, I think his media coverage lately has just been horrible. I think he looks old. Horrible. Saying crazy shit. The crowds, there's a lot of videos of the crowd this morning in North Carolina.

29:10It's half full. All his venues are half full. And that's not just Kamala Harris trolling him, which she is. But they're actually half full in several places. Name one good thing that's happened for him in the last five days. Nothing. Fluoride with Robert Kennedy Jr.? What the fuck is that guy keeps showing up saying, don't drink Gatorade, mayonnaise, or fluoride? Like, what the fuck? Like, have you seen that? All of these self-inflicted wounds. Tony Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe. And then the MyPillow guy, Al Capone and the MyPillow guy with Trump. I was like, what are you doing, Grampy? Go back in the home.

29:42But these are unforced errors. You could have said about RFK, we're going to have them on the environment. I want to soften them. Instead, they said, we're going to put this guy in charge of vaccines and also women's bottles. I mean, all of these self-inflicted injuries that they don't. And also I've heard, I have friends canvassing in Pennsylvania and they run into other canvassers from both sides. They said the number of canvassers in Pennsylvania right now is running, people getting kind of soles to the poles, feet on the street, is 10 to 1 Harris canvassers. Yeah. Well, they're more, they pay people.

30:14They pay them unlike the Elon Musk crowd. He's outsourced everything to Elon Musk, which is he's running, he's running there at this way. It looks like he's running it like he's running Twitter and not Tesla or SpaceX. It's the it's the Twitter Elon running this, not the SpaceX, SpaceX Elon, who is very competent. It does not mean the madness is going to slow down, though. The election is everything from the FCC to Cardi B, who gave Elon a real slap in the head, which she's so, you know, turns out she was like in AP history. She never talks about her academic career, but all her teachers were like, she's the smartest kid we had.

30:47Grew up from very humble background, and she whacked Elon Musk hard in the head over on Twitter. But NBC gave Donald Trump free airtime during Sunday's NASCAR race in order to stay compliant with the FCC's equal time rule. The move came after Trump-appointed FCC Commissioner Brandon Carr, who's such—I'm sorry, he's just such a—he's so thirsty, claimed that Kamala Harris' Saturday Night Live appearance this past weekend violated the rule. So, fine, Brandon. You were so thirsty. I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with that. He was all over the airwaves. He could just upset it and not like, he's thirsty.

31:19Anyway, we can talk about the relevance of equal time in broadcast in just a second. But it's an interesting comparison to see how each candidate used their time. First up, Kamala Harris on SNL. Maya Rudolph was doing her regular Kamala Harris impression, which is fantastic. And the vice president popped up to play her mirror image. Together, they poked fun at Donald Trump's recent stop in Wisconsin. Let's listen. Nice to see you, Kamala. It is nice to see you, Kamala. And I'm just here to remind you, you got this because you can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors. I see what you did there like to a garbage truck, right?

31:59Next up, Trump campaign commercial it aired after NASCAR race. We've never seen anything like it, at least for the last 40 years. We have to straighten out our country. We have to close our borders. We have to lower our taxes. We have to get rid of inflation. And we're going to do it. Just remember, Kamala and her friends broke it. I'll fix it. Most important election in the history of our country. Go and vote. Wow. Okay, equal time for both of them that we give them here at Pivot. I thought that was terrible. But whatever, he seems angry. They were both strong. I don't know. Trump hit the notes at his base once and his people wanted to hear.

32:37That was strong. I guess. In any case, she was funnier. The equal time rule requires broadcast stations and candidates comparable opportunities to appear on the air this close to the election. I think that's one of the things, seven days. It doesn't mean they have to be on the same show or that they have to give advance notice. But in any case, they did that. And I did think Gamla was charming. I don't know about you. Oh, you got to think. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the majority of the SNL writing staff leans progressive. A bunch of Harvard-educated people who live in New York writing for SNL.

33:10I'm just going to go out on a limb and assume that they're probably progressives. They got the assignment. They sat down and said, we need to make her look likable, funny, intelligent, depositioned him. And the writers there, wow, they showed up. That is not an easy thing to do. That was really well done. I thought she did because when Hillary's been on, it's been a little stiff. when other people have been on, it's been a little stiff. I thought she handled it beautifully. I was surprised by how adept she was. She usually can be a little awkward, but she was quite good. I think she likes Maya Rudolph.

33:46I think there was a real rapport between them. I thought that worked really well. It was interesting, and I also think that— And she also looked good. I hate to say that, but she looks younger than he does. She looks significantly more attractive, yes. And I know that's dumb, but it's a thing. It's a thing. Dumb? I'll work for Newsom because he's handsome. What do you mean dumb? It matters. It's hugely important. He looks really old. It's hugely important. Really old. It looks really saddled and old. But interestingly, speaking of his top surrogate, Elon Musk, as I noted, Cardi B in here fighting.

34:22Musk called the rapper a puppet following her endorsement of Harris in Wisconsin last week. Her response, I'm not a puppet, Elon. I'm a daughter of two immigrants' parents who had to work their ass off to provide for me. P.S. Fix my algorithm. And she didn't say please. On the latest episode of On with Kara Swisher, I assembled a panel of experts to look at Elon's role in the election. I thought that was the perfect thing for my show because he's been so active. I got the reporters who have broken a lot of these stories, whether it's on Putin or all manner of things, the million dollar giveaway, whatever.

34:52Reporter Zoe Schiffer talked about how Elon's ex-management provides some hints about his potential future in government if Trump wins. Let's listen. From Elon's perspective, he's like, look, I got rid of all these people. I save all these costs. And the platform is still relatively functional. But it's one thing to have a relatively functional Twitter or X. It's another to have a semi-functional government. And I think him deploying these same techniques in the U.S. government is a much scarier prospect. Anyway, we talked about a range of things. You know, Elon's really, as I said, I think it's the Elon election.

35:28You've talked about it being the podcast election. Probably it's both. His on-the-ground canvassing efforts, as you noted, seem completely disorganized. Lots of stories of putting people in trucks without windows, without seats and stuff like that, and not paying them and stranding them in Michigan. Do you think if he loses, I suspect they're going to point a lot of fingers at him. Trump, and Trump, of course, but him in particular. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, at Musk. Do you think? Or what do you think? We all concluded that he'll be fine in either administration. He'll be more irritating in the Trump administration and dangerous, but in the Harris administration, he's done rather well in the Biden administration, by the way.

36:09So what are your thoughts of where he goes in each scenario? Well, we talked about it in this last episode. That's the problem with autocratic tendencies is that it pays to support the autocrat because there's, you're right, there'll be no downside for him as far as I can tell if Harris wins. And also, I think if Harris loses, people are going to, correctly in my view, blame Biden's narcissism and the Democratic Party's consensual hallucination that this guy had any business running for re-election. and two, a huge tactical error, not rising to the level of why she didn't do better than she did in retrospect.

36:52It was a huge tactical error for Biden not to kiss Elon's ass. And I know that sounds, I know we want to say, I know we want to say good for them. They don't kowtow to Elon. To have an EV summit and not imbide him, keep in mind, Musk did vote for Obama. And I as much, you know, neither of us are fans of Elon Musk. He's an outstanding surrogate for Trump because there are few people in this nation or globally who more young men look up to. And he's he's robust. He's in it. He's unafraid. He's out there for him. It's just it's it's just too bad. And another talking about unforced errors. It's an unforced error that Biden didn't kiss his ass and do what everyone does for Trump.

37:39And that is kiss his ass to get him on his side. But if he loses, I don't, I don't, my sense right now, Musk is, okay, Twitter, he's got the value by 75%, but SpaceX is on a roll. SpaceX is on a roll. One of the most seminal images. I mean, quite frankly, I think two of the most, the images of the year, I think it's a toss-up between Trump pumping his fists in the air after the failed assassination attempt. Or that rocket being captured by those metal chopsticks. And that's Trump and Musk. show. Although I give you a third, the picture of Kamala Harris's niece looking up at her. I thought that was a beautiful photo.

38:23Do you know the one with her hair? I know what you're talking about. It was beautiful. That was a beautiful picture. It kind of depends who wins, right? What will be seen as the image of the year. Oh, I think the Trump one was quite a picture. I mean, I'm talking just pictures. I think those two, to me, Harris with the niece and Trump, I thought those were the most important political pictures of the year. Yeah, I think one's more sweet than historic. I think that anyways, but there's no getting around it. Musk is an outstanding surrogate for Trump, and it was a self-inflicted wound that we shouldn't have made to alienate him the way the Democratic Party did.

39:00And I'll put some insight in here. When that happened, two things. I heard from Musk a lot about it. He was like, why are they doing this? Why are this shitty? He could not stop talking about it in a very manic way, I would call it. We were speaking then. And I was sort of perplexed. I was perplexed, too. I was like, huh, you kind of do, even though you're an egomaniac, you kind of deserve that one. And I was like, well, it's the union thing, I assume. But he wasn't taking any of that. He's like, I was like, it's the union thing. Don't get your nose out of joint. And which made sense to me. But then, and when I actually called people in the Biden administration, I'm like, this was a big fucking error.

39:37This guy is pissed. They're like, oh, come on. He's not that pissed. He gets it. I'm like, no, no, he's pissed. Like, in a way, I said, this is not a normal person. And he's not, he has normal emotions. He thinks he's the father of all electric cars at this moment. And so, in many ways, he, well, no, but technically no, but yes, yes. He was the one that pushed it through. I'm sorry, we're going to have an EV summit invite the person in charge of the Pontiac Leaf, but not Tesla? I know that. I get that. I get it. I, I, this is what I said to the Biden people. and I thought it was an error the whole time although I thought they traded a very short-term thing which was the unions being angry at him and one being Musk being and I always felt Musk was more dangerous than the unions to them but you're right, that really was a moment for him and he overdid it at the same time he could have gotten over but he wasn't going to if they understood him as a character and he really does have a Jesus complex so in any case, we will see what happens let's bring in our friend of Pivot

40:39Dan Harris is the host of the 10 % Happier podcast. Welcome, Dan. Thanks for having me. It's so weird. I'm sure you hear this all the time. So weird to be on a show that I've listened to for so many years. Oh, well, welcome. We're so thrilled you're here. I am 15 % happier right now for you to be here. Anyway, because we're here on Election Day, this is publishing on Election Day, we want to share some numbers. 69 % of American adults say that 2024 election is a source of stress. That's mostly Scott Galloway in that survey. But it's a survey of the American Psychology Association. 72 % are worried that the election results could lead to violence.

41:14I am too, actually, shockingly. I usually am not that way. So let's start off sort of high level. What's your advice for people, specifically Scott Galloway, in terms of managing stress and anxiety on election day and the days that follow? On both sides, please. I mean, Scott, whose career I follow quite closely, is actually doing the thing that I would recommend as a first step. There's a great expression. I did not come up with this, but the expression is action absorbs anxiety. So I follow Scott on social media. He's out there talking about what he believes and he's taking action. And we all have the capacity to exert our agency, even though, of course, none of us can single handedly affect the outcome or control the outcome for sure.

42:01But you can take action by joining a campaign or doing what Scott does, speaking out publicly to the extent that you have that capacity. It doesn't even have to be related to politics, however. You can just volunteer at a soup kitchen or an animal shelter. You can just be more useful to the people in your environment. There's a little, you know, little inner inquiry I ask people to do, which is what does it feel like when you hold the door open for somebody? It feels good if you're paying attention. And that feeling is infinitely scalable. Oh, I like that. idea. You know, it's interesting. A lot of my friends are who are driving me crazy, actually, because they're very stressful people.

42:37They've all gone out canvassing and they are so much happier. You know, even if they they see people who don't agree with them, every one of them is now not irritating in the way they were, which was interesting. So you recommend worrying, making worrying a team sport. Can you explain that? I mean, we're doing that right now. I this is based in an enormous amount of evidence. So just for some context, there is this study that you guys may have heard of the Harvard study for adult development. It's been going on for nearly 90 years and they've been following several generations of families in the Boston area to try to figure out like what, what contributes to a long, happy and healthy life.

43:16And the number one variable is not sleep or exercise or whether you're achieving ketosis. All of those things, I guess, are helpful. But the number one variable is the quality of your relationships. That is what matters most. Why? Because stress is generally what kills us. And the most effective way to regulate stress for a social species, such as Homo sapiens, the most effective way is through quality relationships. Hence the expression, also not mine, never worry alone. make your anxiety a team sport, call your mom, call your friends, talk about it with people who you respect. That is, I think, probably the best way to get through this.

44:00Interesting. So Dan, essentially you are a less neurotic, friendlier, better haired person than Scott, but you're the same person. So, so here you are at Scott, ask your question. You're his doppelganger in a weird Yeah. So let me just say, I love Dan and his content and I steal your sayings. I say I'm 10 % more Jewish now. Yeah, I heard you say that actually. But your content for me is a little too optimistic. I don't like that part of it. But what has really moved me with your content is you come across as just so shit together and like the guy you would want in a crisis. like you remind me like if you're ever in a movie you're going to be that medic on d-day just running from injured person injured person you come across as so quite frankly just shit together and can handle everything and you've been very transparent about your struggles and anxiety even so much i've seen videos of you deplaning because you couldn't handle because you were having a panic attack and i think it's really important that that people see who they perceive to be very strong men having that sort of vulnerability.

45:12So for those of us who do struggle with anxiety, talk a little bit about your struggles with it, where it's happened recently, and what kind of cognitive therapy or behavioral therapy you've incorporated that has helped you. Well, thank you for that. One of the little jokes I make is that some people teach from the mountaintop and I teach from the fetal position. And I'm not some sort of perfected being. Occasionally, people will say to me, you know, you're pretty anxious for a meditation guy or a happiness quasi-expert. And my answer is you have the causality wrong. I am into meditation and well-being because I'm so anxious.

46:01And, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think this is, first of all, we're at a time where we have unprecedented anxiety in our culture. But the good news is there are ways to treat it. I'll talk about two that have been very helpful for me. Not only am I anxious, I also have panic disorder. So that can show up in public speaking or in claustrophobia. So on a plane or in an elevator, two things that are helpful for me are one is called exposure therapy. And this is just everyday bravery, being afraid of something and doing it anyway, saddling up anyway, and approaching the things that scare you as counterintuitive as this is.

46:44If you can carefully and slowly and systematically approach the things that scare you, that is the way through anxiety for many people, myself included, and especially with panic. So elevators have been tough for me historically. And so I'll ride an elevator at the Westchester Mall with my shrink for an hour and it's uncomfortable, but that's how you get over it. The second thing for me is learning how, and to me, this is just so radically powerful and such good news that you can rewire the way you talk to yourself. And so for me, just learning to talk back against my inner critic or my inner anxiety dragon and to channel my capacity to mentor other people and direct it toward myself has been really helpful.

47:37So social media, of course, can be a source of stress and people will likely be doom scrolling, as they do all the time now. Is it helpful to take a break or not? Because I think people can't, or news, more than just social media, but news consumption, like every little moment? Yes, this is a short answer. The slightly longer answer is we all have to make the call individually. But it's about, for me, it's about drawing the line between being an engaged citizen and informed citizen, which is important, and being a crazy person. And we have to figure out how much is enough? How much can our nervous system handle?

48:21To me, one of the most powerful tools in terms of gauging this, in terms of walking this line, is mindfulness, which is, of course, the fruit of mindfulness meditation, which helps you have more self-awareness so that you might notice, oh yeah, I'm on hour eight on X slash Twitter, and I'm typing in all caps. Maybe it's time to put this thing down and take a nap. Or, you know, my stomach is rumbling. I haven't eaten. Whatever it is to have the self-awareness of what's happening in your body and mind so that you're not owned by it. Mindfulness is very helpful in that way, especially as it comes to the titration of your news consumption.

49:01Scott? So, Dan, you, your career was, I mean, you essentially rose to be, I think, either the anchor or the co-anchor of Nightline. Is that right? Yeah, one of the co-anchors of Nightline. So that's a pretty big seat. And the majority of the anchors I know from broadcast television, whenever I speak to them, they're complaining about just how shitty their career and compensation and prospects have become because that business is melting. And you managed to transition to, I think you actually have a bigger footprint right now than you used to, maybe. You're one of the few that kind of, you know, got out of, you know, made it out.

49:47What advice are you, well, let me go back. What were the pivotal moments and how did you manage to do that successfully when so, quite frankly, just a lot of people have had a really difficult time transitioning out of old media into new media? I mean, it's brutal in old media. I'm not telling either of you anything you don't know. And I started to really think about this many years ago. I remember as early as 2008, 2009 thinking, I better build a personal brand. And I didn't know what that was going to be. At first, I had a little show on YouTube about indie rock. I'm a big indie rock fan. That show did horribly, and most of the comments were really, really negative.

50:32So I ended up euthanizing that. And then around the same time, I was starting to get interested in meditation and mindfulness. And I had this entrepreneurial sense that, yeah, there's a lot of science that shows that this stuff is really good for you. And most of the books I'm reading about this are really annoying. And so I thought, well, let me write a book that tells really embarrassing stories and uses the word fuck a lot and see if I can, you know, get people who otherwise would reject this material interested in it. And, yeah, so that that became a book called 10 percent happier. And that ended up sort of swallowing my life.

51:10And I spent a lot of time trying to do two things at once, maintaining my career at ABC while becoming this traveling evangelist for meditation. And most of that was kind of based in fear. But eventually, a couple of years ago, I was able to make the leap and retire and just do this full time. When did you start the pod? Yeah, how did you start? What advice would you give to people still there? I bet they call you, correct? Yeah, I mean, I hear about this all the time. I think I did it incorrectly in that I waited too long to leap, but I think you can start developing your personal brand while you are within the belly of the beast.

51:56And there's a way in which being associated with a major organization, for me, it was incredibly helpful. I was employed by Disney, which owns ABC News. And, you know, that allowed me, you know, an enormous that gave me just a huge platform from which to build. So I think it's possible to do this straddle. But I mean, the good news, and I mean, I'd be curious to hear from the two of you, but my reading of the media landscape is that while it's largely a blightscape, the one bright area is what the three of us are doing, which is building a brand around a distinctive voice and figuring out what you can add and then building around that.

52:37But now there's never been a time better than right now for that. Would you agree? Yeah, absolutely. We love it. We never done better, I think. Right, Scott? Don't you think? In a lot of ways? Or happier. We're at least 10 % happier. We're going to need a bigger boat. The bottom line is you can have a third of the audience that you used to have, but it requires a tenth, if not a twentieth of the resources, making it a much more profitable economic venture. and I mean I can't imagine the infrastructure you had to have around you to produce Nightline and you can you can garner maybe 50 percent of the audience or a quarter of the audience you have a top 200 podcasts on a fraction of the resources making it a better economic model having said that the unfortunate thing about podcasting which is taking over everything that's been digitized is there's tremendous inequality and that is you're talking to three people who are in the top 200 podcasts of a world that produces 600 ,000 a week.

53:37So if unless you're in the point 001%, this is a brutal industry as well. But if you get there, it's where media is headed. It's just a better economic model. Yeah, but podcasts are - We're all so happy. Podcasts and happier. I totally agree with you, Kara. Podcasts are really brutal. However, However, I do think social is a place that's become more democratic in that as we've moved from the social graph to the interest graph, I can create a video with very few followers that reaches millions of people because the algorithms have changed recently. So I think there are places where you can build an audience that would be easier and more hospitable than the podcast space.

54:22Yeah, absolutely. All right. A couple more questions about the election. I have just two more. For parents out there, how can we avoid passing our anxiety on to our kids? We have a lot of kids. I don't know if you have kids, but I assume you do. And what will you be doing on election night to stay calm as you're – maybe you're not watching results. Scott is not watching. He's going out. I am not going out at all, and I'm going to read history books. Wait, so you're avoiding it, Scott? Well, I live in London, and generally speaking, this really does – I don't know if I'm – older and so I have a better perspective on how important this election is.

54:58I'm just older and more stressed. But because I wouldn't know, I'm not going to know anything on Wednesday morning, tomorrow night. I'm just going to, I'm going out with some buddies and I'm just going to enjoy myself and I'm going to wake up Wednesday morning and freak out then. But yeah, I'm not going to engage. Oh, I'm going on Brian Williams on Amazon for a few minutes, but other than that, I'm not going to engage. Karen, you're going to read? I'm going to read too. I'm interviewing some historians right after the election. So I'm reading history books. That's what I'm doing. I think you're totally posing.

55:25I don't believe you. I will watch TV. No, just one. Just one and I'll flip among me. I'm going to read poetry and go to the classics. But I'm not going to a party, that's for sure. I'm not going out because I just can't. I just can't do it. There's lots of parties, but I'm not going to any of them. What are you doing, Dan? So just to respond to all of that, first of all, I think it's great to do whatever is in your best interest to keep yourself sane. And as a parent myself, I have a nine-year-old. That is what osmotically is likely to land for your children. Better than any lecture you could give them is taking care of yourself in a way that they observe and will, I think, absorb.

56:08And in terms of history, there's some evidence that reading history actually is a bomb in the face of our current tumult, because you can start to see that we've been through horrible stuff before. Would you rather be where we are right now or on the lip of World War II or the Civil War? Personally, I'll take today. So I think I hear a lot of wisdom in both of your election evening plans. And also, Scott, I'll be on with Brian Williams as well. Oh, I'm on at like 4 a.m. They know they have you up first. That is as tight as a tick. He'll have a million of those, right? They'll be like, that's like watching a moose drive a convertible.

56:52And everyone's like, I don't know what that means, but it sounds good. You know, you guys are going to the nicest place. Mr. Williams is very calming. I think that's a good choice. They have to have you on if you have a prime membership. So 87 % of America is invited on. I am just, I'm going to just watch Rachel Maddow. That's all I'm going to do because she makes me feel better. And that's going to help your stress? It is. She does. The lesbians make me calm. That's like two Subarus colliding into each other at 150 miles an hour. No, it's not. Oh, my God. So inappropriate. A Subaru Forester and a Subaru Impressor had a head-on collision on election night.

57:28If Trump wins, we have to initiate the militia etheridge. And so we've got to move on. So anyway, I think I'm going to stay home and just be calm about it. Anyway, Amanda, of course, is already losing her mind already. So we'll see where it goes. She already warned me. She goes, I will not be good if he wins. I was like, OK, great. Sounds fantastic. Anyway, Dan, are you writing 15 % Happier Next? What is your next thing? I am working on a book that I've been writing for six years that I have not been able to get right, which really moves from mindfulness, which was the subject of my first book, to and I don't know the right word for this, but I'm going to use the word love or warmth or friendliness or this capacity we all have for compassion that we can direct not only toward other people, but also ourselves.

58:18that seems like the missing skill in an anxiety epidemic and in the middle of a really divisive time. So that's what I'm thinking about. So you mentioned you have a nine-year-old, just one or? Just one. So I really relate to some of the stuff you talk about around anxiety and panic attacks. I also get them rarely, but consistently when I'm speaking. And one of the things I've found really helps when I'm feeling stressed is time with my boys. In general, my boys just raise my stress level. But when I'm really stressed, I find they bring it down because they can be so awful. It demands that I go out of my own head.

58:55Any thoughts around time with kids? I mean, to me, this goes back to action absorbs anxiety. If you can be useful to anybody else, it will pull you out of your stuff. And so parenting, for all of its vexations, can do that. and you can up the effectiveness of that by just tuning in to what does it feel like if I'm taking care of another being. It feels pretty good. So let's turn the volume up on that and turn the volume down on our own self-centered rumination. I mean, another of my little dumb quips is that the view is so much better when you pull your head out of your ass. And I think that's where we will end it.

59:43That's really exciting. The View is so much better. You will be 26 % happier if you pull your head out of your ass. That's my feeling on that one. Dan, you're fantastic. We love your podcast. We love all your work. Thank you. And thank you so much. I already feel better. And you can listen to Dan on 10 % happier. Thanks, Dan. Bye. Wasn't that lovely? Isn't Dan lovely? So you didn't come through. You purposely tried to get in between me and Emily Ratajkowski. But I want to be friends with Dan Harris. So I need you to set us up for a mandate. Now, I want Emily, but I need Dan. So I realize you're a little jelly of me and Emily's budding relationship, but you can make up for it by setting me up with I want a mandate with Dan.

1:00:30I need that guy in my life. That guy just makes me feel calm. I will. He's a total baller. His hair is spectacular. He's very handsome. He's very successful. That's what I want to roll with. And I'll have lunch. Does he live in D.C.? Seems like the kind of guy I would live in D.C. I don't know. I don't care where he lives. But I go to dinner with him and people are like, oh, there's Scott with Dan Harris. I always knew Scott was more interesting than he seems. And people will love me. Okay, I will make. I will make. I need a play date. So next time you're in New York. Set up a play date. That's your job.

1:00:58I will set up a play date for Scott Galloway. I will do that. That will be your birthday present. By the way, everybody wish Scott a happy birthday. The birthday that will never end. The last weekend. It will never end. I know, I forgot. But it was his birthday just recently. So congratulations. Thank you very much, Kara. All right. We'll be back for—we're going to change wins and fails to predictions. And then we'll do wins and fails on Thursday. So we're obviously going to predict about the election. And we will do that in a minute.

1:01:32Okay, Scott Galloway, prediction from you, obviously, about the election, unless you want to talk about something else. Well, I'll do two because we're supposed to be tech and business, so I'll try and I'll do something about tech and business. And then obviously people either come here for a prediction or either will love or hate this prediction. But I think there's a really decent chance. I think Intel is probably the ripest large. It's not large cap now. It's mid cap. It's the ripest candidate I've seen in a while for a take private. that is it's got outstanding assets decent cash flow i think actually a pretty talented ceo depressed stock price and it needs to be out of the public view or public markets for a good 12 to 36 months similar to what dell did the investments they need to make the layoffs they need to make quite frankly the efficiencies they need would best be done as a private company not a public and it's got so many outstanding assets in terms of its management its suppliers It's supply chain.

1:02:30It's vendor relationship. It's customer relationships. It's brand. It's global brand. It's arguably one of the probably the 10 most recognized tech brands in the world. It to me, Cara, just screams. Are you up to something? I am not personally, no. Are you up to something? It just screams take private to me. This would be, I got to think that this would be one of the better. It's just so fucking ripe. It's about to fall off the tree for a big private equity firm to come in and put together a great investor group and take it private, in my view. My other prediction is simple. I think this poll out of Iowa shows there's real surprising momentum.

1:03:09It just feels everything is coming our way. And then just the feet on the street operation organized by the Harris campaign because of the money and the organization here. I don't even think this is, I'm predicting, Cara, that it's not just a win for Harris. It's a decisive win. Sorry, Scott, I had to change to my iPhone because we had a power surge. I'm blaming Tucker Carlson. I said that Kamala was going to win and was going to be decisive. Well, Scott, I think I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's something I've been saying for a long time. I think women are the quiet majority of people who are going to be active in this election.

1:03:42It doesn't mean that Trump hasn't done very well, given all the hair on this guy. And there's a lot of it. But, you know, he was a president, and so there is that popularity element of it. I just think the people he's aimed at are people who are low-propensity voters, and they don't leave the basement because they're stoned. Like, that's the people he's trying to get to vote. I think the last week, all the mistakes have been massive and really significant, much more so than people realize. I think reporters have spent far too much time on Twitter. And so they think that the world is more dire than it is because Elon's managed to create a terrible environment there.

1:04:20And so media reporters just cannot possibly imagine being pro-Harris at this point. So that's why they're doing that. And they spend too much time focused on polls and easily gamed predictions markets. My biggest thing, two things have been, and then you can react, is one, the amount of money she's raised from small donors. It says a lot to me. It's about motivated people. I do think women do vote and they don't, and they're tired of incels. They're tired of rapists. They're tired of being told what to do with their bodies. And they are much more motivated than the men who are just like, I like a tough guy, like that kind of thing.

1:04:57I don't think they like him that much. Lastly, today and the last week and a half at least, his rallies have been sparsely attended. And if right now there's pictures of him in North Carolina on the final day of the election, half-empty halls in North Carolina, it says a lot to me. These people are tired of the show. And as a longtime watcher of The Apprentice, let me just say, I got tired of the show in the last season and stopped watching it. And that's what it feels like. And you can decry me for watching The Apprentice, but it was a good show. So that's where I feel. I think she's going to perform better, but I have to tell you, I think he's going to do everything possible to stay out of jail, including declaring victory very early in the evening.

1:05:38So it could be a very long few days and very and I'm worried a little bit more than probably you about violence. So I agree with the net net. I do get a little bit defensive. I think there is some misandry in there, Kara, when you refer to young men as saying women are tired of rapists and incels and are getting stoned in their basements. I don't think the Democratic Party has done itself any favors by ignoring the struggles that young men face. And I think the Democratic Party has lost a lot of potential voters. Young men are actually is in favor of gender equality as young women. They just they just don't feel that the Democratic Party, they feel the Democratic Party by purposely advocating or stating that they try and advantage 76 percent of the population is not advantaging 70 that 74 percent.

1:06:23But it's discriminating against the 26 percent that are young men. And I think sometimes we have a tendency to stereotype them and not recognize the nuance and just the very real struggles that young men face. I don't think the Democratic Party's draped itself in glory there. I 100 % agree. And I think it's one thing Harris should spend a lot of time doing, bringing in people like you and Richard Reeves and stuff like that. Because I think it is a crisis. I'm just talking political strategy. I don't think this is a dependable group of voters. I think you're right. I think you're right. That's what I mean.

1:06:55And I think we have to. I have three sons. Matters a great deal to me how young men feel about their lives. And we want to bring them in and make them feel better. I don't love that a lot of, say, men of color right now are like, oh, Trump doesn't like us. That's why I'm not voting for him because he's saying we're garbage. I don't like that either. It's like they should feel good about this country and they should feel good about their role in it. But I do think women have had it, really had it with, and I'm not saying incels. You made this argument yourself, which was, you know, like women are tired of being like told what to do with their body, really and truly.

1:07:34And I think that's the quiet thing that men are now saying out loud about being unhappy. I think women are very unhappy underneath in a way that will motivate them to vote. And we should begin to bring ourselves together as a group of people. And I would recommend you watching the Will.i.am video of the song. We used to get along not as well as we could have, but better than we do now. And all this garbage has to stop. Everything with garbage has to stop. Or not garbage. Or the American people, it has to stop. And hopefully that will mean kicking Trump to the curb finally. because he is a part of our personality that exists but shouldn't anymore.

1:08:16Word. Word, my sister. Word. Sister, brother. Well, we'll see. We'll see on Thursday. We could be totally depressed. But we're here for it. We're here for it, and we'll do whatever we can. But we're still going to build a great country regardless of what happens. But we want Kamala to win because she's super cool. But I think that's an important point. Something that's unproductive is the catastrophizing on both sides that claim America is over if he or she wins. America has endured worse than he or she. And while I do think certain groups, in my view, young people who would incur deficits or what are effectively tax increases that will be unprecedented, obviously women in terms of a continued loss of domain over their own bodily autonomy.

1:08:59But to believe that America is not going to be around in four years if he or she wins just doesn't recognize history or how enduring and outstanding America is. I agree with you, Scott, and I think it is. And I do like her message, which is much more about unity on the way out. His is about fluoride, whether you should have fluoride in the water and Al Capone. We're done with that. And I'm glad that she's doing a unity message at the end. Hopefully she can stick with that. And I hope she does if she becomes president. And it would be a great moment in our history to have the first woman president of the United States.

1:09:31Just exciting. And I'd be just as excited if it was Republican, honestly, as long as it was a good one. But I'm very excited about that. Anyway, Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Christine Driscoll. Bernie or Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Brosmeier-Ceverio and Dan Shulon. Nishak Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

1:10:02We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, I will see you on the other side. And go vote, everybody.