Ghislaine's DOJ Interview, Cracker Barrel's Logo Change, and Guest Co-Host Tim Miller

23:13Also rather kind to Epstein. He can rot in hell. She did, however, say she doesn't believe Epstein died by suicide in prison. Honestly, why are we listening to that? I'm sorry. She's a heinous bitch. Why are we listening to her? Will it appease the MAGA folks? And what do you make of the timing? The DOJ also gave Congress thousands of Epstein documents, though Democrats are pointing out the majority of these documents were already public. They're trying to sort of slow roll the thing. A posthumous, end quote, unsparing memoir by Epstein accuser Virginia Gaffray, who died by suicide in April, is coming out in this fall.

23:46And also some of the victims are now and fucking had it with this, again, HB, heinous bitch. No need to apologize for saying heinous bitch. We can say that again now. Was that what I heard after the election that those words are allowed again? Yeah, OK, good. I can say whatever I want about her. So anyway, you know, I'm hoping Elizabeth Holmes like like smacks her a little bit. They're in the same prison, I guess. Talk a little bit about this and where it's going. I still think it's got a lot of legs, this this story. I don't know. I feel like it does. I do laugh at her having hearing her call Trump.

24:20He was a gentleman in every respect. Like even Trump's friends don't think he's a gentleman. Trump wouldn't describe himself as a gentleman. I don't think. And it's just it's so, you know, fucking preposterous. um no she's all and she's awful it's like important to just say that like and she was involved in the sex crimes like some of these reports like she was there in the room when it was actually happening so she wasn't participating in it yeah and she was bullying and intimidating these women they were they're in a quasi sex slavery with him like essentially saying where she was you know saying oh you know you're not going to get you know there would be financial pressure she'd put over them or access or threats.

24:56So, and she is as, as bad as they get, uh, and, and a liar and totally unreliable. Um, in all of these cases, her only effort here is to get a pardon. I don't, I don't think anything really comes out of this. Um, I think it's, um, it maybe should be used against Trump politically. The fact that she's been sent to a club fed is the only sex offender in the entire prison system in such a, such a nice prison with Elizabeth Holmes. And, um, and so I think there's maybe some political juice there, not a ton, but there's something. I think that to me, the potential story here is that, um, is it like, there is an actual traditional coverup, right?

25:35Like a lot of Trump's other behavior is like very, is sui generis. Like it's just Trump, like he's doing stuff that doesn't really happen before. It's different people like his crypto scheme. It's like, what, you know, like there's not, there's not a history of this type of scandal, you know, for folks to like, you know, connect to. That's not the case here. Like this is just a straight cover up that many other politicians have done. Like they have a list of all the times Trump has mentioned in these files. They've admitted it. They said there's a Microsoft share file with the FBI agents that went through and marked his name.

26:05So this exists somewhere, you know, a file where of where Trump is in there and they don't want to release it. And they're not going to then to cover it up to protect the boss. Like that's just a straight cover up story. And I think that I asked Hakeem Jeffries about this when he was on the pod the other week. And I was like, so will you have a special committee on this if you get back into the leadership? And he kind of said yes, like he wouldn't commit to exactly to a special committee, but he said, we will be investigating this. And I think they can now then just do, again, a straight old school cover-up investigation.

26:34They can subpoena the FBI agents that were involved in this, you know, what Bondi did, what she briefed Trump on, and who knows where that could lead, Right. And so, you know, the example I always use of this is all those Benghazi oversight hearings in this weird convoluted way. The Benghazi hearing led to the Hillary email server, you know, and and so you don't exactly know what will come from oversight. And so I think if the Democrats are willing to actually do it, if they will first, if they win in the midterms and then if they're actually to do it, like this is a story that we'll be talking about in August of 2027.

27:08Yeah, they're trying to push it down, and they didn't push down very easily. I don't think this guy continues to resurface, Epstein. He's like the corpse that wouldn't be buried, essentially. And he keeps showing up in some fashion. I think the Jelaine Maxwell, I know a lot of them are saying Trump is clean, like Jim Jordan, who who's good at defending pedophiles and covering up for them, you know, would say he's not clean by any stretch of the imagination like at all, because this lady says it. not so. I just, one photograph, one, another accuser, that's all it's going to take to really revive this.

27:45Because it really does animate the right in ways that, it didn't animate the left, by the way. It doesn't animate liberals, this story. Yeah. And I think that was because the right got animated by it. The pretense was kind of like this concern about child sex trafficking. And there are some, obviously there are people on the right who are genuinely concerned about child predation and but i think that why it sort of like you know tickled their um you know the lizard part of their brain was the the death side it was like the conspiracy side of it is like oh was there a deep state effort to protect whoever the clintons you know you name it like whoever and it was and that like plot side of it is what like elevated the story from what would have been a very like serious no doubt like real story with like real victims and all that to something that like had this life of its own on the right.

28:35And I think that like for that same reason now, like there's a, there's a, not really a conspiracy, but a coverup that I think will animate the left that kind of gets lopped on to the more straightforward story about what they were doing to these young girls. Right. That's a really good point. That will be the thing. This, this, you know, there are attempts at slow rolling it and they still fight among each other with Laura Loomer still calling Pam Bondi blondie, et cetera. I suspect this is still going to keep going with this guy. Okay, Tim, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump makes a deal with Intel.

29:13The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small. From improving emergency response times to protecting against cyber attacks, local, state, and federal governments are innovating with Google AI. This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at g.co slash American Innovation. There is a lot to talk about when we talk about Donald Trump and Jimmy Kimmel. One big question I've got is why in 2025 are late night TV shows like Jimmy Kimmel's show still on TV? Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, they're just some of the biggest faces of their networks.

29:57If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes. But what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels. And that was James Ponowozik, the TV critic for The New York Times. This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable for now. That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

30:54calling for Intel's CEO to resign over ties to China. Intel's move also comes on the heels of NVIDIA and AMD agreeing to hand over 15 % of their China chip sale revenues to the government. Not clear whether they should be selling chips to China. There's also that, quote, golden share in U.S. steel. Senator Rand Paul called the Intel deal a step towards socialism. I, oddly enough, agreed with Senator Rand Paul. Industrial policy is not my favorite thing, even the Washington Post and also the Wall Street Journal. But the Washington Post editorial board came out against this saying the United States should not be trying to beat China by becoming China.

31:28You know, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders wish they could have this much control over companies, right? And Mark Cuban's interested. Bernie endorsed it, actually. Yeah, yeah, of course. And Mark Cuban said it's just a wealth tax in a different way, right? They're taking money. I, you know, as part of it, I'm like, I thought the government should have not done the giveaways to car companies or banks. I thought they should have taken a piece of Tesla and then sold it back and made money on it for the U.S. There's nothing wrong with it, but industrial policy in general is always a bad idea in a capitalist and vibrant economy.

32:05Thoughts about this and how it shakes out? I'm curious to your thoughts in the tech side. I'll just give, because this is like also a little bit outside my wheelhouse, but obviously there is the cheap but true political observation of the, you know, MAGA socialism. Like, it's okay if Trump doesn't, we're going to panic about the five city-run grocery stores in New York. But we're going to let the government take over a 10 % stake in a major company. You know, so there's like the obvious hypocrisy on its face there. And, you know, it's kind of funny, I think, back to my like heyday as a Republican when like one of like back like 10, 15 years ago, there was this big controversy on the right over the ex-im bank it's like a federal bank providing loans that i how that was oh government picking winners and losers and crony capitalism like here we are like literally taking a stake in the company now so um i mean i think that is the outrageous the thing that worries me about it more than the actual than like the subject of what's happening with intel is like it is another lever for him to use power to bully kind of who knows right other people right and so whether that be Intel customers, competitors right now, like, so it's like, well, we aren't going to take a stake.

33:15We're not going to take a, we're not, or excuse me, we're not going to have a governing responsibility in the company, but the government now still has an interest in this doing well. And Trump does. Trump has an emotional interest. He's posting about how the stock's up and how that's good. And as the side of this good. And so like the downstream effects of that is something that is not like all the way to China, but, but has some of that flavor where like the government can start to intimidate certain other companies. And decide which are the national winners, right? Like, but except you don't want the government in your business, essentially.

33:46And one of the issues is Intel's been suffering for years and years, lack of innovation, bad management, et cetera, you know, for a very long time. It used to be the dominant chip maker and then just got, just fell by the wayside. So there is an argument you made for like helping U.S. companies in the chip area, largely for national security. Well, there's the Chips Act that was going to do that. Yes, exactly. But the issue is it's not going to make them more innovative by having the government investment. It's just going to prop them up. Right. And the problems with Intel run a lot deeper that maybe they should go out of business.

34:17Maybe they should restructure. Maybe they should. We shouldn't have the government deciding to keep them on life support. Right. It's not life support. It's just been it's been sucking for many CEOs for a long time. And so, you know, the natural thing is let it die. And then something else comes up. The problem is our chip manufacturers are weaker and they're stronger in Taiwan and China and elsewhere. And so just the fact that governments make choices like this, they shouldn't. What they should do is provide research money for all kinds of things. They should provide encouragement and innovative grants to help people start businesses of all kinds.

34:56Those are fine by me. I'm fine with manufacturing money, right? Like we want to make sure that they have, you know, loan guarantees to build plants. So, you know, if like there's a reason interest rates are high right now. So like it's in the national interest that we're building chip plants. Companies don't want to take the risks. The government backstops that it's not like my ideal free market system. But that's like a defensible thing. On this particular market. On this particular market. But it's just a hop, skip and jump to other markets, right? Like, let's own this. Let's own that. Well, they said that Kevin Hassett is on CNBC this morning saying now we might start to take chips and stakes in other companies.

35:30And again, this is the bullying part. This is the authoritarian part where it's like, oh, if you're another company that took money from the CHIPS Act or from the IRA, maybe those are good decisions, maybe they're bad decisions. I think that there was probably a bunch of wasted money in both of those bills, by the way. But like the companies then at that point that made that decision should not now be worried that, oh, I can't do anything, say anything that might upset Trump. I can't go on TV and have, you know, grandpa watching his stories see that I'm critical of some policy or else they might try to take over a stake in the company.

36:01Yeah, it's very meddlesome in a way that's not anti-capitalist. I can see them in their room. I can see this, especially that dumbass Howard Lutnick. Like, we should have gotten a piece of Tesla. We should have gotten a piece of this. But they are bad business. Howard Lutnick is not a bad business person. Trump is arguably one of the worst. Are you sure he's not a bad business person? He seems very stupid. Listen, he was sort of the discount guy on Wall Street. When you talk to Wall Street people, they're like, he built a big business, but what an idiot. I think that's usually what you'd be. But it was like a business nobody wanted.

36:31They were like, oh, that guy's business, like sort of like Crazy Eddie. Like remember Crazy Eddie a long time ago? You know, of course, it went bankrupt, that business. I think people don't love Howard Letnick on Wall Street. They don't have much respect for him. That said, Trump has he actually has built a business that has lasted. And Trump, of course, has run the this is the idea of real estate dealers, real estate people running the government. Like, yeah, what can I get? What can I get? Like, what's the big? And so it feels mobstery. It feels like, you know, corrupt. It feels meddlesome. And it creates, you know, the fact that Tim Cook has to give a gold statue to Trump is a bad thing.

37:12Even if he's doing it for shareholders, it means we live in a banana republic. That's what it means. And so it's never good. And the whole thing is I laugh at like how those guys are all like and I shared some of the critiques of woke identity politics and big, you know, in corporate America. But it was funny that it was like Cook kind of gave him like a woke right statue. Like he felt it felt important for him to say in the presentation is like, this was made by a. Yeah, it was made by a mega Republican veteran. You can imagine the inverse where Tim Cook comes into Kamala and is like, here's a statue made by an indigenous bisexual.

37:50We felt like we needed to do that. They felt like he had to do the whole identity right politics stuff, too. The whole thing was very gross. Unnatural acts. They're letting people who should be running their companies do unnatural acts. And it is bad for shareholders in the end. It's not even if they're doing it to help shareholders so they don't get a bigger tariff. It's an unnatural act, Tim. Stop doing unnatural acts. Can I ask you one nationalization thing? Because, you know, I'm a passionate capitalist. But there's one moment, there's been one issue kind of in this realm that has tickled my socialist pickle, which was the idea that maybe we need to nationalize SpaceX.

38:29Is that sort of related to this? That's like a kind of a different conversation where that is in the national security interest? No, maybe they should be working hand in glove. I mean, I think the issue is NASA sort of got out of control in terms of bureaucratic and not innovative. The only thing is when you're a government agency, you can't make mistakes the way SpaceX can. And the minute you nationalize it, it can't blow up rockets. And as much as it seems like a failure to blow up rockets, the way you get to places or get to better innovation is by taking risks. And if you're a government agency, you cannot take risks by by the definition of a government agency.

39:03So I see that they have to be working very closely. This is the kind of close relationships. It's not really a free market, though. You can't have unlimited companies in space. It's kind of like how NDA team ownership is not a real free market. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just don't. I feel like they have brought the cost down because they're not a government. There's no interest in the government. No, they've done well, no doubt, but I don't know. There's no interest in the government to making things cheaper. Yeah. Crazy Elon having that much control over the policies. He does. That's one of the worries.

39:32Of course, I suspect that's what they're worried about is you got it's like a bond bill and essentially running critical infrastructure. Same thing with chips. We have to have a real chip policy and this ain't it. Speaking of something that seems troubling, FBI agents raided the home and office of former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton on Friday. The Trump critic is a subject of national security investigation and search of classified records. Vice President J.D. Vance says the raid definitely doesn't have anything to do with Bolton's criticism of Trump, which means it does. or rather stems from a, quote, broad concern about Ambassador Bolton.

40:05You know, the Wall Street Journal's against this. Everyone's against this. Like, doing, you know, I think what they're doing is what they thought was done to them. So if they didn't like it done to them, why are they doing it to others? Very retribution, revenge. She just threatened Chris Christie, I think, today or yesterday. Yeah, starting to jail Chris Christie, too. Yeah, the Wall Street Journal editorial board has kind of cracked me up since they've been very Trump friendly. They talked about how one of the concerns of him coming back was that he'd run vendettas. And they wrote, quote, it's turning out to be worse than we imagined.

40:37So you don't say not me. Actually, it's going quite bright, just about exactly how we told you it was going to go. Not not not any worse. The Bolton thing. I just think it's important to say this because it's obviously preposterous that this is not a political attack. But if you just replace John Bolton with like Mark Meadows or Corey Lewis, I imagine it was somebody from the Trump first term that wrote a book that who is still in good graces with Trump. And the accusation is that there were classified materials in that book that was written five years ago. There's no imaginable world in which the FBI is raiding the home of a Trump 1.0 cabinet member who is still an ally.

41:16Right. Like you just nobody could imagine that if there were a legitimate concern that he had some classified materials they shouldn't have. Like there's a process for this sort of thing. FBI calls DOJ's lawyers call their lawyers. You set up a meeting. Right. Like, you know, so this is this was purely to either hassle or intimidate. It's like prosecutorial overreach. Right. That's just the thing that Trump complained about. And it does. I think it brings up what Trump did. Like, again, like you did it. Well, the Trump example, it's important to just explain the differences. In the Mar-a-Lago raid, which I would listen to the idea that maybe that could have been handled in a less aggressive way.

41:54But it's not comparable to the Bolton situation. The Mar-a-Lago raid, the archivist or whatever said that Trump brought some materials that are the property of the United States that he shouldn't have. You know, they asked for a meeting, denied. Then they provided a list of what the materials were. Trump lied and said that it wasn't there. They tried to move some of the materials to a different place. So Trump was obstructing the effort to do this in like the good faith way that this is generally done. And that's why the raid happened. Like that was not the case with John Bolton. They just showed up at his house.

42:33I think because the statute of limitations, I suspect, is running out on the stuff from the first term, which will be five years now. And they did so just to intimidate him. Panjvandi puts out a tweet about it. I don't have it in front of me. It was something like, our national security comes first. It's like nobody thinks that America's security was a threat because of whatever John Bolton has in his house. And I think that it ties kind of to the intel thing. Like the thing that worries me about everything is eventually, and it ties to the Bill Maher thing at the top, like slowly but surely people just decide it's not worth the hassle.

43:08Right. Like you get into authoritarianism not through violent coup necessary, but by slow burn towards everyone deciding, you know, I'm going to go bring him a trophy to keep him happy. I'm not going to say anything wrong because I don't want the FBI to come after me. And, you know, eventually you consolidate power. And that's closer to like what you've seen in Hungary and other places. Yeah. Well-known centers of innovation. Yeah. Exactly. The economy is really, really thriving in Hungary and Turkey. We want the Turkey model for our country. The Turkey model. Anyway, we'll see what happens with this.

43:39I suspect it'll peter out. They have such little follow through, but they do cause damage. What they do, they're like toddlers. They come in, cause damage and little follow through. All right, Tim, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Cracker Barrel makes an enemy of the right.

44:01Tim, we're back with more news. Please make sure you're seated for this next emotional topic, Cracker Barrel's logo change. The chain has removed the barrel and the man from its logo, and conservatives are horrified. Change is hard, conservatives. Cracker Barrel stock was down 12 % in the last five days at the time of taping. Like, I haven't been in a Cracker Barrel because they're so anti-gay, right? That's what I remember. No, they did a—obviously, you don't remember their effort to appeal to you a couple years ago. So they did a rainbow rocking chair during Pride Month a couple of years ago.

44:32Oh, whatever. You know, this is fucking ridiculous. This is like, it's just a logo change. And the old man seems like old. Like, they want young people to come. That's my presumption is they've got too many fucking old people in the place and they need a new demo. It makes sense for, again, meddling in the business. Like, if they want to get rid of the old fucking man, they should get rid of the old man. And the fact that they're all horrified, like they're so censorious, the right, when they accuse others of being censorious. And, you know, they'll either live or die by the stock going down and maybe they'll put the man back or whatever.

45:07But it's just, I don't. I've got to take a contrary beauty on this one. Are you ready to fight over Cracker Barrel? Yeah. The new logo is awful. When's the last time you went? Oh, it's an ugly logo. Correct. It's an ugly. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't been in years. Every once in a while I go, I think, on the drive from D.C. to the beach, there's a Cracker Barrel somewhere. That was many years ago now. So I haven't been in a while, so I don't actually have any personal stake or care about this. But I do just as an objective observer of the world. The new logo is awful. The picture that they put out of the new inside of the Cracker Barrel, which is more minimalist or whatever, is also awful.

45:41And it is part of a broader corporate trend where every logo has to be minimalist now and every store needs to have clean lines. And we need diversity of views. You know, you need diversity of experiences, like the human spirit, you know, yearns for different types of, you know, we don't all want Scandinavian clean lines. Some places call for Scandinavian. No, but I think they probably realize most of their clients are about to die. You think new people are going to come in, though, because they want to make it look more like Applebee's? No, I think that's what they're like. I'm excited now that they're changing it from the old man, old southern view to a more of a modern Applebee's aesthetic.

46:17I think at some point you have to change. It's like, but again, this is, again, it's up to the company if they want to do this, and they'll either live or die by it, right? That's my whole thing. I agree with that. I suspect they're looking at the numbers and they're like, all the old people, we don't have any young, they probably know exactly who's coming into their restaurants. And young people are not coming into the Cracker Barrel. They're just not. And, you know, the name itself would probably be changed, Cracker Barrel. Like, what is a Cracker Barrel? Honky Barrel. Honky Barrel. You know, I kind of like what they're doing at Hooters.

46:47They're going, no, you'd be surprised. What are they doing at Hooters? I know nothing about this. They're going back to cheesy and boobie and like wings. I'm vaguely offended by Hooters. I don't care. Like if people want to go to those stupid places and they pay those people enough, I don't know what to say. I think it's gross, but whatever people, if you want to go to, you know, that you want to, by the way, all the Hooters waitresses in my experience have been fantastic people and they know the whole fucking deal with the guys leering their breasts, which is like their toddlers looking at them.

47:16but there was a great story of a gay guy who was it who talked about going to Hooters his Twitter name is Peter Twinklage great story of going to Hooters and the Hooter waitress helping this guy out and she knew he was gay the father didn't of course the father did because that's why he dragged his poor ass there but I kind of like that they're going back to it because I thought Hooters just be Hooters and if they do a nice job of it and the wings are good I'm fine with it. I just think this is a company much like, oh, there's probably a bunch of them facing real secular change in their usage.

47:54So they must have studied this. And the people that are being noisier are all the old folk. I guess. I don't. Sometimes, though, you can overstudy stuff. It's like I feel this way about political ads where it's like, you know, I'll be in a meeting where, you know, where a super PAC will be like, we decided to do this ad because we tested it. And I'm like, most of these tests are so dumb. It's people that are like playing video games or something. And then they show the ad during the commercial break. And then you have to say whether you like it or not. And it's like, people don't know themselves.

48:23We're trusting this. Like they're just trying to get through the ad. Like a lot of these, you know, corporate testing things is a lot of hooey-fooey. Can I just give you one admission since you've admitted the Hooters, you know, come clean on your support for original Hooters. The Cracker Barrel thing for me is tied to the new Oval Office design. and I like the new Oval Office design just like I like the old Cracker Barrel because I think more is more. I don't, I don't, I don't, this whole like minimalist Wasp Northeast thing. Oh, that was really minimalist. Pro Hooters, pro, pro Liberace Oval Office, pro original Cracker Barrel.

48:58That's where I'm landing. Oh, well, who's not pro Liberace? Come on. Well, the Oval Office has a Liberace aesthetic now, I think. Oh, it does. Which I like. But it's okay with, I don't. I think I didn't like, when I saw the comparison, I was like, look how awful. I'm like, the first one was kind of dull. It was drab. Like the Biden one. Yeah. Drab, right? And you know I like them. Like, listen, Showgirls is about to have its 50th anniversary or whatever, and I'm up for anything like that. I like excess. It's too much over here. Now there's way too much fucking gold. Like, gold is best, if you ever saw that Apple thing.

49:29So I think it's too much. There should be pomp and circumstance, but there's way too much of that. It's a little Oudan Kuse. It's a little much. It wouldn't be my preferred aesthetic, but it is definitely an upgrade when you look at the comparisons. The gray skin. What else would you put in there? What would your Oval Office look like? It's not really in the cards, I don't think. I know, but say. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, kind of like the birdcage. I don't know what it would be. Like gay. You gay enough. Yeah, well, gay. Yeah, it'd combine all of my conflicting interests, you know? We might have a Reagan portrait, but also a lot of gay stuff.

50:05They would live in conflict together, maybe just Nancy. You know who I'd design it? You know Ken Falk? He's a San Francisco designer. My husband loves Ken Falk. Yeah, everything he does is just a little louche, but I love it. Like, you know, it's just a little bit too much velvet and stuff like that. There's an occasional dead animal on the wall. I kind of love it. I love, it looks a little. I like wall paper. I also like the Nancy Meyers aesthetic. That is kind of a nice one. Do you know, you know, the director, those houses that Diane Keaton always lives in? Those are nice. Maybe dull. They're a little, I don't know, that's not really for me.

50:35I'm not trying to, that might be tricky. It might be this little suburban, kind of triggered by my suburban upbringing. I don't want anything like the 90s suburban like Tuscan aesthetic. Anything like that is that I have a natural like physical revulsion to. Yeah, I think I would do more funny stuff, a little more color. I like a lot of color. Anyway, I think they should have kept the barrel, gotten rid of the old man. The barrel needs to be there. Yeah, the barrel should be there. All right, last thing. Elon Musk's ex has reached a tentative agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by former Twitter employees who say they are owed$500 million in severance.

51:09Musk fired around 6 ,000 employees after acquiring Twitter, and of course he didn't pay them. In other Musk news, he also asked Mark Zuckerberg to help him finance a$97 billion takeover OpenAI in early 2025, according to court filings. In a case between Musk and OpenAI, obviously didn't happen. Thank God. But Mark sees it coming. Thank God, I guess. Isn't this kind of like an Iran-Iraq war situation? Who are you rooting for in Altman versus Musk versus Zuckerberg? The bullets. is what Scott always says. You're rooting for the Bullets. You know, I know a little bit about this payment, and I'll just say really briefly, I've met with a lot of the people who they owe money to.

51:45And look, if you want to fire people, Elon, that's fine. That's your business. But pay them what they're owed. That's it. It just makes you like an asshole not to pay them their severance. Even if you don't like what they did before, that was the agreement they were taking over. As to his open AI thing, just stop. You know, Sam Altman is not interested in you. So stop bothering that company. You walked yourself out of there like an idiot when you were there from the beginning because of your ego and your need for control. You don't have it. Just try to make a good company on your own. That's my feeling.

52:18I don't have any thoughts on the floor following, so I agree with everything you said. While we're admitting to bad opinions that we have about aesthetics, I also kind of like the Zuckerberg fuckboy rebrand. I think that that's been good for him. So I support that. Is he a fuckboy? Kind of. I mean, the gold chain and the, what are the kids going with the lettuce hair? Yeah. Okay. Would you go out with him? Do you think he's attractive? Not really. Well, not really for me. No, I don't think so. I guess I had to pick between him and all. I probably originally would have said Sam Altman. I don't know.

52:50Sam's recent interviews are pretty creepy. He's starting to move into the uncanny valley for me a little bit. Oh, interesting. How so? Tell me. Explain. I don't know. No, I just like the I get him in my TikTok a lot. I guess kind of how you're consuming me. Like he does all these podcast interviews where he's talking about what we want for each of the open AI. Did you see his Theo Vaughn interview? And his projections about what is coming, you know, and how, you know, people are just going to have to get used to a world where they're like robot humans walking around on the street everywhere and where like a lot of people's real friends are computer friends and where he's just the whole thing is getting a little creepy for me and he seems to kind of be leaning into that like that he and I think I just think I'm misaligned with him for what I would like to see an AI future look like it's just one man's opinion for one what's an important man's opinion kind of yeah but there's been open AIs have come and gone like I don't mean to be But like, remember Yahoo was huge and then it wasn't like these things.

53:54And they are definitely in a more precarious position. They're either Netscape or they're Google, right? That said, Google didn't run the show on everything eventually. And even they struggled at various times. I feel like, look, he wants to, he's sort of styling himself like Steve Jobs. So he's trying to say important, controversial things. And so nobody is Steve Jobs. But everyone's trying to grab that mantle and there will be not another one like that. And so that's what you're hearing. What's your alarm level and all that stuff on these guys, these egomaniacs deciding what our future is going to look like?

54:27We've already seen what happened. So we're going to see this. I think the government in this case needs to be much more involved with guidance, guardrails and regulations, as you know. I don't like a small group of people, not diverse in any way, making decisions for the rest of us. That's all. Just like I didn't, you know, as much as I like Train Daddy on The Gilded Age, they decided where the roads went. They decided where the things went. And our whole country has to live in the reality they create. And I'm not so pleased with that either. Although I like Train Daddy quite a bit, oddly enough.

55:01I don't have any takes on Train Daddy, but I'll learn about it. You need to watch The Gilded Age because all the gays love Train Daddy, just so you know. He's really great. Speaking of which, it cracks me up with Gavin Newsom every time that Jesse Waters calls him daddy. He's like, I'm not interested. His use of like gay taunts is so, I'm not, everyone's like, aren't you offended? I'm like, no, I love them. I don't know about how you feel. I like a gay taunt. I like a gay taunt too. The only time I get offended on this thing is sometimes I feel like, and maybe it's just because as a gay former Republican, I get a lot of incoming on this.

55:38sometimes I feel like the liberals in my life are like way too excited to make like gay slurs about Lindsey Graham and like the MAGA gays. And I like a little joke about Lady G. I'm fine with that. But sometimes it's like the tone where I kind of feel like you're just, you've just been very, you've just had this pent up desire to make homophobic jokes. And now you feel like you can because Lindsey Graham is the target. And it comes out a little too enthusiastic for my taste, I'm 100 % on your time. I'm talking about more like when they actively go out of their way to slap back at it. But I agree with you.

56:14Look, whatever journey Lindsey Graham is on, it's his journey. It is hypocritical, obviously. But when has that not happened? Do you remember during the Reagan administration? They were crawling with gays and they were doing anti-gay things. But the stakes with AIDS were so massive at the time, it seemed like. They are massive now, too. their attacks on gay marriage right now are really quite disturbing. Are you worried about that? I don't know. I keep telling people I think that the trans, I am acutely worried if I'm transgender, if I'm a migrant, and I think those are very acute crises right now, and we should really focus on them.

56:50The gay marriage thing, I kind of, I just would be, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know. I think that there are people that are very intent on, still angry about gay marriage, and they just sit there, and they see, and they work and they work and they work to overturn it. That's right. I just think it's a losing fight for them. The abortion thing, I think a lot on the left thought the abortion thing would be a losing fight for them. And they compare the two issues and they kind of conflate them. And I just, I think for a variety of reasons, like gay marriage is like a 70 % issue in the country. And I think it would be a pretty big.

57:23It hasn't stopped them on a lot of things, right? Gun control. That's, I think there is a group of dedicated anti-gay people that have never, I've always thought they've never gone away. And it was like, now we won. And I'm like, have we? You know, I think you should be vigilant with these people. I think they would very much like to do a lot of things to women and gay people that are really disturbing. And so and set them back. And they articulate it now. And you see it even the things Vance pushes. It's noteworthy, the change in how unbridled they are now. Like they feel totally now unshackled to say their real feelings about gay people.

58:00Like there was a period of time where I think people were like, this is there'll be backlash against me or this isn't. And you're not seeing that anymore. And I think that's that's revealing in some way. I think it's bad. I worry about it for younger LGBT people. But I also in some ways, I think it's it's nice for it to be revealing that we can see the score a little bit. See, I've always thought they were like this. I never thought they were friendly to us for a minute. And by the way, they they are committed to overturning marriage, some of those people. And guess what? We're committed not to.

58:29So that's the part that I think you'll see how that's going to go trying to take my marriage away from me. You know what I mean? Like, I think. Come and take it. OK, Tim, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

58:50Okay, Tim, let's hear some wins and fails. I will go first. I think it's sort of a fail, this Trump's cankle thing. I know people are like, it's really odd. I have to say, Alex Jones is concerned about Trump's health. He warned last week at the current trajectory, Trump is going to have some sort of collapse in the next 12 months. Thank you, Dr. Jones. You terrible, heinous, speaking of heinous bitches. Trump's hands are also looking questionable with all those odd smears of makeup. He had a weird walking thing. The age is, as I have said, the cognitive decline and the age decline is real. And he, let me tell you, he's a lively old man.

59:27That's for sure. Like he's the guy in the nursing home that's just real lively, but still going to keel over at any moment. It could keel over at any moment. I think that's, I think they, I'm not sure why they aren't controlling this. especially with the makeup and everything else largely because he's probably very vain and everything else but he's obviously aged rather significantly in so many ways and I think it's taking its toll on him it feels like he's rotting it feels like when Voldemort was starting to rot like when he wasn't getting enough dead people that were his forecruits we can't see his real face is something that's true now the leader will not show us what he really looks like because it's you know he's so fragile now He looks like he was on a Zempic, but now he looks fat again.

1:00:13I'm like, hmm, something's going on with his health. I don't think that's a win or a fail. I just feel like... You just wanted to mention it? I just want to mention it because I think people are like, oh, let's not mention it. I'm like, no, no, he looks... We should have mentioned more things about Biden, and Scott and I did, and gotten a lot of crap. He looks... There's something going on. The cankles are noteworthy. And if the cankles are as wide as Alex Jones's neck, you know that there's something concerning there. Remember when they attacked Hillary Clinton's cankles? I'm just saying. I don't recall that.

1:00:41It's good for the gander. I hope that wasn't me. It's good for the gander. No, it wasn't you. It's good for the goose. And my win is the fantastic, once again, we have the new version of Wicked coming, and it's only in three months. And I think their social media campaign is fantastic. And they've done a great job. I love John Chu. He's going to be here in D.C. next couple, next week. I'm going to see him, hopefully. I just am very excited about that movie. And I just, I'm not going to hide it. I love it. And I love the actors in it. And I think they're doing a spectacular marketing job on it.

1:01:15And I just love to watch people use social media in a really positive way. And I like that. And it gives me pleasure. Your win and fail? All right. Well, I wasn't planning this one. But if we're doing, you know, musical shout outs, I should win for, I have to give my Oasis guys a win. I mean, they reunited. Nobody said they could do it. They're coming to America now this week. They'll be back. Nobody ever thought they'd be back to New York. Explain why this is a big deal. It was the brothers, Noel and Liam Gallagher. They were brothers. They were very C-word in the British sense. I still won't say that in your presence, Cara, but they kind of Englishmen who drank a lot and fought together.

1:01:47And obviously folks will know Wonderwall or Champagne Supernova, some of their famous songs. And so they've been broken up for 16 years. They spent most of the decade and a half shit-talking each other in the press. And the idea was like they never would get back together. They're back together. I went to one of their shows in Manchester and their reunion shows. Was it good? Are they good or are they sad? It was biblical. It was unbelievable. Oh, really? He sounds amazing. I think he must have quit smoking or got a vocal coach. Because, you know, sometimes you'll go to see the aging rock stars.

1:02:15I hate to, I went to see Pearl Jam at Jazz Fest, and it's like, ugh. You know, you can just tell sometimes, you know. The last Madonna concert, that's how I felt. It was rough. Yeah, so not the case with Liam. He sounds amazing. They sound amazing. Everyone was so excited because people who are into Aces are really into it. Like the crowd around me knew every word. It was wonderful. So that was a win. The one that I planned on doing was on a more serious level. I was going to give Putin a win in their little summit in Alaska. Go for it. No, I don't really have much to add. It's just obvious now.

1:02:43When it had happened, there was like, I think even some people were like, well, maybe Trump will get, like, maybe this thing will finally start to, you know, recede and Putin will, you know, get some deal out of it. Trump will, you know, give him some crypto or, you know, some parts of Ukraine and Trump. And obviously at this point, he was just totally used by Putin in a way that's like really embarrassing at this point. Like the red carpet rollout. My fail is to like the as somebody who prefers the centrist Democrats. Shout out to my girl, Jerusalem Dempsis, started the argument, a new kind of center left Democratic outlet.

1:03:21Like just my advice to them is like their treatment of Zoran is so bad. It's such a fail. I do not understand what they're doing. They're limiting their own power in the future of the party. People are, like, very excited about Zoran. I've got issues with some of his policies. I had him on the pod, and we argued about a couple of various things. And so you don't have to full-throatedly say you endorse everything, but there's so much enthusiasm for him. And you're going to get overthrown. If you're Hakeem or Chuck Schumer or any of these guys that aren't— people are going to get pissed and overthrow you if you do not at least listen when— I would, the scavenger hunt was brilliant.

1:03:59Again, he's very canny in a really interesting community. If someone was like, I went and I met a dozen people, like that was cool. Like he really is appealing. I agree. I went out to dinner. I think I said that there was a senator. I'm not going to say who it is, who was like bellyaching about him. I'm like, why don't you go watch what he's fucking doing before you did it? You also have no other choice. Who are you going to back? Eric Adams? Like what, you know, like Andrew Cuomo, like a sex pest who had to resign in disgrace who's already gotten beaten by your own voters? The whole thing is really frustrating.

1:04:29Voters said this, and therefore, let's go with the vote. If young people, you complain and complain and complain about young people's engagement, they're engaged, you complain about that. Like, they really are a bunch of wimpuses. And they could say, I don't agree with him on this, but I kind of think he's cool. That kind of thing. Or he's doing this thing well, or I'm happy. Or how about even simply, I'm happy to endorse him just because the other options are so awful. That's okay. There are a lot of options besides just doing the hemming and hawing. One well-known person we both know was saying, well, I wasn't asked to endorse.

1:05:03Why are people giving me a hard time for not endorsing? I'm like, you don't need to be asked. Just say what a cool, interesting politician he is. We don't agree on everything, but pretty fucking cool. 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 to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. But elsewhere this week on On with Kara Swisher, I talked with graphic novelist Alison Bechdel and editorial cartoonist Anne Telnes. Let's listen to a clip of Anne explaining how she draws Trump. My readers are the ones that always point out to me because I never notice I'm changing every time.

1:05:39They're like, OK, he's starting to look like a big mouth bass now. And I'm like, OK, I can go with that. Or, you know, they say he's a pig. And I'm like, well, I like pigs. Don't tell me that, you know. Mm-hmm. So, you know, like I said, it's just really, I try to find out, I'm trying to show you what I think the insides of that person is more than the outside. Is there one particular body part that you think is besides the tie? Little hands. Tiny, tiny hands. They were great. It's really, we don't pay enough, cartoonists are doing God's work at this point. And Anne had left the Washington Post.

1:06:14Allison, of course, is such a talented cartoonist. She has a new book called Spent. really interesting conversation about the visualization of our politics that goes way back in our history, Thomas Nast and her block and others. 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 on Friday. Tim, thank you so much. You are also doing God's work. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Carol. It was such a pleasure. Interesting and canny. And I like that you have different takes. And I like that you like the gold oval office.

1:06:45That's what you'll be remembered for. You and I would go to a Liberace show. I love Liberace. I also like Don Ho. I'm in that zone. All right. I'll read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Endredot engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited this video. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for our last breakdown of all things tech and business before Scott Free August ends.

1:07:25We've got a very big name, a very person who calls himself the most handsome governor in the country. We'll see what that means. You'll find out. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Kara.

1:07:40Thank you.