HBO Max Returns, Trump in the Middle East, and RFK Jr. Goes Swimming

24:49He took the, remember the, what's it called, the iPod, and he turned it into a button and turned Apple Music into a, you know, a huge hit. He launched services, and he's done it all around the iPhone. Because what he said is, if we get distracted with a whole bevy of other types of products, we won't be able to take advantage of what is the most profitable product in history with the greatest gross margin in history that has the production volumes of Toyota with the margins of Ferrari, and that is the iPhone. own. So I think he's made a conscious decision to innovate around the thing that just produces more cash flow.

25:24The question is, it's starting to feel a little tired. It is. Yeah. He's got a what would you put it? Ultra thin is what I would say, right? That's the only thing I want. That's a design feature. I think Apple, I now believe I'm writing a no mercy, no malice on on health care costs and the budget deficit. I still believe the most disruptible business in the history of the West is U.S. healthcare. And I think Apple should go deeper and deeper into healthcare and fitness. Can I make a comment? As much as, by the way, Tim is very into fitness. He's like exercises. He's like you. He's in great shape.

25:59Yeah. As an older man. I don't think they have it in them. I think they've done enough and they don't have the, like the, Johnny Ive did a really interesting interview. I don't think they have the explosive of creativity at all in you. There's a point where you can't make more stuff if you can't think of, like, you've done. And by the way, this is a record of a group of executives who've, you know, as I always call them, the Rolling Stones, but it's still the Rolling Stones, right? Like, they're not the Rolling Stones that were. And so they can't do much but play their oldies. That's how I look at them.

26:33Yeah, but they have the capital to make some accurate. That goes to... Takes energy. In a board, I agree. But in a board meeting, you're supposed to every, at least once a year, a good board is every six months. You go through succession planning and you're supposed to. That's when you can tell if you have the right. Unfortunately, some of the best CEOs are very good at shooting any competition. And that's one of the things I noticed about when I was on board at NYT. It was clear the CEO was, quite frankly, was insecure because nobody good would ever get past. They always seem to either leave or she would shoot them.

27:09Basically, no one, it was pretty clear there was no one who could handle the job, which means you're a bad CEO. And I don't know what the succession planning meeting is in there, but I would think Apple's board is so, it's so impressive that they got to be thinking, all right, who are the VPs and SVPs that really bring some crazy fucking mojo to this whole thing right now? They got to be cognizant of this issue, I would think. I suppose. I just think people run out of energy and then no one says anything. Anyway, we have to move on. Streaming service Max will now return to being called HBO Max.

27:40It's coming, of course. Yet again, we call it. Oh, God. Literally, I've had it. I have had it, Cara. Well, so has the social media arm of the company because they were making fun of themselves. Let's listen to a clip of you talking about David Zasloff's decision to change a name right here on Pivot back in 2023. If you had$10 billion and you tried to recreate a brand like HBO, you probably couldn't do it. It'd be one in 10 chance you could do it. So he's taken tens of billions of dollars or at least billions in equity. And he's taken it into the street and created a fire to warm his ego. But this is this will go down as one of the great brand disasters.

28:22OK, so now it's called HBO Max, the streaming service. The change marks the fourth name change for the service in a decade. It was called HBO Now. There was Max. There's HBO. There's HBO Max. And again, the service, the company's social media things are making fun of it too, in a really kind of vicious way, how dumb this is and how difficult it is. And they call it rebranding, de-branding. Scott, let me give you my, I don't have a perspective because I have a contract with CNN and I am making a documentary that probably will be on this, whatever the fuck it's going to be called. But that's my disclosure.

29:01But I find this like perplexing. I always liked HBO Max myself. Thoughts, brand expert. This was probably the strongest, one of the strongest brands in the arts or in media. Anything, what is a brand? A brand gives you unearned margin. And in this case, HBO gave you, or the HBO brand gave unearned trial. Almost anything that comes on HBO, you're more willing to trial. And the reason why is that to the credit of HBO, the culture they have been able to create there such that they attract the best and brightest in the industry means that they basically can go toe to toe with Netflix on, no exaggeration, one seventh of the content budget.

29:47Netflix spends$18 billion. HBO spends$2.5. And yet, if you see two people at the quote-unquote proverbial water cooler talking about a zeitgeist cultural moment, and you had to bet what streaming platform that cultural moment is taking place on, the best bet is HBO. It is, although it's increasingly Netflix, right? Did you see that show on Netflix? Okay, it's seven times. HBO defines what it means to have an amazing brand that creates a culture that results in a company that can punch above its weight class. Yes, agreed. It is so artisanal. It's the LVMH. It just doesn't have the capital of a Netflix.

30:27But, I mean, talk about, you know, The Last of Us, Succession, Game of Thrones, The Sopranos. Hacks. You know, you love hacks. Well, it's a huge hit. Yeah, but go ahead. It's not in the same league as this shit that I'm talking about, Cara. six feet under. Jesus Christ. I mean, these guys consistently put out Sex and the City. They consistently put out this content that identifies the moment and they turn it into fucking Max so we can find Big Bang Theory and Shark Week. I mean, and let's just go, no one on the board, this is the worst board in media. Nobody on the board had the sense to go, You can't take billions of dollars into the street and light it on fire.

31:16That's bad for shareholders. Can we get someone here who actually understands brand who can talk about the power of HBO and not make – the job of a board is, one, to pick the right guy or gal, two, when to sell the company, but also to have some domain expertise on the board so occasionally you can save the CEO from him or herself because it is really difficult to read the label from inside of the bottle. This was the easiest one ever. No, do not do away with the HBO brand. And what do they do? I'll give them credit. A step back from the wrong direction is a step in the right direction. But let's talk about this board.

31:47Since they merged, since Zaslav was able to talk shareholders into doing this crazy thing and overpaying for it such that he could go to L.A. and play Jack Warner, the stock is off 62.8%. And you know how much shareholders have lost two-thirds of their value that were dumb enough to buy into this merger. Do you know how much the board has paid Zaslav in his tenure for the last four and a half years? $342 million. So shareholders lose two-thirds of their value, and the CEO makes a third of a billion dollars. I'm going to ask you a specific question. What would you have them call it? Just continue with Max now that they made that way?

32:32That's one. And then two, there's obviously rumors, and most people think it's going to happen. And I'm spinning off doing what MSNBC just did, essentially putting CNN and other things in one bucket and the studio, I guess, in another bucket. So what do you imagine? I suppose HBO would go with the studio part. Yeah, that would go over there. And then the news and other subs will go places. They're doing what MSNBC did. So talk about those two things. What would you have them do? Call it that or not call it that? Well, there's brand strategy and business strategy. They probably have to do, and they lead into each other.

33:09But basically, we know what's going to, I think I know what's going to happen here. The company is going to go good bank, bad bank. It's going to be HBO and Warner Brothers, the theater business, the characters, the IP, which will feed into HBO. HBO is the brand. It'll have another component, a subset, HBO Max or something that's all the other shit. And then they will spin all the TV and the cable assets into, they'll either consolidate or be part of a consolidation. consolidation with Comcast. And that is, these are still highly profitable businesses, but they're shrinking. So that means consolidation and cost cutting.

33:45And they'll have good bank, bad bank. And then the HBO Warner part of the business will trade at a greater multiple. They'll sell off the cable assets to a consolidator, be the consolidator, and they'll use that cash flow to pay down the debt. And the stock will trade up. But the problem is, and it's always the boring shit that gets you. I'm not sure of this, but what I would suspect is the reason they haven't done this so far is Zaslav, when he bought the company, issued a ton of debt at exactly the right time. And that is he has very friendly debt that is at a ridiculously low interest rate.

34:18And I would bet, I would bet that if he tries to spend those assets, it triggers an acceleration in the debt and then he'd have to go borrow money at a much higher interest rate. So I think he has to wait until that debt matures and he has to go into the market I think it's because there was also a way they did the merger. They couldn't act until a certain amount. But I think the debt, they don't want to do anything that in any way gives their bondholders a reason to say, oh, we're out and you have to borrow money from us. It's at 8%, not at two and a half. But this company will be an artisanal, vertically integrated Warner Brothers studio and HBO, the artisanal streaming network that will survive.

34:58and then they'll take all of the highly profitable but declining assets and roll them up with a bunch of the other cable guys. This company will be split up. Let's get back to the name. Would you have returned it to HBO Max or just left it at Max since they went that direction? Oh no, bring back HBO. Oh my God, HBO? Should you call it just HBO or HBO Max? Not HBO Now, that was a short period of weirdness. Cara, do you remember HBO Go? Go, go, oh, I forgot Go, yes, of course I do. HBO Joey Bag of Donuts? I remember for a moment being like, Why are there more than one apps to access these? I think HBO needs a distinct brand identity that means artisanal, high-end.

35:37This is LVMH. This is a different streaming network. And they probably have a sub-brand that's for all the other crap, right? That's for all the other stuff that they play online. So I think it would be HBO and then HBO Max, right? This is such a clean, beautiful artisanal brand. And what they've created there is so special. And to their credit, they've been able to maintain it. I mean, if you think about it, Netflix is the Russian army throwing 20 million people at a problem. You know, they just have more gross tonnage. HBO is SEAL Team 6. I mean, these are the most elite content producers. Let me say, speaking since I'm having lunch with Richard, it's due to the Richard Plepler set that in motion, the quality.

36:22And he's since gone on to other things. and the people that he trained like Casey Bloys and others are the reason for that, right? They continue and I know he left the company under a bit of a, like I think he was not liking what they were doing, like what they were doing but I have to say he set the tone for that and created one of the greatest brands I think with Sopranos and as you said, Sex and the City and Game of Thrones, etc. So much credit to him and you're right, they continue to create great stuff. The White Lotus? What's your favorite thing ever on HBO? Oh, God, there's so many. Probably Sex and the City is the thing I watch the most of.

37:03But I loved Sopranos. There's a lot I like. There's always something good on HBO. Chernobyl. There's some movies. The Penguin. Yeah, just really good stuff. So I just started watching, which is our kind of friend's iconic, The Leftovers. Oh, that's... Probably hugely underrated. Huge show. That actually did very well. Band of Brothers? I mean, these guys just keep figuring out a way to put out amazing content. They do. And so don't fuck it up, David. That's all I have to say. Anyway, speaking of streaming very briefly, Fox Corp will also launch its streaming service, not quite as fancy, called Fox One.

37:42I actually kind of like the name ahead of the NFL season later this year. They're going to jam a bunch of crap in there, and they have their own streaming service. So, again, I think people will pay for Fox. They had another thing, Fox Plus or whatever they had, where they had all that Tucker Carlson nonsense. There's lots of streaming services launching. What do you think about Fox's chances? Well, I mean, first off, they just announced their first show. It's called I'm Not Racist, But. Oh, come on. Anyways. What? Okay. That's a good show. Like, I believed you. I'm Not Racist, But. Is that a real show?

38:23No. No. No. I love that you believe that. See? I believed you. I was like, huh, I can see them doing that. Anyway, go ahead. I think there's a market for it. I'd just go fucking crazy. Like, I'd have Laura Loomer. I would just go full conspiracy weirdo. I mean, I'd go, okay, those of you who are really crazy got to tune in here. I'd go nuts. Well, legal liability, though. You have to be very – you can't, like – they've been down. They're still in the middle of a lawsuit. Claim it's an online platform. Yeah. That'd be interesting. Could you claim her an online platform? I don't know. Anyway. Yeah, I agree.

38:56Well, anyway, we have to move on. But I think there's plenty of people who'd buy this. It's a good idea. It's probably late. They probably should have done it earlier. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. Trump's deal-a-palooza in the Middle East. Oh, good God.

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40:56Scott, we're back. President Trump is on a whirlwind tour of the Middle East. It's just, I don't even want to talk about it. I'm so tired of looking at him. Where he's been busy with all sorts of wheeling and dealing. He attended a lunch in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday with a gaggle of U.S. business leaders, including the CEOs of Amazon, OpenAI, NVIDIA, and Uber, And of course, Elon was there, all with their hands out to the Saudis. Some of the deals Trump has touted in the last few days, a$600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S., the real number is reportedly much lower. Qatar Airways is buying as many as 210 Boeing jets.

41:29NVIDIA is selling chips to an AI startup backed by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. News of the deal sent NVIDIA's market cap back. It had been declining above$3 trillion. And in a major foreign policy ship, Trump said he's lifting sanctions on Syria, and he met with the country's new president, the first U.S.-Syria leader meeting in 25 years. A couple things. There was that lunch. In addition, NVIDIA, AMD, and Amazon also struck deals with Saudi Arabian AI startup. Trump seems to be using U.S. AI technology and chips as leverage for a lot of these deals. Not the stupidest thing in the world, but people are worried we risk losing the upper hand on AI if we're sharing them.

42:10OpenAI is reportedly considering building data centers in UAE. We're going to talk about the diplomacy part in a minute. But how do you think about the business part and what he's doing here? A lot of like jazz hands all over the place. Look, I think it makes sense. There's been U.S. delegations led by the president to go overseas for decades. But what they usually have is they have a broader campaign contributions aren't the litmus test. It's great American companies. And also they always make sure that the Chamber of Commerce and the Small Business Association is represented such that at least there's the illusion they're trying to sell America as opposed to trying to sell the people who have been really good to them or good to the president.

42:53I think something like this makes sense. AI is big. He's leveraging it. I think they're being smart about this. That's the good side of this. The thing that's really scary and corrupt is that, all right, he's in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia wants technology to build a civilian nuclear plant. They want AI. And what do you know? They announced a giant Trump Tower in Jeddah. You just shouldn't be mixing the two. And this is especially upsetting for me, for someone who thinks a lot about Israel and the fact that there are still 50-plus hostages that have been held for 500-plus days. I've always said, if you want to get the hostages out, follow the money, put pressure on Qatar.

43:32How much pressure can the president bring to bear on Qatar when they are talking about doing golf course developments and enriching the family by billions of dollars? How honest and how much can geopolitical interests of the U.S. be pure and unfettered around us and our allies when they are saying to the sun, we'll give you a billion dollars for development here? And by the way, in Qatar, it's not a private company doing it with Eric and Don. It's a division of the Qatari government that is in this real estate deal. And then let's keep traveling to the UAE where they want American AI chips. And the reason we don't want to give them to the AI and haven't to date is we are worried that because China, which represents three times the level of import business in terms of oil.

44:23In other words, the UAE economically is more dependent upon, or Saudi Arabia, excuse me, but the UAE is actually a bigger trading partner with China. We don't want to give them these chips because they're worried about leaking that sensitive information to China. But what do you know? The UAE has announced that they are going to invest in world financial liberty stablecoin. This is just all, folks, our interests are not being represented. No, the Trump family's interests are. So I like the fact he's sitting down. I think Syria is a big, I think for us to establish the real politic of dealing with the new leader of Syria right now, I realize that has a lot of weirdness to it.

45:11I think it's a really smart idea to try and figure out a way to at least have an informal peace or ally or understanding. And this is the time to cut the deal. And to put a cudgel or a wedge in between Syria and Russia right now is a big opportunity. Yeah, so let's talk about the diplomacy angle of this trip. Trump is clearly enjoying all the pomp and pageantry. He loves walking by a bunch of soldiers and fancy gold stuff. But he's also got a lot of love for these leaders. He called the Syrian president a young, attractive guy. He's so much on looks. It's so strange, especially with men. He said Qatar's emir was a very special guy.

45:46in talking about the Saudi crown prince, Trump said, I like him too much, which is interesting to say about someone who sawed someone up. He's literally going to say, and he's a great kisser. I'm expecting that to come out of his mouth. It sounds like he might be leaving Melania for one of these guys. His way he talks about men, he talks about women in a grotesque way, sort of like nice boobs, but men is very strange. It's not just funny. He does it all the frigging time. I like that about him. I think most people think that way. I think we're very looks. You do. You're right. You're right. In addition to lifting these sanctions on Syria, he also said he's open to negotiating with Iran, saying there are no permanent enemies.

46:20That was kind of an interesting thing because most of the Republican establishment, they did a really interesting go back five years with like Rubio, etc. There are permanent enemies, right? Like whether it's North Korea. Trump has – this is consistent. Trump is consistently I'll do a deal with anybody kind of guy. So this one I think he's correct. There are no permanent enemies. But it's a really interesting effort on his part to be like, whatever the deal is, I'll do the deal. And you're an attractive man, that kind of thing. I don't know. Well, it goes back to values. With respect to Iran, I think it's different.

46:54I think you go into Syria, there's a huge opportunity for us. And I would argue there's probably a decent amount of public support after what the populace endured from the kind of depraved, violent reign of Bashar al-Assad. But when it comes to Iran, I think American values have to come out. And that is, I think the smartest thing we can do is, quite frankly, just to try to undermine the Islamic Republic. And we do. America does have or at least pretends to have values about being concerned about the general population and being focused on rights, women's rights around the world. And the one place I think that we have an opportunity is that the Islamic Republic does not have a great deal of support from the Iranian people.

47:38And as someone who grew up with Iranians in L.A., I've always thought Iranians are more American than Americans. Yes, they are. We should be great allies with Iran because they're really into education, really into capitalism. I think Iran is just a huge missed opportunity for us. And when you meet, especially some of the like, you want to talk about the benefits of immigration. We got so many outstanding people after the revolution who immigrated to the U.S. So many great doctors, scientists, business people. One of my mentors, a guy named Hamid Moghadam, who runs the largest REIT in America, Prologis, came here after the revolution.

48:22I mean, we got such incredible human talent. And it's a shame that this, in my opinion, backward, primitive, oppressive government is unfortunately through kind of a reign of terror is the leadership of Iran. So I think we should kind of take the Reagan-esque approach. And that is we have absolutely no quarrel with the Iranian people, but the leadership and the governing body there is not good for the Iranian people or for the world. and we have a tendency to group all of the Gulf as Americans into one group of people. They are much different. The Saudis do not have any love lost with Iran. But this is a place, you want to talk about the need for someone really fucking smart and an incredible team that is solely based on competence, not whether Eric is selling golf courses.

49:10It's the Gulf. Between economic opportunities, between a flashpoint of potential violence or wars that could erupt and destabilize the world. We've got to be really honest and really smart and not be seen as fucking whores over there collecting planes and golf courses. Yeah. One of the interesting things is this beef between Business Insider, which is owned by Axel Springer, and they wrote a piece about how Don Jr.'s like, it makes Hunter Biden blush, essentially. And of course, they're going after. Just a really minor story by a very good reporter, by the way, Bethany McClain. And they're putting pressure.

49:47they don't want to they will not take any criticism over what is clearly grift like grift grift grift sorry don i don't think it's the grift that bothers them i think it's they i think they're it's associating i think i think it's the association of the implication that that don has a drug problem i think they're fine with i think they're like yeah we're we're we're capitalists we're grifters i think he's pissed off that you're saying i'm like hunter that my drug habit is out of control oh interesting oh i didn't thought i think about It wasn't in the story. I read the story. Anyway, all right.

50:19All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We'll come back. We'll talk about RFK's Bizarre Swim.

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52:44Scott, we're back with more news. Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. had quite a week. First off, let's listen to a clip of him answering questions before a House committee. I don't think people should be taking advice, medical advice from me. I think that's about, that sort of says it. He also said his opinions on vaccines are irrelevant. And thank goodness he's not prompting people to take his advice because he recently posted a photo of himself and his grandchildren swimming in Rock Creek, which is close swimming because it's used for sewer runoff, E. coli. He did look good, like he's in good shape, but it was pretty like astonishing that he's, I was sort of like, whoa, I won't even go in there with like rubber boots, essentially.

53:25But he really seems out of it in some ways, but he seems to be just plotting on and cutting things that are critically important for kids, especially. and safety of all of us. But any thoughts on RFK and his swim? I think that's noise. Yeah, I agree. Whatever. It's just weird. It's just noise. The key to your story, and what we should, in my opinion, be zeroing in on, because it's more substantive, that the head of one of the biggest agencies, and who sets the tone for where we allocate resources to try and keep America healthy, him claiming that he doesn't give medical advice is such just an outrageous lie.

54:03He has been one of the strongest anti-vaccine advocates. That is medical advice. He has written a book, The Real Anthony Fauci, a book, a best-selling book, Kennedy Offered Medical Perspective, Contradicting Mainstream Public Health Guidance. He's promoted alternatives to COVID-19 treatments, medical advice. He's made, I think it's called thimerosal claims. For years, Kennedy has advised people to avoid vaccines containing thimerosal. That is medical advice. EMF health claims. Kennedy has suggested electromagnetic fields from wireless technology post serious health risk. That is medical advice.

54:38Discussions about his own medical conditions. Talking about measles and rubella. Claims about medical conditions in children. He gives more fucking medical advice than the surgeon general. And he presides over a medical organization. That's the thing. I think he's saying, I don't think people should be taking medical advice from me, which is so disingenuous is what you're saying, essentially. He realizes what he has said. This guy is literally the best friend measles and rubella ever had, right? They're like, oh, my God, we're back. Right. Right? We thought we were out of business, but this guy wants to put us back on a global tour.

55:13He wants to, you know, first stop Texas and really crazy conservative places. We're back for a limited time only. Oh, maybe it's going to be an extended time bringing you, you know, this band from the 50s and 60s, measles and rubella. And this guy is so, and the problem is he's very handsome. He's very compelling. He is very good on some issues on the environment, in my opinion, on Israel. He's powerful. You want to like him. And this guy is so fucked up in the head and dangerous when it comes to medical advice and vaccines. And this is the guy figuring out where we're going to allocate resources.

55:48He's fired so many really good, thoughtful people who save lives. And again, it's this death by a thousand cuts. There's going to be kids. There's going to be more death, disease, and disability because this guy is in office. And for him to say, you shouldn't take medical. He's trying to backtrack because some of the shit he has said lately, whether it's we represent X percent. Nobody, there was no diabetes when I was a kid. He is constantly spewing misinformation. Can I just point out the stream thing? I know it's a distraction, but it's not actually because it shows the same kind of lack of care.

56:27I mean, if even one person goes in that stream, like he's in there with children, it's poop. It's E. coli. It's shit. He's saying something rather disturbing. Look, he can do whatever he wants. If he wants to swim in shit, good luck, Robert. I can't believe he continues to survive with all the stuff he does. But I think it is important that he's doing that. Like, here's the head of the Health and Human Services swimming in a sewer and saying, hey, I'm having fun. I just I don't think it's a distraction. I think it says exactly what you are saying here. Anyways, I think that there's a lot of people, you know, Secretary Hegstaff puts us in the most immediate danger because incompetence overseeing the largest military in the world is just dangerous on a short term basis.

57:14But over the medium and the long term, more death, disease, and disability, unnecessary death, disease, and disability will be spread by RFK Jr. And I don't say that lightly. That is a terrible thing to say about someone. And I think there's a lot of evidence backing that statement up. I would agree. As you said before, planes were not having all these near misses when Pete Buttigieg was in there. things weren't falling off of aircraft carriers before pretext and stuff like that. And in this case, I agree, it's a long-term danger, especially with the decimation of science. And everything he does is always either performative, grotesque, and always dangerous for people's health.

57:59He's really one of the more dangerous. And this whole make America healthy again is such a fucking distraction. It is. I agree. I'll, I granted, no doubt, no doubt we need to look at our food supply and sugar. No doubt. It's hard to find sugar in Scott's apartment, everybody, just so you know. Well, you know why? Because I have money and I can buy, I can buy healthy food. I can go to doctors. I'm really upset. I'm trying to make a serious point here. Yeah. If these guys were serious about health of America, they would have a more progressive tax structure. Yep. That would, that would literally be, if you wanted to increase the health of America, give kids access, get rid of food deserts, give kids access to good, healthy food, make it such that people have the time to exercise.

58:43They don't, you know, the best thing you could do for the health of America, $25 an hour minimum wage. Yep. Like we say, 100%. You're upset. Scott, president, running for president of America. All right. One more quick break and we'll be back for predictions. I'm excited to hear a prediction.

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1:01:46Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Well, first off, while I would enjoy, I'm all down. I think the American public should be down with him getting that 747 on one condition. They paint along the side of it. It says Qatar's bitch. Yeah. I think that would be the trade. But anyways, being serious, my prediction is the following. The plane's not going to happen, Cara. these people they're so amateur and i've been saying for a while they're so good at the grift they got this grift wrong because here's the thing the nsa the cia uh the secret service who's charged with the president's safety are going to say you realize a very small amount of c2 explosive could be put anywhere on this plane that has the wiring of you know a hospital complex.

1:02:35And if they at some point decided they didn't like who was on the plane, including you. So in order for this plane to live up to vet security standards and protocols, they would have to disassemble it and reassemble it. And that would cost approximately$1 billion. He can't take this plane, not because he's not a criminal, not because he doesn't want it, not because they're not willing to give it, but his security apparatus is going to sit down with and say, we need to have an adult conversation with you. You can't have a foreign government giving you a piece of technology that you're flying in at 40 ,000 feet.

1:03:12We can't ensure your safety. And the only way we'd be able to do that is to take the thing down to a series of 48 ,000 parts and then put it back together again. Do you remember, it reminds me of, do you remember when we let the Russians build our embassy in Moscow? Yes, that's right. It was full of like the same devices. They would just literally, they would start hammering pieces of the wall and they'd find listing devices everywhere. Everywhere, like in the concrete. Yeah, that's right. Finally, they said, there's no way, there's no way we can make this thing ever secure. So they said, just demolish the thing.

1:03:46So anyways, my prediction is the plane thing's not going to happen. Let me put it this way. It's not going to be Air Force One. Yeah. Well, Boeing's been building one, right? Correct. It's just taking too long for Trump. He wants a fancier, slicker plane. He's so gross. He's so gross. And also, by the way, I think you're right, because the plane is a real symbol. It's not a little grift. It's like a big, flying, huge fucking grift. A huge symbol of our power. Symbol. Symbol of real life. I love that. One of my favorite photographs, I was trying to get a print of it, was when China was waving their finger at us and telling us not to go to Taiwan.

1:04:24And Nancy Pelosi showed up in a very American-looking plane. and they parked the plane behind her and there she was in high heels and a pink pantsuit. And it was just like, fucking A, I love America. Where a 77-year-old woman gets on a plane for 14 hours, figures out a way to look fabulous and takes a picture in heels in front of our plane. I thought that was really, I thought that was a great image. Oh, there you complimented Nancy Pelosi. That's a new one. Anyway. I like the speaker. Yeah. So anyway, I have just a very brief thing. Just the New York Times just came out with a piece again. Speaking of this kind of thing, This group called the Technology Transparency Projects is a nonprofit that focuses on accountability for tech.

1:05:04It said that, let me read the lead, more than a year after researchers first warned that X was potentially violating U.S. sanctions by accepting payments for subscription accounts from terrorist organizations and other groups barred from doing business in the country, Elon Musk's social media plowfer continues to accept such payments. According to this report, this new report, we had said that he wasn't going to stop a year ago. ago. So we got that one right, just so you know. Anyway, once again, they just love them a terrorist. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

1:05:36Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on Prof G Conversations, Scott spoke with Timothy Snyder, a leading historian of authoritarianism, Ukraine and Eastern Europe. I've interviewed him too, but just the news recently, he's moving to Canada, he and his wife, I believe. But let's listen to a clip. When we make enemies unnecessarily, we are encouraging terrorism. So it's not just that we're putting our defenses down, which we're clearly doing. It's also that we're inviting the offense, which we're also clearly doing.

1:06:09What the Trump people are doing is draining American power out of the system, because the international system, our power in the national system depended upon, among other things, relationships, trust, alliances, reliability, treaties, but everybody else's power remains. Everybody else is now more relatively powerful with respect to us. And so of course they can now afford to think about interventions and adventures, which they wouldn't have been able to think about before. I agree completely. Did you like that conversation? He's really smart. I love that stuff. I'm fascinated by it, but just for the record, because I asked him, I said, why did you move to Canada?

1:06:44And he said that it didn't have anything to do with the current political climate, that it was a lifestyle. Yeah, and also his wife. Yeah, and also they did it. They did a story, I think, in the Times today about that. And there was a little bit. There was some of, like, you can't go away from history, I believe. They definitely did talk. He and his wife, they're sort of a power couple, a history department power couple, his wife, Marcy Shore. They're all going to Toronto. But there was some element of you can't escape history, and this is not a good situation to be in. We'll see how many scholars actually leave.

1:07:18There's a move. and the new head of NIH was... Well, they're being recruited. I know firsthand they're being recruited. Yeah, they're being recruited by, say, France, for example. The new head of the NIH, who I think is a loudmouth. And China. Yeah, exactly. And the UK. I mean, I'm telling you folks, the best and brightest at these universities are getting calls, offers for money, intellectual and academic freedom. But we were talking about this guy moving to Canada. It's interesting. You know why that you can't actually, a guy who's from Boston is not, you can't bury him in Toronto. You know why?

1:07:59No. Oh, no. Because he's still alive.

1:08:05Anyway, it's just an interesting time. The head of the NIH said about France taking scientists. He goes, oh, it's a nice place to visit. What an idiot. Not a stupid idiot in that way. People are thinking about this at the very least, which is they never would have in a million years. I said a trend. It's a trend. It's a trend. We're not moving. We're staying here. I'm going to stay in Scott's apartment and never leave. Okay, that's the show. Thank you for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel, which is growing quite smartly. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out.

1:08:38Today's show was produced by Larry Neman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Nershow had engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms. Severo, and Dan Shalon. Nishak 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 next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Louis Swisher, congratulations. Well done. Graduation. I need Kara to keep doing this podcast thing, so I need you to go to grad school.

1:09:10We need to lock her down. She needs the money. Grad school, my friend. Anyway, happy birthday, Louis, too.

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