Mamdani's Victory, Iran Nuclear Damage Dispute, and Fed Chair Succession

24:03He's a great investor but otherwise he's an idiot. Let's listen to some of Mamdani's victory speech from Tuesday night. We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford.

24:19A city where they can do more than just struggle. And it's where the mayor will use their power to reject Donald Trump's fascism.

24:34To stop mass ICE agents from deporting our neighbors. and to govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party.

24:50Really interesting candidate. I think even the Republicans acknowledge, and actually the smartest Republican, I know Bill Stepien was like, don't try to dismiss him, but MAGA is melting down over the wind with Laura Loomer, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others launching xenophobic attacks. They're pretty grotesque. So was Cuomo, by the way, that ad he did. I don't think those work. but talk about this lessons because this guy could have been really stained by some of his previous tweets and worries about things he had said and with Jewish voters but a lot of Jewish voters voted for him which is interesting although people I have had many people very upset by it at the same time I have to tell you both my sons were very excited and they zeroed in on the affordability part and about the sensible stuff that he was doing more than anything And also, he's a very attractive guy.

25:39He's great at social media. He sounds great. He's handsome, etc., etc. Scott, I'd love to hear. I didn't talk to you about this at all, so I'd love to hear your take. This is a political earthquake, and I got to be honest, and this will piss off a lot of my friends. I think it's hard not to be somewhat inspired by this. And there's a lot of, you know, I personally, I couldn't help but feel a little bit inspired by some of it. I love a younger generation of voters pushing back on money in the establishment. I mean, Bloomberg gave$8 million to Cuomo. Dan Lowe, Bill Ackman, the Democratic political machine was run over by a populist younger movement.

26:19This was, and to a certain extent, it has echoes of the Trump campaign in terms of tactics focused on affordability and weaponized social media. So while he was on social media, Cuomo was running TV ads. But just to give you a sense for the difference in the campaigns, you know, look at their Instagram followings, look at the platforms they weaponized and how they went about it. It was polling just at 1 % four and a half months ago. And just as I think that Trump got Carney and the Australian leader elected, I actually think Netanyahu got this guy elected. I think that so many, I think Israel is so unpopular right now.

27:06You talked about this last show, the brand. The brand. It feels brutal. The brand feels brutal. There's just a general sense that Israel are no longer the good guys or the bad guys. And standing up to them, and he tapped into that anger, is a very effective strategy right now. But can I ask you, he didn't talk a lot about that, which was interesting. Well, he tried to run from that stuff. But he talked about affordability and he talked about the minimum wage. One of the ideas, which I don't know what I think about it, the city run grocery stores. I was like, probably not, but great. I kind of interesting idea.

27:43Everything, even though if I didn't agree with several of his things, I was like, I like your I like the cut of your jib, like that you're actually thinking of kind of some interesting ideas and stuff. So, well, let's talk about some of his policies. So he wanted to talk about housing and he wants to talk about, okay, so fine, we have a housing problem, right? One idea makes sense. Constructing 200 ,000 units of housing over 10 years, you would want to activate and unleash the private sector with tax subsidies and private housing construction. You would want to motivate them through tax subsidies such that more housing development got built.

28:17You want to do away with nimbyism and make it easier to build. At the same time, rent freezes do exactly the opposite. They're populist bullshit because all you do when you freeze rent is you suppress the desire in the amount of money that goes into new development and new housing. You suppress housing stock. And it's just a transfer of wealth from entrants that can't find a place because there's no new housing to the people who were fortunate enough to move into a rent-stabilized place 40 years ago. So it doesn't work. Universal free child care, I think it's a great idea and it shows economic return.

28:49And I was happy to pay 13 % taxes in New York when I lived there. Because and one of the reasons I was happy to do that was because one, it's an amazing city to live in. And two, something that made me feel really good about the city is my son was speech delayed and the state had a state sponsored funded program to get these really wonderful young, mostly women, to come into our home and give my kid occupational therapy. And these things pay off and they make people feel really good about government. Now, quote unquote, so you run grocery stores. That's a, let me think, what's the term? That's a fucking stupid idea.

29:26These are - I get that, but go ahead, go ahead. Well, hold on, but just, I mean, this shit makes no sense. You want the customer service of the DMV with the merchandising of your produce by the IRS. Grocery stores, the one business you would not want the government in is grocery because it's a low margin business. It's local bodegas who are very good at what they do, mostly immigrants. This makes absolutely no sense. Now, taxing the wealthy. Before you get to that one, can I just say there's some co-ops that work there. The idea is to get people who are poor better food, right? So that's a great idea.

29:59That's where I was digging. And there are certain co-ops that work really well. There's certain innovative things to do in that area. But I agree on the— They're not run by the government. No, but there's a way the government can encourage, say, a food co-op or healthier food. But go ahead. Go ahead. Well, you could do that. But if you want healthier food outcomes, you should just put more money in the hands of poor people so they can find their own food and endorse the grocers. Grocery stores operate at, like, razor-thin margins. They do. The notion that government's going to figure out how to do this better than anyone else is ridiculous.

30:33So minimum wage. Free bus, fine. I love$30 an hour minimum wage. I think New York should lead the way on that. I think it's a fantastic idea. You need to see studies around raising taxes on the wealthiest because what he's talking about is raising taxes 2 % on people making over a certain amount of money. those people would now have a tax rate, an effective tax rate, including federal, state, local, and this additional tax of about 52%. At some point, raising taxes actually does exactly the opposite. It reduces the tax rolls. In terms of, I was quite bothered, quite frankly, by what I feel were some, I won't say anti-Semitic, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but some anti-Israel positioning in his background that made me uncomfortable.

31:19Having said that, what I said to my friends last night in a group chat is, I don't really care what a mayor thinks about Israel. I want them to pick up the trash and operate the subway. And I don't think it's... Sure, you want to look at their view on international affairs and New York punches above its weight class. But at the end of the day, it's an operational role. And I got to be honest, I love the idea of young people and a new generation of youth. And by the way, this is a form of revolution. This is young people saying, whatever you folks are doing, the establishment isn't working. And we're going, we're picking someone new.

31:55And he weaponized newer mediums. He was very good on staying on message and affordability. He's a very attractive candidate. I think who's more freaked out about this is not the GOP, but the Democratic establishment. As they should be. Let me, before you, before we move on, on his statements, he did go a long way to try to fix that in a lot of ways. And I think one of the things he could do is be a lot, like, give him the minute to try to do something that brings people together, right? Don't assume that what he said as a Queens thing that he might, I think he does understand that he would be the mayor for all of New York.

32:29And what to me is interesting is, so you have someone like Daniel Lurie in San Francisco, who I wouldn't say is conservative, but he's much more centrist, right? He's not conservative. And this guy is this. One of the things I find exciting, whatever you think of this, is voters are speaking. And, you know, the minute, of course, this happened, my mom goes, I'm selling my apartment in New York as a socialist. Because that's what's on Fox News on frigging, like, whatever. Whatever. It's so racist over there at Fox News. Can I just tell you? They were like, you know this Zohan movie? They're like, he's Zohan.

33:01I'm like, Zohan was an Israeli commando. And by the way, he rocked. Like, are you fucking idiots? It's all about rich people trying to manipulate an election and make people of color hate each other. Like, it was like, they just don't even understand their references. But fine. But of course, my mom immediately said, like, I'm going to sell my part, which she's not doing. And all I said to her is like, the voters decided what they wanted. Every time Trump wins, you say the voters decided what they wanted. Well, they did. And she's like, oh, that's a good point. The voters wanted this. It's not some young people being stupid.

33:34These are the voters. You complain about them voting. They vote the way they want to vote. So respect their vote. Like, whether it's San Francisco bringing in Lurie, whether it's whoever it is, like, it doesn't matter. This is their vote and they count. And the Democratic establishment trying to shove Cuomo down our throats, and that's a gross thing to think about, what a repulsive, like, thing they did here. Like, so cynical, so repulsive, and so not listening to voters who matter, who really matter. Yeah, he's going to run up against some blocks there. So first off, it's not a fit of complete.

34:08No. There's, if you look at the numbers, I think there's about 4 million registered voters. He got about 400 ,000 votes. So he literally got 10 % of the registered vote. There is an opportunity for Eric Adams, potentially, if enough people. Yeah, he's got his own issues. This is something, this was a real anomaly, but it's not, you know, the speculation sites are saying it's a 70 % chance of winning right now in the general. But on the whole, look, America has to deal with the fact of the following, in my view. Young people have had it. Young people have said, okay, I see all of this prosperity.

34:53I see all of this obsession with wealth. I feel like every streaming media program, whether it's sirens or friends and neighbors and social media, is just wealth porn being rubbed in people's faces all fucking day long. where it's impossible to feel like, okay, I'm only making$150 ,000 a year and living in Brooklyn and I'm broke. And every day it's just being shoved in my face that I am failing and it is so goddamn expensive. And these rich guys are at the trough. And meanwhile, Bloomberg's giving$8 million to a candidate who resigned from office in disgrace. I gotta be honest. A lot of what this guy has said is deeply troubling to me.

35:35Having said that, I like a new generation of voters in a populist way just rolling right fucking over wealthy people who think they can buy incumbency. I thought it was, you know, he is not my candidate. Some of his ideas make no sense and they will not get through the assembly or whoever the governing body is. But Cuomo, his ideas, he doesn't even live here. Like, he doesn't even live in New York, which is even worse. He was not a good candidate. A good candidate. I was supporting, you know. Anyone I support means they're not going to win. I was supporting a guy named Whitney Tilson, who's just a blocking and tackling smart guy and a good man and good on the issues.

36:14This guy captured lightning in a bottle. I think young people are saying we're fed up. I think this guy absolutely weaponized social media. And the fact that someone can get this far on ideas, on sheer force of character, he was fucking genius. For the rent freeze thing, which, by the way, is a shitty idea, he jumped into the freezing water. You're not going to see Cuomo do that. Did you see the halal, the$10 halal? These are the four bills that are sitting in the city council right now, which would give these vendors their own permits and make your halal more affordable. But Eric Adams hasn't said a single word about them.

36:49If you own the permit, then how much would you charge for the plate? $7. $8. $8. Would you rather pay$10 for a plate of halal or$8? $8. $8. I think$8 is the way to go. If I was the mayor, I'd be working with city council from day one to make halal eight bucks again. Oh, how would it taste? Tastes like 10 bucks, but it should be eight. That was fantastic. It was so smart way to talk about affordability. It was like, it was so substantive in the silliest way, but it was hysterically funny and so enjoyable. One, two very quick things that I'd love to get your thoughts on, then we got to move on. But immigrants, there's a story right now.

37:28Immigrants are driving population growth across America. This guy feels like America, like where it's going. I don't care. You can hold on to your white America all you want, but it is not. That is not what's happening in our country. He appealed to a lot more people. He appealed to, the numbers are so interesting of who he appealed to. He wouldn't. The winner here, this is the one guy, I have to say, Brad Lander, who if the Democrats are serious about someone with experience, I'm sorry, The New York Times. If you were serious, you would have backed Brad Lander, right? Yep. Controller. Great consolation or whatever you call it, speech.

38:05What did he do? I have to tell you, they cross-referenced each other. He hugged Mamdani. He hugged him. They crossed, said, vote for each other, you know, rank each other one and two, depending on what you want. And he backed him. He should put Lander in an office if he becomes— Well, I'm sure he will. He will. I'm sure he will. Like deputy mayor. whatever. This guy took a risk. He's Jewish. He's like, I've talked to him. I don't think he like gave him that cover. I thought Brad Lander, and then he became exciting because he got arrested. He's interesting. He made Mamdani more safe for people who are worried.

38:46And Mamdani made Lander more interesting in some weird way. So I love that pair. I love that pairing of the two of It's an interesting peanut butter and chocolate. If it's a choice between, I actually like Andrew Cuomo. I met him on Bill Maher. I actually thought he seemed like a competent, decent man to me. I think he would have been a competent, decent mayor. But if the decision was between a candidate backed by the establishment, in my opinion, who looked at the mayor's mansion as rehab for his political reputation such that in 18 to 24 months, he could enter into consensual hallucination with his staff and announce his run for presidency, which is, I think, exactly what he was planning, or a 33-year-old that energizes young people and brings some fresh new ideas, some of them naive, some of them want work.

39:33I'm cool with the 33-year-old. I think this is somewhat inspiring. His viewpoint and some of his rhetoric around Israel, I find deeply offensive and disturbing. Having said that, I don't really care what a mayor thinks about that shit. And a lot of my friends will get angry, but that's not their role. Their role is to make sure the subways are moving on time. Affordability, I'm all for it. Having said that, I left New York in 2011 because I couldn't afford to live there. I had two kids. I was working my ass off. I was making what I thought was a lot of money. And I remember saying to my partner, I'm sick of feeling middle class while I make all of this money.

40:14And we moved. I don't think anyone has a birthright to live in New York. Having said that, if there are programs to maintain the diversity and the viscosity and let ensure that young people continue to populate these great companies by creating, reducing the NIMBYism regulation, unleashing the private sector in terms of new housing development. I'm all for it. And the universal or, you know, effectively universal pre-K and$30 minimum wage to set a tone to inspire the rest of the nation, recognizing if you pay people$30 minimum wage, yeah, some places will go out of business, but on the whole, it'll be stimulative for the economy.

40:50I'm down for it. It is time. It is time for these fucking older Democrats to get on an ice flow and give some new people a shot. A shot. Let them do their dumb ideas, but they're good ideas. They're fresh. Perfect was not on the menu. This guy was not perfect for me on a lot of levels, but I got to be honest. I know. I knew you. He's also a handsome man. You also like a handsome man, don't you? Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Yeah. They just did a profile of his wife, who's also pretty cool. But it's time for a new generation of leaders representing young people who, for the first time in our nation's history, aren't doing as well as their parents.

41:28It is time for the next. It is time to shed some skin. We need to get on an ice flow, Scott. It is time for the next generation. So I hope that this guy appoints really talented, thoughtful people, that he takes some of the rhetoric down, and that he's more thoughtful about some of his economic plans. Can I? The GOP is trying to make him the face of the Democratic Party. That shows how fucking old they are. That's the thing. I was like, be careful, my friends. Oh, the Democrats should take notes on how this guy ran his campaign. I know, but one of the things, the GOP rushing to do this is not working with young people.

42:01I can tell you that. It's not. They can see with their eyes, right, what an interesting and attractive candidate this guy is. If they make him the face of the Democratic Party, they're going to lose everything because they're old, creaky men. But just one additional piece of data, and I haven't reconciled what this means, but this was sort of champagne socialism. You realize that Cuomo beat Momdani by 13 points if they made less than 50 grand. The lower income segment broke very hard for Cuomo, and it was middle and upper income that broke for Momdani. I mean, it's just very, it's very interesting what happened here and how it's going to impact national politics.

42:43But the takeaway I get is that it is younger people are done and they're ready for new faces and they're weaponizing new mediums. And I think the best thing this kid could do if he gets if he gets through the general is immediately publicly listen to and meet with Bloomberg and meet with Jewish leaders and focus on blocking and tackling and everyday things that impact everyday Americans and everyday New Yorkers. Shows he can work. This is this idea of Sarah McBride. There's all these very exciting candidates. We imperfect allies, imperfect allies. That's the way to go. I love that term. I use that a lot.

43:21All right. Let's go on a quick break. We come back. We'll talk about Trump already considering Fed chair replacements.

43:31These days, every business leader is under pressure to save money, but you can't crush the competition just by cutting costs. To win, you need to spend smarter and move faster. You need Brex. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that breaks the tradeoff between control and speed with smart corporate cards, high-yield banking, and AI-powered expense management. Join the 30 ,000 companies that spend smarter and move faster with Brex. Learn more at brex.com slash grow. What do walking 10 ,000 steps every day, eating five servings of fruits and veggies, and getting eight hours of sleep have in common?

44:12They're all healthy choices. But do all healthier choices really pay off? With prescription plans from CVS Caremark, they do. Their plan designs give your members more choice, which gives your members more ways to get on, stay on, and manage their meds. And that helps your business control your costs, because healthier members are better for business. Go to cmk.co slash access to learn more about helping your members stay adherent. That's cmk.co slash ACCESS.

44:46Every day, millions of customers engage with AI agents like me. We resolve queries fast. We work 24-7 and we're helpful, knowledgeable, and empathetic. We're built to be the voice of the brands we serve. Sierra is the platform for building better, more human customer experiences with AI. No hold music, no generic answers, no frustration. Visit sierra.ai to learn more.

45:20Scott, we're back with more news. Let's go through these quick. President Trump reportedly wants to name a Fed chair Jerome Powell's replacement as early as September, October.

45:38I know within three or four people who are all going to pick. I mean, he goes out pretty soon, fortunately, because I think he's terrible. Yeah, a year is not too bad, Trump. You can't force him out. The president's reportedly considering several candidates, including former Fed Governor Kevin Morsh and World Bank President David Malpass. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is reportedly also being pitched by allies very quickly. Why is he doing this? Well, he just wants to neuter him and he wants the governors to have a bigger say. But Chairman Powell will go down and— One of the greatest. Economic professors and economic theory will constantly cite Jerome Powell as somebody who was a steady hand.

46:19And the next Democratic president will give him the National Medal of Freedom and it will be well-deserved. Yeah. I agree. There we have it. Well, Trump, again, weakness on Trump's behalf, I feel like. He can't have everything he wants, so he throws a little hissy. He's doing a lot of hissies lately. Hissies aren't a good look for an old man, by the way. Another one, the FTC has agreed to approve the merger of advertising giants Omnicom and Interpublic Group after the companies agreed not to collude on politically motivated ad boycotts, because, you know, we don't love the First Amendment anymore.

46:51While the$13.5 billion merger will still allow the company's clients to choose from whether they want to advertise on certain platforms, which is their right, by the way. It's kind of so stupid that they had to agree to this dumb thing. Speaking of which, liberal advocacy organization Media Matters has sued the FTC, claiming the agency waged a campaign of retribution on behalf of President Trump and Elon Musk. The agency started investigating Media Matters last month over whether it illegally colluded with other groups to boycott advertising on X. Again, I'm glad they did that. I think, you know, it's really kind of grotesque that they aren't letting advertisers decide where they—even if they're talking together.

47:30Who cares? It's the First Amendment. I don't know what else to say about these two cases. You may have some thoughts about Omnicom and Interpublic doing this. They just had to kind of do it just to get something approved, I assume. Omnicom and IPG tying up, it's literally the second lamest wedding of the weekend. I mean, the reality is, and I'm a can, they're unimportant companies. Palantir will lose or gain the market cap of these companies in the next week. That's sorry, yeah. They're just not, they're a shadow of themselves. The conglomerate model no longer works. One and a half percent of GDP goes to marketing.

48:09And it's all every year, more and more of it goes to the guys we talk more about. And these folks, the fact that the FTC wanted to get in the way of this merger was insane. These guys, this is about survival. These guys need to consolidate, cut back office, do some spins. Figure AI out. It's tactical and not that important, but it's interesting. I think Publisi has actually done a better job than Omnicom, IPG, or WPP by embracing technology. They have Epsilon, they have Sapient. They've done actually a pretty good job, and now their market cap is worth more than I think the other three combined.

48:42But this is an industry that we talk about as if it's important, and it's not. It employs a decent number of people. The ad industry played a really important role in the advancement of women. It was one of the initial industries to have female CEOs, Shelley Lazarus. the character that Peggy plays in Mad Men was actually a really important woman. It was one of the industries that figured out and elevated women to their natural ability as opposed to, let me put it this way. The glass ceiling was still there, but it was higher in the communications industry. It's been an important industry for the United States, but these companies need to consolidate just to survive.

49:23The idea of, I can't imagine a worse job than being a salesperson for X right now. Yeah, well, speaking of which, what do you think about this idea that the FDCs, this guy who runs the FDC is such a clown. It's just ridiculous. He's like an errand boy for Trump, from Daddy Trump. Not for Trump, for Musk. Musk's hands is so far up his ass, if he opens his mouth, you can see Elon's palm right now. The notion that you are, what about that black hole on fire? Come visit us at our wedding. If I was on a honeymoon with Jeff Bezos, you would absolutely show up. I have no doubt. Anyways, it's insane. You're saying free speech is your ability to say things, but it's not free speech when you decide you don't want to advertise on a platform?

50:13Yeah. They're allowed to. I don't care if they have lunch and all decide to do it together. Who cares? You know, Linda, Linda Yaccarino, make a better platform. Don't have a shitty platform. Elon, sell better cars. Sell better cars. Perhaps you will do well. Otherwise, you know, step off letting advertisers do what they want. And by the way, they're already, as you say, suffering. They should do whatever it takes to do well. Correct? Right? Well, okay. So the actual law is a boycott would only be illegal if the companies involved colluded with each other to obtain lower prices. And that's not what they're doing.

50:46No, they're just like, this is a shitty platform. They're basically saying as a service to their advertisers, this is not a safe place. You need to be careful here. And until they make it more brand safe, you shouldn't advertise here. That is entirely legal. Yeah. Anyway, one interesting case, though, I have to say. I was really struck by both Metta and Anthropic struck legal winds against the book authors this week. The two companies faced similar suits. In both cases, federal judge ruled that the training of AI models on copyrighted books was fair use and transformative. However, both judges noted the case were limited in scope.

51:18The judge in Metta's case said the plaintiffs, which included Sarah Silverman, quote, made the wrong arguments and failed to prove that copying harmed the market for authors. And then Sam Altman on my friend Casey Newton and Kevin Roos' podcast, Hard Fork, pushed back really hard on the New York Times and saying, I like the New York Times, but they're wrong about this. So there's some real aggression here on these legal wins. I'd love to know what you thought about this, too. Copyright is super complex. And I guess one judge said if you buy the book, you've done enough. If you actually buy the book instead of steal it, I guess.

51:52I was disappointed and surprised. And I thought, okay, we've said for a while, this is a moment in time where creators need to really circle wagons around their IP and at least participate in some of the extraordinary shareholder gains that this industry is garnering by not actually creating content, but crawling content and then using machine to offer it up in interesting ways. And so this to me was disappointing and surprising. And I don't understand the mechanics of the legal ruling, but I would have hoped that they would have pushed back and said, you know, I was hoping that there'd just be more respect for IP because at some point, this just reminds me very much of back to the old days when Google figured out a way to crawl data and give the content providers two cents by sending them traffic they couldn't monetize.

52:45and they got 98 cents on the dollar for curating information in a really interesting way that other people had had created if you look at all of the models here it's just all moving towards an asset-like model where you don't create content you you crawl it slice it dice it serve it and at some point that's going to be bad for the overall economy when there's just no money in the business of fact checking and content creation and anyways i was disappointed to see this ruling. What do you think? Yeah, I need to learn more about it. Like, I don't understand it. I don't understand it because if they are able to do this, it's a real, it's a real problem for authors.

53:24There's a great piece, if people want to read in The Atlantic this week about AI upending publishing, which I thought was really smart. So I want, I need to, we need to learn more about this because it's an area we should know more about. But yeah, I was surprised by both these rulings, but they're doing little jigs over at Meta, I guess. But it's not over. I'll tell you that. It's not over for OpenAI. It's not over for any of them in terms of legal struggles they'll have a little bit. All right. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

53:56From Pushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and Heavyweight is back. The new season is bigger than ever. Bigger hopes. I keep waiting for this moment when he says, Mom, I get it. I'm sorry. Bigger dreams. Tom Hanks wants to meet with you. This is a real chance. And bigger heartbreaks. I thought it would be my movie moment. And maybe he would even whisper in my ear, I've always been in love with you. Check out new episodes of Heavyweight on Apple Podcasts.

54:41eight hours of sleep have in common. They're all healthy choices. But do all healthier choices really pay off? With prescription plans from CVS Caremark, they do. Their plan designs give your members more choice, which gives your members more ways to get on, stay on, and manage their meds. And that helps your business control your costs, because healthier members are better for business. Go to cmk.co slash access to learn more about helping your members stay adherent. That's cmk.co slash access.

55:39development, and AI needs, where you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high-performance environment, and spend less than you would with other clouds. How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second. Cheaper? OCI costs up to 50 % less for compute, 70 % less for storage, and 80 % less for networking. Better? In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads. Right now, with zero commitment, try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com slash vox. That's oracle.com slash vox.

56:29Okay, Scott, let's hear your prediction. What is your prediction? I went back and looked through the headlines kind of the few days following 9-11 or our entry into Iraq or Afghanistan. And other than the Bin Laden raid, where the headlines ended up to be the first 24, 48, and 72 hours ended up to actually being quite accurate. In every other instance, what comes out six or 12 months later is that what came out 24 hours later was just not that accurate. And so my prediction isn't that interesting. It's just that everything we think we know about these attacks in Iran, we don't know. And also, I have never felt a lack of certainty or confidence in the information coming out of our intelligence community and out of the White House.

57:21because it feels as if their priorities aren't giving the American public the truth, but just signaling macho. And I don't know if we're going to find out that, okay, all of the nuclear material was actually transported out or... That's the worrisome thing. That's the one that they... One of the things they're not doing is saying... They are sort of trying to punt on that because I think that's what happened. Like, if you look at a lot of the headlines, they won't say anything about whether the stuff was moved. Yeah, I interviewed this really interesting guy from the Carnegie Endowment, Kareem Sajjapur, I believe his name is.

57:57And, you know, it's just military intervention in the Middle East. The only thing you know about it is it has just so many unintended consequences. and this whole thing feels so, today, just so performative on behalf, you know. We attack, it feels very performative. Iran responds in what feels like a very performative way. So it's kind of a non-prediction prediction and that is whatever you think happened, the only thing I'm fairly certain on, that's not what happened. It's just... Do you feel like you're in a Mission Impossible movie where the uranium is on the move and Ethan Hunt has to get it?

58:33I feel like I'm in the Truman Show. Oh, see, I feel like Ethan Hunt's on the hunt for the uranium that's somewhere in a tiny ball that he just puts in his pocket. But think about this situation. It's an 86-year-old theocrat who knows he could be killed at any moment in a bunker. They've had to shut down the Internet because they can't communicate with each other. And at the same time, we have Netanyahu, who is running to stay out of prison. and he's decided the way he does that is to be on a constant war footing, pulverizing and creating what is arguably at this point unnecessary death and destruction in Gaza that gets likely played a role in the mayoral election in New York.

59:11I know. I mean, or the fact that we probably wouldn't have gone into Iran to bomb these nuclear sites had the Ukrainian army not been so successful against defanging Russia, who would have still been in Syria and created more... We can do that in 24 hours, Scott. 24 hours. The game theory here and the scenarios are just so crazy. And what I wonder, I know the military does this. Is there anyone with like a big whiteboard in the Defense Department or Secretary Hexeth that is actually gaming all of this out? Do they actually think through this stuff? He couldn't play like war. Actually, that wasn't good.

59:49I'll do another quick one. I'll repeat the prediction. uh reed hastings going on the board of anthropic we are going to have an anthropic netflix joint venture that will compete with tiktok i like it i like it yeah i saw some other analysts note that that tiktok's got to reach down into the youtube in the tiktok and youtube categories they've got to start really you know the growth isn't going to come from their regular business but they have to really do both youtube and small stuff and i thought that was i was like Oh, Scott said that already. I already knew that. Anyway, good one. All right.

1:00:23We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe this week, this week on Prof G Conversations, Scott spoke with Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of the Eurasia Group, about Iran, the role President Trump plays, and what could come next on the global stage. Let's listen to a clip. The backdrop on Trump is he's not gotten his deals done. He's really itching to make something happen. He wants to show that he can win on the international stage.

1:00:57And Iran suddenly was where he was putting a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of attention. So that's the background for him. The backdrop of Iran is that they have lost more influence, both regionally and globally, than pretty much anybody over the last year. Interesting, except for Elon Musk. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channels. We have a lot of YouTube channels, and we cross-promote each other on all of them, whether it's the Prof G1, On with Kara Swisher, or Pivot, which is a fantastic channel. We've got lots of stuff in there for you.

1:01:35We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie and Jatot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miel Saverio, Dan Chalon, and Kate Gallagher. Yashak Kurwa as 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. The wedding is going to span three days, Cara, because when you're worth$215 billion, why have a reception when you can have a small economic summit?

1:02:13That's no good. Venice is hosting Bezos where locals protest over tourism. It's like complaining about traffic while driving a monster truck to the complaint meeting. All right, on that, bye, everybody. See you next week.

1:02:57Thank you. work with the all-new adobe acrobat studio the pumpkin spice latte is back at starbucks crafted with our signature espresso and real pumpkin sauce then topped with whipped cream cinnamon and nutmeg the psl get it while it's hot or iced only at starbucks ai agents are getting pretty impressive you might not even realize you're listening to one right now we work 24 7 to resolve customer inquiries no hold music no canned answers no frustration Visit sierra.ai to learn more.