Saudi Comedy Festival Controversy, Threads' Major Milestone, and Trump's Movie Tariff

23:42I think our comics are an incredible export. And I think the more comics in different parts of the world makes us look good and makes them less likely to declare war on us and feel affinity for us. I'm in. Go cash their check. Have a great time. Fucking hypocrites. If you say free speech to me, I'm going to punch you in the nuts. Anyway, Nextar and Sinclair have brought back. Oh, speaking of people like Paper Tigers, Nextar and Sinclair have brought back Jimmy Kimmel Live to their local stations. After the standoff with ABC and Disney, Sinclair said it received, quote, thoughtful feedback from viewers and advertisers during the blackout and proposed some measures for ABC to adopt, none of which ABC adopted.

24:23Remember, they were asking him to give money to Turning Point and apologize. Fuck you, Sinclair. Yeah, being generous with other people, being virtue signaling with other people's money. Exactly. Next are also referenced constructive conversations with Disney in a statement, but Disney and ABC have not made concessions to either company. I mean, seriously, these two. Former Eleverage Secretary Robert Reich wrote in The Guardian in the Kimmel drama proves consumers have extraordinary power. He seemed to be taking a page from Scott Galloway. Trump is now threatening another company, Microsoft, telling him to fire their head of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, who served in the Biden administration.

24:55Again, these are the people who are actual, like, trying to tell people what to do. I'm just pointing out. Agreed. I mean, these next star people, any thoughts on what happened there? I'm just really into this idea of the economic power of American citizens, that if they're coordinated and can rally around. I was doing a live podcast with these two Canadian kids. I wish it was called What's On Your Mind or something like that. And this guy came up to me and shook my hand and he's like, no, by Friday. I have gotten so much positive feedback from the idea of an economic strike. And it's really intoxicating and inspiring.

25:37Lots of people have come up to me and mentioned to me. And said, because look what these guys did. Clearly, a bunch of advertisers, a bunch of stars, a bunch of people called Iger, canceled cruise ship reservations, canceled trips to Disney, people calling, saying, I want to cancel my contract or I don't want to advertise with Sinclair. And you know what? They backed the fuck down. And so I love this idea of a co-equal branch of government of which there are none right now. There's no co, there's no equal. There's Trump, there's MAGA right now being established via people's purchasing power. And this is the first time, kind of shockingly enough, that it has really changed the tide.

26:14It has literally reversed. The flow of the river was reversed in about 72 hours. And it's just, it speaks to that. And it makes sense. America is such a consumer economy. Why would they ask for like that from Kimmel? Like ask for demands, first of all. By the way, these contracts are somewhat strict. If they dump shows too much, they're in breach of their contract. That's one thing. All they were doing it for was in order to get the deal from Brendan Carr. That's all they were doing. They had no values they were trying to protect. They had no public interest they were interested in. And they were interested in this deal to buy Tegna.

26:47Both of them apparently want Tegna. And that's all this is about, just so you know, it's money. And then they had to go the step further and ask for ridiculous things like the Jimmy Kimmel give money to Turning Point. He shouldn't have to do anything like it's ridiculous. And then, you know, this new one about Lisa Monaco, who I know, who's a tremendous public servant, demanding that Microsoft get rid of her. Let me let me just say before you say anything. If they do that, Satya Nadella, I'm going to make your life so uncomfortable if you do something like this. If you give in to someone you hired who's perfectly qualified for the job you hired her for, you fire or Lisa Monica leaves.

27:30I'm going to just talk about it endlessly for years to come. I don't think I don't think he's going to. And I think that I'd like to think this sort of represents a firewall. The first the first I've seen so far. I mean, they totally had to backtrack. Again, I hate this. I thought that was just ridiculous that he should give money to turning point. Well, I'll tell you what, Sinclair and Nexter or whatever, or Nexstar or whoever, or Tenga. Tegna. Tegna. That's a stupid name. You guys should really donate money to the ACLU. I mean, and that's an obnoxious statement. Yeah, I agree. You don't say that.

28:06But this is, they have the right to not carry Kimmel. They were trying to carry favor with the president. People recognize that all the free speechers are actually more censorious than anyone. and consumers and actors and travelers and advertisers pushed back. And it was what they accomplished was they accomplished in 72 hours what no one in the Democratic Party has been able to accomplish in eight months. And I understand that the Democratic Party is neutered, but no one in the Democratic Party, Charles Schumer, hasn't been able to rally a bunch of advertisers or cruise ship goers. I mean, you saw their text this weekend over the shutdown, honestly.

28:45So I think this is really exciting. I think I hope that a Democratic or a civic or business leader comes up and figures out a way without being too preachy and too drunk with power, figures out targeted ways to deploy the economic. We're in America. It's all about money, folks, to deploy that economic power. But asking different individuals get fired, they did that to Chris Krebs, who had to leave his company and is now involved because they threatened all kinds of investigations. And so he had to fall on his sword because the rest of the company was under threat. Right. This is the kind of thing that autocrats do.

29:21If you ask Microsoft to fire someone they hired and by name, that is sickening as far as I can tell. The left is guilty on a lower level, and that is the left for a while was really into the idea of, oh, you said something that hurts our feelings or offends us. We would like you to fire them. Oh, you're an actress in The Mandalorian, and you said conservative things that offend the sensibilities of people in Hollywood or offends our sensibilities. We want you to fire her. And they removed her from the series. That was wrong. The Republican Party and Trump have taken it to an absolutely new level where they are trying to go after entire industries and companies and also basically weaponize the government to go after people and threaten and put them in jail.

30:07So they have taken – this is generally speaking the pattern of politics right now. The Democratic Party does something really fucking stupid. They say, okay, or the Democrats, let's let a transgender woman swim in a woman's meat. Let's have a DEI department of 200 people in Michigan when 55 % of the freshman class are non-white and we take pride in just not letting in people. That's actually not fair for Michigan. Harvard. Harvard's a better case study. And then the Republicans come in and use all of that, that wrong, and come in with a nuclear response. I know. Let's kick all transgender people out of the military.

30:52I know under a false flag of DEI and DEI correction, let's take the most well-deployed capital in history and cut it against research funding. It's like the Democrats do something stupid, well-intentioned but stupid, take it too far. And then the Democrat, Speaker Emberta is allowed to trade stocks. The S &P is up 200 % in 10 years. Warren Buffett is up 300%. The Pelosi family is up 697%. They engage. It's not insider trading, but it's clearly trading based on information the rest of us do not have. So what does Trump do? He comes in and he says, I know, I'll make$5 billion on a crypto scam. Or letting that company, the Gulf company, into this TikTok deal at a ridiculous$14 billion valuation.

31:41Or dividing up TikTok among your donors. For$14 billion. $14 billion. Which is probably about a 60 to 80 percent discount to what the thing is worth. And by the way, Democrats not allowed to invest in it and nor should it should be an auction. It should be capitalism. So it's almost like we do something really fucking stupid and we give them cloud cover to come in and be mendacious and scale that ridiculous behavior. But I find all of this very – I'm very excited. The silver lining here is that – and I didn't think it would happen over Jimmy Kimmel. It appears that people have figured out a way to push back, and that's encouraging.

32:22Yeah, we'll see. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Threads just scored a major win over X.

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36:21Scott, we're back with more news. Threads just hit a major milestone, passing X in daily active users, according to data from SimilarWeb. The number of threads users is steadily growing, while the number of daily active users on X continues to drop. So they're sort of crossing streams, essentially. Though data shows users spend more time on X than threads, the Wall Street Journal is also predicting the next Elon-Zuckerberg battle is going to be over humanoid robots. They're both into this. And speaking of that, President Trump said he would make TikTok 100 % MAGA if he could. President made the comment while signing an executive order to pave the way for American investors to own a majority share of the app.

36:56But then he added, unfortunately, it won't work out that way, saying every group philosophy and policy would treat it fairly. I'm not so concerned about that. I'm concerned about the price and the gimme. You know, it's a really good deal for his friends. And speaking of his friends, in a recently resurfaced Q &A, Larry Ellison predicted the rise of modern surveillance, which would cause citizens to be on their best behavior. And that's a good thing because they're being surveilled. I don't know. There's a lot here. Larry Ellison just really has managed to do really well. But Zuckerberg has really done a nice job with threads.

37:28And Blue Sky is also growing. They're both growing. But X is really, nobody thought that threads would do this. I did because he's good at this stuff. Any thoughts on that? And then their humanoid robot battle? So a lot there. So with respect to Threads, I think Threads is fantastic. So I invested in one of these things. I invested in Post, and it got a ton of traction out of the gates, and then it kind of lost steam, and now it's closed down. people love blue sky i was using blue sky and threads i got off of twitter for my own mental health and because i love your quote i'm not going to paint that guy's fucking fence and i found it just so ugly and i've been on threads and blue sky and i'm curious what you think but i find myself increasingly using threads i find it so seamlessly integrated into instagram which i love And also I find the content that they elevate on threads is a little bit more positive.

38:29Yeah. Your feed is probably done that way because of what you pull from. It depends on the feed, right? Yeah, that's true. Because Amanda tried threads and she just doesn't have a good feed. And I'm like, it's because you're pulling from doom scrolling or something. I have a great feed on threads. It's all like cooking. And there's a thread of something called fabric something where they take old toys and old things and refurbish them. There's a guy who's a gardener on threads who's like this hunky gay gardener who I like. There's a lot of pleasant stuff. It's a lot like Instagram, as you said, but a little easier to consume.

39:01I really enjoy threads. And I, again, you know I don't throw a Mark Zuckerberg a bone if I can avoid it, but it's a really good product. I find it really enjoyable. I do like, I think blue sky people are smarter a little bit, although they're much more like finger waggy, you know? It's a little bit more artisanal and a little bit more like Atlantic kind of. Yeah, yeah. But I like it. I don't, I find interesting news. I have to say my news consumption, Threads is not as good for news consumption. You like this guy more? News consumption. And I like both of them because you can block people easily and get rid of all the shitty people who like either lecture at you or say vile things.

39:41But not many people say vile things on either of them. It's rare. It's usually just irritating. just like leave me the fuck alone if I like Scott like stop bothering me essentially that's their beef with you? whatever that's their beef some of them just like whatever like anyway it's usually fine and it's never I'll tell you it's not what happens on X which is just vile and gross and a little scary right now and so I'm thrilled that people are seeing all these different competitors So I'm kind of hoping for all of them, if that makes sense. You know? Yeah. Well, first off, I mean, and it should probably be broken up, but Threads has just an unnatural advantage because 3 billion people are on Instagram.

40:27And so the data they can mine that informs the Threads feed when you go on the Threads about what you already like, and also just making it really seamless for those 3 billion people to say, hey, you don't need to log off and go on to Twitter. If you want to share content here, we're just going to make it easier and the content's more likely to be elevated and get more of those precious likes for whatever it is you're trying to build, whether it's social capital or drive people to your website. We're just going to make it very seductive and very seamless to go for the 3 billion people to just ease of slip over here to threads.

40:57They have a huge built-in advantage. And I would argue that at some point, you're probably going to have more innovation if these companies are separate companies. Having said that, I just find I really like threads. I got to admit it. I'm spending more time on Instagram. Less time on TikTok, though I love TikTok. I think the nicest vibe of all of them is LinkedIn. I think it's because everyone's thinking maybe someday this guy will give me a job. So they're just nicer to people. No, it's just because it's useful, right? It's meant to be. It's more professional. And it's just, but people are generally speaking are kinder.

41:28I also, to be honest, I think the environment, at least on the stuff I post on YouTube is quite positive. Same thing with Reddit. I would say there's lots of choices now, which is great, actually. Reddit is really enjoyable. I go there all the time to find different and discover things. News discovery, again, I would say Reddit and Blue Sky Threads is sort of fun and food and silly and ASMR stuff. You know, there's a guy who just does the lawn and I watch, he does the lawn. I forget what is he's from, Australia, I think. And I like that. I have to tell you, you know what? It's replacing TV. I find myself not watching as much television.

42:06It is. I was on Smirconish last weekend with Richard Reeves. talking about young men. And I said to Drew, my tech guy, I'm like, pull up CNN. I didn't have it on my TV. My live Hulu thing had lapsed or I had too many locations. I tried to pull it up on live on CNN. We couldn't figure out the credit card situation. And it kept timing out, asking me who I was with, Cox and everything. And finally I gave up. I haven't watched CNN live in a year. I don't watch live TV. And I've also noticed like you, I'm watching less streaming. And I hate to admit this. I used to get my news from The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

42:44Now I'm getting all of my news from social. Well, it's from those places. Yeah, a lot of times it's clicked. But they do a better job of curating The New York Times than The New York Times does of curating The New York Times. Well, I would agree. I would agree. That's which was interesting. So it's just, I have become, I want to say the enemy. You and I are the same. I'm not, I am, the only time I turn on the bigger screen in my household is for Premier League football, or my boys want to watch something and I want to trap them somewhere. Or you want to watch a movie with your kids, right? Yeah.

43:13And even now, like my kids are, what I advise people who want to be in the media ecosystem is the following. It's very easy. The bigger the screen, the lower the ROI. If you're doing anything, anything that depends upon your ability to monetize content on a 30 meter by 10 meter screen called a movie theater, you're fucked. Don't go into that business. I thought about going to the movies the other day. I was like, I don't want to go to the movies. I do particularly watch. Like, I watch The Gilded Age. I watch. I'm very excited for The Diplomat to start again. I'm very excited. But think about how we grew up.

43:50I used to get home from school at 3.30, watch cartoons until my mom got home, and then we'd watch Happy Days and Knight Rider. I'd watch seven hours. I'd watch seven hours of TV. Yeah, me too. Six hours, six times a week. Yeah. I mean, and now I'm down to maybe an hour, an hour and a half. And then, again, that screen, big business still, still money in it. But the screen where there's champagne and cocaine is if you can figure out a way to monetize content on a tiny screen called a phone. So ROI is inversely correlated to the size of the screen. Yeah, I think that's true. In the last 24 months, and again, it's pulse marketing, I have literally stopped watching TV.

44:32And I hate to say this, going to the original site of the media, I go to Bloomberg's site, but only after an article is recommended to me on Threads or Blue Sky. Yeah, it's true. And eventually, if you're the gatekeeper, you will find the way to start the margin from the initial creator. Yeah, it's true. We are a perfect case study. I watch everything on my phone now. I wanted to watch the morning show the other day, and I was like, oh, should I put it on the TV? I'm like, you know, no, I'm going to sit here and eat dinner and watch it on my phone, like that kind of thing. So anyway, it was a lot easier and easier to pull up, by the way.

45:04But tell me about TikTok. I don't care about the 100 % MAGA. It'll be what it is, right? They could maybe manipulate it. I'm sure they have on occasion. I feel like this whole thing, it's going to lease the algorithm from the Chinese. The number,$14 billion, is what Snapchat is worth right now. It was in the$55 to$100 billion range before. So they're getting a deal. And I have a feeling TikTok's going to go down. This is my feeling at this moment with this gang of old men running it. But what do you think? Well, first off, do we want the Ellison family or any family controlling CBS, CNN, and TikTok?

45:46And keep in mind, TikTok, and this is in the Ellisons, TikTok has more mindshare of our youth than CBS, NBC, and ABC had of adults in the 60s. We wouldn't have liked the Kremlin controlling them. So I am all about banning TikTok, and I haven't been for a long time. What is illegal here and wrong is carving it up and giving it to your best Republican donors at a discount. Because ByteDance trades at a valuation of about$300 or$350 billion in the private markets. By the way, most undervalued tech company in the world. It's trading at about, I think, two times revenues. OpenAI is trading at like 30 times forward revenues.

46:28And it's still growing. About 20%, I believe, of the revenues come from the US, which means based on the suppressed valuation of$350 billion, it's worth about$70. So these guys are getting an 80 % discount. And by the way, there isn't a single there is there isn't a single Democrat involved in this fucking thing, of course. So what do you get? You get to I mean, this is totally anti-capitalist. You don't force you don't ban a company and then carve it up and give it to your biggest donors. Don't auction. It should have been an auction. Don't get the best price. And also, I'm convinced that the only way this goes through and I got this wrong.

47:05I said, this isn't going to happen. And by the way, I met the CEO of TikTok and he's like the most likable guy in the world. If there's anything, if this does go through, I think the only way it goes through is if she figures out a backdoor into the algorithm. Because the algorithm is everything. TikTok really has, I believe TikTok - the algorithm. They're using the Chinese algorithm, apparently. But that's my point. My point is, as long as the CCP can dial up or down things that continue to make young Americans feel bad about America or continue to dial. Trump was going to ban it. He didn't like TikTok.

47:47You know what they did? They said, take the dial on pro-Trump content and dial it up. They will notice and they will decide they like TikTok. Dial down content saying that an An invasion of Taiwan is coming and would be banned. Also, the CCP wants Trump to dial it down on Taiwan. There was a big story in, I think, the journal or one of them. She is hoping to get Trump to shut up about Taiwan so they can soften up their approach there. And then secondly, he wants a summit. And so this is a nothing burger because he doesn't. I don't think the Chinese think they're giving up anything. I think they're tap dancing in Beijing.

48:23This is a great deal for them. And then these stupid rich guys get something at a real discount. This is such a gimme. But this is what we're missing. I mean, it's all of the bad taste of an oligarchy. And it's like oligarchy meets cronyism meets socialism with all of the calories of the fact that it'll still probably be a propaganda tool for the CCP. And this is what I am pissed off about Democrats. Democrats, if I were running for president, I would say Mark Andreessen, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell. I am going to hit you so fucking hard when I'm in the White House because if you're engaging, you're all free marketers until you get a chance to be total fucking oligarchs.

49:10With the comics, they're all anti-censorship until they get censored. Well, this is like, okay, fine. And it's the same message to the folks in El Salvador. You're found incarcerating good Americans. I don't care if the previous president said it was okay. I'm coming for your ass. And I would, if I were Rahm Emanuel or Governor Newsom or Governor Moore, I would be saying, look, my reach and my memory are long and far. And for those of you who claim to be free marketers engaging in this type of cronyism and this oligarchy, be clear. I'm coming for your ass. Yeah, you need to break the back of that immediately.

49:53And start saying, for those of you engaging in this type of ridiculous prosecution of your political enemies, okay, we can do that too. I'm going to start making a list. That's their nightmare. But instead we're like, this is illegal. This is wrong. America needs to come together. Fuck that. Guess what? Scott and I are coming for you, people. We're coming for you. Speaking of paper tigers. All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's retribution campaign. Speaking of retribution.

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54:03Scott, we're back. Donald Trump is insisting the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey isn't about revenge, saying it's really about justice. Comey was, oh, whatever. Comey was indicted on two felony counts last week, both tied to his 2020 Senate testimony on the Trump-Russia investigation. The indictment came after Trump put his former attorney, Lindsey Halligan, and former beauty queen, in charge of the case, despite the fact that she had never prosecuted a federal case. In a video posted on Instagram, Comey declared his innocence and said he would welcome a trial. Let's listen. My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump.

54:42But we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not live on our knees. And you shouldn't either. He gets to take the high ground. Not one of my favorite people, I'll be honest with you. But still, he didn't do anything wrong. And Lindsey Halligan has made like error after error in the filing of this thing. And the grand jury only indicted on two counts, even though there were three. Every lawyer I know said this is going to be a slam dunk for Comey to get out of. By the way, people within the White House said don't do it, including Pam Bondi. Trump is also indicating more indictments are likely, pointing to New York Attorney General Letitia James, as well as George Soros and Reid Hoffman as potential targets.

55:21I don't know. He's putting up really shitty cases and probably will lose. So thoughts? This isn't about legal victory. It's about intimidation. And first off, if anyone should have a gripe with Director Comey, it should be Secretary Clinton. Going into like weeks left in the campaign, you're never supposed to discuss an investigation until you have actual indictments in the FBI. That's standard practice. And James Comey, always posing for the fucking cameras, who likes to think of himself as a bald eagle flying into an apple pie, he's so fucking sanctimonious, decided to pose more for the cameras and put out a letter saying that they had found more emails with no specifics, which casts this incredible doubt on Secretary Clinton's campaign.

56:07If anyone has a beef with the director, it's Secretary Clinton. And the fact that he's doing this, again, I think it's another data point, another suggestion from OpenAI. From what I understand of case is that if it's not swatted away right away, it'll be soon swatted away. Meanwhile, he will have to raise millions of dollars to defend this. But this isn't about winning cases. This is about intimidation and convincing people it's better to just give him what he wants and stay out of his way, whether it's cut him a check for$14 million or$7 million, or just don't say anything. But Director Comey, even a statement there, Director Comey is really poorly advised.

56:53We will not live on our knees. Oh, Jesus Christ, you're not Emiliana Zapata. Just get over yourself. All right. It's like, look, this is political vengeance. And it's one thing to say, you know, he should have read that quote from the minister. First, they came for the socialists, and I did not say, he goes, just be clear, folks, at some point they come for you. and this is awful. It will not go anywhere, but it's more distraction. It keeps Epstein out and it intimidates people. People stop speaking their mind. It does. These are all intimidations, whether it's to Microsoft or anybody else. That's what it's doing.

57:33It's sending a flare saying, I might be wrong. It may not hold up in court, but I am going to distract people. I'm going to come after you. You know, the Comey household right now, Well, the job of a government, the job of you, to a certain extent, as a man, is the job of a woman and the job of a combination of masculine and feminine energy is to create leadership, nurturing, care, concern, such that you ease people's pain and make them feel comfortable. You ease their anxiety. You make them have rewarding lives. You let them focus on the tough stuff, losing people they love, how do they deal with kids who are struggling.

58:18And the people who are supposed to be the best at that and have the most resources are elected leaders. Our elected leaders are supposed to remove anxiety from our lives. They're supposed to give us a sense that you're safe and you're secure. We're going to lower the crime. We're going to give your kids more opportunity. And if your wife gets lung cancer, it means you're not going to go bankrupt. That is what the government is supposed to do. We're going to come up with great research such that if your wife gets metastatic breast cancer, we've done this incredible research. You don't need to understand it, but there's better prospects every day that she will live.

58:47You don't need to worry about being invaded. You don't need to worry about, you know, if someone commits a crime against you, that they go unpunished. And instead, we have a government that seems more focused on increasing the anxiety of certain groups of people because this is now a party of vengeance. It's not a party of preventing a tragedy of the commons. They're always so angry. How do you get so angry? Seriously. And while he's spending all his time trying to figure out how to keep Epstein out of the news and how to harass fellow Americans and weaponize our great institutions, not against our enemies, but against the enemy within, Putin and Xi are taking advantage of it, establishing new alliances and sending attack aircraft into NATO countries.

59:30And we're sitting out here, you know, trying to like dodge incoming missiles that are fired domestically from Pennsylvania Avenue. Agreed. And by the way, we didn't have time to talk about this today, but the Epstein, there were more Epstein file stuff coming out that had come out and including names of people like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Elon's denying it. I think he probably was invited and didn't go. I believe him on that. And I know he did go to the New York thing. I was invited to the New York thing and I didn't go. So I don't know necessarily if it means anything, but the more Epstein files, the better.

1:00:06And you saw Marjorie Taylor Greene saying she's going to be killed, that she's keeping going on this thing. People should focus on the Epstein files some more. That's what I say. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

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1:01:45okay scott let's hear some wins and fails would you like me to go first would you please do um you know hakeem jeffries is my fail this week um first of all his social media is so bad i just want to cry he could benefit from a gavin newsman social media intervention it is so boring it's so dumb it's so he should just get off social media if he's not going to do it well um but when eric Adams dropped out of the New York mayoral race, which I think people expected, although he did it after his name is now still on the ballot, I believe. He's still not endorsing Mamdani. And then he effusively complimented Eric Adams.

1:02:20It was so strange. And I just, you know, I had a lot of hopes for Hakeem Jeffries that he would live up. I know you don't like Nancy Pelosi, but she was good at her job, what she did there. Very strategic. Very strategic. This guy doesn't seem to have a clue. I just feel like what a, I just, every, everything Hakeem Jeffries is, was a big L on it, as far as I'm concerned. Again, just like, it's just so ridiculous, especially with Trump on the opposite side, saying that if you vote for him, I'm going to hurt New York. And what's the point of voting? He's, you know, putting his finger on the thumb of everything, which is also grotesque, but typical from him.

1:02:58And then my win is, I'm excited for the slate of movies for, I know you say, like, I'm going to see them not in the movie theater, but there's all these great movies coming out in the fall. I do always like the fall. I just keep seeing all these ads and stuff for different movies and things opening. And I'm super excited. Obviously, I'm most excited for Wicked, as I've noticed, Wicked for Good. And they keep dropping stuff. And I'm very pleased with that. I really like that. And so I'm excited. I'll be talking about them as we move forward. But there's a ton of really cool stuff that looks like it's coming out, including this movie that George Clooney's in.

1:03:33It's called Jay Kelly. And it looks it's by Noah Baumbach. And I think it looks really good. He's playing himself, really. And it looks funny. Are you going to see the Leo film? No, I can't do it. I don't have enough energy. It's supposed to be outstanding. I didn't see the one, the Indian one, where he poisons Native Americans. Peak artistic masturbation? I don't know. I just can't. I'm so tired. I want to see fun things. So I'm going to go see J.K. It's supposed to be great. I'm going to see it tonight. I'll report that. Tell me how it is. Tell me how it is. Yeah. So just a couple of things.

1:04:06And with Leader Jeffries, I've met him, interviewed him on stage, really like him. In the corporate world, we have this pattern or this problem where oftentimes when people are great at what they do, we keep promoting them until we find a position they're not great at. In other words, you promote them out of their competency. And so they came up with this idea, I think it's called solo contributor, where they say, look, this guy's a great bond trader. He or she can't manage people out of a fucking paper bag, right? So just keep them as a bond trader. Don't put them in charge of the fixed income department.

1:04:40And some people are just good at what they do and they end up being great managers. I think that applies to Leader Jeffries. I think he's an outstanding elected representative. I think he's a great representative in the House for his core constituents in Brooklyn. He lacks the killer instinct and gravitas and what I don't want to call leadership ability, but ability to capture narrative and compel people to be the Speaker of the House. I just don't think he has those skills. And especially for this moment. And him and Chuck Schumer, it's kind of like wet meat blanket. I mean, it's just – I agree.

1:05:22It's just – These aren't the guys for the moment. And I think Leader Jeffries should go on and be his representative. And he's outstanding. Maybe run for Senate someday. But he's not the person for this moment. And Senator Schumer has literally become the invisible man. Like, I just don't even see him when he's on screen anymore. Anyway, so my fail is, it is so insane that we are now talking about bailing out farmers. I mean, let me get this. We go, we walk up to someone, the U.S. government, shoot them in the leg and then borrow money from future generations to pay for their hospital bills. And essentially, what do you know?

1:06:14We place all these tariffs on foreign goods and China, who's much smarter than us, goes, I'm going to go after the heart and lungs here and put on a huge tariff on soybeans for all those farmers in red states. And they're basically their entire business is collapsed. And by the way, without previous government subsidies, many of these farms are no longer economically viable anyways. So what do you have? You have circular payments. The government collects tariffs, which is a tax on U.S. consumers, then pays billions to farmers hurt by those same tariffs. So everyone loses. Consumers pay higher prices.

1:06:50Taxpayers fund the bailouts. And farmers get temporary cash, but permanent loss of China market. The Chinese have already established new trade relationships with Brazil and Argentina, and they're not coming back to Iowa, folks. They're not doing it. This is done. This is not a shift. This is a structural shift. So unless the government and taxpayers are going to keep propping up these people to pay for the stupid tariffs, eventually they're going to go away. The money props up inefficiency instead of investing in infrastructure. What they need to be doing is crop diversification. And it's just pure political theater.

1:07:24Its bailouts are less about economic policy, and they're just, they're doing what Democrats do, and that is they're throwing money at people for votes. And we've literally, we've lit the house on fire and then sent taxpayers the bill for the fire department. They don't, these payments, these circular payments, they don't build competitiveness, they build dependency. And they're doing it just because they're MAGA. That's why, or they were Trump supporters, and they're not helping others who were not. It's the same thing that's going to happen if this government shuts down. And so while young people, so while we cut a check on young people's backs in terms of debt, Brazil builds railroads and steals China as a customer.

1:08:04It's just, this couldn't be more stupid. Anyway, all right, so that's my fail. My win is what we talked about before. Sinclair and Nextar had blacked out Jimmy Kimmel on their affiliates. And I think that, I think the blackout was pretty significant. It covered about, I think, about a quarter of U.S. households. It did, mostly small places except for Seattle and D.C. Yeah, but these late night guys need everything. And then on the 26th, both companies announced they would end the boycott and restore the show to their stations. It's not because they saw God or decided that they weren't censorious.

1:08:36It was because of the backlash of consumer, of the backlash from viewers, media observers, advocacy groups, and all kinds of pressure from different consumers. Sinclair is the bigger one. They own about 15 % of U.S. television households via ABC affiliates, and Nextar is 9%, so it's almost a quarter. And after the reversal, Jimmy Kimmel regained its reach in those markets, obviously restoring viewership. And the bottom line is the distributors blinked, and I love this. You can try to mute dissent, but when the market and money pushed back, they restarted. And I think it's a good moment for us.

1:09:17And also, this really isn't just about one late night host. It's about broadcasters recognizing that bowing to the president's pressure is a precedent toward censorship and can cost their shareholders money. And we need to start connecting this overreach and vile activities on the part of the White House with economic punishment. That's the connection we need to make. This socialist government is really getting on my nerves. Anyway, I think those are both good ones. I agree with you. And you were correct about this idea of economic pressure that consumers can bring to bear. We want to hear from you.

1:09:55Send 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. And elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, on with Kara Swisher, I recently spoke with Matt and Maria Rain, whose 16-year-old son died by suicide after starting to use chat GPT. Let's listen to a clip. What would you right now say to Sam Altman if you were looking at him? Why did you put out a product that killed my son? And why haven't you called me and expressed any remorse? I don't know, among other things, but I just, I don't understand how he can just be going through life knowing that my son is gone.

1:10:46Like, my son doesn't matter. It's your product that matters. That was a tough, tough, tough show. It's well worth listening to. It's really upsetting, but at the same time, really incredibly cogent argument they're making. as parents and as consumers too, oddly enough. You did a really nice job. You were able to thread the needle there. And it was very, I listened to it this week and I had to turn it off a couple of times, but you were very, you made it about as just the facts as you could on a very heavy topic. And I was very emotional, but you managed to just kind of get through it in a way that felt, I don't know, very journalistic.

1:11:24I wouldn't have been able to do that interview. It was hard as a parent, I can tell you that. I am incandescent about some of this. And I just think AI should be limited with kids. It's just I now absolutely have that mind. It shouldn't be in toys. It shouldn't be in anything. 100%. We have PG-13 content for people under the age of 13. We have R-rated content where an adult has to be present. It's not to say we can't have AI for kids, but it should be severely different. Severely different. And character AI should just not exist for people under the age of 18. Yeah, I agree. Synthetic relationships?

1:12:01No. No. There's nobody there, people. Do not, you know, it's fine if you want to, like, figure out your business plan, but this is bullshit. And I have been talking to, let me just say, a lot of legislators about a lot of this stuff aimed at kids. And every time I get the chance, I'm going to continue to do so. 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. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Injertad engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video.

1:12:32Thanks also to Jabros, Miss Rivera, and Dan Chalon. Nishtak Kerouz, Vox Media's executive producer podcast. 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. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.