Skydance-Paramount Merger, Ghislaine Pardon Talk, and South Park Skewers Trump

23:15Let's play a bit. Hi, Satan. I'm not in the mood right now. Another random bitch commented on my Instagram that you're on the Epstein list. The Epstein list? Are we still talking about that? Well, are you on the list or not? It's weird that whenever it comes up, you just tell everyone to relax. I'm not telling everyone to relax. Relax, Dad. It was worse than that. They also had a naked Trump. They had his penis with an eye on it. And they talked about how they— These guys do a lot of edibles. Oh, yeah, absolutely. The South Park's creators just signed a new$1.5 billion streaming deal with Paramount.

23:52They should have got$1.6 billion. I know. These guys are genius. I just—please, let's just—we'll get to Epstein, the bigger Epstein issue in an instant. But talk about this. I thought this was hysterical. This is 27 seasons and these guys are still, you know, a lot of people don't like them because they're so politically incorrect. But I love my kids love them. I think they're amazing. Your thoughts? I think it's heartening, not only because, well, I enjoy great comedy, but it's heartening that something that's built into our society, I think, is a certain level. And I think this is really encouraging a certain level of irreverence and commercial opportunity and irreverence.

24:30And just as the president has convinced, you know, Bob Iger to bend a knee and certain law firms to bend a knee and gotten, you know, said, OK, Sherry, if you want to maintain your status as a billionaire, I'm going to get you to bend a knee. Fine. But the moment, one of the things about America is that people are pretty fearless, creatives are pretty fearless, and they come out with something like this. And also, all of the 60-something late-night talk show hosts that are making 100 times more than their folks behind the camera who see any threat against Colbert, I mean, they're just so fucking precious.

25:09And I realize how cynical that is, but people love these people. But you guess what? They're not going to be silenced. They're going to do podcasts. I'm not saying that we shouldn't take this kind of move towards fascism and this attempt to intimidate journalists, that we shouldn't take it seriously. But what I find is examples like this, and there's examples everywhere, are basically the American culture, the creative community kind of say, fuck you. And find, you know, it's like, remember Jurassic Park? It said that life finds a way. Well, guess what? The truth and humor and satire, it finds a way.

25:47And it made me feel good that as much as they're going to attempt to silence critics, it's not going to work. Or I don't think it's going to work. because same station or same broadcast network that agreed to basically pay off the president was intimidated, bent a knee. And then as soon as these guys signed a deal, they put out something like that. I just found it very encouraging. Weren't you like, oh my God. Like, I was like, wow. Like - Oh, these guys went for it. Went for it. They just went and they talked about it. Zero fucks given. They talked about it. Whoa. And that they approved it. One of the things that I liked about it, you know, a lot of people, when I say I like South Park, I'm like, oh, they're anti-NOS.

26:23You know what? But if you liked this one, you have to like being offended all the time by these guys. They are, they do do like really heinous stuff, but it's funny. Or just laugh about it. They're comedy. And again, actually when Babylon Bee happened, when, what was it, anti-trans thing, it was just not funny is what it was. That's my issue with it. Whenever it's not funny, but I think we have to give huge leeway to comics and satirists and all that stuff. The stuff that does make me nervous, I'll tell you, is like, I know this is a distraction and you talk about Trump like this, but accusing Oprah and Beyonce of taking millions for their 2024 Kamala endorsements and saying they should be prosecuted.

27:07The continuing Obama videos, which are really disturbing and not funny. And I get the idea if he can do whatever he wants. And Trump's legal team asked a judge to order Rupert Murdoch to sit for an expedited deposition. And that lawsuit, that$10 billion lawsuit citing his age as the reason to do this sooner rather than later, although I think Rupert will outlast Trump by the long stretch. But that stuff really is disturbing. The idea that he's getting free ads or that he's—I love these guys, but not everyone can be these guys. And some of it is serious and some of it is just funny, like that they stick it in his eye kind of thing, or the eye of his penis, I guess.

27:44I think satire plays an important role. I think the left has shot itself in the foot by becoming so sensitive that we have seeded irreverent comedy to the right. And people love irreverent comedy. And we used to own it. If you think about the real social, you know, comedians as social commentators, they were, yeah, they came from the Lenny Bruce. These were offensive people. And they said really off-color things. And then we decided, oh, you can't say that. And then the kind of the right sort of usurped, you know, comedy is legal again. So I like when Camino, that's why I love Ricky Gervais. I do think that's changing, though.

28:21I do think, I think there's more of a sense of humor coming through. When you see, when I'm starting to interview Congress people, they're more like, whatever. Like, they seem to feel a little looser in that regard. And these guys, I wouldn't know what these guys, these guys aren't left or right. I don't know. They're just funny. They're just funny. And so I think that's critically important. But the other ones where he's attacking like law firms or, you know, putting those Obama things up, those are just incredibly deleterious to our society, I think. And they're weird and they're threatening and they're creepy.

28:54And speaking of creepy, President Trump says he's allowed to pardon Jelaine Maxwell. We know this, President Trump, but nobody's approached him about it. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Maxwell for nine hours across two days last week at a Florida prison where she's serving her 20-year sentence. It should be 100 years. Maxwell was asked about 100 different people, according to her lawyer, and she reportedly granted limited immunity for the interviews, essentially immunity that applies only if she doesn't lie. Let's listen to what else Maxwell's lawyer said about the meeting. This was the first opportunity she's ever been given to answer questions about what happened.

29:32And so the truth will come out about what happened with Mr. Epstein, and she's the person who's answering those. Dear lawyer, it is not the first opportunity she's ever been given to answer questions. She just refused to do so. And she almost went up for perjury because she's a liar. She's a sexual harasser. She's convicted sex. You know, just stop it. This is a person who deserves no. I know we do immunity deals with these people to get stuff. But this cynical, horrible monster, as I said last week, is the fact that they're focused on her and not the victims continues to astonish me. And the idea that Republicans are suddenly like, oh, she's our hero or a version of our hero.

30:14If she tells the truth, then it's good. She could have told the truth a million times and saved all these women untold trauma. But she isn't because she's a monster and deserves to stay in jail the rest of her life. I mean, the 20 years to me is not at all long enough. I don't know what you think, but I'm just like, are you kidding me with this lady? So before we get back to that, you know, my favorite Cartman line is. Okay, go ahead. Okay. I just had a raging. I say this all the time. And then I have to say it's Cartman because people look at me like, what the fuck? I'll say, I'm not just sure.

30:44I'm HIV positive. And people are like, what?

30:50I love Cartman. You can actually die from secondhand smug. Anyways. Love Cartman. Look, when something becomes a really big problem, it can shut down the government. The deficit has gotten so big that Republicans who claim to be fiscally conservative or get mad at social spending, and in my opinion, the Democrats should have done it the last time around, they will threaten to shut down the government. And the world and the markets freak out temporarily at the idea that the deficit or our fiscal irresponsibility might result in second order effect of the government being shut down. Okay. A pedophile, a convicted pedophile, just shut down the government.

31:30Epstein and specifically the Attorney General and Trump's efforts to shut down the release or inhibit the release of these files resulted in Speaker Johnson excusing Congress early. Epstein shut a dead pedophile shut down the U.S. government. So this is having all sorts of second order effects here. And your point is exactly, it's ridiculous to think that someone accused, tried, convicted, incarcerated of one of the highest profile crimes of the last decade, that there weren't people all over her asking her questions, offering deals. But now they said, no, we don't like what she said. So we're taking a moment to give her a chance to be part of our political fodder for the protection of the president.

32:24So this is this is hugely political. It's unprecedented. It's unethical. And it raises whatever comes out of this will just be poisoned fruit. Not valid. It just won't. Even if they did it by the book and they found no information or whatever, it's just not. The whole thing is tainted. We talked about this at the last show. The fix is in. But I'm just very curious what happens. I think it's going to be a very long and hot summer at these town hall meetings for Republicans who show up and say, OK. And you know who's been really on point here is Representative Ro Khanna. He's been very pointed. I just was texting at the Moskland.

33:00And very, very accurate and really, really puncturing around this stuff. With Tom Massey. He's trying to get like some. Here's the thing. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files and should not be conducting. She should remove himself from every point of view because everything he does is going to taint this entire thing. Plus, he's using it as a political cudgel. They'll only name Democrats, maybe a few Republicans he doesn't like. This is just so grotesque. And what's more good, I guess, is watching that little nebbish Mike Johnson shift. He doesn't care about pedophiles. He doesn't care about the women.

33:37What he cares, persecuting pedophiles, he cares about protecting President Trump over anything else. And that's like creepy. It puts you right adjacent to pedophiles is what it does. A pedophile enabler is what it reminds me of. And I couldn't say it any stronger. This woman is a criminal and she belongs in jail. And whatever she says is very tainted at this point because she had every opportunity to make people's lives better by coming through. Even if it meant her being put in jail longer, she did things that deserve that. And therefore, I think help getting her doesn't settle anything. And by the way, the victims who've talked up and the ones that are being interviewed, I did an interview with Julie K.

34:23Brown this week. They are beside themselves. They're re-traumatized. And it has nothing to do with stopping pedophiles or helping women. It has everything to do with helping someone on the Epstein list. And that would be President Trump. All right. We'll see what happens. But it's going to be, you're right, it's going to be an ugly summer for a lot of people. And some of the people it deserves to be an ugly summer. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. when we come back, another AI lawsuit.

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36:46Scott, we're back with more news. Motivational speaker Tony Robbins has sued the makers of an AI tool, YesChat, accusing them of using his name and reputation for a series of chatbots. Robbins says the bots ingested his seminars and copyrighted material and are reselling it under his name, which he has trademarked. YesChat has several paid subscription tiers and offers bots such as Talk to Tony Robbins and Tony Robbins GPT. Robbins has his own authorized AI clone available on by subscription on his website, as he should. The suit is seeking$10 million in damages for unfair competition, $2 million for each trademark violation, of which there could be a number, and punitive damages for willful and malicious misconduct.

37:23These are going to be more and more. It's interesting this Tony Robbins, but it makes sense. He has so much material out there. It's so easily AI'd. He sometimes sounds like AI, honestly. Do you talk a little bit about this? Like, they could ingest a lot of your stuff, my stuff, I don't know. But you do a lot of prescriptive stuff like that. How do you look at these kind of things? I've been thinking a lot about this. I believe what Jensen Huang said, that everyone should have rights to their digital twin. And first off, only in America could you have a guy who's 6 '7 and a pure alpha energy screaming at traumatized accountants.

37:56I think Tony Robbins is a phenomena. There needs to be pretty serious, in my opinion, legislation. I think, and one of the problems about having a really old electorate is I just don't think they understand these technologies. I think you really need immediately some IP protection that, as Jensen Huang said, said, you own your digital twin. And so I'm working with a large company that has a very big search engine, and they're creating this thing called portraits. Portraits are profiles, where you give them permission to scan everything. I get a lot of questions, a lot of emails, as I'm sure you do.

38:32And a lot of them are really thoughtful emails from people asking about their sons or looking for advice. And you don't want to answer everyone. I just can't. I want to and I can't. And so I'm working with this company and I'm giving them permission to scan absolutely everything I've done such that they get an automatic response. And if they want, they can ask this AI to give them an answer in my voice. And that's coming. Do you vet it? How do you, what if it says like bad things? Well, first off, I mean, I think people have to recognize, all right, it is AI and there will be problems, but they do, I'm hoping we do a pretty good job of QA and we spend a lot of time asking questions and we've been tweaking this, you know, I would never say this, what happened?

39:17or it's okay to say, I don't know, what have you. But the bottom line is I've given them permission and I want to, so that's fine. But people, if they don't give permission, I don't think should have anything crawled or anything mimicked about them. In addition, I think it's really, I think there's a big opportunity for the creative community to kind of extract, and I don't want to say their pound of flesh, but the royalty they're entitled to, there's just no reason if you, one of my favorite songs, someone that I used to know, the singer wanted to use a lot of samples, so he preemptively paid out royalties to avoid copyright disputes.

39:58That's the way it should be. And this has been a big deal in the specialty retail community where companies ranging from Pottery Barn to whoever, restoration hardware go and essentially go to artisans and quote unquote say their work was inspired by them. What is the line between copying something when you owe people money? Because the best economic, look, the two best economic business models in history are one, tapping into people, the flaw in their instincts, right? I couldn't find sugary food so we can mass produce a sugar bomb in the form of cereal, give it to people they don't know when to stop.

40:32Oh, only 40 % of men have reproduced, lack of mating opportunities create porn. Oh, okay, great. People are dying for social connection are so freaked out about being ashamed, create algorithms that make them feel bad about themselves. So they have to come back every two minutes to see what someone commented on. Okay, Instagram. And then the other second best business model, hands down, first is tapping into an instinctual flaw. The second best business model is IP theft. The Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries stole British and European textile manufacturing technology and built manufacturing plants up and down the Eastern seaboard based on European IP, even stole some artisans, kidnapped and artisans.

41:10And the most ascended economy over the last 30 years, their core competence is really elegant IP theft, whether it's letting Tesla come in and manufacture and then propping up BYD, whether it's letting Google long enough to figure out their algorithm and then propping up Baidu. So IP theft is the ultimate business model. And what do you have with meta and AI? You have one, companies that are able to tap into the flaws in our instincts, and two, massive and trumped a signal, we're going to let them engage in massive IP theft. Right. He said it wasn't a big deal. Now, your book is coming out. You remember they did my book and they made those porny, weird versions of me and books of my, they're still there.

41:50They haven't been able to take a lot of them down. Your book is coming out. They're going to try to rip it off. There'll probably be a workbook for your book, a man workbook or something that isn't yours. Do you have any, I mean, you'll spend your time playing whack-a-mole with these people. That's my feeling is that they don't, there's no protect, you have copyright protection, but in order to enforce it is another story. I'm not just worried about that stuff. There's purposeful leakage, right? You want a certain amount of, you know, Netflix wants you to share a certain number of passwords, right?

42:21And you want a certain amount of mimicry or IP theft or what have you. But And what I'm more worried about is that at some point, AI can say, take my book, Notes on Being a Man, and give it to me in 60 pages, not 400. And they give it to you in 60 pages, and you don't get compensated, neither me nor my agent nor my… You should put that one out, though. You should put out a 60-page version. Well, I mean, it's an interesting idea, but I think there's something to forcing people to do the work. I always thought, I always was like, I wish I could do a 20-page, 60-page, 100-page version of my books.

43:01I used to say that, and publishers used to like vomit on the floor whenever I'd say that many years ago. Anyway, we'll see what goes with this. Good for you, Tony Robbins, but everyone's going to face this issue. Everyone who has enough material out there, people like me and Scott, Tony Robbins, there's a lot of people with lots and lots of material. Anyway, lastly, President Trump doesn't want the federal government agencies to contract with Elon Musk's XAI. What a surprise, according to White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt. However, Trump took to social media saying he's not trying to destroy Musk's company, saying everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon's companies by taking away some, if not all, of the large-scale subsidies he receives from the U.S.

43:38government. This is not so. I want Elon, all of our businesses within our country, to thrive, in fact, thrive like never be sure. Elon was not comforted. He responded like, these aren't subsidies. I'm providing them with good products for cheap prices. you know he's going to continue to do this and elon's going to continue to whack at him i assume throughout the rest of the term any thoughts i'm curious what you think here kara i mean if you really if you look back did did must start this whole epstein thing he's the first one that said yes remember when i said he's going to keep at it because he's obsessed with this topic when he when he took it down first he said it i think yes no elon started this absolutely started it and then insinuated Bannon, if you remember.

44:22And he took down the Trump one. And I remember at the time I said, no, no, he's going to put it back up because this sticks in his craw, this Epstein stuff. Yeah, he did. He did start it. So, and what's interesting is that it feels like SpaceX right now is bigger than our government. And that is, I think he would love, I think Trump wouldn't, and I wouldn't put him past him, is willing to go after companies asymmetrically would cancel contracts. And I think the Defense Department has come back and said, SpaceX is our program. I mean, the media is so obsessed with itself. It can't stop covering Paramount.

45:03You know, whatever it is, Yellowstone, it's relatively, Colbert, I'm sorry, folks, it's relatively unimportant. The fact that we have one company that controls almost all of the low orbit satellites, that is much more important. That is where the FTC should be focused. So this stuff is, I find we're kind of, we're focused on the wrong things. And the fact that Musk, I mean, think about this, Musk got the president, you could argue, played a big role in his election. Musk is now playing a big role in what may be the dethroning of the president. it. Musk is now critical to our infrastructure and in some ways bigger than the Defense Department or the Defense Department has.

45:47If the Defense Department wants to bring home astronauts from the International Space Station, they have to call Elon, right? If they want communications, battlefield technology to work really well, they have to call Elon. I mean, this is, we are, there are certain individuals who are becoming, Thomas Friedman said this probably 25 years ago, and it was insightful or appreciated at the time when he said that you have the rise of the super super nation state individual. And he was using the example of Bill Gates is now more powerful than most nations. And I wonder if in many ways, this is kind of showing that Elon Musk, at first I thought Trump's much more powerful than Elon, but basically I think Elon, if he keeps at it, I don't know if he's going to take the president down, but he's going to severely diminish his power or distract him.

46:34I mean - It's not a good enemy to have. I remember when I said, It's not like, you know, fighting with Omarosa or Michael Cohen. This guy has a set. He's not Michael Avenatti. Yeah. You know, he has a set and he has money. He's got means. He's he also when he apologized and it was like, it's over. I'm like, not this guy, not this guy. And what will be interesting to see is if he can strike a side deal, because a lot of his acolytes have stayed in Washington and are trying to make deals with the Trump administration. I suspect he will reach out to someone. I mean, he was, I think, close to J.D.

47:08Vance. And even though J.D. Vance is such a, like, a suck up to Trump, he's got to, I've got to, I'm really interested in what's actually going behind the scenes with Vance and the rest of them. Because they're all preparing for a post-Trump world, right, at this point. And so they've got to figure out, they cannot make an enemy of Elon, for example, going forward. Even if it angers Trump, they've got to do it in this sort of subtle, quiet way. So the jockeying behind the scenes has got to be fascinating. Like, this is just my guess. I'm not, I'm completely making it up. But if I were Vance or any Republican, I would start to figure out what the world post-Trump looks like.

47:47Because he's obviously decaying in real time. Some of these pictures of him, he looks like really unhealthy, but that's okay. He can go on forever like that. But I think he's been unhealthy his whole life. But I'm really interested in what I'd love to know what Vance is actually thinking versus what he says in public, which is obsequious to Trump. Because he's got more ties with these guys than Trump certainly did. And he was sort of the person who introduced them to Trump. You know what I mean? Like that was their link. So it'd be interesting to be with Teal and Vance and Musk and those people to figure out what they're up to.

48:22I think they're all trying to cosplay the president. And that is, Americans got so sick of this politically correct, starched, whitewashed, you know, vanilla speak that then this guy came along and started like mocking the disabled or calling people horse face. And as offensive as it was, a lot of America found it refreshing. And they thought, oh my God, for the first time, someone's speaking honestly, like that's them. They're actually speaking who they are. and but that cruelty and that coarseness i think all of these guys ted cruz or jd vance they never used to say the kind of shit they're saying now because they're all cosplaying him and what i think they fail to realize is that the cadence of presidential cycles is we always go for someone different we go way different we're like okay we tried that for four eight years now we are ready for something i mean trump just couldn't have been more different than obama and you know obama couldn't have been much more different than Bush.

49:21And I think the future, and we've been talking about this with various Democrats, I think a guy like James Tallarico or, was it Tallarico? The guy out of - Texas. Texas. And then Mayor Pete, who talks about family. Yeah. And has a cool beard. Do you like his rocking beard? Yeah, but I think Mayor Pete's, I had Ezra Klein on today and he made a great point. I think Mayor Pete, to a certain extent, kind of is this great ad for why America works, right? Here's a guy who couldn't have been public about his family and instead talks about how wonderful and meaningful it is to have a healthy relationship and kids.

50:02And it's sort of like, you hear Mayor Pete talk about it and you're like, wow, progressive America works. It means something for people. And he can talk about it when James Tallarico talks about his faith and loving thy neighbor. I mean, he's going, I think the next president is literally going to be the 180 of Trump. I think he's going to be kind, kind or she, kind, thoughtful. Oh, Scott, you're sick. Yeah, I know. It's so weird, right? I'm going to bring you some balm. There you go. Yeah. I just want to rub it lovingly on your chest. I just want a big Filipino nurse with well-moisturized hands that calls me king.

50:42It'll be Kara Swisher. I want a nurse that calls me king, and I want to bell. I'll call you king. All right. Anyways, I'm thinking about having more plastic surgery. I'm going to need a nurse. We'll discuss. Anyways, but these guys, I think the next one's going to be, if you will, I think the strategy for Democrats is to not even mention the president. I think people are so sick of hearing. The rest of the media world would do a job of bringing it up. After the midterms, yeah. He's dead. I mean, for them. And he should be, as it's, this is something Rahm Emanuel said. He's like, until the midterms, midterms, you say what you're going to do.

51:17And even if it's not for reals and after the midterms, he doesn't exist. I think that's right. But I think the, I think America is so desperate at this point for kindness, for decency, for family, traditional value, you know, traditional, but like values. I'm going to run. I'm going to run. Yeah, I can see that. No, but you, let's use you as an example. You're an example of why progressive politics work. The fact that you can be married, have a great career, have children, have a healthy family, you're sort of the American success story. These progressive ideals work. And you can speak to with credibility the importance of family and what it means to have a traditional, you know, family means people you otherwise wouldn't hang out with and care with.

52:03And when you can get it, when you pull down barriers to people loving each other, they're less likely to be a tax on social society. They're more likely to pay their taxes. They're more likely to develop good humans who turn into good citizens, who can be great military, nonprofit and business leaders. You know, this shit works. Yeah, I agree. I mean, one of the things I think, I think it'll be hard to elect a gay person, even a man, and who's as pleasant as Pete Buttigieg. But one of the things that a lot of people say about him and some of the other Democrats I've been interviewing lately is like, you know, even if you disagree with them or you have different problems, it's like sort of I like the cut of your jib.

52:44Like, you know what I mean? I like how you're living your life kind of thing. And I think that's the appeal for a lot of progressives. And there's a lot of them now. There's a lot of them now increasingly who are very appealing. And I think you're right. Being appealing and feeling genuine is going to be important. You got to like wash out the Schumers and the rest of them. They got to go. And not being afraid. Also, not being afraid to be offensive. Yep, exactly. Say, yeah, I don't think trans athletes should be able to play sports. Or I think that this guy is a pedophile and that he's clearly covering up.

53:19Things that might be wrong, it's okay. You might be wrong. You might offend 20 % of the audience in front of you. That's okay. I think people are ready for it. That's all right. I agree. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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56:36Okay, Scott, we're going to do some wins and fails. I guess I'll go first. Okay. Fail, RFK Jr. Again, he's quietly, like, wrecking everything. He's planning to remove all 16 members of a cancer screening and HIV medication tax force because he believes they're too woke. He is, I say this again and again, he's killing people. He's going to kill people. I get the need for change in the health care area. I'm doing a whole docu-series on it. I understand this. But the way he's going about it is so political and so nothing to do with science. He's just, and because Trump is so loud with all this Epstein stuff, you're not paying attention to this guy.

57:12and I just think we need to really focus in on the stuff he's doing to rec science. I have talked to so many scientists. I've gone to so many great places and they're all like doing amazing work and are in fear of getting cut. It's ridiculous. I was in one lab this week in Stanford and it's this incredible breakthrough and I'm not going to go into it, but it's this incredible breakthrough and this lab was run by, it was so full of really amazing people here from other countries. It was also Americans, Native-born Americans. It was so important that this group of people were here, and it's somewhere like Stanford getting funded, to do something amazing.

57:51And so what RFK Jr. is doing is killing people and setting back important research for even five years is too much, like, at all. and for a win I do feel that like there is a pushback and I loved what the South Park guys did I just and not just because I liked it it was funny it was actually funny it had a lot of resonance I think they appropriately push back and you have to like them even if you don't agree with them on stuff and I thought that was just one of the biggest baller moves of all time to do that I just thought it was like, good for you. And it had to have been approved by, I'm assuming Skydance knew of it or at least had some knowledge of it.

58:38And the executives who let it through, who want to stay there, I think, at Paramount, whether they get let go because of that, I don't think they will. I think they hit the target perfectly and Trump richly deserved. And so did Paramount, all the attacks they did. So kudos to them. It's kind of a basic one, but kudos to them. I like it. I don't have a fail. I'd have two wins. My first win is the, I just didn't, I was not on my radar screen. My win is the great city of Chicago, about 3 million people, third largest in the US. I hadn't been there in a while. GDP over almost 800 billion, headquarters, United Airlines, McDonald's, Walgreens, great universities, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, UIC DePauw, Loyola, all nationally ranked.

59:32I spoke at this Quantum event. I don't know why they're going all in on Quantum, but they are. Obviously, tremendous center for architecture and culture, music and the arts, parks, nature, great food scene. Obviously, I love the sports. I just really, in terms of recognition, it was ranked the number one big city in the U.S. by Conde Nast traveler and frequently ranked among the top 20 global say, I just hadn't thought about going to Chicago. My son said he wanted to go to Chong Choy or Chicago. So I said, okay, we're going to Chicago. But I really, I really enjoyed it. And I don't, I don't think it gets, I don't think it gets the attention it deserves.

1:00:11And also the governance there is pretty, is clearly pretty good because it feels like the quality of life. I have a close friend, my closest friend since the fourth grade, my friend Adam Markman, and he could live anywhere and chooses to live in Chicago. And he says, it's basically New York for a lot less money. And my quality of life is really nice here. Cold. That's the only thing. I like the people. I like the food. So anyways, I was just very, I kind of came away from Chicago. Why do you like Chi-town? I love Chicago so much. Anyways, and then my other win is I just think whoever the CMO or the marketing or the ad Agency for Astronomer is.

1:00:48That was the marketing move literally of the year. And it's also launched Gwyneth Paltrow's run for Congress, where she's going to outlaw taxes and pantsuits. So I think this is - Step off of her. Come on. It's such late stage capitalism. It's literally like - You know what? You have all kinds of friends who sell supplements and all kinds of nonsense, and you don't like it to have them in similar ways. Yeah. Anyways, she's like a Bond villain who runs a yoga studio. Oh, my goodness. All right. Okay. Sorry, Gwyneth. Sorry. I don't want to say nice job, Gwyneth. Yeah. No. The Gwyneth Paltrow version of self-care is firing your nanny because she made eye contact during a Mercury retrograde.

1:01:34Stop. Right now. Right now. Anyways. But I got to give it to Astronomer. Whoever you are, I don't know if it was the agency. I don't know if it was the CMO. So that was, you want to talk about turning chicken shit into chicken salad? That was genius. Chicago and astronomer are my wins. I don't want to fail. God, I was so off today. I'm sorry, Kara. Sorry, listeners. I was so off. No, you're not. You're fantastic. What are you talking about? I'll come and rub some balm on your chest. All right. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot.

1:02:09Submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week on On with Kara Swisher, I spoke with Julie K. Brown, an investigative reporter with the Miami Herald, whose 2018 series on Epstein led to a second arrest. A really kick-ass reporter. Let's listen to what she said about how Epstein's victims are responding to the increased attention surrounding the case, something I've talked about, and why they won't be coming forward. It's sad, but they've been through so much that they're now at this point thinking, well, if the president of the United States is, this is their thinking, is covering up for Epstein, I'm not going out there on a limb and trying to say what happened to me because that's big.

1:02:51In fact, that's exactly what one of the victims told me. This is big. The president of the United States is essentially putting the lid on this case. Shameful. Shameful. Anyway, 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 Gwyneth is going to be sending you a candle to make you feel better, okay? Read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mio Saverio, and Dan Shalon. Nishat Kuroa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts.

1:03:25Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Are you having problems? Do what Gwyneth would do. Just look into a mirror and ask yourself, are you microdosing your shame?