Trump and Elon Clash Again, Paramount Settles, and the Fate of the “Big Beautiful Bill”

24:19And that's the carrot that's dragging everybody to this bill, even if they have other reservations. But the final thing is that I think Republicans, not incorrectly, believe that they will be able to turn these numbers around. So because this bill contains so many multitudes, In a poll, how do you even begin to ask about it? It is a Medicaid reform bill. It is a spending cuts bill. It is a tax cuts bill. It, for one point in time, was an AI regulation or non-regulation bill. It's an EV tax credit bill. I mean, it is a child tax credit increase. It is the number of different ways you can describe this bill is almost infinite.

25:01And so the question is going to be Republicans have started to coalesce around. We're going to describe this as it's a tax cut and or preventing a tax hike. And it is focusing on making sure we're putting America first. And they describe that as we're funding stuff for border security. We are putting in these work requirements on Medicaid, which in and of themselves test well. Lazy Medicaid people, right? That's the Republican message. The Democratic message, on the other hand, is you're calling these people lazy Medicaid people. In reality, it's going to be hardworking people who can't figure out how to file the paperwork.

25:35And they're going to get dropped from their health care because they can't navigate your new requirements. And that's going to be, as you mentioned, it's going to be 12 million people, many of whom you would say are deserving or are your neighbor or did vote for Donald Trump. And so the reality is, like, Republicans do have a message that can work. But if the reality of it is that the economy is not actually doing better by next November or that these policies in states that begin to try to implement work requirements earlier, if that creates snags and causes people who voted for Trump to lose health care, there could be really big backlash to that to create that would create problems in a midterm.

26:11Why right now is it polling so badly? I think it's polling badly because if you don't like Donald Trump, you know you don't like it. And so you're already starting off with almost half of America right there that's like, oh, it's Trump's bill. I'm out. And then of those voters who do like Donald Trump, there's not unanimity that it is a good thing because for some of them, they're like, well, I like Trump, but this has some things that I'm not crazy about. So it's easy for the opponents to all be unified against it. We don't like Trump. This is Trump's agenda. Trump bad. Bill bad. Done. But for the supporters of it, you've got the criticisms from the middle, the Murkowskis, the Mike Lawlers in the House.

26:51But you've also got attacks from the right, from the Chip Roy's, the Thomas Massey's. And so it's like a two front war this bill is fighting. Right. What Marjorie Taylor Greene says is a shit show. Why is she doing that? Why are they all doing this from the right? I believe a lot of them, again, to the extent that this is echoes of the old Tea Party moment, they want to be the one that says, I stood up for true fiscal discipline, but they don't want to be the one that sinks the bill. Like if the bill is already going down, they will happily be like, yes, I was part of helping to tank it because it's bad and we need to demand that we get a better deal.

27:33But like none of them wants to be the one that causes this to go down. None of them want that headache, because if so, they're not just going to be held responsible for you tanked the things that are unpopular. They're like they're worried you'll be held responsible for making taxes go up. And that's not anything any Republican wants to do. So the taxes is at the center of it, correct? The idea of giving these, even if the Democrats are putting it out as a as a gimme for wealthy people. Is that a good message from a polling point of view? It's one of those things where when you test it, should we cut taxes for wealthy people?

28:10Even a lot of Republicans say no. But the reality is that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from the first time around, the economy was doing pretty well under Trump during that first term. And so if Republicans say, we just want to keep that going, we don't want to undo that, that's a way you message it that people say, oh, well, that actually makes sense. So just using the same messages against it that were used last time, I'm not sure actually moves the needle for Democrats. And it'll all also come down to what does the economy look like in November of next year? If the economy is in the tank, then everybody's going to vote for Democrats and Republicans are going to be in big trouble.

28:44If the economy looks good, then it'll make Trump look like he was right. And what do you what would you advise Democrats to do at this point to just keep pounding in on the people are going to not have their health care, the sort of scare tactics? I mean, I think they need to coalesce around a message because, as you noted, I mean, one of the downsides of the bill having a million different pieces, it is a target rich environment for Democrats. But if they don't pick one or two main targets, that's going to be a problem. And right now, even though Republicans are having struggles, it is not as though the brand of the Democratic Party is great.

29:21It is not as though voters are saying they think Democrats have strong leadership and a clear vision. And so, like, they need to sort some of that out as well if they want to have a chance at having a really good midterm next year. Right. So the best message for them right at this moment? It depends on the economy, right? It's the economy, stupid kind of thing. It depends on the economy. I mean, I do think that the Medicaid message is potentially potent, in part because of the new coalition Republicans have put together that includes a lot of people who are on Medicaid who may think of themselves as hardworking people who nevertheless find that the new work requirements and such actually do catch them up in a paperwork problem and suddenly they're without health care.

30:04And that is a huge, huge, huge potential problem if that's how this comes to pass. That's sort of the leopard-ate-my-face argument. So one of the big points of the condition of the bill, as you just talked about, was something we've been talking about here a lot on Pivot 2, the 10-year moratorium on state laws regulating AI. The Senate voted 99 to 1 to strike the provision from the bill. They also got rid of the one about selling off public lands. But the lone holdout was Senator Tom Tillis, who's not running for re-election as a few days ago. Open Ann and a few other big names in Silicon Valley have been lobbying for this amendment.

30:34I find it to be a silver lining in this whole mess. But how does that poll? Like states should be able to do. Green was on board for that. Lots of people, Democrats and Republicans. Yeah. So this is an issue that I did some polling on for Common Sense Media, which they're focused on kid safety online. And they came to me because I can help understand Republican voters. And they wanted to know, OK, how does this actually test with the GOP? And this was a provision that was really unpopular. It was unpopular on the left. It was unpopular on the right. And I wanted to know in this poll, OK, even if you're if you're just asking people, do you think states shouldn't be allowed to regulate AI?

31:15That tests terribly. But I wanted to really pressure test it because at a like a policy level, I understand the instinct to say it's really bad if you have a patchwork of 50 different state laws all telling tech companies what they can and can't do. We're in a race against China. We need to be able to survive and be competitive and be cutting edge. And we can't do that if states red and blue are passing all kinds of nonsense legislation. I get the argument. So I wanted to test it. And we pitted the strongest possible case for this legislation up against an argument that basically says it should be states' rights.

31:54States should be able to do this. We need to be able to protect kids and families. And even when you pit those things together, you still find a huge number of Republicans saying, yeah, I get the arguments that we need to be competitive on AI, but that doesn't mean you just handcuff states for 10 years. And so this was one where that's that's how you get to 99 to 1, the Senate going, yeah, let's take this one out of here. This one out of here. So they just states rights always prevails, in other words. It wasn't just states' rights. I think in and of itself, a states' rights argument doesn't get you all the way there because it's kind of wonky.

32:30It's process. I think the thing that added to this and made it so powerful was the safety of kids online. You know, it is possible for the federal government to pass legislation or for there to be regulation that people really like around AI, things like the take it down, you know, around things like revenge porn or AI. That kind of stuff gets really popular. But when we ask, you know, even when you're presenting, here's the reason why you don't want to have too much regulation on AI and you spell it out for people. Even then, we still had by a 12 to 70 margin people saying, no, a blanket preemption on states goes too far because it could roll back these red and blue state protections for kids from tech related dangers.

33:16There was an attempt at a compromise where they had Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee. She's really big on this because she represents country music as well as, you know, she's socially conservative. They have a lot of interest in this like legislation around protecting kids. They tried to come up with language that would be a carve out that would try to exempt like kid safety focused stuff from this blanket preemption. But ultimately, she decided that the compromise wasn't worth it. And so. Yeah. Yeah. She's got to stick to it. I agree with Marsha Blackburn. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can come.

33:49Wow. Wow. You bring a Republican on the show. All of a sudden you're agreeing with Marsha Blackburn. You know what? Everything else about her is just a hot fucking mess. But this one, when someone's directionally correct, Kristen, I'm going to go with them, right? She's directionally correct. All her reasoning. I appreciate that about you, Kara. Yeah. All her reasoning is like anti-gay. It's always something terrible. You know, I'll agree with her. And she goes, it's because we have to protect ourselves from the gays. And I'm like, no, no, that's not why. But I'll bring you along, Marsha. Anyway, whatever.

34:22I'm with you, Marsha, today. Just today. That's it. Okay. I was kind of pissed she was actually making a, trying to make a five-year, they were going to do a five-year or whatever. I thought, no, either stick to your guns or you don't. And I'm sure she has plenty of guns. Anyway, Kristen, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Paramount settles with Trump.

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37:03Kristen, we're back with more news. And actually, this is what you were dovetailing. It's better to keep your head down. Paramount has agreed to pay$16 million to settle a lawsuit with President Trump that alleged a 60-minute interview with Kamala Harris was deceptively edited. The settlement does not include a statement of apology or regret. And in fact, Paramount had said this is just a ridiculous case, as did most lawyers think that. Aside from legal fees, the payment will go towards Trump's future presidential library. The settlement comes as Paramount seeks to complete a merger with Skydance Media, which requires approval from the Trump administration.

37:36Reminder that ABC News has agreed to pay Trump a$16 million to settle a defamation case late last year, which is a much stronger case. In this case, it's not. It's just not. So talk about this, the repercussions. I mean, obviously, they want to get this deal through. It has the feel of a shakedown and a bribery that has been brought up against Sherry Redstone. It feels very urban, autocratic, very strange and, you know, lawfare, which is what's something that conservatives complain about. And it's also heinous on many levels. Your thoughts? So I can't help but think about this in the context of a couple of other lawsuits that have proceeded further down the road against media organizations, not necessarily from Trump himself.

38:24But I think a lot about the Fox News defamation case and how much they had to pay out regarding the Dominion, Smartmatic, all of that. And then, you know, CNN, where I'm a contributor, where we met doing Chris Wallace Show. I mean, they had to settle a case around some stories earlier this year about someone who was trying to evacuate refugees from Afghanistan. At any rate, a lot of these media organizations, I think, feel like they are nervous about what happens when even if you feel like you've got a really good case and even if you feel like I'm just doing good journalism, it's not fair, I shouldn't be in this position.

39:02this just feels like a moment where the climate is not on your side. And so do you just do the settlement, save yourself the embarrassment of discovery and going through a trial and all of that pain and suffering, even though it's going to cost you a pretty penny and even though you're going to have to swallow your pride, like which is the least painful path forward? But I also think that things like this are part of why, if you look over a long enough trend line, do you trust the news media? I mean, those numbers have been declining for a long time. But most recently, the decline is not actually coming from Republicans.

39:40It's coming from Democrats. And it's coming from Democrats, whether they think that the media has become too soft on Trump or they've normalized Trump or that they are too sensationalist or what have you. Like the decline in trust in the media from Republicans happened a while ago, and that has kind of bottomed out. The declines that we're continuing to see overall are actually being driven by Democrats who say, I don't know that I trust that these organizations are doing the right thing either. Right. So in this case, I get the idea. Oh, let's just let it go away. Right. That kind of thing. And I do, I understand, in the case of Fox, they had a good case, right?

40:13There was so many emails. There were like, it was like, it was frightening how bad they behaved in that situation. They knew just, they had all the elements of proving it, and they'll probably lose their next several cases in that area. So that was actually really egregious behavior on the point of, on the part of that news organization. And they deserve to lose, really, in many ways. In the case of ABC, probably I suspect there was some emails that weren't so great or text. or something like that. You know, there was, and there was an obvious mistake. It was when he had the information of how to say it.

40:46And we have had to correct it. You know, we have changed stuff when we edit stuff if it's said wrong. So you have to really be careful whether they could have proved there was malice. That's a different situation. In this case, it's just not the case. And they have a brand, 60 Minutes. Two people have left the company. The staff is obviously, I don't know what they'll do today or whatever day, but it's a real problem of sort of collapsing what is a trusted institution, which is 60 minutes, over something that isn't a problem, right? Is that dangerous in the longer term or does it not matter at all?

41:22Yeah, I never love the use of lawsuits to try to achieve an end, especially if it's potentially going to have the effect of chilling free speech. I mean, And this is one of the things that these days frustrates me a lot about the right is I think over the last decade, there have been a lot of very legitimate questions raised about the existence of free speech in this country and the protection of free speech in this country, especially from, you know, when conservatives say we're being silenced. Like, I'm sympathetic to those charges that you need free speech and that has to include even speech that you think is offensive or is out of bounds.

41:59But then once you get the reins of power, deciding that you actually do want to just like stop speech that you don't like or, you know, chill speech, that does make me very concerned. Another case that I sort of think of as part and parcel of this, it's very personal to my industry, is the lawsuits against Ann Selzer, the pollster in Iowa, and the lawsuits against the Des Moines Register. The federal case, I believe the federal case was dropped, but I believe it was refiled as a state case. And it was done a day in advance of the anti-slap laws coming into effect in Iowa that are supposed to protect against the use of like lawfare to go after people who engage in speech you don't like.

42:38So that's a case that I'm watching very closely because the idea that someone can come after you and sue you because they think that your poll was wrong and that it was reported on, you know, in a way you didn't like in a paper, that's very, very, very concerning. Where does it go from here? Is this emboldened Trump to do because they're doing it all over the place? Like anything he doesn't like, he threatened CNN the other day. He threatened for reporting on an app like that there exists the existence of an app. They didn't say, please buy this or use it. It's about ICE, this ICE app. Does this, what happens here?

43:12Is there a point where people say no more or they overreach or not at all if it works? I mean, if this works and these people, especially if you're a company that wants something and you always want something from the government, right? Or it's just once it stops working, it's going to be hell to pay, I suspect, for Republicans. I don't know where this ends. And this is where not being a lawyer, you know, I'm unsure of what the what the strategy is in terms of like continuously trying to push people in courts and like how much pain do you incur if you do try to fight back? I'm less familiar with that, but I know that if you look at sort of Trump's target list, he is picking targets that are not beloved by the sort of general public, whether it's the media, Ivy League institutions, you know, big, powerful law firms.

44:02Like he's picking targets that you're sort of median American goes, yeah, I don't really like them that much anyways. And that has been, I think, at least savvy political strategy on his part, setting aside that I don't feel qualified to comment on it as a legal strategy. Right. And is there any chance the media's image will bounce forward in any way? What would what would happen to do that? Well, I do think that you're right that at least in the short term, much the same way that we were talking about with Musk earlier, that he lost his credibility with Democrats and now he's picking fights with Republicans.

44:38But he's unlikely to, at least in the short term, see a resurgence of love and admiration among the Democrats that he has alienated over the last couple of years. I sort of feel like this may be the same way, at least in the short term, that like by doing this, it's not as though you're going to suddenly have a bunch of Republicans who are like, fantastic. These news organizations have all made big donations to the Trump library. We love them. Like, at least in the short term, it just means that kind of everybody's mad at you, even if for very different reasons. Yeah, absolutely. You don't win at all.

45:07I don't know. I think fighting is probably better. But they want this deal. They want this deal to happen. There have been threats later to go back at them as a bribe someday. I doubt they'll get to that. So they're making that calculation that Democrats won't wreak revenge once they get back in power. But we'll see. Maybe they will. They have long memories. And President Trump says he also has a buyer for TikTok, another thing that he's doing in the media. Let's listen to a clip of the announcement on Fox News and interview with Maria Bartiroma. We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way. I think I'll need probably China approval.

45:42I think presidency will probably do it. Who's mine? I'll tell you in about two weeks. A big technology company there. Very, very wealthy people. It's a group of very wealthy people. The Pencil Vires reported the same investor consortium before the first bid stalled amid trade talks, Oracle Corp, Blackstone Inc., and Andreessen Horowitz. The president recently signed an executive order extending the deadline for a third time. The law requires ByteDance to divest from the platform, so we'll see. Polling a few months ago showed support for TikTok bans standing at 34%. Not great. Right. Where are we in polling?

46:16Have people forgotten, given all the other news happening? Polling on the TikTok ban has been fascinating because a couple of years ago, when you did polling around something like TikTok, there were real concerns about it. Right. Is this Chinese propaganda? Is this warping kids' minds? Is it taking too much of their attention? And, you know, when this was initially proposed and passed by Congress, it was reasonably popular. Really, the only people who were particularly mad about it were the kids who used TikTok. But TikTok very, very smartly was able to marshal their users to make the case, how can you take this from us?

46:54And I think because Donald Trump perceives that he won his election in part by doing well among some of these disaffected Gen Zers who may be using a lot of TikTok, he is not inclined to tick off that constituency. And so he loves to be viewed as a dealmaker. He his position on China is fascinating because he likes to talk about being tough on China, but he also likes to talk about, you know, coming to deals with with Xi. So this is sort of ready made to be the kind of thing where even though being tough on China is almost never a losing position within the Republican coalition on this one, the very particular constituency of who really loves TikTok is a group that Trump is trying to win over.

47:35And so it's good if he comes to a deal, even if he hands it over to people or not. If he doesn't, what happens? If China says, fuck you, like, no way we're doing this. Well, I'm curious about how legally this can all proceed, because my understanding is that Congress was pretty clear that this has to happen. And so I expect if Trump does, you know, how much longer can he keep saying like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Congress, you passed this law, but I'm kind of not going to follow it because I don't really feel like it. Like at a certain point, doesn't the court have to intervene? No, you'd think Congress would do its job, but they seem to be abrogating a lot of power.

48:11Well, Congress is saying that they already did their job. And so that's like, this is now, you know, they've already passed a bill saying Trump has to do this. Yes, they hold him to account over so many things. Just like, come on, it's like down the list. Like, I don't know. He doesn't listen to them and otherwise. But it'll be interesting to see if he gets a real bump if something really comes off, Even if he's handing it over to his friends, whether it's Larry Ellison or Mark Andreessen, correct? I mean, nobody cares about that, that these rich people are getting another break, essentially. He will just love that he can say, I made another deal.

48:44And it will just add one more piece to the puzzle of his kind of brand image on that front. Right. So that works more than the particulars. All right, Kristen, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, I'm very excited to talk to you about this. Trump targets New York City mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani.

49:24We'll see you next time.

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50:34Kristen, we're back. Official results are in for New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, and Zoran Mamdani took it away with a massive 12 % lead. Mamdani still faces a general election, which will include incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and potentially Andrew Cuomo again. Meanwhile, President Trump was asked about Mamdani at a press briefing on Tuesday and made some pretty bold claims. Let's listen to a clip of Trump's response to being asked what he would do if Mamdani blocked ice raids in the city. Well, then we'll have to arrest him. Look, we don't need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I'm going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation.

51:12Trump then took things a little further, saying this. A lot of people are saying he's here illegally. You know, we're going to look at everything. Mamdani was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2018. He responded on social media, saying we will not accept this intimidation. And any big takeaways from Mamdani's official win, Kristen, and also these threats, which are troubling, I would say, to say the least? Yeah, in terms of the win, first, I cannot imagine why the sort of Democratic establishment thought that selling Andrew Cuomo with all of his baggage was going to work. It is in some ways kind of appalling and an indictment of New York's Democratic establishment that they couldn't come up with a better alternative.

51:55But I also don't want to take anything away from Mamdani here. I think making the number one issue the number one issue, which is cost of living, stuff costs too much and it should cost less, is it is that's the right strategy. And he paired it with and this is something that I also think AOC is so good at, despite the fact that I don't agree with her on a ton of policy, but I rate her very highly as a political communicator. She's very good showing up where voters are and speaking to them the way voters want to be spoken to. It's not condescending. It's not overly fancy or overly technical, but it's not dumb.

52:34It's not dumbed down, so to speak. It's just speaking normally. And most politicians are just allergic to doing that for reasons I cannot comprehend. And he's very good at it. The video of him talking about like make halal eight dollars again. It was a really great video. Stuff like that's so good. You liked him a little bit, didn't you? You liked him. Sort of like Trump in a lot of ways. Look, I think that populism plus not even TV savvy, but like media savvy is a very potent combination. And I think he has it. But I would also say, I think there's a lot of like over reading into this about what it means ideologically.

53:13There was a quote from a Democratic strategist like the morning after the wind that was something like, our base, they're always voting for these insane ideas and these far left lunatics. And it was this like real contempt for the Democratic base coming from this like centrist Democratic strategist. But I don't actually think that the Democratic base on the whole is super ideologically to the left on economic issues like they are very open to a robust role for government. But I don't think that actually the majority of the Democratic electorate is like truly DSA aligned. And so what works in a Democratic primary in Manhattan is not necessarily transferable anywhere.

53:56The other thing that I think is very valuable, though, to learn from Mamdani's win, if you looked at the age breakouts of people who voted in this primary, younger voters were like the biggest group of voters. That almost never happens, especially in a primary, which is always like a really low turnout sort of thing. It's exactly the kind of contest young voters typically sit out. He turned them out. So I take nothing away from him on those grounds, even though I disagree with him on a lot of policy. I think this feud between him and Trump is it's probably going to benefit both parties involved as much as I think like the whole idea of trying to denaturalize someone because you don't like what they're saying, I think is terrible.

54:36Everything I said earlier about free speech. speech, right? We should not be in the business of trying to punish people's speech and saying, we don't like what you said. That does not fall well. I can't imagine. People do not want people generally just like deported because you are, you know, left-leaning or you said even even in the cases where you've said something that's really offensive, like if you are a naturalized U.S. citizen being deported, I cannot imagine is something that would be popular. At the same time, Donald Trump is going to love the elevation of Mamdani as like the face of the Democratic Party, he will think that is a very advantageous dynamic for the White House at the same time that it's probably good for Mamdani politically to be coming under fire from Trump because to the extent that there were any like wavering establishment Democrats or centrist Democrats who are like, oh, maybe we just vote for Eric Adams because we can't with this crazy guy.

55:26If all of a sudden he is like the poster child for I'm taking the fight to Trump, that probably does pretty well to unify the Democratic base behind you as you move into a general election in November. So it's not to say that there was like a Republican candidate who I think was going to win and become mayor of New York. But to the extent that there are independent challenges, it's probably good for Mamdani to have to be in the line of fire from Trump. The ratings are good, as Trump would say. But talk about where he did well. He did well with young people. What kills me is that like they're like young people don't vote.

55:57And then they vote. They're like, we don't like how young people vote. It was sort of like they're voting and it's up to them to decide what they want. Do you see, you know, the Democratic reaction has been really interesting and sort of, they're upset. They're largely upset around globalize the intifati. We'll push back on that. That seems to be the focus. But they also were sort of shocked by this in a way that I wasn't shocked or other people weren't. It's really interesting because when you look at voters, they complain about young people not voting, and then they did, and they didn't like it.

56:31And the same thing was with Sanders, whether it's with AOC, they're hugely popular. Why the response of the Democratic establishment? Well, this reminds me a lot of the sort of freak out that a lot of Republican strategists had when the Tea Party movement was getting going in the sense that it was very like it felt like, oh, these people are kind of off putting to me and they're going to drag our party in a direction that's going to make it impossible for us to win elections. And that wasn't 100 percent true. And I think the same thing is the case here, that I think there are certain positions that the sort of further left wing of the Democratic Party takes that have been a big political problem for Democrats.

57:16I think it is true that they pulled Democrats too far to the left on a number of things that gave Trump this big opening. But with that said, like, I think in the case of New York City, the idea that suddenly like somebody like Mamdani is going to win a primary for like the South Carolina Senate seat. Yeah, if that happened, then Democrats aren't winning the South Carolina Senate seat. Like, that's true. But you also have to adapt to like what's what's the right candidate for my area? area. And like, who are who are the voters there? What do they care about? And so something that is OK in New York may not be OK for trying to pick up a swing congressional seat in Iowa.

57:54But smart parties are able to to understand that different electorates exist in different places. Right. And so Mom Donnie's approach can be used by a centrist. Right. It just depends if you're genuine. The qualities here are genuineness. And one of the things I was struck by is Bill Stepien, who's a very well-known Republican campaign person, said, don't make fun of this guy. He's like, in a similar way, people are like, I used to say, don't make fun of Trump. Like, Trump is interesting, right? Do you see that at all? It was interesting that he said that when they were sort of touting, oh, no, now we've got them.

58:27I'm like, do you? Because he's really attractive, like, in so many ways. I think I 100 % agree with Stepien on this one. I think communication savvy, genuineness, as you described, that matters so much. There is so much noise and there is so much stuff that politicians say and do that just sounds the same. And it just washes over people. People can pick up a talking point from a thousand yards away. And if you are able to communicate in a way that does not sound like you're just regurgitating talking points, that doesn't sound like it's something you've, you know, you're just saying because, like, you've been fed it by a consultant.

59:06The benefit that the thing that makes Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders similar is that you actually believe they believe the things they are saying at some level. And that goes a long way. Like, I believe Mamdani believes the things that he says. So even if I don't agree with them, like, at least that's you get you get some points for that. What about freshness? Is that something that's important? Do you think they're calling it an earthquake for the Democratic Party? Do you think that's the case? I would caution everybody from reading too much into a primary election in New York. But I think it ought to be a wake up call for anyone who thinks that you can just defend the status quo.

59:45So this is a wake up call that in order to win elections in 2025, you have to be the candidate of change. You have to be. You had to be the candidate of change in 2024, which was a big reason why Joe Biden was in trouble. And then the handoff to Kamala Harris was ultimately unsuccessful. You have to be the candidate of change. You have to be the candidate of what's new. And Mamdani was able to channel that very, very, very effectively. Now, last question. What would you advise him to do now if he you know, he's going to do what he wants to do. But what's the most important thing he'd do? I would advise Mamdani to focus in on the cost of living question relentlessly.

1:00:23Do not get pulled in these other directions. He has said and done a lot of things in his past that his opponents did not dredge up in the primary that are going to get dredged up now. But I think if he keeps his message focused on cost of living and does not become over-consultantified and keeps his message pretty focused on we need New York to be a livable city again, I think he will succeed. Now, if he ultimately becomes mayor and he tries to implement these policies and things like city-run grocery stores or rent freezes have all of these second and third order negative effects that folks on the right think are inevitably going to happen, then the backlash will come.

1:01:01But for the moment, I do think that Republicans should be wary of thinking, oh, let's just elevate this guy and like it'll be great that he's the face of the Democratic Party. I think media savvy populism really sells. And be careful of thinking that you can make that really, really, really unpopular. Yeah, I always see them put up lists on Fox News and I'm like, that sounds good. It was just I'm like, are you trying to get him elected? It's kind of funny. All right. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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1:04:05Okay, Kristen, let's hear a prediction. I predict that the F1 movie starring Brad Pitt, which came out a week ago and did very well at the box office, both domestically and globally, I think it's going to have legs. I know this weekend it is going up against a new Jurassic Park movie, but I think this F1 movie is fantastic. I'm a big F1 fan. I saw it last week. I almost never see movies in theaters anymore, but it was so worth it. My prediction, this movie is going to have legs. Yeah. I'm sad to see this. And Apple finally has a hit. They've done a lot of great movies, but they haven't had a big hit like this.

1:04:37And people were worried that F1 had jumped the shark a little bit, you know, in terms of expanding too quickly. But it's really good. I'm excited to see it. I'm excited. I may have to go with you because my wife doesn't want to see it. I may have to go. I'll go back and see it again. All right. I would love to go back and see it again. I'm excited to see it. My prediction has to do with Mark Zuckerberg's creation of Meta's super intelligence labs this week. This is a group that will be focusing on Meta's AI efforts. He's been on a hiring spree grabbing top talent. Zoe Schiffer from Wired had a great scoop.

1:05:09Zuckerberg offered pay packages up to$300 million over four years. One OpenAI staffer told Wired that's about how much it would take for me to go work at Meta. Though Meta is saying the size and structure of these compensation packages have been misrepresented all over the place. That's not, he is trying very hard to do this. I do not think he's going to be successful. I mean, I don't think they did a lot of due diligence on Scala.ai as much as they should have. I think it's a lot more internally kind of a chaos. I think there's going to be a lot of chaos here. And just grabbing all these people and creating like an Avengers team, that's what they're calling it.

1:05:42I don't think it always works. I don't think doing that is particularly smart. He has had a lot of misses, although the stock is at an all-time high. Let's be clear, they're doing great in the areas they've always done great in. But, you know, we renamed the company Meta in order to go into the metaverse, and that was a$10,$20 billion disaster, and they can afford it. I just don't think he has the same sense of innovation that someone like Elon Musk or even OpenAI or other companies has. So I think this might be, I think he can afford to do this, but I think it's really the wrong way to go about doing innovation.

1:06:18So I'm not so sure it will pay off in the way he thinks it will. We'll see. How does he poll not well, I guess, correct? Do people like him? I think most of the tech billionaire type folks have not polled particularly well. I think like 10 years ago, there was a sense of like cool and excitement around them that now has sort of faded. Has waned. Yeah. Yeah. I know. He's leading the way. And the Bezos wedding, I'm guessing that didn't pull well. I have not. You know what? I haven't pulled on it, but we're actually putting a survey in the field next week. If you think of any question you would want me to ask the American public about this wedding, you let me know.

1:06:54Was this a heinous display of wealth in the most grotesque and tasteless way? There's my question. If you had gotten invited, would you have gone? That might be an interesting question. You know, of course. Of course. You want to see this ridiculous traffic accident up close. I mean, and for the bag alone, the swag bag alone, I suppose, I guess. I don't know. I'd want to see it. But I would be terrible and take pictures and put them out the whole time. I'd be terrible. I'd be the worst guest ever. You would break the rules right away. You remember Wedding Crashers? That's Kara Swisher. Anyway, we want to hear from you.

1:07:28Send 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. Okay, that's the show. Kristen, thank you so much. I find you to be so smart. I could almost become a Republican. Oh, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be on the big show. Yeah, the big show. You're on the big show. You delivered with all kinds of information. Scott should hang his head. You have so much good data. And that's what's important to our listeners to get the real deal. and to really say what's happening, which is really important.

1:07:59Anyway, thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel, which is fast growing, actually. We'll be back next week. I will read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Enderdot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Kate Gallagher. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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