Trump's 9/11 Fiction, a Major AI Warning, and Apple's Foldable iPhone

5:54Scott Galloway:Yeah. Okay, smart is not in short supply. They're all the most pop. They're all the prom king that also got a scholarship in journalism. They're all literally cut from the same cloth.

6:04Kara Swisher:Yeah, they were really good. Not all of them are journalists. Cuban's not a journalist. You know, Chelsea's not a journalist.

6:10Scott Galloway:They're all great storytellers. That's one thing they all have in common. Yeah, yeah. I also like that comedian. I thought he was funny. Roy Wood Jr.? Yeah, he was great. Yeah, he was good.

6:16Kara Swisher:What did you do? Tell me about your adventures while you were away from me.

6:21Scott Galloway:A lot of time with family.

6:23Kara Swisher:Okay.

6:23Scott Galloway:I tried to get really fit during August. I saw that story. Quite frankly, I got, I'm just being serious for a moment. It freaked me out about the idea of retirement because I've just, I had too much time off.

6:36Kara Swisher:Yeah.

6:37Scott Galloway:And I'm not good with that much time off.

6:39Kara Swisher:Me neither, yeah.

6:39Scott Galloway:I start getting too much in my head.

6:41Kara Swisher:Mm-hmm.

6:42Scott Galloway:And, you know, give a busy person something to do and it gets done. If I'm not busy, I get down on my, I recognize I need to be busy.

6:51Kara Swisher:Right.

6:51Scott Galloway:And it was actually too long a break. Oh, interesting. And I was sort of chosen. I started on my next book. I spent some time on that. And the most rewarding thing was I got to hang out with my boys and the cousins and, you know, that family stuff. So that was nice. But it was basically a very indulgent August.

7:08Kara Swisher:Yeah, it's very hard for me to vacation. I didn't really.

7:11Scott Galloway:You don't vacation.

7:12Kara Swisher:I don't.

7:13Scott Galloway:I don't really know. I've talked to your brother about this. We're both worried that you are. I mean, it's one thing to love your work and get energy from it, which you do. You are the hardest working man in show business.

7:29Kara Swisher:Thank you. You know, actually, it's relaxing to me. I know it sounds crazy, but I don't do well sitting around. I don't know what to do. I want to clean something.

7:37Scott Galloway:If I could change anything in your life, though, I would tell you not to travel as much. I don't care how much you like work. Travel takes a toll on you at our age.

7:44Kara Swisher:It does. It does. And this fall is not great. But I have big chunks of time here at the house. We went to a lot of places. We went to Vermont. I mean, this summer and stuff like that. But while you were gone, you know, we were in New York at the new place quite a bit.

8:00Scott Galloway:You've been working a lot.

8:01Kara Swisher:Yeah, yeah. And we're planning some really cool stuff we're doing. I just really feel it's really important at this moment in time while you were gone. But I did do one thing that I think was very good. I participated in the cat distribution system. I'm just going to open this bag here and let out our new family pet, Stripes the Cat.

8:21Scott Galloway:Oh, wow.

8:22Kara Swisher:Say hi to Stripes.

8:23Scott Galloway:Hi, Stripes.

8:24Kara Swisher:How you doing? Oh, there he goes.

8:25Scott Galloway:Is this the only pet you have in the household now?

8:27Kara Swisher:No, I have another cat. We drove up to New York in the car because we like to bring a bunch of stuff up. And there was a rest stop in Maryland, in northern Maryland. And there wasn't like a McDonald's one. It was like a state one. And there were porta-potties, and Clara didn't want to use the porta-potty. And so we were like, oh, we'll go behind the shed or something like that. And she'd go to the bathroom. And this cat was there. just meowing away and very friendly. Nobody around, clearly skinny as can be. And so we put her in a box in the car and took her up to New York, got her checked, full of fleas and ticks and worms, everything else, just a stray cat.

9:09Kara Swisher:And I have a cat. I have Lovely, who is not very happy about the situation right now.

9:12Scott Galloway:Yeah, I was going to say, how are they getting along? Well, we'll see. We'll see.

9:15Kara Swisher:You have to keep them apart because she's still got to be dewormed and everything else. She'll be on medication and everything. But it was lovely. This cat is lovely i love the cat you know the cat distribution system it's called the cats find their way to a home um it's a it's a not everybody some people get you get your dogs from a breeder right correct

9:34Scott Galloway:is that correct or yeah because i want to see more strays put down no i got one from i did i've always had i've always had rescue dogs yeah as a gift to myself on my birthday i've always wanted a great day and when you get a when you get a rescue dog it's as if they know you've saved their lives. They're healthier. They're happier. In general, they're just better dogs, mostly because they don't inbreed them. But I had a great Dane when I was very young, and I've always wanted a great Dane.

10:00Kara Swisher:Yeah, you have a beautiful dog.

10:01Scott Galloway:I afforded myself the luxury of getting a quote unquote purebred, but of the 10 dogs I've had, nine have been rescued.

10:06Kara Swisher:Yeah, I think it's really important for kids to have pets. I think it's important for people to have pets. Every animal I found has found me, like either showed up. I found one of my dogs in a box, lovely. I did get from the ASPCA, stuff like that. So I urge everybody for the fall, get yourself a pet. It makes you feel better. You feel better with animals. And you particularly, I think, get a lot of comfort from your pets. It seems like it to me.

10:32Scott Galloway:Huge. First of all, I've never had a cat, but there's something special about a species that can look deeply into your soul while knocking your coffee off your counter.

10:40Kara Swisher:I'm watching my coffee right here.

10:42Scott Galloway:Well, just to talk about animals for a second, as I've talked about a lot, I struggle or I do struggle with depression, and I have this kind of series of hacks for trying to reverse the downward spiral. And one of them is I let my dogs sleep with me, and I let them up on the couch, which I usually don't do. I find the warmth and proximity to mammals is really restorative.

11:05Kara Swisher:Yeah, absolutely. It's really important. Anyway, I urge everyone to get a cat. Scripes is now a member of our family. Didn't have a chip. Didn't have – we did the whole – like, got all the shots. We'll get her fixed at some point. But we're very happy. We're happy. The kids are really excited, but Stripes is here to stay. Anyway, let's get going. Scott, you missed so much. God, Jesus frigging Christ.

11:28Scott Galloway:Yeah, I did. I feel out of it. I was really intimidated by it today. I was really nervous about it. No, you're going to be great.

11:33Kara Swisher:We're going to do a lightning round. Can you do that and give us your thoughts?

11:35Scott Galloway:I love the lightning round, except I'm not much like a strike of lightning. I'm more like a tsunami that lasts for three days in my answers. We're not going to do that. It's more like a tsunami round.

11:43Kara Swisher:You said you'd be crisp. Yeah, I'll try. So let's be crisp. I mean, I couldn't believe how much news there was. That was the one thing every week. Oh, my God. Can you get over it? Well, Trump is like, speaking of tsunamis, he's just a constant. You have a tech and hugging bear or a hugging face. Hugging face.

11:57Scott Galloway:All these people dying.

11:58Kara Swisher:Yes, exactly. Huge losses. Let's start with that, including Dolly Parton, Gloria Steinem, a whole range of people. Thoughts?

12:06Scott Galloway:Well, look, Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem built empires on their own, but they did it differently. They went direct to consumer. They didn't ask for permission. the quotes that summarize their lives, in my view. Dolly said, I love her quote. She said, the ones who love me made up for the ones who didn't. That, to me, just kind of captures her generosity. Gloria Steinem, my favorite quote of hers was, I think a truly liberated woman has had sex before marriage and a job after. I thought that just perfectly encapsulated her. Also, the reality is, if you're a woman and you have a credit card and a checking account, you kind of have to nod to Gloria Steinem.

12:48Scott Galloway:I mean, she really did have a big impact. She did. The one that didn't get enough attention or the one that sort of moved me was Tim Curry. Not because—

12:57Kara Swisher:Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah.

12:58Scott Galloway:I mean, he had an outstanding career, but the Rocky Horror Picture Show was a cultural phenomena. There was a kid named Rick Pitesky in my high school who was overweight, not very smart, not athletic, not very nice, had very little, quote-unquote, social capital. And I was an usher at the UA Cinema in Westwood and the Man Bruin. I've been fired from most of the movie theaters in Westwood. And we played the Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday night. And Rick, I recognized him, Rick, this total dork, used to come in a white tuxedo every Friday night for the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And people, two-thirds of the audience, would be dressed up as characters.

13:40Kara Swisher:Yeah, sure.

13:41Scott Galloway:And there was a moment, There's a moment in the film where this super hot guy, someone will remind us in the comments, he's sleeping. And I guess he's nervous because he's actually in a movie. And his muscle begins to twitch. And Rick would climb up on stage, which you're not supposed to do at a movie, and he would point at the muscle twitching. And the entire audience would stand up and go apeshit crazy for Rick. Yeah. And similar to my favorite writer, John Irving, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, I think, gave license to an audience and people to recognize how strange people are. Yes. But there's a beauty and a wonder in that.

14:21Scott Galloway:And all these freaks and weirdos used to show up at the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and guess what? They liked themselves, and they had a great time. So it wasn't so much Tim Curry's passing. It was, I thought that movie was sort of, you know how people get dressed up for Star Wars? It was a cultural phenomenon.

14:40Kara Swisher:I agree. So let's get through the rest of these. Trump's trade war with Canada. Give me a sentence or two.

14:46Scott Galloway:We've declared war on the nation that has bought more of our goods over the last six years than any other nation. It's the definition of stupid. We sell a$1 ,000 iPhone into Canada, 60 points of margin, P of 30. We make$18 ,000 in shareholder value. They sell low margin crude oil into us. This trading relationship has been so wildly accretive and asymmetric benefiting us. And when I was a kid, my mom made a nine-year-old walk to the corner because she didn't want to see my dad's car. And it's like, look, you were married to this guy for a while. And regardless of what you think of Canada, the notion that we're somehow going to disentangle ourselves from a partner where we've been married for 60 years.

15:35Scott Galloway:Auto parts cross the border back and forth eight times before a final finish in assembly. They sell$120 billion of energy into our nation. You want to talk about energy security? We're going to start fucking with Canada. And this isn't even about the morality of turning on your best friend in the world. This is just plain, not only is it stupid, it's impractical. There is no way we are separating from Canada.

16:04Kara Swisher:Yeah, I bet he's trying to offend them with Lake America, Lake Ontario. Just yesterday I was at an event where Julie Pace, head of AP, said they're not changing it. The Apple and Google doing that was pretty –

16:15Scott Galloway:Well, they're changing the name of the San Andreas Fault to Joe Biden's fault.

16:20Kara Swisher:Oh, God, where'd you find that? That's funny. Yeah, someone had a good one also that Apple got ready for its phone. We'll talk about that a little later by already folding to Trump. They already were good at folding. So dropping your son off at college.

16:36Scott Galloway:Well, you've done this. Your world gets smaller, so theirs can get bigger. And you'd be proud of me. I wasn't emotional. I didn't want to make his drop off all about me.

16:45Kara Swisher:Right. Good idea.

16:46Scott Galloway:And it helped that he basically just shoved us out of the room and wanted to do his own thing. What's helped me is I speak to him every day. He's having an amazing time. I think UVA is an amazing institution. It makes me feel really good about America. We do a few things really well. We make the best weapons, the best technology, the best superhero films. We also have the best universities in the world. So it's just nice to see what a wonderful time he's having. I speak to him every day. And also, and you forwarded me this text message. I went back to the hotel and I was sitting outside and a car pulled up to one of the dorms.

17:22Scott Galloway:And a kid got out of the front seat. A mom got out of the driver's seat. A dad, for some reason, got out of the back seat. And the dad and the son embraced. And then the dad had to walk away and he began sobbing. and then I just lost my shit. So I said, I said on my other podcast, this dad did my crying for me. And then I guess the guy, the guy contacted you?

17:46Kara Swisher:Well, he's a, he's a friend of someone I work with. Yeah, she was thrilled. She's a big pivot fan.

17:51Scott Galloway:I mean, think about, think about that. Think about.

17:54Kara Swisher:I know, small world.

17:55Scott Galloway:Yeah. Anyways, but, but you've been, you've been through this.

17:58Kara Swisher:I have, I have, I have. And I'm going to go through it two more times. One of the things they say, you know, you say there's not, You spend 90 % of your time with your kids and then 18. That's where it is. I don't believe that. I talk to Louie and Alex all the time. Louie even more so now that he's living in the house in San Francisco. But I think you have a whole new relationship with your kids. It's really fun. It's really wonderful. We call it adulting. My kids and I joke about it, calling it adulting. I help them adult. And you're going to really enjoy this period of your relationship with your son.

18:31Kara Swisher:But it's hard. It's still hard. I mean, it's hard, no matter how you slice it.

18:35Scott Galloway:Yeah, I didn't want to settle with my emotional baggage. Also, the thing I'm struggling with now is, people talk about purpose. I think purpose is you wake up one day and realize you're not going to get a traditional ROI on something, but you still continue to do it and get reward from it. That's your purpose. I think like a lot of people, I woke up and realized, I've always thought my purpose is to raise men for others. And now I'm struggling with, well, what's next, right? They're going to do their own thing. They're going to find their own way. Like what, and again, see above too much time off in August to be in my head.

19:10Scott Galloway:I'm struggling a little bit with, okay, now what is my purpose?

19:13Kara Swisher:Yeah, yeah. Most underreported business story this summer?

19:16Scott Galloway:Well, the most mischaracterized story, the hugging face break. Everyone's talking about, isn't it wild? These things are sentient and they meet at the cooler and they devise strategies and one gets worried. I think this is all such a bullshit narrative to absolve these people of any responsibility.

19:34Kara Swisher:That's correct.

19:34Scott Galloway:And there is always an off switch. Atoms don't decide independently to fuse and release energy and set the atmosphere on fire. There is always a human that has decided to push the button. And I go back, as I do often, to my fraternity days. I was interfraternity council president, or as I like to call it, the king of the jarheads. and the neighbors got together and said, we are done with rush week and all the noise and said, all noise, music has to be off my midnight. And I met with the head of the UCPD and I'm like, what do you want me to do? I can't control these guys. And they said, we have an idea.

20:09Scott Galloway:And they didn't tell me what it was. The next night they showed up to every fraternity that was playing music after midnight and they said, who's the president? And they arrested the president and that kid had to spend the night in jail. If you hold Sam Altman and Dario Amadei on Sachin Adela responsible for what these bots do, guess what? They're going to figure out a way. I love that.

20:29Kara Swisher:I love it. It's not about - It's about incentives. Incentives, yeah.

20:32Scott Galloway:And this notion that they're sentient and doing jailbreak, they're doing this stuff on their own. And isn't it powerful? And you should buy into my$2 trillion market. No. The next time one of these companies does this, if you put Sam Altman in jail, guess what, folks? They'll figure it out.

20:46Kara Swisher:Yeah, absolutely. They will figure it out. The story that is sort of getting people all bot and bothers, a lead researcher at Anthropics said he believes there is an over 10 % chance that AI could kill all humans.

20:56Scott Galloway:Oh, God, here we go.

20:57Kara Swisher:It's their killing the humans. It's not AI. It's their AI. It's the humans. There's a wizard behind the curtain.

21:03Scott Galloway:Every curtain has a wizard behind it.

21:04Kara Swisher:Yeah, 100%. That's a great story. I was going to say the same thing, hugging face. But though the hugging face situation is terrifying.

21:10Scott Galloway:The cultural story that I don't think got enough attention, and I think she deserves real kudos for it, was AOC being very transparent about her freezing her eggs.

21:19Kara Swisher:Oh, very good.

21:20Scott Galloway:Well, as I think about gender equality and inequality, biology is not politically correct. And one of the things that is really hamstrung equality is that women's fertility window is 20 years and men's is 50. So women during the prime earning years, the prime mating years are quite frankly operating under a different set of constraints than men. And when we extend the fertility window for women, we give some, not all, some of the leverage and power back to women. So probably one of the best forms of, I don't know what you want to call it, equal rights, is extending the fertility window of women such that they can say, I don't like the guy I'm dating at 28.

22:04Scott Galloway:And I don't feel this massive need to mate right now because my fertility window is being extended. So I think anything that does that.

22:15Kara Swisher:Yeah, she was great.

22:15Scott Galloway:It normalizes it, especially with someone who's as impressive and as attractive as AOC. I think that's a good thing. I thought she was good.

22:24Kara Swisher:Best thing you watched on streaming?

22:26Scott Galloway:Beef. It's like Parasite meets White Lotus. It's all about income inequality and the stress.

22:32Kara Swisher:They have a different show every season, just for people to know. Yeah, I'm on season one.

22:37Scott Galloway:You've seen it? I have. It reminds me of Parasite. And I find it uncomfortable because I think the story – 70 % of divorce filings are by women. But what people don't – people think that divorce is a function of a lack of shared values or infidelity. It's not. It's money. Economic anxiety is the biggest plague. And it manifests in ways through healthcare system. people worried about not only getting sick, but going broke, economic anxiety. And a lot of it, not only because of a scarcity of economic security, but comparison being the thief of joy, that because of social media and expectations that genders have placed on each other, you can be doing well and you can still feel very unhappy because you don't have a Gulfstream.

23:20Scott Galloway:You don't have, you know, you're not vacationing at the Amangiri and the class system and the extreme wealth and the fact that it's not evenly distributed, it really makes for great storytelling. And I find the show gripping and also quite uncomfortable. What do you think?

23:34Kara Swisher:I liked the first season I saw it. I have to say Furious is the one that's keeping my attention. Oh, you like Furious.

23:39Scott Galloway:I've heard a lot about it.

23:40Kara Swisher:Yeah, you know, for the lady serial killer, which is amazing. There's a ton of great stuff out there. And more to come, it looks like, from all the trailers I'm seeing. Finally, what was the, I mean, I have seen that, we can talk about this later, but I've seen the Musk documentary, Four Hours. It was terrific. It was a searing indictment. I knew everything about this guy, and I thought Alex Gibney did the most astonishing job. It's four hours? It is four hours. There is an intermission. There is an intermission. I have to say it worked, and let me tell you, you know who puts him down? All the women.

24:16Kara Swisher:His ex-wife, Ashley.

24:18Scott Galloway:Well, there's something about having kids with a bunch of different women, including women who are concurrently suing you for not seeing those children. That creates some animosity.

24:26Kara Swisher:Well, I have to say they articulate his problems really well, especially Justine Musk. I'm sure she is fearful for having done it. And Ashley St. Clair also did a great job. Lots of women take him down, I think. And I thought it was great. Okay, what's the best worst thing in August aside from being separated from me?

24:44Scott Galloway:Well, time with family. best thing, too much time in my head. I'll go to the best worst things the Trump administration did.

24:53Kara Swisher:Okay.

24:54Scott Galloway:Worst thing hands down is this declaring war on your friends. As Churchill said, the only thing worse than fighting with your allies is fighting without them. We've decided to fight without our allies. I just don't, I mean, this just makes no sense at all. To the Trump administration's credit, probably the best brand move, I think politically of the last 30 days was detaining Milo Yiannopoulos. I thought, quite frankly, them saying, we don't care how conservative and fucking crazy right you are and how hateful and weird you are, we're deporting you. And whether you find it cynical or not, it was a very smart brand move on their part.

25:29Kara Swisher:Yeah, that's a really good point. Okay. All right. We're going to a quick break. Now we come back. There's lots of new news, including Trump makes a cash promise, speaking of money to American voters. Of course, he's making promises he can't pay for.

25:45Kara Swisher:Support for this show comes from Mint Mobile. Why do wireless bills always seem to come with a bunch of hidden fees you need a decoder to understand? Mint Mobile says enough with that. They want to keep things simple and affordable with plans starting at just$15 a month, even for unlimited. That means no big wireless gotchas, just high-speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. You can even bring your current phone and keep your existing number. Plus, choose from three, six, or 12-month plans so you can say goodbye to a monthly bill. Ditch overpriced wireless with Mint Mobile. To get your new wireless plan for just$15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash pivot.

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26:57Scott Galloway:This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Getting better at something is hard. Whether it's running, gardening, playing an instrument, or anything else worth doing. You need to commit to the process. It takes practice. It takes patience. It takes a willingness to be vulnerable. But it's also really rewarding when you look back and realize that this thing you couldn't do when you started now feels like second nature. Taking care of your mental health is no different. Changes are gradual and hard-earned. The results come from making a plan and sticking with it, and the journey is far more important than the destination.

27:24Scott Galloway:You get to decide what your goals are, and they might change along the way. As long as you keep checking in with yourself, you're doing it right. You're getting better. I think a lot about my mental health. For me, it's about exercise and eating clean and being as social as possible, which does not come easy for me. Better is a feeling defined by you. And for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you. It's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. It's progress. Sign up and get 10 % off at BetterHelp.com slash pivot.

27:54Scott Galloway:That's BetterHelp.com slash pivot. Support for the show comes from CoreWeave. AI isn't just a new tool. it encompasses so much more. It's spurring a revolution across all industries and reshaping itself to become a big part of our future together. CoreWeave is at the center, powering some of the biggest names in AI. As the essential cloud for AI, CoreWeave provides an AI platform that combines next-generation infrastructure, intelligent tools, and expert support. It's powering the world's most complex AI workloads faster and more efficiently, from medical research and diagnosis to education, from complex visual effects from movies to breakthroughs in science and technology.

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29:01Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back. Donald Trump is asking voters to pretend he's on the ballot this November. He made that pitch at the GOP Midterm Convention in Dallas, an event the RNC dubbed Trumpapalooza. It seemed rather depressing. But during a speech that ran nearly two hours, I think he has another one tonight, Trump said the war with Iran would be over very shortly after the election. He also said prices would come down after the election. He also warned that Democratic victory would put a communist caucus in charge of Congress. But notably, he made a big promise to American voters. Let's listen. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic.

29:42Tremendous economic success, like in history, we've never had anything like what's happening.

29:47Kara Swisher:but because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for$5 ,000. Very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders. Except we don't have money. He's calling it the Trump dividend and says the money would have to be spent in the U.S. I don't know how he'd monitor that. Trump didn't explain where the funding will come from. Of course, we have a massive deficit under Donald Trump. Sending$5 ,000 to every adult in the U.S. would cost roughly$1.3 trillion. Of course, pesky legal obstacles.

30:32Kara Swisher:Thoughts about this?

30:33Scott Galloway:Well, let's talk about need and math. Let's talk about need. 10 % of U.S. adults live in poverty, 15 % of children. But he's decided not to give it to the children who need it. Let's talk about the math $1.3 trillion This would Absolutely no revenue plan for it This would all be deficit funded So let's talk about what this is This is effectively Saying to every household I'll give you a credit card That's preloaded with$5 ,000 But your kid A newborn in 18 years Is going to owe$13 ,000 That even if you die They still owe So my question to every voter would be the following. If someone offered you a preloaded credit card for$5 ,000, but your kid in 18 years would have non-dischargeable debt of$13 ,000 because of the good times you had 18 years ago, would you decide to accept that credit card?

31:32Scott Galloway:And the scary thing, Kara, is the answer may be yes, because you can't just blame Republicans for what has been decades of fiscal irresponsibility. irresponsibility. George Washington to George Bush,$7 trillion in deficits. George Bush to Trump to another$33 trillion. And the Republicans have been worse, but this has been a bipartisan effort, this fiscal irresponsibility. And at some point, the voters have to take responsibility for continuing to elect people and fall for this bullshit, irresponsible rhetoric. And what disappoints me about many of the people you and I speak to every day who want to be the Democratic nominee for president, none of them are talking about this.

32:13Scott Galloway:At some point, someone has to stand up and say, this is how I would restore fiscal sanity. Am I going to raise taxes or cut spending? The answer is yes. And they outline a reasonable plan for doing this. Not one Democrat who is running for president has outlined anything resembling a plan.

32:37Kara Swisher:I'm a minimum, I think.

32:38Scott Galloway:Rahm's getting close, but not really. Yeah. Rahm has done more than anyone else, but he still hasn't said we're going to take, we're going to means test. No one has actually put a chart on the wall and said, this is how we do it.

32:50Kara Swisher:Yeah, absolutely. Because it's not a sexy thing to do. You'd rather just have these ridiculous food fights.

32:56Scott Galloway:A very popular bumper sticker is, I can cut your taxes and go to war. That bumper sticker works. And voters keep falling for it. At some point, Americans have to decide. It's like what Michelle Obama said when asked if she wanted to run for president or would. She said, America's not ready for a female president. I agree with her. I don't think it doesn't appear to me that America is appears to be ready for an adult conversation around our deficit.

33:21Kara Swisher:Around our money. I know. And it's going to kill us. It's absolutely going to kill us. I know a lot of people say it off the record, but they never say it on the record. And him pretending everything's going great is really I mean, it's it's astonishing to watch. But this is just a bribe. It's an attempted bribe and stupidity. as usual. Another thing he says that occupies the news cycle. He's very good at creating a news cycle that's stupid, like stupid news cycles. Another big moment, speaking of which, from the midterm convention was a surprise video appearance. Not surprised. I said he was going to do it, by the way, about a week ago, by Democratic Senator John Fetterman, something, again, I predicted on threads.

34:00Scott Galloway:You predicted that early. Did you do reporting or you just guessed that?

34:04Kara Swisher:No, I heard it from someone. And then I noticed that Dave McCormick had a surprise. And I know that they have been hanging out a lot. And so I thought, oh, it's got to be Fetterman. It just was sort of, you know, putting it together from a strategy point of view. But I had heard that it was going to happen from someone pretty good. Fetterman introduced his fellow Pennsylvania Senator, Dave McCormick, and said he was willing to work with Trump. I don't know what it meant. The appearance fueled more speculation that Fetterman might switch parties, But he shut that down. I don't think he's going to do that.

34:34Kara Swisher:In the statement, he called himself a lifelong Democrat and said that Dems split the Senate. He's staying put. He's probably going to lose his job. He's much the numbers for him in Pennsylvania are really devastating. But he's still got a couple of years on his tenure. it comes in the heels of a Wall Street Journal report that he has shown little interest in day-to-day work of being a senator. He really likes being on television. He wouldn't meet with veterans. This was a devastating report. And it's not, he's a disgruntled staffer. It seems to be all his staffers think he's an asshole. And he's not doing the job of getting back.

35:08Kara Swisher:And, you know, I've heard from lots of people in Pennsylvania, they're not getting their constituent services that say Bob Casey would have done or others, even McCormick. He seems to like to be on Fox News quite a bit. Not like it's a disease of a lot of those people, but any thoughts on this?

35:25Scott Galloway:I had two observations about Trumpalooza, and that is, and granted, I'm biased, and as weak as the Democratic brand is right now, if you look at where the Republican brand is, there is no more GOP. No, it's just Trump. John Thune, you may not like his politics, but he's what I would call a ground zero for the GOP. He's conservative. He's dignified. He strikes me as a fairly rational actor. He got booed. There's no longer a GOP. There's Trump and there's MAGA. And unless MAGA is able to produce a number of Trump-like characters that can create that cult-like feel, because they've hollowed out the GOP.

36:04Scott Galloway:The second observation is Fetterman, I think, has, like a lot of these senators, decided the most important thing in life is to cling to power like an African dictator. It's probably a hate crime. And he's, I saw his appearance as optionality. And that is, he gets leverage from the Democrats by showing up there.

36:25Kara Swisher:Yeah, even though they call him Benedict Arnold.

36:27Scott Galloway:Yeah, but you got to bet the Democrats are nervous about him flipping. And also, if shit gets really bad, he might flip. So he's basically kind of Senator Sinema minus the charm. There's always one or two senators that realize that being a holdout and being on the fence and threatening to go the other way gives them enormous leverage. And that Wall Street Journal piece was really damning. And so I think he's probably thinking, if I can't get reelected as a Democrat, maybe I'll get reelected as a Republican.

37:01Kara Swisher:He won't. Let me just say he won't. He won't. He will lose. And then he will be a footer.

37:06Scott Galloway:You think he's out? You think it's in?

37:08Kara Swisher:His, the anger, he'll make a Democrat get elected. Like they'll bring in Conor Lamb or someone.

37:15Scott Galloway:Right. Pennsylvania is not like this.

37:18Kara Swisher:Like it's very, like they like a job. But like, it's interesting because my family lives there, a lot of my family, and they, my brother is, I would say, conservative. But he loves the governor. He loves the governor.

37:30Scott Galloway:It's a purple state. I mean, it's a spank state, right?

37:31Kara Swisher:Yeah, and I'm just saying anyone effective, and I don't think they find him effective. And I think that's, you know, he definitely supported McCormick. I think he thinks he's competent, but he loves the governor. And he, you know, it's not quite as angry MAGA as other states. um what speaking of something that was pretty appalling trump is sticking to his latest story about what he did in the aftermath of 9-11 insisting his latest account is exactly accurate trump's version of events has evolved over the years but here's what he said earlier this week united states steel building was creaking really creaking now we thought it was going to fall down the truth is it creaked a lot it creaked there's still creaks but uh it never came down and uh i'll never forget two firemen.

38:17Kara Swisher:We thought it was coming down on top of us and two firemen, big, strong guys. And I'm not the smallest guy in the world. They grabbed me under the arms, said, got to get out of here. And they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I'm big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, fellas, I can run myself. But they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It didn't come down. U.S. steel. I, you know, creaking. Photos and videos show Trump in Lower Manhattan on September 13th and 18th, not until then, but there were no reports or evidence of his firefighter rescue.

38:52Kara Swisher:What he definitely did on 9-11 is he called a local TV station and bragged that now he had the tallest building in Lower Manhattan, which he also didn't. He won't be in New York for the 25th anniversary of 9-11 reportedly because he wasn't allowed to give a speech. She'll be at the Pentagon and J.D. Vance will be at ground zero with all the ex-presidents. Of course, he's trying to make 9-11 about him. I thought this was one of the more appalling things. You know, all of the politicization around this memorial, the 25th anniversary. Obviously, Rudy Giuliani, who has made it his brand in a really grotesque way.

39:27Kara Swisher:He did a great job at the time, but he has to stop making it all about him. He didn't want Mamdani there. And then Mamdani very quickly released all these incredible documents showing how the Giuliani administration hid the dangers of what was happening down there. And then had Jon Stewart there, who's been a real, of all the many things Jon Stewart has done, his backing of cancer victims and things, it's been astonishing. And then, of course, reports out that the cancer has enormous for the people who are down there. You know, Amanda was there underneath the World Trade Center at the time of the attack.

40:04Kara Swisher:I wrote it to her I was like did you get breathe in a lot of that stuff she luckily got out very quickly and moved away from the area really quickly because she felt it was toxic what was happening but thoughts about this Trump just this is grotesque this to me I don't know why I was like it was such stolen valor essentially

40:23Scott Galloway:yeah we become numb to it he's either lying not this one I'd say it's like 80 % chance he's lying or 20 % he's become so senile he believes his own mythology himself but either it's not befitting of a president. The controversy around Mondani, that's ridiculous. He's the mayor of New York. Of course he should be there. I'm glad Trump's not going to be there. And we're going to come back to this at the end of the show. But after 9-11, I was in New York and you could go down to the pile and volunteer to give out water. You could just go down and volunteer. And the CEO of AMB at the time, now he's the CEO of Prologis, Hamid Mogadam, who's a mentor of mine, he called me and he said, do not go downtown.

41:08Scott Galloway:I mean, he went out of his way. There's a busy guy to deliver one message to me. He said, there are millions of tons of pulverized, vaporized cement, asbestos, and glass in the air right now. And he said, do not go downtown. Yeah. And this was before people were talking about it. And by the way, there was nothing malicious here, but Christine and Todd Whitman really fucked up because more people have died in the aftermath from airborne illnesses and cancers than died on 9-11. And our government is supposed to keep us safe. She issued statements saying it was safe. It was not. This was a real error on the part of our leadership.

41:53Kara Swisher:Yeah, I was kind of – I'm glad the Mumdani administration released those documents. I can't believe they weren't released. 25 years, they've known about the situation. I mean, you can't be perfect in those – and that was a terrible crisis. But, man, it was sort of like – I don't know. I was like, of course they lied about it. And didn't give people enough warning, especially the workers down there. And the levels of cancer that are showing up right now, they get cancer quicker.

42:20Scott Galloway:Governor Pataki is claiming he has – cancer from a 9-11 airborne related illness.

42:26Kara Swisher:He could. He was down there a lot. I recall speaking people who were down there a lot, not Donald Trump. But I agree with you. It's one stupid thing after another with Trump every fucking day. But, you know, whether it's Natalie Arp or whatever dumb shit that happened with him all the time. But this one, I was really like, you appalling fuck. Like, I don't know what else to say. I was like, this is, these people risked their lives. All these people died. It is a cemetery. It was a cemetery. You know what I mean? And to try to like focus on himself, like is there no, like to me, that was a moment for our country and it's not his to have.

43:04Kara Swisher:Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Apple introduces a foldable phone. They're really good at folding, as I said.

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46:07Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back with more news. Apple has unveiled the iPhone Duo, its first foldable phone, and the first major new product launch under new CEO John Tarnas. The$2 ,000 phone opens like a book with a 5.4-inch screen when closed and a 7.6-inch display when open. It's kind of like an iPad-sized experience when it's open, but 20 times the price or whatever, a lot more. Someone said it's an iPad at the cost of a MacBook Air. The duo arrives years after Samsung, seven years, and other rivals enter the foldable market. My brother actually has a Samsung foldable phone, which still accounts for less than 2 % of the global smartphone shipments.

46:45Kara Swisher:Foldable phones have not taken off that much. Some people think it's a great version of this. And as you know, Apple is not a pioneer as often as it copies and does a good job. Everyone who's had it says it's great that I've talked to. What do you think? I may buy one. I can't tell if I want it. I can't. I think it looks great. And I like foldable phones and I am in the Apple universe. But it's not particularly inventive. It's just derivative in a good way. I don't know what else to say.

47:15Scott Galloway:My former colleague at Stern and now at Tuck had this great insight that really struck me. And he said that the people that add the most shareholder value are not innovators. It's the second mouse. It's never the first. The first gets mud on their face, arrows on their back, and then someone comes in and scales it. As you referenced, this is a niche market right now. But Apple has a habit of coming in around MP3 players, touchscreens, laptops, and making them more elegant and then making them more aspirational in blowing out the market from a margin standpoint. They're usually not the market leader, but they blow out in terms of margin because of the self-expressive benefit, which is the strongest consumer brand in the world.

47:59Scott Galloway:I tried to order one last night. I couldn't. I don't know.

48:01Kara Swisher:You can't until October.

48:02Scott Galloway:Oh, maybe that's why.

48:04Kara Swisher:Yeah.

48:04Scott Galloway:There you go. But this is anecdotal because I like to signal and, you know, I'll try and do an honest product review. I'd be very interested to know what you think or what Walt Mossberg thinks. I personally, if I had to bet, I think this is going to be a hit. I think Samsung is going to be so fucking angry that they came out with this thing seven years ago. And within about six months, not even six months, I bet within 60 days, Apple sells more of these than all foldable phones have been sold in the last seven years.

48:31Kara Swisher:Do you think the price is too high? It's a pretty high price. If you want to get a pretty decent memory in it, it goes up much higher, by the way, than$2 ,000. $2 ,000 is the bottom. And if you trade in your phone, which you get, you know, like mine is about$650 to trade it in.

48:47Scott Galloway:I don't because everybody thinks Viton or Cartier are the ultimate luxury brands. They're not. The ultimate luxury brands are Stanford and MIT, but close second to those brands is Apple. The billion wealthiest people on the planet all have one thing in common. They're all iOS. I've said this for a long time. When you have an Android phone, you're saying to the world, my life didn't pan out the way I'd hoped. iOS is the ultimate status symbol. It is the ultimate implicit way of saying I'm creative. I'm so good at what I do that I could afford to pay three months of salary in Turkey on a phone. And so I don't think$2 ,000, when you think about the other products and the amount of money people spend on luxury items, I don't think that.

49:30Scott Galloway:But again, I'm not the market because I'm more price and elastic than most people who run things I want. I don't think that's a crazy price for an aspirational flagship Apple product. What do you think?

49:42Kara Swisher:Yeah, yeah. A lot of people, though, say it's an iPad at three times the cost. But it looks really interesting. And, you know, one of the reasons I was thinking of buying it, besides I heard a lot of good things from people who were there, you know, even Casey, who is not a Casey Newton, who's not someone who buys things right away, was like, I'm buying this thing. He must have seen it. is that I'm tired of my iPhone. I want something different. I know it sounds crazy, but I've had this iPhone since the beginning of iPhones. And so I'm like, okay, I'm kind of bored with my, and I need a little more space because I find myself watching a ton on my iPhone now.

50:16Kara Swisher:Like I experience a lot of video on the phone. And so the keyboard is another issue. I think you can probably buy a little keyboard. It looks like something, I use my computer less and less and less and less now.

50:27Scott Galloway:But that's the key point. And that is, yeah, it's more expensive than an iPhone, but it's less expensive than an iPhone and a laptop.

50:35Kara Swisher:Yeah.

50:35Scott Galloway:And if this can obviate the need for two or reduce the need from both those things to one thing, then arguably it's a good value.

50:43Kara Swisher:Yeah, I absolutely will not be replacing my computer. I don't know what they could do. It's fine. It's fine. And I use it so little now that I find it interesting. I think it's been on the keyboard, but even that, I use these devices now as a watching device, much more so than I've noticed that. I watch lots of videos on threads, by the way, which Zuckerberg correctly said it just passed Twitter as a social media platform. I watch a lot of videos on this thing, and I watch television. I watched a lot of Furious on my iPhone, which was interesting when I was traveling. So I don't know. It'll be interesting to see.

51:21Kara Swisher:I'm going to get it. You're going to get it. You'll probably get six. You'll probably get six of them. I'll just get one.

51:26Scott Galloway:I think the most important size of anything, fill in the blank or bad joke here, is the screen in terms of economic value. Tens of billions of dollars and influence have linked from a 90-foot screen known as a movie theater to the television. And then the television leaked to the PC, and that's linked to the phone. I mean, just the – we're talking about trillions of dollars of market capitalization has flowed down to smaller screens. And where this is is what they basically said is there's a big market in between the space between your computer screen and your iPhone. Because I am, and again, I'm not the market.

52:13Scott Galloway:I now late at night have some trouble reading emails on my phone. And one of the reasons I'm going to buy this is I like the idea of just having a slightly bigger interface. But I also don't want to pull out my laptop. I find I'm using my laptop less and less.

52:25Kara Swisher:Yeah, even your iPad mini, I don't use that much. I don't know why I have it. My kids use it to watch stuff, movies and car rides and things like that. I think a lot of people will buy it. I think definitely the echelons, the top echelons are kind of going to be like, oh, I'll try it. This is beautiful. I think it's a beautiful version. The one thing I have, two things I have. One is my brother has had the Samsung foldable phone and it breaks easily. That's one thing. It breaks, like the shattered thing. And so it doesn't look like you can have really a way to protect it as well. It looks like there's not that on it because it can't have one of the things on the back that everybody has on their phones.

53:02Kara Swisher:That's one thing I've noticed. A lot of people have the foldable phones have broken foldable phone, broken screens. So I would worry about that, but maybe they've done something rather strong. They're so

53:14Scott Galloway:good though, aren't they? They're so good with that stuff.

53:16Kara Swisher:They might come out with a good, that's what I'm saying. They've had a few snap views in that area, but in general, I suspect they've solved that problem because every designer has told me this is like the most beautiful design of this, of what this is. And secondly, it's the uncomfortable relationship with tech companies. I'm just going to very quickly before we move to our last segment is, you know, as I said, I've seen the Musk movie. I was pissed off, probably stupidly, but still kind of irritated that they would suck up the Trump, Google, and Apple. I put out instructions on how to use, how to get off of Google Maps, how to get off of search if you wanted to do it.

53:55Kara Swisher:I changed to DuckDuckGo, which I like quite a bit, I have to say. I moved to MapQuest, which is delightful to be back at MapQuest after all these years. I have to say, it's missing a few features like subways and things like that but it's lovely it's a lovely I kind of like it it's like fresh I know it sounds dumb but I'm so sick of Google Maps and so I removed those from my phones and I showed people how to do it I'm starting using the Vivaldi browser I don't instead of Safari I do want to separate myself and it's not just a flex it's like I'm I'm too much using these companies that have no share no values with me like in some way.

54:32Kara Swisher:And I think I'm not, I was thinking, is this like just a moral flex? But it is a moral flex. I don't use Twitter because I think it's a Nazi porn bar. And so I think people should start diversifying their uses and not not using them totally. In this case, there is no choice. I am in the Apple universe and I do not like Android. And so there's not a lot of choice here. But I definitely, you know, don't have the same relationship with Apple that I used to. I don't trust them. And that's one of the things that I will get this as a device. I don't have a lot of choice, but everything else on that phone, I'm going to try to figure out to try to use other technologies that don't like using DuckDuckGo and Claude together works beautifully.

55:21Kara Swisher:It replaces Google search completely. I don't need to use Gemini. I don't need to use stuff like that. I don't know if you feel that way, but I do.

55:28Scott Galloway:I think they should rename it to Lake. Are we doing this again or Lake Epstein. My favorite is Lake from State Farm.

55:35Kara Swisher:Yeah, or Lake Obama. Change Lake Michigan to Lake Obama or something like that. It's so stupid.

55:40Scott Galloway:This again, I file this under distraction because one prediction I'm fairly confident, assuming Democrats retake the House and possibly the chamber and there's a Democratic president, all of which are looking increasingly likely, within 30 days, we're going to re-rename all of this shit.

55:58Kara Swisher:I know. I'm not irritated by Trump. I'm irritated by them. Like, Trump is, of course, a sad, narcissistic, demented old man. Like, I get at, I get, of course he's going to do this. It's them that I really find objectionable. And watching these movies where they make the case for their incredibly bad morals and no guardrails is sort of like, yeah, I'm sick of these fuckers. Like, I'm tired of having to put up with this shit. And maybe we could use our consumer power like you did with your efforts.

56:30Scott Galloway:I want to rename it Lake Sam. The first night at the club when you left, Ron made out with two girls and put his head between a cocktail waitress's breasts. I think that's how we should be named Lake Ontario.

56:44Kara Swisher:Yeah, anyway, Canada, we're with you on this one. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be right back.

56:54Kara Swisher:Support for this show comes from Quince. Do you have a favorite thing in your closet, the thing you look forward to breaking out every year? Maybe it's your favorite sweater, the jeans that go with everything, or the bag that goes wherever you do. Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe, and that's exactly what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated, everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and washable silk. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. It's also affordable, too. All of their items are priced 50 % to 80 % less than similar brands.

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58:10Kara Swisher:Hey there, it's Sue Bird. You know the drill. Another week, another new episode of Bird's Eye View. This week, I'm thrilled to be joined by Australia's most notable women's basketball player and my former Seattle Storm teammate, Lauren Jackson. She talks about the pros and cons of going pro at 16, the Opals' legendary FIBA World Cup run in 2006, and how her role on a team differs between international tournaments and the WNBA. Plus, in Sue's view, I answer your questions about the UConn documentary that came out. Make sure to check out Bird's Eye View on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.

58:47Kara Swisher:What's up, everybody? It's Cam Hayward, Steelers captain and host of Not Just Football. We just sat down with Aaron Rodgers, four-time MVP, Super Bowl champion, future Hall of Famer, for one of the most open and honest conversations we've ever had on the show. There was so much to get into, we had to split it into two parts. Part one is out right now, and trust me, you don't want to miss it. Aaron gives us his real story behind coming back for one final season. We also talk about how he was ready to retire once Mike T stepped down and how reuniting with McCarthy changed everything. We get into playing with Mike T for one more year.

59:21Kara Swisher:This year's squad, the old team narrative, who stood out this summer, and what it's like to be in the quarterback. Aaron also opens up about what he still has left to accomplish this season and what it looks like when he hangs it up with him. And that's only part one. Part two drops this Thursday. That's when we go beyond football, the media, the conspiracy theories, what people still get wrong about Aaron Rodgers, his legacy, Super Bowl ring, the GOAT debate, and the overrated and underrated where things really get off limits. Part one is out right now. Part two drops this Thursday, September 10th.

59:55Kara Swisher:Watch Notches Football with Cam Hayward on YouTube or listen to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:00:06Kara Swisher:Okay, Scott, we're going to do something a little different. This episode is airing on the 25th anniversary of 9-11, and we wanted to look back on that day. Take it away.

1:00:15Scott Galloway:Well, I want to hear your thought. Some people earn their way into history, whether it's storming the beaches at Omaha or refusing to give up a bus seat, or we talked about Gloria Steinem and Dolly Parton through sheer force of character or talent. Mine was serendipity around 9-11. I was living in, I had just moved to New York, and my ex, who I was still, I'm still good friends with, called me and said, can you come over? And she had an apartment that overlooked downtown and had this unbelievable deck. And she said, can you come over? The World Trade Center's on fire. And I said, sure. So I bombed over there.

1:00:49And my friend, Greg Shove, close friend, came with me, and we were over there.

1:00:54Scott Galloway:And it was, the World Trade Center was on fire. And then, and we saw this go down, we saw a plane flying low and then disappear behind one of the second tower. And then it explosion out the other end. And at that moment, it took about 10 seconds to figure out, oh, fuck, we're under attack. This is terrorism. And each of the three of us had different reactions. And Sixth Avenue became a sea of people just coming up from them. One of the largest maritime rescue was not Dunkirk. It was actually ferries lifted or sequestered or got 500 ,000 people from lower Manhattan, rescued them by water. And I remember the radio, a guy came on the radio and said, there's 17 planes unaccounted for.

1:01:46Scott Galloway:And immediately you thought, are we in one of the tall buildings that might be targeted next? and some of the things I noticed about the city during those three days was it was silent. No one was honking their horn. It just went eerily quiet, except you would on a regular basis see someone on their phone sobbing that they had just received bad news. There was also a total absence. They immediately fired up and called in all nurses and emergency room doctors thinking they'd have a flood of people into the hospitals. They didn't. You were either killed or survived. And one of the more disturbing things was I walked over to Washington Square Park where they were having a memorial and a bunch of people who were searching for missing people were walking around passing out flyers like a lost pet.

1:02:34Scott Galloway:And you'd see all these people. There'd be huge groups of people trying to be supportive of their friend passing out flyers. And someone would come up to you and give you a flyer with a picture of their son. I remember one was a waiter from Windows of the World in his waiter uniform, and you knew that this person was gone. And yet these people were in this park passing out these flyers for days. And it was just so rattling. Per your comments, 3 ,000 people dead. More people have died because of, as you pointed out, some of the airborne illnesses. But a couple of other things worth noting or the lessons I take from it on its 25th year anniversary, just coming back to just how incredibly stupid our invented war against an ally Canada is.

1:03:23Scott Galloway:The airspace for the first time ever in America was closed. Planes were diverted to Canada. And overnight, about 7 ,000 people found themselves in Gander, Canada, nearly doubling the population. They took them into their houses. They got additional prescription drugs. They figured out dry cleaning. They did their laundry. They figured out childcare, right? That's what Canadians did for us. That's the kind of friend Canada was to us during 9-11. And then the story, trying to bring it back full circle to the midterms that really moved me, was the story of Flight 93. So Flight 93, they actually had phones.

1:04:01Scott Galloway:And so the cockpit had been seized and they called. And in most previous hijackings, the passengers survive. They try to take them to a Havana or they land or they make demands. The standard operating procedure was to not do anything. And when they called, the Twin Towers had already been hit and it was obvious. And they have recordings of a couple of the passengers who recognize, okay, this is a suicide mission. And there's this one very dramatic moment where the guy says, okay, let's roll. And they basically filled up what they think was a meal cart and crashed into the cockpit. And the terrorists lost control of the plane or decided rather than giving back control of the plane, they crashed it into the field.

1:04:46Scott Galloway:And they're technically considered kind of the first heroes of 9-11 and just bringing it back to the midterms, you know, you're faced with this question of, all right, we can hope that things work out or we can try and retake control of the cockpit, meaning it's probably not going to work out. And you know how they decided? Vote. Yeah, they voted.

1:05:05Kara Swisher:They voted. Yeah, I remember.

1:05:07Scott Galloway:So where I go is it just, whenever I think about that, I think about how blessed and under, blessed we are that we get to vote and how much we underappreciate. just what a powerful construct it is.

1:05:23Kara Swisher:Right. I agree.

1:05:25Scott Galloway:Anyways, so there's a long-winded way of, I think I would like to see a law. I've been thinking a lot about the midterms. I don't think anyone should get, or they should have reduced benefits. I don't think anyone should have a social media account if they don't vote. There are certain countries where you have to vote. And I think especially, and I think this infects the left as much, if not more than the right, The delta between the amount of bitching on social media and into a mic relative to actual actions, that delta is growing broader and broader. And one simple way to somewhat narrow that delta is, for God's sakes, vote.

1:06:04Kara Swisher:Yep. I'll very quickly reflect. I was not in New York at the time, but I was headed to New York. I was headed to D.C. and then New York. I was driving around the country with my ex-wife, Megan. And we just rented a van and a Volkswagen van and we're driving around with our dogs just to see the country. We thought it would be cool. I was pregnant and I didn't know it because I had tried. And, you know, usually it takes a few times, but I got pregnant right away. And I slept a lot in the back of the van and I should have known that that was the reason. And we stopped in Mississippi at Jim Barksdale's.

1:06:38Kara Swisher:He's a wonderful, speaking of wonderful tech people, Jim Barksdale is the top.

1:06:42Scott Galloway:CEO of AT &T and the Netscape, right?

1:06:44Kara Swisher:Yeah, the Netscape. Amazing, kind, wonderful person. But we were there at their house, and his wife opened the door. We were leaving that morning, and she opened the door, and she goes, oh, you're not leaving, you know, in a big Southern accent. And I said, oh, I know you love us, but we're leaving. And she's like, you're not going anywhere. And we ended up, you know, found out what was happening. It was shocking. And we ended up watching the entire thing, including the second building falling in this redneck bar in Mississippi. And everybody was just devastated. There was no screaming, no yelling, no fighting, just total grief and shock, I think, that this could happen.

1:07:33Kara Swisher:And then we ended up driving around the country. We had to drive back to California after we went to Washington. We, it was, everything was silent in the country. We drove across the country. I mean, not just New York, everywhere. Everybody was quiet. And there were some banners like around, you know, at highway overpasses, like beautiful banners about, you know, remember the dead and stuff like that. But I've never, the entire country was in a stupor. And it just was, I, to this day, it makes me so sad. It was such a formative experience. And at the same time, I was pregnant, you know, and I ended up having Louis, you know, nine months later.

1:08:15Kara Swisher:But I think we all have to keep everything in mind of all the bravery that when happened. And this, I was thinking today, you know, the guy, the duct tape guy, we didn't talk, the guy that got duct taped. And first for a minute, I thought it was you, who got duct taped into the seat for being racist and screaming and biting people. That's why his forehead was duct taped.

1:08:33Scott Galloway:When I have a few cocktails on a plane, I become incredibly nice.

1:08:36Kara Swisher:Yes, I get that. I'm teasing. I didn't think it was you at all. You'd never do something like that. And I thought, that fucker. I don't know why. I'm so sick of these angry, privileged people when all these people sacrificed a lot. And every country has had its crises and tragedies, by the way. We're not the only ones. And it was brought home to us because we live in a country that's far away from others. So we don't experience that kind of devastation. But it makes you think of what's happening in Kyiv. And it makes you think what's happening, you know, all across the world. And we have this.

1:09:11Kara Swisher:It's enough with the duct tape fucking guy. We're done with these people. And voters have to step up. And, you know, it's a privilege to live in this country. And that was a real wake up call. And I thought maybe we'll be a little better. And we have not gotten a little better. And we have to stop the handing power over to people that have no care for anything but themselves, like the tech companies, like, you know, at this moment, it happens to be the Trump administration, any administration that is just in it for themselves. And that's, I have to say, 9-11 was a great, could have been a great unifying moment, and it wasn't, right?

1:09:49Scott Galloway:You know, see, I would argue it was the last time we were unified.

1:09:51Kara Swisher:Yeah, I guess, I guess. But it should have had resonance. And we should reflect on that, on how we felt that day as a joint people and just put all these angry, aggrieved people behind us and move to a better, I don't know, I just feel like, and by the way, if AI is going to kill us by 2030, like maybe you didn't need to work out so much while you were away, Scott. But, you know, we have to start seizing the power back from all the people who are not, do not have everybody's best interests at heart. Anyway, it was a devastating day. I think everybody should take a minute to reflect on themselves and this country.

1:10:33Kara Swisher:And again, to the victims, just what a terrible thing that happened. And the only last thing I'd say is I'd recommend Tom Jonad wrote a story about the man who jumped to this incredible photograph they collected and sort of traced, tried to figure out who that was, which I thought was a beautiful story. And the second one was by Jen Senior about speaking of a waiter at Windows on the World, which was a beautiful place, by the way, if you had ever gone there. I went there for lunch once. I would recommend Jen Senior's piece and Tom Duden's piece if you want to read some very beautiful pieces about that day.

1:11:12Kara Swisher:Anyway, on that sad note, Scott, I am thrilled you're back, I have to say. Thank you.

1:11:16Scott Galloway:It's great to be back.

1:11:17Kara Swisher:All right. We want to hear from you. We love hearing from our listeners, and lots of people did come up to me, Scott, and say they missed you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. 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 Tuesday.

1:11:40Scott Galloway:Today's show was produced by Lara Nehman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Aaliyah Jackson engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Rivera, Dan Chalon, and Kate Gallagher. Mishak Kruas, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Let's roll. Let's vote.