Trump’s Strange Playlist, Kamala on Fox, and Elon’s Robot Fail

23:42Despite evidence everywhere, the thought that we were going to try and get them to realize or that the CEO of Exxon is ever going to come to grips with the existential crisis of climate change. No one at his funeral is going to say, you know, he was the CEO of the biggest fossil fuels company in the world, but he choked back on it. And shareholders lost money, but maybe the world is one millionth of a degree cooler than it would be otherwise. All they're going to remember is if he was a generous guy and if he had, you know, a fat house and his kids did well. Every incentive in our economy points towards money.

24:13I find it irritating they have to always go with utopia. Like, it's going to be so good for everyone. And I think it probably will be. I just am like, stop selling past the sale, I guess. That's how I feel. We're connecting the world. Yes, just like you're making money, right? Okay, got it. Organizing the Earth's information. Yeah, exactly. Like, you're not here to don't be evil. Stop it. Stop it. They can't help themselves, these tech people. Anyway, let's get to our first big story.

24:39Vice President Kamala Harris appears to be taking our advice. I'm sure she's listening to everything we say. As her media blitz continues, Harris's campaign officials met with Joe Rogan's team this week about a potential interview. Although, because he's such a doormat, it's perfect to go on there. Although an appearance has yet to be confirmed. Doormat? You really think it's a doormat? I think it's gullible. Oh, he's just like, whatever someone says, he's like, oh, interesting. He'll just be complimented that they're there. Donald Trump also hinted at doing Rogan. On Wednesday, Harris—why wouldn't they?

25:07It's enormous. That's why she did Call Your Daddy. On Wednesday, Harris sat down with Fox News' Brett Baer. Another thing we suggested she do, and in fact, things got heated. Brett was trying to be Mr. Tough, I guess, and did a few Republican talking points and talked over her quite a bit. I know what he was trying to do, but he looked like he was super nervous. Harris pushed back. It gave her an opportunity to push back and some right wing talking points and also tried to make the case for why Trump is so dangerous. Let's listen. You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people.

25:39He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy. And in a democracy, the president of the United States in the United States of America should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he'd lock people up for doing it. Yeah, I thought she was quite strong. Her answers on immigration were okay, but she was there. She did say her presidency would be different than Biden's, which is what she didn't manage to do on The View, which I think people want her to do it in a deft way without throwing him under the bus.

26:22So do you think she succeeded in winning over any right-wing voters? I thought going there was a good thing. And it's not, you know, I was on CNN last night and Scott Jennings, who can be super irritating, although isn't stupid, was like, well, she doesn't get a participation trophy. And I only— No, she kind of does. She does. She kind of does, Scott. She kind of does. Because he's not. That's right. And also, guess what she didn't do? Spend 30 minutes swaying to music playing Ave Maria three times. God, that was weird. So she didn't do that. And so, you know, they grade her on such a curve compared to him.

26:56He literally is addled. No comparison. And at the economics club, he spewed nonsense. I thought this was a win for her, and I thought it's good that she does. She should do it again. She should do it over and over again, everywhere. Yeah, look, just being there, if you want to be part of the resistance, you have to go behind enemy lines. And if you're good at this, it goes—I mean, the best moments for Clinton or for Governor Newsom are when they go on Fox. Yeah, and Pete Buttigieg, too. 100%. Secretary Buttigieg is never better than when he's on Fox because he's like, guys, that literally bitch, that's the best you have?

27:30And he's back in their face with it. And I thought she was okay. I think on the whole, it was a win for her. Like, she's not great on her feet. And sometimes her words come across. And I want to be clear, she is held to an entirely different standard than Trump. Well, because she can string a sentence together, but go ahead. Well, and all that, I mean, the reality is we I'm going to go there. It's just a different standard for a woman. A woman is if if she was hallucinating on stage and said, oh, we're going to listen to the song and set up their swing for 30 minutes. It'd be everyone would just be like, oh, she's crazy.

28:06She's not a serious candidate. We can't vote for her. I thought it was good that she went on. But here's this will be the election of the podcast, because if she goes on Joe Rogan, which I think she's going to do. She will reach more people by being on Rogan than she would reach if she went on CNN, Fox, MSNBC in primetime combined. He gets 11 million listeners per show. Go on all those shows every day of the week for a full week. Not as many people will see you as if you go on Joe Rogan. She also has to go on everything. Everywhere. She'll get better as she does it, right? Everybody gets better.

28:49as they do things. We got better at this podcast as we did it, right? And I do think once, you know, interestingly, after the debate, even my mom was like, oh, she was pretty good. Like, they just need to see her. And if she doesn't like sway to the music, and let's just talk about that. Former President Donald Trump, you know, not only did he declare himself the father of IBF in an all-female town hall with Fox News, it was packed with pro-Trump people, by the way, women, not one detractor. He also had a bizarre, this bizarre event on Monday where he had enough of answering questions of which he were all preselected, by the way.

29:23It was 39 minutes. They replayed Ave Maria, which the last time I heard it was at my grandmother's funeral. I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you. It was like 30 years ago. That's the trauma. If we figured it out, that's the trauma. Trauma. I know. Ave Maria. I cannot believe he played it three times. Governor Tim Walsh summed it up pretty well. Let's listen. He stopped taking questions and stood frozen on stage for 30 minutes while they played his Spotify list for people. Do you think he knows the story behind the YMCA song? Look, it was strange, but if this was your grandfather, you would take the keys away.

30:10You would take the keys away. Yeah, and Kristi Noem looked like a home health aide. She looked like she needed to find a dog to kill to take the attention off of him. Some people have dismissed this stuff as silly or weird. I find it concerning. Reuters has polling on whether people believe Trump is, quote, mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges. Fifty-three percent of voters agreed with that sentiment in July of 2023. That number is down to 46 percent as of last week. People are sort of getting the message. What do you think about his, you know, she could always have done better, but she could string sentences together and go, you know, mano a mano with Brett.

30:45He had a very hard time in all his interviews having any cogent sentences. How do you think this matters? Has it gotten through quickly enough? I think the Trump campaign believes that as of right now, they would win and they're playing defense. I mean, they're Susie Wiles, the brains behind all of this. I think she's basically said, look, we have momentum right now. Just put him in a basement. Don't let him speak. And he's kind of gotten the message. He doesn't go free for him. He doesn't want to answer questions. He's trying to avoid anything. I think at this point in the campaign, it's a strategic mistake.

31:18The way you lose in football in the second half, if you're up 2-0, is you play not to lose. And he's playing, I think right now, he's playing not to lose. I think she's doing absolutely the right thing. I'd like to think, and again, you know, I won't speak for you. I'm too close to this. I'm too emotionally involved in it. But I think where the next two or three weeks are going to really help is one, I do think money helps in terms of turn out the vote in a ground game and she has more money. And two, I think her team of surrogates, whether it's Bill Clinton and Waffle Houses or Barack Obama speaking to black men, I think her surrogates are more powerful.

31:58But it's very interesting. The momentum has swung back pretty aggressively towards Trump over the last two weeks. I'll be curious what happens this week. And the ultimate litmus test, in my opinion, the only poll I'm watching, the only poll I trust is the stock price of Donald Trump media. I don't. I think it's all gamed, along with Polymarket, which is controlled by Peter Thiel, by the way, FYI. Well, it's pretty interesting. It was at 46 when, you know, after the Biden debate, when everyone thought he was still going to stay in. And then when he dropped out of the race. And Vice President Harris got some momentum.

32:37It plummeted to 12. And in the last two weeks, since he's sort of reestablished some momentum, it's now back up to like 34. I think that just reflects their confident. It doesn't mean that it's not bound in truth. I think they're confident. And that is absolutely true. That said, he was at Univision last night and Scott, this audience was just was subject to him. He's gone out and he's not in a basement, that's for sure. He's around. Grandpa is wandering around saying weird things. He was on Univision. Go watch some of those clips. One guy, he said January 6th was a gathering of love. He started going on about immigrants when a guy asked.

33:13I got to tell you the questions from this, I think it was a largely Hispanic audience, were great. They were like, okay, you're going to get rid of all these immigrants. Who's going to pick my crops? Like, I pick crops for years. You're going to make prices go up. And they had great, one was like, I'm sorry, I'm a Republican. But what is going on with you and January 6th? You need to stop. He had all kinds of nonsensical questions. And when he did that January 6th was a gathering of love, literally the whole crowd was, you know when you look down when an old person pees in their pants? You're like, everybody doesn't want to say anything?

33:49That's what the whole crowd was looking down anywhere but at him. And they were concerned. Like, this guy needs to be taken off stage because he needs to have his diaper changed. And that's what it felt like. The more he's out, the more it's dead clear he's mentally incapacitated or increasingly. So I'm not so sure I believe in the Trump stock thing. I think they're confident. I think it's misplaced confidence because I do think this crowd was fascinating to watch them react to him. And it was the same thing at the economic club. Anywhere he goes, he's addled. He's just addled. Anyway, what he's not addled about is he would quote, he would do something about Google in an interview with Bloomberg's editor-in-chief, which I was talking about.

34:30Trump was asked about the DHO's recent proposal to possibly break up Google, which he initially responded with a rant about a lawsuit against Virginia election officials. When pressed again, Trump called the company a threat and that without breaking Google up, things could be more fair. This is, again, he threatened Mark Zuckerberg. You know, he said Google has to be careful. It will shut down. He will shut it down. J.D. Vance is making things up, whole cloth saying that there was a, that he has now said the election was stolen and that the tech companies colluded to do so without any proof. And also actually Twitter, the Twitter files show that it didn't do what all the right wing said it did.

35:09But he's doubling down on just flat out lying, J.D. Vance. So what should tech companies do? Because at one point they're all up in the grill of tech and at the same times J.D. Vance is like sleeping with all of them. I mean, not really, I don't think, but anyway. Yeah, look, the whole thing, it's just so hilarious that a far right talking point is that they're being censored and that, you know, censorship and Senator Vance's go-to in terms of a weapon mass distraction when asked about January 6th is like, will you admit that the media has been censoring Donald Trump and censored Donald, you know, censored information, suppressed information about what was on Hunter Biden's laptop in an attempt to go look over here?

35:53I don't want to actually answer this question. The censorship thing, the closest thing we have to really broad sweeping censorship is when the person running for president has said, I'm going to shut down Google because I don't like what they've said about me. They've been unfair to me. They've been very unfair. All the articles, like all the articles, 40 of them are negative. I said, that's because you're a jerk. But isn't that the definition of censorship? that I am using the power of my office to try and intimidate media companies. No one's calling that censorship. So we've just entered this weird phase where I have a view of his disruption and chaos.

36:37I want to burn government down. I am sick of a group of people consistently telling me lies. The establishment, whether it's Liz Cheney or the Democrats, I'm sick of the establishment. I see prosperity everywhere. where I don't seem to be participating in it. I'm not going to marry this guy. He's not going to be my rabbi, but I like his no-nonsense, hard-charging right. You know, they think he's better on economics. They think he's better on the border, whether you think that's true or not. And they're just now, he's flooded the zone with so much crazy shit that people just are immune to it. It's a very, I've never seen anything like it.

37:16I don't know. It's lie after lie. And now J.D. Vance is the most heinous liar. He's a liar. He, to me, is the most frightening figure here because I think Trump is mentally disabled. And I think they're going to, I would watch my back if I were Trump, if I won this election. I'll tell you that. Of course, the CEO who's not worried is Elon Musk. We're learning more about his donations. He made the pro-Trump super PAC he created earlier this year. Although I heard it's like a hot mess over there, as I'm hoping he'll do to Trump what he did to Twitter revenues. He's given nearly$75 million to that super PAC, which is not very much for him since July, according to recent FEC's fines.

37:51But it matters a great deal. This money is important. He's also threatening to go to Pennsylvania and do his own things because he's a pathetic attention sponge. How much impact do you think this has? This is a lot of money for Trump. Yeah, but to be fair, I mean, these people are allowed to give money. And we have our big donors, right? Yeah, I agree. We have Reid Hoffman. We have— Vinod Khosla. Bill Gates. Bill Gates. Bill Coslaw, Gates. Sheryl Sandberg. Yeah. No, I get it. Reed Hastings. I don't think Sheryl's giving that much money. I think she is secretly. Is she? I'm surprised she doesn't have a picture with her and a big check.

38:28Anyways, we have our big donors. They have theirs. And Trump or Musk is one of them. You know, that's fine. I don't see that he's allowed to do it. Yeah, me too. We have our big donors. They have theirs. You mentioned that last night, which I thought was the idea of someone asked about how do we get them to pass legislation. And Scott immediately was like, overturn Citizens United and get money out of politics and pay politicians more. Just illuminate us on that very quickly, the idea that you were saying. Well, look, Citizens United, the idea that money is people and has a voice, we don't believe that in other nations.

39:01There's government matching for elections such that good people who spent the majority of their life in public service who don't happen to be rich have a shot at running. They don't allow political ads before a certain time. I mean, And keep in mind, the U.K. has an election start to finish in about four weeks. And I actually think it's good for the nation because all we do for 18 months is figure out how much we hate our neighbors and how much they hate us. It's just bad for America. So if there was any way to overturn Citizens United, that would be the start. And then when I heard this about, because I have a fairly positive view of Mayor Adams, I don't know much about him.

39:33Oof, I'm so anxious, but go ahead. That's a shocker. We disagree. Anyway, so he's indicted for, and I'm like, whoa, the Southern District. That is the call you do not want to get, is the Southern District says we're coming for you. And it's over plane tickets and hotel stays sponsored by, from the government of Turkey, in exchange for him expediting fire safety, putting pressure on fire safety commissioners to approve the fire safety infrastructure at the, I think it was the Turkish embassy. see. And it's like, Jesus Christ, such small ball. The problem is that's something politicians do every day, but you're not supposed to do it from a foreign agent or foreign entity.

40:15That's where he's getting into trouble. And I thought, this is all a function of the following. When our elected representatives are hanging out with billionaires and hanging out at the most beautiful venues, but they're having trouble. It's not easy for them to pay their credit card bills. A lot of Congress people actually have roommates because they can't afford a second place to live in DC. And by the way, Nancy Pelosi can trade fucking stocks after confidential hearings with defense contractors. That makes no fucking sense. Yeah, I agree. Pay them more. I think we pay our Congress people a million bucks a year and we pay our senators two million bucks a year because these people are important.

40:54Most of them are very qualified, very esteemed, have a ton of opportunity costs. So pay them well. I'm curious, Scott, what would you ask for a bribe from Turkey? I would not ask for a plane ticket. What would you ask for? I would ask for great seats to the European Championship in Istanbul with my son. That's all it would take? And then I'd want to go up the Bosphorus. I'd want to party with some hot Turkish chicks on the roof of the Soho House, Istanbul, which is the old American embassy. I can come up with a lot. I can come up with a lot. Yeah, I know. I felt like he didn't ask for enough. If he's going to go for bribery and get in trouble.

41:30Yeah, look. Eric. Whatever we talk, whatever Vox asks us to do anything, we're like, oh, we'll do it, but it's going to cost you. We're whores, but we're expensive whores. That's correct. I was like, Eric, come on. You're such a cheap, like if you're getting bribed, a plane ticket. If you're going to sell out, get a jet, get a golf stream. A plane in a hotel? Go New Jersey Senator. What that, that gold bars. that, anyway, they're cheap. I love that. They're cheap hoars. The guy had gold bars in his closet. I love a gold, I bet you have gold bars here. Oh, no, I'm innocent. You have gold bars here?

42:04No, I don't have any gold bars, but I always, I always travel with a rough cut gem stuck up my ass. More for sensory pleasure. I think you have gold, I'm going to look around for gold bars later. Okay. No gold bars. Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll discuss Elon's robot taxi event where not everything was what it seemed and take a listener mail question about facing financial challenges with a parent.

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43:09Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, they're just some of the biggest faces of their networks. If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes. But what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels. And that was James Ponowozik, the TV critic for The New York Times. This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable. for now. That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

43:55Scott, we're back with our second big story. We'll make quick work of it. Tesla shares fell 10 % last week following Elon's big Wii Robot event, where he revealed the CyberCab, a two-door sedan with no steering wheel and pedals, costing$30K, if it's ever made. Elon said the car would be in production before 2027, but acknowledged I tend to be a little optimistic. Yes, he's been predicting cyber taxis since a decade ago, I guess. Full self-driving, etc. He also, including to me in many interviews, he also unveiled another vehicle, the RoboVan, which he called RoboVan for some reason. Let's let him explain.

44:26What happens if you need a vehicle that is bigger than a Model Y? The RoboVan. The RoboVan is, this is, we're going to make this and it's going to look like that. Now, can you imagine going down the streets and you see this coming to water? That'd be sick. Actually, the RoboVan looked like a lot of stuff in iRobot, and the director complained it was exactly like it. It also said he had 20 seats, it had 14. It was ridiculous. It looked like a giant toaster on wheels. He's never going to make it. Elon was pushing Tesla. I will bet a lot of money on that. Elon was also pushing Tesla's Optimus robots, which you predict it could be the biggest product ever of any kind.

45:07But he neglected to mention that robots at the event were actually remotely controlled by humans. So not much better than Disney robots, not at all better than Disney robots nearby where this event was at Warner Studios in Los Angeles. It wasn't a game changer. Obviously, one of the things he forgot to leave out is Waymo has been operating in the streets of many, many cities for a long time. Shares of Uber went up. And by the way, Uber might buy Expedia, which Dara Kosashahi used to run. But that's an aside. And even if Tesla actually delivers on technology, will you actually be able to buy these things?

45:43What's the business? I think. And then meanwhile, let me just say in a compliment. And I think this is Gwen Shotwell. That's who I'm going to compliment. They managed to bring a rocket down, a big giant booster down, and catch it with two chopsticks, essentially. Amazing. And meanwhile, he does this P.T. Barnum bullshit. Talk about what's happening here. It's such, I mean, it's so bipolar in terms of behavior. Yeah, but I'm glad you brought that up because in the same week, let's be honest, that was just remarkable that it could launch its Starship vehicle, the largest rocket, the largest booster rocket ever, and then caught its super heavy booster rocket back on the launch pad.

46:22Literally caught it with, as you said, these giant chops. I mean, that's just unbelievable. Yep. Gwen Shotwell, good job. It is clear he has basically no longer really cares about Tesla because did you listen to him speaking? He clearly hadn't rehearsed. No, not at all. He didn't know what he was talking about. And it reminded me of the following. I once heard, I wasn't invited, but I met this really nice woman who was marrying this famous kind of celebrity chef. They rented out this incredible destination, the hotels, the flowers. Everyone shows up, 300 guests. And the groom was a no-show. What?

47:01Oh, I so much want to go to a wedding like that. Oh, God. I think it sounded pretty depressing. Anyways, but, you know, we're all here. We've rented the place. We got to have a party. So they ended up having a party. This, to me, was they rented this whole thing. They'd been telling their analysts they were going to have a day and update them. And they had literally nothing to say. They did have the vehicle there, the cyber taxi. It looked cool or a robot taxi. The design looked great, but he gave no specifics around details, around technology, around timeline. He even said, what was most telling, he said, we expect this to be in full production by 2025.

47:39And then there was a pause and he goes, maybe 2026. You're just making it up, yeah. Every auto analyst worth their salt said this was such bullshit. And I think they knew they had a turd on their hands. So they said, I know we'll create weapons of mass distraction. They basically had a concept car, this Reboven. If you go to any auto show. They're never going to make it. And it's a lift. It was on a fake soundstage. And it's a fake thing. It's fake. Look over here because the main event is such a turd. We have to distract people. If you go to an auto show, there's crazy cool concept cars everywhere that will never see the light of day.

48:21And that's the Reboven. And then he said, I know, let's have robots, which is a technology in search of, and then these quote unquote autonomous robots that can watch your kids and make you dinner. And it ends up there were people in the audience with remote controls controlling the robots. The biggest tell here was he didn't even know his lines. He hadn't read his lines. Now he could give a talk. What was really interesting is the market. And again, the thing I love about stock prices is they're an incredible form of media in the sense that they absorb millions of points of life from people who have nothing but a profit motive, usually.

48:58Usually. And if you look at what happened, everyone was really freaked out that this might be the end of Uber and Lyft. If all of a sudden there's a million autonomous cars on the road competing with ride-hailing companies, Uber and Lyft. As soon as that event happened, the next day, every analyst went, oh, God, nothing to worry about here. This is not a threat to Uber and Lyft. And their stocks were up 11 % and 10 % respectively. So the market has weighed in here and said, this is a big head fake. And again, Tesla at eight or nine times revenues versus Toyota that is now growing as fast. Amazing company.

49:34Has guessed right on hybrids or planned right. Is trading at, I think, 0.8 or 0.9 times revenue. So either Toyota is vastly undervalued or Tesla is vastly overvalued. But this was the worst product launch. In the same week, we had one of the most amazing product de-launches or launch captures. And the worst product launch all from the same man. I thought it was fascinating. It was fascinating. I'm literally, because, you know, he's spending all his time either jumping on stages and doing political stuff or he doesn't care about Tesla. And everything they introduced is already in the field by other companies.

50:13And he would have to really focus here. I don't think he could do it, although he's been lying about autonomous college for years and years. I like that he even lies. I don't even care. He's sort of like, it's a hope and a dream. I do that sometimes. Like, I'm going to do this. I don't mind that. But he's constantly now saying things that just aren't true. I'm going to have two kids at 60. That's right. That's correct. I did say that to myself, and then it happened. So I don't even mind that. I love how you just figured out that you're going to be really old. When they go to college. When they go to college.

50:45I know. It's like you assumed you were going to go into a cryogenic chamber. Well, I'm like Elon in that way. Hope and a dream, Scott. Hope and a dream. But I'll be living at this beautiful apartment that you're now going to sign over to me. Anyway, it's all one floor. It means I won't fall too hard and break my hip. All right. Let's, whatever. Good job on the rocket, Gwen Shotwell. Oh, my God. She's amazing. She's amazing. Gwen Shotwell. We need to focus on Gwen Shotwell all the time. And it'll drive him crazy. He'll end up firing her because she's a really great operator. And over at Tesla, I think he hired his chief of staff who helped him with that weird glass thing.

51:23Everybody left Tesla recently, and now he's putting all these lackeys into place. Anyway, you're right. He doesn't care about Tesla anymore. I just imagine him walking around going, hey, you want to have kids? Hey, hey, want to propagate? Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question.

51:46This question comes via email. I'll read it. Hi, Kara and Scott, big fan of the podcast and would love your insights on a financial challenge with a parent. How do you approach financial planning with a parent who is increasingly keen on betting against the U.S. economy, influenced by questionable sources and conspiracy theories, basically anything but mainstream media. My mom is particularly bullish on gold, convinced that the U.S. dollar is on the verge of collapse. I strive to listen and offer data-driven advice, but I'm concerned that if I challenge her beliefs too directly, we'll push her further towards those ideas.

52:13How can I communicate that the U.S. economy isn't on the brink of implosion without alienating her? Thank you, Nikki from Texas. Oh man, Scott. Oh, I don't know. Get control of her stuff, I guess, Nikki. Scott, you answer this. Have her committed. Have her committed. My mom spends way too much money, but it's her money. I don't really care what she does with her money. I think you've got to reframe the argument, and that is rather arguing against her for an asset class, because quite frankly, she might be right and you might be wrong. Each of you has a 50-50 likelihood that gold is a good or a bad investment or the U.S.

52:45economy is going to go up or down from here. It's the wrong argument. The argument is the following. It's mom, we have some money. You have some money. Nobody knows. The brightest people in the world don't know. What they do know is that we shouldn't put too many of our eggs in one basket. Mom, if you feel you have insight here or you get some reward from picking this stuff, then okay, we're going to take 10, maybe 15 % of your assets and you're going to buy gold. But we're going to put the rest in diversified index funds because here's the thing, mom, you don't have the time to make it back. And it doesn't matter how smart you are.

53:17Warren Buffett lost 50, 60 % of his net worth during the Great Financial Recession. You can be a genius. The market will always trump individual behavior. So if you want to have some fun, you're really into gold, fine. But the majority of your assets, because we love you and we want to make sure that you are always economically fine and that you don't have the emotional stress of financial stress of this age, we're putting the rest in diversified index funds. Can we agree on this, mom? You want to put some money in gold, fine. But the majority of it needs to be in diversified, low-cost index funds.

53:52Don't argue over asset classes. She knows no less or more than you. What you know is that she needs to be diversified and ensure she doesn't have the stress of financial stress at this point in her life. Listen, Nikki, I would do the opposite. I would make a fake gold bar and hand it to her and try to get control of her finances. That's called parental abuse. That's correct, because you're protecting her. I think, is she old? I don't know. If she's not old, I don't know. I'm always like with my mom and her money, you know, if it's your money, spend it down to zero and then you'll be at our behest at some point.

54:31But I don't I think you can't protect people from the things they want to do. What you can protect them from is schemes and things like that. That's something that's important. Don't let her buy Trump gold coins or sneaker gold sneakers or whatever she happens to like gold. Be careful of scams and get keep her out of those. Just let her buy a gold, whatever, a gold future or whatever. Individual assets at that age or a scam. Yeah, I agree. But I'm just saying, just buy a little bit of a gold. What is a gold future? What do you buy? You don't actually buy gold, right? Give her some Kruger hands.

55:00Old people like Kruger hands. Now I'm being ageist. Give her some. Kruger hands. Put them in a safe so people don't come and steal them from her as she gets older. Have her stay at Trump Plaza and there's going to be gold everywhere. Gold everywhere. I don't know. It's very difficult. My policy with my mom is just she wants to spend her money, let her do whatever she as long as she isn't fooled by something. What does Lucky spend her money on other than poochie dresses? She looks fabulous. She does look good. What does she spend her money on? Oh, silly things. Trying to buy things, buy stuff for like the children, my kids, and a lot of that.

55:35A lot of stuff we don't. We get a package from Ralph Lauren every five minutes, most of which we take back. Her daughter's a podcast baller. Her son owns a coal company, and the other son is a head of anesthesiology. She should be spending all your money. No, I know that. I get it. Lucky, go to Vegas. Get a cocaine habit, Lucky. Your kids are rich. She used to buy clothes. It used to be clothes and rental properties. And she's, you know, whatever. She likes to, she has a shopping problem, I would say. But she likes it. It makes her happy. I don't know what to say. It's her money. She should do whatever she wants with it.

56:09As long as she doesn't get scammed out of it, which really, there was an incident where she gave someone her numbers on the phone, very typical. and they were trying to get into her bank account. My brother handled it, that kind of stuff. I just, as she gets older, Nikki, watch for scams. It really is something sad that happens to not just elderly people, but they're much in the focus of those people. Anyway, while we're on listener mail, we want to start having you, the audience, be more part of the show. To start, we have a question for you. How often are you personally using AI, just like Scott Galloway?

56:41Now to answer, go visit us on threads at Pivot Podcast Official and submit your answer. And let us know what else you want to know about Club Pivot, also known as your fellow listeners. That we're calling them Club Pivot. Club Pivot. I like it. Club Pivot. Do you like that? I don't know. It seems kind of cool. Yeah, anyone can get in. Cheap drinks and anyone can get in. The people are not that attractive, but it's free. It's free, yeah. Anyway, give us your answers. We'd love to know how you personally use it. We talk about how we use it, especially Scott, who uses it much more than I do. But please let us know, and we'd love to hear from you.

57:13If you've got a question of your own you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

57:33Okay, Scott, we're going to hear a prediction, but I'm going to make a very short one. Italy just passed an anti-surrogacy law, and it's very much aimed at gay men having children, taking away parental abilities for gay people, not women. Many of them have uteruses and can't be stopped from having children, although maybe that's also in the offing there. This is coming to this country, this kind of attitude towards, you know, everyone's like, oh, don't panic. When we all said Roe v. Wade was going to get overturned, everyone's like, you're over, you know, you're being dramatic. Nobody was dramatic.

58:04Dramatically saying this, I listened to what the evangelicals say and the right, and they are very much against gay marriage, gay parenting. What happened in Italy, which is heinous, and Georgia, go fuck yourself, you terrible heinous shrew. I think that this is going to be coming here. These ideas of pushing back on gay marriage, gay having kids. And I have, you know, the fact that J.D. Vance hasn't said anything about this since he's pro-family. And again, I have one more child than he does. This is really dangerous, I think, what's happening in Italy. And I hope it doesn't happen here. But I listen to what the right says.

58:43And they have it out for gay marriage and gay parenting. So there you have it. If you really cared about families and wanted more kids, you'd put more money in the pockets of young people. 60 % of able-bodied Americans aged 30 to 34 used to have at least one child. Now it's 27%. And I don't think it's because they've turned off the kids. I think it's because they don't have the money. And also, just like gay people have kids, they're great parents. Well, okay. I'm going to be honest. I don't think they're any better or any worse than straight parents. And the majority of them are going to be good-loving parents, as are the majority of heteronormative couples.

59:17Okay. Okay, I don't. In any case, let them have kids. They want to have kids. It's wonderful to build a family. I don't think they have any less or any more right to have kids than I do. Well, we never had rights before, and now they're taking them away. The godparent of my son is a gay man. By the way, shitty godfather, but he loves my best friend. So, anyways. Tim Bruns. He's very handsome. Okay. And he loves my best friend, so that's enough, but he's a shitty godparent. Okay. Anyways. Oh, God, I'm going to get shit for that. Yeah. Anyways, but yeah, look, I would like, someone asked me, Magic Wand, what law would you pass?

59:50I would love a law that basically said a constitutional amendment that said anything that gets in the way of love is illegal. If any law that makes it such that someone can't be in visiting hours when someone is dying, no, we don't have that. Anything that says it's going to make it harder, much harder for a single mom to spend time with her kids, we don't want to pass that. Family court. We need to think about family court and how we set up men for success with their children post-divorce. I think we should all reverse engineer or think about every piece of legislation having a certain guardrail, and that is, does it get in the way of the whole shooting match?

1:00:29And that is deep and meaningful relationships and people having the ability to care for and love other people. And this is just exactly that. But we need kids. And if they're going to be in a loving household, that's it. There's nothing you can't get in the way of this. And there's no evidence whatsoever that these kids are any less or any more loved than kids brought into any other household. So let me get this. You're going to let a single parent have IVF or have her own kid or have his own kid. And by the way, I'm in favor of that. But you're not going to let a dual income household have kids?

1:01:03Makes no fucking sense. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Let me be clear about, by the way, on this bill. It already extends a practice inside the country to also include those who seek it out in places where it is legal, such as the U.S. or Canada. So they can't travel or there's two years in prison and fines. And again, Georgia Maloney can go fuck herself. I'm so upset about it. Next summer, I'm only spending six nights, not seven, in Capri. Have you been to Capri? Oh, Capri. Oh, my God. And by the way, my family's Italian. So I'm just saying it's a monstrous law. It's a monstrous law. Great place to vacation.

1:01:41Those people get it. Milan's an amazing city right now. Venice? Oh, gosh. I just love Puglia? The Amalfi? Yeah, yeah. She's a Christian mother. She describes herself as a Christian mother who believes children should only be raised by a man and a woman. Divorced lady. Sit the fuck down. Thank you. All right. So, sorry, go ahead. What's your prediction, Scott? Well, it just goes back to what we were saying. Donald Trump media, the stock, it's... Is down today by 6%. Well, there you go. Why? Think about this. Why is it down 6 %? The market... Because he's addled. No, the verdict is in. She did well on Fox last night.

1:02:17I find this thing fascinating. Anyways, my prediction is the following. In the next, by November the 7th or 10th, let's assume this election is going to be challenged by everybody. So, say by November the 10th. Between now and November the 10th, Donald Trump media, which I think is around 30 bucks, will be below. Yeah, 29. Will either be below 10 or above 80. This thing has become a literally the tail of the whip on the prospects of Donald Trump recapturing the White House. The most volatile stock over the next few weeks is going to be Donald Trump media, which attempts to absorb a million points of light and guess as to whether he's going to be in the White House.

1:02:56This thing, 30 now, it's going to be below 10 or above 80 within three weeks. All right. So just for people to understand, the range is, 52-week range is 11.75 to 79.38. It was way, way, way, way up when Biden was after the debate. It almost hit 100 at one point. I don't know if it got quite there. I'm trying to look. The range doesn't seem to say that. 79.38 for 52 weeks. but it was down in when she was doing really about the debate in September down to 12 it's now at 29 but it's dipped uh five percent uh actually it's down to five percent in the last six months down uh it's down for the year to no it's up year to date uh but it's down um it's it's it's up six months it's down to 20 percent in the last three months just for people to understand It hit 98 in March of 2022.

1:03:51Five days, it's up 22%, but today it's down 10, 6, 7%. So if she goes on Rogan and does well, it's going down further. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You could be watching Rogan, and if you get the sense she's doing well, it'll close down 10 % the next day. I find it just super interesting to watch. It's literally, in my opinion, it's a more robust poll than Quinnipiac or any of these other guys. All right. Well, that's that. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. I would love you to read us out.

1:04:47You