Raging Moderates: Confronting the Ethical Vacuum Exposed by Trump and Epstein

20:51Scott Galloway:And then there's an even bigger concentric circle. And let me be clear, the smart thing to do here as a podcaster is just to blame everybody and roll your eyes and be totally disgusted. But there are a lot of people here who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, who thought they were going to an event about philanthropy and technology and don't do diligence on everyone they're having dinner with. Katie Couric had to come out and apologize because she went to a dinner that Jeffrey Epstein was at. I think that was the right thing to do. But quite frankly, I don't think she owes anybody an apology.

21:22Scott Galloway:I don't conduct due diligence on everyone that invites me to dinner. So unfortunately, what I think we need is more criminal prosecutions for the inner circle and quite frankly, more grace for the outer ring. Because what I see is that everyone conflates, is conflating people who have committed heinous crimes with people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Your thoughts?

21:47Jessica Tarlov:I don't disagree with you. And this is a similar conversation that we were having at the height of Me Too when everyone was putting like Harvey Weinstein and Al Franken in the same boat. Yeah. It's like, that's obviously insane. And I am not trying to do that at all. And I think part of what I'm reflecting, and some of this is definitely maternal, that, you know, I have two little girls at home, right, that are going to head out into the world and that there are going to be men that look at them when they're 11 to 14 years old and find them attractive, grown men, not just like little boys to have your first boyfriend, girlfriend and kiss and maybe get to second base, stirs something in me so fierce that I'm having trouble containing it.

22:41Jessica Tarlov:And that's where I would say, yes, there are wrong place and wrong time folks in this and the way that the files work and also the fact that he received a ton of newspaper clippings. So there are lots of names that were just in newspaper clippings that are now, quote unquote, in the Epstein files, where those people certainly don't deserve to be in there. But majority of the people that were interacting with him, even if it was cursory, was after he had been convicted of sex trafficking. That goes back to 2008. Right. So you say I don't do due diligence on everybody whose house I go to for a dinner party.

23:22Jessica Tarlov:I totally get that. But I would put money on the fact that you haven't gone to a convicted sex traffickers house for dinner.

23:34Scott Galloway:Like not that I know of. I must. Did you hear you didn't listen to Pivot yesterday? Kara said I was so relieved I did a search and I'm so relieved you're not in the Epstein files. I'm like, you thought I was in the Epstein files? Well, you said something though. Let me be clear, Jess. I get invites all the time. The luckiest thing that ever happened to me is I'm an introvert that enjoys hanging out with my dogs and my kids. So I turned down 98 % of invites unless someone's paying me.

23:56Jessica Tarlov:You even turned on invites for me.

23:58Scott Galloway:Well, there you go. I'm just, my favorite thing is Netflix, edibles, my dogs and my kids. And that's about it. Everything else I'm not, I'm not especially interested in. But anyways, which pays off. it ends up in many of these instances. But you said something that's really interesting and I want to comment on. You have a natural, healthy parental reaction where you think, I want to protect my children and other people's children here. And we need to create a series of incentives where if you're some wealthy guy who's fallen under the illusion that you can get away with anything, you think, oh, wouldn't it be fun to have sex with a really young girl?

24:31Scott Galloway:And I'm not going to worry if she's 18 or not, and it's drug or alcohol infused, and you rationalize your way into child rape, you need to know there is a very good chance, a more than likely chance, you're going to go to prison where no one cares how rich you are. And that incentive has not been put in place clearly to the extent it needs to be put in place. Now, the sad thing is, if you look at the data, is that predators and people who traffic in these types of crimes, and this is what makes Jelaine Maxwell's crime so depraved, is they are very good at targeting potential victims. And they purposely, and this was true in the Catholic Church with pedophile abuse there, pedophilia there, they have a tendency to seek out and target kids from low-income, single-parent homes.

25:31Scott Galloway:And a lot of pedophiles will say, if the dad is present, if I see a dad drop off someone in school, I would avoid that kid. And if you look at the victims in the Catholic Church, if you look at the victims in the Epstein case, most of the time, it was boys and girls from low-income homes, oftentimes single-parent homes. and that is they didn't have active involvement, protection, people all over them. Because the reality is upper income homes can afford lawyers. They have the time to invest in understanding what the kid is up to. And also, and this sounds sexist, but the presence of a male very involved in the kid's life tends to be like, you know, there's all the studies, the best security system you can have as a dog.

26:21Scott Galloway:It's better than alarms. It's better than gates. Criminals just avoid dogs. They avoid homes with dogs. It's like, okay, go to the next one. This one has a dog. The presence of an involved father tends to be one of the greatest obstacles or, I don't know what the term is.

26:36Jessica Tarlov:Impetiment.

26:37Scott Galloway:Impetiments, thank you, or discouragements. I can't find the right word to people who purposely seek out and target victims of their crimes. So unfortunately, the people with all the power, and this kind of goes back to a lot of what affects the U.S. around big tech, around, quite frankly, males who aren't as worried about the problems of sexual assault as they should be. It's that when you're never victimized, you have trouble empathizing with victims. If you're a dude who's 6 '2", 200 pounds, you're just not as worried about men on the subway. You don't perceive those dangers and that discomfort.

27:14Scott Galloway:And when you're upper income and you're all over your kids all the time, you're not as worried, you're outraged, but it's not as big a threat to you. And there needs to be a new set of incentives. There needs to be more thoughtful discernment and parsing of these people in the Epstein files. In some, more criminal prosecutions and more grace around the people who ended up at a fundraiser that are on some list of invites that he sent out. Because right now, courtesy of the Trump administration, oh, bribes from the UAE to send classified IP and technology. Oh, they're funding my kid's crypto scam.

27:58Scott Galloway:Oh, we want to nationalize elections. Why? So we can bastardize elections. That's before or after we invade Greenland and, oh, throw out three million pages of the Epstein files, including accusations against the president. And what I would like to see is a bunch of attorney generals and DAs around the nation in different states start seeking grand jury indictments and start indicting and serving people, even if they get swatted down in the upper level courts or whatever. But I think the nation is screaming for some sort of action from the one branch of government that does not appear to have been fully contaminated, and that is our justice system.

28:40Jessica Tarlov:You're so right. I mean, the American people are wanting to be mobilized. They are willing and able, but need direction. And that's the question that we're asking basically every Democrat that we interview, right, or even the Republicans that are showing backbone against Trump, like the Thomas Masseys of the world and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's obviously not serving anymore, but is, you know, now in full pushback mode that, you know, you have these moral soldiers ready, but they need to be pointed in a certain direction. And hearing from the president, I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein.

29:24Jessica Tarlov:Frankly, the DOJ, I think, should just say we have other things to do. And then I don't know if you saw that Todd Blanche, the WDAG, was on with Laura Ingram last night on Monday night, and he said, it's not a crime to party with Jeffrey Epstein. Well, actually, yeah, it might be because he was doing crimes. And if you were doing what he was doing, then you deserve to rot in a prison cell. And also consider the fact that Todd Blanche was the guy who went and interviewed Galene Maxwell and put her in that cushy prison. Right. And so So you just, if to go back to where I started with, it feels like someone is sitting on my chest.

30:05Jessica Tarlov:We are being governed by people who have no moral compass to speak of, but who you can't get even to be moved by the fact that there were 12-year-olds that were raped. Right. If you want to say, oh, we can excuse away Trump's weird griff stuff or him talking about Greenland like a crazy person or blowing up NATO or selling the Ukrainians out to the Russians or kowtowing to everyone from the Chinese to the North Koreans or any dictator will give them the time of day. I guess I could kind of rationalize all that, but I'm watching these fathers, right? I don't know if they have daughters, maybe they're just boy dads, but I think a lot of them have daughters.

30:55Jessica Tarlov:Excuse away a thing that would cause them to get a gun and show up and kill someone that did this to their kids. And because these girls were poor, because they don't have a personal connection to them or because power is just more important than anything else. They can sit there and look you in the eye through the camera and just say it's not a crime to party with Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, the lack of interest isn't even digging a layer deeper and allowing Trump to walk around saying, oh, I don't know him. I don't know him. He's shown up in 5 ,300 Epstein vials so far, more than 38 ,000 references to his name.

31:41Jessica Tarlov:Some of it is duplicative. This does not mean that he raped anyone, that he is a pedophile. I'm not going down that road. I'm just saying that the comfortability with something so sick and depraved blows all of the other stuff out of the water. Makes it seem like petty crimes, right? That he was like stealing a dollar from the cash register when he worked, you know, at a summer job, right? Like taking that money from the UAE if you're comfortable with what happened to these women.

32:12Scott Galloway:Yeah, but this is a pattern. They take someone's reputation, they give them talking points, they tell them to be forceful and push back, and then they throw the reputation on the funeral pyre. I mean, Pam Bondi is now just, I can't even imagine she's gonna get offers to be on boards after, you know, hopefully Trump is booted out of the White House. Yes. I think her reputation has just been so.

32:34Jessica Tarlov:I think Palm Beach actually becomes like a colony unto itself after this. And they're all just there and like they can work and make money within itself. You know what I mean?

32:46Scott Galloway:You're probably right. And it's a little bit like cult is the right term. A cult leader typically ends up sexually abusing his cult members and the men go along with it and everyone goes along with it. and because of this notion that somehow this person is otherworldly or, you know, a once-in-a-lifetime leader as Bannon or a wholly ordained leader as Bannon has said about this individual. But when you have the personal lawyers of the president representing the DOJ, just one of the greatest institutions in the West has just obviously been severely, severely impaired. The good news here is I think because of the Me Too movement and what's gone on here, I mean, what's interesting is this notion of being canceled.

33:33Scott Galloway:Peter Atty is getting a ton of attention right now because of these salacious emails that the algorithms love. I you know, I think that people can decide whether they want to listen to his podcast. He probably won't be canceled because cancellation usually means you get fired. Matt Lauer could be canceled. Someone who has their own podcast, as long as the audience keeps showing up, some advertisers may leave.

33:59Jessica Tarlov:But I'm curious what you think, though, on this point, because so he was just hired as a CBS medical contributor and apparently Barry Weiss is dug in. this is according to the most recent reporting that i saw and by the time this comes out who knows you know he could have been let go but she doesn't believe in cancel culture right it's very foundational to the free press and that kind of you know that those vibes to not fall victim to the mob mentality so she's dug in on that side whereas other people i could have predicted that So you think he should keep the CBS job, too?

34:36Scott Galloway:No, I mean, in my view, there is a point where—so I generally believe that for the most part that you should be—your personal life and your political viewpoints—I think it was wrong for that woman, I forget her name, when she expressed a conservative viewpoint to be fired from the Mandalorian. I don't think, I forget his name, the kid was master of none. When someone wrote an anonymous letter saying that he did not pick on her visual cues that she was not enjoying giving him oral sex, that he should have picked up on her non-visual cues, anonymous letter, Amazon wrings its hands around rather than cancel a series.

35:18Scott Galloway:I think that is way too far. A person who is going to try and establish trust for CBS Evening News speaking on issues as sensitive as health should be able to point to their personal life and say that I am concerned about the well-being of other people and I equip myself of a certain complexion and format and language in all of my dealings that maintains trust amongst a group of people who are following me for health care information. and I think it's reasonable to say that Dr. Atiyah has lost that trust and as a result, CBS should not continue employment with him. And for the most part, I don't like cancel culture.

36:00Scott Galloway:I think that people, I like the idea of someday if you haven't committed a criminal act. I kind of went through this at NYU Stern. His kid and his father were accused of insider trading three months before he was graduated. He graduated and then all the virtue signaling, you know, far-left wokesters who have lost relevance since they wrote the seminal paper on gap to accounting stood up and convinced everyone that we should expel the kid and not give him his degree. And the reality is that the DOJ and the SEC showed up and said, we're going to put daddy in prison forever unless you cop to it. They were guilty of insider trading.

36:36I'm like,

36:37Scott Galloway:this is a vocational school. He passed accounting. He paid the money. If he hadn't come to school, we wouldn't let him in, fine. But if he'd already graduated, we wouldn't take the degree away. But there's a bunch of people in this room who are going to commit a felony called drunk driving, and we're not going to kick them off the faculty. I generally believe that for the most part, your personal behavior, unless it's criminal behavior, should not impact your professional work and your well-being. And I don't like how all of a sudden people's economic well-being is being in any way connected to their political viewpoint or the way they acquit themselves personally.

37:10Having said that, there is a line.

37:12Scott Galloway:And when you're giving people, you're trying to get people to trust you about health care and health information, you know, some of those emails just feel like, okay, this is probably the wrong person to maintain the trust of people we are trying to convince that this individual has the credentials and the complexion and the demeanor and the judgment to tell you what types of activities or nutrition or lifestyle to engage and to be healthy. But I could have told you right away that Barry was going to say, no, this is cancel culture. We're holding strong. And a lot of people will agree with her silently.

37:48Scott Galloway:A lot of people will say, oh, this is the Democrats looking for another skin or another head to hang on the wall. This was locker room talk. I wouldn't want my emails published. Right. But this feels like, OK, when it comes to health, when it comes to the trust of people that you want to maintain the trust of the CBS halo. If I were Barry and I'm not, or she called me and she did not, I probably would have done a slow fade and said, look, it'd be better if you resigned and said, I don't want to, I don't want this scandal to get in the way of the great work of CBS and I'm going to back away. That's what I would have made that call to him.

38:22Scott Galloway:And I would say, this needs to be your idea so you can maintain some grace, but we can't have, he's going to be a distraction. Can you imagine the first time he appears on CBS news? Totally.

38:31Jessica Tarlov:And it's going to be every time after that. But what I wanted to say was what you're describing is the need and the desire on behalf of basically every normal person for us to have some semblance of moral leadership. and that's for anyone who has a special job. I'm not just talking about, obviously, you know, the leader of the free world, but when you turn on the TV, right, and you see someone who's supposed to know something that you don't know and be there to impart, you know, some information upon you, that you want them to have some good discernment, a good judgment, right, in how they conduct themselves.

39:16Jessica Tarlov:and we are so desperately lacking in people of good moral stead in positions of power when you see things like this. And I'm not saying it doesn't make people, they can be incredible lawyers, bankers, artists, like all the things. And I know that people are complicated and, you know, I'm a bit of a Pollyanna about things and a prude. And so, you know, I'm not here to pass judgment on all of that. But it does feel like as a society that we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel sometimes with the folks that are rising to the top and in how they are conducting themselves. And it's underrated at the time how meaningful it is to have good and decent people in these roles, right, that you never were thinking like, oh, is Barack stepping out on Michelle, right, or the Bushes or the Reagans, right?

40:13Jessica Tarlov:Like, it doesn't have to be partisan in any of this. Like, people said awful things about Joe Biden. You know, he was a guy who was clearly obsessed with his wife. and that matters, right? That you're not thinking about that he's going to show up in some emails like this, even in a tertiary way. And I would really like to respect people that are running society.

40:40Scott Galloway:There's different shades of gray though, because I think there's people who are unfaithful and actually more women are unfaithful. We always assume that women have no agency and that they're these helpless little does that are waiting around to be cheated on. And, you know, there's actually a lot of evidence showing that infidelity is a lot more rampant among married women than we believe.

41:04Jessica Tarlov:And also emotional affairs versus physical affairs.

41:08Scott Galloway:Well, and we have a tendency to scoop everything into the same, you know, and I'm for the most part, you know, if President Clinton can bring back peace and prosperity and economic growth and not break laws. What he did, I thought, was reprehensible and an abuse of power with a woman that age. And I've always felt, I think Monica Lewinsky is just an incredibly impressive, smart woman who would have gone on to just do incredible things, and she has gone on to do incredible things. But he showed himself to be infected with the same type of entitlement, that if I achieve this level of power, I'm immune from any scrutiny or adherence to any sort of real morality.

41:50Scott Galloway:There's different shades of gray. For the most part, I generally err on the side of, I think people are entitled to have secrets. I think when someone's writing a profane email to their friend, you know, you got to say they didn't think it was going to come out. And, you know, but then when you start layering on, okay, well, he knew what kind of guy this was. This was more than just an irreverent, provocative, profane email between dudes. This was him implying that he knew what he was up to. I mean, it's just, you're forced to put on your critical thinking cap a little bit, but there is two negative things to work on different sides of the polls.

42:25Scott Galloway:The first is there are a group of individuals who I think had so little fun or so little adventure romantically and sexually when they were young, because they were socially awkward, working all the time, that when they get to this position of power where people are interested in them or pretend to be sexually interested in them, they seem to fall into this level of abuse more easily than other people because they feel they are just no longer subject to any standards. And I would also add that as someone who knows a lot of very powerful, very wealthy people and have gotten to know them pretty well, I find that on average, they're really high character good people.

43:06Scott Galloway:So I don't, one of the most unfortunate things is I do think America is starting to believe that once you become a billionaire, you become a grifter and a pedophile. The billionaires I know, and maybe I'm naive, are actually very high character people who've usually been married for several decades, super philanthropic. And the reason they are billionaires is not because they were born into money, but because they've created so many allies along the way because they're such high character good people that they've been put in a room of opportunities even when they're not in that room. So there's this dangerous subset of these really powerful people who've just decided the rules no longer apply to them.

43:44Scott Galloway:On the other side, I do think that if you look anthropologically at how you get prestige and not be shamed and not potentially kicked out of the tribe where you die a slow death or you're eaten, there's two primary characteristics you want to foment. The first is strength, physical strength to kill things, kill other people, strength of intellect, or you're wise, you're smart, you make good decisions. And one unfortunate way people try to communicate wisdom in a modern age, in a digital age, is that when you insult someone else's character and press on their soft tissue and say how outrageous this is, you are essentially saying, by virtue of me judging them and pointing out how wrong what they said is, I have virtue.

44:28Scott Galloway:I am wise. I am someone you should look up to because I can highlight and articulately point out what a bad person they are. And everyone seems to be pursuing their gotcha of guardians pin or their moral virtue merit badge. And what I would argue is that the functional families are the ones you don't know and that people do have a right to secrecy. And at a digital age, we need to either provide more grace or eventually we're going to find out everyone is a fucking horrible person, according to some blogger who makes a cartoon of someone's comments so they can dunk on them. So, again, I go back to the same place.

45:08Scott Galloway:I want to see more criminal prosecutions and a lot more grace based on where they are in these concentric circles. Any other thoughts before we take a quick break, Jess?

45:18Jessica Tarlov:Take back my mass, you're all terrible, and just say some of you are terrible. So, anyway, I got it off my chest.

45:28Scott Galloway:There you go. Let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

45:34Jessica Tarlov:Some things are just better in person. High fives, hugging your dog, and shopping for Crocs. If you've never been to a Crocs store, you're missing out. Sure, you can find us online, but when you step inside our shop, you'll get it. And your feet will feel fantastic with a fresh pair of classic cloths, or cozy slippers, or beach-ready sandals, or even sneakers. Everything's ridiculously comfy, and you can even pick out Gibbets Charms to personalize your new pair. Go check out your nearest Croc store. You deserve that in-person moment.

46:04Scott Galloway:Your planet is now marked for death.

46:07Jessica Tarlov:Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four First Steps is now streaming on Disney+.

46:11Scott Galloway:We will protect you. As a family. Light them up, Johnny! Marvel's First Family is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

46:19Jessica Tarlov:That is fantastic.

46:20Scott Galloway:And critics say it's one of the best superhero movies of all time. Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four First Steps, now streaming on Disney+. What time is it, Ben? It's Clubroom time!

46:58Scott Galloway:an AI story behind what happened with Furby and why it took off. That's the story this week on Version History, wherever you get podcasts.

47:11Scott Galloway:Welcome back. What we're watching right now isn't just a Trump presidency. It's a Trump redesign of Washington itself. He's taken over the Kennedy Center, purged its board, installed himself as chairman, and is shutting it down to rebuild it as something he says will be more patriotic and less woke. At the same time, he's pushing a Grand Prix-style race through the streets around the National Mall, floating a UFC fight on the White House grounds, and backing a massive triumphal arc that would tower over the Lincoln Memorial, culture, monuments, even public space. Trump isn't just governing D.C., he's branding it.

47:44Scott Galloway:Jess, is Trump's push to remake cultural institutions and monuments about ideology, fighting wokeness, or about his legacy, physically stamping his presidency onto the Capitol?

47:54Jessica Tarlov:I think it's just all ego.

47:55Scott Galloway:You think it's all? Yeah.

47:56Jessica Tarlov:I mean, I think about Jesse Waters, my colleague at Fox, tells a story about talking to Trump about the big, beautiful ballroom renovation and everything that he's doing to the White House. And he says to him, like, what, you know, why are you doing it? He goes, if I don't do it, who will? And no one will. Right. Because this is also not how it's supposed to happen. You're supposed to come to the people's house for your four years or your eight years if you win reelection. And you're supposed to leave it basically as you found it with reasonable renovations that are necessary. And if you want to quibble about a bowling alley here or there, we can.

48:39Jessica Tarlov:But in general, you are not supposed to demolish the thing and remake it. Like, what did you say? Like an Iraqi whorehouse?

48:47Scott Galloway:Yeah, the best whorehouse in Baghdad.

48:50Jessica Tarlov:The best whorehouse in Baghdad is in Washington, D.C., folks. So I think it's all ego. That's the ego of wanting the branding aspect. But then also closing the Kennedy Center is about the ego of being so embarrassed that you're not selling enough tickets. So on average, it's about 57 percent full. That includes all of the comps that they're doing, too, and the pay-for-play schemes that are going on with big business that, you know, need to be on the right side of Donald Trump. You have performers canceling left and right. And I think it's just, frankly, a lot easier to say we're not going to even be open for business and give yourselves 24 months to sort it out, I guess, or add all the steel.

49:37Jessica Tarlov:I think they're doing a big steel renovation. But yeah, it's two sides of the ego coin as far as I'm concerned. And it's just like a, it's a joke how insecure he is. I can't, I said this last week when we were talking about the Melania documentary and how embarrassing it is to be so comfortable with fake flattery all the time. And I say this as someone who loves a compliment. Sometimes some of them are fake even. But like, I can't, I just can't imagine what it's like to be him and be in that, in that mind. What do you think about Washington, D.C. turning into Trump Inc.?

50:18Scott Galloway:What I don't get is, is he's not ready or doesn't think there's going to be the mother of all rebranding on January 21st, 2029. I mean, the first thing a new president is going to do, unless it's Vance, is just, OK, we're calling this the Kennedy senator again. We're I mean, no, they're just going to remove everything. I'd be shocked if they even leave his portrait there.

50:47Jessica Tarlov:I think he wants to make it too difficult to get all of it down.

50:51Scott Galloway:Yeah, it's all very strange, but the nation doesn't seem to be that offended about it. And I got to be honest, I am so here for F1 DC.

51:00Jessica Tarlov:Yeah.

51:00Scott Galloway:I think that would be awesome. Are you kidding? Those amazing machines zooming around the Washington Monk? I'd go to that. I think it would be—

51:08Jessica Tarlov:Around his Arc de Triomphe.

51:10Scott Galloway:I think it would be—I got to be honest. I do love—I love the idea of F1 in DC. I'm here for that idea. That's one thing I really I think he got the asymmetry around trade with China, correct? And F1DC. Those are the two things.

51:23Jessica Tarlov:Those are the bright spots of the Trump administration for you.

51:26Scott Galloway:Yeah. So also removing Maduro in about 37 minutes. I was there. I'm here for that as well. But, you know, occasionally he can't help stumbling into something right. And I think F1DC is it. But the other stuff is just it's just weird. Banners across the city with his face on them has been proposed. Trump accounts, National Park passes with Trump's face. And the whole thing is just, it really is kind of.

51:51Jessica Tarlov:I wanted to ask you about World Cup. Like, do you think that what?

51:57Scott Galloway:People keep emailing me. Are you still going to World Cup?

52:00Jessica Tarlov:Well, you come here and you're American. But I'm curious as to whether you think that people won't come. Because I've heard both schools of thought, right? Like, this is not going to stop anyone, but some of the biggest sports fans in the world look like bad hombres, right, as far as ice is concerned. And I went to World Cup in Russia and was nervous about that. And everything went great, actually. You know, and Putin was on his best behavior and the cities were beautifully done and everyone had a fantastic time. But I'm wondering what you think the psyche of the soccer fans will be thinking about coming here when the U.S.

52:43Jessica Tarlov:is in this kind of condition and foreigners have been detained.

52:48Scott Galloway:That's right. I didn't know. I was in Russia as well. I was in Moscow, St. Petersburg. Which cities did you go to?

52:52Jessica Tarlov:I did St. Petersburg and Moscow, too. I was at the Belgium semi in Moscow.

52:59Scott Galloway:Oh, yeah, I saw that.

53:00Jessica Tarlov:Oh, like on a TV or we were in the same stadium.

53:03Scott Galloway:I think Lukaku played that game. Yeah. Yeah, and by the way, I thought Russia did a fantastic job, and I was glad I went. It was so cool. I can't imagine how people are going to rush anytime soon. And now you can't go.

53:12Jessica Tarlov:Yeah. And St.

53:13Scott Galloway:Petersburg is arguably, like, if St. Petersburg got a new coat of paint, it'd be the most beautiful city in the world.

53:18Jessica Tarlov:Well, when you're a city that's basically the best of every European capital mushed together, you know, they nailed all of it.

53:26Scott Galloway:So just from personal experience.

53:28Jessica Tarlov:Except the human rights. You know, I don't want to be too great about Russia, but it's beautiful.

53:32Scott Galloway:But will people show up for the American World Cup or the North American World Cup? It's going to be in, I think, in 11 cities in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. So I'll just use personal experience. I am not a fan of the nation of Qatar. I don't. they fund a lot of um you know they were the primary funder as i understand it of hamas and so i have real issues in the nation of qatar oh i was in doha in a minute for the world cup and call me hypocritical you know call me inconsistent fine i'll take those arrows but the chance to go see the world cup with my kids and i think the majority of people who were planning to count i think every game is going to be sold out except for the early rounds I think there'll be some posturing.

54:18Scott Galloway:The beautiful game has such a call in resonance with people. I could not have been more disgusted with the ridiculous FIFA Peace Prize that went to Trump. I mean, oh, by the way, I've been nominated for the Taco Bell National Prize on Literature for my most recent book. So you got a gold gordita? There you go. The Bell. Oh, my God. I used to get so high in college. We'd go to the Bell for 29 cents.

54:43Jessica Tarlov:I've never had Taco Bell.

54:44Scott Galloway:Oh, it's amazing.

54:46Jessica Tarlov:I've heard that. And then some people are like, it's not worth it.

54:49Scott Galloway:You could get a bean burrito for 19 cents in 1988. And when you just did like eight bong loads and listened to Led Zeppelin with your buddies, it is literally the best tasting. It is the best tasting thing in the world. I love the Bell. Anyways, how did I get here? Oh, the Taco Bell National Prize in Literature. Oh, World Cup. Okay, here I am. We're back. Hello. I am so disgusted. I think FIFA. So the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, there's these international athletic bodies that kind of operate in between the rain jobs in sort of this nether-netherland of laws, and they are so fucking corrupt.

55:26Scott Galloway:I mean, they are literally the griftiest of grift. and but it doesn't stop me from going to the world cup i wasn't that excited you know i people were saying to me are you sure you want to go to russia i'm like it's going to be the safest place in the world the last thing he's going to do is let anything happen to tourists qatar huge funders of terror in the middle east you know not a not a great place i was so there and i think there's more people like me than not and you know and cara gave me a bunch of shit for going. Oh, I'm so there. And I will be all over those. I will be in Monterey, Mexico City, Miami.

56:05Scott Galloway:I want to go to Mexico City.

56:06Jessica Tarlov:Yeah. I've already lined up.

56:08Scott Galloway:I'm already kissing the ass of sponsors trying to get invited to games because the whole thing is a giant corporate rub and tug. But anyways, a long winded way of saying it'll be no big deal. Is it the World Cup? And I bet everyone who was planning to go goes and all the people sitting at home on their keyboards, It's shaming all of us for going. Yeah, I get it. More power to you. It's not stopping us.

56:32Jessica Tarlov:I'll have a gordita and think of you.

56:34Scott Galloway:All right. Let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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59:30Scott Galloway:Welcome back. Before we go, the Grammy showed just how influential Bad Bunny has become in this moment. As stars wore ice out pins and turned the show into a rebuke of Trump's immigration crackdown, it was Bad Bunny who cut through using the biggest stage in music to humanize immigrants and say plainly, We Are Americans. Days before an all-Spanish Super Bowl halftime and already drawing attacks from Trump himself, Bad Bunny isn't just reflecting the cultural mood, he's shaping it, and the backlash tells you how much power that he carries. Jess, what makes Bad Bunny different from past celebrity activists?

1:00:04Scott Galloway:Is it the size of his audience? Is it his cultural identity?

1:00:07Jessica Tarlov:Yes.

1:00:08Scott Galloway:I say yes to all of it.

1:00:11Jessica Tarlov:I mean, he's the most streamed artist of all time. I think how, I don't want to say unapologetic because there's no reason to be apologizing for it, but the fact that he's going to do this all in Spanish and that he just continues to emphasize, and he had a good joke at the Grammys with Trevor Noah about how Puerto Rico is actually part of America, despite what people think, is just an important message right now. And I've seen some athletes commenting on it and how great it is as a signifier of what a melting pot America is. And I was really impressed. Roger Goodell was doing a press conference and was asked about Bad Bunny's ice out message and whether ice would be operating at the Super Bowl.

1:01:01Jessica Tarlov:And so he went in a little bit on the levels of security and that we'd be working with the federal government, as you do at every Super Bowl, but, you know, don't expect anything different to be happening. And then he also just talked about how important bad money is and how excited he is for this opportunity. And Roger Goodell isn't doing anything that isn't going to make money, right? Like he's not trying to take some political stand. He knows where the future is headed and is headed more in Bad Bunny's direction. And then I think adding onto it that Green Day is going to start things off like one of, if not the most liberal band right out there is sending a message to Magaland and the president himself that this is where he thinks the country is and actually the base for football.

1:01:55Jessica Tarlov:I mean, it usually has a reputation as being, you know, more of a right-wing sport, obviously. And I don't know if you saw this breakdown that was flying around on social media of athletes and how they vote. And NFL has many more Republicans than the NBA does, obviously. It was interesting. It was concentrated in a few positions, though, like kickers and punters and things like that. But I liked that Goodell stood up for the decision. And I'm excited for it, basically.

1:02:27Scott Galloway:Well, Goodell, they're smart. They realize if 50 % of people under the age of 18 are non-white and football can be culturally tied to this unbelievably culturally resonant medium called music, it's just they're not doing it for morals. They're doing it for economics. There are more people who like Bad Bunny that are angry at Bad Bunny. I mean, it makes a ton of—more important, you want to hear about my first date?

1:02:53Jessica Tarlov:Like ever?

1:02:54Scott Galloway:Yeah, my first date.

1:02:56Jessica Tarlov:Yeah.

1:02:56Scott Galloway:Yeah, because I'll bring it back to this. So Maureen Burke, it was like, I think I was a junior or a senior in high school. I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but I didn't date a lot as a young man. Late bloomer, but you made up for it. Yeah, we'll see. Maybe when I hit 80. But anyways, so she asked me out. And my friend Adam Markman, I called him. He was a total player. And he was dating this really good-looking girl named Patti McLaughlin. And I can say girl because we were all 16 and 17. I'm like, what are we doing? He's like, I got you covered. we're going to go to the Bruce Springsteen concert at the Great Western Forum and it was 11 bucks a ticket which was a lot of money for me and I was a box boy at San Vicente Foods so I got my 22 bucks in tips I gave it to Adam he bought four seats to see Bruce Springsteen and the reason I bring it up is Bruce Springsteen and his team have been calling me saying they want to come on the pod and talk about modern masculinity I think it's part of the promotion tour the movie that just came out Cool.

1:03:49Scott Galloway:And the thing I remember about it was we walked in and I was so excited. My mom was excited for it. My mom was desperately trying to get me laid because she realized it wasn't going to be easy. And so she gave me her credit card and I went to this store in Westwood called At Ease. And I bought brown corduroys, a Ralph Lauren Oxford shirt, Bass Weegean penny loafers. I looked so good. And it was a relatively mild acne day for me. So I was feeling very confident. and we got to the Great Western Forum and we literally went to the very top, like the last row in the corner in the rafters. And Adam and Patty were already there.

1:04:26Scott Galloway:And I remember looking at them and I'm going, I'm like, and I meant it. I'm like, these are such amazing seats. Look at how high we are. How did we get these seats? I had never been to a paid event. So I thought the higher you were, the better the seats. And I was just really impressed that even though we'd spent $11, we were able to score such incredible seats. Anyways, Bruce Springsteen, it was his Darkness on the Edge of Town tour. And he went for like three and a half hours. Anyways, that was my first date. Amazing.

1:04:57Jessica Tarlov:Did you have a kiss? I don't think so.

1:04:59Scott Galloway:You know what? I was so insecure and uncomfortable in my own skin and with myself that like unless the woman made it kiss me, I just couldn't, I was just very immature and scared and just not comfortable in my own skin. I didn't, so I don't, like, I didn't get a lot of action in high school. I think that's actually probably a good thing. It's all a learning process. Yeah, there you go. Everyone needs to move.

1:05:26Jessica Tarlov:That's a great first date though.

1:05:27Scott Galloway:What was your first date? Oh, I don't, I did, like,

1:05:32Jessica Tarlov:there was this place called the Pizza Box. It was a pizza place on Bleecker Street that we all went after school.

1:05:39Scott Galloway:Bleecker Street? You're a total New Yorker.

1:05:41Jessica Tarlov:Yeah. Yeah. I went to the Little Red Schoolhouse. Communism is in the name, right? So you would walk up Bleecker and go get a slice of pizza after. And so everyone was there, but you could kind of branch out until your little couples, right? Like there would be people sitting alone at a table, just the two of you. so my first date was just alone at a table with a boy and we liked each other there was no kissing but he paid for my slice which was like a big deal

1:06:10Scott Galloway:that's a pretty big deal but you strike me as the kind of girl that in the 10th grade was going to senior prom with some cool senior I don't

1:06:17Jessica Tarlov:I wouldn't call him he ended up

1:06:18Scott Galloway:oh so I'm right so I'm right

1:06:20Jessica Tarlov:no he's not

1:06:21Scott Galloway:I didn't even go to my prom

1:06:22Jessica Tarlov:I'm conflicted about this anyway I'm gonna tell you actually who my first no affair I'm gonna tell you my first boyfriend was because now actually it doesn't even matter and he broke up with me and it was very traumatic for me but i for like a few months went out with this boy who runs the carbone food

1:06:42Scott Galloway:group can you get us reservations well i hope you guys on good terms i mean i i took it well i guess

1:06:48Jessica Tarlov:where he was just basically like yeah summer's coming i don't really want to deal with you and i was like oh but i thought we were getting married or whatever and he's like not so much anyway um so he ended up being very uh successful and i enjoy eating in the restaurants but i have never tried to tap back in like could i get a reservation um and i probably should because i would like to eat at carbone more um anyway pizza box gotta leverage that absolutely all right before we go if you're watching us on youtube make sure to hear more about uh pathetic and less pathetic

1:07:22Scott Galloway:high school dating lives of your co-hosts.

1:07:24Jessica Tarlov:I mean, they were both bad.

1:07:25Scott Galloway:Make sure you hit subscribe. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to Rage and Moderates. Jess, have a great week.

1:07:31Jessica Tarlov:You too. See you later.

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