Raging Moderates: Trump's "Forgettable" State of the Union

18:12Jessica Tarlov:I don't think the state of play changes as a result of this. But it is very clear that Donald Trump is not capable of listening to his strategists, which I think is a very good thing for Democrats.

18:24Scott Galloway:Yeah, it felt, I see everything through the lens of the markets. It felt like a quarterly earnings call for a company that's trying to convince us that fundamentals are strong while quietly guiding expectations. Lower sort of this rhetoric of the economy is resilient, manufacturing is booming, inflation is easing. And by the way, I felt like the subtext was take your glasses off when you're looking at your grocery bill. Just, you know, ignore that.

18:50Jessica Tarlov:I want to ask you about the market, because he talked about, you know, the Dow hitting 50 ,000, Pam Bondi's favorite line. But the rest of the world, their market is doing better than ours. But we never talk about that.

19:06Scott Galloway:That's a great point. Of the 21 Western markets or whatever it is, I think we're 20th. The KOSPI, the South Korean market was up 72 % last year. Almost every market in Europe, including the U.K., was up substantially more than the S &P. And also, if you take into account that the dollar is down on average about 10 % against foreign currencies, the S &P has dramatically underperformed the rest of the Western world over the last 13 months. So that headline up 17 % last number feels good. But in the context of the weakening dollar and how other markets have performed, it's not. We're the, you know.

19:47Jessica Tarlov:It's just New Zealand and Denmark below us.

19:50Scott Galloway:Is that right? Yeah. And everybody else is substantially above us.

19:54Jessica Tarlov:Let's go to Austria. Now I'm talking. Spain, Finland, Ireland. Market on fire there.

20:01Scott Galloway:There you go. And then you've had, you know, this isn't kind of our ballywick, but the markets have been very strange recently with private capital, business development companies shitting the bed, a trade out of AI into what's called halo companies, which are defensive stocks versus AI. But the economy right now, I think you'd have to say it's grinding on and is better than people thought. And the catastrophizing hasn't manifested yet. But it does feel kind of, it does feel weak and it's definitely not, definitely not what he's talking about. And the thing that no one wants to have an adult conversation about, you know, I wish there was just some sort of chyron that could run like, okay, we're spending$7 trillion on$5 trillion in receipts.

20:49Scott Galloway:It's just not, that's just not sustainable unless you're planning to inflate our way out of this deficit. it. And I didn't see that his State of the Union, I would say it was an attempt in all caps to provide reassurances, but there was really no new ideas. I was in bed before this thing came on, but he teased it with some with an off the record preview with some journalists. And they said that he was going to propose new tax cuts. And I was really interested to see what is he thinking?

21:19Jessica Tarlov:The corporate tax cuts. Yeah, it wasn't in there.

21:21Scott Galloway:And I didn't hear anything. So I don't know if at the last minute they said, you realize like we're still spending 40 percent more than we're taking in. This is not the time to talk about tax cuts and that the bond market might go fucking apeshit if they see that we're not going to be able to pay our debts back if we keep this level of kind of irresponsible spending. So I would love to see more than an exaggeration of the State of the Union. You know, and I'm a technocrat. I would like to see a State of the Spreadsheet. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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25:00Scott Galloway:EU und Großbritannien bis Ende 2026.

25:30Jessica Tarlov:affordable for you and your family? Is the president working to keep Americans safe, both at home and abroad? Is the president working for you? So that number two question about is the president working to keep Americans safe, both at home and abroad? She might get a response for people say, yeah, I think that he is right for people who are immigration hawks. That border is shut. It is sealed. Right. And, you know, I believe that he wants to protect Americans who are abroad. He talked about, you know, bringing hostages home, which I did think was a big foreign policy win. And I loved hearing about both the alive and dead hostages who were being held in Gaza being returned.

26:12Jessica Tarlov:But I thought that she really just kind of got to the regular discussions that we're all having in life, whether you're grabbing coffee with someone or it's your family dinner table. She emphasized Trump's corruption a ton and the personal enrichment, saying Republicans are making your life harder. They're making your life more expensive. And they're even making it more difficult to see a doctor, which is the opening for Democrats to talk about health care, which is always a good issue for us. But you're seeing this corruption theme popping up absolutely everywhere. You know, every Democrat worth their salt is talking about this.

26:49Jessica Tarlov:and it's resonant with the American people, whether, you know, you're thinking he's protecting himself from the Epstein files or he's making$4 billion off of various deals. I mean, there's an expectation now that Donald Trump is not taking a meeting with anybody who can't line his pockets. And I love to see that out front in Democratic messaging. So those were my Spanberger thoughts. Did you catch any bit of her rebuttal or how did you feel also generally about how Democrats behaved, I guess, during the State of the Union.

27:22Scott Galloway:I'm really torn here because I don't know if when my blood sugar gets to a certain level, I'm like, they should be more disruptive. But at the same time, I don't want to become that nation where it becomes standard. One of the real mistakes or declines of the American experiment has been that we, over the last 50 years, have transferred more and more power to the president, believing that norms would hold. and they have for the most part until this president who has said, well, I don't need Congress. I can raise tariffs and because the Supreme Court is slow and, you know, is packed with my people, I can basically ignore co-equal branches of government.

28:01Scott Galloway:And most of what he's done is not illegal. It's just a violation of norms that presidents, Republican and Democrat have held to. So it's, you know, I was trying to summarize to a friend what the State of the Union was. And it felt to me like a kind of a 90-minute or 100-minute LinkedIn post, you know? Economy strong, inflation cooling, jobs booming.

28:25Jessica Tarlov:With like rocket ships and star emojis next to various lines.

28:29Scott Galloway:Yeah, it was, I had a, and I'm anonymous name dropping. I had a Democratic senator who's listed as a presidential candidate call me and say, what ideas do you have around the State of the Union? And I didn't know, I'm struggling with if the Democrats should be more disruptive or just maintain a certain decorum that befits the prestige America has around the world. But my idea was the following, and I want to get your response. I would hire Jay-Z, his rock nation, the people who do the halftime show, to be in charge, and I would spend some money on the Democratic response. Because it's always like a big fucking thud.

29:10Scott Galloway:It's always sort of like, oh, we're drinking and then we move to water. It's just it is very hard to match the majesty of the rotunda and the intensity. And ladies and gentlemen, I would pack I would find a venue. I would pack it with 5000 rabid Democrats. I'd have star power, punchlines, moments. I would make it what the halftime show is to the Super Bowl. I would make the Democratic response because they have the content and the substance. She was outstanding. What they lacked was the production values and the majesty of the rotunda. And you can buy that with money. So this senator laughed at that.

29:49Scott Galloway:I'm like, I'm serious. Take 10 million bucks. You'll raise money and put on a halftime. The halftime show used to be an afterthought or just not, you know, people went and got a beer during the Super Bowl. Now it's oftentimes more viewed. What was that great stat? that there was a water shortage in Brooklyn right after the halftime show ended, which meant no one was peeing or going to the bathroom during the halftime show. People were fixated by it. I think that the Democrats would be well-served to try and turn the Democratic response into a more awesome, cool, entertaining spectacle because it always feels like...

30:33Scott Galloway:She did... It's the worst job in the world. Look at what, you know, remember when Rubio did his, it's just so difficult. The little water bottle? Yeah, the whole thing. But I thought in terms of substance, these female former intelligence officials, they just are a fantastic contrast. So I thought she did a fantastic job. I think the Democrats arguably did their job by elevating somebody to the national stage. She was probably going to be a player at some point. And so I give it, you know, I give it an eight out of 10, but the Democrats need to go more Hollywood on the response.

31:09Jessica Tarlov:All right. So if it was Spanberger plus Beyonce, we really would have nailed it. 100%. How about this? Because I think we can do both. I think that the imagery, you know, she's in front of the drapes, Colonial Williamsburg, et cetera. You know, Abigail Spanberger is a very serious person. Yeah. She is a, you know, a person of great substance. And I think that we should have, since this year, we did have a ton of counter-programming. You know, a lot of Democrats didn't go. There were a lot of empty seats. You could feel that in the chamber, these big gaps. I'm not sure I'm mad about it because to your point about decorum or tradition, it's all over.

31:55Jessica Tarlov:Like, even people who love these institutions and, you know, yearn for a time where everybody would show up for each other and be polite have accepted the fact that we are irrevocably broken when it comes to our politics. and we have to be devious and as Mitch McConnell about it as possible to just win as many seats so that we can get through policies that will benefit the largest amount of Americans. That's it. Like none of this playing games, like just I'm kind of stab me in the front, right? And not in the back anymore. So I'm cool with it. If you don't want to go to the State of the Union, you want to do the counter-programming.

32:39Jessica Tarlov:Midas Touch had a huge thing. There were speeches that were being given outdoors from people in the pro-democracy movement, elected officials who weren't there, etc. I think that we could have had Spanberger plus the Roc Nation event. And that would have also indicated to people, maybe not even making it that heavy on politics, but just saying, like, we're going to have a party that has democratic norms in mind. I'm workshopping this. I don't know how that invitation goes. But where especially with young people who don't want to sit around listening to long speeches, they don't really want to sit around listening to fuck Trump, which is what from what I saw a lot of what people were saying.

33:23Jessica Tarlov:And so I think that you could have both. Right. Like you could have a good hang and you could have the serious weight of an Abigail Spanberger just won this enormous victory. And you could have both. I want everything.

33:35Scott Galloway:Yeah. And I would make it a response. I would spend the first 10 minutes talking about how corrupt he is in this criminal gang and how this is a failed talk show host who's enriching himself at your expense. But then I would immediately move into really bold, big ideas. But just before we take our break here, just some actual fact-checked data. The unemployment rate now is at 4.3%. A year ago, wrapping up Biden's last month, it was 4%. The job growth over the previous year in January of 25 was one point one and a quarter million. Job growth over the last year has been 360 ,000. Core inflation is now three percent and core inflation last year at this time under Biden was 2.8 percent.

34:22Scott Galloway:So on nearly every metric that he quoted, he was incorrect. And if you actually fact checked it, it doesn't it doesn't paint a good picture. OK, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. What are the main takeaways of the foreign policy section from Donald Trump's State of the Union address? I do think they've made a decision to elevate domestic issues as we head towards the midterms. We'll see if that sticks because he keeps getting drawn back to the foreign policy issues. I'm John Feiner. And I'm Jake Sullivan. And we're the hosts of The Long Game, a weekly national security podcast. This week, we'll react to President Trump's State of the Union address, the situation with Iran, and the eruption of violence involving cartels in Mexico.

35:05Scott Galloway:The episode's out now. Search for and follow The Long Game wherever you get your podcasts.

35:11Jessica Tarlov:This week on Net Worth and Chill, I'm joined by Her First 100K, a.k.a. Tori Dunlop, a fellow personal finance creator who's changing how an entire generation thinks about money. Tori's journey is a masterclass in turning personal finance wins into a platform that empowers millions. She opens up about the real strategy behind hitting that six-figure milestone without the typical privileged blind advice and how she's redefining what it means to be a wealthy woman in 2026. We're diving deep into investment strategies for real people with real budgets and why financial feminism isn't just a buzzword, it's a movement.

35:44Jessica Tarlov:Get ready for an unfiltered conversation about money, entrepreneurship, and what it really takes to build both personal wealth and a business empire. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash you're rich BFF.

35:56Scott Galloway:Welcome back. Before we go, the Pentagon is escalating its clash with AI firm Anthropic, issuing an ultimatum that could force the company to lift restrictions on how the military uses its technology or risk being labeled supply chain threat. Secretary Hegseth has warned that he may invoke the Defense Production Act if Anthropic refuses to allow its model to be used for any lawful military purpose, effectively forcing the software company to comply, where the Pentagon threatens that it will cancel Anthropic's government contracts. Anthropic says it wants safeguards against mass surveillance and autonomous weapons without human oversight.

36:26Scott Galloway:The Pentagon argues contractors can't dictate battlefield use. Jess, I have a lot of thoughts on this, but first I want to get your thoughts.

36:34Jessica Tarlov:No, I want your thoughts first. I mean, because I'm in a very dark, scary place about this, and you certainly know more about it than I do. So you go first, and then I shall respond.

36:47Scott Galloway:I think you're being generous. The reason we've recognized such unbelievable prosperity, one of the reasons in America that we've recognized, the best performing organization in the world is U.S. military. A close second is the U.S. corporation. We've added more shareholder value in the last 17 years than all of Europe has added since World War II. One company, NVIDIA, is worth more than every publicly traded company in Germany and in Spain. Anthropic, the company at hand here, was founded six years ago. And if it was founded in Europe, it would have been one of the 10 most valuable companies in Europe.

37:25Scott Galloway:So obviously that's about access to capital, a risk culture, great universities. But it's also about a limited amount of regulation. So let me talk, let me sound like a Republican. But when I say a limited amount of regulation, you don't have failed talk show hosts deciding which industries and which companies should be acquired by which companies, who they should or should not put on their boards, if we should take a interest in U.S. steel or have input into chip manufacturers such as Intel. The idea is neither President Obama and especially President Trump have any fucking idea how to build a company better than the full-body contact violence of capitalism and a regulated competitive market where the president and to the extent possible regulators and bureaucrats stay the fuck out of the private sector.

38:17Scott Galloway:When the UK decided that DeLorean was the car of the future, you ended up with tens of thousands of unsold cars in a storage facility in Ireland. When companies decide, there's certain strategic reasons why you might want to ensure you protect your steel industry so we can always build battleships. But weighing in on what a company can or cannot do in terms of its own policies, which they're doing here with Anthropic, is like saying you should remove certain board members and call them racists. Oh, they did that with Susan Rice at Netflix. By the way, famous racist Susan Rice calling her a racist.

38:53Jessica Tarlov:Yeah, she posts eight videos all the time. That makes sense.

38:56Scott Galloway:Right. So whether it's a Democrat, let me sound like a Republican. One of the reasons we've had such extraordinary growth and prosperity is we err on the side of lighter regulation, which includes less government interference and not some fucking narcissist who's a rich kid. who if he'd invested his father's daddy's money and the S &P would be much wealthier now and is grifting off the American public to try and increase his wealth. That is not the person, nor do you want any regulator or any bureaucrat or any cabinet member telling companies how to run their business. And just as Josh Hawley has his head up his ass and basically the Ellisons using him as a coin-operated senator to accuse Netflix of having half their children's content infused with LGBTQ content, which is total fucking nonsense, a private company, whether it's Netflix or Anthropic, are allowed to do pretty much whatever the fuck they want.

39:54Scott Galloway:And if Anthropic and LLM says, you know, we have decided we don't want to work with companies who may be engaged in massive surveillance of its own citizens, they get to make that decision. And if Netflix were to ever decide we want to have a bunch of LGBTQ kids or content in our kids programming, which they don't, that is their right. And if Fox wants to have a show called The Five where they have four people spewing traif and to have one person pushing back on them, they're allowed to do that too. So this socialist, communist, Duma-like, autocratic notion that the government and the Pentagon get to start telling companies how to behave and what their policies are is the exact opposite of the reason and the theme and Republican ideals, which I respect, that the private markets are much smarter and much better at creating shareholder value, which we then tax such that we can protect our nations and offer kids food stamps.

40:53Scott Galloway:So this is directly in opposition to everything we know about what works in the private markets. Anyway, speech over. Your thoughts.

41:01Jessica Tarlov:It's another notch on the state-run capitalism belt. That's generous, I mean, versus this just being a straight-up communist proposal, essentially, or threat. I think that Anthropoc has until Friday to decide what they're going to do about it before the government unleashes on them. And we know how terrible that can be if you are on the other side of the desires of the U.S. government, no matter who's in charge. But it feels like an enormous overstep. And when you read about Anthropik's response and you see also, I'm sure you've been noticing the spate of interviews that people who have worked at these enormously powerful and influential AI companies have been doing, saying how scared they are about where the technology is going and that we are so close to the point where we're going to have no control.

42:01Jessica Tarlov:over the code, the robots, however you want to say it, that you can understand why the head of Anthropic is like, well, let's have a conversation about what you're going to be doing with our tech. We don't want mass surveillance of Americans. The Fourth Amendment still does matter to some people. And then these autonomous weapons. And I'm not saying that the Department of Defense has to turn over all of their plans to a private company. But if you want to use their tech, you have some responsibility to be above board about what you're going to do with it and probably to have some sort of relationship in managing it.

42:41Jessica Tarlov:I mean, over the years, there has been an enormous amount of brain drain out of the government for a whole host of reasons. But I always think about, remember the San Bernardino terrorist attack when they couldn't get into the iPhone, right, of the shooter.

42:56Scott Galloway:Oh, yeah, they couldn't unlock it. Right.

42:57Jessica Tarlov:And the government was like, well, what are we going to do? And they had to beg Apple to work with them in order to do this. And it was a national security reason, et cetera. And there was a big conversation, obviously, about protecting people's rights and that they don't want their reputation out there that they are going to go into your phone, right? Now, this guy was a murderer. It's a little bit different than if you left your phone on the subway and someone picked it up. But there's a balance that these companies have to strike. And a lot of them were founded on core American principles to some degree, including, I don't know, core American principle of capitalism.

43:35Jessica Tarlov:I'm not sure about that. But, you know, the DOD doesn't understand what they are asking of Anthropic or what they are threatening Anthropic with is beyond me. And I saw a lot of people posting this, journalists who are writing about this standoff between the Pentagon and Anthropic saying in a normal news cycle, this would be the lead story everywhere. I mean, the implications for this are so massive. And because we're being inundated with so much news constantly, like this is a blip. I bet if I walked outside right now, I'm going to leave here to walk out and I'm going to go up to work. I bet if I asked 10 people on the street, maybe one, maybe would know about this story and what's going on.

44:18Jessica Tarlov:And that's really scary to me.

44:20Scott Galloway:So when back in the Biden administration, when people decided to be like what I call cheap hipster wokesters, and that is I'm working at Google. I'm making$400 ,000 a year, and I decided that the Defense Department is bad, and so I'm going to walk out during lunch. I'm like, okay, that'll show them. Palantir, to their credit, zigged when everyone was zagging and saying, we're proud to work with the U.S. government, and we want to help them track and kill bad guys. And it was kind of a brilliant move. They wrapped themselves in the flag and said, we're going to work with our Defense Department.

44:57Scott Galloway:Underworld did the same thing. We're going to produce weapons. We're going to bring some of the Silicon Valley innovation and speed and agility to help the good guys. And we are the good guys. I think – and they have the right to do that. If you don't want to work there, you don't want to buy their stock, you don't like Chick-fil-A, don't eat at Chick-fil-A. But at the same time, if the people at your organization and your shareholders and your board said, you know, this administration in our view has taken a lot of license with the Constitution and is potentially involved in violating people's privacy.

45:27Scott Galloway:and we don't want to participate. That, just as Andrel and Palantir have the right to work with the defense department, Anthropic has the right not to work with the defense department. So this, again, is government overreach intervention. It's a cross between socialism and autocracy, and it is always bad for the economy. Firms get to decide if and who they work with. Before we go, if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure you hit subscribe. That's all for this episode. Thanks for listening to Raging Moderates.