Raging Moderates: Why the Government Shut Down—and How Democrats Claim Victory

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1:26We're looking to answer more of your burning questions on our Office Hours podcast. That's where I take your questions on business, tech, relationships, anything that's on your mind. Send a voice recording to officehours at ProfitMedia.com, or you can post in the monthly thread on the Scott Galloway subreddit, where we pull the top-voted questions. What a thrill. Now, here's Raging Moderates. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Charlov. Okay, Jess, quick banner. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. You are continue to be an inspiration. And I don't know how on earth your mental health holds up.

2:06Oh, what clip did you see? Oh, my God. I just all of it. I'm I'm triggered. This stuff is just I will I will say this. You they do let you run because I think that they a producer has basically said something strange happened on the way to the ratings. And that is people people like her. So all of the four of you occasionally just shut the fuck up. And I have seen a noticeable difference that they let you run. So clearly a producer has done the math here and go, actually, people like what she has to say. Stop interrupting. I thought it was I was just that good. I don't think that's it. I don't think that's it.

2:42Yeah, Kitty Corral. It's been bleak, as you know. I feel like we're in a new phase where now they just say, I don't care. Right? Like, it doesn't matter. You could present all the data in the world. You could even be telling me about your deeply held feelings. and the rights response is, I don't care. And you can't. Fuck you. Right. Like you lost and it's payback time. So you're like, okay. I heard we're not supposed to negotiate with terrorists, but I got to say something though. I know we're supposed to do a quick banner. I am moderating a discussion at the 92nd Street Y on October 23rd about transgender athletes in sports.

3:24And we're going to put it in the show notes, but if you're in the New York City area, I would love if you guys came. It's a conversation with a Duke law professor, Dorianne Coleman, and a sports scientist who's trans herself, Dr. Joanna Harper. I have to do a ton of prep for this. It's not like a cable news debate. I actually need to know what's going on. But it should be interesting. And I'm excited. A little scared, but excited. Yeah, I think, wow, I would actually, I won't come to it, but I'll watch it on YouTube. Okay, great. And that was something— And you have your event on November 5th, but that's sold out.

4:00Mine isn't yet, so. Yeah, yours will be, though. I find that a fascinating topic because— It's a tough one. Well, anyways, yeah. I quite frankly don't see it as that tough, but I think I'm a little bit more right on this. Well, people—there's a lot of heightened emotions about it, and it's interesting to me, especially to have a sports scientist. So she advises the international bodies on their policies about this and to have someone who's actually trans themselves. and the law professor was a track athlete. So I'm going to be the least athletic person probably on the panel. We should come back to that because I would like to discuss this with you after the panel and get your view and how it changed you.

4:38And I have strong views on this, strong uninformed views, which makes me like one of the four. Perfect for podcasts. One of the four of the five. But anyways, today we're going to talk about who really wins from a government shutdown, Trump's new plan for peace in Gaza as we approach the two-year anniversary year at the beginning of the war and why MAGA is furious over the NFL picking Bad Bunny for the Super Bowl halftime show. Who the fuck cares? All right, let's get into it. With hours to go before a shutdown, Democrats are holding firm on health care, Republicans on spending, and both sides are betting the other will take the blame.

5:10Beyond the politics, past shutdowns have stalled food inspections, canceled immigration hearings, and furloughed tens of thousands of workers. Jess, who do you think is actually going to bear the brunt of the blame if the government shuts down? Let me just say, it appears that there's about 10 times the energy going into trying to blame the other side than actually trying to come to any sort of deal here. Who do you think wins and loses here? Well, the American people lose, but that's just a regular day in Washington, I feel like. And that's why you have such negative approval ratings of Congress and Senate and everyone in D.C.

5:45across the board. The polls show that the Republicans will be blamed by a 13-point margin overall. And if you just look at independents, that margin is 17 points, which is pretty sizable. And that's how it should be. The Republicans control everything. And, you know, their best attempt at negotiating has led to a comment. What did Trump say? On second thought, go fuck yourself. That's what a White House official relayed back out to the press. And then, you know, we had the meeting that took place on Monday, which was followed up by a racist AI video that Trump tweeted out. So, you know, I think that the framing of this is of one party that is interested in having a negotiation, which is how these spending bills are supposed to be done.

6:31That's how it is always done, at least when it's successful. And another party that, frankly, just wants to lie about what the Democrats are asking for. And it gets exhausting having to get into the weeds for these fact checks constantly. You know, we're talking about sex changes in Peru again. And, you know, they want to conflate as well things that were in the big, beautiful bill, which has a negative 29 approval rating and what's in the spending bill. But the crux of it is the extension of the ACA tax credits. And those premiums could be jacked up by up to 75 percent. And the right wants to make it out like this is just going to be a Democrat's problem.

7:16That is not true. Plenty of Republicans are on the Affordable Care Act or have Obamacare, and they're not going to be happy when they see their premiums going up, too. So big loser Americans that we have such dysfunctional government, but politically speaking, the Republicans will be blamed. What's your what are your hot takes? So traditionally, the American public does not feel that negotiating government policies and spending should be done vis-a-vis shutdowns or threats of shutdown. They're like, that's not where we make these decisions, right? And the last two shutdowns that were averted were basically because the Republicans tried to hold the government hostage for funding for the wall and for a reduction in Obamacare, and neither worked, and they ended up blinking.

8:02So traditionally, it's a losing prospect to shut the government down in exchange asking for a change in policy. Americans don't think that's how you negotiate policy. Having said that, I think it might be different this time. And the Democrats are being shockingly strategic here. And that is they're not saying get rid of the tariffs nonsense. They're not saying we want more input into when you, you know, run military missions. We want you to stop rounding up gardeners and housekeepers. They're going after a very divisive issue amongst Republicans and a very unpopular issue in that you mentioned the tax credits for Obamacare.

8:42So they're being very pointed. They're, I think, being very disciplined here. And I think they actually, and to your point, it looks like they will come out of this the winners. Also, I'm a big fan of the shutdown. I think that we just look so weak. It's like Leader Jeffries and Senator Schumer, wet meat blanket. I think instead of just clutching our pearls all the time, we need to go a little bit gangster and say we're no longer going to fund a government that is essentially descending into fascism. This deal to carve up TikTok, the government's funding black sites to incarcerate who appear to be American citizens.

9:20We are going to remember this. And to the letter of the law, we're not going to gauge retribution. But once we have a real DOJ again, we are going to remember what's going to happen. We're going to unwind the TikTok deal being carved up and handed out to your Republican donors at an 80 percent discount. We are going to remember who supported these black sides. We are going to remember who decided to, you know, pull the security detail of former generals. It reminds me there was actually a fairly robust, nonviolent resistance movement in Northern Europe. When the Nazis rolled into Northern Europe and different countries, there was a tangible movement to say nonviolent resistance.

10:05And OK, sure, you're so noble. Now, come over here and please get on this train. I mean, this is not the time. I am sick of clutching our pearls. And so I absolutely think we should shut down the government. I think the Democrats are being smart here. One issue, we want to restore tax credits for Obamacare, which is hugely popular. And by the way, and by the way, affects more Republicans, affects more poor Republicans in red states who are much more dependent on government handouts than blue states. So I actually like our odds here, Jess. Any thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I largely agree with you. I have some nitpicking to do with messaging quality, not necessarily the substance of it.

10:55But to your point about going a little bit more gangster, like I was watching Hakeem Jeffries was on Squawk Box this morning. We're recording this on Tuesday. And Becky Quick asks him about, you know, aren't you just trying to preserve funding for illegals, health care funding for illegals? And he explained that's illegal, which it is. And Medicaid doesn't do that. And this is what the right wants you to believe about it. But I'm kind of for pushback that looks like you and I both know that that's a lie. Don't waste my time with something that's a lie. We have real work here to do, right? Millions of Americans are going to lose their Medicaid coverage.

11:36Your premiums are going to go up 75%. And I think showing that you could throw some elbows would get us far, like showing up on more partisan shows, right, that are, you know, like doing a primetime show versus a morning news show. I think all of these things would work to our benefit because the right is really good at lying and doing it very smoothly. And we come off clunky too often. And I think that that allows people to continue to think that we're not on solid footing because it's all about your presentation, right? And it helps if the substance and the presentation are commingled and, you know, that we can project that.

12:18So that's my little messengering note. But I also wanted to say that, you know, there's reporting that there are some Republicans who are very nervous about the implications, not just on health care, but they're also watching farmers all over this country get absolutely thrashed by these tariffs. And Senator Thune is floating the idea of bailouts now for farmers saying, well, we could take some of the revenue from the tariffs and use that as a bailout for the farmers. Now, you could have just not put the tariffs into place and the farmers would have been fine, right? We have like zero soybean exports now at this point.

12:55I think we got to be going really hard about this. And I take your point, like this shutdown is about health care and we can win a midterms talking about health care, which is also an economic issue. But we should be commingling this conversation about what the tariffs are doing, specifically ravaging these rural communities. It's not just your hospitals that are shutting down. These farmers, I don't know if you've seen the footage, are showing up at town halls and losing their minds. They're out of business. Yeah, well, they will be. And they can't even afford the equipment that they need to be able to do the job if they had anyone to send their crops to anyway.

13:34Yeah, but here's the bottom line. Most of these farms were non-economical without, there's this cartoon of the family farm and everybody loves them. And agribusiness has been consolidated and a lot of these farms make no economic, sense. And all subsidies do is create a certain lack of urgency for crop diversification or modernization. They just aren't competitive. And then with respect to the tariffs and a bailout, this is no different than the government starting a fire, lighting a house on fire, and then sending taxpayers the bill to put the fire out. Let me get this. We impose tariffs thinking that, oh, we're so big and bad, no one will impose reciprocal tariffs.

14:13Not only has China imposed reciprocal tariffs, they've just said, we're no longer buying soybeans from you. And they've already established deep supply lines of soybeans from Argentina and Brazil. They're not coming back, folks. Argentina, who we just bailed out. That was our thank you. We can give$20 billion to Argentina. But this is the government showing up, shooting farmers in the leg, and then saying, oh, yeah, we didn't know it would cost money to heal your leg, and then sending taxpayers the bill. I mean, this is and I hate I I realize this is a reductive, snarky statement, but I'm going to make it anyways.

14:51These farmers, the majority of whom voted for Trump. You know, I love that billboard. Damn, we were voting for racism, not tariffs. So look, folks, you're the same voting bloc that thought a bailout of student loans was bad. You wanted Trump. Congratulations. Here you are. And as hardcore capitalists, I agree with you. bailouts are bad and it is so stupid. So taxpayers get milked here, specifically younger people, because this isn't going to come from anything. It's going to be more debt. Consumers have to pay more because effectively it's a tax. Any tariff now is essentially a tax on consumers.

15:31Farmers are just being put out of business. And what we're going to do is try and prop them up in the short term, in time for the midterms, and there'll be no structural advantage. They're going to be in the same. We might be able to bail them out for six, 12 or maybe 18 months, but these farmers are no longer competitive, folks. And their biggest customer is not coming back. They're not coming back. They're not. They've reestablished new supply routes, which were pretty easy to switch. So it ends up soybeans aren't that difficult to produce. And Argentinian and Brazilian farmland can make this shit really well as well.

16:06This is a case study in why tariffs don't work. They raise prices for consumers. They prop up industries that are not competitive. And they just increase taxes, increase debt, and a reduction in the prosperity of Americans and a total lack of the competitive. This is socialism meets oligarchy, meets poor economic policy. And you're absolutely right. We should highlight, you set the house, the government set the house on fire, and now they want to charge taxpayers to put out the fire. Just let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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18:54Welcome back. President Trump said he's close to a peace deal that would end the war in Gaza after meeting on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The plan lays out a ceasefire, the release of all hostages and the demilitarization of Gaza. Though Hamas has yet to sign on, but is leaning towards accepting, Netanyahu has already voiced support. Jess, what do you think of this plan? What an incredible few days Bibi Netanyahu has had. When we sat down to record last week, we were talking about what a bad position Israel was in. Macron had just done that big interview on Face the Nation, recognizing Palestinian statehood.

19:33Britain, Canada saying the same. The UN, Bibi, you know, huge protests when he spoke on Friday, last Friday. Everyone kind of thinking, like, the world is shifting in the direction, frankly, of the Palestinians. everyone's talking about you know starving kids people using genocide as a term to describe it and now it looks like bb's on top of the world i mean he has the arab world and the west united in pushing hamas to accept this plan and getting qatar and turkey in particular um who really have been propping up hamas uh over to the side of the peace plan i think it was you know the cherry on top for it.

20:18And Israel had three main goals. They wanted the hostages back to end Hamas's rule in Gaza and ensure that the government that takes over does not belong to the Palestinian authority. And if this goes through and CBS is reporting that it will potentially in the next couple of days, he's getting all three of those goals accomplished. And so I think that it's looking pretty good. I mean, there are points in the plan, like one in particular about this, the development of developing Gaza, a Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza. I mean, that sounds like another grift to me and that we might be getting, you know, the Gaza Strip Mar-a-Lago style or whatever.

21:04But in general, it seems like something that really has legs and could actually bring about the end to the war. So that's my top line. What do you think about it? I feel just totally out of my weight class here. I immediately went to Dan Cenor's Call Me Back podcast, and we had a guy in there who said something I thought was really insightful, that the recognition of a two-state solution by France and some other countries is not so much bolstering the credibility or their belief that a two-state solution or that the parties are capable of it or that there's a government that could be capable of it in Gaza, but simply as a rebuke to Israel.

21:44They're so fed up. They're so angry at Israel right now. Look, I'm really hopeful. I hope this goes through. The war needs to end. An occupying force has an obligation for humanitarian aid. I'm still very sympathetic to the Israeli position. Well, okay, release the hostages and lay down your arms. What do they think is going to happen? I do not believe Israel is going to commit genocide. I think the next stage is a rebuilding. So, you know, and I ask people the same thing when we're discussing this, would the Americans have left Nazis in Germany? So I'm sympathetic to the Israeli cause here. I understand the calls for the pulverizing of this, of Gaza needs to stop the humanitarian disaster needs to come to an end.

22:26I get, I really hope this is, this is the end. Having said that, it strikes me that Netanyahu and Trump and these other nations are in violent agreement with one another. But Hamas, where is Hamas on this? And so I don't, I'm somewhat skeptical. In addition, I think Netanyahu is, I think he's a bad actor. Definitely. As someone who is pro-Israel, I think it's important, just as I consider myself pro-America, there's certain things about American policy that I think are mistakes. I think it was a mistake for them to go in the strike in Qatar. Did you see that Trump made Bibi call the Qatari prime minister and apologize, essentially?

23:16Well, I'm wondering if Netanyahu really wants the deal done and has has manipulated Trump into a deal that Hamas will not accept. And I know that sounds Machiavellian, but I wonder if Netanyahu, I think Netanyahu, if he's voted out of office as someone anything less than a war hero, there's a good chance he goes to jail. And so the way to rally people around him is to be on a constant war footing. I mean, keep in mind, this is someone who supported Hamas because he didn't think as long as Hamas was in power, he thought there was no possibility for a two-state solution. So while I am very pro-Israel, I'm where the most Israelis are.

23:56And that is, I think the war needs to end. But at the same time, there's real questions around Netanyahu serving the interests of the Israeli people or, quite frankly, just trying to stay out of jail in a wag the dog scenario where he wants to be on a war footing. So I wonder, I think Netanyahu is much smarter than Trump. And I think I wonder if Netanyahu has come to an agreement that positions him as I want the war to end, but has effectively ensured that there's no way that Hamas will agree to this. Having said that, all parties seem to believe, except for Hamas, that there's so much pressure being brought to bear on Hamas that we're close to a deal.

24:39And just one of the things that stuck out to me, this is how depraved our society has become. This is how ugly these wars. We are negotiating the return and exchange of remains. Yeah. I mean, there's literally a lack of all humanity here that we're negotiating. Well, if you send us the remains of these people, we'll send you the remains. I mean, it's like, God, is there no baseline level of decency? So this war needs to come to an end. And I hope this happens. I am somewhat cynical. I think Netanyahu is someone who has figured out a way to manipulate the situation to his own advantage and is not a good fiduciary for the people of Israel.

25:27And I think Trump oftentimes gets played and in a rush to deal, agrees to things that aren't sustainable or enduring, and then moves on because he loses focus or gets frustrated that he can't swap a floor in a condominium building for peace somewhere. So I'm hopeful, but I'm somewhat cynical. Do you think my cynicism here or my doubts are my bias against Trump? Or do you think that, in fact, this deal is still somewhat tenuous? Well, it's definitely tenuous. I mean, Hamas took six weeks to reject Biden's peace plan when he put one forward. But Hamas is in such a severely weakened position now, as opposed to when Biden was still president.

26:12There's an Israeli journalist who I follow and really like, Amit Siegel, and he wrote, Hamas right now is a collection of frightened men who not long ago narrowly escaped an Israeli strike with advanced weaponry. They are in a room surrounded by Qatari guards, fully aware of what will happen to them if they say no, because the leader has given a commitment to the president of the United States. So A, pretty amazing imagery and very believable thinking about what has gone on over the course of the last couple of years and how successful the Israeli strikes against their enemies have been. I 100 % share your cynicism.