0:00:02 There’s a lot nobody tells you about running a small business.
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0:00:38 This week on The Gray Area, the president of Wesleyan College tells me what’s happening on American campuses.
0:00:43 The Trump administration is attacking colleges and universities because they want to take them over.
0:00:50 Not because they shouldn’t have had encampments or because not enough conservatives are going into physics.
0:00:53 What does the attack on higher ed mean for America?
0:00:56 That’s This Week on The Gray Area with me, Sean Elling.
0:00:59 New episodes every Monday, available everywhere.
0:01:04 Megan Rapinoe here.
0:01:12 This week on A Touch More, Sue and I are in Indianapolis with a very special live show and a very special guest, Caitlin Clark.
0:01:17 We dive into her life on and off the court, and of course, we play a few games.
0:01:18 Need we say more?
0:01:22 Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
0:01:29 What about 358?
0:01:30 358 is the country code for Finland.
0:01:33 In 1958, NASA was founded.
0:01:40 Leaked NASA documents show, and this is a true story, that the moon landing was actually done in a studio.
0:01:43 On the moon.
0:01:46 Jesus, what is with these conspiracy weirdos?
0:01:52 They seem like they’re more worried about their conspiracy being true or not true than actual pedophilia.
0:01:55 These people are just, let’s be honest, these people are just fucking strange.
0:01:59 Go, go, go!
0:02:09 Welcome to the 358th episode of The Prop T-Pod.
0:02:09 What’s happening?
0:02:13 I’m still in Aspen, but headed to Chicago this week.
0:02:17 I tried to spend, so just a quick pro tip as a parent.
0:02:21 My sons, when they’re together, are, it’s a different dynamic.
0:02:22 What’s the term there?
0:02:23 Awful.
0:02:27 They resent each other, jealous of each other, love each other.
0:02:29 I don’t know what is going on there.
0:02:36 But when they are together, the whole household is chaos and angry and shit getting thrown at each other.
0:02:49 We were in Spain, and they got into, with another family, and we were having dinner, and they were, as parents do, to try and be nice to the other parents, complimenting our kids.
0:02:57 And we heard something go flying, and it was remote, and it was my youngest throwing the remote at the other, which devolved into a fist fight.
0:03:00 So that was good, and that was fun.
0:03:03 The only thing I regret about it is breaking it up.
0:03:09 I think one needs to establish dominance over the other and traumatize him and just have fewer fights.
0:03:11 I’m just ready for them to go at it.
0:03:12 Maybe some rules.
0:03:14 Maybe I put on some gloves, no, like, biting or something like that.
0:03:18 But I think at some point, they should just have at it.
0:03:26 Anyways, but one of the things I have decided is good parenting, or that I really enjoy, is that individually, they’re, like, less awful.
0:03:29 I wouldn’t say they’re great, but they’re less awful.
0:03:34 And so I try to put on the calendar every year, because the years go fast, my friend.
0:03:39 I try to put on something to do with them individually and get them out of town and take a trip with them.
0:03:43 And on Thursday, I have a speaking gig, so my son is coming with me to Chicago.
0:03:44 And what do you do?
0:03:51 One of the things, when you’re in Chicago, I like to tell my son, all right, use AI, do whatever you want, but you’re in charge of planning.
0:03:53 You’re in charge of planning the trip.
0:03:57 I get to pick the hotel, because I’m very fussy when it comes to hotels, but you pick everything else.
0:03:58 So what are we doing?
0:04:01 Well, of course, we’re going to go see the McDonald’s Museum.
0:04:02 I mean, who wouldn’t?
0:04:04 Who wouldn’t want to see the museum where it all started?
0:04:09 Anyways, by the way, I love McDonald’s, but I only limit it.
0:04:12 I only eat McDonald’s in airports or another city.
0:04:16 As a general rule, I do not eat fast food or go to a strip club in the city I live in.
0:04:20 I just think neither of those things can go really well.
0:04:27 Anyways, in Chicago, where we will not be going to a strip club, we are going to go see the McDonald’s headquarters.
0:04:32 As I mentioned, we’re going to see 360 Chicago Observation Deck.
0:04:34 I guess that’s that building with the two things on it.
0:04:41 Because, you know, when you’re a 14-year-old, the moment you get to a new city, you got to go to the tallest building and look out on the city.
0:04:43 That’s just a must.
0:04:50 And then we’re going to a place called, we’re going to a restaurant called Gibson’s, which my son says is a must-do.
0:04:52 And then I’m going to take him on that boat tour.
0:04:55 But anyways, I’m super excited about going to Chicago with him.
0:04:58 Then I go to New York for a week.
0:05:02 And anyways, it’s been absolutely wonderful here.
0:05:12 And just a quick thank you, as anyone who listens to the pod knows, I lost my dad a couple weeks ago or nine days ago.
0:05:14 And a lot of people reached out with really nice notes.
0:05:15 Thanks very much.
0:05:17 I do very much appreciate it.
0:05:21 One of the wonderful things about the podcast is that, you know, the mediums are funny.
0:05:22 The medium really is the message.
0:05:25 I know how somebody knows me or has heard of me.
0:05:28 And that is if they come up and they high-five me, I know they’ve seen a video.
0:05:35 If they want to come up and have a really long conversation or they write a really long, thoughtful email, I know it’s because I’ve read something I’ve written.
0:05:40 If they come up and start speaking to me as if they’re my friend, I know it’s the podcast.
0:05:43 And that’s one of the unique things about this medium.
0:05:53 Because you, the voice, because you’re not distracted with visuals or not as much, although supposedly 25% of our listens are on the TV, people streaming on YouTube.
0:05:55 Who would have thought that?
0:05:56 Who would have thought that anyways?
0:05:58 But the majority of people are focused on the voice.
0:06:00 And the voice is more intimate.
0:06:08 And also because you are with people when they’re doing something personal, washing the dishes or taking their dogs for a walk, they feel close to you.
0:06:11 And also you’re physically in their ears.
0:06:12 It’s not ambient noise.
0:06:13 You’re actually in their ears.
0:06:16 So they’re very focused on you and your voice.
0:06:18 By the way, I have a very handsome voice.
0:06:19 Like, imagine what I look like right now.
0:06:22 It’s better looking than what I am.
0:06:27 And that is I have had, no joke, people come up to me and cock their head and go, you’re Scott Galloway to recognize my voice?
0:06:28 And I say yes.
0:06:29 And they go, huh.
0:06:30 Like, oh, I thought you’d be better looking.
0:06:33 Anyways, face for podcasting.
0:06:39 But one of the really nice things about it is you do feel as if you inherit a ton of friends.
0:06:48 And that is, or at least acquaintances or people who come up to you and are really nice to you and seem to be concerned about you and know a lot about you.
0:06:50 And it’s really, you know, it’s actually very nice.
0:06:56 People often say, what’s it like having a certain level of awareness or quote-unquote fame?
0:06:59 And I think I have just the right amount of fame.
0:07:00 And that is people are nice to me.
0:07:01 They give me affirmation.
0:07:02 They come up to talk to me.
0:07:03 I enjoy it.
0:07:06 But at the same time, I still feel as if I can be pretty anonymous.
0:07:13 Anyways, with that, in today’s episode, we speak with Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the 49th governor of Michigan.
0:07:17 We discussed with Governor Whitmer the future of the Democratic Party,
0:07:20 The Importance of Bipartisan Leadership, and the Crisis Facing Young Men.
0:07:27 And after the interview, for the first time, we’ve been getting a lot of people who have reached out who are potentially candidates for president,
0:07:30 trying to gain awareness for either their programs or a run.
0:07:36 We’re going to do just a quick two or three-minute no mercy, no malice review of our conversation and the candidate.
0:07:38 So stick around for that.
0:07:38 What a thrill.
0:07:39 Oh, my God.
0:07:39 What is he thinking?
0:07:41 What does he think?
0:07:45 So with that, here’s our conversation with Governor Whitmer.
0:07:56 Governor, where does this podcast find you?
0:07:58 I’m in Mackinac Island.
0:08:00 You got to do better than that.
0:08:01 What is that?
0:08:03 Mackinac Island, Michigan.
0:08:06 For those tuning in, I’m going to pull out my Michigan map.
0:08:08 We got two peninsulas.
0:08:08 They look like hands.
0:08:12 It’s right here in Lake Huron between the two peninsulas.
0:08:14 It’s a spectacular place.
0:08:19 So we very much appreciate you coming on, and we were trying to think about where to kick it off.
0:08:24 So I think a lot of our listeners probably know of you but don’t know you.
0:08:27 Can you spend a couple minutes just on your origin story?
0:08:28 Sure.
0:08:31 You know, I am a lifetime Michigander.
0:08:32 I grew up in this state.
0:08:37 Luke grew up in East Lance in the home of Michigan State University.
0:08:40 Parents divorced when I was young.
0:08:44 My mom moved to Grand Rapids, so my dad followed us even though he worked in Detroit, which was three hours away.
0:08:49 He did that drive for many years, and I’m very close to both my folks.
0:08:56 I lost my mom about 20 years ago to brain cancer, but I went to Michigan State, thought I was going to be a sports broadcaster.
0:09:03 And when I was there, my dad encouraged me to do an internship down at the state capitol, which was like eight miles from MSU’s campus.
0:09:06 And it kind of changed everything for me.
0:09:07 I fell in love with public policy.
0:09:15 I learned about state government and took a job with the House Democrats when I graduated from MSU.
0:09:17 It was a weird time.
0:09:20 We were 55-55 Democrats, Republicans.
0:09:27 It was tied maybe the most productive time in legislative history in Michigan where I got to learn and see it firsthand.
0:09:30 And then we lost the election, and so I went to law school.
0:09:35 I’d been putting it off for a little while, practiced law for a little bit, but kind of surveyed the field.
0:09:41 And like a lot of women in this business, it was a man who suggested I consider running for office.
0:09:43 I’d never considered myself an office holder.
0:09:48 So I ran for the House, served in the House for six years, the Senate for eight years.
0:09:55 I was a prosecutor, and the Flint water crisis really kind of inspired me to run for governor.
0:10:02 You know, I saw a community that was hurt so badly by decisions that were made in Lansing, our state capitol.
0:10:08 And I thought, you know, I’m going to run, and I’m going to try to fix that and fix a lot of other problems that I see in Michigan.
0:10:14 But I think the time that formed who I am, you know, is when I was 29 years old.
0:10:24 They say the five most stressful things that happen in your life are getting married, moving your home, starting a new job, the birth of a child, and the death of a loved one.
0:10:29 And all five of those things happened to me my first year as a state representative.
0:10:35 I cared for my mom, who died of glioblastoma multiform, the worst kind of brain cancer you can get.
0:10:40 She died two months after I had my first child, my daughter, Sherry, who I named after my mom.
0:10:43 And all of that was my first year in the legislature.
0:10:45 I’d gotten married the year prior.
0:10:49 And for some odd reason, I decided to move my home at the same time.
0:10:51 So I did all five of those things in that one year.
0:11:01 And I often tell people I think that’s what shaped who I am, why I don’t suffer fools very well, why I’m impatient for solutions, and I don’t have a lot of patience for BS.
0:11:04 And so, I don’t know.
0:11:07 I think those are the most salient aspects of my life.
0:11:09 So were you raised in a single-parent household?
0:11:11 I wasn’t.
0:11:20 You know, my folks divorced, but my mom always said my dad was a better ex-husband than he was husband, because he was a very active parent.
0:11:23 And to this day, my dad, you know, and I are very close.
0:11:24 I was really lucky.
0:11:29 He worked in Detroit, but we lived in Grand Rapids because my mom got remarried.
0:11:33 And so he drove at three hours, twice a week.
0:11:37 We saw him every weekend and once during the week as well.
0:11:44 And so they were both single at different points in time, but I had the benefit of both parents being very active in our lives.
0:11:58 And how did your mom’s sickness and sort of going through that, you know, pretty up and close, how did that change your views on health care policy and the way you approach health care for the residents of Michigan?
0:12:02 Well, you know, my mom had three things going for her.
0:12:09 When she was diagnosed, you know, like every family with a terrible diagnosis like that, you start looking for information, right?
0:12:17 And they projected four to six month time frame before she would die of glioblastoma.
0:12:23 And, you know, she lived for 19 months and it was because she had a really good attitude.
0:12:25 She had a good support system and she had good health care.
0:12:28 Most people do not have all three of those things.
0:12:30 Some people don’t have any of those three things.
0:12:33 And that’s why the statistics are as bad as they are.
0:12:39 You know, I vividly recall, you know, I had given birth to my daughter.
0:12:49 I was exhausted, new parent, but also taking care of my mom and fighting her insurance company, who wrongfully wouldn’t cover some of her chemotherapy treatments.
0:12:56 And trying to arrange child care for my daughter and get to work on time, you know, all those things were on my shoulders.
0:13:00 It was a sandwich generation experience very early in life.
0:13:06 But I think it really, you know, is what’s driven me to try to expand access to health care for people.
0:13:12 It’s driven me to try to help people get affordable, accessible child care.
0:13:22 You know, all these things, I think, kind of center the work that I do even now as governor and make me not patient for posturing.
0:13:24 I want to solve problems.
0:13:25 That’s why I do this work.
0:13:27 I care about people and I want to solve problems.
0:13:37 If it’s specifically thinking about, so in the United States, we spend, I think, $12,000 or $13,000 per capita on health care for worse outcomes, right?
0:13:39 We’re more obese, die sooner.
0:13:42 Infant mortality is just kind of just okay.
0:13:47 Best health care in the world, I think, if you’re in the top 10%, but definitely not.
0:13:52 In the bottom 90, in the most of the G7, it’s at $6,500 per capita.
0:13:58 So a decent way to describe health care in America for the lower 90, if you will, is expensive but bad.
0:14:03 What ideas might you have if you were given a magic wand or say you were to run for president and win?
0:14:06 What would be some of your priorities or ideas?
0:14:08 Would it be socializing medicine?
0:14:10 Would it be single payer or expanding Medicare?
0:14:17 What big ideas would you have to solve what is an increasingly taxing problem for Americans?
0:14:19 Forty percent of Americans, medical and dental debt, right?
0:14:21 And I know that you’ve been working on that.
0:14:22 Anyways, I’ll stop there.
0:14:26 What big ideas around attacking health care in the United States would you put forward?
0:14:29 Well, that’s a massive question.
0:14:30 We’re going to need a bigger boat.
0:14:33 Nice Jaws reference.
0:14:39 Now, you know, I think that we provide health care in the worst way possible.
0:14:41 And that means a lot of people can’t afford it.
0:14:46 So they go to the emergency room when it is at catastrophic moments in their lives.
0:14:50 It’s the most expensive way to get coverage, to get health care.
0:14:56 It’s also the least effective way to get health care because you’re so damn sick by the time you finally access it.
0:15:00 You know, the Medicaid expansion was a good thing.
0:15:03 It helped us get more people that basic level of care.
0:15:08 And I’ve got to tell you, you know, when I was in the Senate, I was a Senate Democratic leader.
0:15:10 I was the leader of 12 people in a body of 38.
0:15:15 I served with all Republicans at the time in the majority.
0:15:23 And the governor, to his credit, saw Obamacare as a good thing for Michigan and decided to try to adopt that in Michigan.
0:15:26 But he couldn’t get his own party, who was in the majority, to do it.
0:15:28 And he couldn’t do it without us.
0:15:31 So, of course, we wanted to expand health care.
0:15:32 I’m glad we did it.
0:15:37 I’ve talked to so many people who saw a doctor for the first time in their lives.
0:15:41 First time in their lives because of Medicaid expansion.
0:15:48 So think about how most people access health care at the most dire time in the most expensive way.
0:15:52 It tells you everything you need to know about we’re doing it backwards in this country.
0:15:57 Every person should have a basic level of health care and access.
0:16:04 How do we do it is the impossible question that everyone’s been asking and hasn’t been able to rectify.
0:16:07 But I think that’s the goal.
0:16:08 That’s the gold standard.
0:16:11 It’s maybe not the gold standard, but that’s the goal.
0:16:19 And until we have real change at the federal level, we’re going to continue to try to piece it together, but we’re not going to be successful.
0:16:23 And I think that’s a fundamental problem that we’re seeing across this country.
0:16:29 We have a patchwork of health care systems that only the very few really benefit from.
0:16:37 But just last week, you announced $144 million in medical debt relief for nearly a quarter of a million Michiganers.
0:16:38 Am I saying that correctly?
0:16:39 Michiganers?
0:16:40 Michiganers.
0:16:41 There you go.
0:16:41 Michiganers.
0:16:42 Thank you for that, Governor.
0:16:42 Very easily.
0:16:43 There you go.
0:16:45 And you kind of hear that.
0:16:46 It sounds wonderful.
0:16:49 One, I’m curious to get your thoughts on that.
0:16:51 And two, if you think that could work nationally.
0:17:05 And three, do you worry that you’re creating a moral hazard, that people aren’t consumers around health care and keeping costs down if they worry or if they believe in the back of their head that at some point that debt might be relieved?
0:17:09 What’s your strategy there around the medical debt relief?
0:17:11 I worry about all the above, Scott.
0:17:19 I think that when government is supplanted by nonprofits to do the fundamentals, we’re all in danger.
0:17:22 And that’s what, that’s, we’re taking advantage of an opportunity.
0:17:32 Undue Medical Debt is a nonprofit that is matching dollars, that is buying debt, pennies on the dollar to retire it for individuals.
0:17:33 We partnered with them.
0:17:48 It’s a good thing for a lot of people that are, you know, swamped by medical debt, that it’s keeping them back from all the things that every person should be able to achieve and want to achieve a basic good quality of life.
0:17:51 Um, it’s a, it’s a good, but it’s a bandaid.
0:17:55 It’s a bandaid on a, on a wound and it doesn’t actually fix the underlying problem.
0:17:56 And so I do worry about that.
0:18:02 You know, we saw during the Flint water crisis, philanthropy coming in to help people.
0:18:17 I’m so grateful for philanthropy, but if government was doing what needed to be done, those philanthropic dollars could do a whole lot more for a lot more people instead of triaging a failure of a system that, that wasn’t working.
0:18:21 So I do worry about what, what is the long-term goal here?
0:18:27 We’re giving short-term relief and that’s not a bad thing, but in the long-term we haven’t solved the problem.
0:18:29 Oh, so I understand.
0:18:34 So while you announced $145 million in Medical Debt Relief, it didn’t cost you $144 million.
0:18:40 You partnered with a company that went out and bought, so it might’ve cost you $10 or $20 million to relieve $144 million.
0:18:40 Do I have that right?
0:18:41 Yeah.
0:18:42 Okay.
0:18:54 So you’ve, you’ve, you’ve long, for a long time emphasized bipartisan leadership and, and you’ve been credited with overseeing a state where there is probably more bipartisan cooperation.
0:19:01 How do you think you infect the rest of America with more of a sense of bipartisanship?
0:19:04 I don’t know.
0:19:07 I, you know, I was raised in a, in a bipartisan household.
0:19:12 My dad was a Republican back when Republicans don’t look anything like they do now.
0:19:14 He’s a Democrat and has been for years now.
0:19:18 My mother was a Democrat, but she was more conservative than my dad in some ways.
0:19:22 And, um, I govern a state that is very purple.
0:19:29 We go back and forth and, uh, we’re often decide, you know, us and a handful of other states decide outcomes of national elections.
0:19:37 So I’m always cognizant of the fact that for us to have durable impact, it’s gotta be bipartisan.
0:19:40 It’s gotta be coalition supported.
0:19:56 Um, and I think that’s, it’s something that’s really challenging in this environment where the hyper, we’re hyper polarized and the rhetoric so hot and, and personal and dangerous, frankly, it’s even tougher.
0:20:01 But I’ll say this, you know, after the last election, I really went to a dark place after the election.
0:20:05 I worked really hard to try to help Kamala Harris.
0:20:06 And we came up short.
0:20:10 We came up short, not just in Michigan, but in every single swing state.
0:20:20 There were a lot of things that wouldn’t do it, but it was really hard to take to imagine that our, my state and our country willingly chose this path.
0:20:25 Again, we’ve been here only now it’s, now it’s arguably more challenging.
0:20:25 Right.
0:20:27 And I tuned out for a while.
0:20:29 I had to turn off the TV.
0:20:33 I think I watched, you know, eight seasons of Dexter.
0:20:37 My kids came in, they’re like, are you okay?
0:20:38 Yeah.
0:20:40 To distract me, you know?
0:20:43 Um, and my kids were like, are you okay, mom?
0:20:45 And, but I needed to check out for a minute.
0:20:59 But, you know, one of the things you talk about that I really resonates with me and I kind of, um, uh, have tried to share the similar philosophy is, you know, um, checking out only makes my anxiety grow.
0:21:06 You know, I think you say something like, uh, action absorbs anxiety, something like that.
0:21:07 Yeah, by the way, that’s Dan Harris.
0:21:09 I just, I just stole it from him, but thank you.
0:21:09 Okay.
0:21:16 Well, I, I’ve, I’ve said something similar to, you know, I don’t take credit for it either, but, but it’s very, I found it to be very true in my life.
0:21:19 If I’m checked out, I’m worrying more.
0:21:24 If I go to bed exhausted, I can get up the next day and get right back to work.
0:21:30 You know, I’ve got to wear myself out doing good because that’s, that’s the only way that I can navigate the moment that we’re in.
0:21:37 And so after I came out of my Dexter, uh, hibernation about a month, I decided, you know, I got two years left as governor.
0:21:41 I’ve got to work with this new administration.
0:21:43 I’m going to fight them.
0:21:43 I’m suing them.
0:21:50 We got all our differences, but if there’s opportunities to do some, some good for my state, I got to take them.
0:22:01 That’s, that’s my duty as governor and, you know, I’m, I’m trying, I’m, I’m doing everything I can to, to find those opportunities, but I’m, I’m still not going to shirk away from, from fighting where I, I know I need to.
0:22:03 So let’s talk a little bit about the election.
0:22:07 You were on the shortest of short lists for a VP.
0:22:14 If you had, and I’m sure they asked for your input and, you know, we’re, you referenced this.
0:22:19 One of the weird things about our electoral system is that it’s a small number of counties and a small number of states, including yours.
0:22:26 And somewhere in, somewhere in Lansing is the man or woman who decided the election or, or can decide the election, right?
0:22:29 I was shocked how badly we lost.
0:22:30 I got this wrong.
0:22:36 And, um, you know, it wasn’t a lot of votes, but lost most or all the swing states.
0:22:47 As you try to diagnose what went wrong for Democrats, what two or three things or mistakes or missed opportunities would you, would you lay at the feet of the, uh, of the campaign?
0:22:52 I think we’ve, we’ve gotten too far away from the people that we serve.
0:22:59 And I don’t mean, I say we as a party, you know, one of the things I love about state government is I am with the people I serve all the time.
0:23:02 I get to see the outcomes of the work that I do.
0:23:04 And that’s what I love about state government.
0:23:07 And that’s a challenge when you’re talking about Washington, D.C.
0:23:13 Um, you know, I’m, I’m not a pundit, but I’ve thought a lot about, you know, the substance of your question.
0:23:23 And I think, I don’t know that anyone, I don’t know that anyone could have tagged in when president Biden tagged out and it come up with a different result.
0:23:25 I really don’t, I really think it was too late.
0:23:32 And so I do think that it was, uh, you know, the president stayed in way too long.
0:23:34 I don’t think he should have run again.
0:23:38 And I think he stayed in way too long and, um, we may have had a different result.
0:23:51 We may not have, but there should have been a robust primary where, um, new energy, new vision and new talent was tested and ready for a tough general election.
0:23:57 And you know what, if that had happened, maybe the Republicans would have had a different standard bearer too in their primary.
0:23:59 That’s the big thing I think about.
0:24:05 But I also think that disconnection with people, you know, the campaign continued to say the economy is doing great.
0:24:09 And you know what, the average person was not feeling that very clearly.
0:24:10 Men weren’t feeling that.
0:24:12 Women weren’t feeling that.
0:24:16 It was across the board, um, tone deaf.
0:24:23 And what do you think you, I think most people would agree that the Democrats need to get kind of more in touch with the people that they represent.
0:24:29 A lot of people aren’t happy with the president’s policies and yet the Democratic Party is even less popular.
0:24:38 Can you be a little bit more prescriptive in terms of policies or messaging around how people start to believe, again, that the Democratic Party does, in fact, represent them?
0:24:42 When I, you know, jumped in the race in 2018, I got all across the state of Michigan.
0:24:44 I wanted to ask people, what’s going on in your life?
0:24:46 What could I do that’ll make it better?
0:24:52 And, you know, a lot of politicians just get, hit the campaign trail and talk, but I like to listen.
0:24:56 And I think it’s important that politicians shut up and listen to the people they want to serve.
0:24:58 And when you ask them, they’ll tell you.
0:25:04 So I heard over and over again, to my surprise, frankly, uh, fix the damn roads.
0:25:05 That’s what I heard.
0:25:06 That’s what people said.
0:25:15 Whether I was in the Upper Peninsula in the most rural parts of the state or I was in downtown Detroit or on the west side of the state in Grand Rapids, that was a common refrain.
0:25:17 It wasn’t the only thing people talked about.
0:25:18 They talked about housing costs.
0:25:20 They talked about job opportunities.
0:25:22 They talked about school outcomes for our kids.
0:25:25 But roads kept coming up over and over again.
0:25:31 And, um, I think, you know, I assumed it was because it’s a daily reminder on your commute.
0:25:37 If you hit a pothole, it’s a pretty clear, uh, piece of evidence that government’s not getting the job done.
0:25:42 And it can really cost you a lot of time and money on your commute or fixing your car, etc.
0:25:46 But it was actually when I was in a children’s hospital in Detroit.
0:25:52 I was touring and I came across a woman who looked kind of friendly and I thought she wouldn’t mind talking to me.
0:25:53 But, you know, it’s a children’s hospital.
0:25:55 So I figured this is high-stress place.
0:25:57 Parents with kids in the hospital.
0:26:05 And I chatted with her and I said, you know, if I’m fortunate enough to get elected, what could I do that will make your life better or make your life a little easier?
0:26:07 And she said, fix the damn roads.
0:26:08 I was shocked.
0:26:09 I thought she’d talk about health care.
0:26:12 I thought she’d talk about child care or education.
0:26:14 I said, all right, tell me more.
0:26:16 Why is this the first thing out of your mouth?
0:26:22 She said, well, I got, she’s a mom of, you know, four kids, one daughter, three boys.
0:26:24 One of her boys was in the hospital.
0:26:25 She lives in Flint.
0:26:28 She was driving back and forth from Flint to Detroit.
0:26:29 Not a short commute.
0:26:33 And she hit a pothole and it sidelined her for a whole day.
0:26:34 It busted the room on her car.
0:26:39 It cost her a ton of money that she didn’t have, hadn’t budgeted for.
0:26:41 It was money out of child care for rent.
0:26:47 And it took her away from her child in the hospital and she was paying for child care for the other kids at home.
0:26:55 And it was like that moment, it just crystallized for me that when you talk about the roads, it’s not just about an easier commute or safer commute.
0:26:57 It’s about time with your kids.
0:27:00 It’s about money for your rent or your child care.
0:27:11 It’s about people on the margins who one little pothole can totally screw up their whole month or months of spending.
0:27:16 And I think that’s the kind of stuff that I learn the most from when we’re asking people.
0:27:22 And I think a lot of Democrats in D.C. talk to each other and don’t actually talk to their constituents enough.
0:27:31 What do you think going into the midterms is on voters’ minds and hasn’t changed at all since the last election?
0:27:43 What do you think are going to be the kind of the—it feels like both the presidential election and even city elections right now, looking at the mayoral race in New York, it’s been about affordability.
0:27:45 Do you think that’s going to be the key issue again at the midterms?
0:27:55 I think a lot of people feel hopeless that they can’t get ahead because they can’t buy a house or they can’t find an apartment that they can afford.
0:27:58 They’re looking for a good-paying job.
0:28:05 You know, I think that those fundamentals are missing for a lot of people in this country right now.
0:28:16 And they’re only getting harder to reach with tariffs, with all the additional costs that are going to be piled on people from the bill that, you know, just passed through Congress.
0:28:18 I think it’s only going to get harder.
0:28:20 And so, yeah, I do think that that is going to be front and center.
0:28:40 And my hope is that my colleagues across the country and people who run as Democrats are not just speaking to that, but have a vision about how to address it and are talking to people about that, understanding what’s really holding Americans back right now.
0:28:48 And it’s not just, you know, it’s not just Democrats, it’s, I think everyone in D.C. sometimes gets caught in that bubble.
0:28:58 And that’s why when people ask governors, how should we message to people, I think governors are the best messengers because we’re the ones on the ground with people every single day.
0:29:04 And I would say that’s true of Republican and Democratic governors because we know what’s going on more.
0:29:10 Now, I’m obviously a Democrat, and I think our platform’s a lot more representative of what people want and need.
0:29:17 But, you know, this is still going to be very important to voters going into next, you know, the next election.
0:29:20 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
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0:31:41 The number one movie in the country is Superman.
0:31:44 It might be the number one movie in the world.
0:31:46 Are you being serious right now?
0:31:47 Yeah.
0:31:50 But not everybody is loving it.
0:31:53 Recently, you’ve come under a lot of fire for what some might.
0:31:53 I don’t know. It’s a lot of fire.
0:31:54 It’s a lot.
0:31:59 Kellyanne Conway is mad about it.
0:32:08 The guy who stars as Superman had the audacity to say, instead of fighting for truth, liberty, and great values in America, he refused to say the last part.
0:32:10 Ben Shapiro is mad about it.
0:32:17 The reality that Hollywood is so far to the left that they cannot take a core piece of Americana and just say it’s about America?
0:32:20 Even TV Superman Dean Cain is concerned.
0:32:23 Look, don’t try and make it all woke and crazy.
0:32:28 What, if anything, is woke and crazy about the new Superman movie on Today Explained?
0:32:31 We are finally doing Dean Cain Explained.
0:32:32 Come over and join us.
0:32:51 A big kind of call sign for Republicans and Democrats, it seems as if we have a bit of a fetish or a lot of goodwill for, quote, unquote, manufacturing.
0:32:54 You consistently hear candidates talk about the importance of manufacturing plays.
0:33:01 And if you thought of a state that sort of embodied manufacturing, I think it would be Michigan.
0:33:07 I think if people said, okay, what state is ground zero for how well or not well we’re doing in terms of manufacturing, it would be Michigan.
0:33:13 I’m curious what you think about our, quote, unquote, national policy as it relates to manufacturing.
0:33:15 We can use that as a bridge to talk about tariffs.
0:33:21 But what do you think America gets right or wrong about manufacturing?
0:33:27 And what have you done at a state level to ensure that, I think it’s your number one sector, is manufacturing remains robust?
0:33:38 You know, when we think about a pandemic, right, we’ve all lived through a very recent, very clear example of what happens
0:33:40 when we’re not manufacturing in this country.
0:33:47 Just trying to get swabs or masks was impossible and lives were lost because we weren’t able to do that.
0:33:57 I’m grateful that we had, you know, kind of a resurgence and re-interest around supporting manufacturing and unshoring supply chains.
0:34:09 And, you know, the Biden administration did a lot of good work to spur this.
0:34:11 And I’m worried.
0:34:16 I’m worried right now because in Michigan, we’ve seen a lot of investment around growing our manufacturing.
0:34:23 It is our big industry and autos to boot, which makes up a bulk of our advanced manufacturing.
0:34:25 But we do a lot of different types of manufacturing.
0:34:27 And agriculture.
0:34:37 And all of these things make us uniquely susceptible to the pain of tariff policy that is just complete chaos right now.
0:34:40 We lack a strategic goal.
0:34:43 Ninety deals in 90 days.
0:34:44 We’ve had two.
0:34:48 And not with the most, with the biggest trade partners that we have.
0:34:56 And so right now, I think it’s really precarious in Michigan, despite all the work that we’ve done to make sure that our workforce is ready,
0:35:04 to level the barriers between people and skills that get them into good paying jobs, including manufacturing jobs.
0:35:12 And I’m very worried about what this moment is going to reap for Michigan long term.
0:35:18 You know, there’s a saying that when the country gets a cold, Michigan gets the flu.
0:35:22 You know, we feel it harder and faster than other states do.
0:35:25 And we’re seeing that right now with this tariff policy.
0:35:32 And later today, I’m going to be talking with the Secretary of Commerce to talk a little bit about the Canadian tariffs in particular
0:35:37 and what it’s meaning to the Michigan economy, because I don’t know that they are seeing it.
0:35:39 And I want to make sure that it’s very clear.
0:35:46 And I’m going to do my best to continue to prevail on them, to come up with some sort of an agreement with Mark Carney and the Canadians,
0:35:55 but also, you know, the Mexican government, because North American trade is, you know, it ain’t perfect, but it’s been working and we rely on it.
0:36:01 And it’s really important to so many jobs and so much of American manufacturing.
0:36:08 Where are you with respect to the president’s basic notion that America, we have all of these asymmetric trade relationships
0:36:17 and that many nations have taken advantage of us in terms of trade and this sort of full embrace of a tariff policy?
0:36:23 What do you think about tariffs as they relate to protecting some industries, including manufacturing,
0:36:25 and how the administration is going about it?
0:36:31 I think the way they’re going about it is dangerous and we’re feeling it in Michigan already, I can tell you that.
0:36:35 They’ve never articulated a long-term strategic goal.
0:36:43 And once we get there, that corporate, you know, that corporations can evolve and then plan on it.
0:36:47 It’s this on-off, hot-cold, what is it today?
0:36:49 Who’s our enemy tomorrow?
0:36:52 And, you know, I’m really concerned.
0:36:58 You know, Michigan is, we like to say, you know, we’re basically second cousins with our Canadian neighbors.
0:37:05 In Michigan, if you’ve ever been to a hospital in Detroit, odds are you’ve been taken care of by a Canadian nurse.
0:37:11 They come across the border in hundreds every single day to take care of Americans, Michiganders mostly, right?
0:37:19 And so this is a relationship that was built over generations, that has been mutually beneficial.
0:37:23 When L.A. is on fire, Canadian firefighters come to help.
0:37:29 You know, I mean, this is something that has been, you know, just true allies in every sense of the word.
0:37:33 And now I can tell you, Canadians aren’t coming to the States.
0:37:35 They’re not coming for tourism.
0:37:36 They’re not investing in America.
0:37:37 They’re not buying American goods.
0:37:59 The Canadian ambassador to the United States, I was recently in an event with her and she was talking about how Canada’s consumption of American goods dwarfs China’s, I think France, Germany, like she was listing five countries together were dwarfed by Canadian consumption.
0:38:10 That’s why this relationship has got to be resolved and protected, and it’s going to take us generations to earn back the kind of trust that we built over the last number of years.
0:38:16 In five months, so much damage has been done, and I worry what that’s going to mean for us long term.
0:38:26 So, generally speaking, when we think about, when I was younger, you didn’t, people didn’t sort of go shopping for States.
0:38:31 I didn’t think, I never, I don’t remember people thinking, oh, no sales tax or no state income tax.
0:38:32 I’m moving to Florida from New York.
0:38:38 And now it feels as if States have to compete for not only businesses, but just for citizens.
0:38:45 And loosely speaking, I think most people would say that immigration patterns are driven by two things, sunshine and low taxes.
0:38:48 And Michigan has neither of those.
0:38:57 And yet it appears, the surveys I’ve read of that, it does really well in terms of a business friendly environment, really well in terms of quality of life.
0:39:06 The economy, good, not great, but what is your approach to, if you’re selling the consumer product that is Michigan, trying to convince me?
0:39:14 And my understanding is you’ve actually had net population growth, that those migration patterns are not the case at Michigan.
0:39:24 What is your pitch to consumers and businesses and the policies to back them up to make Michigan a state they choose to move to instead of from?
0:39:27 Well, Michigan’s got a great quality of life.
0:39:32 You know, we’ve got 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface waters in and around the Great Lakes.
0:39:38 We’ve got more coastline than any other state in the continental United States, and it’s all fresh water.
0:39:39 No sharks and no salt.
0:39:49 We’ve got phenomenal institutions of higher education, including our community colleges and our higher educational institutions.
0:39:59 And, you know, there’s a company that’s got dual headquarters, one in Silicon Valley, one in Washtenaw County, Michigan, right near Ann Arbor.
0:40:07 And they’re having an easier time recruiting to Michigan because our cost of living is one-tenth of that in Northern California.
0:40:11 And so all of these things, I think, are great strengths for us.
0:40:21 You know, I was talking with the Aspen Institute on Climate yesterday in Chicago with my colleague, Governor Dunleavy from Alaska.
0:40:29 You know, we were chatting a little bit about climate, and one of the questions posed was, both your states are well-positioned.
0:40:31 For climate, you’ll have population growth.
0:40:32 And I’m like, oh, my God.
0:40:38 Climate immigrants is, you know, is not how we want to grow our population.
0:40:41 Climate, bad climate is not good for anybody.
0:40:48 As I can tell you when I look across at the Mackinac Bridge, the smoke from Canadian wildfires is impacting us.
0:40:53 So I think, you know, the strengths that I highlighted are a part of it.
0:40:56 But I’d also add, Michiganders are down to earth.
0:41:03 You know, as I talk to businesses who have presence in other states, Michiganders take pride in their work,
0:41:05 and we’re gritty people who show up and we work hard.
0:41:12 And I think that’s an important point on top of all the other policies that we’ve had to make Michigan a welcoming state,
0:41:18 a place where you can make your own decisions about your body, where every person’s protected and respected under the law,
0:41:23 and where we’ve leveled the financial barrier to get skills so you can get into good paying jobs.
0:41:26 I think these are all important aspects of the work that we’re doing.
0:41:31 And how do you keep or maintain that quality?
0:41:34 So I think a quality of life means you get a good job and you can afford your rent.
0:41:42 You keep housing costs and education costs at a reasonable level and ensure that people have decent jobs, decent high-paying jobs.
0:41:44 How do you do that?
0:41:52 Let me start with housing because it feels as if that has been a real issue around maintaining affordability in different states.
0:41:57 How do you ensure that, as long as we want to say, how do you approach affordability in Michigan?
0:42:05 So we’ve really been on a crusade to build affordable housing in Michigan these last few years.
0:42:07 We’ve plowed a lot of resources into it.
0:42:18 We have, I think, maintained our high level of standards but moved licensing a lot faster, moved permits a lot faster.
0:42:31 We’ve added tens of thousands of housing units and we’ve created tens of thousands of construction jobs in the process, which is good paying trades jobs, which is something that we take great pride in as well.
0:42:40 I think we’ve got, you know, a lot of great programs to help people pay off $10,000 of a down payment so that more people can get in.
0:42:48 You know, one of the things I think that, you know, I’m sure we’ll talk about it, but, you know, I raised this in my state of the state earlier this year.
0:42:53 You know, women are two-to-one buying homes, their first homes to men.
0:43:00 Of course, the average age is way too high, you know, for everybody, but two-to-one women are doing that.
0:43:06 So we’re doing a lot more outreach to men to make sure that they know of all these opportunities and programs, too.
0:43:11 I think that it’s really, you know, very important that everyone can participate.
0:43:20 But the housing costs and accessibility all across this country, the costs are way too high and accessibility is way too low.
0:43:31 And so we’ve made it a real priority with state dollars to find those partnerships where we can build more at a lower price point so that more people can participate.
0:43:37 You referenced something we think a lot about here, and that is young men who are struggling.
0:43:42 And you also referenced more single women now own homes than men.
0:43:47 Single women in urban areas are now making as much or more than men.
0:43:49 60-40 college attendance.
0:43:51 And I want to be clear, all of those things are wonderful.
0:43:53 That’s a collective victory.
0:43:56 We should hold hands and applaud our victory here.
0:43:58 It’s not the same for men.
0:44:00 Young men are really struggling, right?
0:44:05 Four times as likely they kill themselves, three times as likely to be addicts or homeless.
0:44:10 And you made a direct appeal in your state of the state.
0:44:16 What do you think, if you try to diagnose the issue here, the problem, what is it?
0:44:18 Why are young men having such a difficult time?
0:44:24 And can you point to any specific programs or ideas in the state of Michigan that you think can help address this issue?
0:44:29 Well, it’s a really important question that you’re asking.
0:44:36 And, you know, I’m the mom of two daughters, but it’s in their interest that we create real opportunity for every person, right?
0:44:41 And we have made strides when it comes to women, but we do see men falling behind.
0:44:43 It’s just what we’re seeing.
0:44:44 It’s in the data.
0:44:46 And I appreciate the work that you’re doing.
0:44:51 I’ve learned a lot by listening to you and trying to do our research here on the ground.
0:44:53 You know, it’s not just in housing.
0:45:01 It is also when it comes to, you know, the programs that we have designed to make it easier for people to get skills, right?
0:45:03 There’s not one path for everyone.
0:45:11 And I think we’ve done, as a country ourselves, a real disservice in talking about the four-year education as the only path to prosperity.
0:45:22 There are lots of different paths, whether it’s a two-year certificate or it is a trade school where you can get skills and get paid while you’re getting them and have no debt and a good paying job on the other side.
0:45:24 There’s opportunity for every person.
0:45:32 When every person sees that opportunity, and I think that’s part of the problem that we’ve had is reaching young men.
0:45:37 These programs, so, you know, making community college free for every high school graduate.
0:45:42 We have big scholarships available for kids who do want to go to four-year institutions.
0:45:50 We also created something called the Michigan Reconnect, which is for people 25 and up to go back to school and to upskill.
0:45:55 In all those programs, we’re seeing uptake two-to-one women-to-men.
0:45:56 Two-to-one.
0:45:58 They’re available to everyone.
0:46:00 They’re not designed for one gender or another.
0:46:03 They are designed to make sure that every person can participate.
0:46:07 But for some reason, it’s two-to-one women-to-men.
0:46:16 And that’s why in my State of the State, I talked about just our efforts to do the outreach, to go in places where men are, because we’re obviously not reaching them.
0:46:20 And I think that that’s going to be really important.
0:46:32 The more people who feel hopeless and powerless and angry, the more dangerous our rhetoric gets, the more dangerous our world gets, and the less opportunity there is.
0:46:34 So it was interesting, though, Scott.
0:46:39 I’ve got to tell you, when I did that, I did get some interesting kind of reaction.
0:46:46 You know, some people said, are you abandoning your, you know, the work that you do to create more opportunity for women?
0:46:47 I said, no.
0:46:58 This is, it’s like, I remember someone once said, when you say, save the rainforests, you’re not saying, screw all the other forests.
0:47:01 You’re saying, I see a vulnerability here.
0:47:03 Let’s get to work and address it.
0:47:04 And that’s what we’re doing.
0:47:15 Doing that outreach, making sure that young men participate, too, can see a future, can feel hopeful and empowered to participate in this economy and live the lives that they want.
0:47:23 But the interesting thing is, it’s been mostly moms and some dads, of course, but who are advocating for their sons.
0:47:26 And that’s what I’m thinking about when we promote these opportunities.
0:47:29 Yeah, empathy is not a zero-sum game.
0:47:41 And to your point, I’ve found the biggest advocates that have made it a much more productive conversation than the gag reflex that was inspired, if you just brought it up five years ago, is mothers from both sides of the aisle.
0:47:43 They just see something is going on.
0:47:47 I’m curious your thoughts on immigration policy.
0:47:55 I mean, two big things here, but I’d love for you to just touch on the president’s immigration policy and some of these ICE raids.
0:48:02 My sense is your population of undocumented workers is only about 1.2 percent, but I’m sure it’s impacting Michigan.
0:48:07 And also, any thoughts on this big, beautiful tax bill that’s passed?
0:48:10 Those are two big questions, Scott.
0:48:13 You know, I’ll start with this.
0:48:23 We recently had visitors from the federal government in Michigan talking about, you know, we have not seen a lot of the stuff that’s playing out in other parts of the country, to your point.
0:48:32 The northern border, people don’t realize this, but when you talk about border crossings, the most active border crossing in North America is in Detroit.
0:48:34 It goes to Windsor.
0:48:40 And we’ve been very fortunate to have very few issues on the border.
0:48:50 But someone made a representation that we’re just getting inundated by gangs and fentanyl on the northern border, which was news to me, frankly.
0:48:55 And so I had a security briefing with some of the folks in the federal government.
0:48:59 And I asked the question and they said, you know, you know, we see fentanyl everywhere.
0:49:00 So where’s it coming from?
0:49:01 Don’t know.
0:49:07 So it’s probably not coming down from Canada, but there is a fentanyl problem in this country, no question.
0:49:18 And so it’s been challenging to see some of the national conversation in this space when the facts on the ground don’t necessarily bear it out.
0:49:28 All of that being said, we do have to have a path to citizenship for people who come here legally, and we do have to have, you know, strong borders.
0:49:30 There’s no question about that.
0:49:40 It’s important to our democracy, to our ability to secure the homeland, but I don’t agree with the way that they’re going about it.
0:49:43 I think it’s just dangerous and destructive.
0:49:53 When I think about the big bill, and I’m not going to use their phrase for it because I think it’s a terrible, terrible set of policies.
0:49:56 I’m worried about a lot of people in our country.
0:50:03 I worry about people immediately who are going to lose access to health care, that we’ve worked so hard to expand in Michigan.
0:50:13 I worry about hospitals in rural areas that are not going to make it because of the devastation to the Medicaid population that they disproportionately serve.
0:50:15 They’re not going to be able to keep doors open.
0:50:21 I worry about our kids who are going to inherit debt that can’t even get your head around.
0:50:25 And so, yeah, I was fighting against the bill.
0:50:28 My fellow Democratic governors and I were.
0:50:35 I think one of the most disappointing things is Republican governors are going to see the same devastation in their states, but they were mum.
0:50:49 And I just, it’s hard to believe we’re at this moment in America that people are willing to bite their tongues for their own political good,
0:50:54 you know, for their own political good and sacrifice the people that they serve.
0:50:56 It’s just, it’s shocking.
0:50:58 It’s really shocking to me.
0:51:01 We’ll be right back.
0:51:15 Hey, this is Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, a show about media and tech and what happens when they collide.
0:51:21 And this may be hard to remember, but not very long ago, magazines were a really big deal.
0:51:29 And the most important magazines were owned by Condé Nast, the glitzy publishing empire that’s the focus of a new book by New York Times reporter Michael Grinbaum.
0:51:36 The way Condé Nast elevated its editors, the way they paid for their mortgages so they could live in beautiful homes.
0:51:44 There was a logic to it, which was that Condé Nast itself became seen as this kind of enchanted land.
0:51:49 You can hear the rest of our chat on channels, wherever you listen to your favorite media podcast.
0:52:00 This week on Net Worth and Chill, I’m joined by Dan Rossi, the hot dog king of New York City and the owner of the most iconic hot dog cart of all time.
0:52:12 From starting with a single cart and a dream to building up a multimillion dollar empire that dominated street corners across Manhattan, Dan’s story takes an unexpected turn when it all came crashing down.
0:52:25 Dan opens up about the highs of feeding thousands of hungry New Yorkers daily, the challenges of scaling a street food business, the mistakes that cost him everything and what he’s learned about resilience, failure and starting over.
0:52:35 What happened was they took all the disabled vets that were selling merchandise, you know, to see the guys with the hats and stuff, and they kicked them out of Midtown Manhattan.
0:52:35 Why?
0:52:37 You want me to name politics?
0:52:38 Yeah, let’s name.
0:52:38 Donald Trump.
0:52:43 He kicked every vet out of Midtown Manhattan by buying off all the politicians in Albany.
0:52:48 Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash Your Rich BFF.
0:52:55 We’re back with more from Governor Whitmer.
0:53:08 So there’s a perception that the relationship between the administration and governors is entirely dependent upon whether you’re part of MAGA or not.
0:53:10 Is that the case?
0:53:13 How is your relationship with the current administration right now?
0:53:15 Complicated.
0:53:30 You know, I got to tell you, in my first term, my first two years of my first term were the last two years of the first Trump administration and notoriously very contentious, right?
0:53:32 He called me that woman from Michigan.
0:53:37 I got threatened to be kidnapped and killed by, you know, people that I think were inspired.
0:53:38 And he refused to condemn that.
0:53:44 Not only that, but, you know, gas was thrown on the fire through the election.
0:53:47 You know, it was really scary.
0:53:54 And like I said, after I came out of my Dexter funk, I decided I got to try.
0:53:58 I’m going to do everything I can to do as much as I can for the state of Michigan.
0:54:01 I got, you know, I’m going to keep showing up.
0:54:06 And sometimes they won’t like to see me and like to hear what I have to say, but I’m going to keep showing up.
0:54:07 I’m going to keep making the case.
0:54:13 I got an Air National Guard base recapitalized, which is incredible.
0:54:15 I tried to get that done under the Biden administration.
0:54:18 Couldn’t get over the finish line, but I got it done in the first few months of this year.
0:54:19 I’m grateful for that.
0:54:21 I’m working on a lot of other things.
0:54:25 I got a, we had a massive ice storm here in Michigan a few months ago.
0:54:29 Hard to believe it’s 80 degrees out and we had an ice storm not long ago.
0:54:33 I still haven’t gotten FEMA relief for the businesses and people in Michigan.
0:54:34 I’m still working on that.
0:54:42 I’m having a call with the administration today about the Canadian, you know, North American tariffs situation.
0:54:47 So I’ve decided I’m going to lean in and I’m going to be, I’m going to be the squeaky wheel.
0:54:50 And sometimes I can get some good stuff from Michigan.
0:54:50 Great.
0:54:52 And if they get mad at me, that’s fine too.
0:54:57 It doesn’t mean I forbear from suing when we need to as states, which we have many times,
0:55:01 but I’m going to do everything I can to keep the lines of communication open.
0:55:08 Cause if I’ve learned anything is when you’re not talking, you got no shot at finding, finding any common ground.
0:55:12 And I’m not pretending there’s going to be a lot there, but I’m going to keep trying.
0:55:13 That’s my duty as governor.
0:55:19 I think I think one of the things that is been frustrating for Democrats is we see things
0:55:25 happening that to us, you know, these, these red lines keep getting blown and we see people
0:55:32 being thrown off their Medicaid and a tax bill that, that is primarily kind of, you know, transferring
0:55:37 wealth from young to old, from the future to the past, from the poor to the rich and are
0:55:41 frustrated that more, there is a more democratic leadership pushing back.
0:55:44 There’s a, there’s, I think a legitimate concern.
0:55:47 It’s sort of like, where’s the leadership on the democratic side?
0:55:49 I mean, it would be very difficult right now.
0:55:54 I think for anyone to say who is the leader of the democratic party when you’re to the extent
0:56:01 you can behind closed doors, talking to Democrats about how to resist here or what can be done.
0:56:02 What are your thoughts?
0:56:08 Well, I’m going to say something that’s going to be really depressing and that is we’re five
0:56:10 months in to a 48 month term.
0:56:12 All right.
0:56:17 And I understand the desire to fight, to fight everything.
0:56:18 I get it.
0:56:19 I feel that too.
0:56:21 I feel the same desperation you just spoke to.
0:56:26 And as a governor, I have a role.
0:56:28 You know, I have an important role.
0:56:31 My fellow governors and I do, we talk about this a lot.
0:56:37 How do we band together and show Americans what democratic leaders do?
0:56:39 It’s by delivering in our states.
0:56:44 It’s by fighting the federal government when they’re impacting our states.
0:56:49 But we are not the counterpoint to the executive branch and the federal government.
0:56:50 That’s Congress.
0:56:53 That’s their whole job is to be that counterpoint.
0:56:59 And so when I see Congress people who are stepping into the fray, I’m cheering them on.
0:57:05 Whether it’s AOC or it’s Chris Murphy or it’s anyone else, I appreciate that.
0:57:08 And I recognize that every one of us must play a role.
0:57:10 There’s not going to be one leader of this party.
0:57:12 There’s just not right now.
0:57:13 We don’t have a president.
0:57:14 And so there’s going to be a lot of leaders.
0:57:18 It’s got to be, you know, a team, a team effort.
0:57:24 But I also am cognizant that I got to lead a state of 10 million people through this time.
0:57:33 And that means living my values, showing people what democratic leadership can do and will do for people so that they can point to, okay, this, what they’re doing in Michigan is good.
0:57:35 And we need more people like that in the federal government.
0:57:37 And I’m not talking about me.
0:57:40 I’m talking about Democrats writ large.
0:57:45 And I think, you know, to your point, I have that same sense of frustration.
0:57:52 I see some of the things going on and I read the articles that I know some of the folks that they’re talking about.
0:58:01 And I scratch my head and I say, how do I contribute to something that actually is going to be productive and successful?
0:58:03 Because you can have all the right positions in the world.
0:58:07 But if you can’t win an election, none of it matters.
0:58:09 So let’s talk about that.
0:58:10 Let’s have some fun.
0:58:12 Let’s imagine that you’re drafted.
0:58:17 You’re consistently mentioned as one of the most viable candidates on the Democratic side.
0:58:23 Let’s go all the way forward to inauguration of 2028 Whitmer presidency.
0:58:28 And you have a 12-month honeymoon period, as any new president might have.
0:58:33 And a lot of political capital, but maybe only one or two issues to spend that capital on.
0:58:46 As you look at the nation and you try to imagine a Whitmer presidency, what are the one or two issues you think you would want to focus on with that political capital during, quote, unquote, that honeymoon phase?
0:58:48 Where do you think the biggest need is?
0:58:54 Where would you want to have the most impact if you had, if you held the, you know, the highest job in the land?
0:59:00 I don’t even like this game, Scott, because it’ll just get people talking.
0:59:00 Come on, come on, Governor.
0:59:03 Let’s break some news here.
0:59:10 Listen, I care about, I want to have a hand in writing the next chapter, but I don’t know that I got to be the main character.
0:59:11 But I will say this.
0:59:21 I think any Democrat in their first 12 months, when you are given power, you better use it and not be apologetic about it and not be shy about it.
0:59:32 People elect you to do the job and, by God, you know, if there’s something that I think has resonated with the current occupant of the White House with people is that he’s not afraid to use power.
0:59:35 I got lots of problems with it.
0:59:40 I don’t know that it’s all legal and it’s certainly not all ethical, but he’s not afraid to use power.
0:59:43 And I think sometimes Democrats are too afraid.
0:59:49 So I’d love to see a bold leader who takes on a lot of issues that have been vexing us.
0:59:56 I would, you know, maybe I’ve been listening to your podcast too much, but I’m thinking about, I’m thinking about the national debt.
1:00:04 I’m thinking about the, all the ways that we are saddling future generations of Americans with the debt.
1:00:07 And it’s just, it’s unethical.
1:00:08 It’s horrific.
1:00:11 And both parties have been guilty of it.
1:00:19 I will say Democrats have retired more debt than Republicans have during their relevant administrations, but it’s run up over many, many.
1:00:27 Well, let’s talk about that because I think a lot of people agree that we’re spending $7 trillion on $5 trillion in receipts.
1:00:41 What I find Democrats come up short is that they all agree we need to have this conversation, but they don’t want to have it because it involves very unpopular decisions around both cutting spending and raising taxes.
1:00:49 Any thoughts or programs you can, or decisions you can point to in Michigan around trying to restore fiscal sanity?
1:00:57 Where, where do you think, and two pointed questions, where do you think we could raise revenues and where do you think we could cut costs?
1:01:03 So, I’ll just say this, you know, as a, as a governor, I got to have a balanced budget.
1:01:04 Every year we got a balanced budget.
1:01:08 And we have retired a lot of debt in Michigan.
1:01:10 We’ve paid down billions.
1:01:14 Like, last, I think the number was $18 or $20 billion of debt.
1:01:20 We’ve gotten our credit rating increased, you know, improved, upgraded.
1:01:28 We have made, created a rainy day fund that has a historic high in it now and created one for education as well.
1:01:31 So, we’ve been really prudent with our, our dollars.
1:01:43 And unlike some states, we use one-time COVID dollars for one-time expenses instead of rolling it into ongoing needs, where some states have serious budget deficits now.
1:01:49 We, we don’t have that caveat being tariffs are starting to really have an impact on our state budget.
1:01:50 We’re seeing that.
1:01:58 And I’m concerned about that in combination with the cuts coming from the federal, federal government because of the latest legislation.
1:02:12 But I do think that need is, need-based analysis is really important as we look to, you know, my dad doesn’t need his social security.
1:02:13 He doesn’t.
1:02:14 He’s, he did well.
1:02:16 He’s not a billionaire.
1:02:20 He’s, you know, but he, he did well in his life and he does not need the social security checks.
1:02:34 There are a lot of people in Michigan who $1,500 stipend for a mom in Flint with our RX kids, $1,500 makes all the difference in the world that she can take care of her child.
1:02:50 And so that’s just one quick way of saying to really evaluate how do we spend our precious taxpayer dollars in a way that is going to have the biggest impact, drive our economy and help more people be able to participate.
1:02:57 I think that is one very clear question that is never asked enough and should be.
1:03:02 So it sounds like you’re willing to sort of get near or even touch the third rail.
1:03:07 And it sounds like what you’re suggesting is you’re open to the idea of means testing or maybe raising the age for social security.
1:03:08 Am I, am I interpreting that correctly?
1:03:09 Yeah.
1:03:19 I think, I think one of the things that, um, you know, that you said in one of the podcasts I listened to recently was, you know, the, the only color that we should ask is green.
1:03:30 You phrase it much more eloquently than I just, uh, paraphrase, but I, I, there’s a lot of, a lot of wisdom to that because there are a lot of people of color.
1:03:35 There are a lot of white people, you know, all people who are in poverty.
1:03:42 Um, if we could have programs that really benefit that segment of, of society, we’d all be better off.
1:03:53 There wouldn’t be this, this anger and this wealth gap disparity that is fueling so much of the, the anger that is, um, driving the, the rhetoric in this country right now.
1:04:01 And just as we, Governor, just as we wrap up here on thing, and you’ve been very generous with your time, people, whether they agree with you or not,
1:04:08 I’m just going to look at, look at you and think this is a high functioning and very successful person.
1:04:20 When you look back on your life, what are the really key seminal influences or moments that enabled you to kind of achieve this level of influence?
1:04:24 And I would imagine it’s a very frustrating, but a very rewarding job.
1:04:28 What, what were those moments in your life that really helped to put wind in your sails?
1:04:32 So going into last year, um, I wrote a book.
1:04:43 It’s called True Gritch and it’s 10 things I’ve learned over my life that have really helped me navigate the last six years, the crazy years that I’ve been governor, right?
1:04:56 A pandemic, a kidnapping plot, you know, demonstrations for racial justice, incredible, um, climate events that meant we had to evacuate 10,000 people in the middle of the night in the middle of a pandemic.
1:05:00 Like 32 recall attempts, you know, all the crazy crap I’ve had to navigate.
1:05:03 People often ask me, why do you still feel positive?
1:05:05 Why did you want to run for re-election?
1:05:07 You know, and that’s a legitimate question.
1:05:09 I think most people be like, forget this.
1:05:10 I love it.
1:05:11 I love this job.
1:05:17 And I think, you know, in that, in the book, I talk about 10 things that have given me a lesson that I learned.
1:05:19 Something I screwed up.
1:05:26 I talk about throwing up on my, my high school principal when I was in college, or I’m sorry, in high school, throwing up on my principal and getting suspended.
1:05:35 And just really was a moment that changed everything for me, where I was like, all right, I gotta, it changed the decisions that I made.
1:05:37 I became a more improved student.
1:05:43 I went to Michigan State, which I couldn’t have gotten into if I didn’t get my act together at that point in my high school career.
1:05:46 I went to law school where it really clicked for me.
1:05:54 I talk about, you know, the shortcomings, the terrible things that happened to me, like I was raped when I was in college.
1:06:02 You know, a therapist once told me, we’re all a ball of clay, and sometimes things get hollowed out or taken away from us.
1:06:04 And it’s not fair, and it’s not right.
1:06:13 But if you can see that now that that is a vessel and it can carry water, you can find purpose in the bad decisions you made or in the horrible things that happened to you.
1:06:19 And I think about that a lot because I am not perfect.
1:06:22 I’ve never tried to tell people I am.
1:06:23 I am a flawed human being.
1:06:25 I’m a normal person in an extraordinary role.
1:06:32 Taking care of my mom during that period of time when she was dying and I was trying to, you know, I had a new baby.
1:06:38 All of these things, I think, are what make me feel really grateful to be here.
1:06:41 I sometimes feel like I don’t deserve to be in this position.
1:06:43 It’s a high honor to be the governor of Michigan.
1:06:45 And I feel really lucky about it.
1:06:51 I also think maybe that’s why people have elected me because they know I don’t think I’m better than anyone.
1:06:55 And in some regards, I’m not as good as some.
1:06:57 Yeah, we share that.
1:07:04 I was very close to my mother and she went through an extended illness that eventually took her life.
1:07:09 It definitely, I think that and the birth of my kids changed kind of everything for me.
1:07:20 Is there anything you can point to in terms of how you approach life or how it impacted you taking care for a sick person who, I mean, a glioblastoma, that’s just not a great way to go.
1:07:21 Just being quite frank.
1:07:22 That’s a tough one.
1:07:30 Anything you’re willing to share about how it changed your approach to life or, you know, the impact it had on you?
1:07:37 I think, you know, I think I was probably, you know, always an empathetic, you know, individual.
1:07:40 My dad always says, you know, I was a pretty sensitive kid.
1:07:48 When we would go from my mom’s house to my dad’s house, I’d leave him notes because I was worried that he would be lonely, you know, when he dropped my sister and brother and me off.
1:07:58 But I remember during, you know, talking with one of the hospice folks and they left a pamphlet for us to look at and, you know, just had just had a baby.
1:07:59 My mom was dying.
1:08:11 I was reading this pamphlet and it talked about, you know, it was this scenario, a man getting on a subway with his like five kids and they’re running mayhem and they’re annoying everyone on the subway.
1:08:13 And this woman’s just about had it.
1:08:17 The kid bumped into her for like the eighth time and she’s just about to read him the riot act.
1:08:22 And he turns to her and he says, you know, my wife just died and I don’t know how I’m going to take care of these kids.
1:08:25 And that changed everything, right?
1:08:30 She felt sadness and empathy and wanted to help him instead of reading the riot act.
1:08:32 I always have that in the back of my head.
1:08:36 You know, so many people have got something else going on.
1:08:42 And so I try to, I try to think about different scenarios that could be that person that’s tailgating you.
1:08:44 You know, you want to flip them off.
1:08:45 You want to honk at them.
1:08:46 You want to do something.
1:08:50 Maybe they’re rushing to the hospital because one of their loved ones was in a car accident.
1:08:53 You know, I mean, I’m always trying to think that way.
1:09:02 And I think that that period of time with my mom, when people didn’t know what I was going through and maybe gave me a hard time when they shouldn’t have, or maybe I did the same to someone.
1:09:08 You know, I think about that a lot, that everyone’s going through something.
1:09:10 If you’re not right now, you have or you will.
1:09:13 And try to be kind.
1:09:15 You know, you never regret being kind.
1:09:18 You have two daughters, but you also have three stepsons.
1:09:23 And just before we go here, I was, my dad was married and divorced four times.
1:09:29 And one of the lights of my life was my, I guess, stepmother by my dad’s third marriage.
1:09:30 We’re still very close.
1:09:40 Talk about any thoughts you can share on best practices around being a parent to kids who aren’t biologically yours, being a stepmom.
1:09:43 My dad was married and divorced four times, too, Scott.
1:09:44 There you go.
1:09:46 We got that in common, too.
1:09:47 That’s right.
1:09:52 You know, I think that, and I’ll share this about my ex-husband, too.
1:09:54 We’re still very good friends.
1:09:58 And my husband and ex-husband sometimes jam together.
1:09:59 My husband plays guitar.
1:10:01 My ex plays the drums.
1:10:02 It’s hilarious.
1:10:06 But, you know, my stepson’s, I’ve learned a lot.
1:10:07 Boys and girls are different.
1:10:12 There’s a big, shocking newsbreaker of this conversation.
1:10:15 But, you know, they need different things.
1:10:16 And I’ve learned a lot.
1:10:17 My husband is a great dad.
1:10:19 He loves his boys.
1:10:25 And I know that how important that relationship is and how lucky they are.
1:10:33 And so I think having the boys in my daughter’s lives have enriched, we’ve all been enriched by it.
1:10:36 We’ve kind of merged a sorority and a fraternity when we got married.
1:10:37 We’re kind of the Brady Bunch.
1:10:40 And it was, we’ve all benefited from it.
1:10:41 And I feel really lucky.
1:10:42 But we have to be intentional.
1:10:44 It’s not always easy.
1:10:45 It’s not always easy.
1:10:50 And any one tip on parenting or a thing that shocked you about parenting?
1:10:53 Not that anything shocked me.
1:10:57 I just think trying to stay, be there, trying to be present.
1:11:03 And, you know, of all the downsides to technology, you know, the devices, I’m always connected to my kids.
1:11:05 And I’m grateful for that.
1:11:07 And connected to my stepson’s, too.
1:11:09 We all get along great.
1:11:11 And I think it’s because we play cards together.
1:11:12 We spend time together.
1:11:14 And we enjoy each other.
1:11:18 Governor Gretchen Whitmer is the 49th governor of Michigan.
1:11:21 And there’s always these accidental tells about politicians.
1:11:22 And I’m hearing from most of them.
1:11:25 Fortunately, I have to have a lot of them on the pod.
1:11:28 But a real tell on the governor is the following.
1:11:36 You are the first politician I have ever interviewed who, when I asked for your bio, sent one sentence.
1:11:38 And that sentence is the following.
1:11:44 Governor Whitmer is a Democratic and lifelong Michigander and is known for her work on health care infrastructure
1:11:47 and for speaking out on national issues.
1:11:50 I think that says something about you.
1:11:53 You said, you know, we can sum it up here.
1:11:55 I thought that was very telling.
1:12:01 Very much appreciate your leadership and also just the humanity you bring to these issues.
1:12:03 And stay safe.
1:12:07 And very much, again, appreciate your public service and your time today, Governor.
1:12:08 Thanks very much.
1:12:09 Thanks, Kat.
1:12:10 Appreciate it.
1:12:35 We’ll be interviewing, I think, my guess is almost every presidential candidate, at least on the Democratic side.
1:12:37 But we’ll reach out to everyone on the Republican side.
1:12:40 So here is a no mercy, no malice review of Governor Whitmer.
1:12:43 She reeks of confidence and integrity.
1:12:47 You just get the sense this is a good person and a competent person.
1:12:48 And that matters.
1:12:50 That’s who you want in government.
1:12:52 It’s easy to be cynical about government.
1:12:59 This is a good person who could be, you know, making a lot more money doing something else and instead chooses to be a public servant.
1:13:09 I think she’s going to be a player, swing state, an obvious choice for the top job on everyone’s shortlist for the VP candidacy.
1:13:11 The problem.
1:13:15 And it’s not only Governor Whitmer’s problem, but the Democratic Party.
1:13:17 Long on rhetorical flourish.
1:13:20 Not as long on specific programs.
1:13:25 I think we’re moving from an era of trying to be Obama, but you’re not Obama.
1:13:27 Okay, well, what exactly does that mean?
1:13:31 We have $7 trillion in spending, $5 trillion in receipts.
1:13:33 What does that mean?
1:13:37 What are the first two or three big programs you would propose in the first 90 days?
1:13:45 I think Democrats who get more serious about running are going to have to come up with bold, big ideas and outline them specifically.
1:13:49 And I don’t think the governor was able to do that, nor has any other Democrat.
1:13:54 And again, kudos to her for bringing up the idea of means testing Social Security.
1:13:55 But there’s just no doubt about it.
1:13:58 She’s going to be on everyone’s shortlist for at least VP.
1:14:10 I also worry, and this is difficult to say, but I think it’s true, I wonder if the Democrats are going to take the risk on a third female nominee, given that the previous two have not been successful.
1:14:12 And I’m not saying that’s the way the world should be.
1:14:13 I’m saying that’s the way the world is.
1:14:16 But again, I’ll finish where I started.
1:14:26 To be cynical about our elected leaders is not productive, because if you speak to people like Governor Whitmer, you realize that many of our people who decide to be public servants are outstanding at what they do.
1:14:38 Thank you for listening to the Prop Sheet Pod from the Fox Media Podcast Network.

0:00:06 Megan Rapinoe here. This week on A Touch More, Sue and I are in Indianapolis with a very special
0:00:13 live show and a very special guest, Caitlin Clark. We dive into her life on and off the court. And
0:00:18 of course, we play a few games. Need we say more? Check out the latest episode of A Touch More
0:00:28 wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. This week on The Gray Area, the president of
0:00:33 Wesleyan College tells me what’s happening on American campuses. The Trump administration is
0:00:38 attacking colleges, universities because they want to take them over, not because they shouldn’t have
0:00:45 had encampments or because not enough conservatives are going into physics. What does the attack on
0:00:51 higher ed mean for America? That’s this week on The Gray Area with me, Sean Elling. New episodes every
0:00:52 Monday, available everywhere.
0:01:02 In 2023, a 54-year-old man named William Woods told police that his identity had been stolen.
0:01:08 But there was a problem. Another man said that he was the real William Woods,
0:01:11 and it was his identity that had been stolen.
0:01:16 There’s no way that two human beings could have the same name, the same date of birth,
0:01:22 the same social security number. So someone clearly was not telling the truth.
0:01:26 Listen to our latest episode on Criminal, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:36 Welcome to Raging Moderates. I’m Scott Galloway.
0:01:37 And I’m Jessica Tarlov.
0:01:38 How are you, Jessica?
0:01:40 I’m really good. How are you?
0:01:43 That’s nice. Why are you really good? What’s going on?
0:01:50 Just like everything’s fine, you know? Like had a nice weekend. Did the thing city people do where
0:01:55 they go out to the suburbs and they poke around and they say, oh, would this be a nice life? And then
0:02:04 I get bored in about 20 minutes and retreat back to an urban oasis. And that was kind of it.
0:02:05 Are you considering moving out?
0:02:11 No, we do though. Like, oh, would it be nice to have somewhere to go outside the city? Because
0:02:16 you remember what it was like when the boys were young, though you moved down to Florida. Basically,
0:02:21 you spend all of your time when you live in a city trying to figure out ways to entertain your
0:02:26 children and or get out of the city, which makes you think, why am I paying so much money to be
0:02:30 somewhere that I am actively running away from? So we’re doing that dance.
0:02:34 Yeah. So I’m very good at running other people’s lives. Let me tell you what you’re doing here.
0:02:35 Let’s have it.
0:02:39 So first off, let’s talk about me. So.
0:02:40 I walked right into that one.
0:02:45 There you go. Having two little boys in Manhattan. When they’re babies, they’re fine because they’re
0:02:49 basically like accessories. You hire someone just to keep them alive. I didn’t pay much attention
0:02:54 to them when they were babies. But then when they start getting less awful and recognizing
0:03:01 you and expect, you know, calling you dad, I found having boys in Manhattan, two little kids,
0:03:07 I think they were one and four. Oh, wait. Yeah. One and four. I found it awful. And also the thing
0:03:13 that was hard for us or I found hard was we weren’t making, I mean, we’re making good money. I was just
0:03:18 starting kind of getting some traction as an academic. My partner was working at Goldman and we
0:03:25 were making what felt like a lot of money by most standards and we were broke. And also it was in
0:03:28 the winter. Oh my God. Get them dressed, get them out, get them exercised, get them home, get them
0:03:32 undressed, get them fed. Okay. They’re restless again. Get them dressed, get them out, get them
0:03:37 exercised. And I felt like I always had to have their hand for fear they were going to run into the
0:03:43 street. I found New York with kids and not having the millions of dollars to lubricate it. It just
0:03:48 wasn’t great. Yeah. And the lifestyle arbitrage, I’m a big fan of what’s called the lifestyle
0:03:52 arbitrage. And that is if you have mobility or the ability to mobile, which you may not,
0:03:56 because you have to go into the studio as I think about it with the five, but we’ll talk about Epstein
0:04:01 and they’ll fire you and everything will be mobile again. So anyways, thanks a lot. I’ll handle that
0:04:08 problem. And, uh, we went down to Florida, but I took every dollar I saved, including the 13% swing in
0:04:17 income taxes. We went from $12,000 a month rent for a three bedroom to $4,500. We went from what would
0:04:24 have been $52,000 a year in schooling each for them to 12. And I took all of that money and I was very
0:04:28 disciplined about it and I put it in the market and this is 2010, you know, the story of the markets went
0:04:34 crazy. And the reason why we’re economically secure, a big part of it was this lifestyle arbitrage. So I’m
0:04:39 constantly thinking about how people who are mobile can do a lifestyle arbitrage. And it was moving from
0:04:45 New York to Florida was just an enormous win. It was hard on me from Sunday night to Thursday. I
0:04:51 commuted to New York, which was not easy, but it was an incredibly creative move for the family
0:04:57 economically. So I’m a big fan when you have little kids of finding a way to find a better quality of life
0:05:00 because the reality is you just spend a lot of time at home and you just want to be with your kids and
0:05:05 your family. Anyways, I think you should move. Yeah, it would just be to your point. Unless I
0:05:11 get fired today, I need to go to work. So, you know, the question is we could do something like
0:05:16 that, but then I would be the one missing out on the bulk of their day-to-day lives. But you’re the
0:05:24 woman. And I am full of estrogen and very attached to these little people that I grew and then got out
0:05:31 of me somehow. And so that’s tough to think about. And you’re weighing, you know, what am I giving up
0:05:37 now for what future I’d be handing them, right? To have no student debt, you know, all those kinds of
0:05:45 things. And it’s just really tough. And this phase of life, I’m early 40, is I feel like any time that
0:05:49 you go out with friends or anyone that you meet, everyone is having the same exact conversation,
0:05:54 basically no matter what they’re earning, that they feel like it’s not enough. They don’t know
0:05:58 how to make the right decisions. First off, you’re not in your 40s. You just turned 40, right?
0:06:04 41. I’m here. So in New York, that means you’re in your 30s. If you’re a woman, you got to be in
0:06:09 your 30s. If I had a dating profile, I would be 35 for sure. Yeah, you could pull that off. No problem.
0:06:16 Just a little a little heads up for those of you out in New York. New York is optimized for two people.
0:06:24 It’s optimized for really rich guys in their 40s and 50s and really hot women in their 20s and 30s.
0:06:29 And for everyone else, it’s a soul crushing experience. If you are not in one of those two
0:06:36 demographics, do not move to New York. It is capitalism meets Darwin meets Three’s Company
0:06:42 meets I Dream a Genie. It is so harsh. If you’re a dude without money here, I have a friend who was
0:06:45 thinking of moving to New York. You have no game here if you’re not making millions of dollars as
0:06:50 a dude. The women who come here, and this is a very sexist statement, they’re looking to consume and
0:06:54 have a great time and they want to find a dude who can offer them a great time. And that’s not you
0:06:59 right now because everything in New York to leave your house costs two to $300. To have a good time at
0:07:06 night costs $600 to $1,000 easily. So anyways, as I say, in New York, for men, 60 is the new 30. And
0:07:11 for women, 30 is the new 70. Is that wrong? Is that wrong, Jess?
0:07:16 It’s deeply disturbing. And I think a little bit wrong. I actually, I don’t know. I mean,
0:07:20 I met my husband later in life. I don’t know, later in life. We got together when I was 36.
0:07:26 36. And so, you know, prime, like, my eggs are going bad. What’s the deal here? Right? There
0:07:31 was no time. It was also COVID. So we were just shut in. You’re a TV star, though. You’re a TV star.
0:07:37 My eggs could still go bad, even though I’m on TV. That’s how that works. But I don’t know. I really
0:07:42 liked the dating scene. I thought it was a lot of fun in my 30s, even though I went out with…
0:07:45 Yeah. Fun if you’re Jess Darlow, but I’m not even going to go there. Anyways…
0:07:47 All right. Moving on. What happened with Epstein?
0:07:53 All right. Hold on. It took Epstein to potentially bring down a guy already convicted of sexual abuse.
0:07:59 And this is even the stranger thing that Epstein will be remembered for. He made Rupert Murdoch look
0:08:06 good. Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch looks like this thoughtful, honest, high-integrity owner of
0:08:11 journalistic institutions. The Wall Street Journal has done some amazing reporting talking about
0:08:16 a series of letters that were sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday, including lewd drawings. And
0:08:22 one of them was reportedly from the president. And the Wall Street Journal has established a reputation
0:08:29 is when they report that Elon Musk is addicted to ketamine, the whole world takes it very seriously,
0:08:35 unlike 98% of media outlets now, including some of the others owned by the same individual.
0:08:40 And the Wall Street Journal has become sort of this arbiter or the nearest thing we have to an
0:08:46 arbiter of truth around some of these sensitive things. And now the president is suing Rupert Murdoch,
0:08:50 Jess, do you think this controversy is finally cracking the MAGA shield?
0:08:55 A little bit. I feel like we don’t want to be boring, right, and do the same thing that we talked
0:09:04 about last week. But it’s still surprising that something seems to have permeated his flawless,
0:09:10 I could shoot anyone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and no one would care facade, right? That’s clearly not
0:09:13 true. There are some limits to it. That doesn’t mean he would lose an election,
0:09:20 right? Or that this isn’t going to blow over. I think ultimately it kind of has to. But we’re now
0:09:27 two weeks running of this being the lead story. And more salacious information keeps coming out.
0:09:34 And you see people in the cabinet and the president almost realizing in real time that they have to do
0:09:46 something to quench the conspiracy theory addled brains of the base. And they have all these buzzwords,
0:09:52 right? Like, Russia collusion, hoax, people that set the base off. Like, if you say Comey or Hillary
0:10:00 Clinton or Brennan, Clapper, et cetera. So they’re just rehashing all of this old, tired news. I feel
0:10:05 like I almost had to check my calendar. Like, what day is it that you have Tulsi Gabbard talking about
0:10:12 2016 election interference? We have a new look at Hillary Clinton’s emails. Did you see that?
0:10:19 Chuck Grassley is out with, you know, we should look at that again. The MLK files are released. So thank
0:10:23 God for that. Look over here. Yeah, because that’s definitely what everybody wanted in all of this.
0:10:30 And you see people that are really struggling with the monster that they created themselves.
0:10:37 It’s just so strange that do you think the MAGA movement cares more about, are they more offended by
0:10:45 the possibility of powerful men raping children or the fact that their conspiracy theory that they’ve
0:10:51 invested so much that it might not be validated or nullified? Do they really care about the crime
0:10:55 or scratching their conspiracy itch? I find this all so weird.
0:11:06 I think some do. I’ve taken to checking out some smaller, very pro-MAGA accounts online. People who,
0:11:13 you know, identify themselves as in solidarity with January Sixers, et cetera. There’s a woman in Texas who
0:11:19 was a Trump delegate, has been obsessed with January Sixers, wanting everyone out, which,
0:11:24 you know, she got her way with the pardons. And she has about 30,000 followers and she’s gone
0:11:31 completely scorched earth. It’s not only about being lied to about the Epstein files or that they were
0:11:38 going to come out. It’s in part that she’s realizing that Donald Trump is exactly who the Democrats said
0:11:42 that he was, right? That he’s just an elitist that doesn’t really care about you and was using you for
0:11:49 your votes. But she keeps harping on this. There are children involved in it. This isn’t your everyday
0:11:54 white collar crime, right? She could deal with a Ponzi scheme. Maybe she could deal with shooting someone in
0:12:02 the middle of Fifth Avenue. But we are treating the abuse of young girls the same as your run-of-the-mill
0:12:07 crime from a fancy businessman. And that’s just unacceptable to her. And she’s certainly not alone in that.
0:12:11 You know, when you look at the replies to it and people that are in those kinds of conversations.
0:12:17 So, yes, I do think that the content of these crimes matters. And you’re totally right about
0:12:24 the Wall Street Journal and the caliber of reporting there. But the real hero, journalistically, of the
0:12:31 Epstein scandal is Julie K. Brown from the Miami Herald. And we don’t talk about local journalists
0:12:36 enough and local journalism and how important it is that it continues to get funded. I mean,
0:12:43 there were times when Julie K. Brown was personally paying to be able to continue her reporting and was
0:12:49 all over the Alex Acosta settlement when that happened. Epstein basically got to, like, you know,
0:12:55 go golfing and go out to dinner or whatever he wanted after he was convicted in Florida. And that’s my
0:13:01 first place that I’m going for any information on this. And you see that there’s such a well of extra
0:13:06 info that we can get out of folks like Julie K. Brown, plus all of this new salacious stuff that’s
0:13:09 coming out in, you know, the New York Times or the Journal.
0:13:14 Well, you know, it’s going to help local journalism is cutting a billion and a half dollars from the
0:13:19 Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I mean, that’s what I was thinking, actually. This is a good
0:13:26 route to that. Yeah. And what’s so interesting is that the Republicans are much more strategic than
0:13:32 the Democrats. The biggest tax cut in history, I believe, is not even a tax cut. It’s neutering the
0:13:39 IRS. They want to fire a layoff about half of the IRS or professionals of the IRS. And who does that
0:13:44 hurt the most? Does that mean 50 percent less audits? No, it means 90 percent less audits among the top
0:13:49 1 percent. Because people in lower and middle income households can get audited because it takes a couple
0:13:54 hours to audit them and figure out if they owe penalties or whatever. But supposedly there’s a tax gap
0:14:01 of 600 billion dollars. What does that mean? There’s 600 billion dollars that is owed and has not been
0:14:06 collected because the tax cuts gone from 400 pages to 4,000. And it’s created such complexity that to
0:14:14 audit somebody with pass-throughs and LLCs and a revocable trust, it takes a team of highly skilled
0:14:19 professionals. And so they’re smart. They basically just said, let’s neuter the IRS. And that’s effectively
0:14:25 a massive tax cut for the top 1 percent. But what’s back to Epstein, what’s interesting here is it took
0:14:30 a conspiracy to create the first kind of bipartisan action of the Trump administration. Representatives
0:14:35 Massey from Kentucky and Kana from California are currently leading the push in Congress to take
0:14:42 an up or down vote on releasing the Epstein files. It represents sort of this rare convergence of populist
0:14:48 right and left. Just as an example, AOC and Lauren Boebert are co-sponsors on the same bill. And on
0:14:56 Friday, Trump unveiled a lawsuit against your parent firm, Dow Jones and Coa News Corp. The suit also names
0:15:02 Rupert Murdoch and Chief Executive Robert Thompson and two journal reporters. The lawsuit alleges that
0:15:07 the journal’s publication of a 2003 letter from Trump to Epstein containing a hand-drawn picture of naked
0:15:14 woman is not authentic. Trump is seeking $10 billion in monetary damages. Polling from Reuters,
0:15:19 Ipsos and Quinnipiac University shows that Americans overall disapprove almost completely of how the Trump
0:15:23 administration has handled the Epstein situation has handled the Epstein situation. The polls came in
0:15:30 at 54 to 17 percent and 63 to 17 percent respectively. Essentially, just 17 percent Americans believe this
0:15:37 was handled correctly. You never get 83 percent to agree with anything. So this story is not dying,
0:15:42 regardless of changing, you know, changing the name back from the Washington commanders to the Redskins or
0:15:47 whatever attempts at weapons of mass distraction here, which I find kind of hilarious what they keep coming up
0:15:53 with. This isn’t going away. Any predictions, Jess, on what you think is going to happen here? Do you think
0:15:58 these files? By the way, has anyone heard from Tulsi Gabbard? Boy, they have her locks away somewhere.
0:16:04 Well, no, there’s the 2016 Russia interference game that she’s playing now, even though she’s literally
0:16:11 on tape sitting down with Joe Rogan talking about Russian interference. They’re playing this game. And
0:16:19 this goes back to what we were saying last week. The modern GOP feeds off of the fact that their most
0:16:26 devout base will not do any legitimate research on anything. So Tulsi Gabbard is up there basically
0:16:36 trying to do a bait and switch and saying that Obama weaponized intel about 2016, that they were lying
0:16:42 about Russian interference when Obama as well on tape saying the Russians did not get into the voting
0:16:47 machines. They didn’t change votes. But we know that there was an influence campaign. And that’s something that has
0:16:54 been ratified by a bipartisan Senate committee as well. Marco Rubio, who has every job in the book, will probably be
0:17:02 asked about that as he was lead on it from the Republican side. It also made me think how strange it feels for there to have
0:17:08 been bipartisan agreement about anything. 2016, you realize how much things have changed, right? That if something like this
0:17:15 happened again, like Russian interference, that wasn’t necessarily the collusion that the Democrats were saying it was, but
0:17:21 certainly interference in the election to try to help Trump win. Like, could you get Republicans to sign on to the fact that that that
0:17:28 had happened? I don’t really know. So that’s what Tulsi is busy with. I’m very curious about what happens with the
0:17:39 Galene Maxwell testimony side of this. So Trump’s DOJ lawyer Todd Blanche has reached out to Maxwell’s team saying, you know, we want to
0:17:48 know what she knows. Also, like, you didn’t think of that before. You have a sex trafficker who worked hand in glove with a woman who
0:17:53 was not only his business partner and his love partner, but is sitting in a prison cell for sex trafficking
0:17:59 herself. And we didn’t think like, oh, we should have a chat with her. And the House Oversight Committee just this
0:18:06 morning approved a subpoena for her. So that may lead to something. But we’ve all got to get then on a Galene
0:18:12 Maxwell pardon watch. I don’t imagine that we’re going to be getting those Epstein files that have been sitting on Pam
0:18:19 Bondi’s desk for several months at this point. You know, they are always very precise in how evasive they’re
0:18:25 being saying, you know, we will release any pertinent grand jury testimony. And a lot of grand jury testimony will
0:18:31 have to stay secret. But they’re going to pick and choose things and they’re going to do rejections. And, you know, some of the
0:18:36 stuff should be redacted to protect victims and also people who didn’t really have anything to do with it. Like there are a lot of
0:18:41 people who hung out with Jeffrey Epstein who certainly weren’t doing it with 13 year old girls and they don’t
0:18:49 deserve to have their reputations mired as a result of that. So I’m a little bit hopeful slash interested in what
0:18:54 the Galene Maxwell angle of this reaps. But generally speaking, I think it’ll be business as usual. What about
0:18:55 you?
0:19:01 Well, the most puncturing questions around trying to get to these conspiracy theories. I remember when I was living
0:19:06 in Delray Beach, there was a Stop the Steal parade and all these people in their trucker hats and their
0:19:14 RAV4s. And I mean, I could not get over. Thousands of people turned up just convinced that 2020 that the
0:19:18 election had been stolen. And a decent question is, well, if it’s so obvious it was stolen, how come there
0:19:23 hasn’t been a single prosecution, folks? No lawyer, no prosecutor can find enough evidence.
0:19:27 60 cases went to court. 60 losses.
0:19:34 That’s right. And meanwhile, Trump is saying that the whole Epstein thing is a big hoax. Well, then why is Jelaine
0:19:40 Maxwell in prison? There’s some issues here, but let’s cut to let’s cut to the chase here. Jessica Tarlow, do you
0:19:41 think Jeffrey Epstein killed himself?
0:19:43 Yeah.
0:19:44 Yeah, you think he killed himself?
0:19:53 I do. I don’t know about whether he, you know, whether it was made possible that he could do it. But yeah, I believe
0:20:00 that he killed himself and I’ve spoken to people in law enforcement on both sides of the aisle who say
0:20:06 that. I do think that’s what happens. But you’re seeing the effects of what happens when you’ve put
0:20:15 people on a steady drip of conspiracies for so long. Like, the Venn diagram of the modern GOP and people
0:20:23 whose brains have been destroyed by hoaxes and conspiracies is not a near perfect circle, but
0:20:28 it’s it’s pretty close. It starts with what you’re talking about with the the big lie from 2020.
0:20:32 Nearly six in 10 Republicans believe that Biden wasn’t a legitimate president and Trump was supposed
0:20:39 to be president. If Trump hadn’t won the QAnon vote, he wouldn’t have won. He won that by 61 points.
0:20:45 You know, Pizzagate again. Right. You know, Hillary Clinton’s running a pedo ring out of
0:20:53 Comet Pizza. You know, all of these things. You know, I understand why someone who had only been
0:21:00 tuning into media and influencers that were peddling this stuff and it had become such a regular part of
0:21:06 their jargon. That’s what always surprises me. And I’m sure that there are things that come easily to
0:21:12 me because of my politics. Right. That I’m online all the time, maybe a little blue pilled on occasion.
0:21:17 And so I know the intricacies of things in a way that a regular person shouldn’t. But when we’re
0:21:23 talking about even the Hunter Biden scandal or whatever you want to call it, sometimes my colleagues,
0:21:27 I’ll say to Jesse Waters, like, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. They’re talking about,
0:21:33 you know, and then the Mexican billionaire and then the huge diamond and then the Bulgarian this and
0:21:39 whatever it’s it’s so much to have to keep in your head. I understand that the rest of the world kind
0:21:45 of falls by the wayside and you become like a scene out of Homeland where you have a board and you have
0:21:51 strings, you know, connecting different people and you’re just completely consumed by this web.
0:21:54 Crazy. Absolutely crazy. All right. Jess.
0:21:59 Oh, wait. Yeah. I’ve talked way too much on this, but I want to say something and I want to hear if you’re
0:22:04 thinking about it a tale. Sure. So all of this matters. And I’ve moved past the idea of like,
0:22:09 you should only talk about Medicaid because I think that if the national consciousness is in a specific
0:22:15 place and it is important and also politically good for your side that you should talk about it.
0:22:21 But Donald Trump’s numbers are just sinking and sinking and sinking. And it keeps coming out like
0:22:28 more of this. He only has a positive rating on border security, like 55 percent think that we’re in a
0:22:33 recession. Sixty four percent of the economy is getting worse. Seventy percent say he’s not focused
0:22:41 on lowering prices. Like there is such a tremendous hole in the GOP narrative right now. And the big,
0:22:45 beautiful bill obviously strikes right through that with the twenty nine percent approval rating.
0:22:51 you see the panic about the Epstein files themselves, but also in terms of what this means
0:22:58 electorally for them. So. Yeah, it hasn’t hasn’t been a good month. OK. OK. You got that in there.
0:23:03 Well, I thought you would be more interested, but, you know, sometimes you miss your shot. You shoot
0:23:08 your shot and you miss. It happens. No, that’s why you’re here. Let’s take a quick break. Stay with us.
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0:24:59 The number one movie in the country is Superman. It might be the number one movie in the world.
0:25:01 Are you being serious right now?
0:25:03 Yeah.
0:25:05 But not everybody is loving it.
0:25:08 Recently, you’ve come under a lot of fire for what some might…
0:25:09 I don’t know. It’s a lot of fire.
0:25:09 It’s a lot.
0:25:14 Kellyanne Conway is mad about it.
0:25:22 The guy who stars as Superman had the audacity to say, instead of fighting for truth, liberty, and great values in America,
0:25:23 he refused to say the last part.
0:25:25 Ben Shapiro is mad about it.
0:25:30 The reality that Hollywood is so far to the left that they cannot take a core piece of Americana
0:25:32 and just say it’s about America?
0:25:35 Even TV Superman Dean Cain is concerned.
0:25:38 Look, don’t try and make it all woke and crazy.
0:25:43 What, if anything, is woke and crazy about the new Superman movie on Today Explained?
0:25:46 We are finally doing Dean Cain Explained.
0:25:47 Come over and join us.
0:25:54 It’s Today Explained.
0:25:56 What’s going on, my boys and in some cases, gals?
0:25:59 Recently, one of you emailed us with this request.
0:26:00 You’ve got mail.
0:26:00 Hello.
0:26:05 I’m an avid listener, and I strongly believe you should cover the story of Curtis Yarvin.
0:26:11 It’s important to explore who he is and how he has influenced the MAGA and the Tech Bros movement.
0:26:21 Curtis Yarvin is a very online far-right philosopher whose ideas include the fascinating, the esoteric, the absurd, the racist, and so on.
0:26:25 Six months into the Trump administration, there’s evidence that he is influencing the MAGA movement,
0:26:27 and even President Trump.
0:26:29 J.D. Vance knows him and likes him.
0:26:32 Elon consulted him about this third-party idea.
0:26:35 Yarvin can take some credit for inspiring Doge.
0:26:45 And, as you’ll hear ahead, one of Trump’s most controversial, doesn’t even begin to cover it, ideas may have come from Yarvin or someone who reads his substack.
0:26:48 I can almost guarantee you that Trump does not.
0:26:49 Everything’s computer.
0:26:51 Today Explained, weekday afternoons.
0:26:55 Welcome back.
0:26:59 The redistricting fight is heating up, and this time Democrats are ready to go on offense.
0:27:08 As Texas Republicans prepare to redraw their map to lock in a House majority, Hakeem Jeffries is leading a push to do the same in blue states like New York and California.
0:27:12 It’s a bold, expensive, and legally risky move, and a sharp turn from the parties.
0:27:13 Oh, God, I’m bored reading this.
0:27:15 David, where’s our producer?
0:27:23 David, on Sunday nights, I don’t need you, like, getting your kombucha sommelier and listening to the Daily.
0:27:26 I need you taking an edible before you write this script and watching South Park.
0:27:30 This shit—we’re not going to talk about redistricting in fucking Texas.
0:27:30 No.
0:27:32 Jess, I’m calling an audible.
0:27:33 Let’s talk about Colbert.
0:27:34 What do you think happened with the Colbert show?
0:27:36 Well, that’s just what we’re supposed to talk about after this.
0:27:37 Oh, is it?
0:27:38 We can switch the order.
0:27:38 Yeah.
0:27:39 David did his job.
0:27:44 I mean, it’s an important thing, right, if they’re going to get four or five new seats in Texas.
0:27:46 And it could be about spineless Democrats.
0:27:47 You love that.
0:27:53 Well, what do you think—do you think that there’s a risk that Democrats redistricting push backfires?
0:27:54 No.
0:27:54 No?
0:27:55 Literally no.
0:27:57 Like, I don’t even want to play that game.
0:27:57 Okay.
0:28:02 Of, like, oh, what would happen, you know, to decorum and the norms?
0:28:06 Like, we do that all the time, and then we get our butts kicked.
0:28:12 Like, you have to fight in the same mud with the Republicans on this.
0:28:16 I think Governor Newsom is absolutely correct, saying, I will do whatever it takes.
0:28:22 If Abbott can add four or five seats, then I’m going to try to add four or five seats here in California.
0:28:26 I saw originally that the New York Dems didn’t have a big appetite for this.
0:28:31 Well, find the hunger and figure out a way to do this.
0:28:37 Apparently now New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Washington State, I think, are also considering what they can do.
0:28:40 I had never heard the term dummy-mander, though.
0:28:41 Have you heard it?
0:28:42 I haven’t heard that.
0:28:42 Yeah.
0:28:50 I just—you know, you’ve got to wonder what kind of precedent this sets for future midterms, especially if both parties abandon any pretense of fair—
0:28:51 That’s terrible.
0:28:52 I mean, it really is gone.
0:28:53 Yeah.
0:28:56 There is no more decorum, and the gerrymandering is just gone.
0:28:58 Totally crazy.
0:29:01 It is—I mean, it’s the boring stuff that’s important, though, right?
0:29:06 Because essentially what’s happening with gerrymandering is that the general election no longer matters.
0:29:16 And we have crazies on the left and right winning the election because they all agree to redraw their districts to keep themselves in office, which creates these hard red and hard blue.
0:29:21 And the primary is the general now, and it’s become a race to who’s the craziest.
0:29:25 And we end up with the squad and Ted Cruz.
0:29:28 Do you think this is going to—do you think this is going to go anywhere?
0:29:30 I think so.
0:29:38 The special session in Texas is ongoing, and like I said, the Democrats have vowed to respond in kind.
0:29:46 You know, this would be—usually you have every decade, right, that you look at the census and then you redraw the line.
0:29:51 So if we’re now doing this every five years, what’s to stop it from happening every two years?
0:29:57 And what courts will we have that’ll uphold fair districtling laws?
0:30:04 That remains a question, especially since the Supreme Court has not really been a friend on this topic, to say the least.
0:30:08 But I was at the Smurfs movie last night, and—
0:30:09 That’s a flex.
0:30:10 Thank you.
0:30:10 It is.
0:30:12 Move to Florida and take them to the beach.
0:30:15 Well, we still—I think in Florida they go to the movies too.
0:30:20 But there’s a reason that I bring up the Smurfs movie, which I did not love as much as I expected to.
0:30:21 My toddler did.
0:30:27 But there was this line that I think Papa Smurfs said, don’t mistake kindness for weakness.
0:30:32 And I feel like the Democrats usually mess that up.
0:30:39 And you can mistake kindness for weakness because we care about the norms and we care about doing the right thing.
0:30:41 And I don’t think that we should lose track of that.
0:30:54 But when it translates into weakness and when Mitch McConnell has eaten your lunch for several decades and maybe Senator Thune will be able to do the same thing, you have to learn to change your behaviors.
0:31:04 Or at least until we have enough political control that we can effectuate our own agendas and have the Republicans on the back foot.
0:31:11 Because they have been able to achieve big success, like with this reconciliation bill, with razor-thin margins.
0:31:20 Which, to your point from a few weeks ago, you know, we helped them with having such old representatives that passed away in office.
0:31:24 But I’m smurfed out on the don’t mistake my kindness for weakness.
0:31:26 And I want to see backbone.
0:31:31 And, you know, the approval rating, the Democratic approval rating, down to 19%.
0:31:35 And my colleagues are rubbing it in my face like everybody hates you.
0:31:36 That’s not what the data says, actually.
0:31:39 They hate the fact that Democrats aren’t fighting.
0:31:41 It’s not about the policies.
0:31:43 It’s not about the agenda.
0:31:46 It’s about how you’re actually doing the business of politics.
0:31:51 Yeah, this could be – Newsom’s floated the idea.
0:31:54 California has 52 House seats, 43 held by Democrats.
0:31:58 And Newsom has said his efforts could add another two or three seats.
0:32:01 I really do think people underestimate Governor Newsom.
0:32:07 If I had to bet on anyone right now to be president and people get their hair on fire and California cities do have an issue.
0:32:10 But do not underestimate Governor Newsom.
0:32:12 I think he is very good on his feet.
0:32:15 I think he has actually been aggressive.
0:32:21 I think he’s pissed off people on the left by pivoting a little bit to the middle to become more centrist, which I think is politically very astute.
0:32:25 And obviously has a lot of, you know, attributes.
0:32:27 That he’s very good looking?
0:32:28 Is that what you’re trying to find?
0:32:29 Basically.
0:32:32 By the way, I interviewed Governor Whitmer on Prop G.
0:32:33 Oh, yeah.
0:32:34 How was it?
0:32:35 She’s great.
0:32:40 So what I do is I do these interviews and then I do a no mercy, no malice take on them after.
0:32:44 And we’re going to interview, between the two of us, we’re going to interview every presidential candidate.
0:32:45 I hope so.
0:32:53 And so my take on her is that it’s heartening that such impressive, good people go into public service.
0:32:56 She just reeks of integrity and competence.
0:33:02 She’s just clearly, it would be, it’s very difficult to imagine that she isn’t a good person.
0:33:04 And it’s clear her heart is in the right place.
0:33:06 You know, Michigan balances the budget.
0:33:08 She has really good things to run on.
0:33:12 The quality of life scoring in Michigan is really high relative to affordability.
0:33:15 The economy is not robust, but it’s growing.
0:33:18 They’ve done a good job trying to support manufacturing.
0:33:20 The University of Michigan, they have a great state school system.
0:33:22 So she has a lot to run on.
0:33:23 She’s likable.
0:33:24 She reeks of integrity.
0:33:29 My criticism is that she’s sort of infected with the same kind of rhetorical flourish.
0:33:35 And I had a tough time sometimes getting her to articulate specific policies.
0:33:39 I think we’ve moved from, in my opinion, my advice to Democrats is, okay, you can try to
0:33:41 be Obama, but you’re not.
0:33:42 So stop trying.
0:33:45 And it’s time for specific programs.
0:33:51 She did say that she would consider means testing, Social Security, which I appreciate
0:33:52 because that’s been a third rail for some people.
0:33:57 But it was a lot of like, you know, good, hardworking Americans, terms like affordability,
0:34:01 rather than, okay, let’s talk about specific programs.
0:34:06 I think there’s still going to be a candidate that gets a huge amount of press by coming
0:34:11 out with a specific, bold, aggressive proposals and programs.
0:34:13 I think we’ve moved to that part of the program.
0:34:13 Yeah.
0:34:16 But I did think she was very good.
0:34:19 And I’m curious, you know, if the governor continues to get traction.
0:34:21 I imagine that she will.
0:34:23 She has a successful track record.
0:34:28 I do think that there is going to be a lot of anxiety in the Democratic electorate about
0:34:29 having another female nominee.
0:34:30 Not going to happen.
0:34:34 No one under 5’10 is going to be the Democratic nominee.
0:34:36 It’s going to be a straight white guy over six feet.
0:34:40 And I’m not saying this is the way the world should be, but the way the world is, the Democrats
0:34:40 are going to…
0:34:41 So no Josh Shapiro either?
0:34:42 I think he’s under 5’10.
0:34:45 No Josh Shapiro, no Rahm Emanuel, no woman.
0:34:49 Democrats are so freaked out, they’re going to take no chances, and they’re going to recognize
0:34:50 that America is highly luxest.
0:34:51 I hope that changes.
0:34:55 But I think it’s going to be a straight white guy over six feet.
0:34:57 I just think they’re going to say, we just can’t take any risks around anything.
0:35:00 Are you Andy Beshear-pilled right now?
0:35:04 I think everybody’s desperate to find someone they know, but they don’t know.
0:35:05 So they’ve heard his name, but they don’t really know him.
0:35:07 Everyone’s looking for the Obama, the Clinton.
0:35:09 Like, where did this guy come from?
0:35:10 Right.
0:35:12 We’re all hoping that someone emerges at the moment.
0:35:17 And the Democratic primary, when it’s let it run its course, does mature, you know,
0:35:21 incredibly strong, battle-tested people, but we don’t need to re-litigate that.
0:35:24 Okay, Jess, let’s take a quick break.
0:35:25 Stay with us.
0:35:29 Hi, everyone.
0:35:30 This is Kara Swisher.
0:35:34 This week on my podcast On With Kara Swisher, I caught up with two professional ass-kickers,
0:35:39 writer E. Jean Carroll and attorney Robbie Kaplan, the duo that took Donald Trump to court
0:35:43 for sexual assault and defamation, and won, twice.
0:35:48 Here’s how Carol describes what happened in that Bergdorf-Goodman dressing room in 1996.
0:35:50 He was being very funny.
0:35:52 It was light.
0:35:54 It was funny.
0:35:56 It was joshing.
0:35:57 It was witty.
0:36:02 And then it just turned dark.
0:36:06 This is exactly what Donald Trump did to the country.
0:36:08 We all laughed at him.
0:36:10 We all said he was a clown.
0:36:16 We all said he was absolutely an empty suit and laughed our asses off.
0:36:19 And then, boom, it turned dark.
0:36:20 It was a great conversation.
0:36:21 You’re going to want to hear it.
0:36:25 Just search for On With Kara Swisher wherever you get your podcasts.
0:36:36 Hey, this is Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, a show about media and tech and what happens
0:36:36 when they collide.
0:36:42 And this may be hard to remember, but not very long ago, magazines were a really big deal.
0:36:47 And the most important magazines were owned by Condé Nast, the glitzy publishing empire
0:36:51 that’s the focus of a new book by New York Times reporter Michael Grinbaum.
0:36:56 The way Condé Nast elevated its editors, the way they paid for their mortgages so they could
0:37:03 live in beautiful homes, there was a logic to it, which was that Condé Nast itself became
0:37:05 seen as this kind of enchanted land.
0:37:11 You can hear the rest of our chat on channels wherever you listen to your favorite media podcast.
0:37:18 All right, before we go, first off, I should apologize to our producer.
0:37:21 Here it is, this story that I wanted, Stephen Colbert.
0:37:25 He’s out, Jess, or will be come 2026.
0:37:30 CBS says the Late Show is ending for financial reasons, but the timing is raising eyebrows.
0:37:34 Just days earlier, Colbert mocked his parent company’s $16 million settlement with Trump,
0:37:37 a deal that was meant to grease the wheels for a big merger.
0:37:41 Now, Trump’s cheering the cancellation, and press freedom advocates are sounding the alarm.
0:37:44 What do you think happened here, Jess? What’s your take?
0:37:51 I don’t want to say that it’s boring, but my take is I really do believe it was a financial
0:37:56 decision. You know, we all got outraged at first and said, you know, this is because two
0:38:01 nights before he had gone after the parent company for capitulating to Trump on the $16 million
0:38:04 settlement over 60 minutes, which I do think was a complete capitulation.
0:38:11 But the show costs like $100 million a year and was losing $40 million.
0:38:18 I think advertising had been cut in half, and he’s earning about $15 million a year, which
0:38:24 is a lot. I understand, you know, what it takes to put on a cable news show is dramatically different
0:38:30 than a late night program. But I can’t believe how much it costs to produce that thing.
0:38:32 Weren’t you shocked by $100 million?
0:38:40 So, you know, this is the takeaway of the lesson. And I always try to be pedantic and pretend that I
0:38:46 can articulate a lesson to younger people. I’m very guilty of I think, OK, I can assess the
0:38:49 situation quicker than your average bear and that I know what’s going on in a situation.
0:38:53 It’s stunning Kruger. It’s arrogance. And I’m guilty of it. And with this situation, I thought,
0:38:58 OK, here we go. This is another example of our slow descent into fascism where the president puts
0:39:04 pressure on the FTC or the DOJ not to approve the merger unless they agree, wink, wink, to silence one
0:39:09 of their critics. Stephen Colbert, the show gets canceled. And then I actually did the work. And I’ve
0:39:16 come 180 exactly to where you are. I think this was a financial decision. So late night TV, this isn’t
0:39:21 the end of the Colbert show. This is the end of late night television. Late night television in 2018
0:39:26 was garnering $400 million in advertising. It’s now below 200. Colbert’s show has been cut in half.
0:39:32 In addition, you brought up the most amazing stat. His show’s gone from $120 million to $60 million in
0:39:40 revenue, cost $100 million. The stat that blew my mind, 200 people working on Colbert. So let’s talk
0:39:46 about the numbers. It’s gone from $4 million viewership to $2.4 million. And what’s worse, those numbers are
0:39:51 always somewhat illusory because the key is who’s in the core demographic. The core demo is 18 to
0:39:56 49. That’s who advertisers care about because 18 to 49 is in your mating years. You make stupid
0:40:01 decisions. You buy expensive coffee, watches, clothes, high margin products. Old people are
0:40:05 smart. And so advertisers hate them because they spend nothing but money on pharmaceuticals and
0:40:10 their grandkids. They’re smart. They’re not trying to find mates. So they’re not irrational,
0:40:15 which translates to margin. So advertisers hate them. Only 10%, actually 9% of his viewership,
0:40:21 around 200,000 people were in the core demo. In addition, the show had been sliced and diced.
0:40:24 It’s no longer a monoculture where we tune in for late night and you see the best two minutes of
0:40:31 Colbert on TikTok or on YouTube for which they get pennies on the dollar. So 200 people, let’s do the
0:40:37 math. And I never miss an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back. If you look at the Colbert
0:40:44 show, 60 million in revenues, 200 people, that’s $300,000 per employee, right? In addition,
0:40:50 they have all sorts of overhead costs at theater is expensive. The studios, the makeup, the wardrobe,
0:40:57 the unions, that shit is expensive. Losing 40 million a year. Let’s talk about our universe,
0:41:02 the property universe. And that includes property markets, conversations, office hours, raging
0:41:09 moderates. It’ll do between 15 and $20 million next year. Total of generously 15 people.
0:41:14 We’re doing a million dollars in revenue per employee here. And we’re going 20% a year.
0:41:21 They’re doing $300,000 per employee and it’s declining. And this is, I think, what happened.
0:41:26 And this happens a lot. They have the terms of the acquisition drawn up, but they have to meet
0:41:31 certain terms to close. Basically, Paramount has said, we will deliver to you a company on closing
0:41:37 that’s doing X top line and X in EBITDA. And one of the ways they’re going to get to that EBITDA
0:41:44 guarantee and ensure they close is they’re going to cancel a number of shows or expenditures that
0:41:50 increase the EBITDA. And this is a $40 million increase in EBITDA when they cancel this thing.
0:41:57 And also, when you acquire a company, part of the conditions are closing or that you have to do all
0:42:02 the dirty work before you close. And they look at this thing and it’s weeping or it’s hemorrhaging
0:42:07 $40 million. I mean, it’s losing a million bucks a week, practically. And what Skydance and Ellison
0:42:13 have said to Paramount is, I don’t want my first all hands to be me announcing that I’m canceling the
0:42:20 Colbert show. So you have to do this. You have to do the dirty work and clean this thing up and deliver
0:42:26 to us a company that is profitable and delivers on the numbers that you have said you have presented
0:42:33 to us during diligence. So this is, in my view, I don’t doubt that politics may have tipped it over,
0:42:38 may have made it happen sooner, or that part of the reason of the decline in their advertising,
0:42:43 which has been steeper than Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel, is because he’s increasingly political.
0:42:47 And there are a lot of advertisers who decide they are not going to advertise on a show
0:42:53 that is political. Our CPMs are lower than the other podcasts in the Profit universe because there
0:42:58 is a smaller universe of advertisers. There’s a lot of big advertisers that just say, we don’t advertise
0:43:04 on politics. And when there’s an absence or a smaller number of potential advertisers, your CPMs go down
0:43:10 because there’s fewer people competing for your ad revenue or your ad time. So this was what I think
0:43:16 is being reported. I think this was a financial decision and Skydance saying, you got to handle this
0:43:21 before we close. David Elson doesn’t want to show up and go, hi, my first act is to cancel the Colbert
0:43:27 show. They’re like, get your house in order, deliver to us a clean company. Now, I apologize for ranting,
0:43:32 but I’ve thought a lot about this. This is what’s going to happen moving forward. Stephen Colbert,
0:43:36 and this is kind of what’s happening in the ecosystem. Stephen Colbert makes between 10 and 20 million
0:43:40 a year. In two to three years, he’s still going to be making 10 to 20 million dollars because you know
0:43:41 what he’s going to do, Jess?
0:43:52 100%. 100%. He’s going to take the best dozen or two dozen people from the Colbert show and he’ll
0:43:58 wink, wink to his producer, say, and make sure they’re not union. And for a fraction of the cost
0:44:04 of the means of production, he’ll put out a podcast. Instead of it being a $60 million business, it’ll be
0:44:09 right out of the gates of $20 million business because that guy is remarkably talented and he
0:44:15 has a huge audience. Just add water. All you need is two turntables and a microphone and a producer
0:44:21 like David and a few other people, sound engineers, some people recruiting guests. Maybe he needs a dozen
0:44:27 people and he’ll have no trouble finding 12 amazing people right out of the gates. He’ll have a top 50
0:44:34 podcast, maybe a top 20 podcast, and he’ll make the same amount of money. And those 12 people will be
0:44:37 producing a million and a half or two million dollars. The people who lose here are not Stephen
0:44:43 Colbert. The people who lose here are the 180 people who lost their jobs a few years ago when
0:44:47 the world started moving away from ad-supported television and the means of production no longer
0:44:52 justified the melting ice cube that is their revenues. And he’ll attract a younger audience.
0:44:59 This is what happened with Megyn Kelly, with Tucker Carlson. Conan O’Brien lost his late night TV
0:45:05 show. And by the way, I bet he’s making as much money as he was with 10 to 15 people, not 100 to 200.
0:45:13 This is a shift in the media ecosystem where basically these are becoming TV shows. You watch within
0:45:18 24 months, half of our listens will be on a TV because people will be streaming it off of YouTube.
0:45:25 In sum, what we’re going through is an arbitrage where we’re going from one TV show to another TV show,
0:45:31 but the means of production where it’s a starts as an audio production called a podcast that then
0:45:36 moves to kind of lower production quality, but acceptable minimum viable product production
0:45:41 quality that people then watch on. We’re getting a hundred thousand people watching our YouTube
0:45:46 videos. I bet 40 to 60 percent in the core demographic. We’re getting kind of half the core
0:45:52 demo right now of probably the Colbert show at a fraction of the cost. So this is essentially
0:45:58 an arbitrage around the means of production and essentially podcasts are the new TV show just
0:46:04 reinvented with a much lower cost of production. What does that mean? The talent maintains their
0:46:09 salary. The people behind right behind the camera, like holding it, hold onto their jobs, the top
0:46:15 three or five percent. The 95 percent that were involved in producing a typical TV show are out of
0:46:18 business and shit out of luck. That’s going to be ugly. We’re going to hear a lot of tick tocks
0:46:23 people who are the associate producer on Jimmy Kimmel tonight, like really upset that they can’t
0:46:28 find word. The talent maintains the same amount of money. And you know who also loses is the
0:46:33 shareholders. There’s been very few shareholders of podcast companies that have been able to capture
0:46:40 revenue. Comcast and, you know, Paramount have been able to capture a lot of the value in terms of
0:46:44 EBITDA. All of the margin here is being starched out by the talent because the means of production
0:46:49 are super easy to spin up with a small amount of money. Anyways, that’s my TED talk.
0:46:56 It’s a good one. You should package that up neatly and go and do it and can take this stat with you.
0:47:03 YouTube reports that there are 400 million hours of podcasts watched per month. So people are consuming
0:47:08 us this way. I just the other day was saying to Brian, we were walking around our neighborhood and
0:47:13 someone stopped me, say, oh, my God, I love you so much. Usually you expect that it’s a Fox thing.
0:47:16 Your husband was saying that to you? It must be very early in the marriage.
0:47:17 Yeah, we’re only four years in.
0:47:19 Oh, no, it was a stranger.
0:47:19 A stranger.
0:47:20 It was a stranger.
0:47:23 A strange man that loves raging moderates.
0:47:27 And he clearly watches it, though.
0:47:28 Yeah.
0:47:32 And I’m increasingly running into people that are consuming it that way. I mean,
0:47:34 I’m sure social clips are flying around.
0:47:37 I think we should have a split screen that’s 90 you, 10 me.
0:47:39 No, people love you.
0:47:41 I know, I know. People love my voice. They hear my voice.
0:47:42 I’m telling you.
0:47:43 That’s why you’re a White Lotus star.
0:47:44 Yeah, voice only.
0:47:50 I have a voice for the whole other podcast about how you can survive with vocal fry.
0:47:52 No, thanks for podcasting.
0:47:58 So I tuned in for Jon Stewart last night live to the point about, you know, is there any
0:48:02 appointment TV anymore? And it felt like I was desperate to see what he was going to say
0:48:08 about it. And he said a lot of things that I agreed with. And one of them that stuck out in
0:48:16 particular was that he mentioned that this $8 billion valuation is rooted in the fact that 60
0:48:24 minutes is as fantastic and important and groundbreaking as it is. And late night, that
0:48:28 the late night show matters. And that Stephen Colbert, who he has the highest ratings between
0:48:35 him, Fallon and Kimmel. And there’s a whole other discussion. Greg Gottfeld on Fox was beating
0:48:39 them when he was in that hour. Now he’s at the 10 o’clock hour, still beating them. And
0:48:46 in many less households, you know, 61 million households versus 300 million households. But
0:48:50 I thought that that was a really important point that Stewart was making and say, people are not
0:48:56 interested in buying you without 60 minutes being what it is. And you’re chipping away at
0:49:01 that by doing things like capitulating to Trump. And that is where the creeping authoritarianism
0:49:10 argument has a place in it. There’s also something that I think about a lot, which is like the variety
0:49:18 factor. People want to hear something different. And if you are watching TV at 1130 and you’re either
0:49:25 watching Fallon, Kimmel or Colbert, you’re basically getting the same thing. And that that has contributed
0:49:31 to the downfall of late night. I find all of them to be individually funny. You can throw Seth Meyers
0:49:38 in there as well, that it’s a similar line. You know, nobody likes Trump. Everyone makes similar
0:49:46 jokes. I feel like Fallon tries to be the most apolitical of them, but it creeps into it. And I
0:49:51 think that that’s a really bad thing. And it’s not representative of where the country is either.
0:49:55 You know, a bunch of people who voted the same way as me for their whole lives showed up and
0:50:03 voted for Donald Trump in 2024. And also they’re probably sick of seeing the same joke retooled
0:50:09 in a different way. And I found that increasingly. And I really like Colbert. But anytime that I was sent
0:50:16 a Colbert clip, it was basically the same thing. It was just finding another angle to shit on Trump.
0:50:22 And I’m all for that. But when you look at those operating costs and then you look at the kind of
0:50:27 content and the fact that enormous stars, they would still come on the show, but the success of their
0:50:33 movie or whatever they were, you know, their book, whatever it was, is not dependent on making sure
0:50:39 that you are the number one guest on Colbert that night. It’s what viral clip can happen. Or frankly,
0:50:45 can you get on like with Rogan? Can you go sit down with Amy Poehler? Can you go on with a food
0:50:51 influencer? Can you get, you know, subway takes, hot ones? What, you know, there are all these different
0:50:58 routes to being a big success right now. And the model just is unsustainable. Then coupled with the
0:51:07 fact that many nights sounded the same. And we’re looking for something different on a daily basis these
0:51:12 days. Late night TV is over. It’s, it’s fewer people and older people watching it. Advertisers
0:51:20 don’t like either of those things, but it’s all being reinvented as a TV show. To a certain extent,
0:51:25 it’s Twitter. And that is Elon Musk, to his credit, said, I can give you a reasonable facsimile of the
0:51:32 old Twitter with 20% of the people. And that’s what’s happening here. Trevor Noah, he’s back on
0:51:38 podcasting. Conan O’Brien, all of these folks, Seth Meyers, they’re going to reinvent themselves as a
0:51:45 podcast with 10% of the cost and 30% of the revenue, which is an accretive arbitrage. And that’s what’s,
0:51:51 that’s what’s going on here. Just as we wrap up, Jess, we really need to juice the downloads here.
0:51:54 So you and I are going to go to the U S open and get on the kiss cam.
0:52:01 Oh yeah. What do you, what are your feelings about the Coldplay couple? I feel like people that I know
0:52:07 are on opposite sides of the spectrum, even on what they should have done. A lot of the, well,
0:52:11 if you just acted normal, my friend was like, why didn’t he just act like he was giving her the
0:52:14 Heimlich? That’s natural. Totally natural.
0:52:20 Distinct of all the jokes, Jess, I think it’s, uh, let’s just be serious for a moment. This is a woman
0:52:24 who raised this guy’s kids and thought she’d found the love of her life. And to find out this way that
0:52:30 her husband, in fact, is a Coldplay fan is really devastating. That’s good.
0:52:36 Why is Coldplay so embarrassing to people? Um, doesn’t everyone actually like Coldplay?
0:52:41 I actually do like Coldplay. Coldplay is amazing. But the, the more meta or serious observation is
0:52:48 that shaming is, is a key component of our species. And it’s something that feels terrible. And it’s
0:52:53 part of the reason that young people, uh, are more depressed is that shaming has been scaled and
0:52:59 industrialized with technology online, but shaming plays an important role in society. You are not
0:53:05 supposed to, you know, beat up your friend’s children. You’re not supposed to lie with your
0:53:10 neighbor’s wife and the community shames people for a good reason. It creates a certain level of
0:53:15 guardrails and a certain level of civility and mends or holds together the fabric. Shaming has played an
0:53:21 important part in society. Unfortunately, I think technology has scaled shaming to an entertainment
0:53:28 or to a sport and the algorithms love shaming. And also, I think this is a part of a larger trend.
0:53:33 And that is, I reverse engineer everything to income inequality. And that is the CEOs are now
0:53:40 making 300 times what the ordinary worker is versus 30 times. And I find that the algorithms and society
0:53:45 are much more up for shaming rich white people because they’re fed up with how much money and
0:53:51 disproportionate opportunity have been granted via income inequality. So if this had been two middle
0:53:57 class, uh, non-whites, this just wouldn’t have gone viral. People have had it and are looking for
0:54:03 reasons to shame famous people and especially rich people. And I find the industrialization of shaming
0:54:08 and the economic incentives around this a little, I think in it, what used to be a means of keeping
0:54:16 society more cohesive is tearing it apart now. So anyways, I’m, I find it interesting, but more people know
0:54:21 about these two people right now than they know about, uh, the would be assassin who was murdered
0:54:27 of Trump. So what does that say about our society and also for the rest of their lives, no matter where
0:54:32 they are, no matter what they do, the moment they’re introduced to anybody, the moment before they show
0:54:37 up, come up or leave, that’s what people are going to say about them. Yeah. These people are infamous.
0:54:45 What are your thoughts? I, I largely agree. His daughter posted a Tik TOK of her kind of standing in front
0:54:51 of a fire and the caption was like, you know, working it out when your father’s affair, you know,
0:54:56 goes viral like that. And I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be their families, both of them
0:55:01 married and she was married to the CEO of a, or is married to the CEO of a different company.
0:55:08 I don’t like the shame aspect whatsoever. I think life is complicated and you never know what’s going
0:55:15 on behind closed doors, but the amount of HR, the amount of trainings that I have sat in and had to
0:55:23 go through these ridiculous scenarios and check the right box that I shouldn’t be calling my colleagues,
0:55:28 you know, honey pie, and I shouldn’t touch anyone. And what do you do if someone does, you know,
0:55:37 for her to go out and do that as such rank hypocrisy. And I hate that I expect more of the woman in this
0:55:44 scenario, especially the woman who is the head of HR, but I do. Um, it does always feel nice when there’s
0:55:52 a break from what the algorithm is usually pumping into my veins. And you can see a bunch of very
0:55:58 creative memes. I like the Van Gogh one. I don’t know. Have you seen that where they’re like the
0:56:04 scream? They’ve been turned into the screen. It’s really good. By the way, I, I, it’s very encouraging.
0:56:08 I think all that training at Fox has really paid off. My understanding is that firm has had no trouble
0:56:15 with this type of situation. So it’s good to hear that. What is wrong with you? What’s going on?
0:56:20 What is wrong with me? I don’t know. Let me talk a little bit about this situation. First is
0:56:26 I’ve immunized myself from this type of problem because the first thing I do at an all hands is
0:56:30 I say to everybody, and I’ve run small and medium sized companies. I say, listen, I’m going to share
0:56:34 something with you because I think vulnerability is the key to masculinity. I’ve been in a terrible
0:56:39 accident and my inhibition sensors were severely damaged. And there’s going to be some locker room
0:56:45 talk and some inappropriate touching, but I hope you are patient with me on my journey back. Boom!
0:56:51 That’s how you inoculate yourself from a situation like this. But seriously, folks, let’s talk a little
0:56:56 bit about sex in the workplace because having been on a bunch of public company and private company
0:57:02 boards, this happens all the time. And what you said reminded me of something, our dynamic and our
0:57:06 species. And that is, and I love what you just said, don’t mistake kindness for weakness. I love that.
0:57:11 I think that is really powerful. As a matter of fact, and I’m really going off script here,
0:57:14 when I coach these young men, they eventually, they always say, I would really like a girlfriend.
0:57:19 I’m like, okay, women are attracted to men for three reasons. They need to signal resources.
0:57:23 It’s easy to signal resources when you have a Range Rover and a Panerai, but you don’t necessarily need
0:57:27 to have resources right now. You need to have a plan and you need to have your act together and show
0:57:32 that you’re disciplined, that you can get up, you leave parties early. You’re not that idiot ordering
0:57:36 a bottle of Grey Goose at 3 a.m. And women are attracted to someone who looks like they’re going
0:57:41 to have resources in the future too. Intelligence, easiest way to communicate intelligence, be well
0:57:45 read, thoughtful, listen, and also humor is a fantastic way to show that you’re intelligent.
0:57:50 But the most under leveraged thing is kindness. Women instinctively know they’re going to be
0:57:54 vulnerable during certain periods of their lives, specifically during gestation. And they want
0:57:58 to see a guy who genuinely is good to people without reciprocal expectation or good to people
0:58:05 that can’t do anything for him. I’m like, that’s the most under leveraged lever for men. And it’s
0:58:10 like, well, you can’t force kindness. I do think it’s a practice. I think every day, if you make an
0:58:14 effort to go out of your way to be kind to people, it becomes muscle memory and you start becoming
0:58:20 kinder. But, and I’ll bring this back to this, in a work setting, and people get very uncomfortable
0:58:24 when you talk about this. Anytime you say men are different than women, it’s like, oh, you’re a sexist.
0:58:28 Yeah, I’m a sexist. Men are different than women. I’m holding to that. And it doesn’t mean we can’t
0:58:34 have respect for the 5%. They’re non-binary. Just let me throw out my woke disclaimer. Men, what I have
0:58:37 found, and this is true and there’s evidence here, will mistake, especially in a corporate setting,
0:58:43 will mistake kindness for sexual interest. And women will mistake sexual interest for kindness.
0:58:49 And the general policy I find is most effective at an organization or a corporation is the following.
0:58:56 Below the executive level, 95% of the cohort, our policy has always been, use your common sense.
0:59:01 You do need, if you develop a relationship, disclose it to HR. But you can’t expect young
0:59:06 people to work 60 hours a week and then not assume that in situations where they get to demonstrate
0:59:10 excellence to each other, spend a lot of time together, that they’re not going to fall in love
0:59:14 or fall in lust, have sex, then fall in love and get married. I’ve had eight marriages
0:59:19 at my companies. And it’s always like, literally, it’s always the same thing. I found out they’re
0:59:22 engaged. I’m like, what? They were fucking, I didn’t know that. And I think it’s a wonderful
0:59:28 thing. And 99% of relationships of work are consensual. Young people need to mate. I think
0:59:33 it’s a blessing. I think it’s a mitzvah. Above a certain level, and you need to identify that level
0:59:38 and educate people. Once you hit a certain, quote unquote, the executive washroom, it’s great to be
0:59:43 you. You’re making millions of dollars, probably. You’re powerful. You have a lot of game. Your fly
0:59:52 is up and locked. You cannot date people at the company. The moment we find out a CEO is using the
0:59:57 corporation like Tinder because people are going to be unnaturally nice to you because you have power
1:00:04 over them, you are guilty. I think that’s the way to approach that. So this guy, both of them
1:00:08 as C-level executives, consensual or not, they’re guilty. They immediately get fired. And he was
1:00:13 fired the next day. I don’t know what happened to her. I don’t think we’ve heard. She should be
1:00:16 fired. She will be fired. If she’s a C-level executive, she should have known better, much
1:00:21 less been the head of HR. But I think that’s the right policy. Do most of these companies have
1:00:26 morality clauses also for infidelity? No. Because that’s different. I mean, it’s different if you’re
1:00:31 just like dating without being married to someone else versus that you’re having an affair. Does it
1:00:36 matter? None of my companies. I don’t want to be in a position of being someone’s rabbi or the priest.
1:00:40 They’re consenting adults. But you’re putting other people at risk and the power dynamic gets
1:00:44 strange once one person is an executive and very powerful. And you’re also putting the company at
1:00:51 risk. So I do think there’s a difference between two 25-year-olds out of college who decide to date
1:00:58 and the CEO misinterpreting signals or leveraging his, and it’s almost always the dude, let’s be honest,
1:01:04 leveraging his power to unfortunately sometimes put people in awkward situations or to start a
1:01:09 relationship with someone who is impressed by this person because quite frankly, women are impressed by
1:01:15 power. And then putting the company at risk and creating an uncomfortable power dynamic that may
1:01:20 put the person in a very uncomfortable situation that they don’t know how to get out of. But again,
1:01:23 News Corp, I don’t think that’s happened there. I don’t, I don’t think that’s ever happened at your
1:01:27 organization. Oh my God, that’s good.
1:01:32 You’re really feeling yourself today. I’m glad you said that though about dating within the workplace
1:01:40 because it’s such a loss for just growing up to think that you’re going to go and dedicate
1:01:47 majority of your time to something and that you’re not going to be able to fraternize in that way with
1:01:51 people at all. I mean, you see this with Gen Z is that they don’t do happy hours, for instance,
1:01:56 some of the most fun things that I ever participated in, right? Where everyone gets
1:02:00 together after work and, you know, you have a shared experience that you all work at the same company
1:02:05 and you meet some really great people and it’s about experimentation and trying things. I mean,
1:02:09 that’s an absolutely the safest way possible. But if you tell someone, yeah, you’ve got to be here 60
1:02:15 hours a week. Like also what would happen to doctors? I, all of my friends who are doctors are married to
1:02:21 other doctors because they did residency together, you know, medical school, fellowship, residency,
1:02:25 whatever it is, you’re trapped in, I mean, Grey’s Anatomy, going to be the longest running show.
1:02:27 They have no time to date anyone else.
1:02:33 Well, right. You’re, and then you all sleep in the on-call room and inevitably you end up on top of
1:02:36 each other. That’s just what ends up happening. So.
1:02:38 But in, in related news, I don’t know if you heard this, but Bill O’Reilly,
1:02:42 News Corp had to pay someone $25 million. It was so nice to see you this week, Scott.
1:02:48 Just in unrelated news, in unrelated news. That’s fresh, like 2016 election interference. You’re
1:02:54 the Tulsi Gabbard of this podcast. Little kiss cam on steroids there. All right, Jess. I’m gonna,
1:02:58 I’m gonna stop giving you a hard time here. Really? That’s all for this episode. Thank you for
1:03:04 listening to Raging Moderates. Our producers are the excellent and smart and fantastic scripting.
1:03:08 Amazing writer. David Toledo and Eric Jenicus. Our technical directors,
1:03:11 Drew Burroughs. Going forward, you’ll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday.
1:03:15 Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political
1:03:20 minds. This week, Jess is speaking to Florida gubernatorial candidate David Jolly. Make sure
1:03:26 to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss an episode. Jess, have a great rest of
1:03:27 the week. You too.

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0:01:22 What makes for the perfect summer read?
0:01:28 Maybe it’s a romance, or that non-fiction book you’ve been meaning to get around to, or maybe it’s something else.
0:01:32 The summer vibe is like easy, breezy, lesbian vampires.
0:01:33 That’s the vibe.
0:01:36 No, no, like summer.
0:01:40 What we read and why we read during the summer.
0:01:42 That’s this week on Explain It To Me.
0:01:46 New episodes every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:52 Welcome to Office Hours with Prop G.
0:01:57 This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind.
0:02:02 If you’d like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehours at propgmedia.com.
0:02:04 Again, that’s officehours at propgmedia.com.
0:02:10 Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode.
0:02:14 First question.
0:02:19 Our first question comes from AmatterOfFap on Reddit.
0:02:19 They ask,
0:02:23 Prop G, what are your thoughts on sugar relationships?
0:02:26 Aren’t all healthy relationships mutually beneficial?
0:02:31 What are your thoughts on its social acceptability and portrayals like in the latest White Lotus season?
0:02:38 Please pardon my username, but had to ask the question on my alt, but feel free to identify me as such.
0:02:39 Ha ha.
0:02:43 Look, I think every relationship is a transaction to a certain extent.
0:02:48 And I don’t, the bottom line is I don’t have a problem with it.
0:02:50 I think as long as there’s consenting adults,
0:02:55 I think there’s a real problem with trafficking young women around the world where they’re forced into relationships
0:02:59 where they are preyed upon because of their economic desperation.
0:03:01 I think that should be illegal.
0:03:06 And, you know, when certain members of the manosphere are accused of trafficking young women,
0:03:12 I think that should basically convince everyone that we just don’t need to listen to these people around trying to help young men.
0:03:21 But if you’re a young person and you enter into a relationship with someone and you’re giving up your time and you have more time than money and they have more money than time,
0:03:25 yeah, you’re consenting adults.
0:03:26 I don’t see anything wrong with that.
0:03:36 I think that traditionally the male-female dynamic in the United States was I get emotional support and nurturing from the woman and the man provides financial support.
0:03:41 And over the course of the last 30 or 40 years, women have been able to step up and provide more financial support.
0:03:50 And there’s a decent argument that men haven’t stepped up in terms of emotional or domestic or logistical support, creating an imbalance where a lot more men are a lot less attractive to women.
0:03:52 Now, I think there’s other things involved there.
0:03:55 I think online dating creates unreasonable expectations on both sides.
0:04:00 I don’t think young men have venues to demonstrate excellence.
0:04:01 Young people aren’t getting together.
0:04:07 There’s a zeitgeist of the moment you see not even a red flag, but a magenta flag, you should exit the relationship immediately.
0:04:08 Like, oh, he didn’t open your door.
0:04:09 You’re out of there.
0:04:11 Well, okay, folks, not all of us are perfect.
0:04:15 Anyways, I have no problem with it is the bottom line.
0:04:17 I have absolutely no problem with it.
0:04:20 I think at some point, relationships are a transaction.
0:04:23 It’s just a matter of cadence and currency.
0:04:29 And as long as you’re both consenting adults, also, let’s be honest, the relationship is usually an older man giving a younger woman money.
0:04:42 And if a younger woman whose fertility window is much shorter, who’s in a city that values women of a certain age and devalues women of a certain age, if she’s giving up her time, she should at least ensure she’s going to get something out of it.
0:04:46 And if the man has more money, I don’t see any reason.
0:04:55 So I have absolutely no problem with sugar relationships if, in fact, they’re both consenting adults and it works for both of them.
0:04:58 I think every relationship involves some sort of transaction.
0:05:06 And as long as you’re both sides are transparent, as long as both sides are honest with each other, yeah, have at it.
0:05:09 I think there’s absolutely, yeah, no problem with it.
0:05:11 So sugar away.
0:05:14 Our second question comes from Paul.
0:05:15 Not from Reddit.
0:05:16 Paul asks.
0:05:18 Hey, Scott.
0:05:20 This is Paul, longtime fan of the pot.
0:05:25 I actually got to shake your hand this past January in Houston after one of your speeches.
0:05:32 We shared a brief memory flashback to Petrero Hill in the 90s and Goat Hill Pizza.
0:05:39 Following up to a recent comment about second language learning being less valuable in today’s AI era.
0:05:48 One of my sons studied Mandarin through college and a formal language training program, including some immersion in Taipei and Beijing.
0:05:50 I get your point.
0:05:57 AI tools like real-time translation make the transactional need for another language less critical.
0:06:14 But do you think that overlooks the relational side, trust, nuance, mutual respect, that can only be built through two people communicating directly, especially in something as geopolitically important as the U.S.-China relationship?
0:06:19 Thanks to you, your team, for the content and the occasional good jokes.
0:06:21 Occasional?
0:06:22 Come on, Paul.
0:06:25 Thought it was good to see you in Houston.
0:06:29 Look, I agree with everything you said.
0:06:36 I think I’ve just finished writing a book on masculinity called Notes on Being a Man.
0:06:47 And the thing about when you write a book, you can get on almost any media outlet, or at least I’ve been blessed enough that if I write a book, I can get on almost a media outlet.
0:06:52 And I think a lot of it is because people in media realize how hard it is to write a book.
0:06:54 And they’re like, okay, you did the work, and they have some goodwill towards you.
0:07:08 I would imagine that I remember going to China with my friend Doug Guthrie, who was the head of Apple University in China and was the dean of the George Washington Business School and a colleague of mine at NYU and a big China scholar.
0:07:11 And he got up on stage and started speaking perfect Mandarin.
0:07:20 And the whole audience just kind of stopped and listened very attentively, because here was a white dude from the U.S. speaking perfect Mandarin.
0:07:23 And there’s just no doubt about it.
0:07:25 That’s like people go, that’s hard.
0:07:26 So we have more goodwill for you.
0:07:30 Also, I think my understanding is learning a language is like learning an instrument.
0:07:48 And that is, even if you never end up making a dollar from playing the tuba or get any additional advantage from understanding Mandarin or French, it opens a part of your brain when you’re young that helps you absorb other knowledge more easily.
0:07:49 That it’s a great training.
0:07:52 It’s like when you damage a muscle and it grows back stronger.
0:07:59 Essentially, I think learning the languages and music damages that muscle, your brain, and it grows back stronger across a variety of activities.
0:08:03 So I’m not saying that we should get rid of language classes.
0:08:12 I learned Spanish, and it introduced me to Gabriela Garcia Marquez, 100 years, un ciento años de soledad, and 100 years of solitude.
0:08:22 And I remember reading it in Spanish, and there’s the most beautiful scene in this book where this young woman is so beautiful that she literally floats away.
0:08:41 And I remember telling my mother of my children at one point, I was like a little drunk and feeling pretty good, that she was so beautiful that I thought at some point that she might, you know, that it was a realistic or there was a non-zero probability that the winds were going to kick up and she was literally going to just fly away or float away.
0:08:47 And that romance and understanding it through the lens of Spanish, and I think Spanish is such a beautiful language.
0:08:49 I took five years of Spanish.
0:08:51 I’m a lot of fun in Mexican restaurant.
0:08:53 I actually still can’t speak it.
0:09:01 Mrs. Witten at Emerson Junior High School, no, University High School, always gave me a B, even though I probably should have got a C.
0:09:07 I was terrible, terrible in languages, but I liked her, and she liked me, and she always gave me a B, which was comforting to get a B in Spanish.
0:09:09 Anyways, I’m a fan.
0:09:21 I just, what I don’t like, or I think is stupid, is all of these, you know, tiger moms trying to get their kids to learn Mandarin by the time they’re, you know, in 11th grade so they can go to China, which is going to economically conquer the U.S.
0:09:33 For the most part, when I started going to Europe in the 90s with my consulting firm Profit, you’d walk into a meeting in France and they would speak French and be pissed off that they needed to translate for you.
0:09:40 And now what I find is that lingua franca, even in Germany, when I go to meetings in Audi, they conduct the meetings in English.
0:09:46 And I find, generally speaking, the corporate world in Europe now is now conducting meetings in English.
0:09:51 And with AirPods and iPhone and AI, you’re going to basically be able to speak any language or at least understand it.
0:09:58 Having said that, you don’t take language or music for economic prosperity or utility.
0:10:02 I think you take it to learn, to appreciate the art, everything you’ve said.
0:10:04 I think it’s wonderful.
0:10:06 So I think we’re pretty much in agreement here.
0:10:12 But the notion that you need to learn Mandarin to be economically viable, I, you know, I just don’t buy it.
0:10:14 But yeah, it’s something I wish I was better at.
0:10:17 I took Spanish for a long time and I was just never very good at it.
0:10:18 And I clearly don’t have any earful languages.
0:10:20 But anyways, muchas gracias.
0:10:24 Si, me llamo Scott.
0:10:26 ¿Dónde está la biblioteca?
0:10:29 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
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0:11:38 It’s Today Explained.
0:11:40 What’s going on, my boys and in some cases, gals?
0:11:43 Recently, one of you emailed us with this request.
0:11:44 You’ve got mail.
0:12:05 Curtis Yarvin is a very online far-right philosopher whose ideas include the fascinating, the esoteric, the absurd, the racist, and so on.
0:12:11 Six months into the Trump administration, there’s evidence that he is influencing the MAGA movement, and even President Trump.
0:12:13 J.D. Vance knows him and likes him.
0:12:16 Elon consulted him about this third-party idea.
0:12:19 Yarvin can take some credit for inspiring Doge.
0:12:29 And, as you’ll hear ahead, one of Trump’s most controversial, doesn’t even begin to cover it, ideas may have come from Yarvin or someone who reads his substack.
0:12:32 I can almost guarantee you that Trump does not.
0:12:33 Everything’s computer.
0:12:35 Today Explained, weekday afternoons.
0:12:45 This week on Net Worth and Chill, we’re diving deep into Trump’s one big, beautiful bill, the sweeping legislation that promises to reshape America’s economic landscape.
0:12:54 From tax cuts to student loans, I’m breaking down what this massive piece of legislation actually means for your wallet, your investments, and your financial future.
0:13:05 We’re going to find out who wins and loses in this economic overhaul, analyze the market reactions that have investors buzzing, and discuss whether this bill will deliver on its promises or create unexpected consequences.
0:13:09 Just because you’re not on Medicaid doesn’t mean this doesn’t impact you.
0:13:12 Poor people don’t stop having medical emergencies.
0:13:14 They just stop being able to afford them.
0:13:19 Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash yourrichbff.
0:13:23 Welcome back.
0:13:24 Our final question comes from Reddit.
0:13:28 Mother Ratio 9806 asks,
0:13:31 Hey Scott, I’m at a crossroads with my wealth creation.
0:13:32 I’m about to have an exit.
0:13:37 I don’t have much family, but I’d love to financially help out those I care deeply about post-exit.
0:13:41 Is there a rule of thumb for family donations, and is it ongoing or a one-off?
0:13:47 So, I never really gave away a dollar to anyone or anything until I was 40.
0:13:51 And now that I have some economic security, I like to give money away.
0:13:52 It makes me feel masculine.
0:13:53 It makes me feel civic.
0:13:57 And I pay, or I give some money away to my family.
0:14:04 I pay for education for some of my nieces and nephews.
0:14:06 And I like it.
0:14:07 I think it’s a great investment.
0:14:08 It’s easy for me.
0:14:13 And it’s a big source of relief for their parents because education can be so expensive.
0:14:16 So, it’s sort of a win-win-win all around.
0:14:20 In terms of best practices, one, A, do it.
0:14:21 If you have the money, do it.
0:14:22 I don’t believe in hoarding wealth.
0:14:26 I got to my number in 2017, and I’m giving everything above it now.
0:14:27 I either spend it or give it away.
0:14:33 And what I would say is the best practice is don’t expect anything in return.
0:14:35 Decide if you’re giving it.
0:14:39 If you’re giving it, you don’t expect anything in return.
0:14:42 You don’t expect your brother to be nicer to you.
0:14:48 You don’t expect your nephew to send you pictures of his or her graduation.
0:14:51 I mean, if they do that, great.
0:14:56 But if you’re expecting anything, one, I think you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed.
0:15:00 Two, they’re going to feel some sort of pressure that you’re sort of controlling them through money.
0:15:07 What I try and do when I give money to family members is I try to make it as seamless as possible.
0:15:11 Hey, I was thinking about paying tuition for Jimmy.
0:15:12 And I’d really like to do that.
0:15:13 I have a fund that does that, da, da, da.
0:15:15 How much is he paying?
0:15:16 And then there’s some back and forth.
0:15:17 How much is it?
0:15:18 Are you down with it?
0:15:21 Get the wiring information, send it, and don’t bring it up again.
0:15:22 Don’t bring it up again.
0:15:24 Giving money is a weird thing.
0:15:29 It can make them feel less, I don’t know, less adult or less successful.
0:15:30 You don’t want them to feel bad.
0:15:33 You don’t want them to feel like there’s any reciprocal expectation.
0:15:35 You don’t want to feel like you’re exerting control.
0:15:38 You’re not trying to flex and make them feel bad.
0:15:41 So just, one, don’t expect anything back.
0:15:43 Make it as seamless, easy.
0:15:44 Don’t bring it up again.
0:15:45 If they say, thank you, great.
0:15:46 Oh, it’s no problem.
0:15:48 Don’t dwell on it.
0:15:48 Don’t bring it up.
0:15:52 That you want this to be giving, right?
0:15:54 You don’t expect anything in return.
0:15:56 You don’t even need them to acknowledge it.
0:15:57 You’re giving it to them.
0:15:59 It’s out of your mind.
0:15:59 You’ve given it to them.
0:16:00 It’s done.
0:16:01 It’s over.
0:16:05 So, one, do it, especially if you’re in a position to do it.
0:16:09 And you’re going to find, as you scratch the surface, even if you have cousins who look
0:16:12 economically prosperous, they’re stressed out about money.
0:16:15 So it’s an easy way to relieve stress.
0:16:18 Money is nothing but the transfer of time and work to other people.
0:16:23 So if you can give someone back a Sunday because they don’t have to spend as much time working
0:16:28 or they’re not as stressed, you take tension out of the relationship, it’s a wonderful thing
0:16:29 to do.
0:16:30 So, yes, do it.
0:16:33 Two, don’t expect anything back.
0:16:39 And three, make it as clean and easy and covert and ninja-like as possible.
0:16:41 Don’t turn it into a big thing.
0:16:41 Just do it.
0:16:42 It’s done.
0:16:43 Never think about it again.
0:16:50 And also just be really grateful and enjoy time thinking about how fortunate you are
0:16:51 that you get to do that for other people.
0:16:53 It feels, it really does feel wonderful.
0:16:56 That’s all for this episode.
0:17:00 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehoursofpropturedmedia.com.
0:17:02 That’s officehoursofpropturedmedia.com.
0:17:07 Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit,
0:17:09 and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.
0:17:16 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
0:17:18 Drew Burrows is our technical director.
0:17:21 Thanks for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Box Media Podcast Network.

0:00:02 There’s a lot nobody tells you about running a small business,
0:00:06 like the pricing, the marketing, the budgeting,
0:00:10 the accidents, the panicking, and the things,
0:00:13 and the things, and the non-stop things.
0:00:17 But having the right insurance can help protect you from many things.
0:00:20 Customize your coverage to get the protection you need
0:00:22 with BCAA Small Business Insurance.
0:00:28 Use promo code PROTECT to receive $50 off at bcaa.com slash smallbusiness.
0:00:34 In 2023, a 54-year-old man named William Woods
0:00:37 told police that his identity had been stolen.
0:00:39 But there was a problem.
0:00:42 Another man said that he was the real William Woods,
0:00:45 and it was his identity that had been stolen.
0:00:50 There’s no way that two human beings could have the same name,
0:00:52 the same date of birth, the same social security number.
0:00:56 So someone clearly was not telling the truth.
0:00:59 Listen to our latest episode on Criminal,
0:01:01 wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:09 I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:01:12 One of the wonderful things about this business
0:01:16 is occasionally you stumble upon someone who is just so impressive.
0:01:19 Professor Heather Cox Richardson,
0:01:22 a historian of American history, is one of those people.
0:01:25 Here are some of Professor Richardson’s views
0:01:28 on the crisis facing American democracy.
0:01:32 Resist, as read by George Hahn.
0:01:44 My go-to historical frame of reference is World War II.
0:01:48 At a staggering global cost of 85 million lives,
0:01:52 the Second World War was the crucible of the 20th century.
0:01:56 An explosion of unfathomable destruction,
0:02:02 followed by an unparalleled period of unevenly distributed peace and prosperity.
0:02:10 As I’m a catastrophist, I’m hardwired to dwell on the first part and take the second part for granted.
0:02:15 Also, World War II, specifically the European theater, is personal.
0:02:20 As a kid, my father and his friends kept tabs on people with foreign accents,
0:02:24 believing they were tracking Nazi spies in their hometown of Glasgow.
0:02:30 When the war ended, Dad was 15, three years away from being deployed to the front.
0:02:34 My Jewish mother narrowly escaped the horrors of the Holocaust.
0:02:39 She found relative safety sheltering in the London Tube during the Blitz.
0:02:42 Had the Allies not stood their ground,
0:02:45 my mom’s life could have ended with a train ride,
0:02:47 and you’d be listening to something else.
0:02:54 So many of us don’t appreciate how much of our success isn’t our fault.
0:03:02 Last week, I wrote that masked agents in fatigues,
0:03:05 raiding churches, schools, and workplaces,
0:03:07 and separating families without due process,
0:03:11 is not modern America, but 1930s Europe.
0:03:13 We’ve seen this movie before.
0:03:15 It doesn’t end well.
0:03:19 History, however, isn’t a single-screen theater,
0:03:21 but a multiplex of outcomes.
0:03:26 I recently spoke with historian Heather Cox Richardson,
0:03:27 who is remarkable.
0:03:31 While we share a diagnosis of the present,
0:03:34 Professor Richardson is an optimist and an Americanist.
0:03:36 Comparing the present,
0:03:40 what I call our slow burn into fascism,
0:03:43 to previous periods of instability in American history,
0:03:44 Richardson says,
0:04:01 The question isn’t whether she is correct,
0:04:02 but rather,
0:04:04 what can we learn from American history,
0:04:09 specifically the 1850s and 1890s?
0:04:13 At the beginning of the 1850s,
0:04:16 American slaveholders were undefeated.
0:04:20 They had the political capital to expand the fugitive slave laws,
0:04:23 requiring law enforcement throughout the U.S.
0:04:25 to aid in the arrest of runaways.
0:04:30 If that sounds like it rhymes with today’s battle over sanctuary cities
0:04:33 and the federalization of the California National Guard,
0:04:34 trust your instincts.
0:04:39 In 1855, free staters and pro-slavery forces,
0:04:42 egged on by national political leaders,
0:04:46 clashed in a Civil War sneak preview called Bleeding Kansas.
0:04:49 A year later,
0:04:53 a pro-slavery senator attacked an abolitionist one,
0:04:54 Charles Sumner,
0:04:55 with a cane,
0:04:58 nearly beating him to death on the Senate floor.
0:05:03 If rhetoric leading to political violence reminds you of what currently passes
0:05:05 for presidential leadership,
0:05:05 again,
0:05:07 trust your instincts.
0:05:10 And for contemporary parallels of political violence,
0:05:12 see January 6th,
0:05:13 Charlottesville,
0:05:14 Gretchen Whitmer,
0:05:16 Josh Shapiro,
0:05:17 Paul Pelosi,
0:05:18 Steve Scalise,
0:05:21 the attacks on state legislators in Minnesota,
0:05:24 and the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
0:05:29 As Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski recently said,
0:05:31 we are all afraid.
0:05:33 Given our history,
0:05:35 that’s common sense.
0:05:39 As the 1850s neared their end,
0:05:41 slaveholders appeared invincible.
0:05:46 In a distant echo of today’s court battles over birthright citizenship,
0:05:51 the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott that black Americans,
0:05:53 whether free or slaves,
0:05:55 couldn’t be U.S. citizens.
0:05:57 Two years later,
0:06:04 abolitionist John Brown led a Hail Mary raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry,
0:06:07 intending to ignite a nationwide slave revolt.
0:06:11 Federal military forces under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee
0:06:15 put down what contemporary accounts called an insurrection.
0:06:17 At the time,
0:06:21 Brown’s failed raid was a low point for abolitionists,
0:06:22 but in retrospect,
0:06:26 it may have represented a high watermark of pro-slave power in U.S. politics.
0:06:29 Within a few years,
0:06:33 a previously unthinkable coalition of unionists,
0:06:36 many of whom held deeply racist views,
0:06:38 and abolitionists,
0:06:41 had formed around Lincoln’s Republican Party,
0:06:45 won a war to preserve the Union,
0:06:46 freed the slaves,
0:06:47 freed the slaves,
0:06:48 launched Reconstruction,
0:06:52 and set America on the path of industrialization.
0:07:00 There’s a reason many contemporary scholars are talking about a new gilded age.
0:07:04 The period between 1870 and 1900,
0:07:06 similar to our era,
0:07:09 was defined by extreme inequality,
0:07:11 the corporate capture of government,
0:07:12 corruption,
0:07:15 and widespread distrust in institutions.
0:07:17 Today,
0:07:19 the robber barons have rebranded as tech bros.
0:07:25 Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall machine have been reborn as Trump’s meme coin,
0:07:29 a pay-for-play crypto scheme operating out of the Oval Office.
0:07:37 The fear that Congress and the courts work for corporations and the wealthy remains a constant.
0:07:41 Reformers offer another parallel.
0:07:45 The trustbusters of the gilded age had Teddy Roosevelt,
0:07:49 who took on monopolies in railroads, sugar, and oil.
0:07:52 We have Lena Kahn,
0:07:56 working to regulate digital monopolies that dictate the terms of commerce
0:08:00 and preside over a broken information ecosystem.
0:08:04 Leveraging distrust of Republicans and Democrats,
0:08:10 the short-lived populist party of the 1890s demanded the direct election of senators,
0:08:14 progressive taxation, and labor protections.
0:08:19 Andrew Yang, who consistently loses elections but wins arguments,
0:08:25 has championed reforms, notably the universal basic income and ranked choice voting.
0:08:31 Zoran Mamdani, a progressive beneficiary of ranked choice voting,
0:08:34 echoes William Jennings Bryan’s slogan,
0:08:40 Plutocracy is abhorrent to the Republic when he talks about halalflation.
0:08:44 Reformers and their demands change throughout our history,
0:08:50 but they share a common theme of fighting for the little guy against moneyed interests.
0:08:56 American history is a competition between two visions of governance,
0:08:58 according to Professor Richardson.
0:09:02 Either we’re a society where people are equal under the law
0:09:04 and have a say in their government,
0:09:10 or we’re a society where elites have the right to rule and concentrate wealth,
0:09:13 as they’re simply better than everyone else.
0:09:20 At this moment, I’d argue that the 1% are protected by the law but not bound by it,
0:09:26 and the bottom 99% are bound by the law but not protected by it.
0:09:31 In the Gilded Age, Andrew Carnegie personified the elite.
0:09:37 An immigrant who made his fortune in steel during the early years of American industrialization,
0:09:42 Carnegie initially credited his adopted country with his success.
0:09:46 Later, however, Carnegie argued he was self-made,
0:09:50 insisting he had a right to concentrate wealth in his hands,
0:09:53 as he was the best steward for society.
0:10:01 Elon Musk, also an immigrant, built his fortune on internet infrastructure financed by American taxpayers.
0:10:06 He built his second fortune jump-starting the electric car industry,
0:10:10 financed once again by billions in subsidies.
0:10:15 Somewhere along the way, he became convinced he was humanity’s savior.
0:10:22 For Musk, anyone who stands in the way of anointing him first friend and or unelected president
0:10:24 is an enemy of the state.
0:10:30 The most fortunate among us have replaced patriotism with technocarionism.
0:10:34 Daniel Kahneman found that, above a certain threshold,
0:10:38 money offers no incremental increase in one’s happiness.
0:10:45 However, there’s evidence everywhere that men who aggregate billions from technology firms
0:10:50 become infected by an inexplicable sense of a grievance.
0:10:57 Our idolatry of wealth makes Americans vulnerable to men like Carnegie and Musk.
0:11:02 As the citizens of a country predicated on the dream of economic prosperity,
0:11:06 Americans conflate wealth with leadership.
0:11:12 The bottom 90% tolerate, even celebrate, a Hunger Games economy,
0:11:17 where the rich live long, remarkable lives, and everyone else dies a slow death.
0:11:18 Why?
0:11:22 Because each of us believes we’ll eventually reach the top.
0:11:26 That belief isn’t optimism, but opium.
0:11:33 And it keeps the bottom 90% from realizing they’re essentially nutrition for the top 10%.
0:11:39 Private jet owners can now accelerate the depreciation on their planes,
0:11:43 but we’re stripping health care from millions of people.
0:11:45 Does that make any fucking sense?
0:11:51 One common protest slogan in the Trump era is,
0:11:53 This is not who we are.
0:11:58 I agree, but as a student of history, I know that’s incomplete.
0:12:00 A more accurate slogan?
0:12:03 This isn’t who we want to be.
0:12:07 Richardson says our model should be Abraham Lincoln,
0:12:12 who navigated through a period of political instability and violence
0:12:19 and renewed American democracy by appealing to the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
0:12:25 This Independence Day, Richardson wrote about the men who signed America’s founding document.
0:12:30 They risked everything they had to defend the idea of human equality,
0:12:37 an idea that’s been America’s work in progress since 1776.
0:12:38 Quote,
0:12:48 Ever since then, Americans have sacrificed their own fortunes, honor, and even their lives for that principle.
0:12:55 Lincoln reminded Civil War Americans of those sacrifices when he urged the people of his era to, quote,
0:13:01 take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.
0:13:07 That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain,
0:13:12 that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom,
0:13:19 and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
0:13:21 Unquote.
0:13:23 Unquote.
0:13:28 I find it difficult to see optimism in Lincoln’s story.
0:13:30 See, catastrophist.
0:13:34 After he won the bloodiest war in American history,
0:13:38 an assassin’s bullet robbed him of the opportunity to shape the peace.
0:13:41 But at Gettysburg,
0:13:44 just a few months after a pivotal battle
0:13:48 where tens of thousands of Americans gave the last full measure of devotion,
0:13:53 Lincoln appealed to American values as well as the American people.
0:13:55 Then, as now,
0:13:57 the ball is in our court.
0:14:00 Richardson told me,
0:14:01 quote,
0:14:03 I’m not ready to give up on America.
0:14:07 We’ve renewed our democracy in the past,
0:14:10 and we have the tools to do it again.
0:14:11 Unquote.
0:14:16 None of us knows how this moment will turn out.
0:14:19 Perhaps that’s the point.
0:14:22 But previous generations of reformers
0:14:24 who renewed American democracy
0:14:28 didn’t have the luxury of hindsight or guarantees either.
0:14:32 They had only the present moment and a choice.
0:14:35 Retreat into cynicism
0:14:36 or push forward
0:14:40 into the messy, uncertain work of democracy.
0:14:45 Susan B. Anthony faced decades of ridicule and arrest.
0:14:49 Martin Luther King’s dream must have seemed impossible
0:14:51 from his Birmingham jail cell.
0:14:54 Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez
0:14:56 organized immigrant farm workers
0:14:59 who had every reason to believe the system would never change.
0:15:03 Harvey Milk knew visibility meant vulnerability
0:15:05 in a hostile world.
0:15:08 What they shared wasn’t optimism,
0:15:10 but the willingness to act
0:15:13 as if democracy could be renewed
0:15:15 even when the evidence suggested otherwise.
0:15:19 My mother survived the Blitz
0:15:21 because the Allies refused
0:15:24 to give fascists the satisfaction
0:15:25 of her fear.
0:15:28 My father spent his youth
0:15:30 tracking imaginary Nazi spies
0:15:31 and joined the Royal Navy
0:15:34 as freedom felt worth protecting.
0:15:36 Democracy survives
0:15:39 the same way it always has.
0:15:42 Not because the outcome is guaranteed,
0:15:45 but because ordinary people decide
0:15:47 it’s worth the risk.
0:15:50 Resist.
0:15:55 Life is so rich.
0:16:07 Life is so rich.

0:00:02 There’s a lot nobody tells you about running a small business,
0:00:08 like the pricing, the marketing, the budgeting, the accidents,
0:00:13 the panicking, and the things, and the things, and the non-stop things.
0:00:17 But having the right insurance can help protect you from many things.
0:00:20 Customize your coverage to get the protection you need
0:00:22 with BCAA Small Business Insurance.
0:00:28 Use promo code PROTECT to receive $50 off at bcaa.com slash smallbusiness.
0:00:32 Welcome to Office Hours with Prop G.
0:00:34 This is the part of the show where we answer your questions
0:00:37 about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind.
0:00:40 If you’d like to submit a question for next time,
0:00:43 you can send a voice recording to officehoursofproptimedia.com.
0:00:46 Again, that’s officehoursofproptimedia.com.
0:00:49 Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit,
0:00:52 and we just might feature it in our next episode.
0:00:58 The first question comes from Star Hardgrove on Reddit.
0:00:59 They say,
0:01:04 Student loan debt in the U.S. has ballooned to $1.8 trillion,
0:01:07 and I personally carry $145,000 of that burden.
0:01:12 Estimates suggest that it would take anywhere from $50 billion to $680 billion a year
0:01:13 to make public college free for all.
0:01:17 What’s your honest prediction for the future of student loan debt in this country
0:01:19 for those of us earning a moderate salary?
0:01:22 Is there a smart, realistic way out of this hole?
0:01:25 Okay, I think a lot of people are dealing with this.
0:01:28 The Trump administration resumed collections in May of this year.
0:01:31 According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,
0:01:32 in the first three months of 2025,
0:01:36 2.2 million student loan recipients saw their credit scores drop by 100 points,
0:01:40 and an additional 1 million had drops of 150 points or more.
0:01:43 Delinquencies are spiking as of March 2025.
0:01:47 One in four people with student loans were over 90 days late in payments.
0:01:50 Okay, so I may not have the answer you want here,
0:01:54 and I find there’s a lot of populism around student debt and let’s cancel it,
0:01:56 or a lot of empathy, which I understand.
0:02:02 I think the president’s plan to reduce substantially student debt,
0:02:04 I think it was going to cost $600, $700 billion.
0:02:05 I thought that was bad policy.
0:02:10 I don’t think you can offer that kind of unilateral executive action
0:02:14 that’s going to cost that much money without it being an investment, not a bailout.
0:02:17 This was a bailout, and it was a bailout of the third of America
0:02:22 that was fortunate enough to go to college being paid for by not only them,
0:02:25 but the two-thirds that didn’t have the opportunity to go to college.
0:02:29 So I think it creates a situation where there’s moral hazard,
0:02:34 and that is right now young people don’t feel as if they need to pay back their student loan debts,
0:02:38 and I wonder if it means they think they might not have to pay back their credit card debt
0:02:39 because they signed this paperwork,
0:02:43 and basically for three or four years now they haven’t had to pay it back.
0:02:44 So what to do?
0:02:48 In some, I think that student loan collection should begin again,
0:02:51 and I think the real culprit here is universities
0:02:56 where some nice woman in a pantsuit with a big university logo over her head saying
0:03:02 you should always invest in yourself is willing to issue paperwork on cheap credit and student loans
0:03:06 such that she can cash your $72,000 tuition check to NYU
0:03:09 and give you a philosophy degree at the end of four years
0:03:13 that you can’t get a job that helps pay back your student loans.
0:03:15 And NYU is actually one of the better places
0:03:17 because the majority of people who come out of NYU can find a job
0:03:18 where they can manage their student loan debt.
0:03:22 And the vast majority of people can manage their student loan debt.
0:03:24 I think the average payment is $200 or $220.
0:03:27 So what do we do moving forward?
0:03:30 One, if you were going to spend that kind of money, it would need to be an investment.
0:03:34 And I think the investment should have been something along the following.
0:03:37 Say to our five or 700 biggest public universities,
0:03:43 which educate two thirds of our students will give you a size adjusted a billion dollars.
0:03:47 So UCLA gets $5 billion, Cal State Northridge gets $200 million and say,
0:03:50 all right, in exchange for this grant, you’re going to do three things.
0:03:54 One, you’re going to reduce tuition 2% a year through scale.
0:03:59 You’re going to expand your freshman class 3% a year through use of technology.
0:04:05 And you’re going to offer 20% of your certificates are going to be in non-traditional degrees,
0:04:11 nursing, specialty construction, cybersecurity, because there’s a lot of jobs in the real economy
0:04:13 that don’t require a four-year liberal arts degree.
0:04:16 And there’s a lot of people, young people, especially young men,
0:04:20 who don’t have the inclination, the money, or the desire to go get a traditional liberal arts
0:04:21 college education for four years.
0:04:22 Where does that get us?
0:04:24 That means on an inflation-adjusted basis in 10 years,
0:04:28 we double the number of freshman seats at colleges, still think it’s a fantastic on-ramp
0:04:29 to the middle class.
0:04:33 We reduce costs on an inflation-adjusted basis, we cut them in half.
0:04:39 And we have more formal on-ramps into the middle class using the infrastructure of our great public
0:04:40 universities.
0:04:45 This is a forward-leaning investment that helps all youth and takes us back to where we were
0:04:48 in the 90s in terms of cost and admission rates.
0:04:54 My colleagues have become drunk on the self-aggrandizement and exclusivity and rejectionist culture.
0:04:58 of artificially creating scarcity around freshman seats.
0:04:59 It is immoral.
0:05:03 It’s tantamount to the head of a homeless shelter bragging that he or she turned away 90% of the
0:05:07 people last night by saying we have an admissions rate of 10%.
0:05:09 Now, there’s some losers here.
0:05:15 There’s some people who, in my opinion, were sold a bill of goods around taking on too much
0:05:15 student debt.
0:05:18 But look, I’m a bit of a hard-ass here.
0:05:19 I think it sucks to be a grown-up.
0:05:20 You took on the debt.
0:05:21 You owe it.
0:05:22 You need to pay it back.
0:05:26 Programs to help you work it down for certain industries.
0:05:29 Absolutely dischargeable in bankruptcy.
0:05:34 And schools need to be on the hook such that they stop loaning money to people who they know
0:05:36 will have a difficult time paying it back.
0:05:39 Very much appreciate the question.
0:05:42 It’s a difficult and nuanced problem.
0:05:46 Our second question comes from BitterSample7760 on Reddit.
0:05:53 They ask, hey, Scott, how do you go about not comparing yourself to others as a young male
0:05:54 in your 20s?
0:05:58 Look, I was very insecure.
0:06:03 I think I was more secure than most 20-something-year-old males, and I was highly insecure.
0:06:11 I struggled with my professional success, even though I had registered more than most people.
0:06:16 I really wanted to be perceived as professionally successful and was constantly insecure about
0:06:16 that.
0:06:20 I was very insecure about my economic background.
0:06:23 I was raised, I was sort of upper-lower middle class, single mother.
0:06:28 I remember someone, this is probably too much information, someone complimented me on my teeth.
0:06:29 I have nice teeth.
0:06:35 I have probably spent $100,000 or $150,000 on my teeth.
0:06:37 I grew up with really bad teeth.
0:06:38 My parents are British.
0:06:40 Dental care was not a big priority.
0:06:44 While my friends were getting braces, it wasn’t even a conversation in my household.
0:06:47 My mom couldn’t afford braces, and my mom had bad teeth, and my dad had bad teeth.
0:06:48 I just didn’t even notice.
0:06:52 And I literally looked, I wasn’t a freak show, but I had bad teeth.
0:06:57 And it was always for me a constant reminder, when I looked in the mirror and then I smiled,
0:07:02 that I wasn’t worthy, that I came from a lower-income background.
0:07:04 And it made me feel very insecure.
0:07:06 And so when I was in graduate school, I got braces.
0:07:08 That’s fun, to be in grad school and have braces.
0:07:09 That was a real good wrap.
0:07:13 And then I still didn’t like my teeth, so I got veneers.
0:07:19 I have spent so much time and money on my teeth because I’m very insecure about my teeth
0:07:21 and what it says about my economic status.
0:07:25 I also had body dysmorphia when I was in my 20s.
0:07:28 I grew up very skinny, painfully skinny.
0:07:29 I had bad acne.
0:07:35 And when I joined crew at UCLA and I put on a bunch of weight, all of a sudden I started
0:07:36 getting attention from women.
0:07:39 My skin cleared up thanks to this wonder drug called Accutane.
0:07:46 And for the first time in my life, it wasn’t just my humor that got me social capital.
0:07:50 And that was such an unlock for me that for the rest of my life, I’ve always conflated
0:07:55 being bigger or having some muscle with really good things happening to me.
0:07:59 So when I look in the mirror, and I’m 6’2″, 190, when I look in the mirror, I see someone
0:08:00 who’s emaciated.
0:08:01 I have body dysmorphia.
0:08:06 So, and by the way, I talk about this transparently because I don’t think I’m that fucked up.
0:08:09 I think all of us have this shit that we deal with.
0:08:11 And how did I deal with it?
0:08:12 I worked on it.
0:08:14 One, I talked about it.
0:08:15 I understood it.
0:08:18 I understood there is something called body dysmorphia.
0:08:23 I understood the link between feeling bad about my teeth and economic insecurity.
0:08:29 And the moment you sort of understand something and feel like you can address it, either by
0:08:34 getting braces or understanding it’s normal or developing other skills or feeling bad about
0:08:36 your body so you start working out.
0:08:41 You know, my means of trying not to compare myself to people was, yeah, I think over time
0:08:44 maturity and people who love you will help you get past that.
0:08:48 But my way of addressing it was to just try and be a better version of me, to work out,
0:08:51 to be more economically successful.
0:08:56 One of my unlocks as I’ve gotten older, and I think this is hard for people in their 20s,
0:09:02 but one of my biggest unlocks around comparing myself to others and being disappointed, I’m
0:09:03 worried about being shamed by people.
0:09:09 I hate being wrong or saying something stupid and being called out or not being liked.
0:09:13 And as I’ve gotten older, I’m much less sensitive to it for the following reason.
0:09:15 I’m going to be dead soon, and so are you.
0:09:20 And that, when you’re in your 20s, for good reason, you can’t wrap your head around your
0:09:21 mortality.
0:09:24 You literally don’t believe you or anyone in your life is going to die.
0:09:29 And the first time that you start to believe that, in fact, is a reality is when you lose
0:09:29 a parent.
0:09:34 That was sort of an awakening for me, the brutality and finality of that.
0:09:38 And also, as I’ve gotten older and have lost a couple of close friends, I am now squarely
0:09:40 in touch with the finite nature of life.
0:09:45 I’m an atheist, I believe at some point I’ll look into my kid’s eyes and know our relationship
0:09:46 is coming to an end.
0:09:52 But it’s a huge unlock, because if you can establish a sense of the finite nature of life in your
0:09:58 20s, what you realize is that as embarrassed as you are about your teeth or not being a size
0:10:03 two or not having the professional success of your friends, you’re mostly embarrassed.
0:10:06 You might be disappointed a little bit in yourself because you need to make a certain amount of
0:10:10 money, but most of the shame comes from your perception of other people’s perception of you.
0:10:15 And what has really helped me, I went to dinner last night with a bunch of impressive people,
0:10:17 and I remember thinking, the guy next to me, I really wanted to like me, and I could just
0:10:18 tell he just didn’t like me.
0:10:23 And that would have rattled my world 20 years ago.
0:10:27 And now it’s sort of like, he’s going to be dead soon and so am I.
0:10:30 And it just doesn’t, I mean, it’s meaningful, but it’s not profound.
0:10:35 And if there’s anything I would want to give someone in their 20s is a sense of their mortality
0:10:38 responsibility and just how fast it’s going to go.
0:10:42 And you’re going to realize like, do your best, work hard, work out, try and look good.
0:10:47 I think it’s important to be mindful of your dress and your aesthetics and feeling strong
0:10:53 and wanting to look good naked and wanting to dress well and wanting to be smart and wanting
0:10:54 to make money.
0:10:59 I think those are wonderful things to aspire to, but also a recognition that the people you’re
0:11:02 doing this for are going to be dead soon.
0:11:08 And it really does in three, in 30, 40 years, none of them are going to be around or three
0:11:09 generations.
0:11:10 No one’s going to remember them.
0:11:11 No one’s going to remember you.
0:11:13 So this is how you win.
0:11:19 The best means of achieving self-esteem, the best means of revenge, if you feel people have
0:11:22 wronged you, is to just live a fucking amazing life.
0:11:27 And that is to try and express your emotions with abandon, to try and be nice to yourself, to
0:11:32 forgive yourself, to appreciate the good things you have going for you, to tell people how
0:11:37 much they mean to, to embrace shit, to say yes, to go out, to laugh out loud, to enjoy
0:11:41 friendship, to tell your friends how much you’re enjoying their friendship, to tell your parents
0:11:42 how much you love them.
0:11:46 And also just let the other shit just go away.
0:11:47 Because guess what?
0:11:48 Guess what?
0:11:53 Anyone you’re worried about, what they think of you, anyone who doesn’t return your affection,
0:11:58 your romantic interest, any business that fires you, any investment that goes wrong, guess
0:11:58 what?
0:12:00 They’re all going to be dead or meaningless.
0:12:03 So why not just enjoy it?
0:12:06 Why not just look at the glasses half full?
0:12:07 Do your best.
0:12:08 Wake up every morning.
0:12:08 Create a list.
0:12:10 Make progress.
0:12:14 Success is a small set of disciplined actions every day.
0:12:16 But for God’s sakes, forgive yourself.
0:12:20 At the end of your life, at the end of your life, you’re going to look back and think in
0:12:23 your 20s, you know, I was better looking than I gave myself credit for.
0:12:27 I was trying harder than I gave myself credit for.
0:12:30 I was more successful than I gave myself credit for.
0:12:33 And you’re not going to be upset about the things that happened to you in your 20s.
0:12:36 You’re going to be upset at how hard you were on yourself.
0:12:38 Forgive yourself.
0:12:41 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
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0:13:52 It’s Today Explained.
0:13:54 What’s going on, my boys and in some cases, gals?
0:13:57 Recently, one of you emailed us with this request.
0:13:58 You’ve got mail.
0:13:59 Hello.
0:14:04 I’m an avid listener, and I strongly believe you should cover the story of Curtis Yarvin.
0:14:09 It’s important to explore who he is and how he has influenced the MAGA and the tech bros
0:14:09 movement.
0:14:16 Curtis Yarvin is a very online far-right philosopher whose ideas include the fascinating, the esoteric,
0:14:19 the absurd, the racist, and so on.
0:14:23 Six months into the Trump administration, there’s evidence that he is influencing the MAGA movement
0:14:25 and even President Trump.
0:14:25 J.D.
0:14:27 Vance knows him and likes him.
0:14:30 Elon consulted him about this third-party idea.
0:14:36 Yarvin can take some credit for inspiring Doge, and as you’ll hear ahead, one of Trump’s most
0:14:42 controversial, doesn’t even begin to cover it, ideas may have come from Yarvin or someone
0:14:43 who reads his substack.
0:14:46 I can almost guarantee you that Trump does not.
0:14:47 Everything’s computer.
0:14:49 Today Explained, weekday afternoons.
0:14:58 Hey, this is Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, a show about media and tech and what happens
0:14:59 when they collide.
0:15:05 And this may be hard to remember, but not very long ago, magazines were a really big deal.
0:15:10 And the most important magazines were owned by Condé Nast, the glitzy publishing empire
0:15:13 that’s the focus of a new book by New York Times reporter Michael Grinbaum.
0:15:19 The way Condé Nast elevated its editors, the way they paid for their mortgages so they
0:15:24 could live in beautiful homes, there was a logic to it, which was that Condé Nast itself
0:15:28 became seen as this kind of enchanted land.
0:15:33 You can hear the rest of our chat on Channels, wherever you listen to your favorite media podcast.
0:15:39 Welcome back.
0:15:42 On to our final question from CookingWithFire2030 on Reddit.
0:15:44 God, I love these titles.
0:15:50 What would it take to change your mind on a fundamental idea you have when presented with
0:15:52 information that contradicts the old data?
0:15:55 How do you balance between recency bias and traditionalism?
0:15:57 I’ve tried to get better at this.
0:16:03 If I find, when I go into conversations with people, I just did a podcast called Lost Boys
0:16:08 with Anthony Scaramucci and he had a friend of his, I forget her name.
0:16:09 She was, oh, I know she was a real housewife.
0:16:13 That’s our recruiting pool now for podcasts as we bring on real housewives.
0:16:17 Anyways, we were talking about men and women and she was saying the patriarchy has hurt everybody
0:16:19 and she and I just have a different view on this.
0:16:28 But when I do go into these situations, I do try and listen and I find that the key, one of
0:16:33 the keys are things are zeitgeist or themes I want to promote moving forward in my life
0:16:36 is the restoration and refurbishment of alliances.
0:16:42 And I think a good way to establish common ground is to acknowledge good points on the other side.
0:16:46 And even I’ll even say sometimes in a podcast, like your takes better than mine.
0:16:50 You’ve changed my mind or you’ve influenced the way I look at this.
0:16:57 And I also think it’s important that we do have something resembling a truth that Jim Barksdale,
0:17:02 the CEO of AT&T, and then went on to be the CEO of Netscape, said, if we’re going with opinions,
0:17:03 let’s go with mine.
0:17:05 If we have data, let’s look at the data.
0:17:08 One of the things that worries me about our society is the intersection between our perceptions
0:17:10 and information.
0:17:13 And that is none of us are willing to acknowledge when actual data comes in.
0:17:17 The Congressional Budget Office is saying that the big, beautiful bill will add three and
0:17:19 a half trillion dollars to the deficit.
0:17:19 And what happens?
0:17:26 The Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, comes out and says, oh, no, that’s traditional
0:17:27 Washington insider scoring.
0:17:32 So let’s shitpost the experts and diminish the government of which we’re a part of and say
0:17:33 that the scoring is wrong.
0:17:37 It used to be that when the CBO weighed in, both sides would acknowledge those are the numbers.
0:17:39 That’s it.
0:17:40 We got to acknowledge those are the numbers.
0:17:46 And now we’ve decided we don’t even want to try and develop something resembling a truth
0:17:48 between our perceptions and the data.
0:17:54 So when I hear really compelling data, I think it’s the right thing.
0:17:59 And I think it means you’re evolving as a human to say, I didn’t know that.
0:18:00 That is super interesting.
0:18:06 And, you know, my general sort of view was, oh, the poor pay too much in taxes.
0:18:10 I was very much a, you know, I believe I’m an income inequality guy.
0:18:14 And the reality is the bottom half of our population in the United States pay almost no federal
0:18:14 taxes.
0:18:15 That’s just not true.
0:18:21 And I saw the data on the near wealthy or the kind of workhorses that is people who make
0:18:23 between, say, $200,000 and $2 million a year.
0:18:26 They pay more than their fair share of taxes because it’s all current income.
0:18:31 It’s the people that are the super owners that make the majority of their income from buying
0:18:33 and selling assets that pay the lowest taxes.
0:18:38 25 wealthiest Americans in America is supposed to pay about a 6% income tax rate.
0:18:43 Anyways, I find comfort and resolution in the data.
0:18:48 And I think at some point, one, we need to restore trust in institutions.
0:18:54 And two, our role in that is to acknowledge when we see data that contradicts our own beliefs,
0:19:01 to acknowledge the point and even acknowledge that that data or that individual has influenced
0:19:01 you.
0:19:05 And what I find is that’s an effective way to restore alliances because they’re willing to
0:19:06 give a little bit too.
0:19:12 The fastest way to diffuse an argument, I find, is to acknowledge the other’s points to some
0:19:14 degree and see if there’s some middle ground.
0:19:23 I find that we have this unfortunate zeitgeist in our society where you say something stupid
0:19:26 and you feel like you have to double down and keep going as opposed to saying, you know,
0:19:29 I’ve said a couple of times in conversations, I’m like, I would draw the comment.
0:19:30 I don’t know where I was going with that.
0:19:31 And you’re right.
0:19:32 Your data is better than mine.
0:19:33 And what you’re saying makes a lot of sense.
0:19:39 And I find when you say that, it disarms them and they’re much more likely to agree with
0:19:40 you and come together.
0:19:42 Anyways, appreciate the question.
0:19:44 That’s all for this episode.
0:19:49 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehoursofprofgmedia.com.
0:19:51 That’s officehoursofprofgmedia.com.
0:19:55 Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit
0:19:58 and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.
0:20:04 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
0:20:06 Drew Burrows is our technical director.
0:20:09 Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Box Media Podcast Network.
0:20:12 Thanks for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Box Media Podcast Network.
0:20:14 Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Box Media Podcast Network.
0:20:16 Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod.