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0:01:27 Welcome to Raging Moderates.
0:01:28 I’m Scott Galloway.
0:01:30 And I’m Jessica Tarlov.
0:01:39 Okay, Jess, in today’s episode of Raging Moderates, we’re discussing the aftermath of Trump’s strikes in Iran and how we got to a ceasefire and then how we didn’t.
0:01:47 First, we’re fortunate to have Congressman Jim Himes, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, joining us to break down the latest developments.
0:01:50 Representative Himes, I very much appreciate you being here.
0:01:51 Welcome to the show.
0:01:52 Thanks for having me.
0:01:57 So, why don’t we just start off with your view of the state of play here.
0:01:59 Can you break down the latest developments in the Middle East for our listeners?
0:02:04 Yeah, well, we’re in a real roller coaster ride, right?
0:02:14 We heard of the ceasefire last night, and then apparently the ceasefire was violated, and the president got very, very angry on social media, and now we may or may not be on a ceasefire.
0:02:17 Look, a couple of big-picture things that we shouldn’t lose sight of.
0:02:28 Number one, we went into a war in the Middle East without any congressional deliberation, and that is not according to the law, either the Constitution or the War Powers Act.
0:02:30 And it’s also not very smart, right?
0:02:33 And, you know, an awful lot of people are saying, well, presidents have done this forever.
0:02:34 And that, you know, fair enough.
0:02:35 That doesn’t make it okay.
0:02:40 And I’m a big believer that Congress ought to actually abide by the Constitution.
0:03:04 But the other thing I would point out is that, you know, Bill Clinton sending limited, you know, cruise missile strikes into Somalia or a president putting a few ground forces on the ground in Syria is not playing anywhere near the order of magnitude of what it means to take an offensive strike in an area where you have 40,000 troops, where if things go wrong, gasoline prices could, you know, go to $6 or $7 a gallon.
0:03:07 This was an instance in which there should have been some consideration.
0:03:08 Now, where are we?
0:03:19 Thank God that it would appear that from a tactical standpoint, the military strike was successful in as much as it created a lot of big explosions and everybody got home safe.
0:03:27 What we don’t know, and this is the question of the day, really, is whether this meaningfully set back Iran’s nuclear program.
0:03:38 I can’t get into details for obvious reasons, but I see absolutely no evidence that this did anything other than slow the Iranians role a little bit, a little bit.
0:03:47 And so in the coming days and weeks, we’re going to grapple with the possibility that the Iranians are still in a position to do a pretty quick breakout for a nuclear weapon.
0:03:49 And what is going to be the Israeli response to that?
0:03:53 And what is going to be the American response to that if, in fact, that turns out to be true?
0:04:07 Vice President J.D. Vance sat down with Brett Baer on Special Report on Monday night, and Brett asked him about this and said, well, aren’t you concerned about the fact that they were able to relocate the 60 percent enriched uranium that it could fit in?
0:04:18 I think it was 10 trunks of cars and because President Trump seemed to be telegraphing a lot of what was going on, that they were actually given enough time to be able to do that.
0:04:22 And J.D. Vance basically pooh-poohed it and said that doesn’t really matter.
0:04:29 I assume your assessment is that it does matter that they were able to get the uranium out and that they could start their project over, essentially.
0:04:41 It’s inconceivable to me that somebody with the brains of J.D. Vance would say that if the Iranians were able to get all of their 60 percent enriched uranium out, that that wouldn’t matter.
0:04:42 That’s just insane.
0:04:48 Obviously, if they retain that 60 percent uranium, they have and some centrifuges.
0:04:55 And it’s very, very unlikely that these raids obliterated, to use J.D. Vance’s word, all of the centrifuges.
0:05:00 It’s not hard for the Iranians to refine this to weapons grade.
0:05:05 And then it’s not hard, ultimately, to cobble together a nuclear device.
0:05:18 So, look, I am sad to see, but not surprised, that J.D. Vance and senior members of this administration are using words like obliterate, which, again, I have seen nothing to suggest that that verb, you know, is in any way applicable here.
0:05:33 And, again, that raises very serious questions because what do the Israelis do if it turns out that we simply move to the right a little bit, a month or a week, the ability of the Iranians to break out a weapon if they choose to do that?
0:05:44 And, by the way, what about the fact that now if you’re an Iranian regime member, as awful as you are, you’re also smart enough to know, gosh, the whole negotiations thing was never real.
0:05:52 And the president tore up the one thing that slowed the Iranians, the JCPOA, and he allowed the Israelis to start bombing in the middle of a negotiation.
0:05:55 So if you’re an Iranian regime member, you say, OK, we tried that route.
0:05:56 Now, you know what we’re going to do?
0:05:57 We’re going to do what North Korea did.
0:06:04 We’re going to do what Pakistan did, is we’re going to go underground and the world is going to learn about our progress when we actually test a device.
0:06:06 And at that point, guess what?
0:06:08 There are going to be no more military attacks on Iran.
0:06:11 That, to me, is the really kind of horrifying scenario here.
0:06:30 So, Representative, so if the president had come to Congress and sought congressional approval and laid out exactly and very detailed plans what he was planning to do, the ordinance, the armaments, the risks, the upside, the downside, would you have voted yes or no and why?
0:06:41 Well, it’s sort of hard to answer that hypothetical question because there would be all sorts of other questions you would need to answer, like what we’ve been sort of alluding to.
0:06:48 OK, we can make very big explosions in ventilation shafts in Fordo and Natanz, but what else?
0:06:49 What else?
0:06:54 What do we do if the 60 percent uranium is in a warehouse somewhere, as it may very well be?
0:07:00 But let me let me not try to entirely dance around that question, and I’ll tell you what my bias is.
0:07:02 All I’ve got is history to go on, right?
0:07:08 And the history of our military interventions in the region in my lifetime is pretty darn bad, right?
0:07:10 We took out Muammar Gaddafi.
0:07:14 Libya is now a chaotic dystopia.
0:07:20 We know the story of Iraq, where we empowered Iran and lost 4,400 troops in our efforts there.
0:07:24 And of course, we don’t need to talk about Afghanistan to know that that’s not something.
0:07:32 So anyway, my point, obviously, is what do I have to go on other than the history and the question of whether we have been successful in achieving our strategic aims in the region?
0:07:36 And the answer to that question is pretty much generally no.
0:07:48 So let me just say facts matter, but I would have had a very, very strong bias based on our history of ending up with outcomes that none of us would have either predicted or wanted when we get involved militarily in the Middle East.
0:07:54 I understand, you know, we can’t get in a time machine and we can’t go back and do this differently.
0:08:03 So we are where we are today and I saw former Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, was out in the New York Times with an op-ed saying that he thought the strike was a mistake and he hopes it’s a success.
0:08:09 Can you talk us through what you think a success looks like at this point?
0:08:14 Do you think there is any chance at an Iranian and Israeli lasting ceasefire?
0:08:20 And Donald Trump did float the idea of regime change just over Truth Social a couple of days ago.
0:08:24 Do you think that that is still any part of the conversation?
0:08:27 Well, yeah, I mean, your question is not too hard to answer.
0:08:38 And just because I’m concerned, as you might imagine, I can envision and even accept the possibility that, yeah, you know, the Iranian people might finally do what the Argentine people did in 1982.
0:08:43 And it turned out that the dictatorial generals that were governed them couldn’t even defend the Falkland Islands.
0:08:45 And the Argentine people said, guess what?
0:08:51 If you if you bunch of generals can’t even keep us safe from a country that’s 12000 miles away, out you go.
0:08:59 So wouldn’t that be amazing if the Iranian people had the capacity and the will to finally overthrow this truly evil regime?
0:09:06 Again, I’m not sure the United States should be in the business of of promoting that kind of regime change because we don’t have a very good track record.
0:09:09 But, oh, my God, what an amazing outcome that would be.
0:09:11 And look, it’s possible. It’s possible.
0:09:18 It would also be amazing if the administration and the Israelis would say, OK, Iran, you’re probably in your weakest point in a generation.
0:09:20 Let’s now sit down at the negotiating table.
0:09:26 That’s a little bit of a hard sell, right, because if you’re an Iranian regime member, you say, oh, really, now we’re going to sit down at the negotiating table.
0:09:30 And if you don’t like what we do, you know, we get another B2 flight over our nation.
0:09:31 So that’s a hard sell.
0:09:33 But I wouldn’t completely rule it out.
0:09:43 The problem is if we had two hours to do it, we could talk about gasoline prices at six dollars, about dead American soldiers and sailors, about missiles, about terrorist cells activated in London and Rome.
0:10:00 We could talk about the possibility of destabilization in the region and the fact that the Jordanian king, who’s really, really important to us, sits atop a powder keg and that, you know, real volatility could result in regime changes in other places like Jordan, where it would be a catastrophe for us.
0:10:04 So anyway, let’s acknowledge that there could be a good outcome here.
0:10:07 It’s just, you know, you’d have to go and get the odds from a bookie.
0:10:11 You know, how much do you bet on the best case scenario coming out of the Middle East?
0:10:21 Representative, I worry that as someone who’s a Democrat and is committed to retaking the House and the White House, I worry that, as always, we figure out a way to come across as incredibly weak.
0:10:28 And that is we’re angry that they didn’t come to us, as you should have, for constitutional bypass the Constitution.
0:10:36 That now seems to be the norm, almost a given, and not enough conversation around whether or not this was the right move.
0:10:41 And I want to applaud you for actually addressing the question, but let’s steel man this a little bit because you brought up some issues.
0:10:42 The price of oil.
0:10:49 It looks as if right now the oil markets have yawned and don’t believe that this threatens oil prices.
0:10:56 If the Strait of Hormuz, if in fact it is compromised, it’ll hurt India and China more than it would hurt us.
0:10:57 We’re fairly energy self-sufficient.
0:11:07 That Khomeini, at 85 years of age, leading a theocracy that has had its hands cut off, is on the brink of collapse.
0:11:12 And this might tip it over into collapse, and that we are not planning, as far as I can tell, to put boots on the ground.
0:11:16 We’re just always remiss to take a victory lap.
0:11:17 We’re kicking Russia’s ass.
0:11:20 It feels like Iran’s air defenses are down because of the brave work of the IDF.
0:11:27 And we have demonstrated that we spend $800 billion for a reason and that we have armaments that no one else has.
0:11:32 And that the capacity to get closer to a bomb, we know they didn’t get any closer.
0:11:34 We know that they’re further away.
0:11:36 We just don’t know how much they’re further away.
0:11:45 Isn’t this potentially, or most likely even, something that will be looked back as America exerting its power in a thoughtful way,
0:11:49 and that the Democrats were more focused on procedure than actual outcomes?
0:11:55 Yeah, well, you know, okay, fair point, Scott.
0:12:05 And, you know, I really like when we’re talking about military activity and war and our troops to not collapse into a consideration of the politics of this.
0:12:11 But you ask an interesting question, to which I would say these things can break either way.
0:12:22 You know, if we were having this conversation in the early first decade of the 2000s and talking to Hillary Clinton and Hillary Clinton says, you know, we Democrats make the argument that you just made.
0:12:25 We Democrats always end up looking weak.
0:12:31 So I’m voting yes to give George W. Bush the authority to go into Iraq.
0:12:32 Great analogy.
0:12:50 At that moment in time, I’m not sure Hillary Clinton thought to herself that it is that vote, this hawkish vote, because I’m afraid of looking weak, that is probably going to be the single largest factor that an unknown state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama is going to take me out as the presidential candidate of 2008, right?
0:12:52 So I think these things can can turn on a dime.
0:12:54 And look, let’s not be silly about this.
0:13:03 If the best case scenario happens and the regime falls and the new regime or the new government says we’re never going to mess around with uranium or nuclear weapons again.
0:13:03 Yeah.
0:13:05 You know, we will have gotten very lucky.
0:13:08 And I’ll be sad because you say process.
0:13:13 You know, to me, abiding by the Constitution is not just a reversion to process.
0:13:17 It’s actually something that every two years I raise my hand and swear to do.
0:13:23 So I’m sort of a little sad that I would say, well, we’re having a process argument because I think the Constitution is worth defending.
0:13:27 But anyway, my larger point is that in these sorts of situations, you’re right.
0:13:30 You know, there is a political implication.
0:13:37 But again, if you were thinking purely politically, would you have said, yeah, let’s take that Gaddafi guy out?
0:13:42 Yeah, let’s let’s, you know, try to nation build in Afghanistan because we’ve got the best capabilities everywhere.
0:13:46 In retrospect, you would say, boy, pretty ugly political position.
0:14:04 I want to stay on the politics issue, but frame it in a little bit of a different way, because it’s been reported that Democrats were not briefed about the strike ahead of time, including yourself and Senator Mark Warner, both the ranking members on the Intel Committee as members of the Gang of Eight.
0:14:11 That is something deeply concerning to me, that the Republicans feel like they’re just going to go it alone.
0:14:14 Can you talk about whether that’s true, the implications of that?
0:14:26 And if there’s any chance that we can make foreign policy, which has historically been a space that could be fairly bipartisan, return to the norm or at least get a bit better than it is right now?
0:14:33 Yeah, look, I’ll absolutely acknowledge that there are, you know, issues with congressional consultation, right?
0:14:40 I mean, Scott didn’t ask this specifically, but implied it, which is, hey, what if we have a four week debate over this attack?
0:14:43 At that point, haven’t the Iranians completely hidden all their uranium?
0:14:45 That’s a that’s a fair point. Right.
0:14:53 And we could have that argument. And maybe you would think about things like informing small numbers of members of Congress, gang of eight leadership, whatever you want to do.
0:14:57 So there’s a there’s a reasonable argument to have there. But it does stop at the law. Right.
0:15:03 You know, just because something is hard or inconvenient doesn’t mean that you could violate the law or the Constitution.
0:15:06 I keep saying that it’s not just process. It’s the law.
0:15:20 But, yeah, I mean, one thing is unambiguous, Jess, which is that letting republic letting members of your own party know, but not letting the opposition know is a sort of ugly innovation of the Trump administration.
0:15:31 And look, it it’s sort of dumb, too. Right. Because now if this thing goes horribly wrong, which which you could, politically speaking, yeah, you, Mr. President, own this.
0:15:35 And by the way, the four or five Republicans you chose to reach out to own it as well.
0:15:40 And, you know, we’ve got the political defense of you didn’t even I read about this on Twitter, you know.
0:15:44 So anyway, that’s a pretty ugly new innovation in this from this administration.
0:15:48 Representative Himes is the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee.
0:15:53 You’re just privy to color in detail that the general public and the media isn’t.
0:16:05 And one of the things that struck me about this attack or specifically the aftermath of the attack is whether it was Iraq or Afghanistan or expelling Hussein from Kuwait, regardless of the success or lack thereof of those interventions.
0:16:18 The next day we had big nations with substantial armies weighing in and support that there was clearly a lot of groundwork laid to say that, all right, we support this.
0:16:24 It was clear that we’re not acting alone, that we might be the leadership and have the biggest military in the West.
0:16:27 But we are, in fact, hand in hand with the West.
0:16:42 And one of the things that was so striking here and so disappointing was that the only nations that commented on this the next day were the Chinese saying, there they go again, making the world more unstable and Russia mocking us for not diminishing their nuclear capabilities to the extent we were bragging.
0:16:54 The lack of alliances, the lack of support, this go-alone arrogance to me was so distressing and something that the public didn’t discuss.
0:17:06 As somebody who is obviously in conversation with our allies, both in, you know, open formats and behind closed doors, can you speak a little bit to, one, do you buy the thesis that we don’t have the support we typically have?
0:17:12 And two, what you’re seeing across our alliances around this type of activity?
0:17:15 Yeah, I mean, not surprised, right?
0:17:25 We know that the Trump administration, you know, doesn’t put much, to put it mildly, value on our allies or about acting together.
0:17:37 But these interventions that we’ve talked about, some of which didn’t go very well, almost always involved us working with our allies just because practically that’s a good thing.
0:17:43 And also because we care that we speak as the West and not just as the U.S.
0:17:54 So George H.W. Bush, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, famously spent weeks working the phone to put together the coalition that ultimately was successful in removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.
0:18:03 And, you know, the famous coalition of the willing going into Iraq with us again, I think we can look back on that and say, gosh, that didn’t work out quite the way we had hoped.
0:18:08 But, you know, George W. Bush did do the work to get our NATO allies and others.
0:18:12 Even in Libya, we were operating under the auspices of NATO.
0:18:14 So that’s generally a good idea.
0:18:23 It gives credibility and it gives us, to be fair, on the margin, some operational capacity that we might not otherwise have on the margin.
0:18:32 So, you know, when you take action like this, it’s always a good idea for no other reason than to hear what the Brits and the others have to say about how we can do this well.
0:18:37 But this is not, of course, the way this administration thinks about taking action abroad.
0:18:40 And it’s interesting timing.
0:18:43 The president is on his way to the NATO summit in The Hague.
0:18:51 He definitely wanted a big win coming in since everybody is pretty mad at him about tariffs and the general state of the world.
0:18:54 How do you think this is going to play out over the next couple of days?
0:19:06 You know, I can’t emphasize enough how much the facts on the ground matter to the answer to that question.
0:19:17 Again, on one extreme, maybe the Iranian people finally say we’ve had enough and they, you know, have both the willingness and the capability to overthrow this hideous regime, in which case we’re all going to feel good.
0:19:25 On the other extreme, of course, is, you know, continued Israeli attacks on Iran, Iran claiming that they’re violating the ceasefire.
0:19:31 And Israel would do that because they realize that we probably haven’t significantly damaged the nuclear capability.
0:19:33 And now we’re back to a shooting war in the Middle East.
0:19:37 Or, again, my my worst case scenario is the quiet scenario.
0:19:41 It’s not bombs going off or missiles landing in Bahrain.
0:19:47 It’s the Iranians go dead quiet for six months and seven months from now, there’s a test of a nuclear device.
0:19:57 So, you know, where we land on that spectrum of, you know, magnificent to horrible is going to have a lot to do with how, you know, to Scott’s point, the domestic politics play here.
0:20:08 And to the way the rest of the world thinks about it now, let me make one last point here, because I think those of us who are interested in international affairs should be self-reflective.
0:20:29 If you had told me two years ago that Israel was going to be able to largely take out Hezbollah to assassinate Hamas leadership in downtown Tehran and basically crush their leadership and disable the Iranian air defenses, whatever, 40, 50 percent.
0:20:31 I would have said that’s overambitious.
0:20:37 And so let’s not be overly biased towards the pessimistic here.
0:20:46 What the Israelis, whatever you think about, you know, its wisdom or its justice, what the Israelis have accomplished, you know, since October 7th.
0:20:58 And I set aside their activities in Gaza when I say this militarily against Hezbollah and militarily against Hamas in Iran has been, let’s just say, nobody, I think, would have put a big bet on that outcome.
0:21:07 Just along those lines, Representative, if you think of us as having four enemies, mostly China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia, I would argue China’s not an enemy.
0:21:08 It’s the Americans.
0:21:11 When we have a competitor that gets too successful, we think of them as an enemy.
0:21:12 I think of them as a competitor.
0:21:16 So that was Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
0:21:22 I mean, we are, quite frankly, kind of kicking ass and taking names.
0:21:26 I mean, I think Russia and Iran are just not in the same place they were 24 months ago.
0:21:37 And just a pointed question, hasn’t the Ukrainian army and the IDF, quite frankly, been doing the West’s dirty work and kind of kicking ass and asking questions later?
0:21:53 Don’t we owe, as someone who’s on the Intelligence Committee, with exponentially more budget, exponentially better equipment, haven’t they demonstrated the kind of confidence and courage that has advanced our objectives and made us safer?
0:21:57 Don’t we owe the Ukrainian army and the IDF a huge debt of gratitude?
0:22:02 I would separate those two questions.
0:22:05 You know, everyone thought Ukraine was going down.
0:22:05 Yeah.
0:22:15 And what Ukraine has managed to pull off has been nothing short of epic, especially in the context of our wavering support, where we get sort of partial credit for helping the Ukrainians.
0:22:28 And the lesson that has come out of that war is hopefully being learned by dictators everywhere, which is that when you’re on someone else’s land, even if you have overwhelming firepower, you’re going to have a hard time.
0:22:41 A million casualties in Russia right now, Putin doesn’t care about that, but, you know, hopefully the other dictators around the world who are thinking about a Ukraine-like incursion are taking that a little bit more seriously.
0:22:53 And again, I just I won’t repeat myself, but what the IDF achieved against Hezbollah, what the IDF achieved against Hamas in Tehran and what they achieved against the Iranians is pretty spectacular.
0:23:00 I’m putting an asterisk on that because too much of what we see happening in Gaza right now should not be happening.
0:23:05 There is too much humanitarian suffering and civilian loss.
0:23:08 And I do think that over time, the IDF will need to grapple with that.
0:23:17 But the last answer on your question about the IDF, Scott, is, again, it really matters how this ends.
0:23:25 And Middle East experts will tell you, you sometimes don’t know the answer to the famous question, tell me how this ends in the Middle East for a couple of years.
0:23:31 So, again, I’m not going to beat this dead horse too much, but a regime change and a giving up of the nuclear weapons.
0:23:32 Wow. Incredible.
0:23:35 But there are a lot of other scenarios.
0:23:44 And until we know which door gets opened, I think it’s a little early to celebrate or to say that the IDF has been doing our dirty work.
0:23:46 Look, again, let me just say it again.
0:23:52 If the Iranians give up their nuclear weapons or, you know, let us all hope for regime change, remarkable.
0:23:53 But we just we’re not there yet.
0:23:57 Congressman Himes, thank you so much for your time.
0:23:58 It’s invaluable that you could join us.
0:23:59 Thanks a lot.
0:24:00 Thanks for having me.
0:24:02 Yeah, Congressman, you’re thoughtful and direct.
0:24:03 You’re in the right seat.
0:24:07 It makes us feel good that you’ve decided to do what you do.
0:24:10 And Scott rarely says that to anyone that we talk to.
0:24:16 So I’m just chuckling because I’m not sure that thoughtful and direct is actually in the job description of a member of Congress.
0:24:17 But OK, I’ll take it.
0:24:18 It should be.
0:24:20 Keep on keeping on.
0:24:20 Right on.
0:24:21 Thanks, Representative.
0:24:22 Thank you for your time.
0:24:22 All right.
0:24:23 Take care.
0:24:24 Thank you very much.
0:24:26 OK, let’s take a quick break.
0:24:27 Stay with us.
0:24:34 It won’t take long to tell you Neutral’s ingredients.
0:24:40 Vodka, soda, natural flavors.
0:24:47 So, what should we talk about?
0:24:52 No sugar added?
0:24:58 Neutral.
0:25:00 Refreshingly simple.
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0:26:27 Welcome back.
0:26:29 Jess, what did you think of Representative Hines?
0:26:30 I loved him.
0:26:31 You loved him.
0:26:38 I’m a big fan of his, and I appreciate also that he comes on Fox, which not every Democrat does,
0:26:46 but having the chance to hear from the ranking member on the intel committee is really special.
0:26:50 And I thought he did a lot of things that are different from how many members did,
0:26:54 but he was open to criticizing himself and the party.
0:27:02 He talked about moments of humility, and he was also able to, I think, thoughtfully reflect on a best-case scenario coming out of this,
0:27:06 and then also to prepare us for what he’s afraid of.
0:27:14 I thought it was a very well-rounded approach to a very fast-moving situation that carries a lot of danger to it, frankly.
0:27:14 What did you think?
0:27:22 The more I’m exposed, in the last 10 years, I had never, I don’t think, other than occasionally,
0:27:25 you know, when I took my sister to Washington when she was in college,
0:27:28 and I would just walk into congressional offices and meet with some aide,
0:27:31 I had no exposure to elected representatives.
0:27:35 And in the last 10 years, I’ve had a lot, mostly because I want my money, to be honest.
0:27:37 Money’s nice.
0:27:38 Yeah, money’s access.
0:27:41 And so I have access to a lot of elected representatives.
0:27:48 And I am consistently impressed by what thoughtful, intelligent, patriotic, committed people they are.
0:27:53 And it bothers me how lazy people are to constantly shitpost our government,
0:27:56 believing that everyone’s corrupt and nobody’s smart.
0:28:00 There’s a lot of really, really impressive people who give up.
0:28:04 You know, a guy like that could easily be running a private equity firm,
0:28:07 clocking a shit ton of money, and at Bezos’ wedding this weekend.
0:28:12 And instead, he chooses to, you know, be in D.C. trying to sort through this shit.
0:28:20 So I’m, you know, I’m always impressed or consistently impressed to the upside by these individuals.
0:28:23 So back to the issue at hand.
0:28:28 Trump announced what he called a complete and total soothpire between Israel and Iran.
0:28:32 The truce was supposed to be phased in over 24 hours, but already it’s showing signs of strain.
0:28:38 Israel reportedly struck a radar site near Tehran after claiming Iran violated the ceasefire first.
0:28:42 And behind the scenes, Trump is said to be furious with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu,
0:28:46 pressing him on a tense call on Tuesday morning.
0:28:52 So we went from bunker busters to a ceasefire in less than 48 hours,
0:28:53 and now the ceasefire is already cracking.
0:28:59 Any sense for what changed behind the scenes to make this deal happen in the first place and it’s already falling apart?
0:29:06 I’m not sure how much of the deal was really together or how much it’s fallen apart, actually.
0:29:13 A ceasefire is, in a lot of ways, I know it sounds like a final thing, but it’s a moving target constantly.
0:29:19 And it ebbs and flows, and I’m still hopeful that we will be able to get to one.
0:29:24 I don’t know what that looks like in the long term, because some people just can’t be friends.
0:29:28 And I think Israel and Iran are two of those kinds of some people.
0:29:30 But I remain optimistic.
0:29:36 I think part of what got our hopes up is that we have a truth, social, happy president
0:29:41 that feels that he can post through a foreign policy crisis.
0:29:43 And that has some benefits.
0:29:46 I think the transparency, to some degree, is good.
0:29:53 It has some negative effects, like the fact that we had to send, you know, a decoy fleet
0:30:00 and the real fleet to try to throw Iran off the scent because Donald Trump was posting
0:30:01 through the entire thing.
0:30:04 And that’s something that you don’t want to see from the commander-in-chief.
0:30:08 But I went to bed, very hopeful.
0:30:09 It was ceasefire news.
0:30:10 I woke up this morning.
0:30:12 The ceasefire is off.
0:30:13 And maybe it’s back on.
0:30:18 This was as President Trump was boarding to head to The Hague for the NATO summit.
0:30:21 And I hope something good can come out of this.
0:30:26 But I was struck by, and it was interesting, that Congressman Himes has introduced this
0:30:27 resolution.
0:30:29 He wants us to follow the Constitution.
0:30:34 And he did have a defense for why this was different than actions past presidents have
0:30:40 taken and also said past presidents shouldn’t have done these kinds of things without authorization.
0:30:42 So at least it was a bit of a nuanced take.
0:30:46 But I was struck by what German Chancellor Merz said about it.
0:30:50 And he said, there is no reason to criticize what America did at the weekend.
0:30:51 Yes, it is not without risk.
0:30:54 But leaving things as they were was not an option either.
0:31:03 I think that that speaks most accurately to how I’m feeling in my heart about what happened.
0:31:10 I understand the American intel community did not have the same assessment as the Israelis.
0:31:12 The Israelis are obviously closer to it.
0:31:16 But I’m fundamentally concerned that it seems like Bibi Netanyahu is now our DNI.
0:31:18 That’s a dangerous place to be in.
0:31:21 But so is having Tulsi Gabbard as your DNI, also dangerous.
0:31:29 But we know that past presidents have tried and failed to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
0:31:35 I know that they should have stayed in the JCPOA, that we were slowing their enrichment development
0:31:36 by a lot.
0:31:39 I also know we had to give them money that was used to fund terrorism.
0:31:41 And that’s not a good outcome either.
0:31:44 But Merz’s comments really struck me.
0:31:49 And I do feel it was unsustainable to let things just keep going on, as it were.
0:31:53 And at this particular moment, and I like that you brought it up to Congressman Himes,
0:32:00 because of the work of the Israelis and the Ukrainians, the allies of the Iranians, like
0:32:02 the Russians, are unable to help them.
0:32:09 They have been so utterly decimated between going after Hamas and Hezbollah and the Russians
0:32:16 that we have an opportunity with a weak axis of evil to do something really important for
0:32:18 the safety of the region and the world.
0:32:20 And that was the opportunity that I saw.
0:32:22 Yeah, I thought that was really well put.
0:32:29 I mean, again, self-hating Americans, we can never actually take credit or give credit
0:32:29 where it’s due.
0:32:37 And that is, if Russia, specifically the perception of Russia’s fierce fighting force was intact,
0:32:39 I don’t think we could have done this.
0:32:42 Or I don’t think we would have had the balls to do it, because we would have been worried
0:32:46 they’d be arming their proxies in Syria with surfaced air missiles that could take out
0:32:47 B-2 bombers.
0:32:52 One of those B-2s going down and then a bunch of Iranian kids jumping on the wings of
0:32:55 B-2s would be a really bad image for us.
0:33:02 And we would have been scared that Russia’s long arms would be, you know, within reach
0:33:08 or this would have been within the grasp of Russia arming Syrians or potentially arming or
0:33:10 helping or supporting Iran.
0:33:13 And the way I see this is the following.
0:33:14 I’m very much in favor of this.
0:33:22 I’ve never understood how far-right Republicans can be isolationist and then vote for a $200
0:33:28 billion increase in the military budget from $800 billion to a trillion such that we don’t have
0:33:32 a bigger budget than the next 10 biggest nations, but the entire world.
0:33:33 It’s like, well, what’s the point?
0:33:37 Canada’s not going to invade Buffalo anytime soon.
0:33:43 When you spend $800 billion on our military, you are making a decision to get off of your
0:33:51 heels and onto our toes and project power and deliver violence to other places in a very imperialist,
0:33:55 aggressive way to represent our interests offensively and proactively.
0:33:57 And that’s what this is.
0:34:00 And I don’t, I think we’re looking at the wrong metric.
0:34:02 I understand that we want to diminish their nuclear capability.
0:34:05 But for me, the outcome here is the following.
0:34:12 I think the IRGC or the Islamic Republic has been a cancer, an occupying force, has very little
0:34:14 support amongst the Iranian people.
0:34:19 I think two of the biggest unlocks, you know, as a dork, I think one, overthrowing or nudging
0:34:23 the Venezuelan government over the edge such that we’re even more energy independent.
0:34:25 Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia.
0:34:30 And to seeing the Islamic Republic come to an end, I think that would be one of the most
0:34:37 accretive actions for the 45 million women in Iran that, in terms of actual, if we really
0:34:41 did give a flying fuck about human rights and stability in the region.
0:34:46 And I’ve always thought Iran and America could be incredible allies that, you know, I’ve said
0:34:49 this before, the Iranians I know are more American than Americans.
0:34:55 So I see this more as while they’re kind of, quite frankly, down and out to hopefully tip
0:35:02 over the Iranian people to give them the confidence to perhaps not overthrow this regime, but create
0:35:03 their own regime change.
0:35:08 You can’t, you can’t, you can’t create regime change from the outside.
0:35:11 You can potentially inspire it.
0:35:14 And that’s what I’m hoping, that’s what I’m hoping this was.
0:35:19 The other thing that comes out here for me or the observation is there’s a reason that
0:35:21 business people make such shitty presidents.
0:35:26 It’s easy to believe that you call the two CEOs of companies and you can do this and say,
0:35:29 okay, hey, Steve Jobs, it’s Bill Gates.
0:35:31 We’re not going to hire each other’s employees.
0:35:32 Stop it.
0:35:35 I forget the, one of them called the other and said, stop hiring my employees.
0:35:37 Yeah, I remember the story, but I don’t.
0:35:40 It was Steve Jobs and, I mean, it was the guy from Google.
0:35:44 Anyways, you’re not supposed to do that, but they can call each other and handshake and then
0:35:48 send out an email to all the key people and boom, it’s in place.
0:35:49 Cease fires don’t work that way.
0:35:51 You’ve got to give it time.
0:35:52 You’ve got to phase it in.
0:35:57 You’ve got to relay information to your, your service to air missile battery commanders.
0:36:04 You’ve got to have checks and balances, means of observation, ensure that all the entire command
0:36:09 chain is on board with it and you need to phase it in over weeks, if not months sometimes, but to
0:36:12 believe that, oh, it’s like a business deal.
0:36:16 And if I get the two top guys to agree to it on the phone with me, it’s going to happen.
0:36:21 It’s just so incredibly naive that this thing was going to hold.
0:36:25 I don’t think there’s ever been a truce where someone has called and said, oh, agree to it.
0:36:25 Okay.
0:36:26 I got your agreement, agreement.
0:36:28 And then you go out and announce it.
0:36:33 Folks, geopolitical truces don’t work that way.
0:36:35 There’s too many moving parts.
0:36:42 There’s too many, the IRGC right now isn’t even able to communicate with its different portions
0:36:46 of its armed services right now, because they’re afraid to use the internet for fear that the
0:36:49 IDF uses it as a signal code to drum strike them.
0:36:55 So for, again, for Donald Trump to think he can come in and say, oh, you own the Plaza.
0:36:57 I own the Hilton.
0:37:01 We’re going to stop trying to poach each other’s employees and get the COs to agree.
0:37:05 That’s not how this works in the Middle East.
0:37:08 And then the final observation is our director of national intelligence.
0:37:11 I mean, I see three legs of the stool here.
0:37:14 Kinetic power, which we demonstrated in spades, which I’m a fan of.
0:37:17 Two, alliances, we fell down.
0:37:18 It’s embarrassing.
0:37:22 And one thing I don’t think the media is observing is that Britain, France,
0:37:26 even the kingdom didn’t come out with direct statements of support.
0:37:29 Both Bushes would have made sure that would have happened.
0:37:30 Obama would have made sure that would happen.
0:37:34 Biden would have made sure that happened such that this was a move from the West
0:37:37 and from democracy, not just from Trump.
0:37:38 And then the third thing is competence.
0:37:42 And who the fuck are we supposed to believe here?
0:37:47 We have a director of national intelligence stating that they aren’t any closer to a bomb.
0:37:50 And then Trump directly contradicting his director of national intelligence.
0:37:57 We have secretaries Hegseth and Rubio stating that we are not pursuing regime change.
0:38:05 And then we have Trump saying in all caps, make Iran great again and saying he’s in favor of regime change.
0:38:08 No one knows what is going on here.
0:38:13 Who on earth is actually going to report on what has happened?
0:38:14 Who has the credibility?
0:38:15 What institution?
0:38:24 What experts are going to be able to put out any credible evidence one way or the other of the level of damage or lack thereof of these facilities?
0:38:29 Because we now have the fucking bad news bears running the government.
0:38:31 You don’t even know who to believe.
0:38:33 They can’t stay on message.
0:38:34 They’re not consistent.
0:38:38 The military, thank God, still demonstrates more competence than any organization in history.
0:38:44 But we have a president who does not understand this is not a business deal.
0:38:49 The truces between warring nations take weeks, if not months, to implement.
0:38:53 And there has to be a series of checks and they have to be wound down incrementally.
0:38:55 They can’t happen overnight.
0:39:00 And when you announce them, like you want to take a victory lap because it’s some big deal or something,
0:39:03 you are setting yourself and the nation up for embarrassment and failure.
0:39:09 And the level of incompetence here is starting to seep into everything this guy does.
0:39:09 Your thoughts.
0:39:18 Well, it also speaks to why he tore up the nuclear deal in 2018 without a solution of what we were going to do instead.
0:39:26 I mean, the numbers are staggering in terms of the increase in enriched uranium going from under 4% to 60%
0:39:31 and adding an extra 100 kilograms at least to the stockpile.
0:39:37 And we don’t know what will happen with their nuclear stockpile and how they’ll rebuild.
0:39:43 And the timeline that Congressman Himes was giving was startling to me, where he said six or seven months.
0:39:51 And so if the intel community’s assessment was that they hadn’t made a final decision as to whether they were trying to build a nuclear bomb.
0:39:57 And I know that Jon Stewart is a very funny guy, but he’s also a very serious guy.
0:40:05 And everyone should check out the montage that he had on the show last week of Netanyahu saying the bomb is coming, the bomb is coming.
0:40:10 And it’s over the course of the last 20 years saying that we’re at that 90% level.
0:40:13 Remember that graphic that he showed on the floor of the U.N.
0:40:16 And our intel community says that that isn’t the case.
0:40:18 That doesn’t mean that Iran isn’t a danger.
0:40:21 That doesn’t mean that Iran isn’t the largest state sponsor of terrorism.
0:40:25 That doesn’t mean that Iran isn’t responsible for killing innocents all over the Middle East.
0:40:38 And also Americans, when the IRGC threatened to activate sleeper cells in the United States, I completely freaked out because I’m sure that they have them here.
0:40:47 And we could be in, I’m in Washington, D.C. right now as we’re speaking, and I’m walking around thinking what could happen to any of us.
0:40:48 I live in New York City.
0:40:50 Great place to do a terrorist attack.
0:40:51 They’ve done it before.
0:40:54 So all of that is deeply concerning to me.
0:41:02 To the point about the yahoos that are in charge, it does feel like Donald Trump isn’t really listening to anybody else than Bibi Netanyahu.
0:41:07 And I sound like a bit of a broken record about it, but he has essentially supplanted everybody else.
0:41:11 His intelligence is the intelligence that the United States trusts.
0:41:17 Donald Trump, I think, doesn’t understand how good Bibi is at doing his job.
0:41:19 This is how he’s managed to stay in power for this long.
0:41:23 This is a man that is staying in power so that he can stay out of jail.
0:41:26 And he has Trump wrapped around his finger.
0:41:33 He can get him to trust the Israelis over the United States with the drop of a hat.
0:41:35 And that’s what we’re seeing here.
0:41:45 You noticed DNI Tulsi Gabbard out of the frame when Trump came out to make his address after the strike was carried out, said, you know, total and complete success.
0:41:46 Tulsi was not standing behind him.
0:41:48 It was just Hegseth Rubio and J.D. Vance.
0:41:53 So clearly, that’s the imagery that he wants to project forward, that Tulsi has nothing to do with this.
0:42:03 But the New York Times, who has done some incredible reporting on what’s been going on behind the scenes, shows a very insular group that’s informing him.
0:42:08 And the fact that we are hand in glove with the Israelis every step of the way.
0:42:10 They’re our strongest ally in the region.
0:42:12 Both of you and I are strong supporters.
0:42:20 And I was very appreciative that Congressman Himes also stipulated that the situation in Gaza is very different than what we are talking about here.
0:42:26 But you essentially have a president that is all but going it alone.
0:42:33 And he has a bit of a toddler sensibility about how things should happen.
0:42:35 Like, I want it and I want it now.
0:42:42 And that makes sense, looking back at the way that he’s conducted his business deals over, you know, the course of the last 50, 60 years.
0:42:47 But it’s very different when you’re playing in the big leagues like this.
0:42:53 And he seems to be completely myopically focused on how do I get that Nobel Peace Prize?
0:42:55 How do I get that Nobel Peace Prize?
0:43:00 And ending the Iranian nuclear program is certainly a good way to head in that direction.
0:43:21 I wanted to bring this up because you talked about politics a bit during the interview, and I saw so many Democrats just reflexively opposing this, not even willing to consider that there might be merit to it or even going so far as to praise what the Air Force was able to pull off, which was absolutely incredible.
0:43:36 And I feel like there’s this strong argument that Democrats can be making or, frankly, people who are just observing what’s going on about how Joe Biden governed and the foreign policy moves that he made that set Trump up for success in this moment.
0:43:42 And I really wish that we could have a broader, contextualized conversation about foreign policy.
0:43:46 We didn’t just, like, wake up on January 21st of 2025.
0:43:48 And that was the beginning of all of this.
0:44:01 And there’s so much that went on over the course of the last four years from weakening Russia, what Israel did using our weapons, the Ukrainians did using our weapons, President Biden allowing this to happen.
0:44:05 That has provided for hopefully what is a good result.
0:44:07 And I’m very focused on that.
0:44:12 And I think that there is, to some degree, a victory lap that the Democrats should be able to take on this.
0:44:14 OK, let’s take a quick break.
0:44:15 Stay with us.
0:44:24 There are nine people credibly running in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary.
0:44:29 The city’s deranged ranked-choice voting ensures every New Yorker gets to vote for five of them.
0:44:34 Yesterday, candidate Brad Lander briefly made headlines when he got arrested by ICE.
0:44:37 You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens.
0:44:42 But the smart money says this race comes down to two, Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani.
0:44:43 Let’s see what the tabs are saying.
0:44:44 The Post?
0:44:52 Zohran Mamdani has barely ever had a job with just three years in the workforce, including his rap career and a gig for his mom.
0:44:53 The Times?
0:44:56 Mamdani narrows Cuomo’s lead in New York City mayor’s race.
0:44:58 New poll finds.
0:44:59 The Daily News?
0:45:03 Accused New Jersey killer used fake police lights to pull over wife’s lover.
0:45:04 Cops say.
0:45:08 It’s New York’s most exciting vote since Jimmy Fallon asked Robert De Niro to pick a movie.
0:45:11 Coming up on Today Explained, the old guard versus young cardamom.
0:45:14 Listen, weekday afternoons.
0:45:23 In 2001, Lindsay met a man named Carlo.
0:45:26 About a week later, they went on a date.
0:45:32 And almost 15 years after that, she found out Carlo had been keeping a secret.
0:45:41 Did you just go through every single moment of your relationship trying to see if you picked up on anything?
0:45:43 Yeah, I didn’t sleep for days.
0:45:45 I ran over things again and again in my head.
0:45:50 And part of me didn’t really still believe it.
0:45:52 It took quite a while to sink in.
0:45:54 I’m Phoebe Judge.
0:45:58 Listen right now on Criminal, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:46:13 The Trump Organization launched a wireless carrier this week, which is weird.
0:46:19 But even weirder is the phone, which is supposedly $500 made in the United States and coming in September.
0:46:22 And I am here to tell you, I don’t believe any of it.
0:46:27 This week on The Vergecast, we talk about what is going on with Trump Mobile and the T1 phone,
0:46:31 plus what this all says about how we might buy phones in the future.
0:46:37 All that, plus our review of the Nintendo Switch 2 and lots more on The Vergecast, wherever you get podcasts.
0:46:46 Welcome back.
0:46:52 It’s going to be, I mean, first off, and maybe we can play the clip.
0:47:00 We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.
0:47:01 Do you understand that?
0:47:08 For the president to come out and say, these guys have been at war so long that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.
0:47:13 As someone who’s fond of expletives, the president should not be making them.
0:47:18 The president of the United States, that just diminishes his authority and respect.
0:47:24 And also, what I believe happened here, and I think this was a good idea,
0:47:29 but that doesn’t mean the strategy and the incentives here don’t reflect poorly on the current leadership.
0:47:35 I believe the only reason Trump did this was because he looked at Netanyahu’s dick and thought,
0:47:38 wait, I want some big dick energy of my own.
0:47:44 I think this was seen globally as such an extraordinarily competent, aggressive, and courageous move,
0:47:50 what the IDF was able to pull off in Iran, that he wanted to jump on the metal podium and say,
0:47:57 look at me, which is the wrong reason to do this, even if it was the right tactical maneuver.
0:48:02 And what seems clear to me is Bibi Netanyahu thinks he’s on top.
0:48:07 He can do whatever he wants and that the president will go along with it.
0:48:07 He’s right.
0:48:12 So essentially, you know, Middle East policy right now is being run by the superpower there,
0:48:13 and the superpower there is Israel.
0:48:22 And then the really dangerous thing about all of this is that Israeli leadership wants to be on a war footing.
0:48:26 Whether it’s the right thing or not, he’s on a war footing trying to stay out of jail.
0:48:35 And that is his only chance of staying out of jail is to get people to rally around the flag because they are at war.
0:48:53 And I believe that he is very excited to go into Iran because he realizes the only thing standing between him and jail is the rallying around the flag that happens when you’re at war.
0:49:02 And that is a frightening place to be when you have a place as unstable as the Middle East and you have a nation with nukes.
0:49:10 So this is a very – as is everything in the Middle East, this is a very complex, upsetting situation.
0:49:15 And where we will see, I think, unintended consequences.
0:49:17 And right – so far we haven’t.
0:49:20 It looks as if Khamenei’s response has been performative.
0:49:30 You know, the missile barrages into American bases in Qatar and, I believe, in Iraq have so far been totally ineffective.
0:49:32 I think he even gave the heads up to –
0:49:32 He did.
0:49:38 And then you had Qatar helping with brokering the ceasefire of last night.
0:49:38 So –
0:49:39 Right.
0:49:44 Qatar working with us, essentially, to make sure that things can simmer down.
0:49:44 Right.
0:49:50 So it looks as if that it was basically performative, such that Khamenei can say to his people, I’m tough, I respond.
0:49:52 But not risk escalation.
0:49:54 And if it stops there, then great.
0:49:57 Then everyone can take – Israel and American can take a victory lap.
0:50:19 But I think the president’s inability to appreciate that strength and greatness is in the agency of others, not having our traditional allies around us supporting us with intelligence and with, you know, perceptual support, if you will, ensuring that we – that the world knows this was an action of the West, just not from a guy who demonstrates incompetence.
0:50:28 An intelligence apparatus that seems totally sclerotic and bipolar, don’t know who to listen to, don’t know what they’re meaning.
0:50:44 And then the thing that, you know, as supporters of Israel, I think is really concerning right now, is when he comes out and says they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing and I’m angry at Israel, that’s language and a statement he says to Bibi privately on a secure phone.
0:51:12 And when Trump says that Israel doesn’t know what the fuck it’s doing and leaks discreetly or overtly a real dissatisfaction and frustration with Israel, he is emboldening Israel’s enemies to take more aggressive and bold action than they might otherwise.
0:51:16 So, you know, fighting with your allies is bad.
0:51:17 Fighting without them is worse.
0:51:23 When you have allies, you put on a unified front, even when it sucks.
0:51:25 Yeah, but I agree with you.
0:51:30 I want the president of the United States of America to behave like he’s the president of the United States of America.
0:51:45 But this is Donald Trump and the American public picked this consciously and they probably like that they have somebody where they can see what’s actually going on behind the scenes or what he perceives to be going on behind the scenes.
0:51:50 I think that this is the most transparent administration in American history, as I’m told regularly.
0:51:59 I spoke to two Democrats last night who are running for president who haven’t officially announced, but take my calls and call me because it’s obviously running for president.
0:52:05 And I said the opportunity here is to come out and say, I agree with the action.
0:52:07 I don’t support the president’s policies.
0:52:08 I don’t support how he’s gone about this.
0:52:11 He’s injected more risk into this than he needed to.
0:52:12 But I support the actions.
0:52:17 And it’s important that we rally around our military and the flag and the president in a time like this.
0:52:20 Because, again, I think the Democrats have fucked up here.
0:52:21 Totally.
0:52:22 Well, it’s the reflexive no.
0:52:26 And I mean, maybe we’ll hear from those two later in the day.
0:52:28 But so far, I haven’t really seen that.
0:52:31 Well, the only one who’s done it is Fetterman.
0:52:35 Well, that’s I assume he was not the one who called you last night.
0:52:41 Fetterman Fetterman has basically come out and said, you know, look at the action, not the politics.
0:52:43 And a lot of people on the front.
0:52:47 I go to the same place whenever the far left and the far right agree on anything.
0:52:49 That means we’re at negative 40.
0:52:51 Negative 40 is where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet.
0:52:52 It’s inhospitable.
0:52:56 Whenever the far left and the far right agree on anything, it’s a really bad idea.
0:53:01 Whether it’s anti-vaccination or isolationism, whatever it is, you know it’s a really bad idea.
0:53:08 And when you have Marjorie Taylor Greene and AOC agreeing on something, it means you should probably agree with the other way.
0:53:09 And they’re both agreeing.
0:53:16 You know, they’re both spouting off, in my opinion, this isolationist, you know, in my opinion, very dangerous bullshit.
0:53:19 And again, I come back to the same place.
0:53:22 And I apologize, I’m being redundant here.
0:53:30 Why on earth are we spending the GDP of Argentina on our military if we’re not going to exert this kind of power?
0:53:32 Well, we’re always going to exert it.
0:53:33 We’re just going to complain about it.
0:53:39 Or some people are going to feign outrage and say, you know, we’re not these people.
0:53:42 And the truth is, is that we are fundamentally these people.
0:53:48 But I just want to say on the Fetterman front, and while I agree with some of his positions, he’s just completely lockstep with Israel.
0:53:54 He doesn’t even acknowledge what’s going on in Gaza as a humanitarian disaster.
0:54:01 So John Fetterman is out on an island on his own when it comes to these kinds of actions.
0:54:05 So we’ll see what the mainstream of the party does.
0:54:14 But I think it’s totally an opportunity, again, to sound like a normal human being, to meet people where they are, and to rally around the flag.
0:54:24 So, by the way, I almost forgot, our little girl, I could not be more proud of you than if you were up reading the Torah.
0:54:25 Oh, my God.
0:54:35 Donald Trump, personal attack on our very own, literally a badge of honor.
0:54:51 Donald Trump came out and mentioned you by name, saying that on True Social, why does Fox News allow failed TV personality Jessica Tarlop to soil the five?
0:54:53 Oh, my God, you’re ruining the five.
0:54:59 Even Fox viewers who are about 105 and fucking crazy love you.
0:55:01 Love you, literally love you.
0:55:06 Her voice, her manner, and above all else, what she says are a disgrace.
0:55:08 You’re a disgrace, Jess.
0:55:08 So I hear.
0:55:15 To television broadcasting while claiming the network is alienating MAGA supporters by giving her airtime regular.
0:55:19 I could not be more proud of you.
0:55:26 This is a big, I know you thought when I called you and said I wanted to do a show with you, you thought this is my big moment.
0:55:29 But this is your big moment.
0:55:32 Ladies and gentlemen, Jessica Tarlop.
0:55:34 Soiling the five.
0:55:35 There you go.
0:55:37 What did you think when you saw that?
0:55:39 It took my breath away.
0:55:40 Took your breath away?
0:55:40 Yeah.
0:55:46 Well, he’s posted about me before, but not quite as meanly.
0:55:53 And I was just thinking, why aren’t you busier?
0:56:02 And then, this was Friday early evening, I’m thinking, we started sending the B2 bombers left a few hours later.
0:56:04 Like, you really should have been busier.
0:56:05 He’s focused on you.
0:56:06 Yeah.
0:56:23 I mean, he was watching the show and the Times has reported that TV coverage, specifically on Fox, has informed his view on getting involved and that he wanted to be part of the action, had a bit of FOMO when it came to what the Israelis were able to pull off.
0:56:27 But it’s something to have that happen.
0:56:30 It’s a very uncomfortable feeling.
0:56:31 Oh, OK.
0:56:31 Hold on.
0:56:31 Hold on.
0:56:32 Hold on.
0:56:33 Let me just break it down for you.
0:56:34 Yeah.
0:56:57 This is the biggest, I think this is arguably, other than, of course, meeting Scott Galloway, I think this is the biggest thing to happen to you, because in the midst of probably the biggest geopolitical event of his career, he takes time to shitpost you, which absolutely means every senator in Congress would kill to have the president call them out by name.
0:57:06 Because when he disagrees with you, it basically means you’re doing something right, and you are now more in his head than anyone who’s running for president.
0:57:09 He doesn’t give a shit what Senator Schumer thinks or says.
0:57:13 He’s not worried about Governor Newsom running for president.
0:57:15 He’s worried about you.
0:57:18 I think this is—I’m very excited.
0:57:19 I’m very excited.
0:57:21 This made my day when I saw this.
0:57:23 I was surprised not to hear from you, though.
0:57:24 You know me.
0:57:24 I don’t like—
0:57:26 No text from Scott.
0:57:27 I got some good texts.
0:57:28 I don’t like to talk to people.
0:57:29 No, you don’t.
0:57:29 It’s awful.
0:57:31 Yeah, yeah, I don’t like to talk to people.
0:57:35 I feel desperate sometimes with the amount of times that I’ve texted to no response.
0:57:37 Sometimes I get a thumbs up.
0:57:39 But I’m like, I’m just going to keep doing it.
0:57:43 I’m the Hermes of fake intellects in that it’s all about scarcity.
0:57:45 It’s all about managing fake scarcity.
0:57:52 I’m an elite university that rejects people more than I could to give the impression of some sort of value or scarcity.
0:57:53 It’s all an act.
0:57:55 I’m going to defund you over that.
0:57:55 It’s not cool.
0:57:57 It’s all an act.
0:58:01 And again, I wish I’d figured this out when I was in my mating years.
0:58:02 Okay.
0:58:03 I think we should end it there.
0:58:08 I think we’re going to watch Jessica Tarloff take a victory lap.
0:58:21 I think we’re going to see her on the medal podium living rent-free in President Trump’s head because she is so articulate, so unafraid, so bold, so numero cinco in the five.
0:58:28 The most watched program in the world has one person who the president is listening to.
0:58:29 It’s not the Senate minority leader.
0:58:30 It’s not the Senate minority leader.
0:58:31 It’s not Leader Jeffries.
0:58:34 It’s not Tom Friedman.
0:58:40 Literally, the most important person in the world with President Trump right now is Bibi Netanyahu.
0:58:53 Number two, ladies and gentlemen running through the tape, collecting the gold, bronze, and silver of people-shaping geopolitical conversations around the world.
0:58:55 That’s right, the co-host of Raging Moderates.
0:59:02 If we are not number one this week, literally, I am going to weep crocodile tears while listening to Megyn Kelly.
0:59:03 I’ll be so upset.
0:59:05 This is a big moment for you, Jess.
0:59:07 We’re going to leave it there.
0:59:08 All right.
0:59:09 Let’s read us out.
0:59:10 That’s all for this episode.
0:59:12 Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates.
0:59:15 Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Jenicus.
0:59:17 Our technical director is Drew Burroughs.
0:59:19 Going forward, you’ll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday.
0:59:24 Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds.
0:59:26 You won’t hear anywhere else.
0:59:34 This week, Jess is talking to Congressman Greg Kassar, who I heard the president does not listen to nor does not care what he says because he is not Jess Tarlow.
0:59:38 Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
0:59:40 You don’t miss an episode.
0:59:43 Keep on soiling, my woman.
0:59:44 Keep on soiling.
0:59:46 Couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.
0:59:47 All right.

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0:00:48 We have a favor to ask you.
0:00:53 The Prof. G. Pod team is planning for the future of the show, and we want our listeners to be a part of the conversation.
0:00:57 That’s why we’re hoping you’ll help us by filling out a brief survey.
0:00:59 Your feedback will help us figure out what’s working, what’s not.
0:01:03 Please visit us at voxmedia.com slash survey.
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0:01:13 More dick jokes.
0:01:15 More dick jokes.
0:01:16 Red your mind.
0:01:22 Welcome to Office Hours with Prof. G.
0:01:26 This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind.
0:01:27 What’s happening?
0:01:31 Just a reminder, you can now catch Office Hours every Monday and Friday.
0:01:33 That’s two episodes a week.
0:01:39 If you’d like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehours at profgmedia.com.
0:01:41 Again, that’s officehours at profgmedia.com.
0:01:47 Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode.
0:01:49 What a thrill first question.
0:01:57 Our first question comes from WildSource1359 on Reddit.
0:01:58 They ask,
0:02:02 What’s the deal with you as a teacher at NYU Stern?
0:02:04 You currently live in London.
0:02:06 You are constantly flying around the globe.
0:02:08 How and how often do you actually teach?
0:02:09 Is it over Zoom?
0:02:12 Is it for a concentrated period of time, say one week?
0:02:17 Okay, the bottom line is I have not taught at NYU a three-unit course since COVID.
0:02:21 When I moved to London, I offered to resign, and they said,
0:02:22 Don’t resign.
0:02:23 You’re good for the brand.
0:02:28 Also, I don’t, in 2017, when I sold my last company,
0:02:34 I returned all of my compensation up until that point to NYU and said,
0:02:35 I make a really good living.
0:02:36 I’ve gotten really lucky.
0:02:42 I don’t want to take compensation from NYU or be a part of this industrial complex that keeps raising tuition.
0:02:44 So I returned all my money.
0:02:48 So I’m a pretty easy person not to fire right now.
0:02:49 I don’t cost them anything.
0:02:51 As a matter of fact, I give money back to NYU.
0:02:54 But I also do, I speak a lot there.
0:02:55 I do symposiums.
0:02:59 The deans have used me as a weapon occasionally for fundraising or to do talks in Europe.
0:03:04 I’m moving back to the U.S. in about a year, and I will begin teaching again.
0:03:06 But no, I haven’t taught in a couple years.
0:03:12 I do teach online courses for Section, which is upskilling enterprise professionals for AI.
0:03:18 I do quite a bit of teaching there over Zoom, but I haven’t taught in person.
0:03:20 I’m actually a bit intimidated by it because I haven’t done it in a while.
0:03:26 I’m what you call, someone jokes, I’m a Pino, and that is a professor in name only right now.
0:03:28 But I plan to teach again.
0:03:34 I’ve taught about somewhere, I think, between 4,000 and 4,500 students over the last 23 years.
0:03:38 And I was just a little bit burnt out on it, quite frankly.
0:03:43 But I’m looking forward to getting back in, you know, back in front of the lectern in about 12 months’ time.
0:03:44 Appreciate the question.
0:03:46 Question number two.
0:03:49 Our second question comes from Captain Lance Murdoch.
0:03:50 Captain Lance Murdoch?
0:03:51 Where did they get this shit?
0:03:53 On Reddit, they say,
0:04:01 Scott, you talk a lot about expensive private restaurant clubs separating the rich and by steering money away from open places,
0:04:05 hurting the offline experience of the younger generation, just beginning to build wealth.
0:04:11 Should there be a more affordable private club option that comes in below the top of the market and tries to bring the experience to more people?
0:04:12 Could this work?
0:04:19 Is the community and organized services that is the draw or is it simply the expensive exclusiveness that supports the model?
0:04:21 Yeah, and I think the market will take care of this.
0:04:24 To a certain extent, see, these clubs are already going where you’re going.
0:04:28 And that is they’re discriminating by age, which I have absolutely no problem with.
0:04:31 I’m a member of, I join everything.
0:04:35 I have a very, it’s not even a fear of death.
0:04:36 It’s an embrace of death.
0:04:37 I think my time here is limited.
0:04:50 I think the amount of time I’m going to be willing to go out and get drunk and have people bump me and I’m not going to get aggravated or upset or endure the hangover or appreciate loud music or even be able to hear the people I’m having dinner with at a place with loud music.
0:04:52 I think my days are numbered.
0:04:52 I think my days are numbered.
0:04:54 So I want to do fucking everything.
0:04:56 I want, I finally have the money.
0:04:57 Most of my life, I didn’t have money.
0:05:07 I was always like saving for something or trying to buy a house or investing in a startup or paying off my debts after a fucking dot-com implosion or the great financial recession.
0:05:11 So what they’ve done, though, is they price discriminate by age.
0:05:17 And that is they, almost all of them have junior memberships where I pay $5,000 or $5,500 a year, which is fucking insane.
0:05:20 You pay $5,000 to go buy dinner and drink somewhere.
0:05:28 But they spend a lot of money on the club, additional finishes, and they curate, quite frankly, they curate the people, a lot of cultural events.
0:05:32 It’s kind of aspirational when people are in town to take them to the hot new club or whatever.
0:05:34 And also you’re signaling your value.
0:05:44 You’re signaling that you’re cool enough to be a member of Zero Bond or Shea Margot or you’re, you know, you are a bit Euro trash and take them to Casa Cipriani, which I love, which I love.
0:05:47 Weird location, downtown tip of Manhattan.
0:05:48 It’s kind of weird.
0:05:55 I’m going to go down there and I’m like, I feel like I’m going to escape from New York and Kurt Russell’s going to show up with a sawed-off shotgun or the zombies are going to come out of the water.
0:06:01 Anyway, but typically if they’re charging me $5,000, they’re charging junior members $1,500 or $2,000.
0:06:03 So that’s still a lot of money.
0:06:09 But if you want to be in a, you know, you want to be in a membership club, there’s going to be membership and they are starting to price discriminate.
0:06:13 I think the anti-alcohol movement is terrible for young people.
0:06:14 Terrible.
0:06:18 I think the risks to your 25-year-old liver of alcohol are dwarfed by the risks of social isolation.
0:06:22 And young people need to have more friends.
0:06:23 They need to approach more strangers.
0:06:24 They need to laugh more.
0:06:26 They need to fuck more, quite frankly.
0:06:29 And all of that leads to one place, alchemahol.
0:06:33 And I just think the fact they’re drinking less is not a good thing.
0:06:35 And I’ll get a lot of shit for that, but I’m sticking by my guns.
0:06:42 If I look back on all my best friendships or romantic opportunities or great times, oftentimes they involved alcohol.
0:06:43 I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.
0:06:49 And 90% to 95% of people, young people, can figure out a way to manage their substances and their professional life.
0:06:53 Anyways, I would like to see a tax subsidy for third places.
0:07:03 A third place can be a softball league, obviously religious institutions or a nonprofit, Nike’s running club where they get people together in person.
0:07:08 I, you know, subsidized gyms where people can bump off one another.
0:07:17 I’d like to see some sort of tax credit where if you aggregate enough young people in person, you get special tax status as a third space.
0:07:20 Because where on earth are young people supposed to meet and fall in love?
0:07:21 They aren’t going into work.
0:07:22 They aren’t going to school.
0:07:23 They’re doing a remote school.
0:07:26 They’re not going to religious institutions.
0:07:35 So, anyways, a long-winded way of saying I’d like to see more emphasis and more opportunities for young people to get out and find friends, mentors, and mates.
0:07:38 And, anyways, back to your original question.
0:07:39 These clubs are smart.
0:07:44 They’re offering a junior membership because, quite frankly, they want more younger people.
0:07:44 They see an opportunity.
0:07:47 Those people can’t afford the same price point.
0:07:53 And, also, being a cool club and aspirational just involves having a lot of young people there or a decent number of young people.
0:07:58 I appreciate the question, and I hope I see you out drinking and enjoying yourself.
0:08:01 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
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0:11:48 Welcome back.
0:11:50 Our final question also comes from Reddit.
0:11:53 User BoseTenderOC asks,
0:11:57 How did your life change when you made money?
0:12:04 I’m curious to hear about your transition from poor to able to pay the bills to millionaire to deca-millionaire to 100-millionaire.
0:12:09 We’ve gotten some hints from your stories, but it would be interesting to hear more.
0:12:15 I think a lot about money, and I talk a lot about it, and I think this zeitgeist that you’re not supposed to talk about money
0:12:19 is nothing but an effort by rich people to keep the poor and middle class down.
0:12:22 If you want to be good at something, you need to think about it and talk about it a lot.
0:12:27 And talking about it a lot gives you ideas and opportunities and can be quite cathartic
0:12:31 because a lot of us are struggling or stressed out by money and don’t want to talk about it for fear makes us seem weak.
0:12:37 And I think it’s helpful to understand different tricks and different opportunities and the tax code
0:12:42 and what your friends are making such that if you’re being underpaid, you can be more aggressive about finding another job.
0:12:44 So I talk about money a lot.
0:12:47 And I probably think about it too much.
0:12:48 I didn’t grow up with a lot of money.
0:12:55 I went to UCLA, almost had trouble paying my bills at UCLA, had trouble paying my bills out of UCLA,
0:13:00 went to Cal, no money, had a 1984 Honda Accord.
0:13:02 I was happy and I was fun.
0:13:06 But I then poured all my money into my first company profit.
0:13:10 I started making money basically when I found a partner who was also making good money
0:13:13 and the two of us together could start living a nice life.
0:13:18 The best thing for me, I mean, one, you have a nicer life when you have money.
0:13:21 I was able to move into a nice home in San Francisco.
0:13:27 But the motivator for me and the biggest payoff for me was I got to take care of my mom and I got to spoil my mom before she passed away.
0:13:29 And I know that’s a lot of virtue signaling, but it’s true.
0:13:33 My mom had taken really good care of me on a secretary salary.
0:13:38 So I remember, I’ll always remember, I got one of my first clients at profit.
0:13:40 My brand strategy firm was Wimps Noma.
0:13:45 And one of my mentors there, this really wonderful guy was a CMO named Pat Connolly, gave me, he said,
0:13:49 don’t tell anyone, but I heard your mom just moved into a retirement home, a retirement community.
0:13:51 I’m going to give you an employee discount.
0:13:55 And I decorated my mom’s entire house in Pottery Barn.
0:14:04 And she just thought this was like the most opulent thing that she’d ever like, that she’d ever experienced in her life.
0:14:10 And it was such a nice moment for me to like serve that role as protector and kind of spoil my mom.
0:14:13 That’s the first thing I think about when I think about money.
0:14:18 The next thing was getting to do really nice things, experiencing great things.
0:14:19 I like spending money.
0:14:20 I’m good at it.
0:14:20 How do you get good?
0:14:22 There’s so many people don’t know how to spend their fucking money.
0:14:35 If you have a lot of money and you don’t have a nice place to live and you don’t go to F1 in Montreal or you don’t go to Cam Lyons or you don’t meet your friends in Vegas and go see U2 at the Sphere, like what’s the fucking point?
0:14:36 Spend it.
0:14:39 And that’s when you know you have some financial security.
0:14:46 But I kind of went from never having enough money to having a decent amount of money to all of a sudden having a shit ton of money.
0:14:47 It’s like aging.
0:14:52 I was always the youngest person in the room and then all of a sudden I was the oldest person in the room.
0:14:55 I was never the same age and that’s kind of the trajectory of my wealth.
0:15:01 I was always reinvesting back in my companies, failing, reinvesting, failing, getting by, decent living, but not a lot of money.
0:15:12 And then I hit it big mostly because the markets went crazy from about 2009 to now and was in the right place at the right time with the right skin color, outdoor plumbing, able to raise a shit ton of money.
0:15:22 And also, I’m not humble, I’m a fucking monster, I’m in the top 1%, but my wealth is way more than the top 1% because the smartest thing I’ve ever done was be born in America in the 60s, a white heterosexual male.
0:15:24 A lot of my success is not my fault.
0:15:32 So being able to take care of my mom, getting to do nice things, and now money for me is really an absence of stress.
0:15:33 What do I mean by that?
0:15:39 When my first son came rotating out of my girlfriend, all I felt was shame and fear.
0:15:48 It was 2008, I had just lost pretty much everything in the Great Financial Recession and I thought, you know, I’m failing as a father.
0:15:50 That was literally my first instinct.
0:15:55 It wasn’t like angels singing in some fucking insurance commercials, like I’ve failed this kid, I don’t have enough money.
0:16:02 And I was very scared, I was really stressed out about money and not being, it’s one thing like to fail yourself.
0:16:05 I’m talented, I can always make enough money to take care of myself.
0:16:08 And I’m like, God, I don’t have as much money as I thought I was going to have.
0:16:13 So getting financial security and economic security for me was just an absence of stress.
0:16:20 And happiness is not only a function of the things you have, it’s a function of the things that you don’t have, specifically an absence from stress.
0:16:24 That if you find out your wife has lung cancer, it doesn’t also mean you’re going to bankrupt.
0:16:30 And then my kids’ struggles are not going to be a function of my inability to provide for them.
0:16:32 And that’s just an enormous unlock.
0:16:37 It’s always been something, and I know you can have a middle class life and live well and raise your kids well.
0:16:46 I was always, I don’t know, I’ve just taken too much incorrectly self-esteem or lack thereof from my economic viability.
0:16:53 So an absence of stress, and now it’s, I do amazing things with money, and I think I’m really good at it.
0:16:56 I hit my number and I decided to get off the money hamster wheel.
0:16:58 I hit my number eight years ago.
0:17:05 Unless I really fuck up, which I’ve done several times, but unless I really fuck up again and I’m trying not to, I’m diversifying, I should be fine.
0:17:10 And so what I do is I’ve decided there’s just no reason why I would ever need to be a billionaire.
0:17:18 When I sold my company in 2017, I thought I’m going to take $25 million and raise another $250 million and start a private equity fund because I would like to someday be a billionaire.
0:17:21 And then I read some stuff, and I’m like, why would I want to be a billionaire?
0:17:24 Why would I want back on this hamster wheel of stress?
0:17:25 And I’ve been working my ass.
0:17:28 I’ve been doing nothing but working for a quarter century.
0:17:30 I had boys at home.
0:17:31 I had a wonderful partner.
0:17:40 I had a capitalist society that lets you hang out at some Argentinian super cool hotel for a thousand bucks a night and go eat amazing food.
0:17:48 And then, you know, I give the tech guy here a hundred bucks and he finds me a Mac laptop and he thinks he’s died and gone to heaven because I gave him a hundred bucks.
0:17:53 And I can go back to when I was a waiter and someone gave me money and it made me feel really good.
0:17:55 I can feel masculine.
0:17:56 I can feel important.
0:18:03 But where I am now is I’m going to, every year I look at my number and anything above that number, I do one of two things.
0:18:04 I either spend it.
0:18:05 I love to spend money.
0:18:06 I’m selfish.
0:18:07 I love to have a good time.
0:18:09 I do amazing things.
0:18:10 I have a plane.
0:18:12 I never let money get in the way of a good time.
0:18:15 If my friends are busy, I’ll send the plane for them.
0:18:18 If they don’t have as much money or they’re not as blessed, I pay for shit.
0:18:19 It makes me feel good.
0:18:22 I have no reciprocal expectation around them doing anything back.
0:18:25 If that sounds like I’m virtue signaling, I am, but it’s also true.
0:18:28 I can pay people really well, which makes me feel important and masculine.
0:18:30 And then anything above that, I give away.
0:18:33 And I don’t think of it as philanthropy.
0:18:35 I think of it as consumption.
0:18:40 When I give money to the University of California, when I give money to charities focused on teen
0:18:44 depression, I’m like, okay, I can talk about struggling young men because I am fucking walking
0:18:44 the walk.
0:18:48 You want to have money such that you can reduce the stress in your life.
0:18:51 You can take care of people who you love and have been good to you.
0:18:56 You can try to restore some of the incredible values and recognize the opportunities that
0:18:59 were given to you and make sure those opportunities are presented to other people.
0:19:03 And you can pay people well and you give money away and you can have a fucking ball of time
0:19:05 and you can be really fucking masculine.
0:19:08 It feels amazing to spend money and to give it away.
0:19:10 That was a lot.
0:19:11 Anyways, thanks for the question.
0:19:14 That’s all for this episode.
0:19:18 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at
0:19:19 propgmedia.com.
0:19:22 Again, that’s officehours at propgmedia.com.
0:19:27 Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit and
0:19:30 we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.
0:20:04 Thank you.

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0:01:19 I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:01:26 On Saturday, June 14th, President Trump threw himself a birthday party in the form of a military parade.
0:01:31 However, it was overshadowed by a movement with a more powerful message.
0:01:36 Pomp versus protest, as read by George Hahn.
0:01:54 June 14th was a day of stark contrasts and dueling narratives.
0:02:01 As President Trump staged a military parade and tanks squeaked down Constitution Avenue,
0:02:07 millions of Americans, from Bangor to Beverly Hills, marched in the streets to protest.
0:02:12 Trump celebrated the country’s military might and his 79th birthday,
0:02:16 vowing to crush foreign adversaries that threaten the U.S.
0:02:22 and use heavy force to stop any domestic protesters who stood in his way.
0:02:29 The peaceful resistance movement in 2,100 cities and towns across America had a simple message.
0:02:34 No thrones, no crowns, no kings.
0:02:42 The clash between hardware and software made strikingly clear that putting tanks and troops on your own roads
0:02:44 isn’t a sign of strength, but weakness.
0:02:49 There are three firewalls between a democracy and autocracy.
0:02:53 The courts, the media, and the citizenry.
0:02:59 The GOP represents the 1% at the cost of the 99%.
0:03:03 The Democrats are more interested in grasping for social virtue
0:03:07 than improving the material and emotional well-being of Americans.
0:03:10 When your representatives won’t represent,
0:03:13 you become your own delegation.
0:03:23 Attendance at Trump’s parade to commemorate the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary
0:03:29 appeared to fall far short of the White House’s estimate of 250,000 people.
0:03:35 Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s yawn, captured on camera, said it all.
0:03:41 The celebration, brought to you by sponsors such as Coinbase and Palantir, was a sad spectacle.
0:03:46 The event had the cool factor of your drunk uncle showing off his karate moves at Thanksgiving.
0:03:54 I wonder if what ultimately limits the damage of this clearance-wrack autocrat isn’t the courts or the 10-year bond,
0:03:57 but just how lame he is.
0:04:02 The No Kings campaign was a dramatically different story.
0:04:10 A widely cited analysis from data journalist G. Elliot Morris estimates that 4 million to 6 million people
0:04:12 participated in the protests.
0:04:18 That represents 1.2% to 1.8% of the U.S. population
0:04:23 and makes it one of the largest single-day protests in American history,
0:04:26 probably even bigger than the 2017 Women’s March,
0:04:30 when more than 4 million people showed up at demonstrations around the country.
0:04:34 Supported by a long list of organizations,
0:04:38 from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Service Employees International Union,
0:04:43 the rallies were deftly timed to divert the spotlight from 47’s show.
0:04:48 TV networks had no choice but to cut to the protesters chanting,
0:04:51 dancing, and marching shoulder to shoulder.
0:04:53 America got a split screen.
0:04:58 Bottle service at Applebee’s versus Bagatelle in Saint-Tropez.
0:05:02 The No Kings turnout was significant,
0:05:05 even if it didn’t reach a critical threshold.
0:05:10 When at least 3.5% of a country’s population
0:05:14 actively engages in a peaceful protest movement,
0:05:17 it has always resulted in political change,
0:05:19 according to Erika Chenoweth,
0:05:22 a political scientist and professor at Harvard.
0:05:29 Chenoweth analyzed 323 nonviolent and violent mobilizations
0:05:32 between 1900 and 2006,
0:05:34 highlighting a range of campaigns,
0:05:36 including the People Power Movement
0:05:40 against the Ferdinand Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1986,
0:05:43 the Rose Revolution in 2003,
0:05:46 in which the people of Georgia ousted
0:05:47 Edouard Shevardnadze,
0:05:50 and an uprising in Sudan in 2019
0:05:53 that forced its president of 30 years,
0:05:55 Omar al-Bashir,
0:05:56 to step down.
0:06:00 She also concluded that nonviolent campaigns
0:06:03 are twice as likely to achieve their goals
0:06:05 as violent movements.
0:06:09 Every senior in every high school in every country
0:06:13 should be forced to read the previous sentence 100 times.
0:06:19 In an interview on Pod Save America earlier this week,
0:06:21 Chenoweth said protest campaigns
0:06:24 that fulfill their objectives and ignite change
0:06:26 have similar characteristics.
0:06:28 They are united,
0:06:29 inclusive,
0:06:32 highly organized,
0:06:33 and disciplined.
0:06:35 They stick to their strategy
0:06:37 without getting baited into defending
0:06:39 and debating their tactics.
0:06:42 These campaigns of nonviolent resistance,
0:06:43 she said,
0:06:45 can take several different forms,
0:06:46 including boycotts.
0:06:49 The backlash against Tesla and Elon Musk
0:06:50 is a case in point.
0:06:53 Since the Tesla takedown began,
0:06:56 organizers have encouraged consumers
0:06:58 to boycott Tesla by selling their cars
0:07:00 as well as their stock,
0:07:03 while protesters have staged demonstrations
0:07:04 at factories and showrooms
0:07:07 to condemn Musk and his political activities,
0:07:10 contributing to a plunge in Tesla’s sales
0:07:11 in key markets.
0:07:14 Protesters seem to agree
0:07:16 that Musk’s politics are bad for America.
0:07:20 We need to continue to make them bad for his business.
0:07:26 The 3.5% estimate isn’t a magic number.
0:07:28 Campaigns will lose steam quickly
0:07:30 if they attempt to hit the target
0:07:31 without a clear strategy
0:07:32 to sustain their momentum.
0:07:34 Resistance movements
0:07:36 must go beyond street demonstrations,
0:07:38 which are often difficult to coordinate
0:07:39 and risky,
0:07:42 and shift to the business and economic realm.
0:07:45 Chenoweth pointed to boycotts
0:07:46 in apartheid-era South Africa,
0:07:48 which created an economic crisis
0:07:50 that contributed to the end of segregation
0:07:52 in the early 1990s.
0:07:54 She said,
0:07:54 quote,
0:07:56 The most important thing
0:07:57 that nonviolent movements
0:07:58 are able to do
0:08:01 is build enough political power
0:08:02 and influence
0:08:03 and sometimes economic,
0:08:04 social,
0:08:05 and cultural power
0:08:06 and influence
0:08:08 that they begin to elicit
0:08:09 defections from opponents’
0:08:11 pillars of support.
0:08:12 Unquote.
0:08:16 When it comes to taking on the administration,
0:08:18 protesters could use some help
0:08:19 from business leaders,
0:08:22 many of whom have remained quiet
0:08:23 for fear of retaliation.
0:08:25 The protest movement
0:08:26 will need to persuade companies
0:08:28 that Trump’s actions,
0:08:30 including his tariff policies,
0:08:32 are harming their businesses
0:08:33 and threatening the economy.
0:08:36 I believe this is one of the biggest opportunities
0:08:37 in the consumer market
0:08:38 in a decade.
0:08:41 The first business leaders
0:08:42 to join the cause
0:08:44 could reap significant
0:08:45 reputational
0:08:47 and commercial benefits.
0:08:52 The first stage-managed displays
0:08:54 of military prowess
0:08:56 date back to ancient times.
0:08:58 Mesopotamian emperors
0:08:59 decorated their palaces
0:09:00 with friezes
0:09:01 depicting their victories,
0:09:03 while portraits showed rulers
0:09:04 leading their troops
0:09:05 into battle
0:09:06 or crushing
0:09:07 their opponents’ skulls,
0:09:08 according to The Guardian.
0:09:10 Roman generals
0:09:12 also famously loved
0:09:13 military parades.
0:09:14 In recent decades,
0:09:16 Cuba’s Fidel Castro
0:09:17 held parades
0:09:17 to commemorate
0:09:19 the revolution he led
0:09:19 in 1959,
0:09:21 and North Korea’s
0:09:22 Kim Jong-un,
0:09:23 who bonded with Trump
0:09:24 in 2018,
0:09:27 used a 2023 military parade
0:09:28 featuring weapons
0:09:29 and goose-stepping soldiers
0:09:30 to flaunt parts
0:09:31 of his country’s
0:09:32 nuclear arsenal
0:09:34 and introduce his daughter
0:09:35 and potential successor.
0:09:38 Earlier this year,
0:09:39 China’s Xi Jinping
0:09:40 joined Vladimir Putin
0:09:41 in Red Square
0:09:42 for Russia’s annual
0:09:44 Victory Day Parade.
0:09:47 Beijing’s one-party government
0:09:49 holds its National Day Parade
0:09:50 every 10 years,
0:09:52 showcasing trucks
0:09:53 carrying nuclear missiles
0:09:54 and other weaponry.
0:09:57 It’s not just authoritarian states
0:09:59 that throw themselves parades.
0:10:00 Just last Saturday,
0:10:01 in Britain,
0:10:02 King Charles III
0:10:04 and members of the royal family
0:10:06 appeared at Trooping the Color,
0:10:07 an annual parade
0:10:08 and troop inspection
0:10:09 to mark the monarch’s
0:10:10 official birthday.
0:10:13 The chihuahua barking
0:10:15 at its own reflection
0:10:16 may provide a torrent
0:10:18 of fodder for comedians,
0:10:19 but it shouldn’t be dismissed
0:10:20 as a joke.
0:10:22 It’s another sign
0:10:23 of a country
0:10:24 descending into kleptocracy
0:10:26 and fascism.
0:10:28 The military parade
0:10:30 the first of its kind
0:10:30 since U.S. troops
0:10:32 returned from the Gulf War
0:10:33 in 1991
0:10:35 capped an unsettling week
0:10:37 in which Trump
0:10:38 deployed the marines
0:10:40 not to a foreign country
0:10:41 but to the streets
0:10:42 of Los Angeles
0:10:44 to quell protests.
0:10:46 God, what bullshit.
0:10:48 The autocrat’s playbook
0:10:49 is to manifest
0:10:50 an enemy within.
0:10:51 Immigrants,
0:10:52 the media,
0:10:53 and academics.
0:10:56 Before invading Poland
0:10:56 in 1939,
0:10:58 Hitler invaded
0:10:58 the freedoms
0:11:00 of his own citizens.
0:11:02 Democracy is under siege
0:11:03 and at risk
0:11:04 of unraveling
0:11:05 as the U.S.
0:11:06 slides toward
0:11:08 competitive authoritarianism,
0:11:10 a system in which
0:11:11 elections remain important
0:11:13 but the incumbents
0:11:14 manipulate the rules,
0:11:15 abuse their power,
0:11:17 and tilt the playing field
0:11:19 against their rivals.
0:11:24 Despite the toxic uncertainty
0:11:24 in the economy,
0:11:27 threats to American values
0:11:28 and rule of law,
0:11:29 cruel and weird
0:11:30 immigration policies,
0:11:32 tax cuts for the rich,
0:11:34 and unprecedented grift,
0:11:36 you might still believe
0:11:37 American democracy
0:11:38 is inevitable.
0:11:41 Don’t bank on it.
0:11:43 Scholars have worried
0:11:45 about a global rise
0:11:47 in democratic backsliding
0:11:48 as leaders
0:11:50 with autocratic tendencies
0:11:51 curtail freedoms
0:11:53 and consolidate power.
0:11:56 One study found
0:11:56 that more than
0:11:57 two-thirds
0:11:59 of the 96 countries
0:12:00 which experienced
0:12:02 those backsliding episodes
0:12:03 between 1900
0:12:04 and 2019
0:12:07 completely broke down
0:12:08 into authoritarian rule.
0:12:11 There are signs
0:12:11 of hope.
0:12:14 Research also shows
0:12:15 that over the past
0:12:16 three decades,
0:12:18 about 70%
0:12:19 of the countries
0:12:19 that descended
0:12:21 into autocracy
0:12:22 managed to mount
0:12:24 a democratic turnaround.
0:12:26 In many cases,
0:12:27 those fights
0:12:29 to reverse the damage
0:12:30 led to restored
0:12:31 or even stronger
0:12:32 levels of democracy.
0:12:34 I’m aligned
0:12:35 with historian
0:12:36 Timothy Snyder
0:12:38 who told me
0:12:38 last month
0:12:39 on the Prof G-Pod
0:12:41 that he’s optimistic
0:12:42 about the American
0:12:43 protest movement.
0:12:45 The No Kings rallies
0:12:46 bode well
0:12:48 for the next stages
0:12:49 of the resistance.
0:12:50 Dictators
0:12:52 and aspiring autocrats
0:12:53 who roll out tanks
0:12:54 on their own streets
0:12:55 may be dangerous,
0:12:57 but history shows
0:12:59 they’re no match
0:13:00 for a united,
0:13:01 organized,
0:13:02 and creative
0:13:04 opposition campaign.
0:13:06 Trump spent
0:13:07 his birthday
0:13:08 trying to cosplay
0:13:09 as a strong man
0:13:11 while millions
0:13:12 of Americans
0:13:12 demonstrated
0:13:14 what actual strength
0:13:15 looks like.
0:13:17 This was
0:13:18 the desperate performance
0:13:19 of a man
0:13:20 who confuses
0:13:21 attention
0:13:22 with respect.
0:13:24 The marches
0:13:25 proved
0:13:26 Trump may be able
0:13:27 to rent tanks,
0:13:29 but he can’t
0:13:30 buy legitimacy.
0:13:31 In some,
0:13:34 America showed up.
0:13:39 Life is so rich.

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0:01:42 Welcome to Office Hours with Prop G.
0:01:47 This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind.
0:01:48 What’s happening?
0:01:53 Just a reminder, you can now catch Office Hours every Monday and Friday.
0:01:54 That’s right, every Monday and Friday.
0:01:55 Bookends of the week.
0:01:57 Feeling a little exposed?
0:01:57 A little insecure.
0:02:03 If you’d like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehoursofpropgmedia.com.
0:02:06 Again, that’s officehoursofpropgmedia.com.
0:02:11 Or post a question on the Galloway, Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode.
0:02:11 What a thrill.
0:02:13 Question number one.
0:02:16 Our first question comes from L from Pennsylvania on Reddit.
0:02:24 In 2024, median CEO pay rose 9.7% to $17.1 million.
0:02:29 Median employee raise rose 1.7% to $85,000.
0:02:32 That’s roughly a 200 to 1 ratio in CEO earnings to employee earnings.
0:02:41 In the 60s and 70s, presumably a time where MAGA thought America was great, it was much closer to 20 or 30 to 1 per the Economic Policy Institute.
0:02:51 Seeing stuff like this and hearing working-class Americans more concerned with identity politics than the massive disparity in compensation between wealthy executives and the working class drives me insane.
0:02:56 What can we do to make this issue more well-known and understood additionally?
0:02:58 And what can we do to address this disparity in earnings?
0:03:00 Love your show and opinions.
0:03:02 Been sharing your content with a lot of folks.
0:03:03 Thanks, L from PA.
0:03:05 So, look, we’re brothers from another mother.
0:03:06 We’re cut from the same cloth.
0:03:07 Birds of a feather.
0:03:09 I think it’s insane.
0:03:10 I think income in a quad.
0:03:12 My entire investment strategy is pretty much income inequality.
0:03:17 I’m like, okay, certain companies have more access to cheaper capital and running away with it.
0:03:24 I only invest in companies that I see are probably either a monopoly or some sort of strange left-for-dead company that might offer a 10 or 20 extra turn.
0:03:28 And also, I’ve been buying a lot of real estate in very kind of tony areas.
0:03:31 London, Palm Beach, Aspen, and New York.
0:03:35 Because I think that essentially really, really wealthy people are the most boring or homogenous people in the world.
0:03:41 And they don’t want to live in one of five places, Dubai, London, Palm Beach, New York, or Aspen.
0:03:43 But it’s insane.
0:03:44 And part of it is CEO compensation.
0:03:49 And first, let me tell you how it happens and, two, what I think we should do about it.
0:03:49 Okay.
0:03:51 What happens?
0:03:55 I’ve served on the compensation committee of boards that decide the compensation for the CEO.
0:04:04 And this is very sensitive because, obviously, the CEO is usually there for money and knows what his or her buddies are making as CEO of their competitor.
0:04:06 And they’re very sensitive about it.
0:04:11 And it’s taken them a long time and they’re very talented to get to the iron throne and they want to get paid really well.
0:04:15 And also, compensation committee members don’t like to actually do any real work.
0:04:18 So we hire this firm called Towers Parent or another compensation consultant.
0:04:23 And the compensation consultant comes in with the following, a bunch of data on, say, you’re running, say, you’re on the board of the New York Times.
0:04:25 I think I was on the compensation committee there.
0:04:26 I don’t know.
0:04:31 Anyways, they bring in a bunch of data that says, okay, this is a $5 billion media company.
0:04:33 $5 billion media companies.
0:04:34 Here’s the range.
0:04:35 Here’s the lowest paid CEO.
0:04:39 Here’s the highest paid CEO of a $5 billion media company.
0:04:45 And then the CEO will try and stuff in new media companies because those compensation levels are much higher, right?
0:04:54 The CEO’s vested interest is to get a consultancy that will show that the market is paying people a shit ton of money and he or she usually gets to decide who they hire.
0:04:56 And so it’s a bit of a racket.
0:04:57 It’s a bit of an inside job.
0:04:59 And this is what happens.
0:05:07 At the 50% level, that’s where the average CEO of a $5 billion media company, that’s what their compensation is.
0:05:09 And psychologically, what happens is the following.
0:05:21 Despite the fact that the average pay of a CEO of a $5 billion media company is really great compensation, we think, well, Janet Robinson, who was our CEO at the time, is trying hard and she’s smart and we want to send a good signal and keep her motivated.
0:05:37 So despite the fact that she’s a fairly mediocre CEO, in my view, at the time, and shooting everyone who potentially could be the next CEO because of her insecurity, that’s a sign of a bad CEO, we’re going to pay her at 60%, not at 50%.
0:05:39 And you think, well, that’s no big deal, pay them slightly above average.
0:05:51 But if you’re paying someone 20% more than average, that means every three and a half years, you’re doubling their compensation relative to the average of an already really well compensated group of people.
0:06:02 As a result, the CEO compensation has skyrocketed, absolutely skyrocketed, whereas employee compensation, per your statistics, is not really accelerated.
0:06:03 Now, here’s the issue.
0:06:05 What do you do about it?
0:06:08 I don’t think you can put caps on compensation.
0:06:10 I don’t, I think that’s socialism.
0:06:11 I don’t think it works.
0:06:13 What I think you can do is the following.
0:06:15 We need a more progressive tax structure.
0:06:20 I think it’s okay that CEOs make tens of millions or hundreds of millions or sometimes even billions.
0:06:29 If the CEO is really adding that much value and creating that much shareholder value, I don’t have a problem with them sharing in it, even if they become, I remember when Mickey Drexler made a billion dollars at the gap.
0:06:30 I’m like, he deserves it.
0:06:32 He’s created so much shareholder value.
0:06:33 He deserves it.
0:06:37 And who are we to tell him that compensation is too much?
0:06:38 You want to use the word fair.
0:06:42 You’re not going to find a lot of fair in the corporate world, especially in a compensation table.
0:06:48 But I do think we need to more aggressively address a progressive tax structure.
0:06:56 And that is, I see no reason why anyone who makes over $10 million a year shouldn’t have a 60 to 80 percent marginal tax rate.
0:06:56 Why?
0:06:58 We need that money.
0:07:01 And there’s a lot of people making crazy amounts of money right now.
0:07:03 And we need to pay down our deficit.
0:07:10 We need to reinvest in technology and education and food stamps and help some of our least fortunate figure out a way to pull themselves up.
0:07:21 And we’re going to have to just tax people more because what we have now is a regressive tax structure because the majority of your employees pay taxes on current income, maximum rate 37 percent.
0:07:26 And the CEO gets majority of their compensation from equity, maximum tax rate 23.8 percent.
0:07:29 So the tax structures actually become regressive.
0:07:36 So I would like to see an alternative minimum tax of 50 or 60 percent, no loopholes for people who make more than $10 million a year.
0:07:40 And this is why that tax, while it sounds scary, is less taxing.
0:07:45 And Republicans would like you to believe that they’re our most productive employees and it’s theft.
0:07:46 No, it’s not.
0:07:50 That’s actually a lower tax rate than the super wealthy have been paying for most of the 20th century.
0:07:51 And here’s the good part.
0:07:53 They’re no less happy.
0:07:57 Once you get above a certain amount of money, incremental money doesn’t give you, provide you with anything.
0:08:00 It doesn’t give you any additional value or happiness.
0:08:03 What are you going to give it to your kids so they can have a Range Rover and a cocaine habit?
0:08:08 I mean, you want taxes that are the least taxing, so to speak.
0:08:10 I’m a big fan of raising taxes on estate taxes.
0:08:16 I do think you’re going to have to raise taxes on corporations who are paying their lowest taxes since 1929.
0:08:18 But I don’t think you can put compensation caps.
0:08:25 I think that’s socialism, it doesn’t work, and creates all sorts of gymnastics around spreading out all these unnatural acts that’ll waste time and energy.
0:08:32 But I do think anyone making over a certain amount of money should be subject to the same progressive tax structure that we’ve had for most of the 20th century.
0:08:34 Appreciate the question.
0:08:38 Our second question comes from Papaya Melon on Reddit.
0:08:39 You’ve got to give it to the Redditors.
0:08:40 They sound very creative.
0:08:42 They sound like a group of people to be fun to do edibles with.
0:08:48 All right, I’m a 23-year-old engineer working in the aerospace industry at a Fortune 500 company.
0:08:56 On one hand, I find that I have a good job that I could maybe rise up in, have great friends and a great family, all while living in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
0:09:02 On the other hand, the job is very unchallenging, and I find myself wanting to go after my startup dream to chase that challenge.
0:09:13 I feel that at my age and skill, my risk tolerance is very high, and I should be going after the startup dream, but I struggle to identify if that’s really what I want to do or if that’s just conditioning from the internet and that I’m not doing enough.
0:09:22 Do you think that a young 20-something should throw caution to the wind and bet on their ability or value the growth opportunity and comfort that corporate America provides?
0:09:29 This is what the passé internet answer is going to be and is going to be, go for it now.
0:09:30 You’re young.
0:09:32 Start a company.
0:09:33 This is America.
0:09:34 Absolutely.
0:09:35 Chase your dreams.
0:09:38 You know, all the shots you don’t take, you miss.
0:09:39 Okay, hold on.
0:09:40 Hold on.
0:09:44 Anyone who’s telling you to start a company without a solid idea of what you’re doing is already rich.
0:09:46 And here’s the thing.
0:09:52 We romanticize entrepreneurship and we diminish unfairly the power of the U.S. corporation.
0:09:57 The greatest wealth generator in history is the U.S. corporation, and it sounds like you’re at a good one.
0:10:01 So I would be very careful before leaving that seat.
0:10:08 If you’re making good money at a good company and doing well, they’re going to have no trouble replacing you.
0:10:13 There’s going to be a lot of applications that come in for your job.
0:10:37 Now, as someone who started nine companies, if you have a co-founder, if you have an idea, if you have a small company that reaches out to you and they already have traction, I actually think the sweet spot of upside on a risk-adjusted basis is not being the founder of a company because there’s just so much infant mortality and hooking up the printer and finding money and trying to find those first few employees.
0:10:44 I think the sweet spot is being employee kind of 10 to 50 because some of the risk has already been starched out.
0:10:51 A lot of the people who work at Prof. G were joined L2 after the first few employees, so they kind of knew it was working.
0:10:57 They kind of knew we had some level of product market fit, but it was still early enough that they got a decent chunk of equity.
0:10:59 I think that’s the sweet spot.
0:11:05 But if you have a great idea, you feel like you’ve already lined up, if you want to start a business, start it before you leave.
0:11:11 And that is, have a company or have people who’ve already kind of started it and you know it sort of works.
0:11:18 But just deciding to take off with a backpack and come back and start a company and give up a job, time goes fast.
0:11:23 And I think there’s a really decent chance that two, three years into it, you look back and think,
0:11:26 I probably just should have stayed at that company and banked some money.
0:11:34 If you’re not challenged at work, then what I would suggest, if you’re good, is you have a transparent conversation with your manager in your review and say,
0:11:40 I don’t, you know, I like it here, be appreciative, be thoughtful, but I’d like some more challenging work.
0:11:42 I’d like to challenge myself and push myself.
0:11:46 And if it’s a good company, they’re going to find the type of work that challenges you.
0:11:56 So in sum, we romanticize entrepreneurship and people don’t appreciate how great it is to have a big platform that pays for you to have that mole removed.
0:11:58 And you can make a lot of money.
0:12:02 You know, corporations are a great place to get rich slowly and time goes fast.
0:12:08 And if you’re maximizing out your 401k and getting equity participation and they like you,
0:12:15 I would think about trying to find a more entrepreneurial culture or more challenging work within that organization.
0:12:18 But again, these are very personal decisions.
0:12:23 One thing I would definitely recommend doing is assembling a kitchen cabinet of kind of sober people who know your situation,
0:12:25 how important economic security is.
0:12:27 And if you find an opportunity that you can bounce it off of,
0:12:30 because sometimes it’s hard to read the label from inside of the bottle in sum,
0:12:34 anyone who just hears the question and answers one way or another isn’t being very thoughtful.
0:12:36 It depends on your situation at work.
0:12:37 It depends on your opportunities.
0:12:39 Quite frankly, it depends on how much money you have.
0:12:42 If you have rich parents you can fall back on, sure, you can be more risk aggressive.
0:12:48 If you just had your second child and your spouse isn’t working, it’s very hard to give up that steady salary.
0:12:53 But again, a big theme here is we have a tendency to romanticize entrepreneurship
0:12:56 and not appreciate how powerful the U.S. corporation is.
0:12:58 Congratulations on all your success.
0:13:00 It sounds as if you’re doing really well.
0:13:03 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
0:13:11 Support for the show comes from Upway.
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0:14:16 On this show, we talk a lot about financial security.
0:14:19 It’s the goal that so many people simply don’t find attainable.
0:14:26 But one of the most important steps in actually pursuing financial security is believing it’s possible and asking yourself the question, what if I could?
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0:15:01 Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principle.
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0:16:29 Welcome back, on to our final question.
0:16:32 Hey, Professor Galloway.
0:16:33 Patrick here from New Hampshire.
0:16:39 I’ve spent over 25 years in higher education, mostly at public universities and colleges.
0:16:44 I have been a student, an RD, an adjunct, and a dean, but now I’m a community college administrator.
0:16:48 So, basically, I’ve had every seat except the one with huge endowments.
0:16:56 You often focus on the overly rejective schools, the elites of the world, if you will, and how they need to evolve and are not.
0:17:00 I’d love to hear your take on the rest of the iceberg, community colleges.
0:17:08 We serve almost half of the undergraduate population, quietly, efficiently, and without a marketing budget that rivals a Marvel film.
0:17:19 In a future driven by ROI, relevance, and access, and where education is critical to the nation’s success, where do you see community colleges fitting in?
0:17:20 Thanks.
0:17:21 What a great question.
0:17:24 And also, you press on soft tissue.
0:17:26 I’m a little defensive because you’re right.
0:17:33 By the way, when you find yourself getting a little offensive, it’s usually because whoever’s asking you a question is right, and it’s touched a nerve.
0:17:36 And I don’t speak nearly enough about community colleges and the Cal State system.
0:17:37 I’m very involved at UC.
0:17:38 I went to UC Berkeley.
0:17:39 I went to UCLA.
0:17:41 And I talk a lot about the UC system.
0:17:49 But sort of the hero of California is the Cal State system that is the biggest grantor of Pell Grants, meaning they’re educating more kids from low-income households.
0:17:50 And it’s a great way.
0:17:51 Most of us aren’t remarkable.
0:17:52 I applied to college when I was 17.
0:17:56 I showed up to UCLA and rushed a fraternity when I was 17 years old.
0:17:57 My boy is 17.
0:17:59 The idea of him at college right now totally freaks me out.
0:18:09 And within, like, a couple weeks, I got too fucked up, fell, was in the emergency room, barely got through my freshman year, almost got kicked out of school.
0:18:16 I was on academic probation because I couldn’t handle the temptation of alcohol and sports and being away from home.
0:18:18 And everything ended well.
0:18:19 It turned out okay.
0:18:21 And maybe that was part of the learning process.
0:18:25 But community colleges, you know, there’s sort of a chance to marinate a bit.
0:18:27 Not the same.
0:18:31 First off, I love the fact that they have much lower admission standards and much lower costs.
0:18:33 That is where higher ed needs to go.
0:18:46 Anyways, according to the U.S. Department of Education, there are 1,022 community colleges in 2020 to 2021, making up 28% of U.S. colleges participating in federal aid programs.
0:18:51 Nearly 9 million students attended community colleges, accounting for 44% of all U.S. undergrads.
0:18:53 Most 72% attended part-time.
0:18:57 Average in-district tuition, love this, $3,300.
0:18:59 And 32% a third received Pell Grants.
0:19:01 13% took out federal loans.
0:19:06 My roommate, my junior in college, a kid named Mike, went to junior college first.
0:19:10 And he was one of the more impressive people that I went to college with.
0:19:12 Like, kind, nice, handsome.
0:19:18 Anyways, just a—and he had gone to community college for one or two years.
0:19:23 It was a ton of kids in the fraternity at UCLA who were like, you know, okay, I didn’t get $1,600 on the SAT.
0:19:25 Maybe I’m helping my parents out.
0:19:27 Maybe I don’t have the money right now.
0:19:33 Whatever it is, I’m going to kind of marinate, if you will, and go to community college.
0:19:37 I think that there’s a huge opportunity in rural for community colleges.
0:19:41 What I would like to see is it—I mean, essentially, there’s kind of a trade here.
0:19:46 And that is, college has become so expensive that there’s sort of a community college arb.
0:19:47 What is that?
0:19:58 Rather than going to UC Santa Barbara—let’s not even use UC Santa Barbara—rather than going to USC, which costs probably $100,000 a year when you take on tuition and living costs,
0:20:02 you go to community college for two years, which costs a lot less.
0:20:07 And basically, you cut the total cost of your four-year education by a third, maybe even a half.
0:20:12 Now, having said that, you lose a lot because you don’t have the same momentum and the same friends and the same kind of four-year experience.
0:20:16 But at the end of the day, if you don’t have the money, it’s a pretty good arb.
0:20:18 It’s also a chance to get into a really good school.
0:20:22 One thing that’s wonderful about our elite schools is they do take in a lot of transfers.
0:20:33 And if you show you can operate well in the academic environment at Santa Monica Community College, where I was going to go had I not got into UCLA the last minute, UCLA likes that.
0:20:36 And they say, well, clearly, you can operate in an academic environment.
0:20:43 So I’m a big fan of—if I were going to say, all right, where does Governor Newsom need to allocate more or less funds?
0:20:44 I hate to say this.
0:20:48 The University of California has people like me donating millions of dollars.
0:20:54 The Cal State system, because it’s not as sexy and people don’t brag about naming the new wing at Santa Monica Community College.
0:21:01 It doesn’t get nearly the philanthropic giving because it’s not as prestigious and doesn’t tickle rich people’s egos.
0:21:04 But that is really where the greatest return on investment right now.
0:21:16 I’m not as familiar with the curriculum, but what I would suggest is I think the biggest opportunity, and also foots to this kind of emerging crisis of struggling young men, is more vocational programming.
0:21:23 And that is a track for kids looking to transfer to a four-year program that’s more liberal arts, more general, if you will.
0:21:26 And then there’s tracks for kids who are like, I’m not cut out for school.
0:21:27 We all knew that person in high school.
0:21:32 It was usually a guy who hated school, wasn’t good at it, but could fix your car.
0:21:39 And loved wood, auto, and metal shop, which we’ve replaced with computer science for some reason, or Mandarin.
0:21:44 So I wonder if there’s more investment or tracks available for great vocational jobs.
0:21:53 You’ve probably seen that TikTok showing that an 11th grader who gets through auto shop, they’re being offered $70,000 a year jobs out of the 11th grade.
0:22:13 So I wonder if the role of vocational programming that foots to the economy, where we’re supposedly going to have somewhere between 7-11 million open jobs in the vocations, the skill needed to install energy-efficient heaters, fix an EV, build a nuclear power plant, especially construction, especially nursing, health care.
0:22:18 All a long-winded way of saying, I think you’re doing God’s work, and I’d like to see greater resources.
0:22:27 And if there’s any suggestion I would make, and maybe you’re already making it, is to not fall into this drunken, intoxicated elitism that you have to have a liberal arts education.
0:22:36 There’s great trade jobs out there that someone with 12 to 24 months in apprenticeship right away can put themselves on an on-ramp to a wonderful middle-class life.
0:22:38 But again, I appreciate your good work.
0:22:44 That’s all for this episode.
0:22:49 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at propgmedia.com.
0:22:52 Again, that’s officehours at propgmedia.com.
0:22:59 Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.

0:00:03 – There are two kinds of people in the world,
0:00:06 backward thinkers and forward thinkers.
0:00:08 Forward thinkers have plans 15 minutes from now
0:00:11 and 15 years from now.
0:00:12 They’re not just one step ahead,
0:00:15 they’re 1,000 steps ahead.
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0:01:31 – Episode 353.
0:01:34 353 is the area code serving southwestern Wisconsin.
0:01:38 In 1953, the first James Bond novel was published.
0:01:41 What would happen if James Bond took Viagra?
0:01:44 He would continue to be a state-sponsored terrorist
0:01:46 whose actions disgrace us all.
0:01:47 Disgrace us all.
0:01:48 Mm, I didn’t like that one.
0:01:50 I was once in a James Bond-themed porn film.
0:01:52 I didn’t enjoy it, but I did manage to come on cue.
0:01:57 That’s better.
0:01:58 Go, go, go!
0:02:10 Welcome to the 353rd episode of the Prop G-Pod.
0:02:10 What’s happening?
0:02:13 I am in, I’m French dog right now.
0:02:16 I’m a cheese-eating surrender dog.
0:02:17 Mm, is that fair?
0:02:18 Is that fair?
0:02:20 France did fall in about 11 days.
0:02:22 So I’m in the south of France.
0:02:26 You know, France absolutely would be the most amazing country in the world
0:02:28 if it wasn’t inhabited by the French.
0:02:30 All right, they just know how to do shit here.
0:02:31 Everything is beautiful.
0:02:33 The Côte d’Azur is wonderful.
0:02:35 I had a James Bond moment about, I don’t know,
0:02:38 I think the first time I came to Cannes,
0:02:40 I bombed into, I landed in the airport,
0:02:43 Delta Airlines overnight, no sleep.
0:02:47 And I pull up Uber to take an Uber to my hotel.
0:02:50 And this was back when I was actually working for a living
0:02:52 and I’ve got an Airbnb for like, I don’t know,
0:02:55 70 euros a night, you know, 40 minutes out of town.
0:03:00 And I pull up Uber and up pops this helicopter icon.
0:03:00 So I’m like, what the fuck?
0:03:02 So I press on it and it says,
0:03:07 meet your helicopter to Cannes and the baggage claim.
0:03:09 And I show up and I meet this 13-year-old
0:03:12 in what looks like a Halloween costume of a pilot’s uniform,
0:03:14 puts me in a van, takes me to this thing
0:03:16 where there’s a lawnmower with a rotor blade
0:03:17 called a helicopter.
0:03:21 We take off, we zoom or whisk across the Côte d’Azur,
0:03:24 land in the Palais.
0:03:25 And I get out and there’s a bunch of people
0:03:27 at Meta Beach kind of trying to figure out
0:03:30 how they can get teenage girls to self-harm more.
0:03:32 And they look up and they see me getting out
0:03:33 of my helicopter and I’m like,
0:03:34 da-na-da!
0:03:37 Literally, that was kind of a James Bond moment.
0:03:41 Now my life is pretty much about trying to pursue
0:03:43 a series of James Bond moments.
0:03:46 I’m here at my favorite hotel in the world,
0:03:47 the Hotel de Cap Eden Rock,
0:03:49 which is reeks of European luxury.
0:03:51 My favorite thing, and I’ve talked about this before,
0:03:53 but that’s not going to stop me from talking about it again.
0:03:57 I go to the FTR, I go to this beautiful little patio
0:04:00 at the Hotel de Cap, and I have my latte and my croissant
0:04:03 and my freshly squeezed orange juice.
0:04:06 And I sit there with my Financial Times,
0:04:09 or as I like to call it, that salmon bitch,
0:04:12 trying to signal that I’m smart and very international.
0:04:16 And then I hire a Zodiac for the week,
0:04:21 this guy, French guy, who somehow manages to drive a boat
0:04:24 while having two cigarettes lit at once.
0:04:28 And he takes me in, and I always crash the beach from,
0:04:34 I’m like fucking the 5th Battalion of the U.S. Army
0:04:36 crashing on Normandy.
0:04:38 I go into Omaha Beach.
0:04:40 Omaha Beach for me is meta.
0:04:42 I hate those motherfuckers.
0:04:44 And I always land on their beach, and they look up,
0:04:45 and there’s a security guard, and they know what to do.
0:04:47 And I just bomb through there onto the Palais.
0:04:48 That’s what you do.
0:04:49 You go into the soft tissue.
0:04:51 You land from the seaside.
0:04:53 And I did it at a Pinterest beach, but they’re nice.
0:04:54 They didn’t care.
0:04:55 They just looked up and said,
0:04:59 oh, would you like to browse some soapstone kitchen counters
0:05:00 or plan your wedding?
0:05:04 Anyways, I love Cannes, Lions.
0:05:08 It used to be where they’d give out trophies to the ad execs
0:05:10 who were all looking for a different job,
0:05:12 and then basically Tech 8 Media.
0:05:14 I mean, it’s just so hilarious.
0:05:17 The lions of this industry were Martin Sorrell, Maurice Levy,
0:05:19 and a guy named John Wren from Omnicom.
0:05:20 And now, between the three of them,
0:05:22 they have a $40 billion market cap.
0:05:26 And you’re seeing, I mean, they’re just unimportant.
0:05:28 It’s just hilarious we continue to talk about these companies.
0:05:32 that Alphabet or Amazon will lose or gain the value
0:05:34 of all three of these companies in a trading day.
0:05:36 And yet, they’re trying to hold on.
0:05:38 And WPP just made this big announcement
0:05:41 that they’re moving to more of an influencer model.
0:05:42 Well, oh, wow.
0:05:43 Yeah, that’ll help.
0:05:44 It’s got a $9 billion market cap.
0:05:48 And I’m pretty sure there’s going to be an activist coming to WPP
0:05:50 because my guess is they have some really good assets.
0:05:53 And what you have now is a hole that’s less than the sum of its parts.
0:05:58 The original conglomerate model fashioned by Sir Martin Sorrell
0:06:00 made a lot of sense and it no longer makes sense
0:06:02 or it doesn’t make sense when you have a lot of your assets are dying
0:06:03 or in structural decline,
0:06:06 especially with meta deciding that, oh, using AI,
0:06:08 we can do the creative and we can do the account planning
0:06:09 and the media buying
0:06:12 and stop hiring these very young, attractive people
0:06:13 who you overpay such that you can get invited
0:06:16 to their used-to-be-cool party.
0:06:18 Anyway, lovely to be here.
0:06:22 My big tip around traveling is travel to hotels, not to cities.
0:06:25 It’s like what school you pick for your kids.
0:06:26 We obsess over what school.
0:06:28 We obsess over what city we’re going to.
0:06:31 Well, actually, if you find the right teacher, it doesn’t matter what school.
0:06:33 And if you have a bad teacher, it doesn’t matter what school.
0:06:34 It’s more about the teacher than it is the school.
0:06:37 I think it’s the same with hotels.
0:06:42 I read all these hotel lists and I travel to hotels versus a city
0:06:47 because a mediocre hotel in LA makes LA kind of a hellish place
0:06:49 with a bunch of freeways as you’re trying to go somewhere
0:06:51 and do something cool, staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
0:06:54 Or if you’re having an affair with your, I don’t know,
0:06:58 secretary’s husband or something, and that’s the Hotel Bel Air.
0:07:01 If you’re younger and you want something a little cooler,
0:07:03 you go to the addition and they’ve got a cool restaurant there.
0:07:05 I mean, it’s all about the hotel.
0:07:06 LA, yeah, LA’s great.
0:07:07 But you don’t go to LA, you go to the hotel.
0:07:09 Where do you go?
0:07:10 You don’t go to the South of France.
0:07:11 Cannes itself is not that nice.
0:07:12 It’s okay.
0:07:13 It’s okay.
0:07:15 What’s nice is the Hotel du Cap
0:07:16 or what’s over the top is Hotel du Cap
0:07:20 where you get a latte and a croissant for $38.
0:07:20 No joke.
0:07:22 And as I’m sitting there reading my FT,
0:07:24 hands down the highlight of the trip
0:07:26 is these two ridiculously ripped,
0:07:28 they look Italian, maybe they’re French.
0:07:30 They come out in these like cool polos
0:07:32 and they’re in between working out
0:07:33 and taking human growth hormone.
0:07:35 And they come out on their arm
0:07:37 with these two peregrines,
0:07:38 is that what they’re called?
0:07:39 Falcons.
0:07:40 And they have the little hood on them
0:07:41 and everyone just kind of stops eating,
0:07:45 you know, their croquettes
0:07:46 or whatever it is we were eating for breakfast.
0:07:48 And they look at these two beautiful men
0:07:51 with their two equally beautiful hawks.
0:07:54 And the problem is occasionally a seagull,
0:07:56 the seagulls haven’t gotten the memo
0:07:58 that these rooms are 4,000 euros a night
0:08:00 and they’ll come up and literally steal your croissant.
0:08:03 And seagulls are, I don’t know,
0:08:04 they’re flying rats as far as I can tell.
0:08:07 So what they do is they bring out these guys
0:08:08 with these hawks and the seagulls
0:08:10 are going around, you know, flying
0:08:11 and then they take the hood off
0:08:15 and instinctively the hawk just bolts off the arm
0:08:17 of the handsome ripped French slash Italian guy
0:08:20 and like takes a seagull.
0:08:21 And when I say takes,
0:08:22 I mean somehow in midair
0:08:24 manages to rip the fucking thing apart.
0:08:26 And then all of a sudden the seagulls are like,
0:08:27 I mean, they’re going crazy.
0:08:29 They’re going, for good reason,
0:08:30 they’re going crazy.
0:08:31 And then there’s no seagulls
0:08:33 for like seven or eight minutes.
0:08:34 And it’s just fucking hilarious.
0:08:36 And I’m like, whoa, I see this thing.
0:08:37 I see the rip guy.
0:08:40 I see the, I see the Falcon rip apart a seagull.
0:08:42 And I’m like, I would pay 4,100 euros
0:08:43 for my room right now.
0:08:48 Just a reminder that Prop G Markets is now daily.
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0:09:50 Thank you for enduring that.
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0:09:54 I’m going to, if you come up to me and say,
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0:09:57 I’m going to reward you with 10 seconds
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0:10:00 Okay.
0:10:03 In today’s episode, we speak with one of my role models.
0:10:04 People say, who do you look up to?
0:10:06 And I have a lot of people I look up to.
0:10:07 Most of them, nobody else knows.
0:10:09 Just dudes getting up,
0:10:11 you know, making money for their families,
0:10:12 trying to be good role models,
0:10:14 you know, absorbing blows,
0:10:16 not being assholes.
0:10:17 Those are the people I admire.
0:10:20 But in terms of popular or pop figures,
0:10:23 the individual I get a lot of guidance from
0:10:24 is Sam Harris,
0:10:26 a neuroscientist, philosopher, best-selling author,
0:10:29 and host of the Making Sense podcast.
0:10:32 I find Sam is just literally a buoy,
0:10:34 a, what’s it called?
0:10:35 A life raft,
0:10:36 a port of call,
0:10:37 and a stormy seas.
0:10:39 I just find he has such moral clarity,
0:10:41 does the work.
0:10:42 If you listen to his podcast,
0:10:43 every word is just,
0:10:45 you can tell every word has been selected.
0:10:46 The economy of words,
0:10:47 it’s so crisp,
0:10:47 it’s so tight.
0:10:49 We discussed with Sam
0:10:51 the collapse of trust in institutions,
0:10:52 why getting off Twitter
0:10:53 was the best decision he’s ever made
0:10:54 for his mental health,
0:10:56 and what Elon Musk and Andrew Tate
0:10:58 reveal about masculinity today.
0:10:59 With that,
0:11:00 from the south of France,
0:11:02 from the Hotel Ducap Eden Rock,
0:11:04 here’s our conversation
0:11:05 with Sam Harris.
0:11:19 Sam,
0:11:20 where does this podcast find you?
0:11:22 Los Angeles.
0:11:23 So,
0:11:25 I was struggling with what
0:11:26 topics to cover,
0:11:28 specifically what topics not to cover,
0:11:29 so I thought I’ll
0:11:30 basically do a buffet here
0:11:32 and have you decide
0:11:33 of all the things
0:11:35 we’re most concerned about
0:11:37 or of all the things
0:11:38 to be concerned about.
0:11:39 What are you most concerned about
0:11:40 right now and why?
0:11:43 I think it would have to be
0:11:44 the way we’re interacting
0:11:46 with information.
0:11:46 You know,
0:11:47 I mean,
0:11:47 it just is,
0:11:49 and largely this is a story
0:11:51 of what social media
0:11:52 and the internet
0:11:53 generally has done to us,
0:11:54 but,
0:11:55 you know,
0:11:56 you can throw into this bin
0:11:58 the failure of institutions
0:12:01 and the pervasive lack
0:12:02 of trust in institutions
0:12:04 that is far deeper
0:12:06 and more widespread
0:12:08 than the failures
0:12:09 of those institutions
0:12:10 would justify,
0:12:10 right?
0:12:11 I mean,
0:12:12 people are far more
0:12:14 distrusting of the media
0:12:17 than the errors of,
0:12:17 you know,
0:12:18 the woke errors
0:12:18 of the media
0:12:19 over the last few years
0:12:20 justify.
0:12:23 People are far more
0:12:24 distrusting of government
0:12:25 and the scientific
0:12:26 establishment
0:12:27 than the errors
0:12:28 committed during COVID
0:12:29 justify,
0:12:29 right?
0:12:31 And so we’ve reached
0:12:32 this kind of freefall
0:12:32 condition,
0:12:33 as far as I can tell,
0:12:35 especially in independent
0:12:36 media and over in
0:12:36 Trumpistan,
0:12:37 it’s just a,
0:12:38 you know,
0:12:39 the physics have
0:12:40 completely changed,
0:12:41 wherein you have
0:12:43 proper lunatics
0:12:44 trusted as,
0:12:46 you know,
0:12:47 as honest brokers
0:12:47 of information.
0:12:48 You’ve got people
0:12:49 like Tucker Carlson
0:12:51 and a host of
0:12:53 slightly better behaved
0:12:54 but no less
0:12:56 confused podcasters
0:12:57 who I might not
0:12:57 name here.
0:12:58 And,
0:12:59 you know,
0:13:00 conspiracy theorists,
0:13:01 people like Alex Jones,
0:13:02 I mean,
0:13:02 these people are in
0:13:03 good standing
0:13:04 right of center
0:13:06 and it’s bonkers.
0:13:08 And so I fear
0:13:08 that we are in a
0:13:10 position increasingly
0:13:11 where we’re rendering
0:13:14 ourselves ungovernable
0:13:14 or,
0:13:15 you know,
0:13:16 governable only
0:13:17 by,
0:13:18 you know,
0:13:19 half the population
0:13:21 willing to get
0:13:22 absorbed into a
0:13:23 personality cult
0:13:25 and continuously
0:13:26 fed lies.
0:13:28 And it’s just a,
0:13:28 you know,
0:13:28 I don’t know how
0:13:29 we would respond
0:13:31 to the next
0:13:32 proper emergency.
0:13:33 You know,
0:13:34 if 9-11 happened
0:13:34 now,
0:13:36 if a pandemic,
0:13:36 you know,
0:13:37 worse than COVID
0:13:38 happened now,
0:13:39 if a real war
0:13:39 happened now,
0:13:41 I think we’re
0:13:42 in a society
0:13:42 that is just
0:13:43 riven by
0:13:43 misinformation
0:13:45 and frank
0:13:46 dishonesty.
0:13:48 And it’s a very
0:13:48 dark picture,
0:13:49 I think,
0:13:50 of us politically
0:13:51 at the moment.
0:13:52 Do you see
0:13:53 any sources
0:13:54 or paths
0:13:54 to repair?
0:13:56 Well,
0:13:56 I do think
0:13:57 we have to
0:13:58 figure out
0:13:58 how to reboot
0:13:59 trust in
0:14:00 institutions,
0:14:00 which is,
0:14:00 you know,
0:14:01 obviously a
0:14:01 two-sided
0:14:02 problem.
0:14:03 The institutions
0:14:04 themselves
0:14:05 have to
0:14:07 become
0:14:08 trustworthy,
0:14:09 and,
0:14:10 you know,
0:14:10 the Trump
0:14:10 administration
0:14:11 is making
0:14:11 that hard
0:14:12 now by
0:14:13 launching an
0:14:13 all-out
0:14:14 assault on
0:14:15 them in
0:14:16 ways that,
0:14:16 you know,
0:14:17 if the purpose
0:14:18 was to make
0:14:18 them trustworthy,
0:14:19 you would go
0:14:20 about it very
0:14:20 differently,
0:14:21 right?
0:14:21 I mean,
0:14:22 I share the
0:14:23 concern that
0:14:24 the Ivy League
0:14:25 and other
0:14:26 universities failed
0:14:27 to deal with
0:14:28 the explosion
0:14:28 of anti-Semitism
0:14:29 and frank
0:14:30 moral confusion
0:14:31 that happened
0:14:32 after October
0:14:32 7th,
0:14:34 but if that
0:14:34 was your
0:14:34 concern,
0:14:36 if your concern
0:14:36 was to deal
0:14:37 with the,
0:14:38 merely deal
0:14:39 with the
0:14:39 ideological
0:14:40 capture of
0:14:40 so many
0:14:40 of these
0:14:41 departments
0:14:41 and the
0:14:42 administrators
0:14:43 and talk
0:14:43 some sense
0:14:44 into them,
0:14:45 you wouldn’t
0:14:45 go about it
0:14:46 the way
0:14:46 the Trump
0:14:46 administration
0:14:47 is.
0:14:48 So,
0:14:49 we need
0:14:50 to restore
0:14:51 trust in
0:14:51 institutions.
0:14:53 We’re not
0:14:53 all going to
0:14:54 independently
0:14:55 do our own
0:14:55 research in
0:14:56 the face of
0:14:57 the next
0:14:59 great challenge
0:15:00 to our
0:15:00 society.
0:15:01 We need
0:15:02 to have
0:15:02 people we
0:15:03 can trust.
0:15:03 We need,
0:15:04 you know,
0:15:04 we need real
0:15:05 air traffic
0:15:06 controllers who
0:15:06 can keep the
0:15:06 planes in the
0:15:07 air,
0:15:07 right?
0:15:08 And so,
0:15:10 there’s been
0:15:10 a kind of
0:15:11 disavowal of
0:15:12 expertise,
0:15:13 especially in
0:15:14 independent media,
0:15:14 especially on
0:15:15 podcasts,
0:15:17 as though any,
0:15:17 you know,
0:15:18 comedian who’s
0:15:19 a quick study
0:15:20 and, you
0:15:20 know,
0:15:21 can use
0:15:22 chat GPT
0:15:23 can be an
0:15:23 expert on
0:15:25 the war in
0:15:25 Ukraine or
0:15:27 the Israeli-Palestinian
0:15:29 conflict or
0:15:30 epidemiology or
0:15:31 whatever it is.
0:15:33 And it’s a
0:15:33 free-for-all out
0:15:34 there.
0:15:34 And I just,
0:15:34 so we’re going
0:15:35 to have
0:15:35 to,
0:15:36 it may
0:15:37 require some
0:15:39 very clear
0:15:41 catastrophes born
0:15:42 of misinformation
0:15:43 to get our
0:15:44 heads screwed on
0:15:44 straight,
0:15:45 but, you know,
0:15:45 eventually we’re
0:15:46 going to bump
0:15:46 into some
0:15:47 hard objects
0:15:48 out there in
0:15:49 the real world
0:15:49 and we’re
0:15:50 going to want
0:15:50 to know what
0:15:51 real experts
0:15:51 think about
0:15:52 real problems
0:15:54 and we’re
0:15:54 going to stop
0:15:55 denying that
0:15:56 expertise is
0:15:56 really a thing.
0:15:57 And, again,
0:15:58 I’m not arguing
0:15:58 that mere
0:16:00 credentialism is the
0:16:00 way you find
0:16:01 experts.
0:16:01 it’s not,
0:16:02 you know,
0:16:03 we might go
0:16:03 into that if
0:16:04 you’re interested
0:16:05 because people
0:16:06 are confused
0:16:06 about this,
0:16:08 but the idea
0:16:09 that everyone’s
0:16:10 opinion is worth
0:16:12 hearing on every
0:16:13 topic is just
0:16:14 a colossal load
0:16:15 of bullshit
0:16:15 and everyone
0:16:16 knows this at
0:16:17 bottom and yet
0:16:19 the way we
0:16:19 interact with
0:16:20 information is
0:16:20 not reflecting
0:16:21 that.
0:16:22 I’m curious,
0:16:23 and I think you
0:16:24 share this opinion,
0:16:24 there’s been so
0:16:25 many things,
0:16:25 I don’t know if
0:16:26 you, that I
0:16:26 thought would
0:16:27 have been
0:16:28 disqualifying about
0:16:28 the Trump
0:16:29 administration just
0:16:29 in the last
0:16:30 hundred days that
0:16:30 the public would
0:16:31 have just,
0:16:32 you know,
0:16:33 that’s it,
0:16:33 they’re going to
0:16:34 regurgitate here,
0:16:34 there’s going to
0:16:35 be real pushback
0:16:36 and there hasn’t
0:16:36 been.
0:16:38 And I’ve come to
0:16:39 a very crude
0:16:39 conclusion,
0:16:40 and maybe I
0:16:41 shouldn’t conclude
0:16:41 it, or a thesis
0:16:42 I should say
0:16:43 that America
0:16:44 would rather have
0:16:45 an autocrat,
0:16:45 a kleptocrat,
0:16:46 than a weak
0:16:46 party.
0:16:48 And I saw a
0:16:48 survey yesterday
0:16:49 that said if
0:16:50 the election were
0:16:52 held, yesterday
0:16:52 even knowing what
0:16:53 we know so far
0:16:54 in the Trump
0:16:54 administration,
0:16:55 that he would
0:16:56 still win.
0:16:58 I’m curious what
0:16:59 underlying or what
0:16:59 shifts in the
0:17:00 ground,
0:17:03 you felt led to
0:17:04 his re-election
0:17:05 and what’s
0:17:06 happened since
0:17:07 then, and why
0:17:07 it just doesn’t
0:17:08 seem as if
0:17:09 there’s anything
0:17:10 that can actually
0:17:11 be disqualifying.
0:17:14 Well, on that last
0:17:15 point, I think I’m
0:17:16 as confused as
0:17:17 anyone.
0:17:17 I mean, again,
0:17:18 there are a thousand
0:17:19 things, any one of
0:17:20 which would have
0:17:23 totally wrecked the
0:17:24 presidency of any
0:17:25 other American
0:17:26 president.
0:17:27 I mean, this is
0:17:27 something that
0:17:29 President Obama
0:17:31 remarked on from
0:17:32 some stage recently,
0:17:34 where he just said,
0:17:34 you know, can you
0:17:35 imagine me doing
0:17:36 any of these things?
0:17:37 And then he went
0:17:38 through a short list
0:17:40 of things, again,
0:17:41 any one of which
0:17:42 would have been a
0:17:42 national scandal.
0:17:43 I mean, the news
0:17:44 cycle would have
0:17:45 never stopped
0:17:49 ruminating on just
0:17:50 how appalling that
0:17:51 thing was, whether
0:17:52 it’s launching a
0:17:53 meme coin, which is
0:17:55 a device calculated
0:17:56 to accept bribes
0:17:58 from crooks and
0:18:01 foreign agents, and
0:18:03 to very quickly reap
0:18:03 hundreds of millions
0:18:04 of dollars in
0:18:06 profits thereby,
0:18:08 grifting your
0:18:09 credulous cult.
0:18:10 That’s just one
0:18:10 thing.
0:18:13 I mean, it sounds
0:18:14 hyperbolic to say
0:18:15 a thousand, but
0:18:16 that’s conservative.
0:18:18 There’s well more
0:18:19 than a thousand
0:18:20 things Trump has
0:18:21 done in the last
0:18:22 ten years, said or
0:18:23 done, that would
0:18:24 be perfectly
0:18:25 disqualifying in
0:18:26 another candidate or
0:18:27 another president.
0:18:28 I mean, the meme
0:18:30 coin is such a
0:18:31 shocking act of
0:18:33 corruption.
0:18:34 It’s amazing we
0:18:35 don’t have very
0:18:37 clear laws against
0:18:37 it.
0:18:38 Apparently we don’t,
0:18:39 and we’re just
0:18:40 discovering that.
0:18:41 So the job of the
0:18:42 next president,
0:18:43 whoever that, or I
0:18:44 should say the next
0:18:46 sane and ethical
0:18:47 president, whenever
0:18:48 we get such a
0:18:50 person, may not be in
0:18:51 the next round,
0:18:53 obviously, that
0:18:53 person’s job is
0:18:55 going to, in my
0:18:56 view, is going to
0:18:57 be to do a
0:18:59 post-mortem on
0:19:00 this decade of
0:19:01 American history,
0:19:03 political history,
0:19:04 and try to figure
0:19:05 out how we never
0:19:07 become vulnerable
0:19:07 to this kind of
0:19:08 thing again.
0:19:09 I mean, clearly we
0:19:12 need a system that
0:19:13 is immune, as immune
0:19:15 as a system can be
0:19:16 to the private
0:19:17 derangement and
0:19:19 corruption of a
0:19:20 bad actor, right?
0:19:21 Because we’ve proven
0:19:22 ourselves as a
0:19:24 population, as a
0:19:25 citizenry, perfectly
0:19:27 capable of
0:19:29 electing a
0:19:30 patently
0:19:31 unqualified,
0:19:33 malicious, vindictive,
0:19:35 and morbidly
0:19:37 selfish person to
0:19:37 the highest office
0:19:38 in the land.
0:19:39 We did that.
0:19:41 I mean, we can
0:19:42 wonder why we did
0:19:43 that, but we’ve
0:19:44 proved to ourselves
0:19:45 and to the world
0:19:46 that we’re capable of
0:19:46 doing that twice,
0:19:47 right?
0:19:48 We’re capable of
0:19:49 electing a person who
0:19:50 we knew last time
0:19:50 around tried to
0:19:51 steal the election
0:19:53 and lied about it
0:19:54 having been stolen
0:19:57 from him and told
0:19:59 this lie again and
0:19:59 again as a
0:20:00 continuous provocation
0:20:01 to political
0:20:03 violence on the
0:20:04 part of his cult.
0:20:07 And all of this
0:20:09 is so weird and
0:20:11 so destructive of
0:20:13 the faith that so
0:20:14 many people have
0:20:15 had in the
0:20:15 stability of our
0:20:16 system of
0:20:17 governance that,
0:20:18 of governance,
0:20:20 that, yeah, I
0:20:20 think we have to
0:20:21 figure out what
0:20:23 laws we should have
0:20:25 had to backstop
0:20:26 some of the
0:20:27 norms we thought
0:20:27 were inviolate,
0:20:29 all of which
0:20:30 Trump and his
0:20:31 administration have
0:20:32 violated.
0:20:34 So, I mean, I’m
0:20:36 totally mystified as
0:20:37 to why people aren’t
0:20:39 as allergic to
0:20:39 these norm
0:20:41 violations as we
0:20:41 are.
0:20:41 I mean, there’s
0:20:43 just, it’s, again,
0:20:44 there’s, you could
0:20:45 name, I could easily
0:20:46 name dozens here
0:20:47 off the, you know,
0:20:50 off the cuff, but
0:20:52 it’s, I mean,
0:20:53 take just adjacent
0:20:53 to the meme
0:20:54 coin, the fact
0:20:55 that we now are
0:20:57 a country wherein
0:20:58 the president is
0:20:59 using our foreign
0:21:00 policy, our
0:21:02 tariff policy, to
0:21:03 privately,
0:21:05 personally enrich
0:21:06 himself.
0:21:07 You know, when we
0:21:08 slap a 46% tariff
0:21:10 on Vietnam, the
0:21:11 Vietnam’s response
0:21:13 to mitigate that
0:21:14 harm to their
0:21:15 economy is to
0:21:17 invite Elon to
0:21:18 give them internet
0:21:19 service through
0:21:20 Starlink, right?
0:21:21 So, that’s
0:21:22 clearly a conflict
0:21:23 of interest and
0:21:26 a moment of
0:21:27 self-dealing there
0:21:27 on the part of the
0:21:28 administration, but
0:21:29 then also to
0:21:30 greenlight a $1.5
0:21:31 billion resort
0:21:33 from the Trump
0:21:34 administration, right,
0:21:34 or from the
0:21:35 Trump family.
0:21:37 It’s just, in the
0:21:38 perfect world, people
0:21:39 would go to jail
0:21:40 for this, right?
0:21:42 And so, I just
0:21:43 don’t know how our
0:21:44 system is this
0:21:45 vulnerable.
0:21:46 It’s quite
0:21:46 shocking.
0:21:49 It’s pretty
0:21:49 obvious that the
0:21:50 system, at least in
0:21:51 the short term, does
0:21:52 not have the
0:21:53 resilience to
0:21:54 arrest this or
0:21:55 cauterize it.
0:21:57 And I think a lot
0:22:00 of Democrats are
0:22:02 disappointed there
0:22:02 hasn’t been a more
0:22:03 robust pushback.
0:22:05 If you were
0:22:05 advising the
0:22:07 Democratic Party on
0:22:08 how to be more
0:22:09 effectively or
0:22:10 robustly pushed
0:22:11 back on what’s
0:22:13 going on, assuming
0:22:14 the institutions
0:22:14 aren’t going to
0:22:15 solve the problem
0:22:16 right now, what
0:22:16 advice would you
0:22:16 give them?
0:22:19 Well, that’s very
0:22:20 hard.
0:22:21 It’s hard to see
0:22:22 what they can do.
0:22:23 I mean, Cory Booker
0:22:24 standing up for 25
0:22:25 hours and talking
0:22:27 doesn’t move the
0:22:28 needle, as far as I
0:22:28 can tell.
0:22:30 I mean, there may be
0:22:32 nothing to do short
0:22:33 of winning the
0:22:35 midterms decisively.
0:22:38 And for that, I just
0:22:38 think the Democrats
0:22:39 have to learn the
0:22:41 lesson, the obvious
0:22:43 lesson of the
0:22:44 presidential election
0:22:45 in 2024, which is
0:22:47 that the far-left
0:22:48 activist class of
0:22:50 the party has no
0:22:51 advice worth
0:22:53 listening to, right?
0:22:54 Their concerns are
0:22:55 bogus, their
0:22:57 convictions are
0:22:59 scarcely sane.
0:23:01 They have to be
0:23:02 ignored, right?
0:23:04 I mean, all, you
0:23:05 know, I view
0:23:07 Harris’s loss as
0:23:08 overdetermined, but
0:23:09 she clearly lost
0:23:12 based on her
0:23:12 efforts to
0:23:14 maintain something
0:23:15 like a, you
0:23:16 know, a game of
0:23:17 four-dimensional
0:23:19 chess with woke
0:23:21 identity politics,
0:23:21 right?
0:23:22 I mean, she was, at
0:23:22 a minimum, she was
0:23:24 unable to properly
0:23:27 disavow some of the
0:23:28 crazy things she had
0:23:29 said in 2019
0:23:30 and 2020, and
0:23:31 just whenever
0:23:32 put on the spot
0:23:34 was either
0:23:35 completely tongue-tied
0:23:36 and just stonewalling
0:23:37 or she just
0:23:39 produced something,
0:23:40 some sort of
0:23:41 woke word salad.
0:23:42 And it was
0:23:43 obvious that she
0:23:44 couldn’t be let
0:23:44 loose on Joe
0:23:45 Rogan’s podcast for
0:23:46 fear of what she
0:23:48 might say over the
0:23:49 course of three
0:23:49 hours.
0:23:52 That caution, that
0:23:53 sense that you can’t,
0:23:53 there are all these
0:23:54 third rails you can’t
0:23:56 touch, otherwise
0:23:59 the intersectional
0:24:00 maniacs will come
0:24:02 for you on X, that
0:24:03 spell has to be
0:24:04 totally broken, and
0:24:05 I’m hopeful that it
0:24:07 has been, but I’ve
0:24:08 yet to see real
0:24:09 evidence of it.
0:24:09 I mean, what we
0:24:10 need are charismatic
0:24:13 candidates who will
0:24:15 speak in, you know,
0:24:17 ad lib and at
0:24:18 length with a
0:24:19 perfectly carefree
0:24:21 attitude with respect
0:24:22 to the, you know,
0:24:23 all the various
0:24:24 shibboleths that
0:24:26 gave us wokeness over
0:24:27 the last, you know,
0:24:28 decade or so.
0:24:28 I mean, it’s just,
0:24:30 all of that has to
0:24:33 be just continuously
0:24:34 violated with
0:24:35 abandon.
0:24:36 And I’m not saying
0:24:36 that we suddenly
0:24:37 turn into bigots,
0:24:39 but there’s clearly a
0:24:42 line that protects
0:24:43 the, you know, any
0:24:44 sane political
0:24:46 commitment to social
0:24:47 justice, I mean, of
0:24:48 a sort that we, you
0:24:48 know, that could have
0:24:49 come out of the
0:24:50 mouth of someone
0:24:51 like Martin Luther
0:24:54 King Jr., which has
0:24:56 us speaking sanely
0:24:57 about things like
0:24:59 immigration and, you
0:25:00 know, youth, gender,
0:25:02 dysphoria, et cetera, in
0:25:03 ways that don’t, won’t
0:25:04 alienate half of
0:25:05 American society.
0:25:06 And we have to do
0:25:07 that immediately and we
0:25:08 have to find the stars
0:25:10 in the Democratic Party
0:25:11 who stand a chance of
0:25:13 getting elected to
0:25:14 Congress and to the
0:25:16 presidency in the next
0:25:16 elections.
0:25:18 Do you think it’s fair
0:25:19 to say that the
0:25:20 Democrats have their
0:25:20 hearts in the right
0:25:21 place, but they go too
0:25:24 far and then they kind
0:25:25 of invite an overreaction
0:25:26 and that’s sort of
0:25:27 playing out here?
0:25:28 Yeah.
0:25:29 So in that sense, I
0:25:32 find the left fairly
0:25:34 culpable for Trump and
0:25:35 Trumpism, right?
0:25:35 I just think it was
0:25:38 obvious what should have
0:25:40 been said about all of
0:25:40 these cultural war
0:25:43 issues that would have
0:25:44 been acceptable and
0:25:46 sane, even if it
0:25:48 departed from what
0:25:49 the far right wants,
0:25:50 it wouldn’t have, it
0:25:51 wouldn’t have been a
0:25:54 continuous SNL sketch
0:25:56 of identitarian moral
0:25:57 confusion, right?
0:25:59 And so given that the
0:26:01 party got that captured
0:26:03 by these, which was
0:26:04 effectively a new
0:26:06 religion of, at the
0:26:07 center of which was a
0:26:08 kind of moral panic,
0:26:10 and the idea that in
0:26:11 the aftermath of a
0:26:12 two-term black
0:26:14 presidency, not only had
0:26:16 we made no progress on
0:26:17 race issues in this
0:26:18 country, racism was
0:26:19 somehow at its most
0:26:22 excruciating high tide,
0:26:22 right?
0:26:24 Like, it’s just,
0:26:26 everything was wrong.
0:26:27 Systemic racism was
0:26:28 everywhere.
0:26:29 And, you know, I mean,
0:26:32 Joe Biden gave a speech,
0:26:33 I think it was to
0:26:34 Morehouse College, very
0:26:34 early in his
0:26:37 presidency, which was the
0:26:39 most delusional piece
0:26:43 of pandering to the far
0:26:44 left on this particular
0:26:44 issue.
0:26:45 I mean, he stood up in
0:26:47 front of these black
0:26:49 graduates and said, you
0:26:51 know, the deck is so
0:26:52 stacked against you, you’re
0:26:53 not only going to have to
0:26:53 be the best, you’re going
0:26:54 to have to be better than
0:26:56 the best to get your foot
0:26:58 in the door in this
0:26:58 society.
0:26:59 It’s so poisoned by
0:27:00 racism.
0:27:01 And he said this at a
0:27:03 time when everyone,
0:27:04 literally everyone,
0:27:05 knew that not only was
0:27:06 this not true, the
0:27:07 opposite was true.
0:27:08 If you’re at all
0:27:10 qualified, if you’re a
0:27:12 black graduate of a good
0:27:14 institution in the year,
0:27:15 you know, this I guess was
0:27:19 2021, the chance that you
0:27:20 were going to get into
0:27:21 medical school or get
0:27:21 into, get a job at
0:27:23 Netflix or get into, you
0:27:24 know, get a job at the
0:27:25 Ford Foundation or whatever,
0:27:26 the Bill and Melinda Gates
0:27:28 Foundation, anywhere, any
0:27:30 high status job, right, or
0:27:33 position in academia, was
0:27:35 not only not harmed by being
0:27:37 black, you were positively
0:27:38 advantaged by being
0:27:38 black.
0:27:39 Literally everyone knew
0:27:40 this.
0:27:41 They had known it for
0:27:42 years, and yet the
0:27:42 president of the United
0:27:44 States is telling the
0:27:45 graduating class of a
0:27:47 black college that they’re
0:27:49 under the boot of a racist
0:27:51 patriarchy.
0:27:52 Undoubtedly, he would
0:27:54 have added the variable of
0:27:56 gender as well if he’d been
0:27:57 given the chance.
0:27:58 I mean, it’s just, it was
0:28:00 pure delusion, and everyone
0:28:01 knew it.
0:28:04 And so I think that that
0:28:05 bell has to be unrung
0:28:07 somehow left of center.
0:28:08 I think it’s in the
0:28:09 process of being, I think
0:28:11 we’re, we no longer
0:28:12 believe this stuff.
0:28:15 And DEI is now, you
0:28:18 know, the acronym is
0:28:22 radioactive, I think for
0:28:23 good reason.
0:28:25 Again, none of this is to
0:28:27 repudiate a commitment to
0:28:29 civil rights, and none of
0:28:30 it’s to ignore that there
0:28:32 are still real racists in
0:28:34 our society and real threats
0:28:36 of racism, and probably
0:28:38 policies that, that, you
0:28:40 know, meet the test of
0:28:41 institutional racism that
0:28:43 still need to be found and
0:28:43 changed.
0:28:44 I mean, all of that’s true,
0:28:47 but this tip over into
0:28:48 reverse racism, which really
0:28:51 was what DEI became, was
0:28:53 totally dysfunctional and
0:28:55 unethical, and, and yeah,
0:28:57 I mean, it gave us, in large
0:28:58 measure, it gave us
0:28:58 Trumpism.
0:29:00 Do you distinguish between
0:29:01 DEI efforts on campuses
0:29:04 where, you know, 60 years
0:29:06 ago, Harvard, Princeton, Yale,
0:29:07 12 black people combined,
0:29:08 that’s a problem, but now
0:29:09 60% of Harvard’s freshman
0:29:11 class identifies as non-white
0:29:14 versus the corporate world
0:29:15 where we still have, I think
0:29:17 about 80 of the Fortune 500
0:29:20 CEOs or 16% are women, that
0:29:21 there still are a lot of
0:29:24 companies who their boards
0:29:25 and their CEOs and their
0:29:27 senior management just are
0:29:30 much different than their
0:29:32 broader employee base or
0:29:33 their customer base.
0:29:34 Do you make any distinction
0:29:36 between kind of DEI and how
0:29:37 far it’s gone or not gone
0:29:39 between academic institutions
0:29:40 and the private sector?
0:29:43 Well, I think it’s a complex
0:29:44 problem, and I think it
0:29:46 changes depending on the
0:29:49 context and the identity
0:29:51 you’re talking about, right?
0:29:52 So for like women in the
0:29:53 workplace, there’s the
0:29:54 obvious variable of, you
0:29:56 know, women deciding to
0:29:57 have families, getting
0:29:59 pregnant, and the asymmetry
0:30:00 there, what happens to them
0:30:01 versus what happens to men
0:30:04 who, you know, ride
0:30:05 shotgun with them and also
0:30:06 just get to have families.
0:30:07 That has obvious
0:30:09 consequences, and I think,
0:30:10 you know, that, you know,
0:30:13 the wage gap, what I
0:30:14 imagine is true is that if
0:30:16 you correct for the effect
0:30:18 of, you know, losing those
0:30:19 years of your life to
0:30:21 pregnancy and raising kids,
0:30:23 you know, that closes the
0:30:25 wage gap, and it also
0:30:26 probably accounts for the
0:30:27 some of the differing
0:30:28 ambitions between men and
0:30:30 women, and those are
0:30:31 differences that we might
0:30:32 not want to correct for in
0:30:33 the end.
0:30:34 We might want some other
0:30:35 way of correcting for it.
0:30:37 I mean, I think it’s hard to
0:30:38 know what is optimal there.
0:30:39 I don’t, you know, the idea
0:30:43 that every person is, it just
0:30:45 wants to be a CEO really at
0:30:47 bottom and wants to make the
0:30:49 sacrifices that entails.
0:30:50 I think that’s, you know,
0:30:52 probably not true, and it’s
0:30:53 probably good that it is very
0:30:54 good that it’s not true.
0:30:56 You know, I just think we had a
0:30:59 moment in the 60s where a
0:31:03 fairly heavy-handed approach to
0:31:04 righting the wrongs of the
0:31:06 past was warranted, right?
0:31:08 And so I think it was totally,
0:31:10 I think our approach to
0:31:11 affirmative action then was
0:31:13 totally justifiable, and then
0:31:16 we entered a period where it
0:31:18 did all the good it could do,
0:31:19 and it started doing some
0:31:19 obvious harms.
0:31:21 For me, the goal is quite
0:31:24 clear, and it is a goal that
0:31:25 people like Martin Luther King
0:31:27 Jr. explicitly articulated,
0:31:28 which is we want to get to a
0:31:30 colorblind society, which is
0:31:32 not to say that it’s a
0:31:33 society where no one notices,
0:31:35 you know, the superficial
0:31:36 characteristics between people,
0:31:38 but that those characteristics
0:31:39 don’t matter, right?
0:31:40 That there’s no political or
0:31:42 moral significance to the
0:31:43 color of a person’s skin.
0:31:44 We want to get to that
0:31:48 world, and we were and are, I
0:31:49 think, very close to getting to
0:31:49 that world.
0:31:52 Some of us live in that world
0:31:53 already.
0:31:55 I mean, you know, in high status
0:31:58 parts of culture, for much of the
0:32:00 time, that’s how you experience
0:32:03 life, and I’m sure it is in other
0:32:06 parts of culture, but insofar as we
0:32:07 haven’t perfectly gotten there, we
0:32:08 want to get there.
0:32:09 The problem with the far left is
0:32:11 that they explicitly have
0:32:13 disavowed that as the goal.
0:32:15 They don’t think colorblindness is
0:32:15 a rational goal.
0:32:18 What they want to do is play this
0:32:21 intersectional game of, you know,
0:32:23 power politics across identity
0:32:27 groups, wherein, you know, white
0:32:31 males have the least rank, and so
0:32:33 you just flip the hierarchy on its
0:32:36 head, and they want to prosecute
0:32:37 this war of all against all until
0:32:38 the end of time, right?
0:32:40 And again, this goal and the
0:32:42 disavowal of colorblindness has
0:32:43 been explicit.
0:32:46 They think there’s no getting over
0:32:47 race.
0:32:49 Race is just super important and
0:32:53 super indelible, and therefore,
0:32:54 we’ve been living in a society,
0:32:57 again, I think the vapors of this
0:33:00 lunacy are getting expunged, but
0:33:03 rolling back the clock prior to the
0:33:05 2024 election, we were living in a
0:33:10 world where left of center, people
0:33:13 cared about race as much as—the only
0:33:15 people right of center who cared about
0:33:18 race as much as the left wing of the
0:33:21 Democratic Party are white supremacists
0:33:23 and neo-Nazis and actual racists.
0:33:25 I mean, that was what was so perverse
0:33:25 about this.
0:33:29 There were documents issued by, you know,
0:33:32 like the Democratic Party itself and
0:33:34 certainly every activist group
0:33:36 supporting it, which if you had done a
0:33:38 search for place for white and black in
0:33:39 those documents, they would have read
0:33:42 like Ku Klux Klan pamphlets from the
0:33:44 early 20th century, right?
0:33:47 It’s just—it was completely bonkers, and
0:33:50 how we lived so long under that mania is,
0:33:52 again, is another one of these inscrutable
0:33:52 things.
0:33:54 I mean, we can now say the same thing
0:33:55 about Trumpistan.
0:33:58 I mean, how is it that all of this is
0:34:01 passing among otherwise sane people?
0:34:04 It’s a mystery, but it’s, you know, the
0:34:07 left is largely culpable for this pendulum
0:34:12 swing into populist, no-nothingism, and,
0:34:16 you know, the way immigration got
0:34:16 weaponized.
0:34:19 I mean, yes, there were both sides
0:34:21 accounted for how we got here.
0:34:25 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
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0:37:55 So you live in L.A.
0:37:59 I went to college in L.A., UCLA, and in 1997, they did
0:38:01 away with race-based affirmative action, and they
0:38:05 moved to kind of an adversity score, which is
0:38:07 essentially, the way I can best describe it, would be
0:38:10 affirmative action based on income as opposed to race
0:38:11 or sexual orientation.
0:38:15 Do you think that’s a good model, or are you part of the
0:38:18 kind of merit-only philosophy?
0:38:23 No, I think, I mean, I’m very worried, as I know you
0:38:28 are, about wealth inequality and income inequality, I think
0:38:30 wealth inequality more so.
0:38:35 And I think correcting for that is an intrinsic good.
0:38:42 I think that this is a real disparity in luck that, you
0:38:45 know, people suffer everywhere, you know, within our society
0:38:51 and across societies, and insofar as we can cancel it, I
0:38:53 mean, you know, I don’t think, I think we should be
0:38:55 tolerant of a certain amount of inequality, because I think
0:38:59 that is, it is part of the flywheel of capitalism that some
0:39:02 people can get up earlier in the morning and strive harder and,
0:39:06 you know, miss dinners with their kids and earn, you know,
0:39:10 more money as a result because they just had that
0:39:12 entrepreneurial ambition.
0:39:14 I think we want to preserve that.
0:39:17 I think we want all the incentives that, you know, if there’s a
0:39:20 better incentive structure than capitalism, we haven’t found it
0:39:26 yet for producing wealth and creativity, again, that we all
0:39:28 benefit from, even the lazy benefit from it.
0:39:35 But, no, there are people who were born to immense advantages that
0:39:39 others don’t have, and we should try to figure out how to correct
0:39:43 for that. And one of the disadvantages historically in the United
0:39:47 States, certainly, has been the, you know, the ambient level of
0:39:54 racist bigotry and an exclusion from economic opportunity on that
0:39:57 basis, right? So, yes, I mean, I think it’s still true to say that
0:40:06 black families have, on average, one-eighth the level of stored wealth
0:40:12 as white families. And one must imagine that the legacy of racism has a lot
0:40:17 to do with it. The crucial thing to realize, however, is that the thing
0:40:25 that is stopping any person from getting ahead now is very unlikely to be
0:40:31 racism now, right? So that’s the thing that was so misguided about so much
0:40:36 of DEI thinking, right? It’s like, you know, if you wave a magic wand and get
0:40:43 rid of all the racists, you’re still not going to suddenly have more, you know,
0:40:47 Fortune 500 people, you know, more members of the black community who are
0:40:54 qualified to be Fortune 500 CEOs or cardiologists or etc. So there are economic
0:41:01 disparities, which are riding on top of educational disparities and disparities in
0:41:07 health outcomes and, you know, single-parent families at a much higher rate, etc. But if
0:41:16 you use class as your proxy for all of your other concerns about disparities of
0:41:21 outcome, again, educational, health, etc., I think you do a lot of good and you also
0:41:28 disproportionately help people of color because as a, you know, class, their
0:41:33 identity, the various identity groups are highly correlated with disparities in class
0:41:34 difference.
0:41:43 Yeah. So we’re both dads. You know, we think a lot about, write a lot about and speak a
0:41:50 lot about the struggles of young men right now. They’re just as well and as much
0:41:55 advantage as men have registered over the last, you know, several hundred, couple thousand
0:42:01 years. The last 20, 30 years, it would be hard to point to a group that’s done worse in America
0:42:08 than young men. I’m curious as a dad and as someone who’s a keen observer of culture and
0:42:15 society, what do you think has led to this? And any thoughts as a dad or just someone as an
0:42:23 observer on how what we can do or what society, assuming you agree it’s a problem, can do to
0:42:29 help sort of right the ship around young men, you know, again, starting to participate or
0:42:32 be more productive members of society?
0:42:40 Well, I must say as a father of two girls, one in her teens and one soon to be, it’s very
0:42:45 easy for me to be taken in by the view of young men as just rapacious hoodlums who need to be
0:42:52 viewed as a problem. But I can dimly remember that I was once a young man and I know this problem
0:43:00 from the other side, obviously. No, I mean, I think you have been a great voice of reason on this topic
0:43:09 and a counterpoint to many of the examples that are getting, that are serving as sort of pathological
0:43:15 attractors to young men in our society. People like Andrew Tate, right? Like you, you know, you’re like
0:43:21 the anti-Andrew Tate and, you know, that’s a good thing. I mean, we need, we need more people like
0:43:30 you who are modeling masculinity in a way that is ethical and, um, and just, just kind of conversant
0:43:35 in the, in the skillset you want young men to be conversant in, right? I mean, it’s, it’s really,
0:43:42 it’s amazing if you kind of hold your body of work up against, you know, the, the Andrew
0:43:49 tateification of, uh, similar topics. It’s, um, you know, you’re, you’re checking similar
0:43:54 boxes, right? I mean, it’s like, it’s all, you know, economic independence is, you know,
0:44:00 is one variable, but you, when you look at the diabolical version of it, it is all about just
0:44:09 the, the most, um, obscene materialism, right? Without any, any deeper aspiration, right? Without
0:44:15 any ethical engagement with the problems of, of this world, it’s just, if you can get a Bugatti,
0:44:21 you know, or rent one in Dubai, you know, and pretend, and, and, and pretend to your, you know,
0:44:27 fans that you, that this is your lifestyle, you’ve basically accomplished everything you need in life,
0:44:32 right? I mean, that’s, and, and so that, that is something that we need to, to offer a counterpoint
0:44:36 to. And, um, I think you’re doing that. I think you’re doing a great job of it.
0:44:38 I think you’re being generous.
0:44:44 No, I mean, honestly not. I mean, it’s just, you’re, I think you do a fantastic job of, uh,
0:44:51 putting the lie to the notion that, that money can’t buy you happiness in any sense, right? I mean,
0:44:56 we, we know that’s not true. We know that being poor or being subjected, not even poor, but just
0:45:03 having financial stress be a major component of your life. We know that’s corrosive to a feeling
0:45:08 of, of wellbeing. And we know it’s corrosive to marriages and relationships. And, uh, and so you,
0:45:17 you know, you have taken the taboo off of talking about wealth in an aspirational way. Uh, and you
0:45:22 found a way of doing it. That’s not icky. That’s not, that doesn’t disregard the problem of wealth
0:45:27 and equality and the ethical burden of, you know, being generous and, and creating a, a social safety
0:45:33 net and paying taxes and, you know, everything in that bucket that, that is the antithesis of what
0:45:39 the, the president of the United States, uh, or his various acolytes like Elon Musk message about. I mean,
0:45:44 it’s just, it’s, it’s, it’s counter-programming that that’s absolutely necessary. And, and so, you know,
0:45:51 I view you as a great, um, messenger of, of what it’s like to be a good citizen and a good man and just,
0:45:57 just a mensch. I mean, the word we have, the, the, the only good word we have for it is, is, is, uh,
0:46:00 Yiddish, you know, it’s a, you know, you’re a mensch. So keep it up.
0:46:07 Well, let me, let me just say, I’m really enjoying this podcast so far, Sam. Um, so like men, young men
0:46:11 are going to look up to just naturally the president of the United States and the world’s wealthiest man.
0:46:16 And I don’t think Donald Trump, I’m not sure Donald Trump was ever what you would call an
0:46:23 aspirational man or a good person, but my senses, and you’ve written about this, Elon Musk, you were
0:46:30 friends with and had a lot of admiration for, and I think you had a similar type of relationship with
0:46:36 Joe Rogan. And then, and, and I see one of the things I love about America is I do think there’s
0:46:44 a zeitgeist guideposts, a natural gravity towards once you experience success, it becomes correlated
0:46:49 with trying to be kinder or start to think bigger picture about leaving your mark on society in a
0:46:55 positive way. Even the robber barons at some point flipped the script and said, what can I build here
0:47:04 with my wealth that would serve society well? And it seems as if those rivers have reversed and that
0:47:10 some of our most powerful people, as they get more powerful or a broader platform, don’t evolve, but
0:47:17 digress. Do you have any sense for why that is happening now across some of our most powerful and
0:47:25 influential men? Yeah. Well, I think just a few people can do a lot of harm to the culture. I mean,
0:47:33 you have any, in the person of Elon, just this unique example of somebody who, um, has so many obvious,
0:47:40 genuine gifts. I mean, you know, above all as an entrepreneur, I mean, he, he’s clearly, uh, has a
0:47:45 vision and can sell that vision to, to lots of talented people and to, you know, tens of thousands of
0:47:52 talented people who want, who will, you know, you know, stumble over themselves to get a chance to
0:47:59 work for him. And, um, they can do some amazing things, right? So he’s, so he’s aspirational and a
0:48:06 great model of, of success in that regard. But, you know, he’s had this kind of personal unraveling,
0:48:13 which I’m at pains to explain apart from just the influence that Twitter and now X has had on his brain,
0:48:19 uh, and the influence of, you know, fame, I guess, um, a certain kind of fame that, to which he’s
0:48:26 clearly addicted, um, that has just encouraged him to become this very different sort of person.
0:48:29 And whether he was always this sort of person, just kind of waiting to get out and I didn’t see it,
0:48:35 I don’t know. I mean, I, so I’m, I’m forced to believe I, one of two things, either he’s changed a
0:48:40 lot, having become the richest and one of the most famous people on earth, uh, or I just didn’t know
0:48:45 him in the first place. Right. So let me just press pause. You’re, you’re a neuroscientist. Do you
0:48:50 think ketamine could have anything to do with it? Yeah. I mean, I, so I’ve, I just heard, I’ve heard
0:48:55 the reports that you’ve heard. I mean, this was reported in the wall street journal. Um, if I wanted
0:49:01 to dig in his circle, like I’m sure I could find, you know, uh, firsthand reports of how much of that’s
0:49:07 true, but, um, yeah, if he is using ketamine as, as frequently as was reported, that certainly can’t
0:49:16 help. Right. I mean, he’s, he’s, um, but he’s just, uh, honestly, his engagement with, with X,
0:49:25 um, was so dysfunctional for so long, even before he bought it. Um, and, and, um, it became his, you
0:49:31 know, seemingly full-time preoccupation. It’s just this, it did something. I mean, you know, everyone
0:49:38 who, who’s ever, it was ever addicted to it, or, you know, it’s just too, uh, fixated on it has a,
0:49:41 you know, a homeopathic dose of this. I mean, they know it, like I, you know, I got off of Twitter
0:49:49 now, um, two and a half years ago because of how demonstrably harmful it was, it was proving in my
0:49:54 life. And I was never somebody who was addicted to it. I was just somebody who was using it as an author
0:49:59 and as a, you know, as a speaker and a podcaster, I just thought it was a necessary marketing channel.
0:50:04 And it was also just very tempting to talk to other prominent people and, and, uh, you know,
0:50:10 try to clean, clean up misinformation and react to things. And so I was using it in a normal way.
0:50:16 I mean, and I do not consider Elon’s use of it at all normal, but it was still probably the worst
0:50:22 thing I did to my life in the last 10 years. Right. And, and, you know, the, and getting off
0:50:27 of it was, I’m always embarrassed to admit the best thing, the best life hack I have found in the last
0:50:32 decade. I mean, it was completely transformational of my life to get off Twitter. And that’s just a sign
0:50:38 of how, uh, debasing it was for me to use it the way I was using it. Um, and again, I was, I was not a
0:50:44 super tweeter. I was maybe, you know, on average once a day or so a couple of times a day, but I would go
0:50:50 for days without doing it, but it was still punctuating my life in a way, uh, and amplifying a certain
0:50:56 kind of signal in a way that was, was proving quite harmful, um, and quite disorienting. And I think it
0:51:00 was just giving, it was turning me into a bit of a misanthrope. I mean, it was, I was seeing the worst
0:51:05 in people, you know, pretty much all the time. I mean, just whenever I looked at my phone, I was just seeing
0:51:14 some awful piece of, um, you know, dishonesty or malice broadcast to me by people who I, who I
0:51:19 knew in their, in normal, you know, certainly most of them in their, in their private and even public
0:51:26 lives were not this sort of person. But in this context, it was, it was amplifying for the worst in
0:51:34 people. And so, you know, Elon has just performed a kind of human sacrifice of himself on the altar of
0:51:41 that, of, um, that set of incentives. And he’s acts like a, you know, whether he is a psychopath or not,
0:51:46 he acts like one, right? And I, and I’m not, I’m not actually exaggerating. He acts like a psychopath
0:51:54 on X. He’s completely callous as to the harms he caused and all the while knowing the harms he causes,
0:52:01 both in the lives of private citizens who get doxed and get, you know, swarmed by his cult,
0:52:07 uh, and just the harm he causes in the world. I mean, just the, his adventures in doge when he,
0:52:13 you know, fed on his account, fed USAID into the wood chipper and stopped, you know, life-saving
0:52:18 programs in sub-Saharan Africa, which people immediately recognized would, would lead to death,
0:52:25 you know, in very short order. And if not corrected for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of deaths
0:52:31 within a year, right, he, he, the attitude he took to all of that was one of just, you know,
0:52:38 probably, you know, fentanyl addled ecstasy, right? I mean, he was just, he just reveled in the chaos he
0:52:43 was causing. And so it was with his, you know, Hitler salutes, which, you know, may have not been
0:52:48 Hitler salutes. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s just a moron, uh, who has just
0:52:53 bad, you know, awkward body English, uh, who knows what he was up to there with his, my heart goes
0:53:00 out to you. And now I look like Adolf Hitler, uh, you know, twice, uh, in a row, but whatever his
0:53:07 intentions, when he saw the blowback, when he saw how much, when he saw that every anti-Semite on planet
0:53:15 earth was celebrating, right? He could have very easily have signaled to his 210 million, whatever, whatever
0:53:20 it was at that point. Followers, listen, this is, I see how, I see what that looked like. You know,
0:53:25 sorry, that’s embarrassing. Obviously I despise anti-Semitism. And if you’re an anti-Semite,
0:53:31 please unfollow me, right? Like that would have been the sane, ethical, manly thing to do, right? But
0:53:38 instead he just made Nazi jokes and trolled the world, right? Uh, all the while, uh, signal boosting
0:53:43 the accounts of real anti-Semites and bringing real anti-Semites back onto the, onto Twitter with great
0:53:48 fanfare and people like Nick Fuentes, uh, and also funding the far right party in Germany to,
0:53:54 to boot, right? I mean, it’s just he, so his contributions to the greatest eruption of anti-Semitism
0:54:02 in our lifetime have been at best ambiguous. And, uh, yeah, he’s, it’s just totally irresponsible.
0:54:10 So the fact that, that he is the cultural influence he has been, um, has been directly harmful to a
0:54:13 generation of young men who have worshiped him. I mean, I think the greatest thing to,
0:54:20 to ding his reputation, and it really should have been a fatal blow was the gaming, uh,
0:54:25 controversy where he, where it was revealed. He was pretending to be one of the best gamers
0:54:31 on earth. I don’t know if you saw this, Scott, but, um, you know, a bunch of gamers saw him play
0:54:36 one of these games in public and it was totally clear. I’m not a gamer, so I can’t get into the
0:54:42 details here, but apparently it was, it was clear to a, to a moral certainty that, uh, he did not have
0:54:47 the skills he was pretending to have. He had paid someone to build out his character, someone very
0:54:53 likely, you know, in China to play 24 hours a day and, uh, build out his character to superhuman levels,
0:54:58 uh, so that he could inherit all those powers and then display them ineptly in front of the gamers who
0:55:02 actually knew how to play the game. But he had gone on Joe Rogan’s podcast and Lex Friedman’s
0:55:08 podcast and lied to their face about being a top 10. And in some cases, uh, you know, the best gamer
0:55:15 in the world, uh, on certain games and what, when they lavished praise on him, you know, just talking
0:55:20 about what you just, that, that suggested that he has, you know, a kind of a neurological, uh, you know,
0:55:26 a six sigma level, you know, neurological health that, that, uh, you know, would predispose him to those
0:55:30 abilities. Uh, he totally owned it. It’s like, yeah, you know, it’s gaming as a great surrogate
0:55:35 for all kinds of talents. And yeah, it’s really, and it’s, he was lying about all that. Right. So
0:55:40 that if anything was going to destroy his reputation with a young man, I thought that was going to be
0:55:45 it. And I think it probably did in, in gaming circles. We’ll be right back.
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0:58:16 Hey there, this is Peter Kafka, the host of Channels. And this week I’m talking to Scott Frank,
0:58:20 the writer and director who moved from movies to Netflix, which is where you can see Department
0:58:26 Q, his newest hit. And we talked about how no one knows what the future of Hollywood is going to be
0:58:30 like, except that it won’t be like the past. This business hasn’t landed where it’s going to land
0:58:35 yet. And people keep looking backwards and saying, no, we just need to get movie going back to where
0:58:40 it was. That boat sailed. That’s not going to happen anymore. That’s this week on Channels,
0:58:42 wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
0:58:51 We’re back with more from Sam Harris.
0:58:59 I have to credit you. You’re the first time we had dinner, you gave me permission to get off of
0:59:06 Twitter. I said, I, I, I acknowledge that probably 20 or 30% of my mental health episodes over the last
0:59:10 few years had been triggered by something on Twitter. And you said, why are you there? I’m like, well,
0:59:14 got a big following, half a million people. And I think, how many did you walk away from?
0:59:19 Uh, I think I had 1.5 million when I pulled the cord.
0:59:25 And I, I, I got off and it’s exactly what you said. It’s been one of the most accretive things
0:59:29 to my mental health that I’ve done in the last 10 years. And what you realize the thing I’ve,
0:59:33 I’m curious if you feel this way, once you’re off it, you’re off at three or four months,
0:59:41 you recognize just how small it is. That it really is a, it is a small part of the world that is
0:59:48 occupying way too much of your world. I have no difference in my life. None, except I’m not,
0:59:58 I don’t venture into this strange moon of, of Mars that’s hostile and, and biased and weird and angry.
1:00:04 And it’s like, why was I, why was I vacationing there? You know, seven times a day, you know,
1:00:09 I’m, I’ve talked a lot about this a lot on the pod. And when I was younger, I didn’t have enough
1:00:12 anxiety. I wasn’t worried about anything. I almost failed out of UCLA several times. I didn’t really
1:00:17 care. Almost got fired a lot. Didn’t really care. Sleepwalking through life, kind of 30 to 40,
1:00:22 the right amount of anxiety, enough anxiety to be productive, worry about the right things.
1:00:26 Now I have too much anxiety. I worry about everything. Anything happens with my kids,
1:00:32 I worry. And lately I’ve had a really difficult time disassociating from things I can control and I
1:00:36 can’t control specifically some of the things that are happening around the Trump administration.
1:00:42 I mean, it’s like, this shit really rattles me. Like it’s taking time for my presence
1:00:47 and ability to just stay focused on the really important things in my life, such as when I’m
1:00:52 with my kids or with my partner. I’m curious if you struggle with some of those same things,
1:00:57 your inability to disassociate from these, some of these things that are going on. And if you are
1:01:01 able to do with it, what are the vehicles and practices for helping you do that?
1:01:07 Yeah. Well, as you know, or I think, you know, meditation has been a very big focus of mine.
1:01:14 And I mean, for me, that really is the, it’s a kind of superpower because it, I mean, at a certain
1:01:20 point you recognize that your mind is all you have really. I mean, obviously you, you have a body,
1:01:26 you have circumstances in the world. I mean, things matter, but your, your reaction to what happens
1:01:33 is so much more important in, in, in almost every case than what, than what happens.
1:01:41 There’s so much, so much room for being on the negative side, being needlessly, pointlessly
1:01:47 unhappy, right? I mean, worrying when worry does absolutely no good. And you, you just suffer twice,
1:01:52 right? If the bad thing happens and you were worrying the whole time before it happened, well,
1:01:56 then you got to, you got to suffer all the way up to the bad thing happening. If it didn’t happen,
1:02:05 your, your worry was, it was truly a hallucination, but in no case does, I mean, for me, negative mental
1:02:12 states like anxiety are useful in a very punctate way in that they give you information about the world
1:02:15 or your, your place in the world or some, you know, something that needs to be responded to.
1:02:23 But then for virtually every moment thereafter that state, whether it’s anxiety or anger or
1:02:29 impatience or, or, you know, just pick your, your flavor, that state is almost always counterproductive,
1:02:34 right? Which is to say you, you, you want to be in a different state when you’re, you’re actually
1:02:38 solving the problem at hand, or you’re just waiting to see what happens, right? I mean, there, there are
1:02:42 many problems, as you point out, that we’re powerless to solve and we’re just kind of witnessing
1:02:48 this kind of slow, slow rolling emergency. The question is, how unhappy do you have to be
1:02:54 living under that condition of uncertainty? And the answer you find when you learn to meditate is
1:03:04 not unhappy at all, really. And so, so my life is a very strange bifurcation between having kind of a
1:03:11 very high level of personal wellbeing, you know, certainly most of the time, and also being very
1:03:16 concerned about the state of our world, right? I mean, so I, I spend most of my time professionally
1:03:22 and even just, you know, personally, privately focusing on the bad things that are happening
1:03:26 and the bad things that may yet happen, the bad things I’m, I, I think it’s rational to worry
1:03:35 will happen or very likely will happen. And yet my life is so good. I’m so, it’s so good in,
1:03:42 in, in, in superficial, you know, contingent ways that could change as much of that is born of my
1:03:49 ability to notice what I’m doing with my attention and to cease to do the dumb thing that is causing
1:03:52 me to be miserable in, in this moment, right?
1:03:54 And you get that perspective from meditation?
1:03:59 Yeah. I mean, so, you know, mindfulness for lack of a better word, I mean, that’s, that does
1:04:05 cover basically what I mean, but it’s something I get into in, in much greater detail in over at
1:04:11 waking up, which is the meditation app that, um, I have and in my book by that same title,
1:04:18 but briefly, it’s just, I mean, if you’re, if you’re suffering, you’re almost certainly thinking
1:04:25 without noticing your thinking, without noticing the power of thought to determine how you feel and
1:04:32 react in each moment to, to just your sensory and raw sensory existence, right? I mean, you’re just,
1:04:36 you’re just, in each moment, you’re just seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching,
1:04:43 uh, and thinking and the, and, and therefore feeling various moods and emotions and the role
1:04:48 that thought plays there, the role that our, our captivity to thought, our, our unawareness of, of
1:04:53 any alternative to being identified with each thought that passes through consciousness,
1:04:58 that role is decisive. I mean, it’s every bit as decisive as, you know, when you’re asleep and
1:05:03 dreaming and you don’t know you’re dreaming, right? You, you’re safely in your bed and in reality,
1:05:06 you’re safely in your bed, but you, now you’re having some horrible dream.
1:05:12 That, you know, plunges you into shame, right? Or, or, uh, fear or some other negative mental state
1:05:19 that the, the, the neurology of that, right? The, the, the failure of reality testing, the fact that
1:05:26 your, your, your conscious life can be completely subsumed by self-generated imagery. That is a, a,
1:05:32 a, a version of that is happening to us in the waking state. And we call it thought, you know,
1:05:36 we call it ourselves, really. We call it me. It’s like, what are you talking about? It’s just me here.
1:05:41 I’m thinking, I’m, I’m the thinker, right? I’m, these thoughts are in my voice, right? That’s the,
1:05:47 that sense of being identified with, with thought is something that is, is a spell that gets broken
1:05:54 ultimately when you actually learn how to meditate. And it does give you this, this degree of freedom
1:06:00 that people otherwise don’t have, which is to just, just get off the ride, right? You’re, you’re feeling
1:06:04 miserable because you’re thinking about the thing that happened yesterday or the thing that might happen
1:06:12 tomorrow. You can actually get off that ride. Uh, even if, and you can get off of it, even if it’s,
1:06:19 if it’s a real problem, right? It’s like, you know, your kid has some scary illness and you’re going
1:06:24 from doctor to doctor and you don’t know what, what’s what, and you have real reason to be worried,
1:06:28 right? I’ve been in that situation. You know, it’s, of course you’re going to be unhappy,
1:06:35 but the question is how unhappy do you have to be? How contracted do you have to be? How ruled do
1:06:41 you have to be by your thoughts from this moment to the net, until that you get the net, the appointment
1:06:48 next Tuesday or to, until you get the results of the scan, you know, you got a scan on Friday and,
1:06:51 you know, perversely, we have a medical system that doesn’t work on weekends, right? So you,
1:06:58 you have to wait until Monday for the results of an MRI. Um, if you’re lucky, uh, how,
1:07:06 how riddled by anxiety do you have to be? Meditation gives you a freedom to just actually,
1:07:13 just enjoy the beauty of your life in the meantime. Uh, because you’re going to, you’re going to be there
1:07:18 to deal with it when you actually have to deal with it. I mean, Monday will come around and then
1:07:24 you’ll be the guy who has to absorb whatever information you get. And the question is, do you
1:07:30 want to, to do that well and to be a good father in that context? Do you want to be the guy who was
1:07:34 just racked by anxiety all weekend? Or do you want to be the guy who actually had a good time with his
1:07:40 kids on the weekend? And then you get the information on Monday, right? It’s like, we’re all going to die,
1:07:44 you know, where this is all going, right? All right. We’re going to die. Our kids are hopefully
1:07:49 are going to live long enough to be old enough to be, you know, the ripe old age that, that it’s
1:07:54 appropriate to die, but impermanence reigns, right? So the question is, how can we be happy
1:08:01 under conditions where the punchline is that everything changes, right? And that you, that
1:08:07 everything that is gathered gets ultimately dispersed, right? That’s, that’s what’s, that’s the
1:08:14 situation we’re in. The people who, who first figured out how to meditate, figured out that you,
1:08:20 that how you use attention really matters and really can spell the difference between happiness
1:08:27 and suffering in each moment. As you’ve gotten older, the things that give you joy and peace,
1:08:34 have they changed, become certain things more or less? I think I’m a slightly odd case because I got
1:08:42 very into meditation and, and, uh, uh, became very cognizant of the, the finiteness of life
1:08:50 very early, right? So I was a, you know, I was probably 18. Um, and I was, I, I became kind of
1:08:55 obsessed with my own mortality earlier than that. My best friend died when I was 13. My dad died when I
1:09:05 was 17. Uh, so, so loss was, was something that I, um, uh, I understood, uh, fairly early and the,
1:09:10 sort of the philosophical and psychological implications of that became interesting to me
1:09:19 very early. So I was always, um, a student of, of life-changing philosophy. I mean, not just,
1:09:23 you know, purely academic questions of interest, but just sort of like, what does it mean to live a good
1:09:29 life? We’re like, what, what, what, in a context where we know, uh, we’re ultimately going to lose
1:09:35 everything. Uh, and so I was thinking about that very early. So I, I can’t say that that has changed.
1:09:43 I, I just, in some ways I’m learning, relearning the lessons I learned when I was 18 and 19 and 20.
1:09:52 Um, and they’re, they’re, they’re landing, uh, harder and, and perhaps, uh, uh, slightly differently
1:09:57 now, but it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a continuation of where my head has been at for, for many decades,
1:10:02 I have to say. Would you describe the loss of your father as sort of a defining or the defining
1:10:07 moment in your life? Like, has there been one moment that sort of changed or your orientation or
1:10:14 approach to life or given you, you know, set you on a different path? Well, I, it was less so in
1:10:19 this case. I mean, we were, we were close, but it was a long distance relationship. He had left when I
1:10:26 was, um, two and a half and, uh, So you were raised by a single mother or did she remarry? Yeah. Yeah.
1:10:31 I mean, she, she eventually got remarried when I was 15, but yeah, no, for all intents and purposes,
1:10:36 I was, I was raised by a single mom and she was quite a, quite the hero. I was raised by a single
1:10:42 mother too. And I didn’t know that about you. Can you talk a little bit about, uh, I def, I think
1:10:47 almost everything, I see almost everything, the way I respond to the lens of being raised by a single
1:10:53 mother. Can you talk a little bit about how that impact that’s on had on you as an adult and your
1:11:00 approach to partnership and being a dad? Yeah. Well, so again, this is a, a case that is going to be
1:11:08 somewhat, um, atypical because my mom was just, um, uh, both very, very talented and, and very lucky.
1:11:14 Right. So she’s, she, uh, really did not have resources. My dad left, I think he, um, on her
1:11:20 account, he, I think cut one child support check of $500 or something like that. But I mean, he really
1:11:26 did not discharge his responsibilities as a dad very well. And he was a struggling actor, so he didn’t,
1:11:30 he didn’t have money either, but, uh, he had been, he was painting houses at that time to make
1:11:37 money. Um, but he abandoned me and my mom, you know, to go be an actor in, in New York. He couldn’t
1:11:43 figure out how to do that in LA for some reason. Um, so that, that attests to some other lack of
1:11:51 commitment to, um, being a parent. But, um, my mom, uh, discovered one day that she could write,
1:11:56 uh, television shows and she discovered this very quickly. I mean, she just, she, I think she
1:12:01 actually sold her first script. She was just watching television one day trying to figure out
1:12:06 how she was going to make money. Again, we really had nothing. And she, uh, I think she said, I forget
1:12:12 the, it was maybe $2,500 or something. She, but she sold, sold the first thing she wrote and then
1:12:20 just became a, a colossus within the television industry. And she, um, eventually, I mean, her big
1:12:27 hit was golden girls. She created golden girls. And so we went from being, uh, poor to being wealthy
1:12:32 over the course of, um, probably, it was probably a little more than a decade. I mean, I think I was,
1:12:39 Oh my God, Susan Harris. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I literally just thought I’ve kept, I keep saying,
1:12:44 I thought I’ve seen the name Susan Harris on the, in the credits of all these series in the seventies
1:12:52 That was my mom is awesome. Um, but so, but it was a very weird time. And so there’s a funny story
1:12:59 that she likes to tell, uh, which, um, maybe says more about me than, than, uh, I would like, but
1:13:04 she, um, I mean, she was working really hard again. She was a single mom. So I, I grew up with a lot,
1:13:07 with a long string of babysitters and, you know, when I would come home from school, there would be a
1:13:13 babysitter. My mom would be, you know, writing at the office. And at one point she came to me and she said,
1:13:20 uh, we were living in a little rented house in the San Fernando Valley. And, uh, um, but I was going
1:13:27 to a private school that she had stretched to get me into. And, uh, so I was surrounded by kids who
1:13:33 had much more money than we did. And she said to me, uh, I don’t remember this, but I’m sure this is true
1:13:41 because this is, was indelibly, uh, etched upon her memory. She said, um, you know, um, if I have an
1:13:47 opportunity here, if I work much harder than I’m working now, our situation is going to change.
1:13:52 And either you’ll, you’ll be able to, one day we’ll be able to, you’ll be able to have a pool in the
1:13:58 backyard, like your friend, Tom Brown, uh, who has, he had a great house with a great pool.
1:14:03 And, um, but you’re going to have much, you have less of me, you know, you’re going to spend more
1:14:10 time with, with babysitters and, um, you know, so it’s, there’s going to be a sacrifice. And apparently
1:14:14 I thought for a few seconds and I turned to her and I said, get the pool, mom.
1:14:22 I want the pool. I’m not exaggerating, Sam. I’m freaking out. You’re you. Yeah. I feel like you’ve
1:14:27 raised me through my fifties, but your mother, I just figured out kind of raised me. I was a child of
1:14:33 television. Oh, my soap is the first time I was ever introduced to a gay man, Billy Crystal.
1:14:40 Well, then not only you, not only you, that’s she’s America often, often credited with writing
1:14:45 the first truly positive. I mean, I’m not sure it’s totally aged. Well, I mean, it was probably,
1:14:52 you know, more character than you would, you would want, but, um, she is the true first truly positive
1:14:55 role for a gay character in television. I believe that’s true.
1:15:01 He wasn’t like a psycho killer or a pedophile. And then the first time I ever saw a black man in a
1:15:08 position of leadership was Benson, which is also another show. And then when my mom was six,
1:15:14 she and I used to watch everyone loves Raymond Frazier and the golden girls. Right. Wow. That
1:15:20 is, that is this wild. So quite, quite, quite heroically. She wrote, I think this is a, uh,
1:15:25 I mean, this may not sound as impressive as it is because people don’t know how television gets made,
1:15:32 but she famously wrote, she didn’t have a writing staff for soap. So she wrote, I believe is the first
1:15:39 75 episodes all by herself. I mean, she was banging out one episode a week of television, 22 weeks a
1:15:46 year all by herself. And I mean, I, uh, very few people have done that in television. So it was quite
1:15:52 amazing. So just as we wrap up here, you gave me a piece of advice about being a dad a couple of years
1:15:57 ago that I’ve really held onto. And I want you to, I’m going to try and, uh, prompt you to remember
1:16:02 it, but you said you figured out that you just, in certain instances, just needed to be dad. Can you
1:16:09 speak more about that? Yeah. I mean, I, and part of this was, was my realizing what I wanted in a
1:16:15 school. I mean, I, I just wanted to outsource all of the, the, the role of being a teacher to the
1:16:20 school so that, and I, I must say this has been achieved imperfectly in the, in my daughter’s
1:16:24 schools, but I just wanted to be able to say, oh, you know, yeah, that, you know, that, you know,
1:16:30 Mrs. Johnson, she’s, she’s a hard teacher, you know, and just commiserate with the, with my daughters
1:16:35 without ever having to, to tiger mom anything. Right. I just don’t want to be that guy.
1:16:40 And the truth is I’m just not comfortable being that guy. I don’t want, I don’t like the subtext of
1:16:48 apparently conditional love that gets communicated when you, when you really push. Um, and so I just,
1:16:55 um, I haven’t. And, uh, I mean, I, both my daughters are good students and they’re, you know,
1:16:59 they’re, they’re getting educated, but you know, there, there’s definitely a difference between,
1:17:05 you know, tiger momming it and not, and I’m, I’m definitely not. And, uh, I realized I just
1:17:12 want, I just want to, to have a, I want there to be no doubt in my daughter’s minds, how much I love
1:17:21 them and how much I, I rejoice in who they are as people. Um, and so whenever I’m in a mode that
1:17:26 stands a chance of, of confusing that, you know, it’s, it’s, I, I, I’m, I’m alert to the, to the,
1:17:33 the downside there. So I just, um, yeah. And as a result, I have very little stature in the home as a,
1:17:39 as a source of, of, uh, knowledge or wisdom. Um, I mean, you know, when push comes to this,
1:17:43 that’s probably not true, but there’s a fair amount of comedy had at my expense. I mean, I’m going to,
1:17:48 unlike you, I’m in a household with, uh, with, uh, three girls, uh, or, you know, two girls and a,
1:17:53 and a mother. And, um, it’s, uh, there’s a, there’s very little testosterone in the home.
1:17:58 Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, bestselling author, and host of the Making
1:18:04 Sense podcast. Sam, um, just to put some additional pressure on you, when people ask me who my role
1:18:11 model is, I, I cite you. So if you, if something happens, so I really hope for just selfish reasons,
1:18:14 you keep killing it. Cause if you go down, you’re probably taking me with you.
1:18:20 Okay. So I need you, I need you to remain to be thoughtful and courageous and fearless and,
1:18:26 and well-read and, and rigorous in your research, but always enjoy, uh, our time together.
1:18:32 And I, I really do look at you as someone who looks at the issues and then, uh, and I’ve tried
1:18:39 to model this and then says what you believe is right, regardless of what heckling from the cheap
1:18:45 seats or shame you might endure. And it’s something that’s given me a lot of courage and discipline to
1:18:50 say, okay, where does, where does, in an attempt to find the truth, where does it take you? As opposed
1:18:55 to constantly checking myself and thinking, well, what will the reaction be? So thank you.
1:19:00 Well, thank you. And, uh, high praise, but I will, I will, I’ll try to keep it together.
1:19:01 There you go, brother. Take care, man.
1:19:24 Okay. I was with happiness. Father’s day just passed. Um, I think like a lot of people, I have a
1:19:32 complicated relationship with my father. Um, my dad, uh, was, uh, pretty selfish and
1:19:39 married and divorced four times as far as we know. And I was the son by a second marriage. He had
1:19:44 another daughter by his third marriage. I’ve actually become quite close with, but you know,
1:19:49 at the end of the day, my dad left my mom and I and moved to Ohio because he got a promotion.
1:19:57 And I saw my dad mostly in the summer and during the holidays and I’ve kind of never forgiven him.
1:20:04 And also something that I think moms do. And I recognize accidentally, and it’s usually the mom
1:20:08 that’s the single head of the single parent household is my mom sort of weaponized me against
1:20:14 my father and used to send very, very aggressive messages through me to my father. And then my father,
1:20:20 my father would respond equally angrily and it kind of would ruin the weekend. I were the time I was
1:20:26 spending with my dad and my mom sort of, I wouldn’t say turn me against my dad, but, uh, there’s just
1:20:30 no getting around it. When your parents get divorced and you’re living with mom, you’re going to probably
1:20:38 see, I think dad is kind of the bad guy. And I certainly did. And also he just was so, um, not generous
1:20:43 with money. Uh, you know, he had a nice life economically. We did okay, but it was definitely
1:20:49 a strain. And I look back on it now. And I think one of the reasons I try to be, I won’t even say
1:20:56 generous, but promiscuous with money was I was just so fucking turned off by how cheap he was. Um, anyways,
1:21:01 I had a lot of issues. I, I, I never didn’t speak to my dad, but I didn’t feel very close to him for
1:21:07 a long time. I resented him, uh, about, you know, with just a little bit effort. He could have been
1:21:12 so, so much of a more of a positive force in my life, but this is what I did. And what I would suggest
1:21:18 you do. If you have a great dad and it’s all like shadow boxing and football games, and he showed up
1:21:22 every, every week on the sidelines for you, then great. Um, then you’re not going to have a problem
1:21:26 being good to your dad. And if you do, if you aren’t, then it’s your problem.
1:21:31 But for those of us, like most people who have a father who is flawed, or maybe doesn’t fit the
1:21:37 current version of what it means to be a dad in the Hallmark channel from 2025, what has helped me is
1:21:43 I asked myself, I go to basic evolution and that is, was your father better to you than his dad was to
1:21:48 him? My dad, and I didn’t know this, my dad never complained about this, but I found out from his
1:21:55 sister, uh, my dad was the oldest and living in Depressionair, Scotland and his father, it sounds
1:22:01 like was an alcoholic and his father was physically abusive. And she outlined one instant where, um,
1:22:07 my grandfather, my dad’s dad came home drunk one night, woke him up and beat him. Can you imagine
1:22:13 being a child and you get woken up by the guy who is supposed to be your protector and beats you?
1:22:21 So my dad never beat me. Um, was never, it was, it was, uh, it came close a couple of times. I was
1:22:25 very scared of him. I think it was like the shark and jaws. It was the unknown that was more scary than
1:22:32 the actual shark. Uh, but he was much better to me than his dad was to him, which means he checked the,
1:22:42 the dad box. And that is he made the effort to be better to me than his dad was to him.
1:22:47 And my dad did make an effort. He would, when he was in Chicago and heard I was somewhere, he would
1:22:53 fly me out and take me to museums and try and find something to do with a 14 year old. And I’ve gotten,
1:22:59 I’ve gotten much better at remembering the good stuff and then putting all the bullshit aside and
1:23:03 something that has been an enormous unlock for me, not only with my father, but with all of my
1:23:10 relationships is to not keep score. And what do I mean by that? Instead of thinking, Oh, I’m his son.
1:23:17 He owes me a lot. And on a scorecard, he came up short. I just said, all right, what do I want to be a
1:23:21 son? Who do I want to be as a son? And the answer is I want to be a loving, generous son. Then hold
1:23:27 yourself to that standard and don’t keep score. Don’t think about, well, did he do enough to deserve a
1:23:31 loving, generous son? That’s not the point. The point is, do you want to be a loving, generous
1:23:36 son? If the answer is yes, then just be a loving, generous son. And if your father dies, which my
1:23:42 father will soon, my father’s 95 and in hospice and basically has the kind of mental complexion of a
1:23:47 baby right now, it doesn’t recognize anybody. Am I going to regret? Am I going to think to myself,
1:23:51 I just don’t think there’s any way I’m going to think to myself, I was too nice or too generous to my
1:23:57 dad. And if you’re better to your dad than he was to you, that’s fine. I think that’s kind of what it
1:24:03 means to be a man. And then in a nod to him, if he was better to you than his dad was to you, then you
1:24:08 need to be better. And hopefully you will be to your own sons. But if you’re like me and have a bit of a
1:24:13 complicated relationship with your father, what I would suggest is just an enormous unlock is put away
1:24:21 the scorecard, put the bullshit aside and just be the son you want to be and enjoy Father’s Day with
1:24:21 your dad.
1:24:31 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for
1:24:35 listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Stay tuned for next week’s conversation
1:24:37 featuring Robert Green.
1:25:13 Thank you.