World Cup Controversy, Trump Accounts, and DOGE Farewell

I'm Aina Garton. I'm my new podcast Happy Hour with Aina. I'm inviting really interesting guests to join me for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. I'll be getting personal with chefs, actors, comedians, musicians, and writers I admire. So grab a snack, pull up a chair, and join us. Subscribe to Happy Hour with Aina on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes will be available every Wednesday, starting September 16th. Megan Rapinoe here. This week on Why Are You Like This? I am talking with Roxanne Gay. That's right. Roxanne Gay. Roxanne is a fearless writer and cultural critic whose impact goes way beyond her New York Times bestselling books. We dig into all the big moments of her life, and of course, she shares if she's more mommy, daddy, or baby. Check out the latest episode of Why Are You Like This, wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. Say you're an aspiring pop star. How do you know if your song's a hit? It's getting harder to tell. I think that something is going on where the machinery of popularity has changed under her feet, and we don't really know why or what it means. This week on Explanage Me, How To Avoid Being A Flop. Find new episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. I don't want to see Donald Trump naked necessarily, but if you ever thought about it, though, is it ever like going into the brain? Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine of the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott is off today, so I brought in the one and only Anthony Scaremucci, the mooch, podcaster, founder of Skybridge Capital, and author of the upcoming book, which is getting a lot of kudos all the wrong moves. And I think I gave you a blurb, Anthony. I got a blurb at a, hey, listen, I never give blurbs. You know that. I got a, I got a, you know, I had to use the crowbar, ladies and gentlemen, to get the, I pivoted on pivot. I had to use the crowbar to get the blurb out of her, but it wasn't like, no, it's a, it's a big deal when I give a blurb. I gave one to you. I've given one to Arya Manual. Those are the only two, but I used his to insult him. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to his book, actually. I think I feel, I feel like you're going to learn a lot about Hollywood in that book. Actually, you learn a lot about him. I have to say, okay, better yet than if I'm learning more about him, then better yet. It's, it's got a satis to it, actually. It's got a depth to it. How about a depth to it, like struggles that we had, and he never shows. I think what you and I love about people is the authenticity and honesty, and it sounds like we're going to be getting there from Arya. So, I look forward to the book. Yeah. All right. But so, be honest with me, you weren't Taylor Swiss wedding, were you? Well, I'll be really honest with you and tell you I would have liked to have been invited to Taylor Swiss wedding, because when you look up in the dictionary, name dropping in Starfucking, there's a picture of me. But alas, I was not invited to her wedding. It may no sense the invitations. I mean, I got the dancers and everybody else, like her, all her friends and her cousins and everything. But the celebrities were just odd. It was so, they were some of them were obvious, like, you know, Bradley Cooper and those kind of people. But you know, like Adam Sandler being the, the, the, the officiant was interesting. It was such a, it was such a dog's breakfast of celebrities. It was fascinating. What do you think? Well, I, where I love about it, it was original and it was true to whatever they wanted to do. You know, at the end of the day, it's your wedding. Have at it. Oh, I liked it. And they, they went crazy. I mean, I one time got married with a lot of fanfare and a Roman Catholic church. In second time, I got married. Dirk and I got married in our living room. So, I mean, you know, you, it's a, it's a time in their lives. They're both first time married. I wish them nothing with great success with their, their marriage. But you know what? If you don't mind, I'm going to give them a shout out because they did list 20 charities. And I'm on the board of City Horvors, which is one of the largest food banks in the country. If not the largest. And they gave a million dollars to City Horvors. Wow. So God bless them for doing that because we have a lot of food and secure people in our great city car. Yeah. They gave a bunch, Dolly Parton. They gave a bunch to all these like amazing. They gave 26 million dollars, which is 13 times two of your Taylor Swift person, which is her favorite number. But it was really interesting. The, it was interesting is how they handled it. I was going to compare it to the basil sweating. I wanted to be fair. But for some reason that one felt awful. And this one cracked me up. And I don't know why the difference because it was obviously an over the top wedding. It was directly in the middle of New York City, which I loved. And of course, they did it to protect them at Matt. You've been to Madison Square and a hundred times, right? Presumably. Yeah. And it was a, as I consider Madison Square Garden, one of my homes. I'm a Nick and a Ranger fan. But I, I think the difference was the, the basil sweating was trying to be the Venice film festival, but for the basil family. And this was like, hey, we're corny people. And we're going to have a little bit of a corn ball situation go on. We're going to do whatever we want. But oh, by the way, we're good people. We're going to write some big checks to charity. So, listen, you know, I'm, I'm a cat. I'm all about if Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Bezos, if they want to spend money like that, God bless. I have no problem. They know other people get very upset with it. My attitude is, you know, you know, you make the money, spend the money, no problem. And people forget how many jobs are tied to events like this. You know, you've got pointers and waiters and you've got people in the hotels. And to me, I like people spending their money because it goes into the system and it takes care of a lot of people. On an experience, right? Now, what's really, it was, to me, what's interesting is one is there's rather private, even though it was in the middle of New York City. One, there weren't, you haven't seen pictures. Very many. You've seen very few pictures come out and the ones that are out or just people, hey, I'm going to this wedding and sort of bragging about which I'm fine with. The Bezos one was so performative, like waving from the docks and outfits and everything else. I think that was one of the differences. I suspect there's going to be a movie of the wedding. I suspect that's coming from. Let me ask Cara Swisher a question though. Would you have promoted that you were going to the wedding? Would you have had like a selfie, a Swisher like selfie? I kind of had what I have to because it was so strange. I'm totally shameless. I would have been promoting it. I maybe even gotten a drone for myself. Yes, you kind of have to. I'm a revolting person. Yeah, I think they wanted that. I think they wanted that. And I did like, even the celebrities were like showing off, right? Like I was there. Oh, by the way, I was there and showing off their dresses. And it was like the Met Gala, but what was fascinating is very little leaked. And it seemed adorable. It just seemed, you know, I like everything tells. I think Scott doesn't, but I felt like now I'm thrilled for you here for you because you probably like her. What's not to lie? I mean, let me tell you and I like success stories, you know, God bless her. What's not to like all the girl? Every kid likes her God bless, you know. And by the way, he's one, you know, how many Super Bowls of the Kid win? Three. Three. Three. Three. Three. Okay. There you go. Come on. I know. They're very handsome. Although I will say this about him. And he couldn't respond to me. He can direct message me on Twitter. Bobby met him. He has the thinnest arms and the least amount of biceps of any tight end. It's a hunk. What the good is orbs? Okay. I'm just saying this kid is very slender for a tight end, which made him, in my opinion, faster, quicker and a better receiver. I don't see him as a blocking tight end. He's almost like a third receiver from a hoax, which is part of the warfare there and part of the offensive success story. Yeah. I guess. I don't know what you're talking about. He looks handsome to me. And I'm a lesbian. I think he's my lad to say that I'm also a lesbian, or probably it's not a pro. Yes. You may say that if you'd like. Okay. Yeah. But that's my pronoun. Anyway, I was happy for New York to do it. And it actually was in juxtaposition of something happening down in Washington, which was just a disaster. But first, let me start first since we're talking about sports. President Trump's officially inserted himself into the World Cup. This is really bad. I even I know this is bad. US soccer star Fuller and Baligan is set to play against Belgium after FIFA overturned his one match suspension from a controversial red card. Trump personally called a FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, to push for a review of the decision Trump posted on true social saying. Thank you for doing what was right and reversing a great injustice. As we tape on Monday, Belgium has been granted the right to appeal the ruling. So things may have changed by the time you listen to this. I mean, why did he do this? It seems like it's just sort of sullies. And by the way, reminder, Trump was awarded the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize in December. Tots. Well, I mean, I think we, if you're ever on jeopardy, they don't answer the question. They don't ask the questions like this. They say, what organization in the world is more corrupt than the Donald Trump White House? The answer is Boeing FIFA. Yes. That's the answer. So I mean, so you know, it's like the two of them got married and did something very corruptive and delicious to the world's most favorite sport, but to me, because I want to channel Trump for you. So get the barf pigs out, guys, because I want to say exactly how he thinks, I am the man. Everything is about me. Let's insert ourselves. Where's the attention this week? Oh my God, there's billions of people watching the World Cup. I got to get myself inserted into that. Right. And Taylor, he tried to insert himself into the Taylor Swift wedding. You saw that. We tried to do. He tried to do that because she hates them. He said, but, but let, let's, let's just roll. But hello, but lick Howard Howard, how are you there, brought lick okay get some evidence together okay and then he calls in Fantino who we're calling sick, sick of Fantino and he says this is what I want done and it basically does it and and everyone's looking around scratching their heads and saying why this is low for America you know because it just makes us look crass but to Trump that he's patting himself on the back. You know what he's saying? Nobody could have done this other than me. This is like another war that I solved. I need another FIFA piece prize. Look, FIFA is very corrupt and I did a whole show on this about the corruption and the ticket sales and everything else but the game seemed to be going well, right? People seem to be enjoying the people who hear from other countries you know yeah Cape Verde you had Mexico last night. Even I'm paying attention this a little bit but but this sort of it creates does it create a problem here if this guy gets by the way just for people who don't know this soccer star was born in the United States as parents are from London so he's what he's the kind of the birthright citizenship that Trump rails against at the same time which I think is kind of of course ironic it's not ironic it's typical. Well yeah I mean that's that's Trump you know he doesn't even probably not even aware of that and so that's another big irony the whole thing but but just just remember it has to be about him enough of me talking about me what do you think of me and how can I get myself inserted into every situation even if it's controversial it sort of thullies the US win if there is one yeah you see that okay so now that's the FIFA's position they're like okay the Americans are gonna win anyway it'll mean more ratings but somebody somebody look that was supposed to be done on the Qt and then Trump can help himself he's got these AI generated truth socials which are incredibly revolting where the guy's pulling out the Trump card on the ref saying yeah he's trying to throw me out but I've got the Donald Trump Trump card so I'm back in and so you know what what happens is it's just a turn off to people and and I got to say this to you Karen I'd love to hear your opinion I thought the games were going great for America yeah I thought people were coming in very thought the place was so hospitable and I'd be like all right where America's finally getting a slap on the back from that's because he was out of it he wasn't near it that's why exactly you know and speaking of being near I mean I think it'll just right if the Americans don't win it hardly matters but which is probably what they what Infantino was thinking he also marked America's 250th birthday which was kind of a dud by giving a speech it was essentially a mega rally on the national mall after storms delayed the event he honored veterans and astronauts will also touting his own record and pushing for the save America act he also focused on his latest obsession communism saying communism is a loser and it will always be the night before at Mount Rushmore where there was hail a lot of weather his way which was interesting he called communist menace a greater threat than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 American identities under renewed attack I I thought communist were losing but and speaking of threats to American identity hundreds of mass members the white nationalist group Patriot Front March through DC on the 4th Karen Confederate flags enchanting reclaim America those photos were kind of bizarre to look at their own the subway talk a little bit about what was happening and also you know that you couldn't see the fireworks because there were too many of them and too much smoke and there's smoke all you we all are then advised to stay inside over the next day or two in DC because of the heat and the the particulates from the from the fireworks which nobody could see very easily talk a little bit about this communism thing this is I hadn't heard communism from him so thoughts on what's happening here well it's mandani related this is all related to the the electoral success that the democratic socialist have had recently and this is also related to the speech that the mayor of New York gave from George Washington's desk which obviously was very polarizing to some people my arch nemesis Steve Bannon somebody I can't stand actually nailed it in my opinion he said hey you better pay attention to zora mandani because yeah he's a great communicator he's got a vision for things he understands where people are and how upset they are and especially young people exactly and Trump's response is to label everything with a broad bus that it's communism car and I think that's a that's a big danger because when you when you do that you're missing the elements of what's got people upset and this isn't communism he's if you listen to his speech I sort of felt like it was Scandinavianism you know right that's what I think you're of it wasn't communism you know yeah and Trump's trying to label it something that it isn't and he does that very successfully it a lot of people who's thinking of this who who is this successful because everyone's like communist I haven't thought about communist since since like the cold war essentially yeah so I don't I don't think it's going to be successful because you remember zora mandani is not flat-footed you know when you're calling Hillary Clinton crooked or Joe Biden sleepy or jab bush low energy they're more like standard politicians and they're a little flat-footed you know this guy in my opinion has made one mistake I won't name the billionaire but when he docks the billionaire New York City with social media I thought that was bad I mean because you don't want to put people in harm's way if you want to put a peer to tear tax in and people can pay it no problem but don't name the people because you're gonna get agree you're gonna make people you know in a dangerous position but to me this kid has only made one gaff and I'm I wasn't a supporter of his I think the city's a lot cleaner the city looks very safe to me you said to me last week that New York is back New York is flourishing is that not true yeah absolutely when you go there it's it's hard to walk the street it's so full and vibrant and exciting and it's along with the nicks the Taylor Swift thing it's just there's a lot happening there but what what is the you know having the the white nationalists show up again was sort of my I was like oh my god them again in that in those weird outfits they wear the blue shirts and the khakis with the weird white mask that they have to hide themselves because they're not proud of who they are presumably yeah well okay but you see she was going on Elon Musk said that this was a false flag operation this is hard left people that are setting out these white supremacists and there was a photo of a young African American woman on the bus with them and people say okay that photo was contrived okay I don't believe I don't believe any of that by the way but I'm just I'm just saying to me they're doing that for publicity they're doing that for the shock and awe effect and unfortunately for this country and perhaps most countries we do have racist assholes in this country and we do have white supremacists in this country but unfortunately we have somebody in the white house that sort of blows the dog whistle for these people as opposed to denouncing these people or ignoring these people you said oh that sounds like a lot of fun can you guys bring the matches over here right let's light the doorflame log for the white supremacist bonfire you know that's the stuff that I really can't stand to see it's all around the Save America act though I mean that's really the focus there's you know story after story of him the desperation of either passing this or pulling some emergency powers you know declaring a national security emergency around voting and everything else to me that's where everything funnels down to is this fear of November yeah I mean listen I mean that's the goal right we got to get black and brown people not to vote and so we're going to get ice agents out we're going to scare you oh I've got to get this legislation passed the Save America act and if we get that passed as well you know hopefully you'll stay in your house and we can organize as much of the white vote as we possibly can to win these elections and so Trump said something people should really listen to if I can get this thing passed we won't lose an election for the next 100 years did you hear him say that yeah he said that pay attention so now thankfully Thune is American enough still where he's blocking Trump and he's stopping him but you know listen you know what what comes next is the answer car because I think I think we got Trump I think the courts have knocked him to the ground a notch I think he's ages getting him I think some of the podcasters have broken from them some of the traditional Republicans are just waiting him out okay so I think we got Trump I'm worried about the next lunatic that shows up with the same message you know yeah any thoughts on who that would be none of the current lunatics you know they they don't they don't have the risk carouswisher it would have to be a young lunatic that we don't know right now not Tucker Carlson I've never asked you about Tucker Carlson how do you look at him you know Tucker Tucker is a typical jeweep in the high school like I was in a click guy in high school my uncle under motorcycle shop so I did have a leather jacket but I was also the captain of the football team so I was like not into the whole click thing but Tucker would have been that kid that was like a sneaky bully and so a sneaky bully is no one's looking I'm gonna poke her in the eye okay no one's looking I'm gonna do something devious or pranksterish to somebody that's weaker than me due to my insecurities right so Tucker wasn't the out and out bully because I mean saw that guy just walk off to him punch him into face and make him go away and so what Tucker does he's like a Dodge ball bully okay so hear me out is that you remember when you were in elementary school you were probably this you were probably the smart kid in the back lurking with the I was too small to hit I was always the last kid before to get hit and you were always waiting for the big Jack to hit the other Jack and then you snuck up and hit the big Jack and you were correct thank you okay but Tucker is a Dodge ball bully okay he's been sneaking around bullying and terrorizing people Okay, for his adult life, and now he's got a very big broad podcast that he can do this on. My buddy, Chris Cuomo, people should go look at the tape. He took a karate shop to Tucker's Adam's apple as he was spouting his BS about Russia. Okay, and Chris doesn't give a shit, just took him to the ground. And so I say to myself, number one, is he on to take from Russia? I don't know. So I'm not going to say yes or no, but he uses Russian talking points when he talks. Yeah. No, number two, what, you know, he's all of a sudden anti-Israel, when we can debate that, I'm not saying Israel's got a great brand right now. I think they've had a lot of mishaps, but you went from pro-Israel hanging out with Huckabee to now your anti-Israel. And I'm like, what are you doing exactly? And you know what he's doing? He's feeding the ducks of his audience. Okay, so he's a dodgeball bully who feeds the ducks of his audience. Does that give him a chance? Or not? No, no, he's got no chance. And I think he's a complete tool. Also, if Trump is alive when he announces his candidacy, Trump is going to send like orange-mained cruise missiles up to Maine and blow Tucker out of the water. Because one thing about Trump, he knows the Achilles heel of people like Tucker. And I predict Tucker won't run because, listen, that is a big boy sport, as you know. It's not podcasting. It's not hanging around waiting for your next massage. It's like, okay, we got to get on the road. And you can hate Donald Trump. But Donald Trump is a grinder. I watched him, ate in the morning till midnight. Let's grind this thing out. Tucker doesn't strike me. Now pass me the nail file. I'm about to get a manny petty Tucker Carlson, the dodgeball bully. Can I ask you one last question on this? So what's Trump's move? We got July, August, everything's quiet. What does he have? He doesn't have much time to limit terms, besides trying to stop the election itself. What does he do now? How does he get attention? What is what is he going to do? Well, we have more revulsion coming. So on July 19th, he'll be in the metal land. So be at the New Jersey, New York stadium handing the trophy to somebody who has won the World Cup, because in Fentino, sick of Fentino, it's going to let him do that. So that's going to be a big day for him. Lots of attention on him. A lot of billions of people watching him. We'll be very happy about that. Right. Exactly. And he's he's announced his grift to the public. Okay. So if you ever thought that he hasn't learned from the KGB, he has actually because what do the KGB do? They spy out in the open, right? Remember John LaCara would explain to you that the person shows up, they look like a KGB spy. They act like a KGB spy. So you don't think they're a KGB sky. But guess what? They are one. And so Trump is like, let me announce to you my grift. Okay. And so here's all the different things that I'm doing. He even put the $15,000 of Infantino tickets that were given to him on his financial disclosure, the fee for tickets that were given to him. So so what he's going to do is he knows he doesn't give a shit about his party. He doesn't care who wins the election. As long as he's not overly investigating, he's going to pardon himself and his family. He's going to try to make $10 billion over the next two years. All right. Well, that'll get us into. So that's what he's for working on. That's what he's going to do. Yeah. He's about glory, self-aggrandizement and mula. Those are that's the holy trinity inside his brain. All right. Okay. Well, we'll talk about that because we're going to talk about something that you know a lot about, which is cryptocurrency. Okay. Anthony, let's go on a quick break. We come back. Millions investors lost billions on Trump's meme coin. Hey, what's up guys? It's Babish. And on this week's episode of In the Booth, I'm joined by chef cookbook author and food network legend, Alex Gourna Shelley. We're talking about shops, the Hamptons and what it takes to make a cry worthy pasta. You can listen now wherever you get your podcasts. So like any good millennial, I have a love, hate relationship with Gen Z. It's the phenomenon rattling millennials. They just look at you. They want something bigger themselves, lifestyles, a priority. Motivation is being inspired. But regardless of how you feel about Gen Z, it's undeniable that they're changing national politics. Generation Z is increasingly showing less loyalty to traditional political parties. Many now more likely to identify as independent. So what is going on with the kids? I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialists. That is just not the case. Yeah. They are embracing candidates who are offering new bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats. This week on America, actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jamfaza joins us to separate Gen Z fact versus fiction. It's not rocket science. And this is, you know, I keep saying like young voters aren't that complicated after all. It's pretty simple. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Every living cell in every living thing is related. We're all part of the same tree of life. Now scientists are trying to make a new tree of life, building their own cells out of non-living chemical parts and hope that it comes to life. So create new technologies that will help our economy that will help the climate. But they have to navigate the risks. There is the potential in what we do to be mad scientists. If you have a cell that can be engineered to do whatever you want, you could make something harmful. Suddenly we're talking about something which could be a catastrophic threat to life on this planet. So do you fear us more than the people who made nuclear weapons? Life from scratch is a new three-part series from unexplainable. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts or watch us on Netflix. Anthony, we're back nearly one million people who bought President Trump's meme coin of a loss to combine to $3.8 billion, guess where it went. At the same time, Trump disclosed earnings of $636 million from the meme coin in 2025. Trump profited whether the coin price rose or fell, collecting fees every time the token was traded, which he just called a VIG, which he often prompted his followers on true social to do. Meanwhile, Michael Saylor's strategy has abandoned its famous never-sell Bitcoin. It wasn't a holder anymore. Mantra, the company is launching a $1.25 billion monetization program to raise capital with Bitcoin sales already sold 216 million. Trump's disclosure, by the way, showed active trading of strategy shares. For people who don't understand what was happening, we talked about this last week. He made several billion dollars largely related to crypto, very small amount in real estate, similar to what he always makes in real estate essentially, nothing more or less. But there's a lot of, of course, the kids have their own grifts going on and Jared and Ivanka have their own grift. Talk about how we should be thinking about crypto now and what happened here with Trump. Well, I mean, it's important that people understand how dramatic this grift was. He needs an Academy Award or a FIFA World Cup trophy. Maybe FIFA will give him the grifter price of the, you know, the FIFA piece prize, but the grifting has been so good. Here's the FIFA Grifter prize because this is unbelievable. I just put it in the context for everybody. All of the publicly traded crypto companies combined made less than Donald Trump did in crypto. Just so everybody knows he made more of anything coin-based, crack in, put them all together, crack is not public, but you get my point. They do disclose their financials. And remember this, okay, Trump's disclosure was 927 pages. Barack Obama, his, his was eight pages. Okay, so this guy filed a phone book. He didn't file disclosure. But, but the crypto stuff is so bad. It is so egregious. So many people lost money and the differential of 3.8 billion losing and him making 800. It's just to me, insidious, but I'm going to say this to you and I know you get this. The Emirati Royal family bought $500 million stake in his company before the inauguration. Right. Okay, so I don't know. You tell me that was just the, hey, that's a nice gesture. Hey, Cara, how are you doing? You know, there's a Cara switcher. It looks like it's from your longevity documentary behind you. I'd like to buy that from you for $500 million just because, you know, you're a nice person, Cara. Is that how the Emirati Royal family treated that situation? Right. So, so to me, it's again, I'm taking the money. And by the way, you stupid crypto bros, what did you think was going to happen? Oh, you thought I was supporting you? No, no, no. This clarity act, which everybody would like to get passed, that can happen because my opposition hates me. And they're going to vote against it despite me. And oh, by the way, that spits you, but ha ha. Guess what? I didn't care about you. I didn't care about your industry. Right. So, what happens to the crypto? What is happening? Like what sailor has done? Obviously, he's been super aggressive. And you've been deep into crypto and Bitcoin, particularly where does this hurt the Bitcoin business? Because it was actually improving allegedly under Trump with all these, you know, the regulate Gensler was gone, everything else. Where does this leave crypto now? because it then has this taint as the world cup has of trumps. Dirty fingers all over it. - Yeah, so nobody likes me in the crypto community for saying this, but I'm gonna continue to say this. Gary Gensler was a pain in the ass of the industry, but you know what Gary Gensler did? He blocked a lot of the low lives and a lot of the people, a lot of the scammers out of the industry. Trump has opened up the flood gates and became the scammer and chief in the industry. So people said, "Oh, this is gonna be great." For the industry, it's not great for the industry. You would want the mama bear. You would want propitious and ordinary, transparent crypto regulation with a defense system against scumbaggery. We didn't get that. So when Trump announced that mean coin carer, I was at the World Economic Forum with Brian Armstrong on a panel and I said, "This is gonna be very bad for the industry because this makes us look terrible and his opposition. There are young Democrats that would probably support the cryptocurrency industry that are looking around saying, "I can't do it now because of what Trump has done." And so to me, I think it's a big issue. You mentioned sailors who might as well bring them up. You know, Michael's got to be careful because he is an absolutist and he's an extremist. So he said at a one side of his mouth, I'm never selling my Bitcoin. You should sell one of your kidneys to buy and hold Bitcoin, but he's got pressure on him and he's got a cash imbalance. And so guess what he's doing, he's starting to sell his Bitcoin. Michael's not gonna take advice from me and I like Michael, but I would say, "Michael, you become part of the story. "Go on your yacht, sail off into Sicily somewhere, "stop tweeting about Bitcoin, get out of the storymaking business "because what happens in a situation like this "is like a fighter squadron." Let's say we got B17, it's about to strafe Berlin and one has engine trouble and is lagging behind the others in the squadron. What are the Messerschmitts gonna take out first? They're gonna take out that one. And this is Michael right now. So get out of the story. I wouldn't sell any more Bitcoin by the way. Your job is to have Bitcoin go back up and you getting out of the story will probably help that. I'm a long-term bullish on Bitcoin. I think we're in the typical four-year cycle where we've corrected 50%. We could correct more, but I think the long-term bias for Bitcoin is up. And I think if you hold it for five years, you're gonna be well-situated. Here you have Trump dirtying up the industry in ways. What needs to happen from a bipartisan? How can it return to a way where you don't have too much regulation at the same time? You zero out all the scammers. - So I think there's only one thing and that is time and demography. So I think if you're above the age of 60 and you're in the Democratic party, you hate crypto. I think if you're below the age of, if you're in the 50 to 60, you're crypto-biterious, but you're like crypto skeptic. If you're below the age of 50, you're generally like, okay, I get this and there should be an ecosystem allowing us for tokenization and for general improvements of the financial services/fintech community. And so I think he set the industry back. I think it'll be three, four, five years before we see the right type of regulation. I want to be wrong, you know? Cynthia Lumis, Tim Scott, are saying that the Clarity Act is going to get passed. If you go to the polymarkets. - Explain what the Clarity Act is. - Okay, so the Clarity Act in the most simple elevator pitch is exactly that. We're going to offer you Clarity on regulation associated with crypto. Where is Bitcoin going to be regulated at the CFTC or the SEC? Where are these other coins going to be regulated? What's going to be allowed in the industry? How are we going to deal with stablecoins? Are they going to be able to pay interest on their, the balances that you put at a stablecoin company? What will the banks be able to do? Will we charge the banks on their balance sheet which they would do right now? If I held my Bitcoin, I can't hold it at JP Morgan, but if I was able to, they hit them with an overcharge on their capital account. But let's say they could segment it out. Will the money center banks eventually be able to custodian Bitcoin? And so why are we calling it Clarity? Because the pendulum has been swinging back and forth between the administrations. You get hard left-leaning regulation from the SEC, and it swings back to hard right-leaning regulation. We were having regulation by enforcement, other Gensler, now we're having light-touch regulation. This would provide a clear signal to Democrats and Republicans, here are the laws as legislated by the Congress signed by the president. And so this is the interpretation ban with you have now as opposed to this wider ban. It feels like grift again. That's what it has more of a nervousness around it because the Trumps are. Well, let me explain why it does, though, because all Gillabran and these people are asking for is, okay, we don't want the president's family to steal another couple of billion dollars of crypto. So can we at least legislate or create a rules-based system that's ethically guided? And the White House said, no, we like when the president steals. Scott Bessent said that the 2.4 billion that he took is a sign of US innovation, as we said, in an interview this guy. I mean, you got to be kidding me. I mean, it's literally unbelievable. It's like, I mean, but it's, you know what it is? It's like a sock puppet at this point. It's like, that used to be a person, you know, like Prince formerly known as Prince. That used to be a person formerly known as Scott Bessent. He's now a sock puppet for Caroline Levitt and Donald Trump. Okay, and you're saying that with a straight face in an interview guy? I mean, come on. I know, I agree. So small thing, July 4th officially marked the end of the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as Doge, and a post on X, the agency said, well, the formal mission of Doge has come to an end. The mission to limit waste fraud and abuse will continue. Good stewardship of taxpayer dollars and accountable government are not temporary initiatives. Researchers estimate Doge's cuts to US AID and humanitarian aid contribute to hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. Doge claims it's a taxpayers about $215 billion through spending cuts. The original goal was to trillion. Many people feel it costs the United States. Actually, one thing we won't be getting is a final assessment of what actually accomplished budget director Russell vote recently told Congress, we have no plans to publish a closing Doge report. Of course not, because if they did a good job, they would tell you, I think this was just, as it turned out, as I said it would, it was a nothing burger of massive proportions and actually led to death of people around the globe, especially children. So any final thoughts on Doge? Just another waste of time. - I mean, again, there was a Doge. It was the Clinton Gore reinventing government. - That's right. - I just want to remind everybody, we took 426,000 jobs and we eliminated them over eight years through attrition and buyouts and process redesign. And what I never can understand for the life of me is I think I'm a reasonably smart guy, but I know I'm stupid in a lot of areas. But if I had a B next to my name, you have to explain this to me, Kara, 'cause you hang out with these people more than I do. So I've got billionaires that troll me on Twitter, 'cause they're smarter than me, and they know more about everything than I could possibly know. But and I understand that, yes, you know more about neurology than neurologists and more about the military than the military. Yes, if you have a billion dollars, you're the smartest. I understand that. But why wouldn't you have gone to 25 year veterans of the GAO, the government administration office and said, okay, where are the worms in the system? How can I plug a few holes? I'm not gonna save a trillion dollars or two trillion dollars, but you know, from an engineering perspective, the structural design and the embedded cost of the government, what could we do to stop some of the bleeding? And how could we do that gradually? And they didn't want to do that because why? 'Cause they wanted to please Elon and let him jump all over the place. I don't know. I think he just was to please Elon. I think Elon felt like this was important and that's where they had the falling out over the tax fail when he started to show what he really was made of, which was spending more government money. And I just think it was just all an act. I thought it was all nonsense and idiotic and possibly gave Elon and his minions access to lots of secured government data. I always thought it was about the data, but that's just me. Well, it was definitely a missed opportunity because we could have gone back to page ago legislation that got us to the budget surplus during the Clinton era. We could have gone with a Clinton-askadoge-like system that was bipartisan. We could have said to our fellow Americans, "Hey, we're not gonna fix the problem in 10 years, but you know what, over a 20-year period of time, we could get the spend in line with where the GDP is," and we didn't do that. And you know what's gonna happen? And you know this, and I know this. My buddy, Ray Dalio knows this. You're gonna have an American president in 2036, 2040, dealing with a $55 trillion budget deficit. And they're gonna be sitting there saying, "Okay, the money's not worth anything anymore because the only way we can pay for this guy is, remember, unfunded tax liability is what a deficit is. That's what Milton Friedman said. All deficit spending, unfunded tax liability. And guess how we're paying for it. We're using the most pernicious and most regressive form of taxation because we're cowards. We're using inflation. And so we're going to blow out your bank account. You think you got $1,000 in your account. It only has $750 worth of purchasing power because that's our way of monetizing our debt. And that's a problem. And that's one of the reasons why I am long gold and one of the reasons why I'm long Bitcoin because I do think that these will be part of the, as we reinvent ourselves once again, they will be part of the answer to the way the monetary system works in the future. Yeah, this was a missed opportunity and it was all performative, performative. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back the pros and cons of Trump accounts. Hustle culture told us to grind 24/7 and we would become overnight millionaires and a lot of us believed it. But this week on "Networth and Chill," I'm making the case that the grind might actually be making you broke because between the door dash orders and the ubers and the sent out laundry, the hitting costs of overworking add up faster than you think. I'm breaking down the real financial toll of burning out while trading sleep for side hustles is off in the wrong math and what Gen Z quietly quitting actually gets right. Plus, I'm answering your questions including how to tell if your business idea is actually good, whether cash out your vacation days or take them, and how to actually grow your wealth without destroying yourself in the process. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com/yourrichbf. Anthony, we're back speaking of trying to make money for American citizens. Trump accounts, which I hope will in the name will be changed after he leaves the new investment accounts for children of officially launched. Trump marked the occasion by ringing the bell to open the markets from the Oval Office on Monday morning. Six million Trump accounts have already been opened for children under 18, according to the Treasury Department of Fraction of eligible kids. That's a small amount actually. Babies born during Trump's term between 2025 and 2028 will receive a thousand dollar deposit of seed money in these accounts. The Social Security Administration is an interesting process for parents to enroll their babies in these Trump accounts at the hospital as they register for Social Security numbers. We've seen a number of individual corporate donors to these accounts, including Michael Dell. And as you mentioned, Ray Dalio, the latest is SpaceX president Gwen Chautwell who just announced she's donating company stock. What do you think about these accounts? I'm not necessarily against them. I don't I think it's I just I feel like grift will happen because Trump's involved with it. And at the same time, I feel like maybe we should just have child care. Maybe we should just have health care. Maybe we should just have these kind of things that cost people. I don't mind forced savings, which essentially this is. And I have accounts from my own kids for college and things like that. But and everyone should be able to avail themselves to them in a tax-free basis. So and at the same time, relying on the stock market's problematic from my perspective, but go ahead. Let's hear. Well, I want to listen, you know, I have to say this one straight for me as a Wall Street person. I like this because I even if it's going to be six million people, that's what it looks like right now. Getting these people auto enrolled in the stock market and the idea that they have some investment, which means they're technically invested in something. And if it could spark some aspiration, if it could spark some interest in long-term thinking and saving and investing, I like those things. You know, I, you know, listen, Michael Delg, I think gave six and a quarter billion dollars. I know he's a very wealthy man, but I think it's a very generous statement that he's trying to make. I don't like the Trump name on it. But of course, anything that Trump does is going to have to put his name on it. He's trying to get his signature on your money. He's trying to get his face in your passport. He cannot help himself. So, but, but here's the thing I would say about this and people should really be concerned about this number. 40% of the Americans own nothing in a retirement account. And I want you to get the pressure on that. And so that also, we do know this and we don't teach it in school. And perhaps we should. We know we have a lot of financially illiterate people in the country. And if you're listening to this podcast and you're financially illiterate, don't look down on those people. Figure out a way to educate those people because more educated people and more financially literate people will mean they'll be more self-sustaining people. Okay. And they'll be people seeking their aspiration. So I do like this one. Trump is taking more credit for it than than he deserves. This was an idea that was proposed 10 years ago. Lots of people blocked it. I think, I think believe it or not, Vice President Harris, if she was president, would have accepted this at this point in our culture. You're making a different point, though. And I would just say not to conjoin those. The point that you're making, which I agree with, we need a platform of good food in the school so the kid doesn't go to school on healthy or hungry. We need some sustainable educational ideas and we need some healthcare for these kids. That's more important and putting $1,000 in their savings. I accept that. But I would just say to you, Karan, people listening in, you got to deal with the world the way it is, not the way it should be and not the way we want it to be. And so this one I like and I would like, I would like to see more billionaires. I'd like to see more people do this. Giving money. So is this like, although some people feel like open AI, doing it as a way to get a bail out at some point or you give him the money and he takes credit for it and then you get some sort of break of something else that giving money these things gives you something else. Well, that's been the case with Donald Trump. I mean, we've learned that. You give him money. You buy a documentary from his family. You get more rocket contracts. You line up behind him. He takes care of you. You've got people that have given him money or given money to his pack and Howard Butler has written them out of certain tariffs and has gotten them an exemption on certain things. So yes, we know that there's a pay per play system going on. And so yeah, there's people thinking, you know what? I'm going to give this. I get the tax cut and Trump's got two and a half years left. I may need a favor from him and he's the guy that pays for play and I can get in there and ask for that favor and probably we'll get it done. You know, there's there's a queue of people. And I'd be very interested. I'm not an investigative reporter, but I would love somebody to work on this. There's a queue of people that are lined up for pardons. And I know it's in the tens of millions of dollars is being paid to get these pardons. They're hiring lobbyists. They're hiring attorneys. They're they're buying, I don't know, fragrances from the family or they're all men or Kellyanne Conway. They're buying meme coins. I don't know what the hell they're doing. But I'm sure there's a legion of people, they're like, Hey, we got a two and a half year window. We broke a lot of laws, but this guy could pardon my ass. And and this is Trump's personality rather than using the norms in the system. He breaks the norms and then he breaks about it and only I only I could have gotten our player back on the field. Only I could take in billions of dollars for myself. These other presidents who are stupid, they could have made billions of dollars for themselves. So I'm the genius. You see what I mean? And it's very corruptive. And let me tell you what it does, which pisses me off the most, if you don't mind, because we grew up similarly. When I was a kid growing up, maybe Richard Nixon was corrupt, but he wasn't so corrupt that I thought the system was broken and unfair. Right. I looked up at the system. I said, all right, the guy's Bobby corrupt. But you know what? I go to a good school and work my ass off. I can move classes in this country. This guy is putting a suppression on middle and lower income people. They're they're like holy shit. There's a two tier justice system. You're either one of the presidents, crony friends, or you're not. And if you're not, you're not going to make it. And I'm going to do way less economically than my parents did. And I don't have any hope and I don't have any chance. That's what the corruption does in a society. And that's what pisses me off the most. Yeah. I would agree. I would agree. So we're both sort of for these things. But it just seems like I'd love to get the Trump name off of it. I almost signed up for one. I almost did. But then I was like, I have an up stock holdings. So last thing very briefly. So Mark Zuckerberg told meta employees, the company's AI agents aren't advancing as quickly as expected. Like a lot of corporate people. Zuckerberg said meta's AI reorganization hasn't delivered the results of the company in hope for those expects progress over the next three to six months and may medallate off around 8,000 employees and reassigned about 7,000 AI focused teams. Zuckerberg said this move has not as clean as it should have been, meta's expected to spend as much as $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year. Everybody's a little worried about even a Palantir. The Palantir, even though he said in a crazy way, was making a lot of sense around the high price of tokens, the effectiveness, the safety of your data, whether you want to hand it over to these things, all signs of possible highs of these of this spending. Do you think how much impact, how much patience do investors have of companies keep saying progress is slower than hope, including the center companies in this? Yeah. Well, I mean, you know the answer to that. I know the answer to that. They have patience until bam. They don't have patience. And this is very reminiscent of global crossing and very reminiscent of Cisco. And you and I are well enough to remember web one. We're building the infrastructure. We're putting all the switches in. We've got all these transatlantic, trans-specific cables. We've got cables coming down the the Persian Gulf, all the way into the straight of her moves, and we are going to electrify and globalize everything, and they overspend, and they had too much leverage in the system as a result of which, like a real estate speculation, the system got built, but it collapsed, and the people that were owning the equity, and we're buying the hopeium at that time actually got crushed. And so what I'm fearful is also the way this stuff is booked, right? Because if you're spending on the R&D, and then someone else is booking a profit at the same time, you know, to me, you've artificially stimulated some people's earnings. Okay, particularly the data centers and things like that. And so I'm worried about that, because that's exactly what happened in Web 1, and you and I are old enough to remember that movie, and that movie ended in tears. Yeah, that wasn't a happy Hollywood ending. Although then there was Google, then there was meta, then there was, you know, well, well, well, that's the bet. So now you've got your cards, you're playing this hand, you got a hope that you can close your position out before the thing blows up, and then you wait for whatever replaces it, right? You know, listen, all to Vista, ask, ask Gives. Yeah, I'm with that. We could, you remember the search engines, remember internet capital group, Scott and I were reminiscing about that. Remember internet capital group, remember the boom and internet capital, they named the, they named the page I knew it was over when they named the Patriot Stadium, the internet capital group stadium or whatever, a holding company wasn't. And so, so to me, what I'm worried about here, and I think it's fair to be worried about this is this is a great technology. I think it'll add to productivity. It'll boost things. The internet certainly did that. But as we invest, there were pockets in the railroad industry that blew up pockets and telecom that blew up. And there's going to be pockets here that blow up. Do you expect to blow up? Because a lot of economists are suddenly sounding alarms. Now, took a years before that happened, and the one you were talking global crossing and everything else, it took several years before it broke, essentially. We got to tell me where rates are going. You tell me where the rates are going, and I'll tell you where the fuse is, because if we manage to stave off despite the economic data and the specter of current inflation, and remember, we had a 100 basis point differential on rate expectation. So if you and I were doing this podcast January 1, Anthony, what are you expecting? Three 25 basis cuts this year? What is it now? We flipped it over to one 25 basis point hike. So that did affect the large part of the markets. It did affect crypto and obviously gold also sold off as a result of that. But if you're telling me we have a 50 basis point 75 basis point rate increase due to the quagmire and Iran, all these sort of different things, you're going to shorten that fuse. If you, somebody could say, hey, I'm going to miss a bond payment here. Sorry. I think it's a very telling car that Facebook, which mince money and Google that mince money, I think they combined one out to raise and bond market activity, something like 140 billion dollars in the last six weeks. And so that's telling you something, they're like, holy shit, we're spending so much money, we better get another 100 or so billion dollars in reserve here to protect ourselves and to create a layer of protection on the interest rates that we're going to be paying. We're paying. So we'll see where that goes. Anyway, one more quick break will be back for wins and fails. Okay, Anthony, let's hear some wins and fails. You go first. Well, listen, I mean, we talked about it. So I think the win of the week is the Trump accounts, actually, I don't like the column that, but I want Americans to get into saving and the investing mindset. And certainly if you get children into the saving, investing mindset, it could be a life changer. So I think that's the clearest win for me. The second clearest win, which is obscure to people, but I think it's meaningful is the birth right citizenship. And we talked a little bit about that last week on my show. I think that is the big message. As sorry, you know, you pushed and shoved us around. We are afraid of you here at the court. But you know what? It was a six three decision. And we're going to stick with the Constitution over the Orange Maniac. And I think those are two big wins. So losses for me are FIFA and sick of fentino. I think this is a big loss for him. And I think, and I think weirdly, you know, and sadly, I think he's I think he's hurt the game. And I think it sucks because the world cup to me is about togetherness. You know, when you want to love people and you want to love the world, I think of the world cup. I'm like, all right, a little of these people, you know, the happiness and the sadness is based on a sporting event. It's not based on a war. I love the whole environment. I love the whole carnival of it. And I just think the notion that this guy poisoned that too. It's like he won't stop at anything. He won't stop at anything. So those are the those are the wins and those are the losses. That sort of goes into my fail is the continued sucking up of people like Bessent and others about like, yes, there's plenty of people behind me. The the cultism is so strange. And it's so at some point, when you're going to say the emperor has no clothes, that's that kind which I don't want to see Donald Trump naked necessarily. But this I've never thought about it though, is it ever like this? Imagine the person is it ever just going into the brain. I have a sense of what it looks like. And the whole like, it's like an open spam can, like you just open to spam can. And there he is. Have you thought of it? Open spam can with a penis, which a bent penis. Well, I don't know. Yeah, we haven't confirmed it tonight. That it just could be an open spam. I believe this I believe porn stars is what I do. But I think this sycophantcy is just astonishing and Douglas Bergham in particular, with the whole thing around the reflecting pool. I mean, first of all, everything like that fair. Nobody was there and they were pretending they were there. That was hysterical. But he was going on and on about these cuts and without any proof. And then when the why are you meeting people? Why don't you just accept this? And they're like, because you're a liar, Doug Bergham. Like, to me, he seemed to be even though he's an obvious suck up, obvious suck up. But the level of suck up area is really. And I'm like, you're not stupid and you're sucking up. And that to me was really a fail. I thought that I just can't believe it's going to continue. I just don't know when it's going to stop. And I'm sort of waiting for the moment where somebody points to him and says, you're naked essentially. My win is so over the holiday, I went to see Supergirl because everyone didn't want to see it, right? Because it's, you know, it's this big disaster for Warner. And people aren't going to see it. And I have to tell you, it's a pretty good movie. It's a pretty good movie. I know it's not going to win. I see the numbers. I could see why it would be hard to get a man to go to it. It's pretty woman focused. There's a sex trafficking thematic. It's dark. But I do think this actor who's in it, Millie, I think it's Alcock, is amazing, was amazing. And I think it's a lovely, I think it's a good, it's a really solid. There's been some bad movies in this genre and the Superhero genre and lots of bad ones. This is not one of them. And I'm sorry, it's not doing better. I bet it has a life outside of this time later. It'll become a cult favorite, I think, because it's really interesting and strange movie. Oh, I'll definitely go see it. Look at a big superman, a fish in auto. And I love Supergirl. Yeah, she's really interesting and stark. It's, but it's dark. And I can see why people wouldn't necessarily go to it. So I get it, I get it, I get it. Anyway, and of course, the biggest one of the week is Taylor Swift. Congratulations with you and Travis getting married. It's just two crazy kids, you two crazy kids. I hope for the best. I hope you can make it both of you. It's great. But you know, if guys, I would like to, if you're probably not going to have another wedding, but if there's an anniversary party, party Karen, I would like to invite it. We will go. We will see. You may have invited me to this, but I may have just missed it in the mail, but I, you know, I would like to be great. We will be there for you. Anyway, Anthony, I really appreciate it. We just, for people know, we want to hear from you, send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot, submit a question for the show or call 85551pivot. Okay, that is the show. Thank you, Anthony. As always, people can check out your book all the wrong moves this fall. It's a, it's a, it's a really terrific book. Thank you for listening to pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We back on Friday again, Anthony. Thank you so much. It's always great to be on with the care. Thank you, guys. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Weissman, Arnie Andertratt, engineered this episode. Thanks also to Kate Gallagher and Brad Silvester. In a shot, Kerwa is a Fox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to pivot from Fox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business and hello, Scott, whatever yacht you're sailing on in whatever fancy sea we miss you.