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June 4, 2025 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
45:14
20250604_musk-derangment-syndrome-doge-legacy-debate-with-s
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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IRS Audit Risks for Tesla 00:15:24
I think the two of you are more impressed with Mr. Musk than I am.
I think if somebody is making Nazi salutes when someone is so severely addicted to drugs, they can't get their shit together to show up to the White House without looking exceptionally high.
I don't think that's the right role model for young men.
What you just heard there from Scott is must arrangement syndrome.
It's fair that he has those criticisms, but it doesn't distract or take away from the achievements the man has made so far and will make.
That's my opinion.
Elon Musk has left the White House, but not without an extraordinary parting shot at the man he was instrumental in putting there.
I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore, he said on his platform X.
This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
It's a sharp change in tone from the Oval Office farewell on Friday, in which both men defended their unlikely bromance.
Elon has worked tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations.
And you know the kinds of things that he's found and his people have found.
He's brought a group of very smart people.
Thank you, Elon.
Take care of yourself.
Thank you.
This is not the end of Doge, but really the beginning.
My time as a special governor point necessarily had to end.
It was a limited time thing.
It's 134 days, I believe, which ends in a few days.
So how did Doge do?
And is Elon okay?
And what about the six major businesses he'll now return to running full time?
Well, joining me are two economic heavyweights, Professor Scott Galloway, host of the ProfG Pod and Pivot, and Kevin O'Leary, the investor and shark tank star.
Well, welcome to both of you.
I can't think of two better people, frankly, to debate this.
First of all, Kevin, I don't know where you were when that post from Elon dropped yesterday, but it was a bit of a jawdropper.
Here you've got the guy that was instrumental in helping Donald Trump get elected, incredibly publicly supportive of him.
And then he goes on his own social media platform and tells 200 million people at the press of a button that Trump's big, beautiful bill, on which he stakes so much of his presidency, is a disgusting abomination.
What are your thoughts?
Well, I'm working very closely on this bill.
As an advocate for small business in America, a lot of people don't realize that 70% of job creations in the U.S. is from small business, 500 to 500 employees.
So we care a lot about this bill.
There's a lot of things that we need in here, particularly on the tax side of things.
But there's a lot in this bill that we don't like.
And so I'm an advocate for their voices, and I'm going to senators and talking to them about what's the problem here.
But what happened when that bomb dropped, and I think you've given it a good analogy, it was a bomb.
It set off a narrative that Ron Johnson has carried forward in the last couple of hours as well.
He just put out a chart.
And he's not a lightweight.
He's one of the votes that they may not get in the Senate if he's not made whole, so to speak.
He's pointing out something very simple.
This chart's very simple.
It simply says pre-pandemic, deficits were sub $1 trillion, regardless of administration.
And all of a sudden, post-pandemic, they're all over $2 trillion.
And that's not sustainable.
And it's a good question.
There's no question about it.
That is a good question.
Why is that the case?
Now, he may have to get an answer because that's exactly why Elon dropped that bomb.
He wants an answer to that question, too.
And so they're putting a lot of pressure on lawmakers here to go find a way to get this closer to a break-even budget, not a $2 trillion deficit in perpetuity, which is not sustainable.
Now, having said all that, I need this bill to pass in terms of all the businesses I've invested in.
So I'm pro-bill, but I think we're going to have to deal with Ron Johnson's and Elon's question one way or another.
Then there's another attribute that has just started to cause waves in the last 48 hours.
And this was a little piece of legislation that was carried forward from two years ago that is just a cut and paste that's freaking out a lot of people right now.
It provides a provision to the IRS to extend an audit period on small businesses from three years to nine years in the case that they took any government grant money in the employment retention credit.
I mean, it was an ERC program that many, many thousands, hundreds of thousands of businesses used from $250,000 to $6,000, $7 million in providing for their employees while the pandemic was on.
And now they're saying we're going to hang this audit threat over you, even though, and this is why it's gone crazy right now, the IRS does not have a statute of limitations on fraud.
They can investigate anybody they want, but they want this built into the bill that will stop small businesses from being able to finance at the bank level, at the factoring level, or at mergers and acquisitions.
This is really, really punitive.
And I've gone to war against that.
And I haven't found a senator yet, not a Republican anyways, that wants to extend powers to the IRS to audit small business for 10 or almost nine years, which is ludicrous.
Yeah, it seems ridiculous.
Scott, as Kevin was talking there, story has dropped on the New York Times website that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, has said today that the broad Republican bill, the big, beautiful bill to cut taxes and slash some federal programs, would add $2.4 trillion to the already soaring national debt over the next decade.
And they're categorizing that as an analysis that was all but certain to inflame concerns that President Trump's domestic agenda would lead to excessive government borrowing.
And I think the significance of that, I mean, it's a little bit more than even Kevin was outlining there.
The significance, I think, of Elon Musk blowing up in the way he did is it does seem to render almost everything he was trying to achieve with Doge, which in principle seemed to me a terrific idea to try and take a sway through government waste.
I mean, you know, who wouldn't be against that?
But if you're saving a few hundred billion by doing that, and at the same time, there's a bill, a big, beautiful bill coming in, which he now calls an abomination, which is going to cost $2.4 trillion on top of the existing debt, then it's pointless, isn't it?
Yeah, Pierce, thanks for having me.
And Kevin, nice to meet you.
I've heard a lot about you.
I don't think we've met.
Yeah, this is nothing.
I would argue that this big, beautiful bill is nothing but probably the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich, from young to old, and from the future to the past.
Kevin mentioned small businesses like him.
I've started and run small business.
We're very sensitive to interest rates.
And when you get to a point where the interest expense on the deficit is greater than your defense spending, nations go out of business.
Nations aren't conquered.
They go broke.
And this type of fiscal irresponsibility such that Kevin and I can have a tax cut that removes somewhere between $8 million and $13 million, depending on if you're listening to Republicans or Democrats from the roles of Medicaid, and creates this continued bipartisan, irresponsible approach to our fiscal management.
You had George Washington to George Bush $7 trillion in deficits.
And since then, we've racked up another 30 trillion.
And let's be clear, it's been both Democrats and Republicans.
But unless until at some point there's an adult in the room and we get our fiscal house and old order, all we're essentially saying is we want our children to have higher mortgage credit card and student loan interest payments and have a more difficult time starting businesses.
So I think Kevin and I both agree this is irresponsible.
I would argue that Republicans' solution to this recklessness is to cut more funding across.
the most vulnerable.
And yet corporations have their lowest tax burden since 1929.
The wealthiest 25 Americans are paying an average tax rate of 6%.
And I would also take issue, Kevin, that portraying the IRS as some sort of oppressive army.
Doge wants to cut the IRS by 40 to 50%, which will inhibit our ability to collect taxes that are owed.
No one's showing up and harassing anybody.
They're collecting, there are supposedly somewhere between $2 and $600 billion a year in what's called the tax gap.
And these are the taxes that are legally owed that the IRS doesn't have the ability to collect because they are understaffed.
For every $1 you invest in the IRS to audit the 0.1% and collect the taxes that are actually owed, you get $27 back.
So essentially what the Republicans have done, in my view, is said, we're here to serve the 1% and defenestrate and emasculate our ability to collect taxes on them.
And Democrats, the top 1%, pretend to care and clutch their pearls privately in dinner parties while going along with this because they know they're about to get wealthier at the hands of this tax cut.
Put another way, the top 5% are going to see a tax decrease.
The bottom 95% are going to see a tax increase.
And the biggest tax increase is going to be on future generations.
They're going to have to pay back these irresponsible deficits.
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The IRS, I have no problem with them collecting their taxes.
In fact, I don't consider them an enemy at all for small business.
I work very hard through many of my companies to make sure they're compliant with the tax code because nobody in a small business can afford to be audited.
It's just too difficult and they can't, they don't have lobbyists.
They have to just make sure they comply.
What I don't want to see happen is a change in policy.
Forever, you've kept your records for 36 months, whether you're big or small business.
And that's the way it's been in perpetuity.
And it's also been in perpetuity that there is no statute of limitations on investigating fraud.
So there's no need for the IRS to put this overhang over businesses that actually hurt, I estimate, their value by 20%.
Who's going to give them a loan when they have a multi-million dollar lien on them through this perpetual audit for nine years?
So that's one issue.
But let's go back to this idea of the competition of nations.
The reason you want to be in the middle of the G20 and corporate tax rates is tax money doesn't have any loyalty.
It's very promiscuous, and so does investment capital.
It goes at the path of least resistance.
And so, if all of a sudden you hike tax rates to where you're in the bottom quartile in terms of productivity and competitiveness, the money just leaves the country.
And you don't want that to happen.
We don't need the lowest tax rates in America.
We need to be in the middle where we sit right now.
Just look at a place like Abu Dhabi, where it's 9% tax rate.
That's why billions, if not trillions, of dollars from around the world is going there and incorporating there.
They're not incorporating in Washington, D.C. or Boston, Massachusetts, because we're nowhere near 9%.
So you've got to keep that in mind.
And also, we can't get away from the fact that small business, 500 to 500 employees, create the majority of the jobs.
There is no American economy if there's no small business.
There's 70% of job creation.
And so you don't want to do anything to hurt their abilities to compete and maintain their staff and grow their businesses.
And when you start to mess with corporate tax rates, that's exactly what happens.
We don't have a lot of flexibility.
Now, I agree.
Is there waste in government spending?
That was the whole Doge idea.
Yes, there is.
Elon never found $2 trillion, but he only worked on it for 130 days.
But the theme is now embedded in everybody's head, red and blue, that there must be a perpetual audit of government and the brand is called Doge, and that's okay.
But now, this bill that is trying to get through, and everybody's taking a shot at it, and I'm one of them as well, this bill has to pass just to protect competitiveness on tax rates.
Now, how we get there, this is sausage being made, and Trump is unusual as a president.
He doesn't mind keeping the cameras rolling while you see everybody going at each other.
That's what he's doing.
So you're watching sausage being made, but I think there will be a sausage.
Not sure it'll be by the middle of July, but I think it'll happen in August at least.
And what it looks like, we don't know right now.
Okay.
Scott, just tangentially to all this, part of Elon Musk's anger might be connected to two other things going on with his life.
One is the impact of his political activities on his business, particularly Tesla.
You've seen a real backlash where he went from being the liberal darling with people racing out to buy a Tesla to establish their liberal leanings to being somebody liberals wanted to torch the Teslas because he was MAGA.
So you've got that going on and the direct impact on his bottom line and some initiatives coming in, obviously at a government level, which are impacting on electric cars, for example.
And you've also got a multiple number of reports in newspapers in the last few days about his alleged extensive use of drugs, including ketamine and ecstasy and Adderall.
Let's talk about Elon for a moment.
You know, he's gone out in a blaze of mayhem with these posts.
But if you look at him and his brand, how damaged has he been by the last few months?
Well, it ends up, Pierce, that traveling around with your own pillbox of Adderall, ketamine, ecstasy, and mushrooms while cutting off funding for anti-retroviral drugs to pregnant women with HIV, such that right now, according to the associate professor of global affairs, Brooke Nichols, there are 1,500 babies being born HIV positive because of these cuts.
It ends up that when the wealthiest man in the world is killing the poorest children in the world, it ends up that's bad for business.
Brand Damage from Drug Scandals 00:04:56
And you have European nations that have seen a decline in Tesla sales, anywhere from 20% in France to 65% in northern European countries.
And in the U.S., sales are down 11%.
Right now, Tesla's sales are declining faster than any automobile company in the world.
So his brand, the Tesla brand, according to Ipsos, has gone from the seventh most aspirational brand in the world amongst the likes of Apple and Microsoft and Amazon to the 95th place.
So I think people have decided, I mean, quite frankly, this distinct of the morality of what estimates are that 300,000 children have died so far because of the cuts to USA, distinct of that, let's just talk about this economically.
You're seeing a brand erosion, the likes of which we've never seen before.
And quite frankly, the 75% of Republicans who these programs appeal to more would never consider buying an EV.
So just from a straight kind of business standpoint, to go so red pill and to be seen as this cruel and this coarse, distinct of the moral implications, distinct of the reduction in soft power that America enjoys, distinct of our reputation as the good guys being trashed.
This is just really bad for business for Tesla.
Yeah, I mean, Kevin, Scott was referencing there an appearance by Bono on Joe Rogan.
We've got a clip from that, then I'll ask you a question off the back of this.
Just recent report.
It's not proven, but the surveillance enough suggests 300,000 people have already died from just this cutoff, this hard cut of USAID.
So this food rotting in boats, in warehouses.
Now, as he said there, Kevin Bono, he doesn't know for sure that that figure is correct, but there's certainly mounting concern that a lot of people are being directly impacted health-wise, including people who may die as a consequence of these cuts that have been made.
Musk has responded on X.
He branded Bono such a liar stroke idiot.
He said zero people have died as a result of the USAID cuts.
In a later exchange, he says South Park lampooned Bono as the biggest shit in the world, and they were right.
So he's fired into Bono, but the dramatic cessation of much of what USAID did surely, I mean, inevitably, would have impacted significantly on things like public health, wouldn't it?
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Yes.
And I can't refute some of the facts that Scott has detailed there in terms of just the data.
But you could have looked at that data decades ago when there was found some poison in a Tylenol bottle and seen a total collapse in that brand in a matter of six weeks.
And today it's 10x what it used to be.
And so there are periods of any brand where they go into crisis.
But if they are merit to the product and it solves a pain point, they tend to recover.
And I would argue that's going to happen in the case of Tesla.
Because let me ask a question from 30,000 feet.
If you look at the controversy, and there's no question Elon Musk is a very controversial individual.
There is just no question about that.
But then you set that aside and say, can we look at the track record of executional skills on mandate he has elected to take on, whether that be SpaceX or Starlink or Tesla or anything he's touched?
He's the most remarkable individual.
And I used to say this about Steve Jobs, who I work for, that he was 80% signal and 20% noise.
In other words, in any given day, as Jobs used to tell me, I'm going to get the five things I have to get done and I will not let noise get in the way in this 18-hour cycle and you should follow me and do the same.
And that worked for him.
Look at what he achieved.
Then you look at Elon Musk and I'd argue to anybody listening, Elon is the only individual that I've ever met that's 100% signal.
Elon Musk: Pure Signal Only 00:02:46
He does not even deal with noise.
I've watched him walk away and I've used this example countless of times, countless times, because I've seen it.
He'll walk away from a conversation the second he thinks it's a waste of his time.
He's not garnering any information that's useful.
And he's very awkward socially.
But look at what that man has achieved and he's only 50% through being the modern day Da Vinci, if you want to call him that.
There's nobody on Earth that's achieved as much as he has.
And of course, that's going to draw criticism.
Whether it comes from a rock star that wants to be a politician.
I love YouTube music, but I don't listen at all to bonus politics.
I don't think he spends a lot of time worrying about it until he's talking on air.
I'd rather he write music that I can enjoy.
I'd rather listen to what Musk has to say in terms of moving forward on these mandates that solve huge problems for mankind.
Where would the Ukrainian soldiers be without Starlink?
Where would people be without Teslas that provide incredible value for the dollar and the low-cost versions?
Or what about SpaceX?
Will we get to Mars?
Well, if we are, it's going to be because of Elon Musk.
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Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
I was standing with him in the line to meet President Trump and the Emir of Qatar in Doha two weeks ago at the state dinner.
Why Politics Adds Aggravation 00:06:40
And it was before Elon asked me what we were all doing lining up.
And I said, we're going to meet Donald Trump for a handshake.
And he laughed and went, I do that every day.
I went, I know.
I don't even know why you're standing here.
Anyway, he thought it'd be funny to carry on standing there.
And when he got to Trump, they both burst out laughing.
But notwithstanding that, he was bored.
And he pulled out his phone and began showing me and a couple of other people, just on his phone, the optimus humanoid robots and where they've got to.
And they were dancing in this video clip.
And it was one of the most extraordinary things I've seen.
And he said, you know, these are going to be the biggest thing in the world within 15 years.
And everyone's going to have one, or rich people will want 10 and they're going to change the world.
They're going to do every boring thing in the world you could possibly wish them to do.
And he had a kind of boyish enthusiasm for this technology.
And that made me just look at him and think, why do you need all the aggravation of politics?
You know, it's like it's brought him so much aggravation.
And yet, as you said, Kevin, he's a genius, really, in many other ways.
I mean, do you accept, Scott, that he's a genius, or do you feel it's smoke and mirrors with Musk?
Because when I watched him talk me through his Optimus thing, I just saw the 10-year-old boy who used to write programs doing it on a massive scale and loving that.
Whereas I think he's really struggled with the criticism he's had in the political arena.
I don't think you can deny his genius.
I'll use Starlink on my flight to London in a couple of days, and it's a superior product.
I owned a Tesla.
But somehow we've decided in America that innovation and money replaces or obviates or excuses depravity.
Cutting off aid to HIV-positive mothers, deciding what veterans should get benefits, cutting off snap payments, which have shown to have a positive net return when people run out of money for food at the end of the month.
I mean, I think one of the wonderful things about being an American, and quite frankly, for me, what it means to be a man and what I try to teach my boys is the whole point of prosperity is such that you can protect people.
And I think the two of you are more impressed with Mr. Musk than I am.
I think if somebody is making Nazi salutes, if somebody is being sued concurrently by two women for sole custody of their child because that person has not spent any time with that child, when someone is so severely addicted to drugs, they can't get their shit together to show up to the White House without looking exceptionally high.
I don't think that's the right role model for young men.
So, what I would ask of all of us is: look at what money has done to us.
That if someone can land a rocket on metal scissors or create a great EV, he's a genius.
He's the wealthiest man in the world.
But does that mean we should excuse depravity?
Does that mean, unlike Bill Gates, he's not using his billions to help people?
He's not planting trees, the shade of which he won't sit under.
I think this is an individual who has literally come off the tracks, who is rapidly addicted to drugs, and is using his immense power to get people elected.
And that too many of us excuse what is abhorrent behavior.
I think his legacy is not going to be an EV or putting rockets into space.
I think it's going to be unnecessary death, disease, and disability of the world's most vulnerable.
That is not what it means to be an innovator.
It's not what it means to be an American.
It's not what it means to be a man.
Wow.
Kevin, what do you say to that?
That's a tough criticism.
And that's certainly the kind of controversy that surrounds him and has almost since he came on the scene at the PayPal days.
He has distractors.
Scott's one of them.
I get it.
You know, I would have kept that.
There's a concept now that I deal with every day called Trump derangement syndrome internationally when I have to work in Abu Dhabi or in Zurich.
And I get into a meeting and they want to go into a diatribe about Trump.
And I say, this is a useless use of time.
I'm not here to debate politics.
I'm here to debate policy because we don't make money in politics as investors.
We make money with policy.
So if we could just use our valuable time together to look at the policy and see if there's an investment opportunity together.
But I can't, and I don't care to get into debating Trump derangement syndrome.
But what you just heard there from Scott is must derangement syndrome.
And I get it.
And I think it's fair that he has those criticisms.
But it doesn't distract or take away from the achievements the man has made so far and will make.
And I'm an advocate for executional excellence because in the end, if you burn your calories trying to change someone who you know is not going to change and don't focus on the output that he can provide and the great solutions for mankind he has provided and hopefully will with the robotics you talked about, then you are in the form of being dominated and controlled by a derangement syndrome.
That's my opinion.
And I've so far avoided that by, and I and I work a lot in Washington now.
And, you know, I'm very, very fortunate to be able to work on a bipartisan basis because I represent entrepreneurship and job creation for small business.
And that's bipartisan.
Even AOC and Elizabeth Warren want to support that.
And I can have my narratives with them.
But when we get into Trump derangement, I shut off.
And it's just a waste of time.
And I think that's a waste of time criticizing that he's not a man.
I mean, I just find that, and I respect Scott.
I mean, I respect his opinion.
I respect all opinions.
But let's burn our calories moving the needle forward is my view.
I would also add to that, Scott.
I think you make some very valid points about USAID.
And I really want to see the data on that when it comes in is to see exactly what the bottom line impact has been.
And if it is anywhere near the levels that you and Barno think it's going to be or is being, it's clearly going to be appalling.
But I would say on the derangement syndrome aspect of Musk and Trump, they both attract a huge amount of support and plaudits and aggro and so on.
You know, you referenced there that he did a Nazi salute.
And I don't think you actually think he did a Nazi salute for a moment.
I mean, I'll ask you, but I don't think you do.
Trump's Market Manipulation Claims 00:13:56
And the other day, Corey Booker did exactly the same thing on stage, literally almost exactly the same thing.
And all the people who had leapt on Elon Musk and said, he's a Nazi, did a Nazi salute, blah, blah, blah, blah.
They all said the complete opposite about Corey Booker, simply because he was a Democrat.
He was one of their tribe.
Therefore, when he did almost exactly the same arm movement on a stage, he was not a Nazi.
And I think that's where I would agree with Kevin, that sometimes it's the double standard which lends succor to the concept of derangement syndrome.
Do you accept that?
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I think derangement, the term derangement, is usually something levied at people when they don't have a cogent argument to counter the arguments I'm making.
I would call myself someone who's been infected with democracy addiction syndrome and is allergic to the type of depravity that these individuals are demonstrated.
I generally haven't seen Senator Booker's gesture.
I think Steve Bannon and Elon Musk both gave Nazi salutes.
I've watched the tape a bunch of times.
This is an individual who's decided there's a white genocide against Afrikaner farmers.
I just, I think he knew what he was doing.
It might have been a tick, but he seems to be very disciplined about not making remarks or comments with respect to China.
Whenever there's money on the line in a society where he may not have the same rights of free speech, he seems very disciplined.
So, yeah, we have a fundamental disagreement.
I do believe it was a Nazi salute or a Nazi gesture.
I don't see other Republicans accidentally making hand gestures that remind them of the Third Reich.
Corey Booker did.
I mean, you should see it after this.
Honestly, you would be amazed how similar the armed movement was and the difference in the way it was treated by Baltimore.
Well, then it was wrong.
I want to give you and Kevin this.
If Senator Booker did this, he should be dressed down and say you should never accidentally, errantly make a gesture that reminds people of the type of death and destruction that we incurred around an ideology that this symbol came to respect.
And it just so happens that two guys who have a history of very conservative politics at a very conservative gathering accidentally made this gesture.
They should know better.
I don't know a lot of people accidentally making gestures that look like Nazi gestures at parent-teachers meetings.
Both Senator Booker, I'll take your word, and Steve Bannon and Elon Musk should know better.
And it gets in the way of, Kevin, what you were saying, his ability to demonstrate greatness.
And I'll be like, Neuralink, I think what he's doing at Neuralink could have huge benefit.
But the problem is we've decided in our society, well, is it a net good for society?
If you could press a button, would you want him to go away?
I wouldn't press a button.
I think what he's inspired the EV race.
He may get us to Mars sooner than anybody else.
He's created tremendous shareholder value and economic value.
I wouldn't press that button.
But the problem is with the word net, and that is just because someone can put a rocket into space and create tremendous economic value doesn't mean they shouldn't be held accountable for or acquitted for personal behavior that sets a terrible role model for young men or recklessly damages the well-being of kids in other nations and reduces our soft power.
The reason why our small businesses, and like Kevin, I invest and run small business, I sold my last business for $160 million.
A third of my clients were overseas.
And one of the reasons I was able to do business with Samsung, LVMH, and Toyota was there was a great deal of respect, affection, and goodwill for Americans.
I believe that when Americans walk into a corporate office, a small or medium-sized business, they are more likely to do business with us from a company offering the exact same thing from Turkey or from South Africa.
And the reason why is despite the fact that we're perceived as obnoxious, aggressive, that we were the good guys, that people always felt good about America.
And one of the best ROIs we have made in soft power was that $75 billion in U.S. aid.
And to cut it off this recklessly and this cruelly, you know who's filling the void?
China.
And for the first time in our first time in history, surveys show that people around the world see China as a greater force of good than America.
And to believe that doesn't hurt us, whether it's economically or working with our security apparatus to let us know when there's terrorist cells gestating or forming, to believe that it's not going to change the depth of the pools of capital that people want to invest in America.
Generally speaking, I mean, Pierce, you're British and tell me if you agree with this.
We have our issues.
We make a lot of mistakes.
But at the end of the day, Americans are seen as the good guys.
And I worry that in the last 120 days, we've lost a lot of that.
Well, I think you've gone back.
Listen, I completely concur.
I love America.
I love Americans.
I think like my country, you're a great country with flaws and people know what those are.
I think that Trump's style of leadership is chaotic by nature.
I think probably quite often deliberately so.
I mean, you said a very interesting thing recently on your podcast, your excellent podcast, The Pivot with Cara Swisher.
You said that you've gone from thinking Trump was incompetent on economics to saying, and this is your quote, I believe he's purposefully creating massive market volatility such that him and his insiders can make billions of dollars in market manipulation and insider trading.
And that on his meme coin offer, you said this is arguably the biggest grift in modern history.
I mean, it's a pretty striking thing to level at Trump that he's creating all this global chaos purely for personal gain.
Given that when I've interviewed him over the last 20 years, I can't think of a single interview where he's not mentioned A, the way that China, in his eyes, has been ripping off America, and B, that tariffs are not a very effective weapon to restore America's economic power.
So it's not like this is the first time he's talked about this stuff, but you genuinely believe it's all just a way to make himself personally richer.
Well, okay.
So I'll acknowledge I suffered from Musk Derangement syndrome.
I also suffered from basic pattern recognition.
He has taken tariffs up or down 50 times, 50 times, taking markets way up, way down.
And the net effect, as far as I can tell, is one deal with the UK where we're getting some aerospace technology and Aston Martin engines for 10% tariff versus 15%.
There has not been a single deal of any material value struck here.
And then the morning that he announces huge tariffs that take the markets into one of their biggest one-day declines, his top cop, the Attorney General, sells her Donald Trump media stock.
Zero-day options volume has been the days he takes a tariff up or down.
Basically, insider trading laws are no longer in effect.
When he can open a Swiss banking account in the form of a meme coin the Friday before his inauguration, and people can put money in or take money out, and nobody knows, and just 10 wallets made billions, while 70 or 80,000 lost billions in the subsequent weeks, we have a level of grift insider trading or what used to be considered insider trading, market manipulation, the likes of which we haven't seen.
So wouldn't he be stupid for him and his cronies?
Autocracy is based on the following.
You punish your enemies, you threaten lawsuits against them, you announce tariffs against them, and you make your allies billionaires.
It seems like there's additional options trading and market participation right before he announces these tariffs going up or down.
Because the net effect for America so far has just been a damage in our reputation.
They had to send out a letter the other day telling nations to come to the table.
This guy is literally the worst poker player in the world.
He announces 145% tariff against China.
And before they even respond, he reduces it to 30%.
It's like showing up to a poker table, going all in with bluster, and then before anyone can respond, saying, I fold.
The whole world is saying to America and the Trump administration regarding his sclerotic, reckless, and quite frankly stupid tariffs, the same way Logan Roy responded to his children in succession.
You are not a serious people.
All this has done is reduced our reputation and created incentive for other nations to reroute their supply chains around us.
And there are discussions, but they're not happening between America.
They're happening between Japan, South Korea, and China, who for the first time in decades are talking about economic agreements.
I had dinner with the CEO of Alibaba in Europe, who is touring Europe and selling the BABA cloud into European companies who are working with AWS.
Kevin, you want to see a reduction in the revenues of your small and medium-sized businesses?
Let us continue to damage our reputation globally with a series of nonsensical tariffs, reductions, increases.
Our brand, the U.S. brand now means toxic uncertainty.
No one knows how to plan their business against this man who goes up and down.
So he's either stupid and doesn't understand economics, see above every tariff in history or every tariff policy, or he has decided, I know, I'll take the markets up and down and let the people close to me and who support me trade in this and make billions.
I think that is what is going on.
Kevin Funnello to you.
At the same time, on a counterpoint, because, you know, some of the things Scott's talking about are concerns, no question.
We're days away from signing the Genius Act, which is the old stablecoin act that Haggerty in the Senate is moving forward right now in the House, only because the tonality around crypto, which has been denied by previous administrations, has changed with the Trump administration.
I consider that to be the most significant digital payment system act ever contemplated, and it's going to change demand for the American Treasury bill and use and guarantee in some ways that every commodity on earth is priced with price discovery through the American dollar, which I think is a great achievement.
You know, yes, Trump has created great volatility, and you may think that there's some clandestine reason behind it, as Scott has suggested, a form of trading the volatility on an insider basis.
If that's true, he'll be litigated in the next administration for sure.
I look at it and say this morning as we speak and have this debate, which I think has been robust.
I've really enjoyed it.
I really enjoyed talking with both of you.
I remind us all that we are only 2.42% off the high, the all-time high of the S ⁇ P.
So something's working very well in America, continues to work well.
It still represents 56 cents of every dollar invested worldwide comes to the domestic U.S. market to be deployed, is the number one magnet for the world's institutional investing.
And I would remind us as we have this debate that America's number one export is not energy or it's not technology.
It's the American dream.
It is the only place on earth where people risk their lives or drown in rivers or get cut to shreds on barbed wire trying to get into the country.
I don't see that in China.
I don't see that anywhere else.
It's the American dream that remains intact.
And Trump's primary mandate, and that for every president in the future, is to maintain, and I speak this for any lawmaker, is to maintain the American dream.
And I spend a fair amount of my time in Washington reminding him that because that is bipartisan.
Yeah, well said.
I actually do want to end with this.
I want to read to you, Scott, a quote from Kevin on X and just get your very quick, and I mean just several words, whether you agree with this statement or not.
Spoiler alert, I have a feeling you're probably not going to.
Kevin said, yep, I said it.
Hi, I'm MAGA.
Is the new mating call in the dating jungle?
Trad wives, alpha values, and patriotic dating apps are flipping the script in deep blue cities.
And to know what's hotter than a swipe right, a MAGA man with money.
Uncensored Dating with Morgan 00:01:29
Let's talk about it.
Scott Galloway, do you concur?
First off, I've really enjoyed this, Kevin.
Thank you, Pierce, for bringing us to the next video.
It's been great.
I've wanted to meet Kevin for a while.
Women are attracted to men for three reasons.
Their ability to signal resources, two, their intellect, and three, their kindness.
The far right, to their credit, saw the problem of struggling young men and went into the void.
Unfortunately, they conflate cruelty and coarseness with masculinity.
And unfortunately, on the left, our advice to young men is to act more like a woman.
So there's a mating crisis, but instead we need to celebrate and lift up our young men.
But the underleveraged way to attract a woman is through kindness.
And the far right does not demonstrate that right now.
You know what?
I think we should have another debate, another occasion about that whole issue.
It would be fascinating just from what you've just said there.
Guys, thank you very much.
We've been trying to get you guys together for a while, as you know.
I couldn't be happier with the way that conversation went.
Apart from anything else, it was conducted with civility.
And that is a rare thing these days.
So thank you very, very much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
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