Kara and Scott discuss Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth getting caught up in another Signal scandal, Tesla’s latest setbacks, and whether Google will have to spin off Chrome. Then, they dive into a busy few days for the Trump administration — from getting blocked on deportations by the Supreme Court, to reportedly planning an overhaul of the State Department, to taking suggestions on how spark the next baby boom. Plus, do Netflix’s Q1 earnings prove the streaming giant is tariff-proof? Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.social. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the latest developments in Signalgate?
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Scott, we're back. The Trump administration has a busy few days. Let's dig in for a few. The Supreme Court handed down a rare overnight order on Saturday blocking Trump from deporting a group of Venezuelan immigrants in Texas. The court's order bars the government for now from using the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law from 1798. This was a 7-2 ruling with Thomas and Alito in the minority.
Alito wrote in his dissent, the court's decision was to intervene was not necessary or appropriate. The Trump administration quickly asked the Supreme Court to roll back the decision, saying the order was premature as lower courts had not properly weighed in. It's none of his business what they're going to do. Actually, they're working.
This guy is putting them to work in terms of making decisions. They might try to keep Trump in check, or at least they're at least moving to do so even before things like that. Also, the Trump administration appears to be preparing for a drastic overhaul of the State Department, a plan described by one U.S. diplomat as bonkers crazy pants, and that's a technical term.
A draft, that's an ambassadorial term, bonkers crazy pants. That's also the name of Scott's and my band. A draft of an executive order reveals plans to shut down embassies across Africa and eliminate State Department offices focusing on climate change, refugee and human rights. So the entire continent of Africa and anything nice for people.
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Chapter 2: How is the Trump administration planning to boost the birth rate?
You need young people more economically viable. And if you want to talk about a baby boom, you've got to reverse engineer to why the baby boom happened. And effectively, it was the following. We don't like to talk about this because some of it sounds politically off-putting, but seven million men came home for more, and they had demonstrated heroism and uniform, and they were fit.
And we put a bunch of money in middle-class homes through the GI Bill, through FHA loans, and we said, okay, young people, here's a bunch of attractive men. Quite frankly, we aren't producing enough attractive men for the women who have ascended. And we should do nothing, including some sort of weird tax credit that somehow pulls women out of the workforce.
We should do nothing to get in the way of women's incredible ascent. What we need to do is lift up men who, quite frankly, aren't keeping pace. And the way you lift up men is by lifting up all people under the age of 40 and giving them a chance to meet, giving them a chance to fall in love, giving them economic viability. We have to get them together.
Do you realize, and I know this sounds, 40% of nightclubs in London have gone away since COVID. If people aren't going into work, they're not going into bars, they're not going to church, where does a man or where does a woman who has a much finer filter for sex, because quite frankly, the downside of sex is so much greater, ever have the opportunity to let a man demonstrate excellence?
If you talk to people who've been married longer than 30 years, 75% of them say that one was much more interested in the other in the beginning. It was always the man that was more interested. Women are just more choosy for very strong instinctual and biological reasons. So where does the man have an opportunity to demonstrate excellence?
And now you have men who, quite frankly, aren't demonstrating excellence. As women have ascended the earnings ladder and can contribute more to a relationship, men have not filled that gap.
You know what would have more babies, J.D. Vance, in case you're interested? And by the way, I have more children than you. Again, let me stress that, is $25. Hello? Like, that would be a baby boom. Housing would cause a baby. If you really want to do it, we should run the fucking government, Scott Gallows.
7 million new homes, manufactured homes that cost 30% to 50% less than homes built on-site, $25 an hour minimum wage, national service, do away with long-term capital gains,
More nightclubs.
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