Pivot
Trump's Venezuela Oil Gambit, ICE Shooting Fallout, and Warner Bros. Says No (Again)
09 Jan 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is Trump's controversial strategy in Venezuela?
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What I mean is if a client came to you and said, I want to buy Greenland, what would be the thing as an investment banker you would do?
I want to buy Greenland? Are you out of your fucking mind?
Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. Scott Galloway continues to be under the weather. So I brought in two more amazing co-hosts.
We've got Audie Cornish, host of CNN This Morning and the podcast The Assignment, and Bill Cohen, one of my favorite people to talk about business because there's a lot going on there, author and founding partner of Puck. Welcome, Audie and Bill.
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Chapter 2: How are oil executives reacting to Trump's Venezuela strategy?
Hey, great to be here. So I had nothing to do with Scott's disappearance. Yeah. Not that I haven't wanted to be on the show a lot. Like I've been waiting with this quarter zip just so that I could be a part of the dialogue.
A quarter zip.
I did. I was like, are we talking business? Yeah. So I'm sure Scott's fine. I didn't do anything to him at all.
No. Okay. All right. You were trying.
Chapter 3: What happened during the ICE shooting in Minnesota?
Yes, that would be a really good show. Yeah. Trying to take down the co-host. Like an anti-Kerrigan situation. Yeah. Do you have your quarter zip on, Bill?
I do, but I don't have a Warner Brothers Discovery quarter zip, which I really like.
I wore that just for you.
I really like that.
I got this from David Zaslav.
Himself?
I technically did as well. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he gives them out. He dresses, I'm going to say this honestly, he dresses, I told him he dressed like a lesbian and he sent me this.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the ICE shooting on national politics?
Only lesbians can say that. I opt out. I unsubscribe.
Unsubscribe. But yes, it's actually a fantastic vest.
You look great in it.
Thank you. It's really comfortable and I wear it all the time. And my son this morning said, oh, that's the Scooby-Doo people. So, I guess. That is of all the things. Of all the things.
That's such a reference. For now, anyway.
We're going to talk about.
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Chapter 5: Why did Warner Bros. reject Paramount's buyout offer?
It's so random. It's so random.
Yes, exactly. We're going to talk about that. And I really enjoyed your stuff, Bill. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, so we're going to dig in. There's a lot of news. And the first one, obviously, is the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman in her car by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, sparking national outrage and protests again. The woman, Renee Nicole Goode, was a U.S.
citizen, a mother of three, and a poet. She was not under any kind of investigation, according to law enforcement officials. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Goode was, quote, stalking officers and attempting an act of domestic terrorism. What a heinous person she is. And Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry called that bullshit and told ICE to, quote, get the fuck out of Minneapolis.
President Trump weighed in on True Social and once again blamed the radical left.
Chapter 6: What are the financial implications of the Warner Bros. and Paramount situation?
He did an interview recently. just where the reporters from New York Times showed it to him, and he sort of walked it back, but he didn't precisely. And, of course, they're doubling down. Tom Holman for a second was reasonable, and he got the memo that they're supposed to call this woman a radical terrorist.
I want to get both your takes here, but first let me share Scott Galloway's thoughts on this, which he texted me last night. I'm horrified. History shows politics becomes a blood sport and nation's light begins to flicker. Adam Newsom, Whitmer, Shapiro should announce candidacy this week and say if elected, we are going to have the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials.
There needs to be a reckoning to start the stain of corruption, insurrection and bigotry. Dems are such fucking wimps. That was from Scott. The words of Scott Galloway, ladies and gentlemen, from his sickbed. Audie, I'll start with you. What do you make of what we're seeing? You reported on it all morning on your show on CNN, your morning show.
Chapter 7: How is Grok's AI technology facing criticism?
So talk a little bit about and you've covered this kind of stuff many times.
I have. And I mean, talk about grim. Like, I think this woman had dropped her kid off at school, like a six-year-old. And so many people right now, wherever they fall on the political spectrum, feel a kind of helplessness. Like, wait a second, am I really where I thought the country would be?
And so if you're one of those people and you decide, well, I'm going to go out somewhere, I'm going to do something, I'm going to be present. And To protest. Yeah, protest. And I'm not saying she definitely was protesting, but just the idea that you are in mortal danger now in these scenarios, I think, is pretty terrifying.
Also, the setting, it being Minneapolis, it being this many years after the death of George Floyd, it being in a place where protests went for a very long time, and in fact, other protesters were killed, it can spin out into something else. Then lastly, the fact that this whole operation, almost 90 percent, I think 87 percent of the Somalis in the state are naturalized citizens. Right.
Chapter 8: What are the broader implications of Elon Musk's AI developments?
They are legal. So now you are really trying to find one and two and three people. And you have a city that is prepared. You'll look on your TVs in the next day or two and see some protesters wearing their gas masks already because they have seen this movie before, a kind of militarized response from law enforcement.
So can I ask you one other question? The response from the Trump administration immediately was trying to spin it. Of course, Kristi Noem put on whatever hat she had that day and started to spew lies. And then the videos, all of them were very much different, including Fox News commentators commenting on, well, she was turning away from the ICE person. You know, she was trying to hit him.
She's obviously dropped her kid off from school. There's very little Noem.
I mean, look, if there's one thing we know how to do as Americans is scrutinize a video of a law enforcement involved killing. I think we had a fair amount of practice at that. We have not had practice doing that with a white mother, you know, of a couple of kids. And I think this has looked very shocking for people and familiar in ways that feel very sort of dark.
The administration's whole stance on this entire process has been always double down, always triple down, never give any ground because they feel they have not just some kind of moral authority. They'll evoke this mandate you hear over and over on these cable news panels. This is what people voted for. I'll just wrap up by saying We don't matter what the TV news says or commentators.
People have eyes and they have social media. And I have watched all of these ICE enforcements and arrests and protests on social media where people offer their own commentary. And I think that is having way more impact than the administration would like to think. They want to think it's a Democratic governor somewhere saying something that's rhetoric that make people say F ICE. Check the hashtag.
You know, it's not run, certainly, by any Democratic messaging operation.
Right, right. So, Bill, I want to bring this up. One of the things that I'm watching, though, is a lot of suddenly business people, well-known people, the guy who runs Jeopardy spoke up, right? And I just was noticing Paul Graham, who I think you know, he was the head of Y Combinator, wrote, ICE just shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, a U.S. citizen. How long before we say enough is enough?
Elon Musk responded. She tried to run people over. And Paul wrote back. And Paul, I wouldn't call him a liberal. In fact, he's somewhat irritating on many levels. No, she didn't. Here's the evidence. She's turning the front wheels of the car to the right away from the ICE officer on her left. She was trying to run him over. Why would she turn in the other direction?
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