Pod Insights The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway Media Tumult, Masculinity, Failure, and Fatherhood — with Jake Tapper About this episode Jake Tapper, CNN’s chief Washington correspondent and host of the weekday television news show “The Lead,” joins Scott to discuss his latest book, “All The Demons Are Here,” along with his thoughts on the current media landscape and the upcoming presidential election. We also hear about Jake’s professional successes and failures, and get his take on being a good father and partner. Follow Jake on Twitter, @jaketapper.
Scott opens by addressing a viral Washington Post essay on masculinity that featured his insights on young men and the challenges they face. Additionally, he offers recommendations for supporting and empowering that cohort – noting that compassion is not a zero-sum game. Follow the author of that essay on Twitter, @ChristineEmba.
Algebra of Happiness: forgive yourself, a lot of failures aren’t your fault.
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Transcript 10,244 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:19 Scott Galloway? Episode 259. 259 is a country calling code belonging to Zanzibar. In 1959, Mattel introduced the Barbie doll. Does Barbie come with Ken?
1:30 Scott Galloway? Nope, she fakes it with Ken. She can only come with G.I. Joe.
1:46 Scott Galloway? Welcome to the 259th episode of the Prop G Pod. In today's episode, we speak with Jake Tapper, CNN's chief Washington correspondent and host of the weekday television news show, The Lead. We discuss with Jake his latest book, All the Demons Are Here, along with his thoughts on the current media landscape, the writer's strike, and the upcoming presidential election. We also hear about Jake's professional success and failures and get his take on being a good father and partner. I've been thinking a lot about male role models, and I think it comes down to being a great protector, a great provider, being self-reliant, being empathetic, being courageous, putting yourself at risk and sacrifice for others.
2:24 Scott Galloway? It also means being a baller. It means being great at something and then finding opportunities and strength to advocate for others. Anyways, I think all of these things, being a really good dad, being a wonderful spouse, a wonderful supportive spouse. I'm not friends with Jake, but I'm friendly with him and I find that he's that kind of person. Excellent at what he does, a very engaged father. I also like the fact, and he talks about this, that he's, you know, like, like all of us, faced real, real struggles and low points professionally. Okay, what's happening? What's happening? Daddy continues his world douchebag tour of privilege. She's in Aspen. It is spectacular here. Daddy saw a baby bear today, a baby bear. And what did I do? I immediately wanted
3:07 Scott Galloway? to give it my muffin and that's like the worst thing you can do supposedly. But he was so cute and then I remembered, oh, that means that there's usually a mama bear. If I got mauled by a bear, that would be not a bad way from a brand standpoint for me to go, right? Or what happened to that crazy professor with erectile dysfunction? Oh, didn't you hear? He got mauled by a bear in Aspen. I think that makes for a great headline. You know, it's either gonna be that or something like prostate cancer or I don't know, something, something fairly unromantic. I think I'd like to be mauled by a bear in Aspen. All right, on to the news. Washington Post columnist Christine Emba published an essay last week titled, Men Are Lost. Here's a map out of the wilderness. It's a blockbuster article. It's a tour de force. Emba makes the case that in a time when the word masculinity
3:51 Scott Galloway? is scarcely used without the word toxic attached to it, young men are confused about what good masculinity should look like. And they're running out of role models. The people who stepped into that void are the likes of Tucker Carlson, Andrew Tate, and other terrible voices. And their vision of masculinity is, to borrow her word, ugly. So to set forth a positive vision of masculinity, Emba called up a few alternative advocates for young men. And that's right. That's right. About number 34 of 35 people that she reached out to. Yours truly. And the proof is in the data here. Men are increasingly dropping out of the workforce. Those aged 25 to 34 account for the largest drop in employment. Men are losing the Hunger Games of dating. They represent 62% of dating app users.
4:35 Scott Galloway? Men are now more likely to live with their parents than with a romantic partner. For about 70 years post-World War II, more 18- to 34-year-old men lived with a spouse or partner rather than living with their parents. So they're in their mother's basement, quite frankly. And then since 2009, that dynamic has flipped. In 2014, a third of them were living at home, while just 28% of them lived with a spouse. Meanwhile, more women still lived with a spouse that year than with their parents. What's happening is this weird kind of phenomena, and that is what I refer to as Porsha polygamy. And that is with online dating, where now one in two relationships begin, people can apply their filters. Specifically, women can apply much more fine filters. Women are much choosier. Walk into a room of 400 people, and if there was alcohol involved, the majority of the men would sleep with the majority of the women,
5:20 Scott Galloway? and the majority of the women in the room would sleep with none of the men. And the basis for evolutionary progress, and the reason why your kids are going to be smaller, taller, and faster than you, is that, one, there is seed trying to get to the four corners of the earth, seed above men. And then there are women who have much finer filters, who only want to pick the strongest, smartest, and fastest seed because there's so much more downside of sex, or potential downside for women who have to carry a child. But that peanut butter and chocolate of seed trying to get everywhere, and then finer filters makes for evolutionary progress. So you're talking about a man of average attractiveness online has to swipe right 1,000 times for a coffee. And quite frankly, he just gives up and feels like he's been received validation that the world doesn't value him. And if we're going to have an honest conversation about men,
6:05 Scott Galloway? we need to have an honest conversation about mating. And I want to be clear. It's no one's obligation to service men, and anyone along the spectrum or the continuum of sexuality deserves the exact same respect and dignity as anybody else. I am talking about cisgender men who identify as straight. They increasingly have fewer opportunities because with online dating, it is very one- or two-dimensional. Why are women, in general, attracted to men as a sexual partner or as a mate? One. They signal the ability to garner resources in the future. It's not even as much resources now, which is obviously attractive, but someone who's got their act together, someone who has a plan. So, you know, for young men out there, you don't necessarily need to be rich already. You just need to have a plan and be making progress against that plan.
6:50 Scott Galloway? But if you are, your Tinder profile says that you're at MIT and just accepted a job at Google and your Rolex accidentally slips into the picture, you're going to be just fine on Tinder. But 99% of us don't have those credentials or characteristics. Number two is intelligence. Women are attracted to men who are smart because, again, going back to very base crude protection dynamics, someone who is smart is more likely to protect you. And what I've always found really interesting, and it was the only way I ever got a date in college, was that the crispest way to communicate intelligence is humor. I've always thought if you can make someone laugh, they will go on a date with you or they will have a coffee with you. And then number three is kindness.
7:33 Scott Galloway? And that is it doesn't matter how rich you are, how smart you are. If you're an asshole, over the long term, people don't want, women don't want to mate with you. There's some funky dynamics. Women mate horizontally and up. Men socioeconomically horizontally and down. 75% of women say economic viability is a key component in mate selection. It's only 25% for men. In some, men don't care if you make money. It's nice, but it's not, it's not a must have. Whereas women, it's much more important to them. And then again, it might not just be making a lot of money now, but you have a plan and you're making progress against that plan. So what is happening? There has been tremendous progress, tremendous progress among women. And it's a wonderful thing. More single women own homes now than single men.
8:17 Scott Galloway? Seven in 10 high school valedictorians. We're going to have almost two to one female college graduates over the next five years. And then men, because they drop out sooner. Tremendous progress. We cannot do anything, we cannot advocate for anything that gets in the way of progress made by women and non-whites. That is, that is one of the most wonderful things about our society. It's, it's a, it's a show of progress, but compassion is not a zero sum game. How can we also level up men? And quite frankly, who wants more economically and emotionally viable men? Women. And there's a few ideas, and I'm writing a post on it this week. One, red shirt boys. What do we mean by that? Star them at the age of six in kindergarten and girls at five. Their prefrontal cortex, they are biologically less mature.
9:01 Scott Galloway? There's even data that shows that the youngest boy in a class is more prone to depression. Why? Because he's smaller, he can't compete physically, he feels emotionally bullied. And so what have private schools been doing informally for the last decade? They've been doing this. They've been holding back boys purposely, red shirting them. Two, two, a dramatic expansion of freshman seats in college. Yes, college is not for everyone, but what we have right now is it's become so competitive to get into an elite college. If we move down the pyramid, create much more supply, more freshman seats, which we could do easily. Me and my colleagues want to be fucking Birkenbags, not public servants. If you're sitting on an endowment the size of the GDP of a small Central American nation, you can afford to expand your freshman class size from 1,500 to 15,000, Harvard.
9:44 Scott Galloway? By the way, Harvard, you are not a nonprofit, you are a for-profit. When you are growing your endowment at billions of dollars per year, which they have done, but you refuse to expand the number of seats in your freshman class and you grow your endowment, there's a word for that. For-profit, or I guess it's two words. For-profit. Fuck that. The top 100 universities, if they don't grow their freshman class size faster than population growth, should lose their nonprofit status. And guess what? They're going to get very innovative about expanding their freshman class size. And people come up with these bullshit arguments that it'll erode their brand identity or brand equity. When I went to UCLA, it had a 76% admissions rate. And guess what? The brand was just fine. Brands in higher education need to be more like Amazon, and that is amazing brands that
10:27 Scott Galloway? are about scale and efficiency and affordability and serving a lot of people and less like fucking Louis Vuitton. That's not what we're here for. We're public servants, not luxury brands. We need massive increase in vocational training. 50% of Germans have some sort of vocational certification. It's only 5% in the United States. Guess what? Being a plumber, being a really skilled electrician is a great on-ramp into the middle class that you can support a family on. Instead, we shame it and tell our kids to be baristas and maybe go back to college such that they can get a degree from MIT and end up at Google. Well, guess what? The mainstream economy is producing a ton of great jobs who require some certification, much more vocational certification. We should also be thinking about the biggest problem here, and that is the war on young people through our tax policy.
11:12 Scott Galloway? What are the two biggest tax deductions? Capital gains and mortgage tax deduction. Who owns homes? Old people and rich people. Who's renting? Young people and people that don't have any money. And then the biggie, the biggie capital gains tax rate, 22.8%. The top current income tax rate, 37%. Why on earth are we taxing sweat more than money? And it sounds like it's not that bad, or it's pretty bad, 22.7 versus 37, right? But it's even worse than that, because this is what happens. I make $100 a year, my primary source of income now, that I've been able to save money, and I've had some outcomes, I've sold some companies, I have some capital, I am both talented and blessed, I am not a humble person.
11:56 Scott Galloway? But I make the majority of my income every year through income on investments, capital gains. It gets taxed at 22.7%, but it doesn't get taxed at 22.7% because I don't sell it, it's all tax-deferred. But what happens if you're a young person working with me, setting up my technology, or writing drafts of the things I write, or doing fantastic research? If you make $100 a year, you lose, call it 30, you lose $30 every year. It's not even allowed to grow tax-deferred. So my $100, if it keeps growing 8 or 10% a year, ends up at 200, ends up at 200 every seven years, whereas every year, that $100 for current income gets clipped back to 70.
12:37 Scott Galloway? The transfer of wealth from people who get their living from current income, see above young people, see above lower middle-income people, versus those of us that get their income from capital gains, see above again, rich older people, is nothing but the largest transfer in income, in capital, in wealth, in opportunity, in a lack of depression, a lack of obesity, a lack of mating opportunities, a lack of citizenship. All of this is being squeezed. Into the rich and the old. So guess what? Nana and pop up, you're gonna be able to afford an upgrade on Crystal Cruises, but you're not gonna have grandkids cuz your kids can't fucking afford them. And at the very center of that, at the very center of that,
13:22 Scott Galloway? is a young male who is no longer attractive as a mate, as a mate to a woman. What was the greatest innovation in the history of America? It's the fucking iPhone or the semiconductor. It's the American middle class that has paid taxes to fund the greatest fighting force in history, to fund the greatest space program in history, to fund the largest food stamps program in America, the largest welfare program, the Great Society and Social Security to take seniors out of poverty. And who did that? The middle class. And why did the middle class become such a force? Because seven million men returned from war. They demonstrated heroics and strength, and we leveled them up. We leveled them up with the National Transportation Highway Infrastructure Act. We gave them GI bills, let them go to college. We basically produced seven million men who were attractive to potential mates,
14:07 Scott Galloway? and they started and inspired the baby boom. And guess what? Guess what? Sometimes the biggest expression of masculinity can be you get out of the way and let your partner get on with her career because she, quite frankly, she's better at that money thing. That's part of being a man too. But we also need to give young men more opportunities such that they become more viable, more emotionally viable, more economically viable, such that they're more attractive to women, and we have more household formation. What's the number one source of marital agita in divorce? It's not infidelity. It's not a lack of shared values. It's they don't have enough money, which in this society creates tremendous anxiety and pressure on a household where people start blaming each other.
14:47 Scott Galloway? A child's resting systolic blood pressure is higher when the child is in a home that has economic pressure. And what happens when there's economic pressure? Divorce goes way up. What happens with divorce? Young men lose a male role model. It ends up, it ends up that girls in single-parent households have similar outcomes, but boys come off the tracks. We need more money. We need the child tax credit. We need universal childcare. We need to stop this bullshit. We need to eliminate capital gains and have One tax rate that is truly progressive such that if you make money because you're clipping dividends or you have a ton of Amazon stock or you're buying and selling apartment buildings. Well, then good for you, but you should pay the same, if not much higher, a tax rate than
15:29 Scott Galloway? someone working their ass off as an Uber driver, as a nurse, or as a teacher, or as a chiropractor who's done everything they're supposed to do, but they can't even afford to goddamn have children, which puts strains on their household and has resulted in a society that has the second largest number of single parent homes in the world, just behind Sweden. I was raised in one of them. And guess what? Yeah, I miss my dad. Yeah, it was tough not having a male role model. But you know what really fucking sucked? We didn't have enough money. What is the agent for reward, prosperity and happiness? Deep and meaningful relationships. Anything we do that gets in the way of that is an attack on the universe and on the species. And what have we done? We attack it by transferring money from young people and from children to old people.
16:13 Scott Galloway? It is time to start investing in the future, both in terms of education, a recognition that men are struggling, a recognition that young people are in fact the future. I can prove this mathematically and stop upgrading Nana and Pop Pop to Crystal Cruises and start investing in the greatest innovation in the history of mankind, and that is America's middle class. To wrap up here, to put a bow on this rant, Christine Emba had a great line in her article. She wrote, "Biology isn't destiny. There is no one script for how to be a woman or a man." And I agreed with that. I would argue that while biology isn't destiny, demographics are destiny and US demographics, specifically young people, are in desperate need of investment.
16:57 Scott Galloway? We'll be right back for our conversation with Jake Tapper.
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19:48 Scott Galloway? Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Jake Tapper, CNN's chief Washington correspondent and host of the weekday television news show, The Lead. Jake, where does this podcast find you?
19:58 Speaker 02 In my office in Washington, DC.
20:00 Scott Galloway? In DC, nice. So let's bust right into it. Your latest book, All the Demons Are Here, the third novel in your Charlie and Margaret Martyr mystery series, takes place in the late 70s, love a good period piece, and explores several themes, including the rise of tabloid journalism, disillusionment, and conspiracy. Let's start there. Give us an overview. Are you just trying to entertain? Are you trying to, are you hoping that people walk away with a certain message?
20:25 Speaker 02 Number one priority is entertaining the reader and having them turn the pages quickly. And I'm well aware as a, as an author, that I'm not only competing with other authors, I'm competing with Twitter and threads and Facebook and Instagram. And they say history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. There is a lot of rhyming. And in 1977, which was a wild and bizarre year in this country, and a fun one to write about, there's a lot of rhyming because you have the rise of tabloid journalism because of the Son of Sam murders. And then there is this disillusionment in the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam War era. And one of the main characters, there are two main characters, Ike and his sister Lucy, they're the kids of the main characters from the two previous books. And Ike is an AWOL
21:09 Speaker 02 Marine who doesn't know what to believe in anymore. And he is working on the pit crew of Evel Knievel out in Butte, Montana, and reckoning with the United States as it existed in 1977, which is not really all that unlike the United States of 2023, where people don't know who to believe and what to believe. And they're very disillusioned with the leadership of the country.
21:33 Scott Galloway? God, Evel Knievel, Snake River, that brings back so many memories. I think we're about the same age. It strikes me, you spend your whole day trying to get to some semblance of the truth and then how to communicate that. And then you you write fiction. Is this an outlet for you? Is this something to keep some sanity or an exercise in exploration of creativity? Like, it's a bit unusual that someone who makes their living trying to pursue the truth and spends their weekends and evenings writing fiction.
22:03 Speaker 02 It is a completely different part of my brain. Uh, I mean, figuring out how to how to communicate is for both fiction and nonfiction, the best way to get a story across. But it is an escape. It is a way to not think about the mass shootings or the war in Ukraine. It it is a way to, you know, step away from this earth for an hour or two to pursue entertainment, not only hopefully for the reader, but but for myself.
22:35 Scott Galloway? So just moving to the broader media ecosystem, you really are in sort of ground zero for what feels like a tectonic shift in consumer habits, viewership habits, obviously layering in the writer's strike, that what feels like a pretty significant structural decline in cable news. What's your take on all of this? You're obviously a stakeholder in cable news and in CNN.
22:59 Speaker 02 And it's not just cable news. It's all news. It's all broadcast news, but also newspaper news, radio news, everything. But also as an author, um, you know, how people consume books is changing, whether people consume books is changing. To a lesser degree, as somebody who works for Warner Brothers Discovery, but also just as a consumer of entertainment, I'm also watching all of that with great interest and concern in terms of the changes that we're seeing in entertainment. And is there even a world in which a movie like All the President's Men or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or any of the classics that I watched when I was young, um, any
23:42 Speaker 02 of these non-blockbusters, is there a world where those movies get made anymore? Or is the only place that they can get made on TV? So I'm I'm watching all of it. And I don't really have any wise observations, except to say it is paramount that we meet the audiences where they are. It is paramount that we figure out how to get to them. And that is why, after a hiatus because of national security concerns, I purchased an Android just for TikTok. That is why I am on a never-ending stream of social media,
24:21 Speaker 02 Twitter and Blue Sky and Threads and Instagram and Facebook and on and on and on. And I don't know where it ends. I don't. But I do know that it's all changing. And it's important that we, in the world of, you know, for want of a better word, content, providing content, figure out how to, how to reach people where they are. I mean, you, you have figured out how to do that through your podcasts. I wonder if, not just CNN, but all news media organizations need to be doing more in that space and on and on. So, I mean, I just feel like we have to meet them where they are.
25:00 Speaker 02 And that's the only thing I, it's not particularly wise, but that's the only suggestion I, I would make.
25:07 Scott Galloway? One of the things I'm doing with my 15-year-old is every Saturday night, I, we watch a movie from my childhood. And I like boring stuff. We've watched Three Days of the Condor.
25:16 Speaker 02 That's not boring. That's incredible.
25:18 Scott Galloway? Well, to him, it's boring. The Eyes of Laura Mars and The Verdict. I remember thinking with all three of these films, I don't know if they get made today.
25:25 Speaker 02 None of them get made today. And they're all slow compared to what we're used to in terms of pacing. No director would let any of those movies out of the editing bay as they, as they are.
25:34 Scott Galloway? So I would love to just get your gut impression or your just responses when I, I'm going to mention a couple of companies here. If you were in charge of CNN, what would you, what would you do? What would you like to see the firm? It's, it's facing huge headwinds. Viewership down, I think, 60%. Granted, that's happening across all of cable. You know, I remember, I think I saw MSNBC bragging that they were only down 12%. What are your thoughts on, you know, you obviously have a lot of currency there. You're in front of the camera, not on the business side. What do you think CNN and cable news outlets need to do to stay relevant?
26:07 Speaker 02 We have amazing resources that.
26:11 Speaker 02 Very few, if any, other news organizations have, certainly more so than MSNBC or Fox, but also to a large degree, more so than the networks. And that is, we have resources all over the globe. We do highlight that on cable all the time, but we should, I think, be highlighting that even more in the social media space. You know, that's where people under 20 get all of their information now. And people under 30, too, in many cases. And I think we just, we need to be there in the social media space. And on the streaming space, which we will be playing a more of a role in the Mac streaming space. That's been reported, anyway.
26:48 Scott Galloway? And you've been covering the writer's strike and now the SAG-AFTRA strike. What are your thoughts on the strike and the relationship between the studios and talent and AI? Any thoughts or predictions on how this is going to play out?
27:01 Speaker 02 I am sympathetic with their requests and the fact that like 95% of the actors that we're talking about in the union make, you know, $26,000 a year or less. You know, just because the whole streaming model changes everything in terms of, there are no reruns because everything is up there forever. And therefore, they pay you once and they don't pay you again. They hide all the data. They hide all the information about how much people are watching it. It just seems like it's an unsustainable model.
27:33 Scott Galloway? But again, I don't know. I mean, I'll just put it out. My sense is when I hear that 90% of actors make less than $26,000, doesn't that mean they should just be doing something else? I mean, isn't this, isn't this just the economics of this industry can't support this labor pool? And I mean, it strikes me that there just isn't the money there, distinct to the income inequality around the executives, that the entire industry is struggling. The unions couldn't have struck at a worse time just in terms of their leverage and the overall economics in the industry. Isn't the industry just incredibly strained?
28:06 Speaker 02 The model that these corporations have created seems unsustainable. And that's not because of the writers or most of the actors. It's because of these huge ticket items. I, if from 1990 to 2023, the highest paid employee versus the lowest paid employee, if that gap is like 20 to 1, and then now it's 2,000 to 1. Is that the economics that has changed or the compensation packages that are not based in actual data, but just based on what people can get their companies to pay them?
28:48 Scott Galloway? Yeah, you're exactly right. I think the data is, if you look at the average salary of a CEO relative to the average worker in the companies they had, it's gone from thirty five X to three hundred and fifty times X.
28:59 Speaker 02 I mean, at a certain point, I don't know if you need to make three hundred and fifty X as opposed to thirty five X. It just seems that those are some of the numbers that should be questioned. And I don't, I mean, again, I've heard some, I've heard some pushback on some of the writers' demands, like in terms like, like Taylor Sheridan, who does a lot of these great movies and TV shows, like Hell or High Water is one of my favorite films, and he does Yellowstone and everything. And, you know, he was pushing back on the idea of why should he have a minimum room number? Like, why does he have to, if he's the only one writing a script, why does he need to have thirty five people on staff writing? You know, I can certainly understand that argument. But by the same token, there
29:41 Speaker 02 is also a degree to which COVID and the way that these streamers have been operating have gotten rid of writers' rooms altogether. You know, you hire eight writers for ten weeks, they outline or write ten scripts, hand them in, and then that's it. And they're not involved in anything else, even if rewriting is going on, and people have just been playing with the models so as to save money. And for what? What, where is that money going? Before the writer's strike, I was talking to a major EP and a major streamer about bringing my second book, The Devil May Dance, making it a streaming TV show with Christian Slater
30:24 Speaker 02 as Charlie Martyr. The Devil May Dance is the one that takes place in the Rat Pack years. And so it is a world that I am, you know, dipping a toe in and have been trying to dip a toe in for a little while originally. You know, I was talking to the HBO Max folks, and then everybody that was really into the project got fired.
30:43 Scott Galloway? You're gonna be shocked. As successful, well, it might be different for Jake Tapper, but I've had every one of my books optioned for a TV or a movie, and nothing's ever happened. I still can't figure out how people in LA make a living. I, I've never been able to get anything done. Let's shift to something you're really at kind of the helm of the bobsled on, and that's the 2024 race. What so far do you notice that's different about this election cycle? The characters, the way the nation has shifted, the issues? What is, in your view, different this time versus where we were at the similar moment, I guess, in 2019?
31:21 Speaker 02 It is fascinating to me that red lights are blinking for both major leading candidates right now, for Joe Biden and for Donald Trump. The red lights blinking for Joe Biden are that there is a lack of enthusiasm for him among the Democratic electorate and that there are serious concerns about his sharpness, shall we say, at age 80. Those, to me, are questions without an actual answer, because there is not anybody natural to be there and replace him waiting in the wings. The blinking red lights for Donald Trump are,
32:01 Speaker 02 if you talk to Republicans off the record, even some of his supporters, it's very unlikely he can beat Joe Biden. I mean, like, just, the race has happened before. He has not done anything since losing in November 2020. He has not done anything to win over any of those people who once voted for him or once just didn't even vote. And in fact, you could make the argument, and I think it's pretty easy to, to say, in fact, the contrary, he's done even more to turn off even more people, given January 6. And you look at the polling, and my favorite group of voters in polling are the double haters, people who hate both candidates. Donald Trump in 2016 won the double haters, I think it
32:44 Speaker 02 was like 3 to 2 over Hillary Clinton. But Joe Biden, far and away, wins the double haters by like 50 percentage points. I mean, it's just like, unless there's some major change, he can't win this race. And, I mean, look, anything could happen, and certainly people said that in 2016, and he ended up winning and all that. But based on today's facts, that seems to be the case. And yet, and yet. Republican voters and many Republican office holders, including many who decried him, are still with him and supporting him strongly. And it's just, it's, that's very surprising to me because electability is usually a very important issue. It's the only reason Joe Biden
33:26 Speaker 02 won in 2020. There was all of a sudden this, you know, circle the wagons situation because the Democrats were terrified Bernie Sanders would be the nominee and electability became the only thing they cared about. And Jonah Goldberg has written on this far more eloquently than I, but there is this purity test where it, we're supporting Donald Trump, even if you know, he's going to lose becomes more important than winning.
33:51 Scott Galloway? If you look at kind of 16 months out with the narrative, how the narrative was supposed to play out, whether it was Jeb Bush or Herman Cain, I think was the leader at one point in the Republican, in Republican polling. Right now, the conventional wisdom is that it's Trump and it's Biden and Biden cleans his clock because the four or five states that matter, my understanding is Biden, to your point, is just way up that Biden is just less offensive to, as you describe in the double haters. But also recognizing the conventional wisdom usually doesn't present itself in the next 16 minutes. So let's, let's posit what might happen or just speculate. Say that for whatever reason Biden decided for a health scare or whatever reason decided to drop out or was not decided, I'm not going to pursue. Who do you think would be the Democratic nominee if it wasn't Biden?
34:36 Speaker 02 Oh, boy. You mean if there was like an open race? God forbid, but if something were to happen to Joe Biden, I mean, I think there would be a, a big effort to, to rally around Vice President Harris and for, for lots of reasons, including that she's next in line, but also because black women are the base of the Democratic Party and, and dumping her for someone else could really be politically unwise in terms of suppressing Democratic base voters.
35:06 Scott Galloway? It's interesting you say that because my sense is there's, other than on paper, it makes all the sense in the world, but there isn't that enthusiasm for her candidacy. But you think that she would be a viable candidate?
35:15 Speaker 02 Do I think she'd be a viable candidate? Yes. Sure. But I think there's a lot of, I mean, if there, I think if it were an open race, it would be very competitive and there's some very skilled Democratic politicians waiting in the wings, including, just to name a few, Mitch Landry and Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer and Jared Polis, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, even though he was just elected.
35:45 Scott Galloway? Feels like a deep bench, doesn't it?
35:46 Speaker 02 It's a pretty deep bench. I mean, the Republicans have a deep bench too, but the, you know, the difference is most of them are running, right? Most of them are running against, against Trump, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott and, and Nick, Ron DeSantis and the rest. But yeah, no, I think it's a pretty deep bench. Um, as opposed to one of the complaints made about both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama is that during their eight years as president, they didn't nurture young talent. So there wasn't much of a bench. For instance, when, you know, I mean, it wasn't a huge, obviously Hillary Clinton was a candidate that a lot of people rallied around, but there wasn't a huge race in 2016. What was it? Hillary Clinton? I can't even remember.
36:24 Scott Galloway? And let's talk about the Republican side. You know, DeSantis feels like he's losing steam, but no one else seems to be gaining steam. Do you see any dynamics or do you see anything emerging on the, on the Republican side?
36:37 Speaker 02 I don't. I'm supposed to interview DeSantis Tuesday. That will be definitely something I talk to him about. I, I do think that the, the race is more open than it appears on its face. I think a lot of Trump's support right now is soft. The fact that DeSantis was up in the polls and then went down a little shows that some of that support is, is gettable or re-gettable. And also, as you know, it's not the national polls, it's the state by state polls. And I believe in Iowa, if you look at the general trend, Trump's in the 30s and DeSantis is about in the 20s. That's, that's, you know, that's still pretty close. That's still striking distance for July. Uh, and so I think honestly, anything
37:20 Speaker 02 could happen. I mean, what I think is if there is a, an upset in Iowa or a strong
37:30 Speaker 02 Second place showing for a candidate than the race. You know, it goes to New Hampshire. Governor Sununu has made it pretty clear he's not a fan of Trump. He could endorse, let's say it's DeSantis or Nikki Haley, who comes in a strong second or whatever in Iowa. And who knows what could happen?
37:50 Scott Galloway? We'll be right back.
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39:04 Speaker 03 Bonjour, compadre. It's the
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39:38 Scott Galloway? So I want to get to some of the more personal stuff. What is left for you? What boxes left for you professionally? You've just said you don't want to. I always jokingly said, I would like every CNN anchor to run for president and be the cabinet. What boxes left for you to check? When you think in 10 years, this is, these are the professional achievements I want to have registered. Is it just more of the same? Is there something new you want to do?
40:00 Speaker 02 I'm really happy professionally. I really like my life. I really like my job. I like that I get to write fiction. I like that I get to write nonfiction. The boxes I want to check are not, they're just different media of the same type of thing I'm doing. I have one screenplay idea. I have a fourth novel in the series. I have two nonfiction projects. I would like, because I used to, I was an art minor in college and I used to be a cartoonist, not good enough to support myself, but enough to have people send me money to do it. But I would not mind doing a graphic novel. I give myself 20 years to do that, 20 years. So if we're still having this conversation and I'm 74, then I have failed.
40:45 Speaker 02 But beyond that, like, I'm really quite a content creature. And I'm old enough to know that journalists don't. Somebody asked me one time, like, what's my legacy? And I said, journalists don't have legacies. We don't get legacies. One of us a decade gets remembered, if at all, if at all. Anyway, my point is just, I'm pretty, I'm pretty happy. One thing I did want to bring up with you, because I know you care about the father-son issue, is that it's a, it's a very important issue to me personally. And it's also very, it's an important issue in this new novel, All the Demons Are Here.
41:24 Speaker 02 One of the subtexts is Charlie, who is the father and the hero of the two, the first two books, along with his wife Margaret, and his estrangement from his son Ike. And their inability to communicate and the fact that Ike follows Charlie by becoming a Marine. Charlie was in the army. And they both kind of have drinking problems. Those are the only two ways in which he obviously follows his dad kind of into these masculine.
41:56 Speaker 02 Well, alcoholism is a masculine toxicity. I wouldn't say joining the military is, but it's kind of like a traditional masculine trope.
42:05 Speaker 02 But anyway, it's just something that I know you care a lot about and ruminate a lot about and write a lot about. And I just wanted you to know that it's something that I I share your focus on it. And it was it's important in my nonfiction life, my actual life and my life as a dad and as a son, but also it's an important subtext to the book.
42:23 Scott Galloway? Well, let's let's talk about that. How do you approach? There's a lot of conversation, and I feel like it's gotten more productive just recently around trying to envision or shape a more productive vision of masculinity. How in your interactions with your father and then as it relates to your interactions with your son, how do you think about modern masculinity? What behaviors do you encourage your son to embrace that he may be more prone to biologically or societally? How do you think about masculinity in the context of raising a son?
42:55 Speaker 02 Well, my dad was born in 1940, and I love him dearly. He's 83 years old, but I don't think of him as a paragon of modern masculinity. He was born in 1940. He is old school in many, many ways. So when I think about like modern masculinity, which is what you're talking about, I think of my son, Jack, and I think about, I know you've written about this, but some of the pursuits that I encourage him to follow are athleticism, not for the competitive value of it, but for the the endorphins and and the, you know, especially when you're 13 and testosterone is running through your body
43:35 Speaker 02 like lava off of a volcano and and just burning that that energy in a positive way. And then also his friendships are something that he's he's very invested in and he has like lots of over the in the summer, he has lots of friends come over during the day. And to me, those are like the two of the most positive things I see him doing as a as a boy. I do worry about him sometimes because we lost our dog with whom he was very close about a week or so ago, and I haven't seen him cry over it yet. And I've said to him, Jack, you know, it's okay. I've already wept twice about it. But he said,
44:20 Speaker 02 well, I'm turning my Sorrow into anger and then my anger, I'm burning off at the gym. And I said, it's a nice theory, but the tears are still in you. They're going to come out at some point, you know? It's watching the first shell go up after our dog died. Uh, part of being a man that it's unavoidable, I guess, in some parts because he's certainly not discouraged from crying in our house, but at some point it just happens, I think.
44:47 Scott Galloway? A lot of the research shows that boys come off the tracks when they no longer have a male role model. So your boy is blessed with having a male role model. Have you thought about your own behaviors and trying to be a good role model or is it, is it more organic or are there certain behaviors you're trying to cement and demonstrate in front of him?
45:06 Speaker 02 I definitely think about it all the time, not just for him, but for my daughter. I think about, uh, the importance to me of being, um, demonstrative with my love for my wife in front of them. I think that's important to, I didn't grow up with that because my parents divorced when I was like seven or eight. So I didn't grow up with that. Uh, but I think that's, that's, that's a really, um, healthy thing. It comes very easy to me.
45:30 Scott Galloway? Yep.
45:31 Speaker 02 To grab my wife and give her a kiss. Um, even if, uh, if the kids go ew, no, I think about it all the time. I think about it all the time about how I am modeling behaviors that he will follow. I mean, we both model for both kids, but it's naive to think that he isn't looking more at me and she isn't looking more at her. I just think that happens. One of the things I, I try to tell them over and over is how much failure I've experienced because I don't want them just to see me as this very successful anchor guy that their friends know because I'm on TV or whatever. I want them to know like how much pain and, and failure I've gone through, uh, professionally.
46:12 Scott Galloway? If you're advising a young father 10 years behind you in terms of raising, raising a boy and a girl, what, what surprises or what learnings, what advice would you have for young fathers?
46:24 Speaker 02 Love them, love them, love them, tell them you love them, hug them, embrace them, put them to bed. Don't blink, as they say, because it goes by real quick. One of the observations I had that I thought would, if somebody had told me this before the kids were born, I probably would have thought that they were. Anachronistic, but just how different Alice and Jack were as babies and then as toddlers
46:50 Speaker 02 in a way that just had nothing to do with us. It's like all of a sudden Jack, Jack just was like drawn to trucks. He just was.
46:57 Scott Galloway? Incredible, isn't it? Boys and cars and girls and dolls.
47:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, and Alice was just drawn to dolls and they, they just were. It's one of the great joys of my life and I feel bad for those who don't get to experience that. I know it's, they might have a more content life with fewer gray hairs, but um, in some ways content, but it's just the defining part of who I am.
47:21 Scott Galloway? And what advice or observations do you have around having a productive marriage and being, being a good partner to your wife?
47:29 Speaker 02 Date night is an incredibly important thing. A night when you and your wife go away from the kids and just connect and it really needs to be at least once a week. I think that that, it sounds silly and trivial, but it is vital. I would say listening and not necessarily responding. I think one of the great lessons for me as a husband has been in how much um, I am helpful if I'm just listening. And not necessarily offering advice as to how, as to how to fix the problem or what I would do in such a situation or what insights I particularly have, but like, it's really a lot of the time I'm just wanted to listen.
48:12 Scott Galloway? And this will be our last question. You referenced earlier that you, you want to make sure your kids know about your failures, your low points. I think most people who, you know, know you from the TV screen and CNN, imagine a life that's kind of been up and to the right. Are you comfortable? Well, it's true. I mean, are you?
48:30 Speaker 02 It's so not true. I mean, it's, it's so not what happened though, but yes.
48:33 Scott Galloway? But that's the old adage. Success, people think success is up and to the right. What success is, it's just a violent series of dips and peaks and hopefully over time you figure it out. But are you comfortable sharing a low moment or where you felt really vulnerable and, and who and what got you out of it?
48:48 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, there, there are so many, there are so many, I, I could, I could literally talk for an hour about it, but I mean, first of all, the lowest moment I, I remember having. Was after college, everybody went to law school or to business school or to start this internship or that. And I didn't, I really didn't really know what I wanted to do. I went to, I applied to film school just because I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I was, I got into University of Southern California, great film school, but like I was not ready for it. And I found the town very isolating at the time and I was paying for it out of my own pocket. And I didn't even know that that's what I
49:27 Speaker 02 wanted to do for a living. And I felt completely directionless and very alone. And I remember a period in my life in that dorm I was in at the corner of Adams and Hoover. And I remember waking up and wishing I hadn't woken up, which is not to say that I wished I was dead. I did not, but I just didn't like being awake because I did not enjoy my life at that point. And that was, that was the lowest moment of my life. And I just ultimately said, okay, well, I, this is not working. So when the semester was over, I packed up and went back to Philadelphia where I was from and
50:08 Speaker 02 just rebooted and started again. And that wasn't easy to do because it was acknowledging that I had done this thing and it was a failure, that this dream I had of being a film producer or writer or whatever, like I was going to give up on it, even though it wasn't really a dream. It was just kind of like what I thought maybe I wanted to try just because I had nothing else to think about, uh, no other direction. But, uh, that was tough. That was tough. But that's just one of thousands of failures and disappointments and rejections. And yeah, it isn't up to the right. It's failure after failure after failure. You know, so if I saw, I was at the gym this morning and because I'm
50:51 Speaker 02 old, uh, I have a trainer and because he makes me exercise. Otherwise I would just go there and walk on the stairmaster for half an hour, call of the day. And he made, he was making me do dips until failure, right? Until my arms gave out. And I was just thinking about how interesting it was that he was using the term failure. Do it until failure. And what that is, is just like giving it everything you have until you have nothing left to give. And that's what failure meant in that context. And I just thought that that was. That was interesting because that's not what failure means in any other context. Failure in this context is really good. You've worked so hard until your arms couldn't do it anymore. Sometimes that's what actual failure is in life. Like you try something and it doesn't work.
51:34 Speaker 02 And then you do something else. And that's not necessarily bad.
51:40 Scott Galloway? Jake Tapper anchors the lead on CNN and serves as the network's chief Washington correspondent. He also hosted CNN's Sunday morning show, State of the Union, since June of 2015. In addition to his reporting, Jake has also authored several books, including his latest novel, All the Demons Are Here. He joins us from his office in Washington DC. Jake, I really enjoyed this conversation. I think you're a wonderful role model for journalists and for young men and appreciate your time.
52:06 Speaker 02 Thank you so much.
52:15 Scott Galloway? Hunch of happiness, waking up and not being happy to be awake. This is important for young people. Almost everybody has a moment where they wake up and they're like, I'm just not that psyched to be awake right now. My life is really hard. It's not panning out the way I'd hoped. I've let myself down. I've let others down. You get so hard on yourself so fast. And the competitive nature of our economy, the harshness of relationships or failed relationships, that is part of the journey. I remember being at Morgan Stanley and thinking I'd hit the lottery and then I decided not to return. You know, I decided my tears were over and I got out, moved back in with my mom and I literally had nothing going on. And I like, I woke up and I'm like, I'm 24. I had a job at Morgan Stanley, a fixed income, and now I'm living at home and I have no idea
53:00 Scott Galloway? what I'm going to do with my life. This kind of sucks. No girlfriend, not a lot of money or no money, no real idea what I wanted to do. And it was upsetting. And then again, and I mean, it's just happened to me so many times. So 1999, I'm going to be rich. I'm a baller. I've started this e-commerce company. Boom, I'm kicked off the board. Get into war with my venture capitalist, spent all my money on a proxy fight. My moving with my mom who's struggling with cancer, she dies. The dot com or dot bomb hits. I'm broke. The only person I know that's ever cared about me is Dad. And I have nothing, I mean, almost nothing in my life, but I'm now, you know, thirty-four and just fucking nowhere. And all this hope, all this opportunity got really close and
53:44 Scott Galloway? ended up basically without any relationships and with no economic security and having to start over. And here's the key, forgive yourself. Recognize that everyone has moments where things are just hard. And to recognize a lot of your success isn't your fault, but a lot of your failures aren't your fault. And the key is morning, it's okay to be a little depressed for a little while, and then to get back up, dust off your pants and step up back to the plate and start again, and one foot in front of the other. Whatever you need to do, whether it's spirituality, meditating, being with people that make you feel good about yourself, working out, whatever it is that that gives you the opportunity
54:26 Scott Galloway? to stand in front of the mirror and say, I could make someone really happy. I could make someone really happy. And I'm going to approach someone at a bar, in line and coffee, or accept an invitation to a dinner party. And if I find someone interesting, maybe suggest be aggressive about trying to set up a coffee or something, you could make someone very happy. Two, you are the solution to a firm's problems. There's a firm out there that can absolutely leverage your strengths and you could help that firm grow shareholder value. And three, being born in America, probably having some of the skills you have, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't expect, if you're
55:09 Scott Galloway? action oriented, a good person, recognized, one of the keys to success is resilience and perseverance, realize that you are going to have, you are going to have a rewarding life. It is going to be full of joy, and it's also going to be full of tragedy. And part of that tragedy, part of that tragedy is the fact that you have a lot of expectations for yourself. The economy goes in cycles, people do get sick and die, but you will feel better. Things will get better. If you wake up one day and you think I'm not that psyched to be awake, that is part of the journey. Keep on keeping on.
55:46 Scott Galloway? This episode was produced by Caroline Shageran. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly market show.
Previous Office Hours: Why Cars are the Next Battleground for Attention, Advice to a Young Real Estate Investor, and Balancing Fun with Frugality in Your 20s Next No Mercy / No Malice: Boys to Men Page updated September 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
