Andrew Ross Sorkin
Appearances
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
You know, I think Tim Cook is actually a great example of it. Through Trump's first term, Tim Cook clearly created a relationship with Trump and, as a result, stayed out of the crosshairs despite all of the back and forth with China and everything else. And so I think there is a view that he is persuadable. He is transactional.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And if you can create a relationship with him, at least you will have the opportunity. It's not clear that all these CEOs are going to succeed at whatever they're asking for, but they're getting a seat at the table. And from a practical perspective, that's all they can ask for today. Now, I think they also worry about what happens later. But I think the view is we'll worry when we have to worry.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
But for now, we're going to try to befriend this person. Maggie?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
I have so many thoughts, if you'd indulge me for a moment. Please. So it is very factual that during the first Trump term, Amazon was targeted by Trump in part because Trump was unhappy with Bezos' ownership of the Washington Post.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
That's just an empirical situation, and they demonstrably were targeted by the president over and over and over again. Bezos also owns Blue Origin, which, by the way, is going to compete with SpaceX, has enormous billions of dollars in government contracts. And so Jeff Bezos – and he said this quite publicly – as an owner of the Post is quite conflicted.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
From a perception perspective, if optics are how you're considering this, he was very open that he believes that he's probably not the best owner in that context. He will tell you, he told me at the deal book summit that he believed he was making a principled decision about the decision not to endorse a candidate and also accepted that the timing of it was terrible. I don't know.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
You're going to have to decide whether you want to believe him or not. On the Disney story, or I should say on the ABC story.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
So I think it's actually much more complicated than it's being portrayed by some.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
I think they're very different situations because the truth is that I think that as Disney and ABC looked at this case, they saw depositions that were going to have to be taken. That we're likely going to get into the public that might have had unattractive facts. The media is clearly under a lot of scrutiny.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And I think even if you thought that ABC would, quote unquote, win the case on the law, on the law, there was a potential that they would even lose the case in the public mind.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
That, plus if they actually lost the case and then were to try to appeal the case, they would have to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Now think about the Supreme Court for a second. 6-3, right, in terms of the politics of that court. You could potentially undermine what's called New York Times versus Sullivan. Famous First Amendment.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
1964, which granted effectively the press enormous, almost expansive. What's the word?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And so there's a question. Do you want to go through that entire process and potentially either lose in the public mind or lose in court and then potentially really lose on behalf of, frankly, all of journalism? Or do you want to settle? Got it. That would be the defensive description of why Disney or ABC did that.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
This is about the heights of power. This is demonstration of raw power. Now, it might be raw power in the context of a honeymoon, but he now has power, obviously, in the White House. He has power in the Senate. He has power in Congress. And he has power within the industry. And as a collection, walking into the inauguration, he clearly is feeling that sense of power.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Once he's in the job, it may get more challenging. It usually does.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
This, to me, is the beginning of the movie that we've all been waiting to see and wonder how the drama plays out, which is to say that we've all seen Elon Musk around the table with President-elect Trump.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
But we haven't really known. In fact, I think a lot of people have been skeptical about just how much power he may or may not have. Well, he used it, and we saw it.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
He took to Twitter, or I should say X, and said this bill should not pass. Full stop. His partner in Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy, also took to Twitter and to TikTok. after having read 1,500-plus pages of the bill and said this bill should not pass.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Look at the list of CEOs who are either shelling out big money or meeting with Trump in person or both. We're talking about CEOs from TikTok, Google, Apple, Netflix.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Because of exactly how much it was larded up with stuff, specifically pointing out that Congress was effectively giving itself a pay raise for the first time in 14 years. There was what they call pork in this bill. And... Elon Musk said, no, Moss, we're not doing this. And Trump said, we're not doing this.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
So Rand Paul this morning suggests that Elon Musk should become the Speaker of the House. You laugh, but I think to some extent he was serious with that suggestion. By the way, you don't apparently have to be elected to that role, interestingly enough. So to the Elon Musk piece of it real quick.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
You know, I do think this was the first demonstration of his quote unquote power in a true political sense in that for a very long time, he has made lots of proclamations on X, but has mostly been screaming into the wind. But now he clearly has the ear of the president elect. But more importantly, he's able to take that and the power of being able to galvanize the
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
this entire community behind him, I think changes the dynamic. And so I do think this is sort of that first demonstration. What that really means, I don't think we really know. But, you know, we've all talked about, you know, will he be able to do things? Is it just on the margins that be able to do things through executive actions and the like?
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Or is it through, you know, will he actually be able to persuade Congress to do things? Well, this is actually a persuasion, if you will, of Congress to do something. So I think this is sort of the first example that we're all watching and trying to understand.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
You know, Trump never publicly talked about true hardship in terms of what his policies would create. However, his new partner in crime, Elon Musk, actually did. Elon Musk took to X and said, if we follow through these policies, there will be a temporary hardship. Used the word hardship, interestingly. I paid attention to it. I don't know if most voters were paying attention to it.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
But for a lot of the policies that we're all talking about, the president wanting to enact, it is almost impossible to believe that they can be enacted without actually some form of temporary hardship. Now, Elon Musk and President-elect Trump would suggest to you that there is temporary hardship now and it's a better world on the other side.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
But there's a real question about how politically palatable it is for the American public to go through, quote, temporary hardship.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
Well, look, most of corporate America going into this election, in truth, was not a supporter of President Trump. This was a book, you would call it, if you can't beat him, join him. And so you have many of the top 20 companies in America, CEO of Amazon, CEO of Google, Alphabet, Apple. The list is extensive. And all of them are going crazy. to Mar-a-Lago in truth to kiss the ring.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
They think of it as practical. They don't think of it as hypocritical. You know, back in 2016, I think a lot of CEOs didn't go down to Mar-a-Lago because they were skittish. They were skittish in part because their employees were skittish. They were skittish in part because I think the country broadly was truly skittish. That's not to suggest the country isn't broadly skittish today, but I think
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
They see Trump as somebody who likes the relationship. And it's almost in opposition to President Biden, who did not take the meeting. President Biden was not meeting with CEOs in America, didn't want to meet with CEOs in America, wanted to meet with union leaders in America, but not CEOs. And so they all see this as an opportunity.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
To effectively get in front of the president and hope not that they can persuade him of something today, but that as the debate over tariffs goes on, for example, that they will be able to make a call later.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And if you're Tim Cook at Apple and you're worried about tariffs in China where you manufacture a majority of your iPhones, you're hoping that you're going to be able to pick up the phone and call him in a couple of months and say, you know what? I have an idea about creating a carve out for, you know, a certain type of electronics product from a certain region in China.
The Daily
Ring-Kissing, Lawsuits and a Looming Shutdown
And we can come up with an explanation for why that particular area won't have the same tariff as other parts of China.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Megyn Kelly Details the Curious Case of Carlos Watson, and Shocking Downfall of the Disgraced Media Mogul | Ep. 969
Your co-founder had a phone call with Goldman Sachs as you were trying to raise money. and effectively took them off of a Zoom and then apparently started to impersonate with a fake email address as well, somebody from YouTube. What happened?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Megyn Kelly Details the Curious Case of Carlos Watson, and Shocking Downfall of the Disgraced Media Mogul | Ep. 969
Your co-founder had a phone call with Goldman Sachs as you were trying to raise money. and effectively took them off of a Zoom and then apparently started to impersonate with a fake email address as well, somebody from YouTube. What happened?