Pivot

Is Alex Pretti Shooting a Turning Point?

with Cara Swisher and Scott Galloway
26 Jan 2026 19 min read 1h 2m
TL;DR

Federal agents shot and killed an unarmed ICU nurse documenting their actions—behavior more reckless than combat rules of engagement. Rather than traditional protest, Scott argues economic resistance (consumer spending cuts, tech boycotts) is the only leverage that moves Trump, while corporate CEOs' silence at the White House reveals their complicity in authoritarian overreach.

Key Moments
Cara Swisher
“All of the video that we have seen shows him documenting it with his cell phone, which is a lawful thing to do. And the only time he seemed to interact with law enforcement is when they went after him when he was trying to help an individual who law enforcement pushed down.”
Cara quoting Dana Bash's on-air pushback to Border Patrol Command Gregory Bavino's false claims that Pretti was impeding the operation
▶ 0:59
Scott Galloway
“Representative Seth Molton, who's a veteran and I believe a Marine who served in I believe it was Iraq, said that if this had happened in the middle of a combat zone and a a combatant, enemy combatant who had been disarmed was treated this way, the officers and the enlisted men involved in that murder would be court marshaled.”
Scott establishing that U.S. military rules of engagement in war zones are more protective of suspects than Minneapolis police tactics
▶ 5:02
Scott Galloway
“The only thing these people care about is whether or not their stock goes down. That's it. And if their stock goes down, they're going to stop. They're not only going to stop showing up to Melania documentaries and giving him inscribed hard disk drives. They're going to finally find their testicles and come out and speak out against this guy.”
Scott explaining why economic pressure—not shame or morality—is the only tool that moves tech CEOs like Tim Cook
▶ 21:09
Scott Galloway
“If you could convince half of Americans who are planning to buy an iPhone in the next 60 days to not buy it, just put it off and we could get 10% of existing Chat GPT subscribers to cancel their subscription, this ends.”
Scott proposing concrete, coordinated economic tactics that would force market disclosure and policy shifts without protest marches
▶ 19:46
Cara Swisher
“I would last like to call out Steven Miller, who is in the center of this. We always focus on Trump as we often focus on the top people, but Steven Miller uh like a man named Benettson, he was the one who created the internment camps Japanese Hinreich Himmler in the in the in the Nazi regime. This is what he is.”
Cara identifying the ideological architect behind ICE operations and drawing explicit parallels to Nazi functionaries
▶ 24:12
About the show
›
Pivot is an emergency podcast from New York Magazine and Vox Media examining breaking news and its implications for policy, business, and society. Hosts Cara Swisher and Scott Galloway dive deep into the killing of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti by federal ICE agents in Minneapolis, situating it within broader questions of government accountability, corporate complicity, and effective resistance.
Takeaways
1
Market pressure outweighs moral outrage with Trump Scott argues that coordinated economic withdrawal—delayed iPhone purchases, ChatGPT cancellations, bank transfers—would move policy faster than protests because Trump responds to GDP and stock prices, not political noise. A 10% spending cut from wealthy households and 5% from middle-class would create negative GDP almost overnight, forcing corporate earnings disclosures that scare capital.
2
Tech CEOs' White House attendance exposes brand compromise Tim Cook, Lisa Su, Andy Jassy, and others attending Melania's documentary screening hours after a fatal shooting signals Silicon Valley's full capitulation to Trump's governance model. Their silence and participation deliberately choose market access over ethical positioning, a calculation that only shareholder pressure can reverse.
3
GOP senators have leverage to stop ICE but lack spine Twenty Republican senators meeting Trump with an ultimatum—stop ICE operations or face impeachment support—could halt the program behind closed doors. Their refusal reveals they've calculated sufficient voter support in their districts, suggesting the real political power now lies with citizens' economic choices, not legislative courage.