‘No F*cking Way!’ Scott Galloway Reveals He Turned Down a 60 Minutes Gig, Nukes Lesley Stahl For Staying

Scott Galloway and his Pivot podcast co-host Kara Swisher discussed the scandal surrounding CBS News’s flagship magazine show 60 Minutes on their latest episode on Tuesday, with Galloway revealing he recently turned down a job on the show.

Swisher began the conversation by pressing Galloway to explain his understanding of the economics behind billionaire father-son duo Larry and David Ellison buying CBS News, only to potentially dismantle its highest-rated show.

Galloway explained that in the bigger picture, 60 Minutes is a small part of their overall business empire and that keeping President Donald Trump happy is the best possible investment a CEO can make right now, given the returns he’s shelling out to allies.

Galloway eventually turned the conversation to himself, quipping, “And also, I never miss an opportunity to make myself feel important. I was approached about a role at 60 Minutes.”

“And what did I say? I break your arm, correct?” Swisher insisted.

“Well, and I said, no f*cking way. I don’t want to be — that’s like the last thing. If you’re — I mean, quite frankly, why the fuck is Lesley Stahl staying?” Galloway replied.

“Well, can I take a word on that and then we’ll move on?” Swisher said, adding:

I know Leslie really well. She used to come to all my conferences. She’s really terrific. I’ve talked — she was trying an internet thing a couple of years ago and I helped her with it. She’s not texting me back.

Let’s just say, Leslie, I’ve helped you a lot. I really feel irritated by the fact that you won’t even text me back, but that’s another issue. I predicted she would do this and everyone said I was wrong.

But listen, this is the end of her career. She wants that retrospective of her career next year or the year after. She wants the party. She does have a loyalty to the place. She’s been there so long, and so she feels that by staying, she’s protecting it — at least someone’s here to hold it back and watch over them. I think that’s genuine. I do. I think it’s genuine with her.

She’s like — you cut her and she bleeds 60 Minutes, right? So I think that’s in her. And she wants that. If she left now, there’d be no retrospective, there’d be no end-of-career celebration.

I think she wants that — that’s from a selfish point of view.

From the other point of view, she thinks she can save it. She can at least protect it for the time being; she’ll wait them out. My problem is they’re going to go right around her. They’re just going to go around her, and I don’t think she realizes that — how much they’re as canny and smart and tough as she is.

She doesn’t have as much leverage by staying, and I think she made a mistake. But I thought she would stay, so that’s my take on it. I don’t know, because I haven’t talked to her.

“Under the auspices of the latest episode of ‘Don’t These People Have Friends’: Lesley Stahl is an icon. Lesley Stahl is 84. Between one and two percent of 84-year-olds work full-time,” Galloway replied, adding:

By the time you’re 87, it’s less than one percent. Lesley Stahl may live another 20 years. She’s going to be working full-time for a matter of years, if not months.

I know that sounds ageist. I am an ageist, and so is biology. She shouldn’t be buying green bananas at this point.

Now, as a friend — a friend should say to her, ‘Lesley, put out the following memo: ‘I have loved and appreciated and feel blessed to have been a part of this organization. I am proud of and did my best regarding my work here. It is time for me to leave.” Everyone else would have filled in the blanks, and in every fucking room she would have walked into for the rest of her life, she would have gotten a standing ovation. Instead, under some narcissistic notion that she’s going to be able to control what happens in every production meeting.

Oh my God, how naive are you? She had a chance to put the world’s greatest dot on top of the exclamation point at the end of a great career, and she missed it. This was the perfect exit to a storied career.

I’m not angry, I’m not shitposting her for staying — I’m shitposting her for not taking an unbelievable opportunity to put a Tiffany ribbon on the aquamarine blue box that was her Tiffany career. What a missed opportunity.

Swisher wrapped up the conversation by asking Galloway to explain what job he was offered at 60 Minutes.

“To do one or more of those Andy Rooney segments,” replied Galloway, as Swisher joked, “Yeah, so you’re Andy Rooney. ‘You know what really bothers me about soda pop?'”

“By the way, let me be clear: I grew up watching 60 Minutes with my mother. Had someone called me 12 or 24 months ago and offered me that role, I would have said, ‘I’ll pay you,'” Galloway said, concluding it would have been the pinnacle of his career to work on the show.

Watch the full clip above.

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