Scott Galloway Predicts Fortune 500 CEOs and GOP Leaders Will Start Speaking Out Against Trump: ‘The Worm Has Turned’
Scott Galloway predicted that business leaders and even some major voices in the GOP will start speaking out against President Donald Trump as his tariffs continue to wreak havoc on the global economy. Galloway, a marketing professor and entrepreneur turned media personality, made the comments on the latest episode of his Pivot podcast, alongside co-host Kara Swisher.
“I think my prediction is the following, Kara. I think the worm has turned. I think that my sense is that the things that have kept Republicans quiet because their dear leader has more power in this cult that where he can vote them out of office [have changed]. The fear factor of saying, I’ll weaponize the DOJ against my enemies,” began Galloway, adding:
Donald Trump, I’m not comparing him to Hitler, but Hitler’s biggest mistake that reshaped the world was he decided to open a second front in the war and he declared war on Russia. That is, we probably would have had to come to some agreement with him where he got Europe and Britain got the empire or whatever.
But that is what lost the war. It was in addition to British brains, Russian blood, and American brawn, Russian blood, they sacrificed 20 million people, and they were allies at the beginning of the war. Trump has decided to fight everyone all at once.
He’s not going after targeted tariffs against China, or figuring out if there’s certain tariffs on dairy that are not reciprocal or asymmetric. He’s not saying to the EU, we need you to pay more for our NATO. But he’s just declared war on everyone all at once, and it is literally the only. We had to ally with dozens of countries to get Hussein out of Kuwait, but this guy’s under the impression he can declare war on everyone.
“It does feel like he declared war on everyone, doesn’t it?” Swisher agreed.
“Everyone, all at once! Whether it’s Harvard or Kazakhstan, he’s just declared war on everyone. They’re going to be very creative and strike back. They’re just going to be very creative and strike back,” Galloway added, continuing:
Anyways, I think the worm has turned. I think that so many public company CEOs who wake up in the morning and say, ‘Hello, Mr. President, they think that someday they’re going to be drafted because of their incredible leadership skills to run for president. Let me save you three classes at a business school on ethics, leadership, and sustainability.
Ethics is like, think about what the right thing is. Leadership is do the right thing even when it’s really hard. And sustainability is doing the right thing when it’s really hard, you might actually make money.
There, you don’t need to take those three classes. You’re about to see, I believe, some very high-profile business leaders and Republicans come out in the next week or two and say, ‘This is just bad,’ And they’re going to get a ton of attention. Not one, I can’t think of a Fortune 500 CEO who has spoken out.
I can’t think of a Republican who has really taken a stand here. And the person I am reminded of is a guy named Martin Niemöller. And he was essentially a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany in the 20s and early 30s.
“They came for me, right? That guy,” Swisher interjected.
“That’s exactly right. Very well done. He sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radically right-wing political movements. But after Hitler came to power in 1933, Nimuller became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church. He spent the last eight years of Nazi rule in prisons and concentration camps. Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for his post-war statement, which begins, ‘First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out,’” Gallow continued, adding:
His full quote is, ‘First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.’
I mean, that is really powerful and what I would argue, I have a lot of faith in America over the medium and the long term. We get it wrong in the short term a lot, but over the medium and long term, we demonstrate tremendous generosity and leadership.
I think we’re at a point where people realizing that, okay, a guy with the wrong tattoo who gets basically rounded up, a university or the cultural elite that are targeted under bullshit narratives of anti-Semitism coming after weaponizing the DOJ against your political enemies, I think the school is about to rise up against the bullies.
“Yeah. Although, Scott, in the short term, Chris Krebs has to leave his company because he got targeted by Trump and he’s fighting it,” Swisher noted.
“Kara, there’s been incalculable economic and moral damage here, and loss of brand equity and a loss of moral authority. I’m not in any way assuming this will repair everything. What I’m suggesting is the following,” Galloway replied, adding:
There is now, it is so obvious how damaging this is. Republicans showing up to their town halls and literally getting absolutely ravaged.
“That AOC thing continues, although there’s so much hostility towards her. It’s really fascinating from some Democrats,” Swisher said.
“But I think you’re going to see in the next one or two weeks, a cadre of Fortune 500 CEOs, Republicans stand up, business leaders stand up and say, okay, enough already. While you all claim he’s playing 4D chess, at this point we’re worried he’s going to start eating the pieces. This guy is making the stupidest decisions,” Galloway said, adding:
And the first person, I love Nike. I used to do a lot of work with Nike. I’m going to call, I don’t know if it will call me back, I’m going to call Elliott Hill the CEO today– The biggest opportunity right now in the commercial consumer world is for the CEO to weaponize their creativity and their agency and to come out against this bullshit and say, this is anti-American, this is not part of our values, this is not what it means to be an American.
Someone in the Fortune 500 is going to come out and say, this is bullshit, and guess what? The people who actually have the money to buy this shit are going to think, you know what, I like the swoosh again.
“I like your prediction, I hope it’s true,” Swisher agreed.
Listen to the full episode above.
