Brands of the Week: Malls Are Back, Everyone's Exhausted, and Taco Bell Wants You to Check In
On Brand with Donny DeutschShow Notes
This week Donny Deutsch and Lou Pellegrino run through who's up and who's down in American culture. They start with a CDC report finding that most U.S. adults are running on empty, then compare notes on five o'clock naps and why sleep has become a $100 billion industry. From there it's senior TikTok creators talking openly about sex and intimacy, the University of Chicago banning AI and laptops from its core courses, and the dictionary's newest additions, including "parasocial," "cuffing season," and "Sunday scaries."
A new Gallup finding that adults under 35 are now the loneliest Americans leads into one of the week's most surprising brand ups: the comeback of the American mall. Donny and Lou trade Queens Center and Roosevelt Field memories along the way. They also check in on Taco Bell's new branded hotel in Palm Springs, question some of Ad Age's picks for 2026's hottest brands, and look at pickleball's fourth straight year as America's fastest-growing sport. Rounding out the list are the fitness shift from weight loss to strength and longevity, "DivorceTok" as a content category, social saunas as Gen Z's new third place, and the milestone of fewer than half of married women taking their husband's name. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein (Carlyle Group co-founder, Baltimore Orioles owner, and host of Bloomberg's The David Rubenstein Show) talks about Trump's future, the war with Iran, AI, and his new book, Speaking of America: Great Conversations at the Library of Congress.
Bestselling thriller author Harlan Coben reveals his writing process, how to beat writer's block, and the heartbreaking story behind his father's last words.
Anthony Scaramucci joins Donny Deutsch to break down his new book, All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump, a sharp and surprisingly self-critical look at how America got here. The SkyBridge founder and co-host of The Rest Is Politics: US walks through the three turning points he believes set the stage for MAGA: letting China into the WTO without checking its rise, the post-9/11 wars funded by tax cuts that blew up the deficit, and a 2008 bailout that rescued the banks but left Main Street behind. As Scaramucci puts it, Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party "had a baby, and they named it baby MAGA."
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