Pod Insights On with Kara Swisher Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics About this episode Political journalist Astead Herndon is using his new Vox podcast America, Actually with Astead Herndon to ask what feels like an unfathomable question: What does our country look like after President Trump; and can we even talk about politics without putting him at the center?
As we head towards its first truly open presidential election since 2016, Kara and Astead talk about the ways politics has changed in the last decade, and what it takes to attract voters today. They discuss the growing disillusionment and splintering amongst Trump’s base and toss around predictions about who might in the GOP be in line to replace him. And they analyze the structural impediments that could blunt a Democratic wave in the midterms and beyond. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript 11,861 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Kara Swisher? You don't break the Pope. You don't. Like, it's really, even among people who don't agree with him.
0:06 Speaker 01 Also, this Pope, you know, don't mess with the South Side of Chicago. Like, pick different fights, Trump.
0:22 Kara Swisher? Hi, everybody. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Astead Herndon, a political reporter and formerly the host of the run-up podcasts at The New York Times. He made a name for himself with his on-the-ground reporting and ability to connect with voters. Astead is now a host and editorial director at Vox. He has a new video podcast called America Actually with Astead Herndon. The show asks, what does America look like after Trump? And can we even talk about politics without putting Trump at the center? I'm excited to talk to him because Astead's an amazing reporter at the heart of it, and he's been talking to actual voters rather than just being a pundit. He also has incredible analytical skills and is able to sort of parse things out
1:06 Kara Swisher? in an incredibly fair way, which I think is important right now in these polarizing times. We have two expert questions this episode. One from Lulu Garcia Navarro, host of The New York Times podcast The Interview, and another from Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion. Both sent in great questions, so stick around.
1:31 Kara Swisher? Support for this show comes from The Guardian and their new show, Stateside, where journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman use the entire independent reporting resources of The Guardian to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what is actually happening in the world. Join Kai and Carter three times a week as they utilize all the reporting resources The Guardian has across news, international coverage, climate, culture, wellness, and more. And The Guardian's not owned by a billionaire. They fearlessly report the facts without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more. And listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's theguardian.com/stateside.
2:15 Kara Swisher? Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow, none of them ever talk to each other. That's where Odoo comes in, an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try it today for free at Odoo.com/ Kara. That's O-D-O-O dot com slash Kara.
2:59 Speaker 02 How much more would you get done with a personal assistant in your pocket?
3:03 Speaker 03 Life's too short to be manually filing insurance claims and being on hold waiting for the lab tests that the doctor did. I don't know, I feel like it's allowing me to show up in ways that I've always wished I could show up. I just am so strapped for time.
3:17 Speaker 02 What we gain and give up when AI agents enter the picture. That's this week on Explain It To Me. Listen to new episodes Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.
3:35 Kara Swisher? Astead, thanks for coming on On.
3:37 Speaker 01 Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
3:39 Kara Swisher? I'd love to know what was the thinking behind what you wanted to do and where you're going. Your new Vox podcast is called America Actually with Astead Herndon. You said when you started developing it, your first thought was, I want to be Trump-free. So you're trying to figure out what American politics will look like without Trump as the driving force. I'd love to know why you decided to do it this way, leave The Times, obviously, and what you've found so far.
4:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, it was really about embracing our new media space. I wanted to do and be somewhere where I could embrace all mediums, right? Text, video. I wanted to do that based on the premise of my own journalistic lens and free myself of Time subscriber. And I also just think that like in this kind of moment of politics specifically, people trust individuals, they trust people who kind of can put themselves out there transparently, can put their process out there transparently. And so I kind of wanted to just do that in its clearest
4:42 Speaker 01 form and felt like Vox was the best opportunity to do that. And to the point about Trump freeness, you know, as we were thinking about what's going to define this show and and kind of what do we want our lane to be, obviously, my work has been around elections, national elections, midterms, and presidential. And this one is unique in that, you know, it's the first time since 2016, we've had these two open primaries, or at least our building, two open primaries. It made me think, you know, we're on this journey of theoretical Trump replacement, but it seems kind of implausible right now. I think he takes up so much of our ecosystem, it's hard to see past him. And so I thought that, you know, it can, we can use these elections
5:25 Speaker 01 and we can use kind of this runway as an opportunity to start telling that story.
5:29 Kara Swisher? Right.
5:30 Speaker 01 Because I think that will be the deeply defining stories. What parts of this do we take with us? What parts are we leaving behind? Like, what parts of this are defining to a changed country versus what was a crazed man?
5:40 Kara Swisher? Or is it leave behind of all? Like, I don't, I'm making a new word here, but is it possible to leave behind? Because certain presidents and certain political figures have left either a stain or a lasting impression, right?
5:53 Speaker 01 Yeah. And I also think that his, the way he has exploited political systems, a lasting impact, the way that he has broken down norms or just increased some levels of shamelessness of elected officials, I think it's a lasting impact. But I still think there are some things, whether on the Democratic side, that's defined themselves around opposition to him.
6:15 Kara Swisher? Sure.
6:16 Speaker 01 Or on the Republican side, that's kind of just deferred to him personally, that we just simply don't know.
6:21 Kara Swisher? Because when you say Trump free, when I read that, I was like, can we be? Is it possible? Like, even dead, he'll be interesting, right?
6:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. So I don't really, I mean it more beyond him. I just mean non-Trump centric more so. And I just think that takes the issues that we think about all the time and puts a different lens on them. And so instead of asking simply like what the impact is from the top down or or what kind of the last person in the room was to push him for decision making. We're looking for the impact of that. We're looking for how that's going to play out in terms of other elected officials and mostly we're looking to how people have largely been dissatisfied with the solutions that he's proposed.
7:00 Kara Swisher? Right, no, he's not doing well.
7:01 Speaker 01 I think that's really come through in the second term universally. And so it makes our framing, in my opinion, a little easier.
7:07 Kara Swisher? Yeah, it's interesting because one of the things I I keep thinking about is like, how do you move on? And there was a brief moment where you forgot about Trump after he lost when he was in, you know, ignominy and he went down to Mar-a-Lago and the insurrection and everything else until Kevin McCarthy showed up, essentially. He was on his way to the trash heap.
7:26 Speaker 01 I I think that's an underrated moment people forget about. Like, in that post 2022 midterms, there was a big space of Republicans. I was at that Republican Winter Convention where they were talking about kind of how he was electoral drag on the party, how they they had also assumed, like many others did, that his looming legal problems would be kind of the nail in his political coffin. And so sometimes when Republicans act as if they've seen this and they've been on the train the whole time. I'm like, that's not true. Like, I I remember those moments when they were trying to create space for other people to come in. It's simply that the base rejected it. And we saw this, you know, when I was making the run up my Times podcast, when those criminal indictments came, for a lot of that Republican electorate,
8:10 Speaker 01 it felt like a need to rally around the guy. And that completely changed the tenor of what was going to be a more open race. And just the open convo of leaving him behind. And so, you know, it's not just that DeSantis was a personality flop or things like that. It is that there was a moment in time in which that kind of window for Republicans to see the ability to move past them collapsed. And so their self-interest started aligning with where their base increasingly was post those indictments. And so I just think that some of those seeds, we've seen in Individual moments, but this election and the march to 2028 will bring them more clearly out.
8:48 Kara Swisher? Right. Well, interestingly, it still has this, as you say, lasting impact. According to a new Ipsos poll, which I am in apparently, and I'm quite purple. I have, I have purple fans.
8:58 Speaker 01 Hey, that's great.
8:59 Kara Swisher? I know. I was sort of surprised. I'm like, hey, San Francisco lesbian here, but sure, why not? Online platforms and personalities, especially those on the right, have overtaken television and print outlets as regular news sources among people who voted in previous presidential election. That's very obvious. Talk about that because, you know, Trump, too, when I had a lot of influencers, bro podcasters, I think they're sort of on the wane a little bit, too. But are they the new political journalists? How do you look at, like, as you made your decisions? Because you, you literally went out and talked to people, which is called reporting. I know, kids, it's this really cool thing. You actually find out what people think. And then you come to a conclusion based on that and you can have your own insights and everything else. But talk a little bit about that.
9:41 Speaker 01 I mean, there definitely is a change in, in news ecosystem. And we've seen it as we've been on campaign trail. When we ask people where they get their news or where they're getting information from first, you hear people increasingly who don't want that information at all. Like, I think that's the number one change I, I, I feel like I picked up. People kind of openly say, well, I keep clear of that. I don't try to hear that. I try to isolate myself from that 100%. And then the second thing I think is leaning on individual voices who people trust, who are increasingly, and I think in that Biden years especially, were more right wing, were more of those broadcasters. I think we're starting to see that change a little bit as that ecosystem changes. But it was true that I think it did displace your kind of shared political reality
10:25 Speaker 01 of the times they won, or the kind of shared political reality of cable news, even if they're arguing about things electorate doesn't care about. It mostly did keep a kind of guardrail of discourse on establishment that I don't think is necessarily there anymore. And so I think another thing that's hugely changed, too, is not just the news sources, but the fundraising mechanisms, too, from, you know, from small donors. You really have a specific activist class or people who are like. Most interesting and you can raise a lot of money by just speaking to those people too. And so there's a lot of incentive for the influencer age of politics right now.
11:02 Kara Swisher? Yeah, it's almost impossible to imagine a Trump presidency without the rise of social media. He changed what Americans expect from their politicians. We even see Democrats copying aspects of the cell Gavin Newsom, for example.
11:14 Kara Swisher? Can a normie candidate win the presidency again? Or was successful candidates have to be that way? Troll and meme their way to virality? Because I wrote a column a couple of years ago, 2018, when I was writing for the Times. And I said, he's the world's greatest internet troll and this is important. You know, this is an important aspect. Which everyone was like, no, it's the political, you know, press class. I was like, hmm, he's bypassing. And so was, by the way, AOC. I compare, you know, these genuine, whether you like them or not is a different thing. But they're certainly genuine voices. Mamdani certainly, you're watching it in real time. He's really quite good at it.
11:50 Speaker 01 People who can go directly to their audience and people who have kind of cut out that gatekeeper to create a sense of trust and they're, they deliver their own news to their audience. The biggest thing that Mamdani has is that kind of credibility as kind of direct to camera, direct to Instagram audience organizing ability that he's cultivated over time. So I definitely think you're right that the new type of politician, I think led by Trump, has played assignment editor for media by bad passing us. But also I think can talk to their voter more directly. To the point about normie candidate, I still do think that you can be a sort of quote unquote, normal candidate and maybe not an open troll and still win.
12:32 Speaker 01 But I do think you have to command attention or have the ability to command attention in this economy. And so in this decentralized landscape, I don't think you can simply rely on the press release or the X statement or, or, or whatever. I think you have to have the ability to do the 30 second video, to do the three hour sit down and to be able to have a message that cuts through on both fronts. Because sometimes I think that we only think about the delivery of message. But what the biggest thing I think that helps or on. Or AOC is a consistency of message too, that they can
13:07 Kara Swisher? Constant.
13:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, that they can bring to every platform and they're very comfortable in that, you know? I make the example of there was so much back and forth, obviously about Harris going on Joe Rogan in 2024. And she did do, I mean, a big podcast like Call Her Daddy and such. But I was like, the content of what she brought to that platform was pretty much a stump speech.
13:28 Kara Swisher? That's right.
13:29 Speaker 01 And so if you're gonna go to new mediums and behave in an old way, I don't think it does the same type of work to that new medium. And that's where the magic happens.
13:37 Kara Swisher? Yeah, we had talked about it and I was like, you don't understand. And I didn't mean it this way. I was like, everything is promiscuous now. Like I, and I don't mean to be in a sexual way. It's like you have to be on all the time.
13:47 Speaker 01 All the time.
13:48 Kara Swisher? You have to be very genuine and you, and people can sense that very quickly, even if they don't like you, they like you.
13:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:56 Kara Swisher? Because you're there and communicating the person you are. I wanted her to do a show called Recently Unemployed with Kamala Harris. Which I thought would have been very funny. And she goes around and talks to unemployed people.
14:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, honestly, that's like, that's a great idea.
14:10 Kara Swisher? Like, guys, you wear the sneakers, t-shirt, jeans, like, that's the look everybody likes about you. And so, and that's what, you're actually like that.
14:18 Speaker 01 Yeah. And I think that to your point, that gets you closer to the person, you know, we've seen her be, I think particularly as folks who have got to see her privately or covered her. Rather than I think prosecutor mode, which either I think
14:30 Kara Swisher? Yeah, the pussy bone thing.
14:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, sometimes I think when the lights come on was the switch that flipped. And so I kind of empathize sometimes with politicians about like the risk of authenticity, the risk of being genuine in that many settings. I think particularly like in a gendered way, like we have not supported women candidates coming to media and electorate as full self. Like, so I get the trepidation there. I just also get that it's required in this landscape and I don't think you can get around that.
14:59 Kara Swisher? Yeah, because there is a real clapback.
15:00 Speaker 01 That's the risk of that sort of genuineness or authenticity. The clip farming can make one moment into a larger definitional space. And I think that's, if you're playing from a place of risk, particularly as a politician, That's been why they've been so distant from it.
15:15 Kara Swisher? Right. The question is, does it really hurt? Because Trump just keeps barreling fucking through. But he's obviously radically reshaped American politics. And he's not just the communications. He tried to overturn the election in 2020. He's been an authoritarian bender since he was reelected with some with mixed success, I think you'd have to say, but mostly Republicans have gone along with it. So how do we fix the irreconcilable differences between MAGA's authoritarian tendencies? And those who believe in democracy and the rule of law? I do believe without the person there, there is some, there's not, J D Vance isn't likable, nor is he, does he have the same power, charisma, whatever, however you want to use it. So what happens in this post-Trump era from your, as you're starting to do this podcast?
15:58 Speaker 01 You know, one of the things I remember from my time in Trump land is how many of their voters would clarify how we're not a democracy. We're representative democracy. We don't have, we don't have a direct democracy. They would use that as kind of an insulation from their fear that a more direct democracy as the country was changing was going to displace them in terms of power. And I think it's been a really motivating factor for Republicans, even as Donald Trump has made this authoritarian bin, is that a lot of them have come to hear that democracy term. And Fox News is telling as a way for secretly voting illegals and George Soros backed groups to steal elections.
16:41 Speaker 01 And so it allowed fertile ground for Trump's authoritarian push. It was fertile ground for an electorate that was primed to say, hey, this system as is, is actually moving away from us. And so that's the question I kind of start with when we think about after him is like, can there be a renewal of, of democracy? Or are we kind of changing our floor into this kind of inevitable slide? And I think one of the things that, you know, like, obviously animates that question is, I think it was a real mistake for Democrats in 2024 to pitch democracy as a thing that just Donald Trump broke and not a thing that needed fixing overall.
17:24 Kara Swisher? Renewal.
17:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, and there was an opportunity to say, hey, you know, let's make this better. And that's the way that we recommit to this. Because I think what I hear from D R Independent is an understanding of a broken Congress, right? A desire for things like term limits, particularly if the stuff like the Supreme Court. Like, there is a understanding among people who are distant from politics right now that things aren't necessarily working or that system seems at least outdated from responding to people's concerns. And so I think that that is an opportunity for anybody, particularly as we move toward this next election, to say, that's part of my vision of a post-Trump America is to renew a commitment to some baseline principles
18:09 Speaker 01 that he's blown up. I just think that for Washington, they have a little bit of their self-interests at odds here, too. And so that's where these outsider candidates are kind of interesting to me. Like, because that's ground that they can take up more clearly. And they can say things like, you know, removing money from this stuff or super PACs. And I think Washington gets uncomfortable with that.
18:29 Kara Swisher? Yeah, but I don't think they're necessarily doing the old fighting Washington thing. It's a very different thing. It's, you know, usually it was like, I'm here because I'm not a creature of Washington. I think they've moved past that, some of these candidates, and they're all different stripes politically, which is interesting. And I think the ones that go, I'm here to fight Washington, I'm like, oh, that's really what I want. I want some new, fresh ideas, right?
18:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:49 Kara Swisher? And so they sort of dismiss it, you know, like, well, yes, of course, we know how we feel about that. Like, they're past it in some way.
18:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think solutions are the key point. I think there is a diagnosis of problems that's kind of agreed right now. Partially because I think Trump era has laid them bare. And so I don't think you're gonna win on just saying, hey, this is an issue. Like, I think that that was a, something that even I think back to the 2020 Democratic primary. Like, it was a policy paper contest. And I think that'll be a little different now, too. But I do think the burden will be on a, a, a party that, even Democratic base, wants ideas. Wants a feeling of fight, yeah. But I think that mostly is is expressed in your level of political creativity. You know, how how are you showing me that you're going to do this?
19:43 Speaker 01 How are you showing me that you're going to go beyond the rhetoric we've already?
19:47 Kara Swisher? Right, well, Donny did this really well when they were asking about. He's like, I'm really not concerned about that. I'm concerned with the potholes and I'm concerned with this. And of course, I'm thinking about that, which I think is sort of like a dismissive like this thing. Which is interesting because the other day, I think I said on Pivot, I'm like, you know, we can go on and on about the history of Donald Trump. There'll be a million like thumb sucking essays about whether Donald Trump, what does he mean? What now, post, whatever? You're just waiting for all those, which I will, none of which I will read. And but what was interesting is I said, it's actually an opportunity to say he's broken a lot of things. Well, OK, what are we going to build now? We don't have to build it back, right? Like, what what didn't work? What what did? And everyone's like, oh, how could you say that?
20:32 Kara Swisher? I'm like, because a lot of things were broken. Like, I think everyone has a sense of that. I mean, he's broken them, but what do we want now? It gives you an opportunity to for renewal, which is, I think, which you're aiming at with this podcast.
20:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, I hundred percent think that's where a lot of folks are. And so our goal is to see the seeds of that. Like, what are the groups who are going to define our post-Trump future? We're thinking about the growing parts of the electorate, first generation Americans, people of faith, people who had necessarily been marginalized or people, young people, people under thirty, I think, are a big one for us in terms of who's going to drive some of that future, people's anxiety about changing work economy. And I think the place that tech plays in that is a huge thing for us. Like, we want to track some of that. You know, I'm in so many places that are talking about the inevitability of, you know, job displacement and things. And then you're in the electorate that feels kind of resentful that everyone's talking about this from a from a certain place, you know?
21:28 Speaker 01 And I'm like, what's the impact of that gap? How does that gap manifest itself in our elections and things like that? And so taking the issues and then taking the buckets of people, I think, help us find some of the seeds along the way. Because by the time we get to an open twenty seven primary, I think that's when they're going to be expressed. But the candidates will be vessels for those things. And those things will already be, I feel like, defining, animating factors among voters themselves.
21:54 Kara Swisher? We'll be back in a minute.
22:04 Kara Swisher? Support for this show comes from The Guardian. Trying to locate news sources that reliably separate fact from fiction can seem like looking for a needle in a haystack these days. Social media feeds, cable news, and subscription-based news outlets might be able to give you one version of the news, but not in the way that you need. You want news fast, but slow enough to actually absorb the information. Stateside with Kai Wright and Carter Sherman is here to do just that. The podcast tries to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions regarding the world at large at your own pace. Three times a week, hosts Kai Wright and Carter Sherman bring their expertise together to showcase different and engaging perspectives regarding the world today. They will use their collective knowledge to discuss the news, international affairs,
22:47 Kara Swisher? climate, culture, sports, lifestyle, fashion, and wellness. Plus, The Guardian wants to emphasize they're not billionaire-owned, meaning they're free to report the whole picture without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more and listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube starting May 13.
23:07 Speaker 04 Ripple has been powering modern finance for a decade. We're leading the charge to bridge the gap between existing financial systems and the future of finance. You can have it all: legacy, stability, and digital innovation. Systems that work with your other systems. Because with the right partner, the question isn't crypto or traditional finance, the question is simply, why choose? A new standard of modern finance. It's happening with Ripple. For informational purposes only, availability of products can vary and may be provided by different Ripple entities.
23:38 Kara Swisher? Support for this show comes from Hers. Losing weight on your own can often feel like a fight you never win. Luckily, weight loss by Hers offers access to the FDA-approved Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen. Wegovy is the first ever GLP-1 weight loss medication available in a pill, but also comes as a pen, so you've got options. With Wegovy, you can lose up to 20% of your body weight. People lost an average of 14% body weight at 64 weeks in a clinical trial of Wegovy alongside diet and exercise. To get started with Wegovy, just go to forhers.com. And complete an online consultation with a licensed provider who will determine if your prescription is appropriate. And hers doesn't stop there. Nutrition and lifestyle guidance are part of the plan, along with access to 24/7 messaging
24:23 Kara Swisher? with your care team, so support is always in reach. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/cara to access personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair, menopause, and more. That's forhers.com/cara. Individual results may vary and stopping treatment may result in weight regain.
24:45 Kara Swisher? So let's talk about where MAGA movement is and whether or not it's splintering. I think it is. It seems like it. It doesn't seem like just a TV show, reality show. Certainly could be that, and Trump's shows have done that. But he's attacked Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Alex Jones, Candace Owens, all of them have been critical of Trump over the war in Iran specifically. Comedians Joe Rogan, Andrew Schultz, and Theo Von have been publicly reconsidering their support, although Joe Rogan, all it takes is to give him a psychedelic and then he's back. What a thirsty fuck that guy is. Anyway, is that really happening? Talk a little bit about that.
25:17 Speaker 01 Yep.
25:18 Kara Swisher? And explain for people, I mean, obviously, several of them are doing it for show. They make content out of everything. There's not one feeling that doesn't go unexpressed by any of them, essentially.
25:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, I think for people who haven't lived in the Turning Points world, you know, like I follow Charlie Kirk on some of his tour in leading up to the 24 election. You know, I used to go to Turning Point events a bunch and Trump won. If you haven't lived in those kind of podcast world, I don't think you can fully appreciate how much of a fundamental promise Donald Trump broke with the Iran war.
25:55 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
25:56 Speaker 01 Like, this is something that has motivated that group for a long time, that they have talked about as the defining factor of why Donald Trump was not
26:03 Kara Swisher? Yes.
26:04 Speaker 01 Traditional Republicans.
26:05 Kara Swisher? Right.
26:06 Speaker 01 And so even as he flagrantly broke every other promise, even as he tariffed his way to inflation, even as he does things that were clearly violation of campaign promises that they just accepted, they kind of held on to this piece as a reason of why he was still distinct. Now that has blown up. I think that's why you're seeing some of this spill out. And it is, I think, uh, uh, an early indicator. We're starting to see some of this in numbers. Uh, the recent NBC poll that was released this week, I was looking at Trump's strongest level of approval rating among Republicans is at its lowest level yet. Yes, that's still like seventy-nine, eighty percent, but he's usually in the nineties, right?
26:41 Kara Swisher? Right.
26:41 Speaker 01 He's usually in a kind of universal agreement among Republicans. The other thing I would say here is this is where it matters that Donald Trump's coalition was built off of more than just traditional Republicans. Because the people who are the most likely to break from him, from the Iran war, uh, debacle, are people who came to him for that kind of non-traditional reason. And when you look at like the Tuckers and all that world, their audience is mostly younger folks and people who would not define themselves as traditional Republican Party these days.
27:12 Kara Swisher? Right. He's tormented.
27:13 Speaker 01 And so, yeah, yeah. So in those people, I think there has been a legitimate backlash against, and so.
27:21 Kara Swisher? Combined with Epstein, presumably.
27:23 Speaker 01 Combined with Epstein, which I think was a big factor in that too. And so I think that you get, you start to see some of those flavors. I was talking to, you know, we have this Trump MAGA radio host on, uh, his name is John Fredericks. And he was, he was admitting that, you know, if I could change, he was like, if I could change two things, it would be tariffs and Epstein. I'm like, those are big things, you know, like those are, and, and.
27:43 Kara Swisher? They're bearing walls.
27:44 Speaker 01 Sometimes, um, because the, for the us of who have known Donald Trump to be a liar or be a manipulator or whatever the whole time, I think there can sometimes be, um, a, oh, here they go again, just making content. Or they just say this and they make kids and make up. And certainly that might happen, but I think this is a little different because of just how fundamental no forever wars and specifically no regime change war with Iran.
28:10 Kara Swisher? Right.
28:10 Speaker 01 Was to Donald Trump's relationship to this world.
28:13 Kara Swisher? Right. There's also antisemitism and a couple of them there.
28:15 Speaker 01 For sure, for sure, for sure.
28:16 Kara Swisher? Right. Israel, anti-Israel, and there's certainly much to criticize Israel, especially Netanyahu about it. But they're, they're like dyed in the wool, like they.
28:24 Speaker 01 Absolutely. I mean, what Tucker Carlson's doing is beyond just some like, you know, principle critique of Netanyahu.
28:29 Kara Swisher? Oh, absolutely. The other day, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's so reasonable these days for some reason, like on certain issues, I'm like, ask her about trans, you know, she'll go right back to shape.
28:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, I'm like.
28:39 Kara Swisher? I was like, I'm sorry. But one of the things she did, she was talking about the war, and I do believe she's quite sincere, right? It's a sincere belief. The two things that are sincere to me are Epstein and America First, no wars.
28:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, for that crowd, they believed those things from him.
28:56 Kara Swisher? 100%.
28:57 Speaker 01 And I think Epstein is, for folks, even more shocking because we knew the facts about his relationship with them. But he had presented himself as, you know, the poor man's rich man. And so that was core to his relationship with that base. And I think in that, even that like QAnon conspiracy universe that has gotten wrapped into a lot of this, they thought he was gonna come back and open the floodgates for the Clinton crimes. And I think the reality of that has swallowed up a lot closer to home than they thought.
29:28 Kara Swisher? Oh, yeah. When Epstein first happened, I was in those groups. And I think Scott was like, oh, it's gonna, I'm like, this is not gonna blow over. You don't know. You don't understand. This is core. Now, a group of people that were, maybe not core, but certainly convinced that Trump could help them were Latino voters who helped propel him to victory. But a recent poll by Third Way and Unidos US found that Trump's unfavorability number is now 66% with Latino voters. Talk about this coalition.
29:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, we've seen it in the special elections. We've seen it in places like New Jersey. It's been big shifts in kind of Latino voting communities. We just did an episode talking about immigration changes, and we were talking to reporters from Arizona who were talking about the 180 they've seen, specific to Donald Trump's actions. I mean, I think when we talk about Latinos, you know, you have to talk about from a first place, a diverse group who doesn't always see themselves in a community. They don't always see themselves as a linked group.
30:22 Kara Swisher? I'm like, you think I have anything in common with Richard Grenell? I don't think so.
30:27 Speaker 01 At first, you know, if you've ever been to some of these places, and you're looking at them as if they are happy, the feeling of connectivity with someone crossing the border in El Paso or Florida or other places, or, you know, like, some of that's not always true, and we should acknowledge that.
30:41 Kara Swisher? That's hard for us to understand.
30:43 Speaker 01 Yeah. But I think another core point here. Is Donald Trump did have a diagnosis of a couple of problems, particularly border security, that I think sometimes people conflated with his mass deportations push, which is unpopular, right?
30:59 Kara Swisher? Right.
30:59 Speaker 01 But like the less people coming across southern border is largely popular.
31:03 Kara Swisher? Yes, it's very popular.
31:03 Speaker 01 And true among even some Democrats who felt that that was something that was ignored under Biden. I think you also have to acknowledge, like, you know, particular to, you know, when we talk to kind of folks who are in Latino communities, no, but a faith-based community, that, you know, the, some of the pushes that was, some of the pushes that were seen about like democratic liberalism, I was thinking about abortion rights, I mean about LGBTQ rights, had a backlash in certain areas, particularly a lot of faith-based areas that we saw on alongside border. But I think the most important thing that's happened in the last two years is simply he just taking all of the accurate diagnosis and not focusing on solutions.
31:45 Speaker 01 And so it is not hard to follow who's to blame for rising prices right now.
31:51 Kara Swisher? Right, exactly.
31:52 Speaker 01 Because he made it quite clear by the monstrous tariff announcement, nobody wanted, and by a war to raise energy prices, nobody wanted. And so I'm like, everyone gets that. That's the number one driver of that.
32:06 Kara Swisher? There was also the brutality of the, of the.
32:08 Speaker 01 There's the brutality of the immigration push too, I think plays a big role.
32:11 Kara Swisher? I had a lot of people who are conservative who like, well, I believe in strong borders, but not this way.
32:16 Speaker 01 Exactly.
32:17 Kara Swisher? Like, it was a lot of, but not this. I believe in China's fucking us, but not this.
32:21 Speaker 01 I would ask people, you know, they had mass deportations now signs at the RNC. Like, some of this was not a surprise, right? But I think people's assumption of who, right, always falls to, you know, the bad guy. You know, they will.
32:37 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
32:37 Speaker 01 Follow through on their promise of targeting violent criminals or people who have been convicted of illicit crime.
32:43 Kara Swisher? Right.
32:43 Speaker 01 And that's not what we saw, right? That's how we saw LA.
32:46 Kara Swisher? But not my gardener, not my babysitter, not my.
32:49 Speaker 01 Exactly, exactly. Renee Good, like, you know, like.
32:52 Kara Swisher? A mom dropping her kid off, yeah.
32:53 Speaker 01 Exactly. All the things we saw was a, was a disconnect. I just think in general, like, they embrace a showy, you know, Stephen Miller wanted 3,000 arrests per day.
33:05 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
33:05 Speaker 01 That was not about who was being targeted.
33:07 Kara Swisher? No, it's just clean it up.
33:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was about a projection of a type of person they know they want to make feel uncomfortable. So I think those numbers are a reaction to a message they intentionally tried to send about who was welcome here and not. And I don't think that was the issue that they were sent there to do, even if, you know, I would say discriminatory language or that type of rhetoric has been there the whole time.
33:31 Kara Swisher? Yeah, because then he's talking about you.
33:33 Speaker 01 Exactly.
33:34 Kara Swisher? Now, another group that has been very tight with him, the Christians, obviously, but bickering with the Pope and posting a Jesus-like image of himself, Marjorie Taylor Greene called it, "More than blasphemy, it's an anti-Christ spirit." Everyone's trying to do this doctor thing, but like, it's hard to imagine evangelical voters pulling the lever for Democrats, notwithstanding the appeal of James Talarico, who I like to call baby Jesus. But talk about this evangelical support. Has it splintered? Is there an opening for someone like Talarico, who's quite progressive, I would say, if you listen to him?
34:08 Speaker 01 I personally, I think that, um...
34:11 Kara Swisher? I think they'll stick with him.
34:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that I've, I have come to the kind of Pavlovian response with evangelicals, that they stick with them. And partially, that's because of my, in my own reporting, they have, the bar that they've set for the, to break with Trump is so high, because there, it's not about his personal actions, it's barely about his policies. You know, when I talked to Al Mohler, Conservative Theological Seminary, a couple of years ago for the show, he was saying that he was willing to back people who had stormed the Capitol in that midterm, even though he found that to be an anti-democratic move, because he was so scared of the rise of gay and trans people on the other side. And so I'm like, if it's always that motivating
34:55 Speaker 01 factor, I think a lot of those folks always return back to conservative or Republican politics. I find the Catholic stuff really interesting, though. Like, I think that more than even- Evangelicals are my question there. Like, I find, um, I find Trump's fight with the Pope to be like indicative of like his lack of his, you know, I think he chose better targets, or at least that he was a, he was a big enough figure that the char- targets he chose feel kind of small. I think this Pope is a losing battle. I think that's why he feels he, uh, van stepping away from it. And honestly, I think, you know, even the growth among Catholicism, among, um, American young people and things like that.
35:37 Kara Swisher? Welcome to my world, my son.
35:39 Speaker 01 I'm like, those type of things to me have an interesting question of like, is, does evangelicalism, does that wave of Christian nationalism, like retain its kind of primacy? And Republican politics as we move forward. I think that's the question I have.
35:54 Kara Swisher? Yeah, let me give you, my son was, we were talking about Protestants and how the German princes wanted to Martin Luther to do it because they wanted power over the Pope. There is a lot more political stuff happening at the time. So each Protestant denomination have to have diff- you can find a very conservative Protestant group of the evangelicals. And you can find a very liberal, a very liberal one.
36:12 Speaker 01 Yep.
36:13 Kara Swisher? And one of the points he was making, he said, the reason I like going to church is that there's all different people of, on all the, you have Opus Dei and you have the Jesuits and you have this, all under one doctrine.
36:25 Speaker 01 Under one consistency, yep.
36:27 Kara Swisher? And it is one doctrine. It is. And so,
36:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:30 Kara Swisher? You know, that's what's attractive to him about it. And which was interesting, I hadn't thought about, I was like, oh, you're right. It's, it's a, there's not 10 different flavors of it. There's, there's different people in it, but they live within the Pope organization essentially.
36:44 Speaker 01 I have heard people make this argument about the power of it be that kind of consistency and monoculture. You know, I come from a, you know, the most Protestant background ever. And my father's a Pentecostal pastor. And so like all of us, sometimes like Catholicism, I feel like, I went to a Catholic college, I went to Marquette. And so I was sometimes like learning the like kind of rituals and other things like later than other, other people. And I remember someone making this point to me and I find it quite powerful. They're like, you could be in any part of the world and be any type of person. There's all these different disciplines and they are all based in the kind of same. Construction and you know that that kind of wavering of personality or theology that you could sometimes find among
37:23 Kara Swisher? Disagreements, right about women.
37:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, in a world of difference, that kind of sameness and pointing to something actually what felt more powerful. So I can see why he made that argument.
37:32 Kara Swisher? Well, it was interesting. He's like, I like that and I like disagreeing, but it's also one doctrine. And the Pope is at the top of it. I'm like, don't the Pope, you don't, you don't break the Pope. You don't, you don't like, it's really even among people who don't agree with him.
37:48 Speaker 01 Also, this Pope, you know, don't mess with the South Side of Chicago, like pick different fights, Trump.
37:52 Kara Swisher? This Pope is smart. Speaking of communication skills, this guy's got him in space.
37:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:57 Kara Swisher? So last thing about the Republicans, we'll talk about the Democrats, speaking of the next GOP nominee, who do you see taking over the MAGA mantle as you're starting this exploration?
38:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:06 Kara Swisher? Who is it?
38:07 Speaker 01 I mean, obviously, we, it starts with J D Vance and others, but I definitely think that he is showing the difficulty of how to maintain the Trump coalition without Donald Trump, right? And so whether that is from a personality lens, or I think from a principles lens, like I, I, I think J D Vance has tried to give MAGA ism a set of principles and to pretend as if it's a kind of consistent thing. But then he finds himself on the wrong side of stuff like Iran war, stuff like Epstein files.
38:35 Kara Swisher? He's also lax. I said he has the charm of a Cybertruck, but go ahead.
38:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, he's, he's changed who he is so many times for the purposes of ambition. I feel like we have to also say, who will the version of J D Vance in 2028 even be? We don't even know that.
38:49 Kara Swisher? He'll call himself they them if he needs to.
38:51 Speaker 01 I'm like, the man has been 10 versions of himself for that rank about.
38:55 Kara Swisher? So is there someone emerging? Because one of the things I was thinking of is benches. And I felt like the Democrats have a better bet, like there's a lot of people coming up younger. Like, I don't, I don't know who they are in the Republican Party because it's so on Trump's on top. And then you have all these others.
39:09 Speaker 01 He also has in the particularly in the midterms, he's been president and pretty much chosen the worst candidates possible for the purposes of building a bench. But I think Trump's lasting impact, honestly, is their primeness for an outsider. Right? So I don't think. When even Republicans think about bench, they're looking back to, you know, House members or someone on the rise in Congress. I think that like, you know, even someone like, I would put the RFK juniors. I will put Marco Rubio, of course. But I do think someone can make an argument for kind of principled version of MAGAism. I don't know if that's a Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's kind of been too anti-Trump in the last.
39:51 Kara Swisher? Is there any figure you see that you're intrigued by as you look?
39:55 Speaker 01 I guess not. The first thing I've, the first thing I felt about Republicans, like six, eight months ago, was that Vance was putting himself in a pickle. And I think that's, everyone can see that now. But he has a lot of interpersonal clout in that world. Like, and so more than a question of like, will the public want someone to run against him? I wonder if someone with credibility in Republican circles runs against him, simply because they seem to like have liked the guy privately, you know, more than even publicly. And so I guess I don't have any other options yet or any folks who are catching my eye, because I think Republicans have been very deferential to him in terms of laying that path for him.
40:37 Kara Swisher? That's not going to last.
40:38 Speaker 01 And so I think he's going to have first right of refusal. And if that flop happens, then the floodgates open. But I think it's a real, a big chance that flop happens.
40:49 Kara Swisher? Yeah, I think he, well, maybe if he has a baby, shows the baby off, I don't know. But I think he makes Mike Pence look exciting. So every episode, we get a question from an outside expert. We actually have two for you to answer. Here's the first from Lulu Garcia Navarro, host of the New York Times podcast, The Interview.
41:06 Speaker 05 Hi, Sted. Hi, Kara. I'm here in Maine, which brought to mind a question. It seems like the upcoming midterm elections are going to tell us something about where their respective parties are at. And it seems like a lot of the fights are about what a post-Trump world is going to look like. So I'd love to get your view on where you think those fault lines are, and if there's going to be a place in the Republican Party for people like Susan Collins, who will be running again in Maine as Senator, and where you think someone like a Graham
41:47 Speaker 05 Plattner, who is seeking the nomination for the Democrats, to run against Susan Collins, where he fits in and all that. And, you know, where the bases are at respectively. It seems like there's just like a lot of insurgent energy. See you soon.
42:05 Speaker 01 I, I, one, I think she's totally right. Like, there is insurgent energy, and Graham Plattner is riding that. A lot of those scandals that, you know, came out, a lot of folks thought would be kind of fatal for him, and every poll has a bit bigger and bigger margin from Janet Mills.
42:20 Speaker 05 Because he explained it.
42:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, he explained it. He was clear about it. But I think also, there is a growing acceptance that real people or real candidates have passed, that they, they have lived on the internet like the rest of us, and they have said and done stuff on the internet that they may have regretted. And if I think, you know, folks feel that kind of authentic explanation from you, they're willing to hear it. I think the Susan Collins example is an important one, because Republicans have kind of given her a little bit of space to just run her own race, right? Like, she's had her tiffs with Donald Trump. He's, you know, necessarily talked about it. But they'll find a way to obviously financially and kind of rally around. What I think is just shows, though, is that the excitement, the energy, the new ideas are coming from the Democratic side right now. You're not seeing kind of
43:05 Speaker 01 Republican midterm candidates who have really gotten their bases on fire. They're still kind of living in the Donald Trump personality shadow. And so people like Graham Plattner have, are bigger, I think, than the individual brand of their party. And I think that's a change right now because of how invested the Democratic base is. I think a big shift that's happening is that the most interested parts of the Democratic base, most of who are most politically news savvy, have Become so much more activisty, so much more invested. They want to fight.
43:36 Kara Swisher? Hundred percent.
43:36 Speaker 01 And that kind of no kings-ish shift. I'm like, it hasn't been necessarily, it has maybe it's become a little more progressive, but it's certainly become more activist. It's certainly become more, less passive for, I think, the traditional democratic playbook. And so I think those shifts are some of what we're seeing in Maine, and I think what we're seeing across the country.
43:56 Kara Swisher? Great. And here's the second expert question from Ben Collins, the CEO of The Onion.
44:01 Speaker 06 Kara, hello. Great to see you from the wonderful city of Chicago. This is Ben Collins, the owner of The Onion and also operator of Infowars. So there's a war on for your mind, you know? Anyways, first time, long time. I just wanted to ask you a quick question. Don't give me a bullshit answer like Amy Klobuchar or something. Who is your real secret dark horse who joined my eight? Like, mine is like George Clooney. I think you can do much better than that, but I want like a name. Do not like, if you say Alyssa Slotkin, Kara, just turn the podcast off. Like, end the podcast.
44:44 Speaker 06 I want to hear like a real left field name that you legitimately think could win both the nomination and the presidency in 2028. So, thank you.
44:53 Speaker 01 I love the question. The only unfair part here is he stole the good answer with George Clooney. I'm definitely team outsider as underrated. I'm definitely think that there is appetite for someone who represents a clean break. I think things like experience have actually decreased in importance around the electorate and creativity and ideas like we talked about matter more. So I think that name ID plus legitimacy on like some liberal credentials. So he took Clooney, I'll take McConaughey, or maybe like a Brown version of him. People are kind of down on the rock these days. I'll just plus one his Clooney.
45:36 Speaker 01 I think that's a good call, and I think that's the exact type of lane I'm talking about.
45:41 Kara Swisher? We'll be back in a minute.
45:50 Kara Swisher? Support for this show comes from Indeed. When the pressure's on and you need to hire the right person for the job, Indeed Sponsored Jobs has got your back. Instead of forcing you to spend tons of time searching, Indeed Sponsored Jobs matches you with quality candidates fast. According to their data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners to the show will get a $75 sponsored job credit
46:35 Kara Swisher? to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
47:01 Kara Swisher? I'm Kara Swisher, and I like people who say the quiet part out loud. In fact, I love it. That's Tiger Sisters, a new podcast that recently joined the Vox Media Podcast Network. Cherie Brooke Lu and Jean Lu are real sisters who built their careers at LinkedIn and Goldman Sachs. On their weekly podcast, they're giving the next generation practical tips on how to get ahead, how to write emails people actually answer, how to make your LinkedIn profile stand out, and how to keep learning as an adult. It's straight talk about money, career, and relationships every Monday. Follow Tiger Sisters wherever you get your podcasts.
47:37 Speaker 03 Hi, it's Phoebe Judge, host of Criminal. I'm going on tour. If you like hearing me tell stories about people, well, I've decided to tell stories about my life and the people I love. A letter was left carelessly around, so I was sort of caught red-handed. It's a show about secrets and forgiveness.
47:57 Kara Swisher? I hope you'll come to see it. Find all our tour dates and get tickets at thisiscriminal.com/live.
48:06 Kara Swisher? All right, let's get to the Democrats. According to a poll by Civics, white, non-college graduates currently have 70% unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party. That's actually good. It seems like being anti-Trump isn't enough for the Democrats, even when Trump is unpopular, as they said. It's never-ending internal debate over whether the party should moderate its social positions or broaden its appeal, double down on progressive economic policies. Talk a little bit about this. Would either one work with working-class white voters? Bernie is still enormously popular, and it seems like AOC is headed that direction, too. But I don't, maybe she's a lady, so they can't stomach that.
48:43 Speaker 01 I remember being in Iowa in 2019 and meeting this guy who was so torn between Bernie and Mike Bloomberg. And I remember thinking like, what, you know, what's the consistency here? You know, like, and you talk to people for a long enough time, and the consistency's not in that ideological spectrum, right? He's not pro-billionaire one day and anti-billionaire the next day. He basically liked a guy with strong-ish beliefs, who he felt he'd do what they cared about, no matter if what they cared about seemed to be at odds with one another. And I say that to say, when we talk about this kind of ideological fight, I think the
49:22 Speaker 01 Democrats' biggest problem is clarity of beliefs, no matter what those beliefs are. So I think you can own a kind of moderate lane in a Mike Sherrill way and show that, you know, I'm going to cry a national emergency to lower your electricity prices, and that makes a lot of sense. But I think you can also have clarity in a Zorron way, and that makes a lot of sense in that place.
49:45 Kara Swisher? It's a similar message.
49:47 Speaker 01 But I think you can't do. Is waffle on naming the villains of an affordability crisis or inflation of things like that. And I think there are issues that have such root among electorate. They become litmus test for authenticity on will you speak truthfully about villains? You know, I think Epstein's part of that. I think AIPAC money is part of that now. Like, I think there's ways that you have to show yourself as being trustworthy to follow through on said ideas around electability. But more than anything, I think that the conversation about where to fall on this ideological spectrum inherently leads them
50:27 Speaker 01 in bad directions, because if you're putting your finger to the wind and saying, that's where you're starting from, and how do I calibrate that correctly to where people are? That's the wrong process.
50:40 Kara Swisher? Yeah. So basically, you're saying is this, we have to all agree. I'm like, no, you don't. Why do you have to agree?
50:45 Speaker 01 No.
50:45 Kara Swisher? Because I think Mumdani's single-minded focus on affordability is working, but even though it's hard to imagine a democratic socialist winning in another state. Talk about the practical lessons here, because obviously, he's charismatic and he's just a really wonderful communicator in so many ways. I have yet to see him stumble in something. And I, you know, it's easy to stumble. But talk about what that does, because, as you said, Mickey Sherrill, or Abby Spamber, or, you know, Talarico couldn't be more different from each other and from him, right?
51:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, I think they're coming to things, though, with a desire for political creativity. I think they're not seeing the system as is. And I think you have to pitch from the premise of that sort of change. And what I would also say, though, is like, it feels like Democratic base has recognized that the normal shell game of kind of electability is not something they're inherently deferential to. So I don't think you can just say, you know, as they're finding out in Maine, as they may find out in Michigan, that this person's supposed to win and this person wins, and the electorate just follows. I feel like they, you know, a lot of people feel like they have been told the right thing to do for too long, and that walked them into a Donald Trump.
51:58 Speaker 01 You know, and so that kind of that kind of a thumb on scale, particularly from the DSCCs of the world is not what's working. Now, does that mean that there could be no moderate candidate that wins? Absolutely not. Like, I think that that means you need to be someone who has your own version of a vision that isn't someone who is like, you know, so I, you know, I think about the Michigan Senator Alyssa Lockner, someone even, you know, she was having that back and forth with Hassan Piker about whether to come to Michigan or not. And I remember her response being like, you know, I don't want to go on the stream because of how this person's talked about me for a long time. And I'm thinking like, that gets, that's like a clear way to articulate what I think is someone who is, you know, trying to show themselves as fighter and all those things,
52:41 Speaker 01 wants to stay distant from far left, but does not want it to be because she can't handle those questions. Or she finds you like, but it's, you know, so I'm saying like, there's a way that I think you can show your values, show clarity in those values, and also not make the far left or the growing progressive lane inherently off putting to you, right? Like, I think that this next year will be an effort to build that coalition. But it's gonna be difficult because we see these litmus tests, you know, popping up already.
53:09 Kara Swisher? Yes, you do.
53:10 Speaker 01 And I think you see an electorate that
53:13 Kara Swisher? Is sick of litmus test.
53:14 Speaker 01 Is sick of it.
53:16 Kara Swisher? It's so interesting, you know.
53:18 Speaker 01 It's like, does it fall on that same litmus test parameter as kind of political elites do? So they're imposing these tests that I don't think is where voters are, you know, it's
53:29 Kara Swisher? No purity tests on both sides. And by the way, Republicans are abusing them more at this point.
53:33 Speaker 01 For sure.
53:33 Kara Swisher? You know, some on the left and progressive areas can be really irritating. So can some of the centrists people be really irritating. But the purity test thing is really shapes people's asses, as far as I can tell, like, can't I have different opinions? Now, that said, Virginia voters just paved the way for a Democratic leaning new map to help counter Republican gerrymanders in states like Texas and Ohio. And AOC had the right point. We're playing their game. If they want to play this, she was excellent messaging that, I have to say. But according to population trends, the 2030 census will lead to Democratic states losing six to 12 House seats. Republican states gain the seats in corresponding Electoral College votes, and Supreme Court is poised to overturn Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and potentially hand
54:14 Kara Swisher? at least another 19 seats to Republicans. Talk about looking past the midterms, how you assess the medium and long term prospects for Democrats.
54:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, You're right that it was an impressive kind of short-term push for things like Virginia to happen. I think they fault Democrats to be neutral or even close to leading for what comes to this year's midterms. But the long-term population shifts, the trends towards Republican areas will be bad for Democrats in the Electoral College. You know, the Senate kind of proportion gap will be harder and harder for them to find their way to things like 60 votes. And I think, you know, even we think about the court packing that Donald Trump has engaged in, that obviously is difficult to wind back with lifetime appointments. And so, I, you know, obviously, the kind of structures of government have given Republicans, I think, a clear advantage in the sort of long-term power sustainability. But Democrats have known
55:07 Speaker 01 some of these challenges. There was the reason why the John Lewis Act was supposed to be a top priority for the Biden administration in terms of like trying to have a national bulwark against gerrymandering and trying to make Congress at least more equitable. They weren't able to pass those things. I think if you're a Democrat, what I do think is more true now, though, is a willingness to use power and a willingness to pull the levers in ways that I think traditionally, I think it took them a long time of seeing Donald Trump do that, to embrace that themselves. And so I think if there is a Democratic president in 2028, there will be a much more concerted push for a
55:45 Kara Swisher? A more muscular activity.
55:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, for a more muscular rethink of how of some of these structures, for a for a project 2028-ish, you know, 2029 sort of thing, where they're thinking about how they even use things like the federal workforce, or how they restore those types. And so like that type of kind of 360 rethink, I think allows there to be more solutions on the real structural things you're identifying. But without that, that is where Republicans know they have permanent root. They're not as worried about their waning electoral advantages. Because one, you know, they eight years ago thought they couldn't win any working-class
56:30 Speaker 01 people of color votes. They now learned that that's not something that's like inherently Off putting to them. And then the second thing I think they know is they know that there are some of these structures that baked in their power. And so I think if you're a Democrat, that has to be amongst the priorities. But if there is some more willingness for the party to at least exercise its its power.
56:50 Kara Swisher? You're seeing the governors do it. The governors, the Democratic governors are impressive.
56:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a big push too. Pritzker is one of those. Newsom, obviously.
56:58 Kara Swisher? All of them.
56:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:00 Kara Swisher? In different ways. There's very few of them that aren't quite good at what they're doing like, and you could see their popularity too.
57:06 Speaker 01 And I think that's still what we're talking about in terms of like.
57:08 Kara Swisher? Yeah, you're in Michigan and we love Gretchen, even Republican, you know, not maybe as much, but still.
57:14 Speaker 01 That type of willingness to do what you came there to do and show that proof point, I think is the lasting impact of the of the post 2024 era for Democrats.
57:23 Kara Swisher? So wrapping up, we only have just a few more minutes. You know, there's lots of issues, the war in Iran, obviously with two thirds of Americans disapproving how he's handling it. Obviously, the Epstein thing still still sticks over everything. He's there in the room every moment of the time. That will eventually wane probably, but you know, the war for sure is one of these moments, gas prices, affordability. There's so many things and of course, Trump says gas prices will drop as soon as the war ends, but he's not telling the truth. But how do you look at what the most important issues are moving into the midterms as you're looking? Because the midterms is about post-Trump. It really is. It's about what what now? What do you think the key things are?
58:07 Speaker 01 Like the first, the easiest thing for the midterms is the popularity of the president and I would say what kind of gas prices are, you know? And I think in the trade direction that we're in, in the tariff to inflation direction that we're in, that's all bad signs. I think the second thing you think about with the midterms is like the candidate quality in those individual races. And Democrats have basically gotten the candidates they mostly want. That also helps them and these sort of things. And so I think that when we're looking at the seeds here, all the signs do add up to something that would be a better night, or at least the conditions are right for Democrats to do what they hope to do in the midterms. I guess to me.
58:48 Speaker 01 We still go back to that structure question because it can be a blue wave or a blue trickle or whatever. But the way that we have drawn these maps means that if that doesn't happen in a concerted area for, for, for like of, you know, if that doesn't happen in these three Arizona House districts, you might still be thinking about only a one or two seat majority. And so that's the hard part about these midterms is that the pure expression of people's displeasure does not inherently mean some national wave reflected in Congress.
59:21 Kara Swisher? Right. That's a very good point.
59:23 Speaker 01 And so I think people should temper some of the expectations with that. But to answer the core question, are the conditions there? And on what are the first things we should look at? We should look at this president's massive unpopularity and particularly the pain he's driving to people's pockets. That's the, that will be the most important factor.
59:40 Kara Swisher? Yeah. So let's last very quick question on a hopeful note. America actually has a partnership with Report for America, an organization that puts emerging journalists in local newsrooms nationwide. I'd love you just to end on what are some unreported positive stories you're getting from these young boots on the ground reporters?
59:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, we just talked to one in Arizona who was telling us about the like mass organization among young people who have done a lot of the grassroots pushing back against Trump's deportation policies. We're collecting stories from them about the World Cup and about like the ways that, you know, it's kind of logistically changing there, some of their communities, but also bringing a sense of like optimism and a sense of representation to parts of their states that they like, you know, that felt unseen. And so I really liked them as like a touchstone to the ground. I really liked them as a way that we get a sense of original reporting outside the bubble. But I'm excited to get even more things from them. But, um, you know, we expect them to be at gas stations this summer and talking to people at, you know, the pumps.
1:00:41 Kara Swisher? What they're talking.
1:00:42 Speaker 01 And what they're feeling too. And so their ability to feed that back to us, I think, um, will really help us.
1:00:48 Kara Swisher? Have been grocery store. I, I who don't look at prices, I don't, I just never do. I never have, I'm like, what?
1:00:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:00:55 Kara Swisher? I, I have never done that in my life.
1:00:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, no, it's. It's wild out here. I feel like when I was outside, when I was doing live reporting, Walmart parking lots, my favorite. And so we'll have them there, too.
1:01:06 Kara Swisher? Yeah, yeah, which would be great. Like, a lot of places, because I think there's I think voters are much more, I always trust voters be more articulate, even though, you know, you can make fun of MAGA people or whoever doesn't know stuff. That's easy
1:01:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, but when it comes to prices, when it comes to how that feeling and the clarity of how much that matters more than other things, I love hearing that firsthand.
1:01:26 Kara Swisher? Right. Stan, thank you for your time. You can find America Actually on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm thrilled you're here.
1:01:33 Speaker 01 I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me, Kara. I had a blast.
1:01:40 Kara Swisher? One more thing before we go. Want career advice from Kara Swisher? Now's your chance. We're doing a special episode about all of it, and I want your questions. Send a video to [email protected] and you might be featured. Can't wait to see what you've got. Today's show was produced by Christian Castro-Russell, Michelle Aloy, Catherine Millsap, Megan Burney, and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Sam Lee, Catherine Barner, and Julia Sharp Levine. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following this show, may James Tellerico, also known as Baby Jesus, bless you. If not, you've got the Antichrist spirit. Go wherever you listen to podcasts,
1:02:25 Kara Swisher? search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.
Previous The WNBA Is On a Winning Streak. Is It Sustainable? Next How Architecture Can Solve Big Social Problems with Jeanne Gang Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated