Pod Insights On with Kara Swisher From The Office to SNAFU: Ed Helms on History, Politics & Comedy About this episode Ed Helms is best known for playing Andy Bernard in The Office and Stu in The Hangover trilogy. But the comedic actor is also the politically engaged, banjo-playing, podcast-hosting, TV series–producing author of a new book titled, SNAFU: The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups.
Kara and Ed discuss domestic politics and satire's role during Trump 2.0; government overreach and history’s tendency to repeat itself; his podcast SNAFU with Ed Helms and the eponymous book; and the entertainment industry’s evolving economics.
Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Kara Swisher? This is a long podcast, so you're gonna have to talk a lot.
0:02 Speaker 01 Oh, boy.
0:14 Kara Swisher? Hi, everyone. 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 Ed Helms. He's an actor and comedian best known for his work as a correspondent on The Daily Show in the early and mid aughts, and especially for playing Andy Bernard in The Office and Stu in The Hangover Trilogy. You know who Ed Helms is. But he's also the author of a new book called Snafu: A Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw-Ups. It's smart, funny, and full of little-known stories about human arrogance, government overreach, and, in some cases, plain old stupidity. I'm excited to talk to him. I always think he's such a cerebral and interesting comedian and plays a variety of characters incredibly well, all of them with a heart,
0:57 Kara Swisher? which is what I am always attracted to when I'm talking to comedians. And of course, I love talking to comedians. At a time when the Trump administration is trying to sanitize our history, it's good to talk to someone who isn't afraid to get real about the mistakes that are a big part of who we are as Americans and as humans. Our expert question comes from Dr. Lindsay Trivinsky, the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library. So, stick around.
1:29 Speaker 02 If your best finance people are doing expense reports, chasing receipts, or spending time on month-end close, it's time to get Brex AF, a gentic finance that eliminates that work before it starts. Learn more at brex.com/AF.
1:48 Speaker 03 Support for the show comes from Engine. Running a small business means every dollar has to work hard. But if your team is still booking travel the old way, it's costing you more than you think. Engine is the fastest-growing travel and spend platform in the country, built specifically for businesses like yours. Book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes. Earn up to 10% back on hotels. And in 2025, Engine customers save more than $300 million on travel with zero booking fees, no contracts, and no BS. More than 1,000 businesses join Engine every month. Join them and get $500 when your business signs up and starts traveling at engine.com/box.
2:33 Speaker 01 Black Friday is around the corner, your biggest chance to grow sales this year. Don't wait. Realize is TBOOla's advertising platform for businesses, letting you launch campaigns on top premium websites beyond search and social. Add Realize to your media mix and scale this Q4. And as an exclusive offer for podcast listeners, new customers get $700 credit back. Just search Realize Podcast on Google or use the promo code PODCAST26. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Terms apply.
3:11 Kara Swisher? Ed, thank you for being on On.
3:14 Speaker 04 I'm so excited to be on On.
3:16 Kara Swisher? So you're a man of many talents. Obviously, you're an actor, but you're also a producer, musician, podcast host, author. And I don't know if I'd call you a political activist, but you're very active politically. So we're going to start with that and get to your book and everything else.
3:29 Speaker 04 Great.
3:29 Kara Swisher? You ready?
3:30 Speaker 04 Let's dive in.
3:31 Kara Swisher? Let's dive in. So you campaigned for the Harris Wald's ticket in Reno and Scranton. By the way, my family's from Scranton. Talk about why you decided to get involved. I mean, obviously, when you're famous, you get a platform. So why not use it? On the other hand, one of the knocks on Democrats is that they use too many celebrities or stuff. What's the calculus in your head as you thought about how to engage publicly in the election?
3:55 Speaker 04 I don't overthink it. It's not a complicated calculus, honestly. I'd been posting some things that supported the campaign, and then they reached out and I was like, anything I can do. This feels like a critical moment. And I'm there, and they said, well, can you be in Reno in like two days? And I was like, actually, I can. That works. And so I bounced out there and um and I met Tim Walz and I was incredibly impressed and charmed. He's just a lovely guy.
4:29 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
4:30 Speaker 04 And that that sort of galvanized me more, you know, I grew up in a very politically engaged home and so I've always been a little bit of a politics junkie and a news junkie and my dad collected campaign memorabilia, which was really fun. We just always had like old, you know, and I grew up in Atlanta, so he was a big Jimmy Carter, Southern Democrat, my dad, and so we had all this, I don't know, just campaign paraphernalia around the house. So it was always something.
5:03 Kara Swisher? And why was that? Tell me about your parents. Why were they politically engaged? What was his?
5:06 Speaker 04 It's a good question, the why of it all, which I haven't, I don't know that I ever, I never kind of button hold him on that question, the why, but he's someone that has, that I think always had a sort of like justice streak, you know, someone who wanted just to see fairness around him in the world and
5:30 Kara Swisher? Right.
5:30 Speaker 04 Growing up in the South, really during civil rights, you know, he saw so much social injustice around him and and this is me speculating somewhat, but I think that that sort of galvanized a desire to see a better world and affect change in however he could and, you know, he worked hard on Andy Young's campaign for mayor of Atlanta and I can remember Andy Young coming to our house when I was a little kid and just being like, wow.
6:01 Kara Swisher? Wow. He was the star.
6:03 Speaker 04 He really was. And then I, for some reason, I had that too. I grew up with a kind of like preoccupation with fairness and I, and I would get really frustrated and confused and angry as a kid when, when I felt like bullies were getting, getting the best of somebody or like
6:21 Kara Swisher? They've got lots to talk about. There's something going on in this country right now.
6:24 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:25 Kara Swisher? So it's interesting because you're a board member of Represent Us, an anti-corruption organization that advocates for systemic change in the political structure. There's a huge amount of corruption happening right now in real time. But one of the big changes you're pushing for, speaking of fairness, is ranked choice voting. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska recently spat out a favorite, and that's how Alaskans elect their leaders. But the state almost repealed ranked choice voting in a ballot measure last year. Voters in at least six other states rejected it, and Missouri passed a law banning ranked choice voting. I'd love you to talk a little bit about this idea. I am very enamored with ranked choice voting, although it has its critics. And why don't voters like it? Because it sort of tends towards electing reasonable people often, like Lisa Murkowski.
7:09 Speaker 04 Well, you just answered your question. Why don't people like it? It's because it's the system that best represents the largest number of voters' sentiment. And when you have entrenched minority power, as we have in this country, it's very hard to sell someone on ranked choice voting. I have this feeling. I get into these debates. I have a family member who's very conservative, and I've gotten into these debates with him about ranked choice voting. And everything that he comes back to me with, I'm just like, this is just
7:50 Speaker 04 Kool-Aid. Like, you have definitely, you're not citing, to me, there's no intellectually honest argument against ranked choice voting. There's only cynical propaganda messaging. And unfortunately, that's been incredibly effective.
8:03 Kara Swisher? What's his best argument?
8:04 Speaker 04 That it's confusing, which is a canard. Like, it's not confusing. Ranked choice voting is just when you, you know, you rank all the candidates based on your favorite.
8:18 Kara Swisher? They did in San Francisco for the mayor, and it's fair. People think it's fair because if you have your choices and your favorites and your second favorites, it makes it, it's just harder for the voter, I think, is the difficulty. The voter has to think harder, which they don't tend to want to do sometimes.
8:33 Speaker 04 And I think there are very, there are real questions about how do you do this transparently? Because it's a multi-step process. So like, what are the, how can you be the most transparent in? The process of calculating ranked choice results. And that's a fair question, but I think there's answers to that.
8:51 Kara Swisher? Yeah, it tends to vote in people who are more reasonable.
8:55 Speaker 04 Right, and the reason for that is that every candidate is actually now answering to every voter.
9:03 Kara Swisher? Right.
9:03 Speaker 04 Because every voter has a chance, has a say in where a candidate will rank in on their ballot. So if you're a far right candidate or a far left candidate and you're just like throwing red meat at your base, then most voters are going to look at that and be like, ah, that's a little extreme. So I'm going to put them lower in my ranking. So then the most extreme people tend to get marginalized and that's not a bad thing.
9:30 Kara Swisher? I'm going to move on to the idea of using the media in affecting this because a lot of it is the media. I don't think it's done a great job explaining things. And you said you're fascinated by partisanship and division. How much blame does the mainstream media deserve? And specifically since you're, you know, you're in comedy when it comes to political satire and your comedy alma mater, The Daily Show, still one of the best. And what do you think its roles should be, something like The Daily Show? And Jon Stewart's protested that he's not a journalist, but he clearly is more than just entertainment.
10:00 Speaker 04 People would say to me when I worked on The Daily Show, they're like, you know, I get all my news on The Daily Show. And I was like.
10:05 Kara Swisher? My kids do.
10:06 Speaker 04 Yeah, but I was like, that's kind of like doing your grocery shopping at the candy store. Like, you're not getting any vegetables. But, but I think you need both. I think you need the establishment media sort of doing their best and they've dropped the ball quite a lot. But then you need the sort of peanut gallery, which is The Daily Show and comedians just lobbing satirical bombs at the media that just kind of keep them honest, but also keep the public entertained and engaged and reflecting a little harder on these things. That's what I think Jon always did so brilliantly was like, was just be a funny gadfly
10:48 Speaker 04 that would make you or make audiences laugh, but then later on, they're still thinking about something like, oh, yeah, that thing that he pointed out that, you know, Mitt Romney said, that was so hypocritical. Like what? Yeah, and then they're, then they're thinking about it more. But I do think the mainstream media, where, where I get the most frustrated with.
11:12 Speaker 04 Well, I mean, I don't, first of all, like, what is the mainstream media? But sort of our bigger institutions like CNN and Fox News and The New York Times, et cetera, is the horse race of election coverage is so sensationalized that it dramatically diminishes the integrity of the message of the candidates. And then, of course, with Fox News, that, Fox News was really blossoming while I was on The Daily Show. And I remember just being, feeling kind of heartbroken that this thing was emerging. And their slogan at that time, they since abandoned it, but their slogan was "Fair and Balanced." Do you remember that?
11:53 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
11:54 Speaker 04 Literally, just "Fair and Balanced."
11:55 Kara Swisher? I used to say "Neither Fair Nor Balanced."
11:56 Speaker 04 It was just so cynical, like, this is, they're so overtly unfair and unbalanced. And, but to say that seemed almost like a snark, like, they're just kind of, they're laughing at us.
12:10 Kara Swisher? Although they may believe it. Well, interestingly, a political scientist named Dr. Dana Young studied the difference between liberal versus conservative late-night TV. And there's a lot of comedy on Fox. Well, I don't think it's funny, but it's there. In a nutshell, she found most liberals mostly watch comedy shows that use irony to create humor, and conservatives generally watch shows like that that use fear to create outrage.
12:32 Speaker 04 Sure. Or I would also, I would add ridicule.
12:35 Kara Swisher? Ridicule, yeah, ridicule. You're absolutely right. Irony usually signals some level of detachment. Is there, is there something to be found in these right-wing, I'm thinking of Greg Gutfeld and the others, to start cultivating this idea of outrage? And why does that work better in some forms of comedy? It does.
12:52 Speaker 04 Yeah. I think this is, you're getting into a question about a fundamental difference between progressives and conservatives. And I think that...
13:06 Speaker 04 Progressives tend to think too hard and analyze and even naval gaze a bit. And that's, that's a, a great landing pad for irony. And conservatives tend to love things that are very simple and black and white and clear. And the more you analyze something or get into the nuance of something, the more frustrated they're likely to get and they're going to want to cling to, to the simpler ideas. And that's a more primal response in some ways, which I think also speaks to the fear, you know, gravitating towards fear.
13:41 Kara Swisher? Are you surprised that something like Gutfeld, that just builds as a comedy show, is as popular as it is comparatively?
13:48 Speaker 04 No, I don't think I'm, I'm, I, I used to be surprised at how, at the sort of rise of Fox News, but I understand, you know, looking back through history, it just feels like we're at a moment where the, the American population is severely lacking in general sort of civic education and economic education. A lot of people are, are struggling with economic opportunity and that has people on edge and when people are on edge, they're likely to be, gravitate towards simpler and or fearful, fear-based messaging.
14:30 Kara Swisher? So, so speaking of history, it's, you know, it's interesting because it sort of dovetails into your podcast and your book, which is called Snafu. Let me read the bottom and here it is right here. History is the definitive guide to history's greatest screw-ups, which are happening in real time. So you'll have a, you'll be able to have a sequel.
14:46 Speaker 04 Oh, my gosh.
14:46 Kara Swisher? Pretty easy.
14:47 Speaker 04 I was trying to write a fun, simple, like a book that's just sort of a fun cheeky look back and all of a sudden we're in this moment where it's like, yeah, so this is.
14:56 Kara Swisher? What can we fuck up today? It's like an hour by hour fuck up. For people who don't know, what does Snafu stand for?
15:04 Speaker 04 Uh, Snafu is a, a term, it's a, it's actually an acronym that emerged during World War II.
15:11 Speaker 04 It stands for Situation Normal All Fucked Up. So it's basically like, you know what? Everything's fucked up, but isn't it always? And it's kind of describes the moment we're in right now.
15:24 Kara Swisher? And you have a podcast. You have a podcast.
15:26 Speaker 04 Yeah, so I have a pod. I started a podcast a couple of years ago called Snafu. And season three just came out. Each season is a deep dive into one big sort of major historical snafu. But we tried to kind of find things that are off the beaten path. Some things that you may not know about.
15:45 Kara Swisher? Not well-known snafus.
15:47 Speaker 04 Exactly. Not like, like, and same with the book, by the way. There's a reason there's no chapter in the book that's just like, World War II. You know, these are, uh, yeah, these are, the, the curation of the book is much more about.
16:02 Kara Swisher? Vietnam, right? All right. So one of the threads running through is broad, is government overreach and government stepping all over American civil liberties. There's so many of them, like that, and this is actually often a conservative talking about, but what is, why are these so good for this? For this kind of idea?
16:19 Speaker 04 Well, I think it goes back to the whole reason I engage with, with Represent Us and why I engage with politics to begin with. There's just something so frustrating and unnerving about institutional chaos or hypocrisy or even just downright dastardly behavior. And, uh, and yet there's just no shortage of it. It's been all around us for centuries. Well, for thousands of years. But in American history, it's fascinating to look back and just call attention to these things that, that, uh, that I think make people think and, and also give people a little bit of context for the present moment.
17:03 Kara Swisher? Right. So some of the stories actually feel relevant today. For example, in the 1960s, the US Army tried to secretly build a nuclear missile launch site under Greenland's ice sheet, speaking of Greenland, without Denmark's permission. And of course, at the time Greenland was part of Denmark, continues to be, by the way, it was called Project Iceworm by the Army. Can you explain?
17:23 Speaker 04 Yeah, this is an incredible story. So Project Ice Worm was this insane idea to build tunnels underneath the ice sheet of Greenland so that they could maneuver nuclear missiles all over the island nation undetected and then launch them from wherever they wanted to.
17:42 Kara Swisher? 600 missiles.
17:43 Speaker 04 So this was the plan.
17:45 Kara Swisher? It wasn't like one.
17:46 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's kind of a, it feels like a crazy harebrained plan. And so to test this as a possibility, they built basically like a fort on Greenland and they started digging tunnels just to kind of experiment and see if this would work. And they also added a nuclear reactor there for power. And it didn't work. It did not work at all. Basically, they were tunneling into the ice and it was caving in around them and on top of them. And over time, they realized this is just not, not a good idea.
18:20 Kara Swisher? All at taxpayer expense, by the way.
18:22 Speaker 04 Yeah. And also, no one in Greenland was aware of this. And the president of Denmark was like, you know what? Just don't tell me. Do what, do what you guys want, but don't tell me and I'll, and it's fine. But then, of course, because of nuclear waste, people in a nearby village were getting sick. And then it was revealed. And it just is, and now, even now, it's, there's, there's nuclear waste frozen in the ice there along with like, years of human waste from the fort that they built there. And that's all going to thaw in, in due course with global warming and be exposed and just be a terrible hazard once again.
19:04 Kara Swisher? Which is why the perfect time for Donald Trump to buy it. That's the perfect time.
19:08 Speaker 04 There you go.
19:08 Kara Swisher? To steal it or take it or whatever. You have a lot of stories about the CIA too, which is always full of these kinds of schemes. They're schemes, really, kind of wacky schemes. One involves a cyborg cat, another involves pigeons. There's a story about a lot of LSD, which I think is relatively well known.
19:26 Speaker 04 Sure.
19:26 Kara Swisher? But tell us your favorite one. And also, why did the CIA come up with so many of these harebrained schemes that seem doomed to failure, at least in
19:32 Speaker 04 Great question. I think probably the, um, the cat one is, is one of my favorites.
19:40 Kara Swisher? Go ahead, recount it for people.
19:41 Speaker 04 Uh, so basically, the CIA is always looking for ways to surveil, always looking for ways to be sneaky about getting intel. And so basically, the idea was, we're going to insert a microphone surgically into a cat's ear, because cats, uh, have directional ears, and they always, they're incredibly sensitive, and they're perfectly shaped to capture sound. And isn't this a great idea? And then we'll train the cats to go and sit next to bad guys in parks or wherever, and listen to their conversations, and we'll be able to, to hear it and record it.
20:19 Kara Swisher? Because cats are so well-trained.
20:20 Speaker 04 Exactly. You, you, how-
20:22 Kara Swisher? It's called herding cats.
20:24 Speaker 04 How, who needs to research whether or not you can train cats? We all know this. You cannot train cats. Siegfried and Roy unfortunately learned this a very hard way.
20:34 Kara Swisher? Very much so.
20:36 Speaker 04 It's, uh-
20:37 Kara Swisher? They tried.
20:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, so, so it was, uh, it was obviously a debacle. Um, the other one you mentioned that is very funny, too, is trying to put little backpacks on pigeons with surveillance equipment.
20:51 Speaker 04 Now, what's crazy is like with drone technology, this is happening in a kind of a whole new way, but-
20:59 Kara Swisher? Little drones, baby drones.
21:00 Speaker 04 Yeah, but-
21:01 Kara Swisher? Microdrones.
21:02 Speaker 04 There's something, you know what I, what cracks me up about these things is they just feel like something that a 10-year-old thought of.
21:09 Kara Swisher? Mm-hmm.
21:10 Speaker 04 Right?
21:10 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
21:11 Speaker 04 Like, maybe one of these CIA guys was just like, uh, at, over dinner, like, well, how are we gonna listen to the spies? How are we gonna listen in on them? And the kid's like, yo, you could strap a microphone to a cat.
21:23 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
21:24 Speaker 04 And he's like-
21:24 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
21:25 Speaker 04 You're on to something.
21:26 Kara Swisher? This is great. Uh, talk about, you spent some time with a tiger on Hangover, obviously, too, which, speaking of cats-
21:34 Speaker 04 Yes.
21:34 Kara Swisher? I thought about joining the CIA at one point, but the whole gay thing they didn't like at the time. Um, now I'm sure they'd be thrilled. Um, but it made, did it make you feel differently about the agency? At the end of the day, would you say it's been a net positive or a negative? Or you thought, what a bunch of crazy people-
21:50 Speaker 04 Oh, no, I've never had a particularly good impression of the CIA. I mean, there, there are so many- Examples of just
21:59 Kara Swisher? Malfeasance.
22:00 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, but, but I, I don't know. It's, it's, um, season two of the, of the Snafu podcast goes really deep on the FBI. In, in an incredible story about a group of activists and outside Philadelphia who broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, stole all the files and began leaking them to the Washington Post in 1971. But, uh, the reason that they broke in is because they could tell that the FBI was surveilling and harassing people and in, in very illegal, threatening ways. But there was nothing they could do about it.
22:42 Speaker 04 They couldn't go to the FBI and say, hey, some of your guys are bad. It just, it was like they were caught. And this is part of the, part of why this moment that we're in right now feels, uh, kind of scary, but also familiar in a sort of in this, in a J. Edgar Hoover way.
23:01 Speaker 04 But these activists feeling that they had no recourse, uh, broke in and, and at, at massive risks to themselves and their families and, uh, and these weren't criminals, but they staged an unbelievable heist. And I, uh, I strongly encourage your listeners to listen to Snafu season two. It's a very thrilling and heroic story. But it basically uncovered so much of the corruption within the FBI, so much of what they were doing that was explicitly illegal and some of it, uh, evil. You know, like trying to sending letters to Martin Luther King to, to try to get him to kill himself and all the, all these things.
23:45 Speaker 04 And that led to the church hearings, which is the only reason we now have any.
23:53 Speaker 04 Congressional oversight over all of our intelligence institutions, the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA.
23:59 Kara Swisher? Was the misbehavior. Season three of Snafu is about prohibition, by the way. You go all over the place here, specifically how the government killed thousands of Americans by adding poisons to the industrial alcohol which bootleggers were turning into alcoholic beverages. It sounds crazy, but the idea is to scare drinkers into sobriety by killing them. Explain what happened and then tell us what parallels you see today, if any.
24:21 Speaker 04 That's a wild one. So during prohibition, of course, there's still industrial alcohol that is, needs to be produced and distributed around the country. The industrial alcohol supply is also what bootleggers are stealing to then turn into consumer alcohol. The government knew this, they understood this, and they started adding, for a long time, they'd been adding chemicals to alcohol to make it basically gross, like unpalatable, undrinkable, because it just tasted so bad. And that, that process is called denaturing alcohol.
25:01 Speaker 04 And they, during prohibition, they thought, well, what if we add some poison to this so that people aren't just getting, you know, a little bit nauseous, or that they're, it tastes bad, but it's just starting to kill people. And thousands of people died as a result. It's an incredibly tragic story. It's darkly, also weirdly funny in some ways. It, it's an example of how the most holier-than-thou intentions can result in some of the most despicable behavior.
25:36 Kara Swisher? Right, right. Yeah, no, a lot of your stories ended despicable. You're like, oh, my God, this is another movie. It's like, I'm feeling like I'm listening to Aaron Brockovich over and over again. Like, what did they do?
25:45 Speaker 04 Yeah, exactly.
25:46 Kara Swisher? You know, and then they got away with it. That's the, that's the part that's.
25:50 Speaker 04 They basically got away with it. There was, they were exposed, but there, but no one really.
25:55 Kara Swisher? That's what I mean.
25:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, there were no.
25:56 Kara Swisher? Exposure is not getting, is not, is still.
25:59 Speaker 04 You're right.
25:59 Kara Swisher? With it if you're not put in.
26:00 Speaker 04 You're right.
26:01 Kara Swisher? So is there any parallel to today? Because there's a lot of snafus, again, happening in plain sight right now. Now it's explicit. What was implicit is explicit now. It's like they're doing the corruption or the criming in plain sight.
26:14 Speaker 04 Sure.
26:20 Speaker 04 In the broadest sense, I would just say government overreach is the, is sort of the biggest parallel, but gosh, where do you start? There's so much going on right now that feels like it's mean spirited and harming people. During prohibition, it's, I don't think that this behavior was, that adding poison to alcohol was necessarily mean spirited. It wasn't, didn't come from a place of like, we want to punish these people. It was more like, this is going to help us get people to stop drinking. It was incredibly flawed logic, but, but now it does feel like we're in a moment where pain and suffering are an objective.
27:05 Kara Swisher? Or intentional.
27:06 Speaker 04 Yeah.
27:07 Kara Swisher? We'll be back in a minute.
27:18 Speaker 03 Support for the show comes from Engine. Running a small business means every dollar has to work hard, but if your team is still booking travel the old way, it's costing you more than you think. Engine is the fastest growing travel and spend platform in the country, built specifically for businesses like yours. Book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes, earn up to 10% back on hotels. And in 2025, Engine customers save more than $300 million on travel with zero booking fees, no contracts, and no BS. More than 1,000 businesses join Engine every month. Join them and get $500 when your business signs up and starts traveling at engine.com/box.
28:03 Kara Swisher? Support for this show comes from Delete Me. Have you ever Googled yourself and found your home address, phone number, or the name of a family member? It's unsettling. Here's what you do to clean up your online data footprint. Go to joindelete.me/kara and enter the code Kara. You get 20% off Delete Me. Delete Me removes your personal information that's being sold online. Delete Me was named the top pick for data removal services by Wirecutter, so you know you're in good hands. I really like Delete Me. I use it all the time. It's always surprising how much data people have about me. I am very privacy forward and I still find so much stuff of mine online, some of which is incorrect, some of which is compiled in a really disturbing way. And you have to sort of control it like weeds.
28:47 Kara Swisher? Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now, at a special discount for our listeners, get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindelete.me/kara and use the promo code Kara at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindelete.me/kara and enter the code Kara at checkout. That's joindelete.me/kara, code Kara.
29:16 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,
29:59 Kara Swisher? along with access to 24/7 messaging with your care team, so support is always in reach. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/kara to access personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair, menopause, and more. That's forhers.com/kara. Individual results may vary and stopping treatment may result in weight regain.
30:22 Kara Swisher? Okay, so every episode we get an expert question from someone. In your case, we got one from a very serious person, Dr. Lindsay Trivinsky, a presidential historian and executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library. She's author also of Making the Presidency. Let's hear her question.
30:38 Speaker 05 Hi Ed, congratulations on the book. In your podcast and in this book, you are sharing history with a public audience, and that is amazing. Anyone who loves history always wants it to be available to the maximum number of people and the maximum number of places. But there are so many options, museums, books, classes, materials online, podcasts. How do you see yourself in conversation with those? Are you a part of the history community? Are you a conduit, sharing information from other places and trying to get it to new listeners? I'd be really curious to know how you think about that and how we can get people more interested in history in lots of different types and spaces. Thanks so much.
31:20 Speaker 04 Great question.
31:21 Kara Swisher? Are you a historian?
31:22 Speaker 04 I, honestly, I've felt a little bit like I'm in a bubble with a lot of this stuff, and I'm eager to engage more. I've been doing a ton of podcasts over the last couple of years as a guest to help promote this, my podcast and this book, and that's opened me up to a lot of what's going on out there more. And I'm really hoping on this book tour I have coming up that I get to meet a lot of people from that space. My brother is a history teacher in Washington DC. Yeah, middle school history teacher. I'm insanely proud of him, and he's been an inspiration and someone that I feel like is part of my connection to like, history on the ground.
32:04 Kara Swisher? But in her question, how do you, how do you think people should learn about history going forward? Obviously, certain things like podcasts, Roman history podcasts are booming, for example, right? Because for some reason, men love to listen to Roman history. I do too, let's be clear. But what, how do you get to people when you want to talk about history, especially in the current partisan environment? And certainly, Trump is doing his best to rewrite history. It's probably fair that Americans are particularly well-informed about world history for sure, American history also. How do you get people to understand history in a way that's, obviously, you're doing it a funny way, but it's also dark, too?
32:43 Speaker 04 Sure. Well- History at its best is great storytelling. I think it is incumbent on people who are passionate about history and whether it's a professor at a university or a teacher in an elementary school or someone with a podcast to convey these narratives, these historical narratives, in incredibly engaging ways and especially in this moment we're in, that where we're so just awash with distractions and insanity.
33:24 Speaker 04 It feels like, especially with the way that Pete Hegseth is like, you know, washing the Pentagon websites of female or African American or like any prestigious accomplishments. It just is insane. Like, this is a moment where we have to be extremely skeptical of our sources of history as well. So like, if you're looking at a government website for history right now, you need to be asking, am I getting the full picture? And really assuming that you're not.
33:57 Kara Swisher? What do you, are there periodic events of history that you find yourself thinking about now? And what piece of history do you wish Americans knew really well? If you had to go back, is it different things you've looked at?
34:09 Speaker 04 I'm, I feel like that J. Edgar Hoover's sort of reign of terror of the FBI for so long is incredibly instructive to this moment, in part because the DOJ and the FBI have become basically just political arms of the president. And it happened so quickly and it's very, I think that's, that is scary, but also looking back at J. Edgar Hoover, we're able to see, yes, that was also an extremely scary time and it took a lot of courage for a lot of people to, to bring that to light. And like I say in the introduction to the book,
34:51 Speaker 04 Part of what looking back at snafus does for us with distance, like looking at these horrible things from a distance, gives us at least a little bit of a high altitude sense that we move through these things. We get through them. And there are generally some heroes to these stories. And we can look to those heroes as fucked up as a situation might be. We can look to those heroes for examples on how we can do better in the present moment.
35:22 Kara Swisher? Absolutely. So I'm going to switch a little bit and we're going to talk a little bit news. And to finish up, we're going to, let's go back to the Daily Show for a minute. You are known for doing field pieces. Because this is how to communicate this stuff to people. You've said the formula was find the news item and then just take the dumbest possible stance. Here's a clip from a segment you did called Mass hysteria about gay marriage becoming legal in Massachusetts. I love this one.
35:43 Speaker 04 Now that gay marriage is legal, Massachusetts ranks dead last in illiteracy, 48th in per capita poverty, and a pathetic 49th in total divorces. Somehow, Don and Robert, one of the state's first married gay couples, don't see the problem.
36:02 Speaker 06 A lot of things that affect the state of Massachusetts far more profoundly than, you know, two people who love each other and getting married.
36:09 Speaker 04 Name one thing in Massachusetts that's not ruined.
36:13 Speaker 06 Well, I, I guess I look at people around. I mean, I can't think of anything that gays marriage has actually caused other than letting people get married.
36:23 Speaker 04 Easy for them to say.
36:26 Kara Swisher? It still stands up.
36:27 Speaker 04 Oh, my gosh, blast from the past.
36:29 Kara Swisher? I know, I know. If you were doing that now, what would you go for? Pick one dumb news event that you would go and then be dumber.
36:40 Speaker 04 Gosh, it's hard to say. But you know what's interesting, listening to that and hearing the sort of, the angle of attack that, that we used as correspondents on that show, purely in the service of satire and comedy, is also what you're seeing unironically with Jesse Waters or, you know, some of these guys. And it's, it's that, that I think in some ways, we, we may have paved the road for some of those guys.
37:11 Kara Swisher? Right, it's like network.
37:12 Speaker 04 Yeah. But I think, what was your question? Oh, about something today that would be worth diving into? God, it's overwhelming.
37:21 Kara Swisher? Oh, let me help you here. Elon Musk said he's going to spending less time in DC after Tesla's failed drastically compared to a year ago. The public seems to be turning on him. Most figures think he has too much power. Most people think Doge hasn't done a good job, which is actually factual.
37:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's a great one. You know, I think you can, you can just take the dumbest possible take, which is that Doge is a massive success and that it is, that it's doing amazing work and you butter up Elon Musk and, and that he's not leaving for, like, how cynical is it to think he's leaving because Tesla is tanking or that Doge is failing? That's a cynical take. The right take is that this is a victory, he's taking a victory lap.
38:04 Kara Swisher? Right.
38:04 Speaker 04 And he's.
38:05 Kara Swisher? Yeah, that's what he's doing. That's what they're actually doing. I don't know why they're doing it, but they're saying, everything was great. I'm like, except it wasn't, you know, and the numbers keep falling.
38:14 Speaker 04 Oh, God. It's Orwellian. It's fully Orwellian at this point.
38:19 Kara Swisher? If it wasn't so stupid, that's the problem. And it's stupid and Orwellian at the same
38:23 Speaker 04 I would argue that's, that's the saving grace, is that it's stupid.
38:26 Kara Swisher? That's stupid. I'm just curious, it's totally unrelated. His internet sense of humor as a professional comedian, what do you make of it? It's, I think, it's odd for someone his age to be obsessed with 4chan-style jokes. It's unfunny, correct?
38:38 Speaker 04 It's sad to me. It's sad. It's like, I mean, trolling is so, it's such a window into like primal darkness in humanity, I feel like, trolling behavior in general.
38:52 Speaker 04 And it's one of the things that, that the anonymity of the internet has, has just shown us in this like black mirror, oh, this is really who we are. Like, we're pretty awful. Humans are pretty awful. And, and I think it's really sad and disgraceful that someone who has built such an empire has so little gratitude and so little of a sense of, wow, a lot of people have contributed to my success. A lot of people still work hard in my factories and buy my products and I rely on those people. For my wealth and but it's my wealth and I'm not gonna I don't know it just is it
39:34 Speaker 04 there's there's so the lack of gratitude, the lack of perspective, the eagerness to troll and harm and hurt, you know, when he tweets about someone, they get their lives can completely unravel. They get doxxed and stalked and death threats and everything.
39:50 Kara Swisher? Yeah, he said, my heart is seething with hate, just so you know. It's not.
39:53 Speaker 04 I feel that.
39:54 Kara Swisher? Yeah, I know.
39:55 Speaker 04 I feel that from you right now.
39:56 Kara Swisher? I'm seething right now.
39:57 Speaker 04 You're seething.
39:58 Kara Swisher? He's just unfunny.
39:59 Speaker 04 You're smoking.
40:00 Kara Swisher? I'm smoking.
40:00 Speaker 04 People who are people who can't see Kara right now, there's actually smoke rising off of her body.
40:07 Kara Swisher? Honestly, you're just not funny. He's just not funny. If he was funny, I would say so. You've said that Trump has a fragile little ego like Andy Bernard. There may be more parallels. If you indulge me just a second, the office was full of lovable incompetence and some veal incompetence. The Trump administration kind of resembles that, except it's not funny and it's not lovable. I'm just curious if you had to put people from the Trump administration into a character from the office, if they remind you of, if you don't mind, I'll ask you a few.
40:35 Speaker 04 That's really interesting. Well, part of what made the incompetence on the office so funny and lovable is that the stakes are so low.
40:44 Kara Swisher? Yes.
40:44 Speaker 04 Right?
40:45 Kara Swisher? Yes.
40:45 Speaker 04 You know, when when somebody messes up something huge in the office, like it's a paper company, like it's not, there's no reverberations across the globe. But, gosh.
40:58 Kara Swisher? Let me try Pete Hegseth. Try.
40:59 Speaker 04 Okay, Pete Hegseth would be a little like Packer.
41:06 Kara Swisher? Yeah, yeah. Someone thinks Meredith, actually, because alcoholism.
41:10 Speaker 04 Oh, interesting.
41:11 Kara Swisher? J D Vance?
41:14 Speaker 04 J D Vance is a little Dwight-ish, I think. He's a little Dwight Trudy, maybe.
41:19 Kara Swisher? Yeah, absolutely. Karen Levitt?
41:21 Speaker 04 You know what? This is a she's she probably is.
41:27 Speaker 04 She's like a cross between Angela and Ellie.
41:32 Kara Swisher? Okay, Marco Rubio.
41:33 Speaker 04 Hmm. It's hard because I love the characters in The Office.
41:38 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
41:39 Speaker 04 It's hard to compare, it's hard to compare them to people that I struggle to like. But he's a little bit Oscar Nunez because you never see Marco's smile. Like, he's so, he feels so tense to me.
41:52 Kara Swisher? Because he's living in hell.
41:52 Speaker 04 Yeah, it feels like he's, you're right, he's living this, this, like, he's, he's just signed up for a life that is so against who he is at his core. And he's, so he's living a lie. And in some ways, that was Oscar's sort of thing.
42:09 Kara Swisher? All right, two more. Cash Patel, speaking of the FBI.
42:12 Speaker 04 Hmm. Oh, what was Zach Wood's character? There's something about, something there, like intense loyalty, subscribing to a hierarchy with dedication and, and like actually being well spoken in the midst of all of it.
42:28 Kara Swisher? Yeah, Gabe.
42:29 Speaker 04 Gabe, of course.
42:30 Kara Swisher? All right, last one, RFK Jr.
42:33 Speaker 04 Uh, when Will Ferrell guested on the show, that was, uh, he, that, that had RFK vibes.
42:41 Kara Swisher? We'll be back in a minute.
42:50 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.
43:32 Kara Swisher? And listeners to this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job that 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.
44:01 Kara Swisher? Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes you make questionable ones, like buying a new TV that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job. Then sometimes you make great ones, like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states.
44:31 Speaker 07 I hope I don't have to cancel again tonight.
44:33 Kara Swisher? Chronic migraine means 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, onabotulinum toxine, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It is not approved for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. Botox, the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment, prevents, on average, eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's
45:18 Kara Swisher? disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. We're going to finish up talking about the entertainment industry in general. You're currently executive producing and starring in a film called Smudge the Blades, about Canadian youth hockey team on an Indigenous reservation. It's your second project that deals with issues faced by Indigenous people with co-star Jana Schmieding. You also starred and executive produced in a series for people called Rutherford Falls. They're not obvious choices for you. Explain why you're doing these.
45:56 Speaker 04 Rutherford Falls emerged as, uh, Mike Schur was one of the writers on The Office and also went on to go to create amazing shows like Parks and Rec and others and, um, he and I are, have always been close and always, uh, sort of like, when are we going to work together again? What's it going to be? And a bunch of years ago, we just started having these open-ended phone calls, long conversations, uh, or visits. We'd go to each other's offices and just hang out and just explore like, what is, what's activating us right now? And this was, uh, during, I think, the, the first Trump campaign around
46:36 Speaker 04 2015. And we were sort of wanting to tell the story of a guy who, who didn't understand historical context and had a lot of, um, beliefs and an obsession with his own family origin story. And we wanted to sort of like pull the rug out from this character. Like, what if he learns that his, he always felt like his family was like a very noble and courageous family that did the right thing through the Civil War? And he's built his entire identity around this. He's created a museum about his family and so forth. Um, we were talking about this with another friend of ours, Ciara Ornellis, who's a Native
47:17 Speaker 04 American comedy writer. And then it was like, oh, you know what? There's more, there's a deeper story to tell here. Uh, maybe this is a guy who believes his family like did the right thing by the Native American community. And, uh, and then we roped Ciara in and she became a showrunner and co-creator with us. And Jana became my co-star on that show and it really, uh, emerged into what it became, which is really a story about reflecting on the narratives that we cling to, then we, the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what happens when maybe you're wrong or those things fall apart. And I think, and weirdly, in this moment, I think a lot of people have, we've all, I know for myself,
48:01 Speaker 04 we've all been telling ourselves that America is a certain way or has a certain story to it. And suddenly things are shifting and like, oh, maybe I didn't understand things the way I thought I did. Um, anyway, that's the origin. In a lot of ways, you're reclaiming history, right?
48:18 Kara Swisher? Reclaiming it the way it's still.
48:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, and and I think looking at past mistakes is is like a triumphant exercise. It's like, look, look where we are, look what we've, look how we got through that thing. Look how we emerged.
48:34 Speaker 04 You know, this new executive order about the Smithsonian and
48:38 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
48:39 Speaker 04 That's very unnerving because it does seem to be like we don't want to, or we're scared of our history. It's such a fearful posture, like, no, no, history is inarguable. History is not something we can, and we either reckon with it or we don't. And if you don't, then you're just living a kind of this false, kind of like cardboard cutout of a
49:02 Kara Swisher? Which some people want to do. I have two more quick questions. Streaming has revolutionized the entertainment industry. The Office, they're starting to actually be profitable. Obviously Netflix is killing it. YouTube is also killing it, by the way. The Office was once the most streamed show on Netflix before NBC reclaimed the show to put it on Peacock. And thank God, because it was a big success for them. It's also in syndication in cable and stuff like that. How does that work for you? How do you think of your career? Because I'm assuming you're not getting paid every step of these ways with that they're that they're taking the office and taking advantage of the finances around it. But you also had a hit Netflix film called Family Switch, for example. How do you look at the industry right now?
49:46 Speaker 04 The simplest answer is I am confused and a little bit scared of the industry that I have come up in. Because the rules that I came up with and the structures that that I came up through have been so dramatically altered and dismantled that it's confusing. And at the same time, there of course, there's tremendous opportunity also. And so it's a it's a matter of trying to focus on that. There used to be a sense of like, I know how to get a movie made. At least I know the steps I need to take to get a movie made. And or a TV show, I know that that I'm going to pitch to this person. And then if they like it, they're going to take it to this studio and so forth. Like, there was a way of understanding things.
50:31 Speaker 04 That is largely evaporated and now there's a much bigger emphasis on kind of building something holistically and then presenting it to a buyer. The other hard part is you used to be able to rely on this idea that something successful would become part of the sort of zeitgeist or some part of the popular conversation. And now so much consumption of media is so siloed that, you know, if you're really deep on a TV show and excited about it and want to go to work and talk about it, you can't be sure that the person in the cubicle next to you even knows that show exists.
51:14 Kara Swisher? Right, right, because you're in your asylum, yeah.
51:16 Speaker 04 That's a strange thing.
51:18 Kara Swisher? Unless it's one or two things. Like, my son just called me and says, "Did you watch Severance?" I'm like, "Yeah, I did."
51:23 Speaker 04 Yeah, of course.
51:24 Kara Swisher? Certain things break, right, still, but not in the same way. You're absolutely right.
51:28 Speaker 04 But also, like, the Severance numbers aren't, and I don't know what...
51:33 Kara Swisher? They aren't big?
51:34 Speaker 04 But they're not the numbers of like a hit, you know, of like ER.
51:39 Kara Swisher? The Office, yeah.
51:40 Speaker 04 You know, or like a big network show from 15 years ago.
51:44 Kara Swisher? Right. So what does that mean for you as an artist? Do you think that's an opportunity to be, this is the same thing that's happening in the media industry, and I've embraced it for a long time, and so I'm like, "Great mess, I like it." And some people are very entrepreneurial. You seem very entrepreneurial. You're doing a podcast and stuff like that. Do you have to be entrepreneurial now? Is it a good thing? Or do you like the old paternalistic kind of ways where they just give you the town car and the multimillion dollar salary and then just go over there and be funny?
52:13 Speaker 04 Well, I miss it only because it was, I understood it, and now I'm a little bit, now I feel like everyone's a little more adrift and figuring things out. And I think maybe the hardest thing in this moment is...
52:29 Speaker 04 It's so unclear what buyers want. So when you're developing a show or a movie, you're like, ah, well, maybe this streamer will like this, but that those three won't. And is there something so whereas you used to be able to take something to the town with a pretty decent idea that like, these movies are working or these kinds of TV shows are working and that's what people are buying. Now it's so hard to tell and that's a little bit scary. But yes,
52:58 Kara Swisher? Or they don't buy what you think they were gonna buy. A very well-known friend of mine was like, I can't believe I pitched this and nobody wanted it. And I was like,
53:04 Speaker 04 We all have those stories. I had, I have almost a very similar story with lots of big stars in a big funny TV show with a famous creator, didn't get picked up and no one wanted it. And it's like, but we did the math on that. But it is, so that's scary and unnerving and a little frustrating, but at the same time, always like any, anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit is gonna be just looking for those avenues and, and it's still fun. I mean, it's still, it just, it reinforces the core of the process, which is to focus on what you love. Like, what do you love to create and make and what's
53:46 Speaker 04 gonna inspire you? And it's what's, I'm so lucky to have had the opportunity to work on things that I love and to now have, have like, the expansion of the landscape has allowed me to kind of, oh, take this hobby, like an interest in history and make a cool podcast. And there's infrastructure, there's money for that. We can get, you know, iHeart is, and Film Nation are, are partners in my podcast and like, they help, they give us money to make this thing.
54:16 Kara Swisher? Well, they're making money in case you're interested.
54:18 Speaker 04 They, wait a minute.
54:20 Kara Swisher? Wait a minute. All right. My last question. Give me one of your snafus.
54:24 Speaker 04 Oh, boy. Um, what am I?
54:31 Speaker 04 I think for me, a personal snafu that I can point to, this is a little heady, but I moved through life for a very long time, feeling a little detached from the world, feeling like I didn't quite understand the world around me and that people operated differently from me or thought differently from me and that that was a little, always this kind of unnerving feeling that I had. And I always, I could always get along well and move and I had close relationships. I'm lucky to have had wonderful people in my life who I love
55:16 Speaker 04 dearly. So I wasn't really necessarily adrift, but I always felt like I didn't, there were things I didn't understand. I didn't understand how people did certain jobs or how certain things came so easily to people. And these, some of these things are maybe like, like managing just aspects of one's life, right? Logistics of life, always confounded me and has always been a struggle for me. And this is, I'm not unique in this sense, but I went to therapy for many years in my twenties, again, in my thirties and forties. And I, and
56:01 Speaker 04 I still couldn't sort of crack this feeling that I'm different and that I wasn't clicking in some way. I finally read a book called Driven to Distraction, which is one of the original sort of academic texts on the ADD or ADHD phenomenon. And I wept reading that book because there was so much about my life that I...
56:25 Speaker 04 Saw and understood in this book. That was just this epic awakening. And, and it also, this was just a couple of years ago. And so for me to think back on so many of the things that were so hard for me, or so confusing, or scary, or unnerving for me, both socially and in terms of like just steering and navigating life. My heart breaks for that younger me, being so confused and isolated in those feelings. And I sort of think of that as like a snafu in the sense that
57:09 Kara Swisher? Well, it's actually the opposite of a snafu.
57:12 Speaker 04 Well, the, the awareness now, but, but had, but just had I had an earlier intervention of some kind, or, or the awareness, or curiosity to kind of like take that tack a little bit earlier, or a lot earlier, that some things could have gone differently. That said, I have very little to complain about.
57:35 Kara Swisher? Oh, don't do that. Don't do that sentence after. Don't do it. Don't do it. I appreciate, that's a wonderful story. That is actually a wonderful story, and it's a good thing to end on. Ed Helms, thank you so much.
57:46 Speaker 04 What a pleasure. Thank you, Kara.
57:54 Kara Swisher? On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro-Rosell, Kateri Yokum, Dave Shaw, Megan Burney, Megan Cunane, and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Eric Litke. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Aruda, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're one of the lovable, more competent office characters, a Pam. If not, well, that's your snafu. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.
58:39 Speaker 03 Support for the show comes from Engine. Running a small business means every dollar has to work hard. But if your team is still booking travel the old way, it's costing you more than you think. Engine is the fastest growing travel and spend platform in the country, built specifically for businesses like yours. Book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes, earn up to 10% back on hotels. And in 2025, Engine customers save more than $300 million on travel with zero booking fees, no contracts, and no BS. More than 1,000 businesses join Engine every month. Join them and get $500 when your business signs up and starts traveling at engine.com/box.
59:24 Kara Swisher? Are you ever shopping online and suddenly a discount that helps you save pops up? It makes your day, sometimes even your week. Want that feeling month after month? Well, new customers who save by switching their home and auto insurance to Progressive save hundreds. Cue your happy dance. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states.
59:51 Kara Swisher? What's the secret to being a great host this season? Keeping things deliciously simple, like mixing Simply Cranberry into a festive drink as guests arrive, or serving up a warm mug of Simply Apple on a chilly night. That means less time behind the scenes and more time in the moment with everyone. Crafted with real fruit, Simply juices and fruit drinks make any holiday drink effortless, inviting, and completely delicious. Simply. Say yes to simple.
Previous Judith Butler on Why Gender Is in Trump’s Crosshairs Next AMD CEO Lisa Su on AI Chips, Trump's Tariffs and the Magic of Open Source Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated