Rep. Ro Khanna on Tech, Trump & Elon

Representative Ro Khanna represents the wealthiest congressional district in the country, but he wants to show Democrats how to speak to the working class. And perhaps surprisingly, he’s pretty good at it. But although Khanna was one of Bernie Sanders’ co-chairs in 2020, the “progressive capitalist” from Silicon Valley (don’t call him a democratic socialist) also hobnobs with tech titans. Because according to Khanna, the way to reindustrialize and revitalize the economy is by mobilizing both union leaders and tech and industry leaders — and he thinks he can be the one to bring them together. Kara and Ro discuss everything from the DOGE committee, the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and Trump’s threats to jail members of the January 6 committee, AI policy, KOSA, and tech antitrust. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:12Kara Swisher?

  Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. Today, I'm talking to Representative Ro Khanna from California, who I've known a long time. Khanna represents a congressional district in Silicon Valley and as a progressive populist and Bernie supporter, who's also close to many tech titans. He's arguably one of the most unique voices in Congress. As I said, I've known him for years, and we have a lot of, we have an up and down relationship, always friendly, always interesting, but we disagree on a lot of things. I text him a lot when I don't agree with him quite vociferously. He texts back. We argue about things, but I really do enjoy talking to him. He's a really smart guy, thinking very thoughtful things, and not just in it for the power, the money, or the fame.

• 0:56Kara Swisher?

  Despite representing one of the wealthier districts in the country, he's spent the past few years talking to working-class voters outside his district. I hung out with him in Kentucky when he was trying to create Silicon Holler, which didn't happen. And according to Steve Bannon, he's one of the few Democrats who can actually speak to their anger. Ro is also one of the more charismatic and openly ambitious politicians, there's no question about that, on the Democratic side, which has won him lots of friends and also some skeptics. He really doesn't tamp down any of the chatter about the future presidential run, and I want to talk to him because it's, a lot of the stuff he talks about, whether it's tech, tech power, AI, the Democratic Party, is really interesting and needs to be listened to because we do need new voices in the Democratic Party that are questioning old

• 1:41Kara Swisher?

  tropes. Our expert question today comes from Tristan Harris, the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. Now, let's get to it.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  I'm Ina Garten, and each week on Happy Hour, I invite new and old friends for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. On this week's episode, I'm joined by Jennifer Garner. We talk all about what it means to be a good friend, Jen's encyclopedic knowledge of my recipes, and the Paris tour I put together for Jen and her daughter. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Megan Opino here. This week on Why Are You Like This?, I am talking with New York Times bestselling author and meditator Young Quedlo. We talk about moving from Ecuador to Boston as a young child, pulling himself up from rock bottom, and how meditation changed his life. I get his thoughts on the state of the wellness industry, and he decides if he's more mommy, daddy, or baby. Check out the latest episode of Why Are You Like This?, wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Have you ever looked up and realized your leisure time isn't actually all that leisurely?

• 3:18Speaker 03

  So what starts out as wanting to learn something and wanting to progress through different ways of knowing how to do something turns into something that you're sort of like giving yourself a score on.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  This week on Explain It To Me, how to keep the grind mentality from ruining your downtime. Listen to new episodes Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 3:43Kara Swisher?

  Representative Kana, thanks for being on ON. I'm going to call you Ro, if you don't mind.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 3:48Kara Swisher?

  Okay. So let's start talking about some recent headlines, because you're all over the news lately, for some reason. But last week, you tweeted you're ready to work with the DOGE Committee, the Department of Government Efficiency, though no department, it's a task force that President-elect Trump has named Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswati to run. Elon singled out obscure federal employees by name on X, apparently because he doesn't like their job titles and they're being harassed by his followers, according to CNN. These workers are afraid for their lives, will be forever changed, including physically threatened as Musk makes behind the scenes bureaucrats into personal targets. I'd love you to sort of square this circle, I guess.

• 4:24Speaker 04

  Well, I clearly am opposed to him singling out any federal employee. And I have disagreements with his view that you can just take a sledgehammer to the federal government. The vast, vast majority of federal employees are doing honorable, good work to keep our food safe, to keep our water clean, to have the functioning of government with social security checks and Medicare. So I would strongly condemn any singling out of a particular individual or blanketly labeling the federal workforce lazy or denigrating them.

• 5:04Speaker 04

  That said, there are areas that the government could use significant reform, Department of Defense being one of them. You know the story better than I do of how SpaceX disrupted Boeing and Lockheed to launch satellites into the orbit with reusable rockets. And we need more competition in the Department of Defense. If they can do that to save costs, that's one area that I think Democrats and Republicans should be willing to engage on.

• 5:33Kara Swisher?

  You know, you followed up your initial post on X regarding Doge, writing, "23 million plus views is the most post of mine has ever seen in nine years in Congress. Millions of Americans want us to work with Doge." Jamel Bouie of the New York Times commented, "This is equivalent of thinking that a magic eight ball is really talking to you," which made me laugh.

• 5:53Speaker 04

  I like Jamal.

• 5:54Kara Swisher?

  I know, he's really funny. That was a good line. Meanwhile, former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger wrote to the Dems that have warmed up the Doge idea with Musk and Vivek, "This is going to come back to bite you. They're not really doing it for the right reason. It's for control. Stop normalizing these clowns." So what's your response?

• 6:13Speaker 04

  Jamal is good humor. Kissinger's would say, "Stop normalizing, stop normalizing. It's like a broken record." And then they keep winning. You know, Jamal only says humor and originality. But the point is, this exists, that Trump won the presidency. I did everything I could to make sure that Harris won, first that Biden won, then Harris won. FDR, who had the New Deal, starts the case for the New Deal, saying, "We need to cut waste, fraud, and abuse." And one of the reasons you've seen progressives, I think, open to saying, "We need to cut wasteful spending," is people like me are offering the biggest role for effective government. We want Medicare for all. We want government to be creating 100,000 new skilled trades investments. We want free public college. Well, if you have that view,

• 6:58Speaker 04

  then you've got to say, "I want an effective government." And there are areas, not just the Department of Defense, the way IT is administered in the federal government, the way we do tax filing without automatically populating them. There are ideas the Democrats have had to say, "Let's make government better." And just because there are folks there who we have strong disagreements on doesn't mean we don't engage them. Now, I have not joined the Doge Caucus because I have said that there needs to be a commitment of not cutting a dime from Social Security, Medicare, not cutting the CFPB. And the Magic 8-Ball hasn't made those tweets go viral yet. I'm waiting. I tagged Doge too, and say, "I don't believe

• 7:38Speaker 04

  in cutting a dime from Social Security or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau." And if, when I do convene or meet with others, with Elon or Vivek, I'm going to make the case to them that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has saved people credit card fees, mortgage fees. So I guess it's not like I'm saying something to them in private that I'm not saying in public. They know exactly where I'm coming from, where I stand. And I thought that's the democratic process. Engage where you agree, strongly push back where you disagree.

• 8:08Kara Swisher?

  My only point is some of their language is quite hateful. There's always a good idea and it's wrapped in a shit sandwich essentially, which is being aimed at lots of people's heads. But you did point out that wasteful spending at the Department of Defense is a target for cuts. Trump increased the Pentagon's budget 16% during his first term. He's actually had the highest deficit too. This is not a guy who wanted to save money in his first term. What makes you think he has intentions of cutting defense spending at this time? Which is where the big, you know, whether it's fraud waste or just too many weapons, you know, that's where the money is.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  That's right. It's 56% of discretionary funding. If, look, the Social Security and Medicare is about a third of the budget. I'm not for cutting that, neither is Trump. And so then, okay, you look at the discretionary part of the federal budget. The defense is the big portion of that. And if you're not going to cut Social Security and Medicare, you've got to be willing to have some defense cuts or raise taxes, both of which I'm willing to do, raise taxes on the ultra wealthy and the wealthy. The point, that's funny, I don't think Mike Rogers, who's the Chair of the Armed Services Committee, will mind my sharing this. He said that Trump came in the first time and he said, you know, that he was for defense cuts. And Mike Rogers said, well, he was educatable.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  And the Armed Services Committee talked him into not having defense cuts, but even had a defense increase. So we'll see this time. Is he going to just listen to the same infrastructure in Congress and in Washington? In that case, he's going to continue to put forth bloated defense budgets? The Senate already has a budget that's higher than what Biden is calling for? Or is he really going to follow through on making the process competitive and recommended cuts? I am often the lone vote in the Armed Services Committee against the Pentagon budget. There are clips online of me getting booed while I cast my lone vote. So you can understand why I'm hopeful that someone else can come in

• 10:08Speaker 04

  and help get some of the accountability that I've been pushing for. The one place that he has expertise, right? I mean, Elon doesn't. Know about the Department of Justice.

• 10:22Kara Swisher?

  Oh, but he does, Roe. He knows everything. He's a genius. But go ahead, sorry.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  Well, look, I mean, I do think he's a genius as a business leader, but you know, that doesn't mean.

• 10:32Kara Swisher?

  I'm teasing. You know, they try to pull expertise on everything, but go ahead.

• 10:36Speaker 04

  But the one place you could argue that he actually has expertise is in disrupting defense contracts. He did it with Boeing and Lockheed.

• 10:46Kara Swisher?

  He called me the minute he did it, that time, when we were speaking, with the minute it happened.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I mean, you're always fair. I mean, I know you give him a hard time, but you also recognize where he does things that are innovative.

• 10:57Kara Swisher?

  That's correct.

• 10:57Speaker 04

  And so my sense is why not focus on the area, two areas where I think you actually could bring expertise. One is enterprise IT software, getting some rationality into how we do technology and government. And two is getting more competitive bidding, whether it's DoD or in general in procurement. And those are areas, you know, that you actually have a track record of getting things done.

• 11:22Kara Swisher?

  Sure. Is there a problem with the conflict of interest here, given he has a lot of federal contracts in the areas he's recommending cutting and obviously can then deal with competitors?

• 11:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I mean, I think those are legitimate, I think those are very legitimate concerns. And I would say, why not do financial disclosures like every member of Congress does? I mean, you know, in my case, you know, my wife inherited money, it's in a trust, but every month I have to report it, every single transaction in that, even though it has nothing to do with me. And I, you know, most members of Congress have to do that. Most executive branch officials have to do that. So I would think they should disclose their financial holdings and interests. And then if there are places where they should recuse themselves, they should. But at least let there be transparency so people know where the interests are.

• 12:15Kara Swisher?

  All right, let's keep moving. Trump said on Sunday that the members of the January 6 Committee should go to jail and members of President Biden's in his circle debating preemptive pardons for Trump's perceived political enemies. When you asked about it, you said black and brown individuals incarcerated because of marijuana possession have faced and continue to face far more injustice than some of the most privileged individuals who have served in the Congress or Senate. I don't quite know what you're saying there. Putting aside the wisdom of preemptive pardons, what happens if Trump uses the FBI and Department of Justice to get his retribution against these members or anyone else? There doesn't seem to be any evidence they did anything wrong. And is there anything Democrats can do to stop him besides, say, for shame, which he doesn't seem to have much of?

• 12:54Speaker 04

  Well, there's no evidence they did anything wrong. They're protected by the Speech and Debate Clause in the Congress. I would hope that there is some shred of integrity still in our judicial system where judges and even the Supreme Court will make sure that we're not a banana republic, which is what we would be if you literally started to jail people like Jamie Raskin or Zolaufgren. And you could say, well, it's a Republican Supreme Court and Republican appointed court, sure, but at least they held their ground when Trump was trying to overturn the 2020 election. So my hope is that you ask, what is the recourse?

• 13:38Speaker 04

  It's one for us to be very loud, vocal, call it an abuse of power, and then have a litigation strategy that goes to the courts. Now, if we've lost the courts, then we've got a much bigger problem in American democracy.

• 13:52Kara Swisher?

  So what about preemptive pardons? Do you think it's a good idea? I feel so squeasy about it, and yet I'm not as squeasy as I thought I'd be.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  Well, look, I had called for the curtailment of the pardon power from day one. So you can't take that position, say it's anarchic, it's a vestige of kings, and then suddenly when you think that the pardon power is convenient for your side, then say, okay, now I'm for the pardon power. So I still believe that. I still think at the very least, there should be a process. It shouldn't just be in the president's hand. Now, if you want to create an independent commission that goes through some process and then recommends certain pardon prerogatives, that's fine. But I believe there are a lot of other avenues short of just relying on preemptive pardons to make sure that Jamie Raskin doesn't go to jail.

• 14:38Kara Swisher?

  If that happened... Do you entertain that happening? Because a lot of people are like, oh, it'll never happen. But he's done a lot of things that we've said would never happen, right?

• 14:49Speaker 04

  Do I entertain Jamie Raskin, people like him?

• 14:51Kara Swisher?

  Going to jail.

• 14:52Speaker 04

  I don't think it's a non-zero possibility, which is scary in America. I mean, I think the probability is very low. But here's the thing. Do I think he's actually going to end up going to jail? If you ask me for a prediction, no. But is that the end-all, end-all? No. I mean, you could have harassment. You could be investigated. You could have millions of dollars of legal fees. I mean, there are ways to silence and destroy people in this country short of putting them in jail. And this is really a moment, I hope, that our courts and the independence of the judiciary work. Because people talk about the independence of the military. I am very confident about the independence of the military. I'm more concerned about making sure the independence of the judiciary and that due

• 15:37Speaker 04

  process is upheld in these kind of cases.

• 15:40Kara Swisher?

  All right, I'm going to keep going. After the United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, was killed, you were asked about the gleeful celebrations that erupted on social media. We both agree that it's heinous and horrific to celebrate murder. In the discussion that followed, you said that Bernie Sanders is winning debate around healthcare. Talk about why you think so and how does the progressive movement channel this anger, and in some cases, really disturbing anger, at the same time being justifiably furious about the behavior of healthcare companies? And turn that into votes? Because now it seems to be a ranging anger and tasteless jokes, everything else. I get the tasteless jokes, that's the internet. But talk a little bit about this situation.

• 16:21Kara Swisher?

  And the shooter has been charged as this young man who seems to have had some, as wealthy as he looks to be, has had healthcare issues. Talk a little bit about this.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  Well, first, we need to say that the killing was totally horrific, outrageous, not just as throat clearing, but as a clear message to people. You have a father who has two kids who was gunned down at 50. There is no justification for violence. There's no sympathy for killing someone in cold blood.

• 16:57Kara Swisher?

  Although a lot of people have it, let me say. I've been surprised by the reaction.

• 17:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, look, I've had people tell me that if they were on a jury, they'd vote to acquit this person, and I just strongly disagree. I don't think, I mean, assuming that there are facts connecting him to the killing, and that it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt. I think you have to face the consequences. We can't have a society where you just kill someone in cold blood, no matter what your cause is. That said, the killing has sparked a national conversation that finally has come to light. I think Bernie, people like me who supported Bernie Sanders in 16 and then co-chaired his campaign in 2020, we knew this because at every Bernie Sanders Town Hall, Bernie

• 17:46Speaker 04

  Sanders rally, the first thing you'd have is people coming and telling their stories about how they had cancer and now have no life savings. Forty-two percent of people with cancer, within two years, don't have any life savings because of out-of-pocket costs. How they got their health care denied for diabetes, for strokes. One woman I remember in Nevada telling me her mother has a $700,000 bill after having a stroke. And suddenly, now, it's not just the Sanders or progressive left hearing it, it's America hearing it. And the issue is not just the 10 to 15 percent who may have very poor insurance. It turns out almost everyone with private insurance, many of them, when they have serious issues, have denied claims.

• 18:29Kara Swisher?

  100%. I just had it almost happen to me, but I'm a screaming person, and it ultimately got settled. But yes, it happens to everyone at every level.

• 18:38Speaker 04

  This is a moment where we should recognize that the private insurance industry is just Broken. I tweeted out they made 1.4 trillion dollars in revenue and 70 billion in profits. And people said, oh, that's only 5% profits. Yeah, fine, but it's sucking out 1.4 trillion dollars that are going into executive pays, administrative fees, marketing fees that could be used to either giving people wage hikes in America if the employers weren't spending it on private insurance, or to give people healthcare. And this is the central argument for Medicare for All.

• 19:11Kara Swisher?

  Right. So in the same interview, I said, I believe we can get Medicare for All to happen. Democrats are often accused of overpromising and delivering. Republicans just won the governing trifecta, and they may be have some friends in the insurance industry, as do Democrats, I assume. How do you make that happen, given the power of this particular lobby, even though, right now, they may be a little more nervous?

• 19:31Speaker 04

  Well, the only thing that makes things happen in America are not politicians, it's social movements. That was the case with the progressive movement, with the labor movement, with the civil rights movement. And so my hope is that this will continue to be a movement that moves towards Medicare for All and moves for getting big money out of politics. I've called for no super PACs in Democratic primaries, for Democrats not taking corporate money, for overturning Citizens United, at least doing what Maine did, which was, in a bipartisan way, to limit the super PAC contributions, like you limit individual contributions. But short of getting Medicare for All, while we fight for that, there's some very common sense things we could do. We could require, for example, United Healthcare or Aetna

• 20:13Speaker 04

  to cover everything that Medicare would cover. I mean, that would be if a doctor prescribes it. I mean, that would be one place to do it. Now, the challenge is you've got to still have Medicare negotiate more to get the costs down. And ultimately, in my view, you need a system where Medicare has more coverage to lower costs. But in an immediate thing, at least stop the denials of these claims.

• 20:37Kara Swisher?

  Is this going to be the key issue going forward for the Democratic Party, healthcare?

• 20:43Speaker 04

  I think healthcare and the economy, those have always been the two issues. I wish one person would ask Donald Trump, you know, if I was a journalist, I got to ask Donald Trump one question. There was a book he wrote in 2000, well before he became president, and he said, "I'm ordinarily a private sector guy, but when it comes to healthcare, I think the Canadians actually have it right, and we should have a single payer healthcare system in this country." And people have asked Donald Trump 100,000 questions. I don't, I've never had someone ask him, just read his own words back to him, and see if he'd be open to making some progress towards Medicare for All. But healthcare to me, and the economy are the two issues which the Democratic Party should make as its pillars as we look towards 26 and 28.

• 21:30Kara Swisher?

  We'll be back in a minute.

• 21:43Speaker 05

  Hey folks, it's David Axelrod.

• 21:45Speaker 06

  And Mike Murphy.

• 21:47Speaker 05

  Murphy, what are you gonna do after the election? What are you gonna do with your time the day after the election?

• 21:52Speaker 06

  I got a three-point plan, David. I'm gonna struggle home from the fun party as an anti-Trump Republican. I'm gonna enjoy Democrat wins for the first time in my life. And then, I'm gonna get on a podcast with you that we do called Hacks on Tap, and we're gonna go on Wednesday through all the results, doing what we do, which is bring a lot of experience, and then, I'm gonna help rebuild the Republican Party. How's that?

• 22:14Speaker 05

  Wow. And then what are you gonna do Thursday?

• 22:16Speaker 06

  One day at a time, pal. So folks, be sure to tune in, and we're gonna go through all the results on Hacks on Tap.

• 22:21Speaker 05

  That's Hacks on Tap on Wednesday. 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.

• 23:01Speaker 05

  Hey y'all, it's a stud from [email protected]. We know that you have big questions about the world and so do we. At Vox, we focus on covering the things that matter in your life and the things that make you curious, whether that's the big politics questions of the day, climate solutions that might actually work or hopeful news in cancer or Alzheimer's research. We believe that journalism made for the everyday curious person can make a difference in making a better world. And if that sounds like something you want to be a part of, Vox now has a brand new app and it brings all of our journalism together in one place. Go to vox.com/app to download today.

• 23:44Kara Swisher?

  Let's pivot and talk a little about the Democratic Party. As you said, you were a co-chair for the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2020. And back in 2022, you were reportedly pushed by the Sanders camp to consider running for the nomination. This was before Biden decided to run for reelection. Given what we know, do you wish you or another progressive populist had primaried Biden? And could you have beaten Trump?

• 24:06Speaker 04

  And I know there were some rumors I would never have run in 24. I think to run against Donald Trump, you had to be a brand name. It's very different than running against someone else. But, you know, a candidacy coming-

• 24:18Kara Swisher?

  You're not a brand name, Ro?

• 24:19Speaker 04

  I'm not a brand name. Kara, you may have been able to do it with your-

• 24:24Kara Swisher?

  No one's voting for the lesbian who's real mean to Elon Musk, so go ahead.

• 24:28Speaker 04

  No, but, you know, could there have been a brand name in 24? Or, obviously, I think Michelle Obama could have won. I think that the coalescing around Harris was partly because she was the biggest name the Democrats had other than Biden, maybe Newsom or others.

• 24:43Kara Swisher?

  Well, there's AOC, there's Bernie, obviously.

• 24:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I, yeah, no, I mean, look, could Bernie have done it? I mean, I do think Bernie would have stood a better chance in- twenty-four had he run and I guess that was that would have been the question I mean he was obviously nearly eighty but he's vigorous and and you know in retrospect should he have run in twenty-four in the primary perhaps you know that that would have been something that would have been a fascinating campaign because he would have run as a as a populist he would have run on on these issues of healthcare and changing the economy he would have said what we've done with Biden is important but he would have pointed to FDR's nineteen thirty-six speech people don't realize this about the new deal you know when we got a lot of the great things of the new deal the minimum wage the overtime

• 25:27Speaker 04

  laws the laws for a forty-hour work week that was all in Roosevelt's second term it wasn't his first term and Roosevelt after his first term said we've got a lot more work to do and things aren't that great and Bernie was pleading with people saying take that approach don't just celebrate talk about all of the challenges that are still here in this country

• 25:47Kara Swisher?

  yeah one of the things after Trump won in November you wrote in an op-ed Democrats failed to present a compelling economic vision for the working class and we lost because of it but unlike Bernie you're not a democratic socialist you call yourself a progressive capitalist all these names explain what that means and then compare and contrast it to Bernie's democratic socialist vision

• 26:07Speaker 04

  oh I'm a celebrator of entrepreneurship and building things I believe that we should have an economy that allows people to to build companies to to help build new industry and that that's a good thing but that we everyone needs to have the healthcare the education the housing to have a decent free life and to have the shot to actually build things and that we need the government involved when it comes to place-based policy you can't just have all the wealth piling up in a few places and have other parts hollowed out so you know I can I contrast that with democratic socialism and in that democratic socialism

• 26:51Speaker 04

  technically under understood is is less of belief that that the markets in allocating capital to entrepreneurs are are a good thing and I think the markets can work if people have healthcare housing education and there's place-based policy

• 27:08Kara Swisher?

  So you're not an eat the rich person, I guess. Like, I would say Bernie-

• 27:12Speaker 04

  I'm for tax the rich.

• 27:13Kara Swisher?

  Tax the rich.

• 27:14Speaker 04

  Clear difference.

• 27:14Kara Swisher?

  Don't eat them, tax them. You know, they taste delicious, but go ahead.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  Bernie would say, let's outlaw the billionaires, right?

• 27:20Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 27:20Speaker 04

  And I would, I would say, let's tax them, and I wouldn't outlaw them. And that's a very concrete difference.

• 27:26Kara Swisher?

  What do you make of all the billionaires in the Trump cabinet? These people are untouchable. I mean, that's one of the issues, of course, and therefore, they're not going to tax themselves.

• 27:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, look, it's the lack of economic diversity. I have no problem with someone who's a billionaire. I mean, FDR would have, or John F. Kennedy would have probably been a billionaire in today's real dollars. And if you have an actual vision of social justice or economic justice, moving the country, fine. But don't surround yourself with all other billionaires. How about having, you know, you said you were for the working class. How about having Sean? What, you know what would be great? Sean O'Brien. Why not? I mean, I'm a fan of Sean O'Brien's. I know it was, is controversial. Why, why did he speak at the Republican Convention? Why not put Sean O'Brien in your cabinet? Why not put-

• 28:10Kara Swisher?

  Because he wouldn't stop talking. But go ahead. Sorry.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  You know, but I, I think that the concern is, people say, oh, you're demonizing wealth. No, I'm not demonizing wealth, but how about including those who don't have wealth in the decision-making? Of course, though, this is what, who Trump is, right? I mean, he's, he has a view. Let me try to give it the best possible charitable view. His view is that if he's going to slap on tariffs, and he's going to deregulate, and he's going to give all his billionaire friends all these tax cuts, and they know what they're doing, and everyone is going to be better off, and America is going to be great. And I just fundamentally disagree with that. I think it's going to explode income inequality. I think you're still going to have people without healthcare, people who are still going to have wages depressed.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  You're not going to get new factories built if the government isn't helping finance some of them and building a workforce. And so, you know, he's doubling down on what he ran on, and my sense is people will have buyer's remorse.

• 29:07Kara Swisher?

  After Trump's election, you said, I'm still very hopeful about the party and our future. The GOP controls both houses of Congress, and the man your party said was a fascist authoritarian threat to democracy is about to take office again. What makes you optimistic? If things aren't so bad, does that mean Democrats overstated the threat posed by Trump?

• 29:25Speaker 04

  Well, when it comes to becoming a cohesive, multiracial democracy, I often say America is making progress in spite of ourselves. And by that, I mean, you have an Indian-American, African-American woman who gets forty-eight to forty-nine percent in places like Pennsylvania, where I grew up, and Wisconsin, Michigan. If you had told me that that was going to happen in the nineteen eighties, when I was growing up, I would have said, "You're out of your mind." So, you know, the country is moving. You look at the new classes of Congress, freshman classes, sophomore classes, people from all different backgrounds, all different walks of life, and that's incredible. Now, we haven't crossed the threshold. We've

• 30:05Speaker 04

  got to win in these national elections, but I believe we will. And I think ultimately, the Democratic Party needed a wake-up call on being out of touch with places like Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, and Milwaukee. I mean, one of the most interesting stories in this whole election, it was a guy who I'm going to meet in Milwaukee, Chansey, forty-three-year-old African-American, works in Master Lock, shakes President Obama's hand in two thousand twelve, when Obama comes there and saying, "Manufacturing is back." And in two thousand twenty-two, his Master Lock plant shuts down, and three hundred jobs are lost. And I talked to Chansey a couple of days ago. He's now working instead of a thirty-dollar job, an eighteen-dollar job. He's a driver who's delivering pharmaceutical

• 30:49Speaker 04

  pills to places, and he's totally heartbroken and frustrated at the system. So, what are we didn't pay enough attention to people like him. It's not just a white men thing. It's across different races and different genders and different geographies. And if we can, if Trump's victory says, "Okay, we got to pay more attention to the Chanseys", then we'll have a better Democratic Party going forward.

• 31:14Kara Swisher?

  Did the Biden-Harris-Contains overstate the threat posed by the second Trump presidency?

• 31:20Speaker 04

  Well, look, people have called fascists, each other fascist and communist for, as long as I can remember, elections. I mean, Truman called Dewey a fascist, and every Democrat, it doesn't matter whether you run Bernie Sanders or you run Joe Manchin, the Republicans are going to call him a communist by the time the campaign ends. I mean, that's just American elections. But do I think Trump poses serious threats to American democracy beyond what Mitt Romney would? Of course. I mean, the fact that we're even having a conversation about whether Jamie Raskin is going to go to jail is evidence of that.

• 31:50Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, so you wouldn't have done that with Mitt. He wouldn't have dared. So as a lawyer who used to represent tech companies, you're one of the wealthiest members of Congress, someone who represents a district in Silicon Valley with a median income that's more than double the average in the country, you seem an unlikely voice for the working class, but according to Steve Bannon, you get it at a very deep level. He means you're one of the few Democrats who can connect with non-college voters and speak to their anger. Talk about their initial skepticism, because I'm sure many working-class voters assume you're an out-of-touch coastal elite when they first met you. I do know, you were one of the first people to insist that I go to Kentucky with you to talk to people. I, of course, went and said, "Trump is not going to help you at all. He doesn't care for you." I don't know, you said different things. But talk a little bit about this dichotomy,

• 32:33Kara Swisher?

  because you do represent, like, exactly what the Steve Bannas of the world rail against in many ways.

• 32:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I think it's fair. I think if, when someone first Googles me, they're like, "Well, should I even show up to talk to this guy?" And what I say is, first, I talk about my story. I'm a son of immigrants. My parents came here with nothing. I went to public school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. I grew up on a street where, you know, there's one house where there was a vice president, and he had the pool, and we all used to go to that house to swim. My dad was an engineer, was middle-class upbringing, not working-class. But on the street, there were, like, kids of electricians, and kids of nurses, and kids of plumbers. And you know what? There was a thriving manufacturing economy. I mean, my father worked at Roman Haas at the Bristol plant of a manufacturer of Plexiglas. And

• 33:24Speaker 04

  so, part of what motivates me is this sense

• 33:29Speaker 04

  of the America that my parents came to it was my father came into Michigan. It was 1968. We were going to go to the moon. We were the leading manufacturer of the world. We were this leading technologists as a nation. And there was economic vitality in different parts of America, including large parts of Pennsylvania. And I see that that has declined in so many parts of this country. And I do now represent a district that has extraordinary wealth, $12 trillion of value in my district. I was fortunate to marry someone who's extraordinary, whose father started as an immigrant an auto transmission business in Ohio that succeeded. And in many ways, what I want is, how does the story

• 34:11Speaker 04

  that I've lived, how is that possible for people across this country? And my view is that it's by mobilizing industry and technology leaders with government and unions to reindustrialize America and bring economic vitality everywhere. And ultimately, you know, people are pretty smart. They don't need you to go there and pretend that you're going to hunt. I've never hunted. I don't go and say, hey, you know, watch me try to hunt. Or they don't, you don't have to pretend to be something you're not. But you can say, look, here is why I care. Here's why I think it's important to America. And here's what I can do about it. And people will give you an open hearing.

• 34:51Kara Swisher?

  Interesting. I'm a very good shot, Roe. I can teach you.

• 34:53Speaker 04

  You know, that clip's going to be all over one day.

• 34:57Kara Swisher?

  I know. I am. I am. I am. I mean, I only shoot at targets. But how do you mobilize industry leaders and unions if industry leaders are trying to crush the unions, right? In other countries, there is a much more cooperative relationship. How do you bring those together?

• 35:12Speaker 04

  Well, first, you got to put unions in the cabinet. This is why, going back to why not have some a strong personality like Sean O'Brien or others in charge. But you don't have to reinvent the model. Look at what FDR did. He had a thing called Dollar a Year Men, because it was a sexist time. But you could have Dollar a Year People or Women. And you could say, look, I want to call on America, all Americans, business leader, business leaders, union leaders, to rebuild every community. And we're going to give you federal finance. to do that, but you're going to have to work with some of the strong unions that have a great workforce and we're going to build these things in communities that have been deindustrialized. You look at steel, I mean, one of the reasons I talked about steel is you've got the CEO of Cleveland Cliffs Lorenzo, who has a great relationship

• 35:57Speaker 04

  with the United Steel Workers, and you could have a financing program that builds modern steel that actually will be cleaner than anything made in China, and we can build that steel in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan and Ohio. So it doesn't all have to be high tech. We need all different types of business leaders to work with union leaders and government and should have different solutions for industrializing different parts of this country. And we hold our gun to saying, okay, if the federal government is going to finance this, then we need to make sure that it has high prevailing wages and is labor neutrality.

• 36:35Kara Swisher?

  So one of the people who was anti-union is Elon Musk, very vehemently so. He recently tweeted, though, that you're a sensible moderate. You've talked a lot about your relationship with him. You've known him for a decade. He wrote a blurb for your first book, besides saying you'll work with him to slash government ways. You've also encouraged Democrats to stay on X and you seem, I would say, generally positive. It's the one thing you and I argue about all the time, him and his minions, who I find repulsive. But a few days ago, you also tweeted, "There's an unholy alliance between soulless wealth and power that has stripped Americans of freedom. Our democracy is created for hardworking citizens to have a say, not just be spectators." Elon spent $250 million to help get Trump elected, perhaps

• 37:16Kara Swisher?

  his best investment ever at this point, given he seems to be the vice president at this point, if not more. Where do you place him in the unholy alliance between wealth and power, given he is at every single meeting with the president right now?

• 37:30Speaker 04

  Not on the good side. I mean, obviously, it's a symbol of the problem. And I would say this directly to Elon. It's part of the problem that you got these billionaires pouring in the kind of money that they have. And by the way, though, we've got to be honest. See, here's the problem. Our side will say, well, Elon's the problem. Yeah, sure, it's a problem that he's pouring in hundreds of millions. But how about the billionaires on our side? I mean, how about the fact that Kamala Harris had more billionaire money than Trump did? And more wealthy money? That Larry Lessig and I had an op-ed on that, that I think that was part of the reason we weren't talking about transformative change on Medicare for All, or standing up for unions. How often did Kamala Harris talk about inequality?

• 38:14Speaker 04

  And so, yes, let's get the super PAC funding out. Let's be a party that says no super PAC funding in primaries. But, you know, voters respect it more. It's not that I'm not going to call out Elon. I'm just, it's terrible to have that kind of spending. But voters respect you more if you're also willing to call out your own side, so it doesn't just come off as hypocrisy.

• 38:33Kara Swisher?

  Well, does it or not? Because, you know, he certainly has a lot of interests, including electric cars, rockets, everything else, and a certain worldview that is somewhat disturbing, some of them. Some of them good, many of them disturbing. But one of the, and is standing right next to the president at all times. He's bought his spot. He has bought his spot.

• 38:54Speaker 04

  How long will that last, Kara? I don't know. I'm asking.

• 38:57Kara Swisher?

  I don't know. He's being a beta right now, so that's interesting to watch him be a beta. But, because he's not. But it's disturbing to spend $250 million. And, you know, as is with Elon, he took a bigger swing, right? So, but he's standing right next to him. He's bought this spot completely, shifting from someone who was, I wouldn't say progressive, but certainly not this, and is able to spew all kinds of nonsense on Twitter, which, as I believe you think it's nonsense, the anti-immigrant stuff, the anti-trans stuff. But according to your recent magazine profile, some progressives see you as an ambitious politician cozing up to power brokers. Another profile said there are politicians who run to be the establishment and the politicians who

• 39:40Kara Swisher?

  ...to topple the establishment, the cona unusually is both. That's probably the most common criticism, yes, it's the one I have for you all the time, I do this, people don't know, I tweet, Ro, all the time and say, what the fuck are you doing?

• 39:51Speaker 04

  You're much, much easier on, on, on an interview if you really want a tough treatment of Kara Swisher, you know.

• 39:57Kara Swisher?

  Text.

• 39:58Speaker 04

  Text, and, you know, and, and if you happen to know her, she'll be much harder on you, I mean, this is like softball compared to what I get on the texts.

• 40:05Kara Swisher?

  All right, then, Ro, what the actual fuck is going on here?

• 40:08Speaker 04

  Well, look, I, I, I believe in-

• 40:10Kara Swisher?

  To be a friend to tech oligarchs and the common man, I think they're the elites, I think they could give two fucks about common people.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  I think you, you need, you need to have transformative change, you need to bring and marshal the system on behalf of working people, and I'll give you two examples of leaders who I'm nowhere in the same league as, but I view just as models, just, and that's Lincoln and FDR. Lincoln wasn't a pure abolitionist, he was, you could say he was establishment and anti-establishment. FDR wasn't a socialist, you could say he was establishment and anti-establishment, he was a capitalist, but what they understood is that there was a need for fundamental transformative change, and they wanted to mobilize the resources of society to do that. So, yes, I, I've stood up to tech when it comes to the Kids Online Safety Act, when it comes to the privacy bill, now, granted, we haven't been able to implement it, but

• 41:02Speaker 04

  that was not popular amongst many of them, when it comes to supporting Lena Khan, and I spoke out for Lena Khan, even when Cuban and others were saying to, to, to, to get rid of, rid of her, I've said that we need to tax these people, I mean, I, I don't know what could be more, taking on wealth and saying, I'm gonna raise your, your, your, your taxes.

• 41:26Kara Swisher?

  Well, they don't think you can, they don't think you can, so they don't mind you saying it.

• 41:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, but but but but I also believe that if we are really going to bring new industry and new jobs and new economic vitality, just saying that, okay, I'm I'm going to do it without engaging with the technology and business leaders of our time is naive. I mean, one of the programs I'm proud of.

• 41:50Kara Swisher?

  I get the fair point, but let's now let's talk about tech because it's hard to make transformative change when you're friendly with the tech oligarchs trying to buy elections. Like, look, I think I'm not naive. People have bought elections for centuries, right? This is not a new, fresh thing. They just do it less transparently, I guess. I suppose there's a positive to that. He's made a trans, you know, Elon's being the major donor of this election cycle. But let's talk about the tech industry then because my issue is they're very good on some things, but why are they over here? Why are they over in this area? Why are they in the Ukraine? Why are they, you know what I mean? They don't have to hear Marc Andreessen lecture about some topics he knows nothing about is exhausting

• 42:32Kara Swisher?

  and dangerous as far as I'm concerned. So let's talk about the tech industry. You've been pretty vocal, the need to regulate big tech. You and I have talked about this for a very long time. The last time I interviewed you in 2022, I said that you and your fellow congress members haven't done your job in regard to tech regulation. You and I talked many years ago, I wrote a column in the New York Times about the Internet Bill of Rights, which you had been trying to push. I went and looked it over. None of it has passed. None of it. They were all great ideas. Every there were 10 or 12 ideas or something like that. Privacy bill, antitrust reform, etc. Talk about what's happening here because I think one of the things is you can say that you should do something about it, but

• 43:15Kara Swisher?

  nothing gets done. Explain to me why it was it's about eight years ago when I wrote that column or five years ago at least. None of those things have been done that you were suggesting.

• 43:27Speaker 04

  Well, it's a fair criticism, and all of us at Congress need to do better. But I'd say both the pragmatic and the more philosophical of why it hasn't happened. On a pragmatic basis, there's just a debate between having the California standard for these things be the floor or having it preempted by federal law where the standards are worse than California. And that's been...

• 43:52Kara Swisher?

  This is, California's been very aggressive in passing certain bills.

• 43:55Speaker 04

  California's been very aggressive, and there's a compromise bill that has passed that isn't as aggressive as California. And some of us in California have been pushing that California standard should be the floor. Others are saying, just take the federal standard. It's 80% of California. I'm even open to making a compromise, even if it's slightly weaker than California, if we can get something done. But that's been the practical reason why nothing has gotten done. But the bigger philosophical reason, and I'm not criticizing President Biden or others, but, you know, he came in, he spent his capital on COVID, and he spent capital on the American Rescue Plan, and on CHIPS and IRA, all very significant things. But you didn't have someone saying, this is going to be a top priority for me.

• 44:40Speaker 04

  And you didn't have the leadership at the time saying, I want to get this through. And without having a Schumer, or Pelosi, or a, you know, whoever the leader is, and the president saying, we have to get this through. It's one of my top four or five priorities, it's not going to get done. And I think they thought, okay, this is a tech issue. But what you're recognizing, and I think more people are recognizing, is tech is now intertwined with so much of our lives that these issues really matter to average Americans.

• 45:09Kara Swisher?

  It's like the railroad monopolies. That's what it reminds me of. It's like so integral to everything. So what needs to happen to get real legislation checked? Say, privacy, antitrust, AI, social media, and kids, which seems to have more traction. I've never seen an industry with so little, like, can you imagine the pharmaceutical industry without this, any regulation, or the car industry, et cetera, et cetera?

• 45:31Speaker 04

  The railroads are a perfect analogy because the railroads, of course, did an extraordinary good for America. In some sense, they were bringing America together, defining America as America, the America we know today. On the other hand, they had way too much power. In fact, Lincoln used to be attacked for being a lawyer for railroads. I mean, that was one of the attacks on Lincoln. But the point is that some of the, one of the sobering meetings I had, one of the worst meetings I had in my time in Congress was seven mothers. They came in very polite, very respectful. I actually didn't know the details of what they were going to talk about. And one after another, they started talking about how they lost their daughter or their son because of a choking challenge online, because their

• 46:13Speaker 04

  daughter or son was being bullied online, because they were being given information that made them feel no self-esteem and made them commit suicide. It's outrageous. It's outrageous.

• 46:26Kara Swisher?

  Now it's bots doing it. Now it's bots doing the same thing. But go ahead.

• 46:29Speaker 04

  And, you know, Jonathan Haidt has written a whole book on this anxious generation that I think 90% I agree with and basically says, let's start to regulate it. The Kids' Online Safety Act is the first basic thing that could regulate it. That says that there has to be a standard of harm that you can't have when having content going to kids, that there need to be some safety standards. You could use that for AI-generated ChatGPT as well. And, you know, we have, we've got 68 senators for it. I've come out for it on the House side and we're not being able to move it.

• 47:03Kara Swisher?

  It's not going anywhere. He's not moving it. Johnson's not moving it. Yeah.

• 47:06Speaker 04

  You know, in fact, you know, someone had said to me when Hawley, in that dramatic way, had Zuckerberg stand up and apologize to the parents, that you should probably have had all of Congress stand up and apologize.

• 47:18Kara Swisher?

  I was the one who said that to you.

• 47:19Speaker 04

  Okay, maybe you did. Yeah.

• 47:21Kara Swisher?

  I said it a little differently. I said, Hawley, you fucker, maybe you should apologize. I think that's what I said exactly.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  [laughing]

• 47:27Kara Swisher?

  We'll be back in a minute.

• 47:43Speaker 05

  We're just days away from the midterm elections, which means I only really have one question.

• 47:50Speaker 05

  Thanks, Mika. I hate this, Jessica. Yeah, and I'm Al. We're from the Culinary Union. How are the issues that we've been tracking all year actually playing out? On the ground. The reason why we're out here, we're actually out here canvassing for Aaron Ford and Mr. Horstberg. I'm not sure if you've heard of them. Oh, yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 05

  A few weeks ago, I headed west to Nevada, where the entire midterms can basically be summed up in just three words: the Trump slump.

• 48:19Speaker 07

  Even with our great union jobs that we had, we struggled. That never happened before. It is because of these politicians what they're doing to us. The Trump slump.

• 48:32Speaker 05

  This week on America Actually, midterms canvassing with the Las Vegas Culinary Union. How many more days until election day? Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  I'm Bridget Reed.

• 48:47Speaker 05

  And I'm James Walsh.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  The Alexander Brothers moved in a world of multimillion-dollar homes, exclusive parties, and powerful people.

• 48:55Speaker 05

  Behind that glamorous lifestyle were years of rumors and allegations that they were committing sexual assault.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  In our reporting for New York Magazine, we investigated what people knew and heard from women who came forward to tell their stories.

• 49:10Speaker 05

  Now, that reporting is the basis for a new three-part docu-series, The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  You'll see exactly how privilege protected them and how they were finally stopped.

• 49:22Speaker 05

  Stream all three episodes now, only on Peacock.

• 49:30Kara Swisher?

  So you've spoken about the need to protect kids online. As you said, you support the Kids Online Safety Act or COSA, although you're against an Australia-style ban on kids under 16 using social media. I am for that.

• 49:40Speaker 04

  You're for a ban?

• 49:41Kara Swisher?

  I am, at this point. It's, I'm done with compromise, I have to say. COSA passed the Senate, but a watered-down version installed in the House, as you said. Unlikely to pass. Unlikely. COSA is a bipartisan bill. Why is the tech industry fighting so hard against what is a relatively innocuous bill compared to the others?

• 50:03Speaker 04

  Well, because it says the state should change their business model. Now, suddenly, if Facebook and Instagram have to care about what algorithms they're using to target kids and that they could be liable for causing harm to kids, you can see further legislation that starts to hold their algorithms accountable. And it increases their liability, because I'm sure they know, I know they know from the whistleblowers, that their product harms kids. Now, you have, of course, Meta and other interests that are pouring money into these think tanks and groups and lobbyists that are trying to undermine it. But you also have the LGBTQ plus community with some legitimate concerns.

• 50:46Speaker 04

  And the legitimate concern is that you can't define the power so broadly for attorney generals in a state like Texas to go after any content that may be talking about trans issuers or gay issues.

• 51:02Kara Swisher?

  Well, because one of the senators said it explicitly, Senator Marsha Blackburn, said it pretty explicitly in that regard. So, any chance it's going to go through?

• 51:09Speaker 04

  I think what would be helpful is for the progressive communities to come on board and to discuss where their bright lines are. Some of them have with me and others, and to say, look, if the language is narrowly defined enough, so we know that attorney generals aren't going to abuse it, then we can get on board. And then we need to start to call out the moneyed interests of who's blocking this. But, you know, I'm not hopeful for this. Again, this gets to the need for presidential and leadership and the Speaker of the House matters. I mean, Johnson or Trump would have to make this a priority for it to go.

• 51:49Kara Swisher?

  But it isn't. He's very clearly said that. So, Trump also announced venture capitalists and, let's move to AI very briefly, venture capitalists and Elon Musk minion David Sacks to be his crypto and AI czar. I'm not sure it has much power, but I have to mention Sacks hosted a fundraiser for you at his house in 2023. I think I texted you about that. I sent you an article I wrote about him. You responded to criticism by saying... Having core convictions, but engaging with those who see the world differently is so needed in our nation. Probably you needed the money too. But having said all that, what do you make of, I don't mind you raising money, I don't care.

• 52:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, and by the way, I take no PAC money, no super PAC, I don't have a super PAC, no PAC money, and get contributions of $3,300. So I'm not, you know, I'm not Gandhi, but you know, I'm relatively, and I'm not Bernie Sanders, but I'm relatively clean, I'm cleaner than 95% of those in Congress.

• 52:40Kara Swisher?

  So having said that, what do you make of this pick? What do you imagine happening? Because this is an area that's going to affect your constituency. And you've written that federal policies should require public companies have active worker participation, making decisions about, hey, I will change jobs and the functions be automated. This is not what he has talked about, for sure. How do you imagine this appointment's going to go? Or is it just another thank you for the money kind of thing that Trump is doing here?

• 53:06Speaker 04

  Well, look, here's where I'm going to try to see if there's any possible common ground. There's been bipartisan commission that has recommended two things. One, we need more compute power in America at public universities. You can't have all the compute power just sitting there with Google and Microsoft, or you're never going to have independent research. And will David be willing to support $10, $20 billion of an investment, which a bipartisan commission has recommended, on AI compute power so that we can stay ahead of China and have research in AI that isn't just consumer focused to shareholders at Google and Microsoft?

• 53:46Speaker 04

  Second area is, you know, the open source of AI models makes it such that Llama, which is, as you know, the Facebook open source, is only about 12 months behind the latest ChatGPT iteration, or the latest Gemini iteration. And so you've got a real danger around the world. Like, we can have export restrictions on the OpenAI, Microsoft, Google things, but if you're going to have an open source that is about 12 months behind, and by the way, if you talk to experts, they'll tell you that that open source is pretty good for military Applications and most applications of AI, then we have a bigger problem in how to secure AI.

• 54:29Speaker 04

  And we need to look at things like securing the physical infrastructure and material for bioweapons and other ways of securing the most sensitive information. That's not a very partisan thing, and I'll try to engage David on that. And then try to engage him on you need safety regulations for AI.

• 54:48Kara Swisher?

  So every show, we get a question from an outside expert. Yours comes from Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. Let's hear it.

• 54:56Speaker 03

  Hey, Roe, given everything that we're seeing in terms of AI harms, like the recent product liability cases against AI companions like character.ai, it seems obvious that we should have some sort of legislation in the US that allows us to incentivize much more responsible innovations. And we all know that one of the biggest pushbacks against AI guardrails are concerns about losing to China. But from one vantage point, we beat China to social media. And did that make us stronger or weaker? And I worry that we're in a similar situation here, where we're not racing towards AI that makes us a better society, but a worse one. So my question for you is, what path forward do you see for Democrats and Republicans to work together to ensure that AI is being built in a way that strengthens American society?

• 55:41Kara Swisher?

  See, that's a nice one.

• 55:42Speaker 04

  He's always so eloquent.

• 55:46Speaker 04

  Here's what I say, I still am optimistic about the uses of AI to develop new drugs, to help tackle educational inequities, to help build new manufacturing. But he's absolutely right that we need to develop AI with appropriate guardrails. And the whole explanation I gave about the development of open source and the vulnerability anyway with China developing those models means that we should be leading to have humanistic values in these AI and in these guardrails. And I don't think that there's a tension between doing that and staying ahead of China. I mean, we need to have our own values in this technology.

• 56:32Kara Swisher?

  But no guardrails yet. Again, no guardrails yet.

• 56:35Speaker 04

  No guardrails, but but this is an area. Look, I don't know if Elon's changed his view, but he did a ex chat with Mike Gallagher and me where he called for an AI regulatory agency and he was on the other side of sort of Andreessen and things on this on AI regulation. Now, I don't know. I haven't talked to him about it.

• 56:49Kara Swisher?

  Well, now he has an AI company, though, so I don't know. Like, again, these conflicts are so intertwined, it's really. And I don't mean to say these people shouldn't have a say in things because they certainly know what they're talking about and what's needed, but it often comes at the expense of their businesses, right? They have they have their own interests, which is problematic.

• 57:08Speaker 04

  I think what would be helpful with Tristan, I mean, I know he's done it, but okay, what are the top three things we can do? My view is very simply, one of them is to label AI-generated content as AI-generated content to require human decision-making and not AI decision-making. But and then, you know, I get that Tristan folks get frustrated because they probably are asked for these lists 100 times and then nothing happens. But we've got to keep keep at it.

• 57:34Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, protect children would be mine. I have two more quick questions, facts. Let's very quickly anti-trust enforcement. You supported Senator Klobuchar's tech anti-trust bill in the Senate, not a similar bill in the House. How come? And Trump's expected to stop the Department of Justice from breaking up Google and generally pull back, although it's in a court right now, so I don't know how much effect he will have, and pull back from the Biden administration's anti-trust enforcement. That said, their designee is is an interesting person who has a lot of respect across the anti-trust community. What do you think's going to happen here with these breakups?

• 58:06Speaker 04

  Look, I supported Lena Khan. I support the president keeping her on it. But I've heard this other person, I don't know her, but I've heard.

• 58:15Kara Swisher?

  Gina Slater.

• 58:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I've heard that she has a fair amount of respect from people who want anti-trust enforcement. I'm all I'm all for the enforcement. The things that Lena Khan went after, I mean, Google shouldn't be allowed to pay Apple to make Google the default browser. I mean, this this is obvious that they.

• 58:35Kara Swisher?

  Google was in the Justice Department under John Cantor. That's the case that they won. The Justice Department won against. Google and the breakup.

• 58:42Speaker 04

  Right. I mean, I think it's on this exclusive agreements with

• 58:46Kara Swisher?

  Yes.

• 58:46Speaker 04

  with with with Apple. And so they should, you know, the the remedy, there are different ways on the remedy, but they shouldn't certainly shouldn't be privileging their own products, and they shouldn't have exclusive agreements. And they there's something that needs to be done on their monopoly when it on search, and they should be that there should be open competition there. And so I'll leave it to the to the judicial process to figure out the exact remedy. But I

• 59:12Kara Swisher?

  Would you would you want to break up? Would you think that's a good solution?

• 59:16Speaker 04

  You know, I would see is are there other remedies first that that that would work? If the judge said, no, the only thing that's going to have fair competition is a breakup, fine. But that's, you know, you don't start with that. You you have a process. And and but I what I will support is someone like Lina Khan, or someone strong antitrust to take aggressive action and to then let the consequences go where where they may be.

• 59:38Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, he's not keeping Lina Khan, just FYI. He's just not.

• 59:41Speaker 04

  But I but on the other side, you know, and and then I get, you know, I think some people say this is why they say, oh, is he established or not? I mean, you can recognize that, you know, Google had two Nobel laureates out of DeepMind, and still believe that they're violating the the law when it comes to open, you know, exclusive contracts with Apple. But the the world isn't, in my view, on tech, black and white. I think we had an overly positive view of them. And now sometimes we have an overly negative view. And the question is, how do you have the right guardrails so that technology is for the good?

• 1:00:12Kara Swisher?

  Stop being complex, Ro. Please stop.

• 1:00:14Speaker 04

  I'm in.

• 1:00:14Kara Swisher?

  Would you stop? That said, they have no laws against them. So maybe one. The Federal Appeals Court, last thing, and then I have one last quick question, obviously, about your running for president. A federal appeals court is denied ByteDance's attempts to overturn the TikTok ban. You voted against the ban. I know that we've had some interesting discussions about it. You're skeptical it's constitutional, but it looks like so far it is. And they have decided that national security trumps the issues around the First Amendment. And you've pointed out, without a privacy bill, the Chinese Communist Party could buy American data legally from data brokers. It is not the solution. But as long as ByteDance possibly answers to Beijing, they could possibly tweak the algorithm. Which is, I think, the worry or other issues. There's all kinds of surveillance issues,

• 1:00:56Kara Swisher?

  tweaking algorithms. We're not likely to get a privacy bill anytime soon. So where do you imagine the TikTok situation going? Trump has flip flopped his opinion on it. He was for it before it was against it.

• 1:01:07Speaker 04

  Follower count, if they keep going up, then it's not going to get banned. If it starts dipping, then it'll get banned. I don't know.

• 1:01:13Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:01:13Speaker 04

  That that's a

• 1:01:14Kara Swisher?

  There's not a lot he can do necessarily.

• 1:01:17Speaker 04

  Well, there's, you know, it's got to be negotiated with China because I would I rather have a sale to an American company? Absolutely. But apparently Xi Jinping needs to sign off on that sale. He has no incentive to sign off on that sale unless the Americans put pressure. And so my guess is it's going to be between Rubio and whoever Xi Jinping's foreign policy is to try to resolve it if the courts don't strike it down. I'm always for having an American company own it. I just thought the law was overbroad by literally shutting down the the app and 175 million Americans if if if we couldn't get a sale. And there are other things we could have done, like criminalizing algorithmic interference or criminalizing the transference of data to the CCP.

• 1:01:58Kara Swisher?

  It's difficult to enforce that, obviously. By the way, you have a big follower count yourself, Ro, on the TikTok, just so you do.

• 1:02:05Speaker 04

  I'm growing. I mean, if it goes further, I'm not complaining. I mean, here's here's the irony of it. Everyone, China is taking, you know, corrupting our youth and they're interfering with our citizens. And then they all go and they vote for the TikTok ban. And you know what? One week later, they do? They all go and tell their staffers, I don't have enough TikTok followers. How do I increase my TikTok followers?

• 1:02:23Kara Swisher?

  Yes.

• 1:02:24Speaker 04

  And you got Kamala Harris and Donald Trump out competing themselves on TikTok. So there is a little bit of hypocrisy in this whole thing, don't you think?

• 1:02:30Kara Swisher?

  It's called a drug addiction is what it is. It's a version of drug addiction. Of course, it is. That's that. That's the whole point is you're so it's so integral to your life that you can't avoid it. And at the same time, it is then running your life, right? That's the that's that's the whole honeypot of it all.

• 1:02:46Speaker 04

  I actually think that is, and Tristan is very thoughtful, as have you been, about the time spent on all of this social media and the internet, where we all get sucked into it and what that's doing to society. Now, people said the same thing about television, but this strikes me as worse unless it's properly managed.

• 1:03:06Kara Swisher?

  Oh, it's more deleterious than anything, and you can't get away from it. You can't eat it for your work. It's addictive and everything else. All right, speaking of your follower count, I have my magic eight ball here, Ro.

• 1:03:16Speaker 04

  Oh, look at that.

• 1:03:18Kara Swisher?

  I'm not going to ask you if you're running for president, but you haven't done anything to tamp down that speculation. I'm going to, let's fight, I'm not going to have you answer whether you're running. I'm going to see what the eight ball says. Reply hazy. Try again. Interesting. Let's try again. Outlook good. So, let's say you run and win. If you run and you win, what's your single most important legislative priority, the one bill that you're willing to spend that political capital on?

• 1:03:45Speaker 04

  How we get Chansey and people like him good-paying jobs. I mean, that would be my north star, whether I win or whether, you know, hopefully it's not J.D. Vance, or whether it's Gavin Newsom, or, you know, Gretchen Whitmer. You know, what can we do to people like Chansey to get them high-paying jobs?

• 1:04:05Kara Swisher?

  And what would that be?

• 1:04:07Speaker 04

  Well, my view is that it's got to be an industrialization and economic mobilization strategy like FDR had, where you get federal financing in all these deindustrialized towns, or you're looking at not just semiconductors or electric vehicles. You have a whole different range of types of industry and jobs that you could have. You announce a program for 100,000 new electricians, beauticians, tradespeople that the jobs corps would do. But, you know, you really create a White House Economic Development Council that thinks about all the places that have been deindustrialized. And then you say, okay, it's not all going to be manufacturing. There could be other types of high-paying jobs. But what are we going to do to have the economic development? It's what saddens me about Trump, because

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  ultimately, I think he diagnosed a lot of anger in this country, and I'm skeptical All that Chancy's life is going to be better four years from now. If it is, more power to him. I'm not, I mean that sincerely. Because you know what, deep down, and maybe I'll end with this, Kara, what's the core motivation?

• 1:05:08Kara Swisher?

  I was just gonna ask you, what is your hope for the Trump administration? What is your biggest worry? But go ahead.

• 1:05:12Speaker 04

  You know what, I'll answer by saying what motivated, deep down, my interest in politics. And it's my grandfather. He spent four years in jail alongside Gandhi's independence movement, fighting for Indian independence. And I thought in America, growing up, Indian American, of Hindu faith in Bucks County, if we became a cohesive, multiracial democracy, that we'd have a more just world, that you wouldn't have the colonizers' model of the world that my father, grandfather, had to struggle against. And that a multiracial America would be a more just America, whether in the Middle East or around the world. That was my calling into politics. And so, if, what I realized is that Obama, who was the most inspirational figure, that he could only get us so far because so many people

• 1:05:54Speaker 04

  were, had economic resentment, there were other resentments, but also economic resentments. And if Trump does anything that can help in towns that have been deindustrialized to improve life, that's going to get us closer to that North Star being this cohesive, multiracial democracy. And if there are things he does on that, I will support them. But ultimately, you know, whether it's Chancy, or five or 10 people like that in the parts of this country, that that should be where politicians are thinking, what can we do to change their prospects?

• 1:06:26Kara Swisher?

  And what's your greatest worry for his administration?

• 1:06:29Speaker 04

  Probably that he put someone like Jamie Raskin in jail because of what that would mean for our democratic norms. I mean, what a terrible precedent that would be. And I don't think he's going to have mass arrests, but even if he did, did a few high-profile folks, and what that would mean in stifling debate and criticism. And second to that, that, you know, we're going to have mass raids of businesses where we're going to be asked, everyone will be asked for their papers. And people that look like me will be asked for their papers, whether they were born here or not. So those are probably the two biggest places of fear.

• 1:07:03Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, it's never good when you're asked for your papers. It's never good. It never ends up well.

• 1:07:09Speaker 04

  My mom, so, you know, when I travel, and now I travel as a member of Congress, my mom, until recently, she says, so, do you have your passport? Can you make sure you don't lose your passport? And at first, I didn't understand it. Then I realized, when you come as an immigrant, those papers have such meaning.

• 1:07:23Kara Swisher?

  They do. You don't need your papers, real.

• 1:07:25Speaker 04

  I don't need it.

• 1:07:26Kara Swisher?

  Not today. Not today. All right, I'll be texting you tonight if you do something I don't like, okay?

• 1:07:32Speaker 04

  I always appreciate that.

• 1:07:34Kara Swisher?

  I'll text you something nice. Scott Galloway complains of the same thing. I will text you something nice sometime when you do something I like. How about that? I'll make a deal with you. All right, thank you so much. I really appreciate you're incredibly thoughtful legislator and I do hope you run for president. I like a lot of various and different people. So, American people get a choice. Anyway, thank you so much.

• 1:07:54Speaker 04

  Thank you, always fun.

• 1:07:59Kara Swisher?

  On With Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro- Mosell, Kateri Yokum, Jolie Myers, Megan Burney, and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Aruda, and our theme music is by Tracademics. If you're already following the show, you get a free Magic 8-Ball. If not, you are part of an unholy alliance of wealth and power. 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 Monday with more.