Jennifer Welch of 'I’ve Had It' Blasts Both MAGA & Centrist Dems

In the year since President Trump won re-election — thanks in part to capitalizing on sitdowns on friendly podcasts — Democrats have been looking for their own answer to the so-called “manosphere.” One of the top contenders has emerged from an unlikely place: bright red Oklahoma. That’s where Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan started their hit podcast, “I’ve Had It.” They’ve interviewed some of the biggest names on the left side of the political spectrum, like former President Obama, New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. Welch in particular has gone viral for testy exchanges with former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Kara and Jennifer talk about what it's like to be a liberal atheist in the Bible Belt, why Jennifer finds centrist Democrats so frustrating, and why she’s skeptical about Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent break with Trump. They also talk about what Democrats get wrong about red states, and what she thinks the party needs to do to appeal to voters outside the coasts and big cities. Please note: The original interview for this episode was taped Friday morning, before Greene announced her decision to resign from Congress and Mamdani met with Trump. We taped a second interview on Saturday morning to get Jennifer’s reaction to the news. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Kara Swisher?

  I really enjoyed your book. I read it last night.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Oh, good.

• 0:03Kara Swisher?

  Is it your running for office book?

• 0:05Speaker 01

  No, I would never. I'd rather earn my money on my back, Kara.

• 0:21Kara Swisher?

  Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. If the 2024 presidential election was the year podcast-dominated legacy media, then it's easy to see why President Trump came out ahead. While Vice President Kamala Harris primarily sought out CNN Town Halls and sit downs with The View, Trump was courting the manosphere in interviews with Joe Rogan and Theo Von. Since Harris's defeat, Democrats have been searching for their own Rogans and Vons, and one of the top contenders has emerged from an unlikely place: Right Red, Oklahoma. I'm talking about the podcast I've had it. It's co-hosted by Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, two white women in their 50s from the suburbs of Oklahoma City. They've interviewed the biggest names in Democratic politics,

• 1:06Kara Swisher?

  like Harris, former President Barack Obama, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and New York City Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani. Welch in particular has gone viral for her combative interviews with New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Jennifer Welch is my guest today. I'm excited to talk to her because she's just really a fresh voice and is a tell-it-like-it-is kind of lady, and that's who I am. I think what really sets her apart is she's very genuine. She doesn't seem calculated. It's the person she is. I suspect she's the same in person as she is on the podcast, and that works really well. And people really seem to be enjoying what she and Angie are doing.

• 1:50Kara Swisher?

  All right, let's get into my interview with Jennifer Welch. Our expert question comes from her dream interview, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. Jennifer is spicy, and she's also much more serious than you think, so don't go anywhere.

• 2:12Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from The Guardian and their new show, Stateside, where journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman use the entire independent reporting resources of The Guardian to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what is actually happening in the world. Join Kai and Carter three times a week as they utilize all the reporting resources The Guardian has across news, international coverage, climate, culture, wellness, and more. And The Guardian's not owned by a billionaire, they fearlessly report the facts without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more and listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's theguardian.com/stateside.

• 2:55Speaker 02

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• 3:27Speaker 03

  I'm Anna 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 Chloe Mal. We talk all about her taking on the top job at Vogue, finding her personal style, and her favorite lunch order in the iconic Conde Nast cafeteria. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers.

• 4:04Kara Swisher?

  We taped our original interview with Jennifer on Friday morning before the love fest between New York City Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani and President Trump in the Oval Office, and before Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene unleashed a hate fest at Donald Trump in announcing her decision to resign from Congress in January. So we had to invite Jennifer back to get her reaction to both the meeting and the resignation. And we're going to start there before we bring you into the rest of the interview. And heads up, she has some creative nicknames. So when you hear her say "Kanks," she's referring to Donald Trump with the nickname "Kankles McTaco Tits."

• 4:46Kara Swisher?

  And for J.D. Vance, the Vice President, "Little Smokey" is short for "Failed Drag Queen, Smokey-Eyed Sociopath."

• 4:57Kara Swisher?

  So Jennifer, I don't know what to say. I'd like your first reaction.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  My first reaction is that Trump has always been a disruptor, first and foremost. And the Republican midterm strategy was Zoran Mamdani is a terrorist jihadist, and he's going to be the face of the Democratic Party.

• 5:21Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  And secondly, Trump likes winners. He likes people that win. And he was able to see the political optics of a man who consistently beat the establishment, consistently beat the millionaire and billionaire class. And his political instincts to ride those coattails were sharper than Chuckles and Hakims.

• 5:45Kara Swisher?

  Right, right. And why do you, what, did he decide that in the moment? Or, because, you know, before he was called, they were calling him Communists, Zoran Mamdani. I think Mamdani, you know, it's interesting because the progressives are sort of attacking Mamdani a little bit, like, oh, he went in and talked to, I'm like, are you kidding? He just saved healthcare. He just saved New York. He just, like, I thought he was respectful, which I think is appropriate. This is the President of the United States, whether you like him or not. And secondly, he pushed back, and then Trump pushed back on his behalf. That was sort of mind-blowing. Like, oh, it's okay, just call me a fascist, you know? It was, I don't want to get too giddy because I'm also like, this guy in three weeks could be invading New York, right?

• 6:27Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 6:28Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  I think that Zoran Mamdani got the psychological file on kinks. And it is go in and flatter him. And I bet that Zoran went in and said, we have a lot of things in common. There are people that wore shirts that said MAGA for Mamdani. People that voted for you voted for me. We both love New York. We're both from Queens. And you helped build New York to what it is. And I want to make it more affordable for everyone. That's why people voted for you. And I interviewed Zoran during the campaign in person in New York. He has megawatt charisma, personality. It's intoxicating.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  And his decency and his goodness radiates off of him. I mean, a once in a generation type candidate.

• 7:21Kara Swisher?

  Right. So Trump was like, it was so interesting because you remember Elon standing next to the desk, like sort of Darth Vader. And then you have this image, which was within a short amount of time. What do you think? You tweeted me, you know, about Stephen Miller. Like, what, what is, what are the rest of them doing right now? Tell me the behind the scenes of that.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I bet Stephen and Katie Miller are on full blown suicide watch.

• 7:45Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  I bet Kristi Noem just doesn't know what to do. I bet it is jealous party of one. Your table is now available for our little smoky eye sociopath, J D Vance. He disrupted the entire thing, both the establishment Democrats, Elise Stefanics bid for governor.

• 8:05Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  The A D L's complaint about Zoran Mamdani, which is rooted in Islamophobia. It's just, it was wild. I couldn't believe it.

• 8:14Kara Swisher?

  Right. And he did it largely because this is a winner. This is a, you know, I predicted it. Let me just say, I was, I thought so, only because he's so handsome and such a winner that this is what attracts Trump. Again, I watched The Apprentice. I know what he likes. He switches on a dime to people. But most of all, everything that was consistent was winner, handsome, great hair. Like that seems to, oh, you know, he has gray hair.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  No, it's true. Carrie, your instincts on that are so true. It boils down to, he saw the imagery that he could be photographed next to a winner and how politically savvy he was to see that. I went to Zoran Mamdani's victory party. And I was so shocked that Chuckles and Hakim, both, you know, New Yorkers, were not on the stage riding this victory's coattails that their political instincts were so off.

• 9:08Kara Swisher?

  Right, right, because of reasons that weren't going to help them with voters, right? So, speaking of voters, and I want to get to Marjorie.

• 9:17Kara Swisher?

  This will help Trump because he's in the basement. I mean, the numbers are so bad. To me, this will help them.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  I completely agree. I think that Zoran Mamdani's race was the canary in the coal mine. Can the people stand up against big money? And there's the richest city in the world, the richest people in the world, colluded together to try to get this man to not win. And he didn't just win, he kicked their asses. And his affordability message is so on point right now. Not last night's Bill Maher, but the one before, last Friday. He tried to do a joke about Zoran Mamdani being the face of the Democratic Party. Crickets in the audience. He's popular. His policies are very, very popular.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  And I do think that Kank's shining that little penny and trying to get some of that glow on him might help him a bit with independents.

• 10:16Kara Swisher?

  Right, with independents, because he looks like he can deal, right? As opposed to being everything else. But of course, it set out like a firestorm within MAGA because they're already mad at him about the Saudis. They were already mad at him about a number of things, right? And the Epstein files. It certainly takes the focus off the Epstein files. This is something that actually does, compared to other things. But then we have Marjorie Taylor Greene making this announcement. Thoughts? First initial thoughts?

• 10:40Speaker 01

  My first initial thought was it reminded me totally of Sarah Palin. When Sarah Palin was the vice presidential candidate with John McCain and she was, you know, in the lower 48 and it's all glam and glitz and she does all these media tours and then she goes back to Alaska. And then she resigns. And so Marjorie just did this huge press blitz. And now she's going back to Congress. And it's interesting, I think the lesson that the Democrats messaging wise can take from this is the left has hated Marjorie Taylor Greene ever since she started running, ever since she bullied David Hogg.

• 11:22Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, Jewish space lasers.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  And all of that stuff. And she's never been scared for her life until the right started bullying her.

• 11:30Kara Swisher?

  Right, right, exactly. Yeah. So you think it's out of fear, you know, AOC immediately said, oh, she got her pension. She's going to get her pension. She made, I think, $25 million with the allegations in stock trades. And, you know, it was interesting because here's a poem, this is something that was online. I loved all the online stuff, though. Were you, like, eating every bit of it up last night?

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Injecting it into my veins, Kara. It was so good.

• 11:55Kara Swisher?

  So funny. So he wrote, "These people are insane, but also good riddance. But also good for her for standing up for herself. But also, sheesh, that was a poem you just wrote." Like, that's how I felt. Like, it was, it was, let me, let me play her resignation announcement, too, because I, I, people, she said, "This isn't 3D chess. This, I'm not up to something." Let's listen.

• 12:17Speaker 04

  I do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president that we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms and in turn be expected to defend the president against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me. It's all so absurd and completely unserious. I refuse to be a battered wife, hoping it all goes away and gets better.

• 12:51Kara Swisher?

  Whoa, pulling out the battered wife. It's a populist tone. She complains about both parties, how they're broken, not doing enough to help the... There was many more. She put out a lot of stuff. She was up all night, right? Crafting this stuff, I guess. She makes it clear she's still opposed to immigration, access to abortion, and trans rights. There's no change there. Trump said this was great news for the country. It's great. Steve Bannon told the New York Times, "The House is not big enough for her ambitions, personality. We haven't seen or heard the last of her." You know, she had several key quotes. I'd love you to respond to them. "Loyalty should be a two-way street. Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich, powerful men should not result in being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States whom I fought for." You know, she went on and on and on. And this battered wife thing.

• 13:36Kara Swisher?

  I mean, thoughts? What's happening here?

• 13:39Speaker 01

  I've long thought that she was going to run for higher office. And I don't think it's Senate. I think it's president. And you just told me something I hadn't heard. I heard it for the first time just now, that Steve Bannon, that quote that he just said about the Congress isn't big enough for her ambitions. And when I saw Marjorie with Steve Bannon, I thought to myself, Steve Bannon was the brains, the Karl Rove, if you will, behind Kenx's ascension. And Steve Bannon loves populism. He loves conspiracy theories. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is playing that playbook perfectly right now.

• 14:17Kara Swisher?

  What does she do? What is the next thing she does? Goes on CNN, gets a contract to be on cable. So she's...

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think she continues the rebrand because she has quite a bit to do. And I anticipate that she is going to offer an off-ramp to Republican voters who felt betrayed by Trump, who are in financial ruins, but still package it up with, "We're nicer, but we still hate trans people. We're still America first. We still need to deport, you know, immigrant children." And Republicans are comfortable in that zone. They're comfortable where you can give them a little bit of compassion with a little bit of bigotry.

• 14:57Kara Swisher?

  And zero Epstein.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 14:59Kara Swisher?

  And zero Epstein, because she's, you know, fought again. That I do think that fight is genuine in that regard. I don't think she's taking advantage. I mean, she is also.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Don't you think it's wild, Cara, that she ascended because she was a QAnon her? Because she was against the elite cabal of pedophiles? And then she gets inside the Death Star.

• 15:20Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  And she finds out the elite cabal of pedophiles are the people that she campaigned for.

• 15:26Kara Swisher?

  Oh, no, it's a movie. It's a movie. It's a.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 15:29Kara Swisher?

  It is. So, so what is her next move? What do you, what does she fade away for a little bit? Because she, you know, one of the things about, as you know, about the modern media environment, which I think Mamdani and Trump do well, um, is, uh, is to constantly be present, like in people's minds. So if you were advising her, what would you say to her? I know. I'm sorry.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  No. Okay. All right. If I were advising her, I would tell her to move quickly and have a book that put where she took accountability for everything. Think about Barack Obama. Yes, I did cocaine. Yes, I smoked marijuana. He got ahead of it. So a book where she basically deprograms herself. She can have a ghostwriter write it while she stays in media. I agree with you. She needs to be ubiquitous on podcasts, on cable news. Um, she needs to blow up her social media. But I think she needs to put it in writing to get on offense of all of her former crazy positions and offer a lot of well-meaning people in rural America and suburban America,

• 16:34Speaker 01

  who their only piece of culture are their churches. And offer them an off-ramp that we can still be compassionate. And we got sucked into this cult and we were lied to by Trump. But our party is still here and our values are still here. And we get to still hate immigrants together, but just more compassionately.

• 16:53Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Kind of like a George W. Bush compassionate conservatism thing.

• 16:57Kara Swisher?

  Mm hmm. And then she runs for president against.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:00Kara Swisher?

  Smokey Eye. Smokey? Was it Little Smokey?

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Little Smokey.

• 17:03Kara Swisher?

  Little Smokey. And what is that last thing? Where does this put him? Because you can see Cruz working with this, or any of the others. And obviously, Elise Stefanic is screwed. And Kathy Hochul put a knife in her back really beautifully. She's full of shit. I kind of like Kathy Hochul these days. But what happens to these different stars? Because it would be J.D. Vance, there's Josh Hawley, there's... What does Vance do? Because it really does put him on his... He's totally bought into everything with Trump. So much so that he seems like a suck-up. You know, and Mondani somehow got Trump to pose in front of FDR, the greatest socialist president, right?

• 17:45Kara Swisher?

  The one who... That was... I was like, I'm glad people did notice that. I was like...

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Kara, did you see where he posted on Truth Social a solo?

• 17:54Kara Swisher?

  A solo, yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  A glamour shot of Zohar posing by himself?

• 17:58Kara Swisher?

  I know.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  This is a crush.

• 18:00Kara Swisher?

  And also with the back, did you see the back in looking over the, I guess, the Trump patio? I don't know what's back there now.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:06Kara Swisher?

  But like, the two of them, like, he's handing over the reins. That photo was, "Son, this patio, this Mar-a-Lago patio shall be yours someday." And you could hear the bubble above Zohar Mondani, "This will be gone someday." But that was like a son-father kind of photo, which was, I'm sure that Trump boys were just weeping.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  It was wild. I don't know if Trump is calculating, like, somehow, legacy stuff. I mean, he's a lame duck. You know, and I go both ways. Dictators think they're going to cling on to power forever, and they never see them ever leaving, nor is there any plan. There's no succession plan. Or is he kind of colluding with, not colluding, that Zohar is participating in, but optically saying, "Okay, you know, there's room in America for all of these places." But as it pertains to the people, Moses Mike Griner Johnson, Little Smokey, the ones that are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic with canks, Kara. These people's careers will be...

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Be over. I just do not see that there is oxygen. We're 10, 11 months in to this shit show. And the wreckage and the carnage already. I don't see that the electorate is even remotely going to allow for any successor that remain loyal to the cult. Once biology takes care of him or the term limit.

• 19:33Kara Swisher?

  Right. So he's getting out before them. He's such a, he is fleeing his ship with this. That's what I thought. I'm like, look what he just did. Like, I liked him slightly more. Like, I know it sounds crazy. I don't like him very much at all, but, but the, when he looked up at him, it was, I was like, wow, this guy will do anything to reinvent himself.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  It was, I, somebody put on Twitter yesterday, I haven't seen Trump this happy since the McDonald's buffet at the White House. And it was a picture of McDonald, of Trump in front of all the McDonald's buffet, Kara, and he's like, grinning ear to ear, but the photo of him looking up adoringly at Zoran.

• 20:15Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  I, that's wild.

• 20:17Kara Swisher?

  It is wild.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  I don't think, and you heard Fox News when they, they were giddy. They went back, that one, I can't remember the guy's name, but he's the one who suggested we, that we should euthanize, kill meat. We should euthanize homeless people.

• 20:29Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  After he sees it, it clicks to him and he's giddy and he's giggling. He's, well, J D Vance probably sure is so jealous.

• 20:35Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Even Fox is throwing little Smokey under the bus, Kara.

• 20:39Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, yeah. Smokey is repugnant, so I could see that. I could see that. And as you know, Trump knows political popularity and he just goes right to it. I just am like, I didn't think the first person off the ship would be the captain, but I guess so. Captain does not go down with this ship. That is what I thought. I was like, he's, the rest of them. And he like sails away to his future and stuff. He's got to pay any price whatsoever. And it does knock Epstein off, like, for a second, although that's not going to go away. And let me be clear with people. He might still invade New York with National Guard, even though he's losing everywhere from a, from a legal perspective, but, he's still Donald Trump. Let's be clear. Like, and you never know where that's going. And all I thought is the meds.

• 21:25Kara Swisher?

  Everyone's meds have kicked in this week in some fashion.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  I'm sure Stephen Miller. I had some physician on speed dial immediately. I mean, because you picture ketchup being thrown when bad things happen at the White House. And I thought about Stephen Miller, just, I mean, just

• 21:42Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, that's the first thing you texted me.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Suicide watch, full blown suicide watch, because this is the remedy. Multiculturalism, embrace, um, different faiths. He embraced Zorron in such a loving, adoring way. This is the remedy to all of the white supremacy in which Stephen Miller views his plans for the United States.

• 22:09Kara Swisher?

  Okay, last question. What do the Dems do now? You've talked about, um, what do they do at this point? Because they, they, he managed to like, sort of attack the Republicans and the Democrats by doing this. And, and whatever you think of Marjorie Greene, she's out of his hair, right? For now, at least.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  I think

• 22:29Kara Swisher?

  I mean, she's out of his hair completely.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  The Democrats have got to watch Ro Khanna. He is outflanking every single one of them all the time. He's everywhere. He's on podcasts, he's on the news. We need our democratic establishment to quit focusing on focus groups. It's not focus groups anymore. That is an old antiquated way of learning about people. You can learn about people by simply listening to podcasts, looking at comments. And the Democrats are going to have to embrace every single democratic candidate that wins, whether it's a centrist in Virginia or a democratic socialist in, uh, New York. But you know what's interesting?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  This tells you how bad Hakeem Jeffries' political instincts are.

• 23:18Kara Swisher?

  The vote.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  While Trump is Krispy Kreme glazing Zorron in the Oval, Hakeem is voting to condemn socialism, just the bullshit performative stuff

• 23:31Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  that they do in Congress that nobody gives a shit about.

• 23:35Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  And Hakeem is doing that, and he's constantly falling into their traps, the Republicans. And he gets outflanked all the time. And this time, he gets outflanked by a fascist who Zorron put on such a charm offensive. Trump said, it's okay. Go ahead.

• 23:51Kara Swisher?

  Go ahead.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Call me a fascist. Zorron's like

• 23:53Kara Swisher?

  Call me a despot.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:54Kara Swisher?

  Okay. Yeah, because they both look good. I hate to say it, but they both look good. And you're right, Hakeem Jeffries, I was like, are you kidding me? I already think those things are dumb. Anyway, Jennifer, I'm so glad you came back because I was like, I must speak with him about these things.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:10Kara Swisher?

  Um, so I don't know what's gonna happen Monday, but let me just say it's we I, the only thing I thought of as I was, as I was reading all this one thing after the next, it was a dinner was, you can't go to dinner, first of all, was, uh, we are actually in a simulation and some really bored teenager from the future is like going, oh, here's what I'm gonna do today. That's the first time I was like, this is not real. This cannot be real, but it is.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  It was wild and a much needed, uh, salve for our tormented brains and hearts of what happens every day, being an American and the instability that we feel on a daily basis.

• 24:49Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, you felt good for a second, like, yeah, we can get along, I guess, even if even a fascist and a socialist can get along.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  But like you said, Kara, this could all switch with one truth, a social post.

• 25:00Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  The minute we click not to record any longer.

• 25:03Kara Swisher?

  If someone else gets to him and then tries to convince him. Anyway, I'm eager to hear your show about what all the Oklahomans think of this. You're there for the next, uh, for the next week, so I'm sure it'll be interesting to see their reaction.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:15Kara Swisher?

  To all this. Anyway, thank you so much, Jennifer. I really appreciate you coming back.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Thank you, Kara.

• 25:21Kara Swisher?

  Okay, let's get into it.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Jennifer, thanks for coming on, on. Thanks for having me, Kara. I think you're very cool. And so I feel cooler being on your podcast.

• 25:34Kara Swisher?

  Oh, stop it. You're the cool one right now. You're in like the center of the red hot. Did you expect this success so quickly?

• 25:39Speaker 01

  No, I did not. Um, we originally started just shit talking, you know, stuff that, that is a grievance to anybody, but

• 25:49Kara Swisher?

  Toddlers are assholes. That was the one, really.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  They are. I mean, you love them and they're important, but God, they can be assholes.

• 25:56Kara Swisher?

  I just had one of those encounters this morning. That's why.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:59Kara Swisher?

  Overshoots.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  As you start seeing, uh, what's happening politically, I've always been a diehard political junkie and Rather outspoken about it and I can't help but for these opinions to come out of me. And so I thought maybe it would be kind of a niche political thing, not that I would, we would have this type of platform.

• 26:23Kara Swisher?

  Popularity.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:24Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, yeah. So you and your co-host Angie Sullivan, who's not here, how dare her, have two podcasts. There's, she's doing some with her kids. There's a flagship show, I've had it, and also the shorter daily podcast, I Hip News. You've got about four million followers across all your platforms and you've added more than a million subscribers to YouTube since the election. So Democrats have started to realize that they need to be talking to the voters on independent media, but there's a lot of hesitation and fear and it seems like they still prefer legacy media. I keep saying my podcast is bigger than your show. Like, I'm sorry. I mean, you know what I mean? So talk about your pitch to sort of leery Democrats. They've always talked about creating, you know, a left Joe Rogan and here you are.

• 27:07Kara Swisher?

  Like, they wouldn't ever imagine that that's what you are in some ways.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I don't think I'm the left Joe Rogan because although I like trash talk, I don't traffic in conspiracy theories, which I think is really, really dangerous. But I do think that-

• 27:22Kara Swisher?

  You know their point. Their point is powerful.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Yes. I do think that Democrats have, establishment Democrats have the appearance right now of being a conservative party because they are preserving old tactics that they've used forever. Focus groups, disciplined messaging, word salad, platitudes. And corporate media allows them to go on and non-answer things and then they go to the next question and the next question. And they're not evolutionary in following the changing media landscape.

• 27:54Kara Swisher?

  The audience.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Right. And people want to know the people that deliver their news. They want to know something about me personally. They want to know something about you personally. We've, with these phones, we've gotten a little nosier and the same goes for politicians. We want to see them off the cuff. If they misstep, no big deal. And so some politicians- ...are great. They come on. I've noticed the politicians, like an example, Ro Khanna. He doesn't take any corporate PAC money. He'll come on anytime. We don't have to have a, you know, what are we going to talk about beforehand? He's just completely liberated.

• 28:28Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, he's promiscuous. I joke with him about it. I said, you have to be promiscuous in this. And speaking of being on your back, you know, you have to really be everywhere, essentially.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. And I think it's a great way for Democrats to evolve. And if they misstep, to be able to embrace, yeah, I was on there, we were spitballing. What I really mean is this. And look at how the Republicans/MAGA movement have evolved in that regard. Look at how far they've moved in that regard. And when I think about back in the day, it was the appearance that the liberals controlled all of the news. So the right built this massive media ecosystem.

• 29:07Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, they were left out.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. And now you see that the Trump oligarch friends, billionaire buddies are buying up all of the mainstream media. And we're the left out ones now. And so I'm so happy to collaborate with any podcaster, pro-democracy person on the left, because I see us all as allies that are messaging to a part of the electorate that is hurting, that feels targeted, that is grieving what they thought the promise of America is, not to mention the financial anxiety that so many Americans are struggling from. And I see, and you probably see this with your audience, we're building communities, and it's so important to feel connected when

• 29:53Speaker 01

  you see so much injustice.

• 29:54Kara Swisher?

  Well, it's a parasocial relationship in a weird way, but it isn't. It isn't that it's one way, because we just finished this seven-city and seven-day tours with Pivot. And the community was what the critical part. We sold out everything. And a lot of regular media people call me in, they're like, how did you do that? I'm like, how did you not do this? Like, you're sitting in these airless studios, broadcasting essentially corporate media and what the, especially with the Democrats. I said, it's boring. It's not interesting. It's not. But when, how do you get them to understand that independent media is where audiences? I think they kind of vaguely get it, and then they create these laboratories, like, we'll give $100,000 to figure it out. I'm like, it's already figured out. It's

• 30:36Kara Swisher?

  not, I don't know. It's very frustrating when I'm talking to a lot of them.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've experienced the same thing. When I start, when we have a politician on and I get an email from one of their aides that wants the talking points, like this is, this is not going to be that great of a guest because you need to be able to come in and have a conversation with our audience, open to anything, just like you and I, we don't have talking points before I came on here, I don't know what you're going to ask me. And that's what garners trust for you with your audience and for my audience that comes over here to be introduced to you if they don't know you yet, which I can't imagine they wouldn't. But they need to liberate themselves, and I think it goes like this, if they could liberate themselves from corporate donations, they could liberate themselves conversationally.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  They're so inhibited and they walk on eggshells. And that's why the Democratic establishment, to me, feels like the party of preservation. We want to preserve the way it's always been. We want to preserve the status quo. Instead of evolving and becoming completely unobstructed conversationally, and in turn they'll become a lot more likeable and electable.

• 31:46Kara Swisher?

  So you talked about who's getting it right. Who's getting it wrong? I mean, whenever I see a social media thing by either Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries, I want to just cringe. It's like massive, like, what are you doing? You know, unless he really leaned into grandpa, right? I wouldn't mind that as much as what's happening. It's like being grandpa and then pretending you're not grandpa. That, that really irritates me. But how do they get it wrong? And who else is getting it right?

• 32:14Speaker 01

  So I think the people that are getting it wrong are obviously Jeffries, Schumer, Cory Booker came onto our podcast and completely misstepped.

• 32:23Kara Swisher?

  What did he do?

• 32:24Speaker 01

  So I asked him, what have you had it with? And he said he'd had it with corporate PAC donations. And I said, well, don't you take money from AIPAC? And then the defenses started coming up. I asked him a very simple yes or no question. Do you think Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal? And the answer to that question is yes. And he couldn't answer it. He kept going on and on and on, and we kind of got into it. And there, if you think about it, there's been three missteps from establishment Democrats on podcasts surrounding this issue. Gavin Newsom was asked about AIPAC, and he says the word interesting, interesting, interesting nine times, you counted out. Pete Buttigieg, who is a gifted orator, kind of faceplants on Pod Save and Cory Booker

• 33:09Speaker 01

  faceplanted on our podcast and it went completely viral. And so I think that, again, it goes back to when you're beholden to very few, this is a very transparent media platform. You get exposed very quickly if you start BSing. The bullshit meter is instantly detectable. And so I think it's good that the ones that are getting it wrong right now, come on, see what the base is saying. Quit focus grouping, get yourself out into the American public and see how it goes and change and evolve. And as a base, we have to be somewhat forgiving if they misstep and come back and clean up

• 33:52Speaker 01

  because as much as Chuckles and Hakeem drive me crazy, they are the leaders that we have. They are who we have. And so I'm cheering for them to succeed. So if they can clean up their kind of embarrassing, cringey posts and become more relatable, I'm going to cheerlead for them, but I'm also not going to be a sycophant for them and just go along with, boy, they wrote a strongly worded letter, go get them Chuckles.

• 34:18Kara Swisher?

  Right, the strongly, that was Chuckles yesterday. Strongly worded letter. I really mean it. And meanwhile, Trump's like knocking down the White House. Let's talk a little about them in just a second, but let's talk about your background. You were born and raised in Oklahoma and lived there up until last month, but you were an odd person out, a liberal atheist in the conservative Bible Belt. Talk about your political isolation as a young person and recently as an adult with kids during the Trump era.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was always the skunk at the garden party in the Bible Belt. I was raised by atheists. My mother is a voracious reader, learner. We always had the most stimulating conversations.

• 35:00Kara Swisher?

  How'd they get there?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  So my mother, born in Dallas, Texas, and she had a very mentally ill mother, probably borderline personality disorder.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  And her mother was was really cruel to her. And my mother was around seven years old and she lost this little purse. And she lost it at church. And my mother just prayed and prayed and prayed. God, please help me find this purse. You know how mean she's going to be to me. This can be terrible, this can be terrible, this can be terrible. Lo and behold, her prayers went unanswered. And she never found the purse. She paid for it for years because her mother would be the type of person that would bring it up over and over and over and just browbeat her for it. And at her young age, in that kind of Dallas evangelical Christian world, she just sniffed it out that it wasn't real.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  So then she started taking the bus to the library when she was a teenager and just reading about religion and all of this stuff. And she, at a very young age, became an atheist and never bought into any of it. And growing up in my house, because when you live in the Bible Belt and your peers are evangelical Christians, their number one goal is not helping the poor, not helping the sick. It is to recruit you.

• 36:27Kara Swisher?

  Recruit, recruit, recruit.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  It is to proselytize.

• 36:29Kara Swisher?

  Right, yeah.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  So it was really difficult for me sometimes as a teenager because all of my friends were really, really, really religious. And I'm talking like spiritual warfare. I would go to slumber parties and a girl that I was at the slumber party would say, I can feel the presence of a demon in the corner of the room.

• 36:49Kara Swisher?

  That would be you?

• 36:56Kara Swisher?

  Was it a K-pop demon?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 36:58Kara Swisher?

  Anyway.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  But and all of that just seems so insane. So I would toy.

• 37:03Kara Swisher?

  Why did she stay there? Why did your parents stay there?

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, my dad had business there. And my mother is not super social. Her best friend is cuddled up with a book. My dad does a lot of business in Belgium and Holland. He flies racing pigeons, which is kind of an old, old. Sport, but it's very, very popular in Belgium and Holland, very, very popular. And my dad was the world's largest seller and breeder of racing pigeons. So he needed to live on a lot of land.

• 37:35Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Because he didn't want, you couldn't have neighbors.

• 37:38Kara Swisher?

  Those racing pigeons need a lot of space.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  They need a lot of space. And so they would go to Europe multiple times a year. My dad lived over there a lot of the time. They were from Dallas. Both came from working class, middle-class families, entrepreneurs. And they became very successful. We became an upper-middle-class family. But moving wasn't ever in the cards for them.

• 38:01Kara Swisher?

  Right, this is where they were. And so you were subjected to that, but raised by, your dad also was not religious, correct?

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 38:08Kara Swisher?

  So here you are, stuck here in the middle of nowhere, essentially, for you, from your perspective, doing the same thing, reading, being aware of this. Did you ever think about becoming evangelical?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Yes. So my very first boyfriend, his name was Sean. And I was just madly in love with him, as every teenager is with their first boyfriend. And Sean's dad was a retired Southern Baptist preacher. And Sean's mother was very concerned that he was dating an infidel. So she bought me a Precious Moments Bible.

• 38:41Kara Swisher?

  Oh, I've seen that.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:42Kara Swisher?

  I have, I have religious relatives, go ahead.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  So I started to read it. My mother was just horrified. I mean, just like, I cannot believe the nerve of this woman, Jennifer, to buy you a Bible. That's just unbelievable. And Sean's dad was retired, but he was only like in his mid-40s. And he just didn't have his life together. They were broke, the mom had to go back to work. And the whole thing, I mean, they weren't very good representatives of...

• 39:08Kara Swisher?

  Of the evangelical.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Right. So my mother was very fascinated by Sean's dad and his kind of economic decline, his mental decline, all of these things. So my mother spent, this is before the internet, spent time at the library and comes back, she says, Jennifer, she's real dramatic, she says, "Darling, I've diagnosed Sean's father. I believe he suffered from religious addiction. Here are these symptoms." And she's printed this article about religious addiction. And she's printed all the symptoms. And he had every single one of them.

• 39:40Kara Swisher?

  Oh, wow.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  So at every turn that I tried to maybe try to fit in. If you're not indoctrinated, it's a really hard pill to swallow.

• 39:48Kara Swisher?

  Right, yeah.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  The creation story and all of that, if you don't, if that doesn't enter your psyche, young.

• 39:53Kara Swisher?

  No, my grandmother, on my dad's side, they're all very religious. And my aunt in particular was very religious and always sent me stuff. But we were sent, over the summer, I have 10 cousins, when we stayed at my grandmother's, to Bible camp. And my mom is Catholic and she was horrified. She's like, why are they sending you to Baptist? But it was really fascinating. You know, I found it riveting and they kept trying to get me. And it just never stuck. Neither did the Catholics, by the way, and they're much more of a soft sell, right?

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:24Kara Swisher?

  And at one point, when my aunt died, I just thought of this. You know, they did the service. It was very Jesus-y, very, I was in West Virginia and like, fine, this is their way and stuff like that. And I, you know, I sat there, I put up, I was like, okay, more Jesus, more Jesus. And then we get to the cafeteria where you're going to eat the food afterwards. And I was really hungry. It was a long service. And then the pastor, who's standing next to me, again, I didn't realize, starts doing more of it. And I said, oh, for goodness sake, have we had enough Jesus? And I said it out loud. And I was like, and then I go, never enough Jesus. Like, it was terrible. But when you met Angie, your co-host, she was a conservative evangelical.

• 41:07Kara Swisher?

  And the book you two published earlier this year, Life is a Lazy Susan of Shit Sandwiches. And may I say, the finest title in the land. You wrote about having to put up with a hard boundary to get her to stop recruiting you to the church. And she obviously isn't conservative anymore, but you converted her, I guess. But in the early days, you bonded over other things, your kids, your difficult marriages. And also, it wasn't weird to be friends with people who voted differently than you then. But had you met Angie during the Trump era, would either of those things have outweighed your political differences? Do you see that happening?

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Probably it would have because it was when I met Angie, we were in the exact same season. We both married two attorneys. Both of these attorneys had a lot of interpersonal problems. We had kids the exact same age and we had fantastic chemistry and I really enjoyed her. But sometimes she would recruit me so heavily to go to Bible study and wouldn't respect the boundary because and her and I'm not picking on her.

• 42:05Kara Swisher?

  What would you say?

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Well, like here's a prime example, Cara. We went to take the kids to toddler gymnastics because you're always trying to run the toddlers out so they'll go to sleep at night.

• 42:13Kara Swisher?

  Yes, I get it.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  So she had asked me to go to Bible study. I said, no, pick me up after Bible study. We'll take the kids to the pizza buffet and then we'll take them to gymnastics. She picks me up. This is a lawyer and she pumps us smart. And she said, did you know that people used to live to be 950 years old? And I go, Angie, that never fucking happened. It never happened. People live longer now because of two things, filtered water and modern medications. Those are the two reasons we live longer. Nobody ever lived to be 950. She said, well, there wasn't disease in the Garden of Eden. And I said, according to whom? And she said,

• 42:55Speaker 01

  well, the Bible. And it was just this insanity. And sometimes after something like that happened, all of my friends in Oklahoma, I had found solace in a gaggle of gay men because they had been kind of picked on and shamed by the same group of evangelicals that had been targeting me. And I'm a decorator and like clothes and, you know, gay men and I just get along.

• 43:19Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Perfectly.

• 43:20Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, I have a friend in Tennessee, same thing.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so sometimes I would pull away from her a little bit because the overt religiosity was was so much. But she was so good and finally respected the boundary and we never got into it. We never had an adversarial conversation about it. Never. It was all very civilized, but I would just slowly start dropping hints. Like I remember we went to the, we went to the dinosaur museum in Norman, Oklahoma at the University of Oklahoma. And we took our kids and we're looking at the dates of how long ago these dinosaur bones lived. And I said, isn't that something that this predates the Garden of Eden? And she would kind of chuckle a little bit.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  So we kind of had this tongue in cheek thing back and forth. But she called me about three years ago. And I'll never forget it. I was sitting in my interior design office and she called me and she said, Jennifer, I need to tell you something really important. I've been talking to my therapist about. And Angie's never dramatic like this. And I was like, okay, what is it? And she said, after my dad died, I just don't think that he's in heaven. And I said, you don't think he's in heaven because he's in hell? Or you don't think he's in heaven because you don't believe in heaven? And she said, I don't believe in heaven. And she started crying because of the grief associated with with that.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  And I just comforted her and said, you know, I love you. I know this has been a huge part of your life, you know? Are you, what do you think? She says, I just think so much of this has been bullshit. I did everything I was supposed to do my whole life. I did everything right and prayer. She was a good little girl and all of the things. And it was just like the title of our book, A Shit Sandwich. And so I called my mother after this and I told her, because my mother would always say, Jennifer, she's in her Dallas accent. She'd say, Jennifer, I think Angie's just darling, but as you all age, she'll become more religious and I'm sure that you're, you know, go a separate way. So I told my mother that Angie had been in the process unbeknownst to me of deconstructing

• 45:33Speaker 01

  her faith with her psychotherapist. And my mother was so great. She said, Jennifer, you need to be really supportive because there's a lot of grief involved in this, like she's grieving. It's like a death.

• 45:44Kara Swisher?

  It is, it is. Yeah, it's a really interesting thing, especially because it's critically important. And I have a lot of respect. My grandmother was, went to mass every day, a Catholic, and my aunt was the loveliest person you could meet, but almost constantly trying to recruit, you know, it was a really interesting thing. And at one point, she said, "Jesus died for you." And I said, "I didn't ask him." I was joking, obviously, but it was hard. And it was, it definitely gave her comfort. And the same thing with my grandmother, which is why I was respectful of it. And actually, I was confirmed, you know, I did the whole thing, the First Holy Communion, the First Holy Confession. But the day I was confirmed, I walked out of that church at 12, 13 years old. I never walked back in since.

• 46:29Kara Swisher?

  We'll be back in a minute.

• 46:39Kara Swisher?

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• 47:23Kara Swisher?

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• 47:43Kara Swisher?

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• 48:27Kara Swisher?

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• 48:56Kara Swisher?

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• 50:02Kara Swisher?

  You and Angie launched the I've Had It podcast in 2022. And as you said, it didn't start off overly political, but it very much became one. The left-wing Twitch streamer Hassan Piker called I've Had It the most radical progressive podcast in North America, and that's saying a lot from Hassan. As the show became more popular, you're still taking your son to basketball games. You're interacting with a lot of parents in Oklahoma, probably may not know about it or think you're a bad person. You're running your interior design business. Why did you start it? And what impact did it have on your lives in Oklahoma as it started to blow up?

• 50:37Speaker 01

  You know, it didn't have a whole lot of impact on our lives in Oklahoma. Oklahoma City is an exact microcosm of the whole United States electorate. We voted in our city just one percentage more red than we did blue. And so you have, and you know this from your family and having people in red states. If you're a blue dot in a red state, you're built a little different. You're a tough style of liberal. So I have a lot of fabulous progressive friends in Oklahoma, and I had this, you know, I still have the same friends now that I did before the podcast. Now, sometimes at basketball games, I would hear, parents that I knew were triple Trumpers,

• 51:21Speaker 01

  that I knew were mega churchers, would say something like, I was like, I'm sorry I missed the last game, I was out of town. They would say, where were you? And I'd say, oh, I was in New York. And they would say, were you scared? Are you okay? And I knew it was an immediate Fox News. But in general terms, people are pretty polite. Nobody has ever said something to my face disparaging in Oklahoma. Oklahomans are very friendly people. I think a lot of the vitriol we see are keyboard warriors, more than anything. But it really didn't change my life in Oklahoma much. But here's one thing, a lot of people, a lot of women, a lot of men, that really surprised

• 52:04Speaker 01

  me, that I thought for sure were Republicans, come up and they whisper, keep doing what you're doing. I love every bit of it.

• 52:12Kara Swisher?

  Wow, when you were there. But you moved to Manhattan, that scary, terrifying place of wonder and fantasticness, after your youngest son started college in Los Angeles. But in your book, you talked about feeling really conflicted about leaving there. You cited your parents and your friends, these friends you're talking about, as a reason for staying. To what extent are you worried that doing a podcast from New York will change how people receive it? Because I think one of the most appealing things was that it wasn't coming from the coastal media bubbles of Washington DC or New York City or Los Angeles. That was something new. Talk about that move.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  So I had always wanted to, I'd longed to live in a big city. Every time I would leave Oklahoma City, and I love Oklahoma City, but every time I would leave.

• 52:57Kara Swisher?

  Right, because everything's up to date there.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 52:59Kara Swisher?

  I don't know, it's gone about as far as they could go.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  And I just would, I just felt like, God, I really want, I really want to live in a big city. And there's this stereotype that is thrust upon women, so many things are thrust upon us, that we have to, roles we have to fill. And one of them is that when you're an empty nester, you're just sent off to the pasture, your eggs are no longer good, and you're supposed to be somewhat depressed with, you know, your chickens out of the nest, et cetera, et cetera. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to rent an apartment in New York for a year. Why not? Why not have a midlife gap year? Why not do it? Why do I have to do what society has put on me? We started a new career midlife.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Why can't I sign a lease for a year and see if I like it or not? I might end up running back to Oklahoma City. I may end up staying and extending it. But why not try to do something different? And I've been up here for six weeks now, and I love it. I absolutely love it. I'm heading.

• 54:02Kara Swisher?

  Where are you living? What part of the city?

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Chelsea.

• 54:04Kara Swisher?

  Oh, fantastic.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I brought my dogs, my French Bulldogs up here because I'm happiest in their company. And it's just been, my husband is going back, back and forth. He's a criminal defense attorney and we're, our marriage is very battle tested. He's, I supported him through his efforts to get sober and he's been so supportive of me. He's like, it's your turn. And it's, we finally have a, a big kid relationship.

• 54:32Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  And so that's been really cool.

• 54:34Kara Swisher?

  And what do you miss about Oklahoma City?

• 54:36Speaker 01

  Tennis. I play tennis every day.

• 54:38Kara Swisher?

  You can play tennis. There's some fantastic, haven't you seen, there are tennis courts in New York.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  They're so expensive and difficult to get. In Oklahoma City, I can go every day on my lunch hour, podcasting or designing. I would go and play tennis and there's just something very therapeutic. I'm not that good at it either. But I'd hit with a pro, grunt as I hit the ball, pretend like I'm, you know, a professional and I'm nowhere near that. But I, I exercise every day. I miss the ease, uh, no traffic.

• 55:10Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, of getting in the car.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  The ease in which you can move about. But in general, I think my personality type, I'm better suited in a big multicultural city. What's been so cool, Cara, yesterday, I'm walking to the gym and this guy on a bike, brown skinned, I don't know, Latino, Arabic or whatever. He turns his bike around and comes, he goes, hey lady, lady, I've had it lady. And this happens like four or five times a day. And he said, can I get a selfie? And I said, yes. And he grabbed my hand and he said, thank you for fighting for us. It means everything. And I just think that's really cool.

• 55:50Kara Swisher?

  I get stopped like that a lot.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:52Kara Swisher?

  In fact, I was just at the hardware store three times. That was really interesting.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  A lesbian at a hardware store.

• 55:57Kara Swisher?

  I love a hardware store. Oh, yeah, I know. I, I'm not even going to pretend it's not. It's a cliche, but it's true. It's fair. But I don't like sports. So, you know, I'm just keeping guessing, keeping guessing. But let's talk about the podcast. The tone is, you know, blunt, irreverent, which I think you're exactly the way you are, which is why it works. It's genuine. There's a lot of swearing, which I enjoy. And you have fantastic nicknames for Republicans. President Trump is Cankles McTaco Tits, uh, Kanks for short. I actually like Kanks better. I don't know why. Uh, House Speaker Mike Johnson is Moses Mike Grinder Johnson.

• 56:29Kara Swisher?

  So good. It's funny. Do you care about turning off conservatives or moderate women who might be open to reconsidering, like people like Angie? Is there, there's an old expression that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but you're catching lots of flies with vinegar. I mean, how do you come up with these names? And how do you, how do you, they seem very natural. So I'm not, it's not a stunt. This is not, I have a feeling you've made nicknames for lots of people over the many years.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  They came, we don't, we have a couple of talking points when we podcast, but we speak extemporaneously. And those just came up in the moment of filming. And, you know, Kangels McTaco Tits, and then another episode, I shortened it to Kanks, and I said, just for spite. And Moses Mike Grinder Johnson, he was originally Moses Mike, because there's this video of him talking about becoming Speaker of the House, where he says, God woke him up in the middle of the night and said, hey, buddy, wake up. You're going to be Moses. And I'm like, we're acting like this is normal. This is crazy that he thinks he heard the voice of God and that God told him he was Moses. And then, of course, you know, there are a lot of Grinder allegations about him. And so I threw that one in because

• 57:40Speaker 01

  I really love to just browbeat him. As far as turning off conservative women or moderate women, no, I'm not concerned about that because I know these women. And this is the Democrats' fool's errand, that they think that they can get these people to change their votes instead of investing in their base. And if you're ever going to get these people to like you, it is going to be by being authentic, and getting on offense, and get off of defense, get completely off of defense. Offensively, we should be saying to these women, that potentially I could offend. You're concerned about trans people? I'm concerned about the Republicans' party obsession with trans people. Y'all talk about it all the time. I've never

• 58:24Speaker 01

  seen such trans obsessed people. And I wish that we would be more offensive in our strategy. And I felt like, and I, and I love Kamala, but I felt like she was going to lose when she started trotting around. Down with Liz Cheney. That's when I first looked at pumps. I said, this is a problem. These women are never going to over her. Ever. We know these ladies. They're never going to flip because of Liz Cheney. And so I don't, I don't worry about that. And I think, I think it's therapeutic to shit talk these bullies. And

• 58:58Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, I agree. I make fun of people all the time. And, and do you, is there a new name you're cooking up? Is there, do you have a, do you have other names for Trump?

• 59:05Speaker 01

  No, Kanks is really stuck. I do call JD Vance, the failed drag queen, smokey eye sociopath. And now I've shortened that to little Smokey. You know, because he was a failed

• 59:18Kara Swisher?

  Couch fucker.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Oh, couch fucker. But he was a failed drag queen. And I think it's important

• 59:22Kara Swisher?

  Alleged.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  To point that out. There's the photographs of he just wasn't good at drag.

• 59:26Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, no. Good eyes, though. Speaking of going on the, you gotta give it to him. You gotta give it to him. Good eyes. You don't hold back against Democrats either. We talked about your viral moment with Cory Booker. You went viral for pushing back hard on former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, which I love to see. I know him pretty well. And who wants Democrats to move away from talking, for example, about trans rights? You said the Democratic Party, these men represent more moderate centrist establishment. I think they take a dive, essentially. I agree with you. More maddening than MAGA. The counter argument is that the big tent party, you have ideological differences. So where's the line and compromise? Talk a little bit about these centrist. I find them dickless. That's my way of thinking about it. You know, they're sort of dickless, like

• 1:00:08Kara Swisher?

  just say something that's not mean or, or you don't win by being more like MAGA because people go to the OG MAGA if they want that stuff.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  It's exactly right. And I think I call these politicians, pick me Democrats. Pick me. I'm not going to say anything that offends anybody. And then in the process, they're just milquetoast. And we need to have politicians that we agree with. And let's take the example of Zoran Mamdani. He's probably further left than a lot of mainstream Democrats in the electorate. But a way to handle that is to say, uh, he's a little bit further left. than I am, but his electorate in New York City is further left than we are. And one thing that we have in common is his message of affordability. And then if these centrists, the Rahm Emanuel's and other Democrats that want to pick up the trans

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  community, throw them under the bus and ride over them. We need to really be crystal clear that we will throw nobody under the bus. And if you have an economic populist message, then you need to say, we believe in equality for everybody, even somebody who is trans and we will leave nobody behind. And our plan, that's what MAGA does. MAGA leaves people behind. We're not cruel like they are. And I think there's a way that we could message that. But what pisses me off, Cara, is when I see Democrats buy into the right wing media narrative that we need to move their way. And I think that is so wrong.

• 1:01:40Kara Swisher?

  There's a lot of push to be like Rahm or Gavin Newsom did the same thing, a similar thing. Is that a real mistake? Because lately, he's gotten more popular by not doing that, by being quite, you know, out there, ubiquitous, kind of mean, kind of funny, you know, not caring about offending people. He seems to be doing a lot better by being offensive, really.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:03Kara Swisher?

  And I don't mean offensive, I mean on the offense.

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  Right. I think that the Democrats, the ones that have some corporate stuff they need to clean up, are going to have to clean it up and they're going to have to go into their base. Because the autopsy that I see on this, on Kamala's election, was the base didn't show up. And so we have the voters and we have the vote. And if we can wrap up a fuck you brand of politics, we're not leaving anybody behind. Yes, we're compassionate. Yes, we're woke because we're not fucking assholes and we're going to fight, you know, tooth and nail for every single American and leaving no one behind, not one person behind. And we're not going to kiss the ass of these corporations that dick you over, don't have to pay taxes.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  I think that is, is the messaging, whether it's a little bit, you know, not quite as far left as Zorron, but that, that economic. populist message and think about how much more it's going to be a year from now when the midterm

• 1:03:04Kara Swisher?

  So it's a Bernie Sanders message, really.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:06Kara Swisher?

  It's kind of a Bernie Sanders message, who's now become adorable. But is there, is there a more centrist Democrat you think isn't out of touch with the electorate? Like Congresswoman Marie Glusen Camp Perez from Washington? Is there someone you look to and you like, I like the cut of your jib?

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  So I think a really important lesson for Democrats is Andy Beshear in Kentucky. He is a Democrat that won twice and he used his faith, which the Republican Party has put faith into the electorate forever now. The Democrats just ignore it. And Andy Beshear used his faith to stand up for trans kids. And he won. And he won

• 1:03:45Kara Swisher?

  James Talarico, similar.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  Right. And he won twice. And for me, as an atheist, when I hear people talk about religion, any religion, I'm just like, oh, God. But we live in a very religious first world country. And I know that they need to do this. And Andy Beshear isn't some crazy, wild eyed liberal. I would say he's centrist. But more than anything in our big tent, my thing is, I like to beat Republicans. I like to win. I like for us to win elections because I know that if Republicans win, they will rain hellfire down on their citizens. And these exploitative MAGA Republican politicians use the faith to weaponize against the voters

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  because so many people in Oklahoma, their whole social life is centered around the church. And so they Christian signal, the same people that accuse us of virtue signaling, I'm going to accuse them of Christian signaling, to get them to vote against their own economic interests, but most importantly, to vote against the teachings of their alleged Lord and personal Savior, Jesus Christ, who sounds a lot more like the atheist Jew Bernie Sanders when he speaks than any of these MAGA politicians in these red states.

• 1:04:58Kara Swisher?

  Christ came back today, they'd be like, whoa. It would not like Jesus. You know, Jesus was kind of cool, like the things he was saying. It was quite socialist, too. He's quite a socialist.

• 1:05:20Kara Swisher?

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• 1:06:05Kara Swisher?

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• 1:06:31Kara Swisher?

  I'm Kara Swisher, and I like people who say the quiet part out loud. In fact, I love it. That's Tiger Sisters, a new podcast that recently joined the Vox Media Podcast Network. Cherie Brooke Lu and Jean Lu are real sisters who built their careers at LinkedIn and Goldman Sachs. On their weekly podcast, they're giving the next generation practical tips on how to get ahead, how to write emails people actually answer, how to make your LinkedIn profile stand out, and how to keep learning as an adult. It's straight talk about money, career, and relationships every Monday. Follow Tiger Sisters wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:07:08Speaker 05

  Hey, y'all. It's a stead from [email protected]. We know that you have big questions about the world, and so do we. At Vox, we focus on uncovering 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.

• 1:07:50Kara Swisher?

  So let's get to some big news stories right now, because there's so many, like every five seconds. And I think Trump understands that and creates this constant news distraction rage machine, essentially. So we, this was a bad one. We saw Trump accuse a group of a half a dozen Democrats of seditious behavior that could be punishable by death. The Democrats had posted a video telling military leaders to refuse illegal orders, which actually is in their rules. It's in, it's one of the top rules of the military. The White House denies he was calling for the execution. He did say hanging. But Trump has desensitized us to that kind of dehumanizing language, I think. And when it gets too far, he says it's a joke, essentially. So how do you think the Democrats should be responding to the

• 1:08:34Kara Swisher?

  latest escalation? I think being indignant is, I have a lot of people saying, can you believe he did it? I go, yes. Yes, I can. Can you believe that drunk is drunk? I'm like, he's drunk because he's a drunk. Like, I don't know what else to say. How do you keep responding without adding to that feeling of desensitization and also not being constantly aggrieved, right? Which I think is something Trump does, too. He's always aggrieved.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  So I think that when I look at just mainstream media, the person who's been ubiquitous lately is Marjorie Taylor Greene.

• 1:09:05Kara Swisher?

  Right. I'm going to get to her. Yes, go ahead.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  And why aren't the Democrats flooding the zone in reverse? Why are we not, and I agree with you, to act shocked that he tweeted what he tweeted yesterday, is a level of willful blindness over what's happened in the last 10 years? I mean, this president incited an insurrection. We all saw it. And the Democrats need to be Everywhere, all of the time, podcasts, mainstream media, saying to the American public, "Aren't you sick to death of this?" Another day in America with a man who has dementia, who is cruel as all get out, who has tanked the economy, and they just need to keep hammering

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  it over and over. And I do think the Democrats also need to be forward-looking. Like, they're doing a really good job muddying up J.D. Vance. He's going to be on defense a lot with the couch fucking, the eyeliner, not standing up for his Indian wife or his mixed-race kids, and seeming to favor white nationalist talking points over the defense of his family. And I think we need to start muddying up any heir apparent of the MAGA movement, because they do such a good job branding Democrats a certain way. And I think they should be out, nonstop Democrats, beating this dementia thing. We know that media has it in them.

• 1:10:29Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Because they did it with Biden.

• 1:10:30Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, I have a message that I used on the, in our podcast tour, which I'm like, "Look, I don't think he fucked a couch, but he seems like he could be a couch fucker." That's all I'm saying. Like, I'm not saying he did. I'm saying, if anyone did, I would pick him out of a lineup of couch fuckers, essentially. So, and I just like the word "couch fucker."

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so good. It's just like kinks. It's super satisfying.

• 1:10:58Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, yeah, couch fucker. So, let's get to Greene. You've been talking a lot about you think Greene and Tucker Carlson, and I agree, are positioning themselves for a post-Trump Republican Party. They're very, they're very sad, both of them, especially around US support for Israel and the war in Gaza. You say Democrats aren't taking them seriously enough, and they have learned the lessons of 2016 and 2024. They're assuming voters will think they're too crazy. And of course, Greene has pulled back on the crazy. Suddenly, she's very sensible, it seems like. And I just talked to Scott Jennings, of all the people, and he's convinced that Vice President J.D. Vance will be the Republican nominee in 2028, which I thought, yay, because he's repugnant to voters. How would someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Tucker take over the party? What are your thoughts of what? Each of them are up to.

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Okay, Marjorie Taylor Greene, if you look at what she's doing, she's using the Trump playbook. She is coming out of the gates attacking fellow Republicans. That's what Trump did. Lion Ted, little Marco, low-energy Jeb.

• 1:11:59Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Who advised Trump to do all of this?

• 1:12:01Kara Swisher?

  By the way, all accurate.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  100% spot on. Loved it when he did it at the time. I'm like, finally, somebody is browbeating these horrible, soulless Republicans. She's doing the same thing right now. She, Steve Bannon advised Trump back in the day, and now he's advising Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is doing an America-first messaging, which if you're on your algorithm and you see a cat and you see a hot person and you see, you know, a tennis court and then you see Marjorie Taylor Greene say, why do we give a blank check to Israel? Why are American taxpayers paying for this? They have free healthcare, they have free higher education, and we don't. We know the American electorate is okay with people being crazy and voting for them.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  They've done it twice with President Trump. And so, Marjorie Taylor Greene is doing a slight rebrand too, because right now it's so toxic and so horrific. So there's a blending of Biden's 2020 campaign of we're going to bring you back to normal, we're going to lower the temperature. The problem for Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the biggest rise in the country right now, besides anti-immigration bigotry, is a rise of misogyny. So I don't know if that's going to be too big of an uphill climb for her. And I do think Tucker Carlson is really paving the way to make a very crazy racist big tent with an assist now from the Heritage Foundation after he platformed Nick Fuentes.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  You did, I didn't think MAGA could move further to the right, but the era parents, I'm going, oh shit, they're going to go even more to the right.

• 1:13:42Kara Swisher?

  Right, she certainly is more appealing, you know, if she was a man, she'd do a lot better, you're right, you're absolutely right, but she certainly, her modulation is fascinating. And what I want some reporter to do, and I really, I really enjoy her saying some of the things she's saying, because I agree with her, but then I want them to say, tell me about what you think of immigrants, tell me what you think of trans people, tell me what you, like, let's make sure people realize, as reasonable as she sounds, she's not reasonable, like, let's let her talk about the things where she's gonna go.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Gay marriage.

• 1:14:11Kara Swisher?

  Right, yeah. What do you think of my marriage, just curious.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Right, I mean, that's one that we could really ask, what do you think of gay marriage? Do you, do you think these people are gonna burn in hell, do you think the Supreme Court should overturn that? These are very, very, very important questions.

• 1:14:26Kara Swisher?

  Right, we're going for the stuff we agree with her on, like, yes, on this, but the split, you know, within the MAGA movement, which I think she is leading, and I think she's a very deft politician, actually, but also apologizing for her conspiracy theories, saying I was indoctrinated and I'm now out of it.

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  QAnon.

• 1:14:42Kara Swisher?

  She's smart that way, and actually, you know what? That might be true, right? I know a lot of people like that, for sure, and it's, it's a very legitimate explanation, if true.

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  And it offers an off-ramp for the people that are still in it, that the Epstein thing, for a lot of people, their identity was this QAnon thing, they formed a sense of community, and it's a noble cause to say, we're fighting for the kids against these pedophiles, and then you find out the guy that you thought was going to whistleblow on the whole thing is cankles deep in the epicenter of it, you know? And then she's offering an off-ramp to say, look, I was in that too, but you still can be a conservative Republican, so they don't lose their whole identity.

• 1:15:25Kara Swisher?

  And be concerned about the kids, and be concerned, so this split, it's really one of the few issues Trump has had to retreat on because of pressure for his own party. Having spent most of your life in bright red states, as you said, why do you think it was the Epstein, I, I know why it is from being, you know, deep in the online spaces that punch through for MAGA voters and not, you know, not. Not the bevy of billionaires at Trump's second inauguration, which they're starting to pay attention to for sure. The right is too also. The private plane, the tariffs, the rising prices. They are paying attention to that. But why Epstein? And what should Democrats be doing right now? Obviously, they passed this bill. We'll see. And he signed it. How it goes. But from your perspective, what's the strategy around this? Because it sticks.

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  It sticks. I think if I were a Democratic strategist, my number one talking point right now would be the blowjob with Bubba that allegedly Vladimir Putin has evidence of. We know the right wing has a very long attention span surrounding the subject of blowjobs. Look no further than Bill Clinton. That went on and on. Newt Gingrich can star. They impeached him for it. So lean into this blowjob where it also ties in national security. And if I were a Democrat on, you know, a Democratic strategist, I would say, you're telling me the President of the United States gave somebody named Bubba a blowjob and Vladimir Putin has evidence of it? Is that why he keeps bending over for Putin all the time?

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  Because, oh, my God, Kara, the big thing that I've heard forever, my whole life, living in a red state is, well, I believe in national security. I'm a national security Republican. It's this big thing. You support the troops, blah, blah. And the fact that there's so much shit against this guy that Mark Epstein comes back out, Kara, and says, hey, FYI, the Bubba guy wasn't Bill Clinton. But he doesn't deny the blowjob or that Putin has evidence of it.

• 1:17:21Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  So if I were the Democrats, I would be beating the drum about this blowjob. Because here's the thing. This dictator is built on this masculinity. And this, and now the dictator is frail. He's no longer a strong man. We're seeing the physical manifestations of his frailty. Tack on him giving a blowjob and also keep pointing to the fact that when he was on the campaign trail, he tried to give a microphone a blowjob with surprising familiarity to the procedure. And that's on tape.

• 1:17:52Kara Swisher?

  Okay. Is that, you know, but is that the way, like?

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  Do like to say that, you know, we're not them, right? We're not gonna stoop.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  We're not them and we lose.

• 1:18:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  So that's right.

• 1:18:01Speaker 03

  Right, okay. So Bubba blowjob, alright.

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  That's what I think. I think we have to-

• 1:18:06Speaker 03

  That's not very Ezra Klein of you.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  We have to stop integrity politics and stop assumption politics. And we have to fight these people with everything in us and quit trying to set some moral high ground that no longer exists in this moment. Hopefully, we can get back to that, but in this moment, no. Go dirty, talk about Bubba, blowjob.

• 1:18:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're so Lee Atwater. You're Lee Atwatering me all over the place. So every episode, we get an expert question. I selected yours very carefully.

• 1:18:36Speaker 06

  I'll be right there. Hey, Jennifer, it's Anderson Cooper. Um, I really actually would have some questions about kids because I'm making milk right now and 6:00 AM and hey, buddy. They're very ungrateful. Um, but what I'm gonna ask you about is just a hypothetical. If say you were on a plane and it was your job to ask people questions. Can you ask them a question? And they called and they said, quiet piggy. How would you respond?

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. That is so cool that Anderson Cooper just asked me a question, Kara. See, again, more-

• 1:19:11Speaker 03

  And in 6:00 in the morning, getting milk for his children.

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  More evidence of how cool you are and by proxy, I'm cooler.

• 1:19:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I heard that's a dream, uh, that's a dream guess for you.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  Yes, thank you.

• 1:19:21Speaker 03

  So here you are with President Trump. He says to you, you ask a question, he says, quiet piggy. What do you say?

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  I'd be like, are you fucking kidding me, you fat ass? You're calling me a piggy? You obese MF'er? With your swollen ankles, are you for real right now? Maybe blend your makeup before you start trying to drag me. Go try to find a fat picture of me, piggy. One doesn't exist. I would just fucking go off. I would be horrible, horrible. I would get arrested. Cash Patel would arrest me, Kara. I would be arrested. The Secret Service would arrest me.

• 1:19:57Speaker 03

  I told you I had the difference.

• 1:19:58Kara Swisher?

  I had a different thing.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  You're far more reasonable than I am.

• 1:20:01Kara Swisher?

  No, it wasn't reasonable. He'd say, "Quiet piggy." I'd say, "What? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you." And then he'd have to repeat it. And I'd say, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Can you say that again?" I'd just make him say it over and over again, so that it was just, so creating a viral moment where he just, that would be even worse than just "Quiet piggy," like lots of "Quiet piggies." And then he might say, "Bitch."

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  I'd be too mouthy.

• 1:20:23Kara Swisher?

  Really? I just want him to do it more. I want him, if he's digging the hole, just let him keep digging. That's my feeling. It's just, I was sort of surprised, nobody said anything. I could see the person being sort of taken aback, but no one around her said anything.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  I was really surprised at that. I was really, really surprised that nobody came to her defense, that his bullying, particularly of the press, has become so normalized that they just sit there and take that abuse, like Stockholm Syndrome, the people that follow him around.

• 1:20:55Kara Swisher?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  It's, we should, and it should never be normal.

• 1:20:57Kara Swisher?

  Well, they want access. They want access. Anyway, we have a couple more questions. We're going to talk about the midterms really quickly. On the podcast, you've been talking a lot lately about how Democrats should not accept money from AIPAC. You just said that. It's a hard line they shouldn't cross. It's an issue you talk about a lot. While it's true that a large majority of Democrats have an unfavorable view of the Israeli government and the war, the party's a lot more divided when it comes to support for Israel more broadly. A poll last month from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that while more than two-thirds of liberal Democrats think the US is supporting Israel too much, fewer than three in 10 moderate Democrats felt that way. So how do you talk about Israel and the campaign trail without alienating large swaths of this base? Because, you know,

• 1:21:38Kara Swisher?

  they're certainly have reasons to be concerned about antisemitism at the same time.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Well, I think that we have to have moral clarity about this, and we can't speak in any form of devil speak. A Democratic politician should very clearly say, We support Jewish people and we stand against all forms of bigotry, period. However, when it comes to the Israeli government, that should not be attached to Jewish people in the same way. Any criticism of the Trump administration doesn't mean an insult to Americans that didn't vote for him. It's a very simple, elementary argument that you can criticize Donald Trump and that doesn't mean you're criticizing Kara Swisher and Jennifer Welch.

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  And as a person who believes in human rights, I welcome the criticism of my government. I wish Switzerland wouldn't have finally picked a side for the first time ever when they bend over and are making trophies for Kanks to try to get the tariffs removed. I want countries and journalists to criticize this fascist regime that is kidnapping people off the streets in our country. The same way, I think we should criticize Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, this is according to Israeli press, he had cash driven into Hamas and we need, this whole thing, a spotlight needs to be shown on it.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  And they can't hold us emotionally hostage by telling us, if you criticize Israel, you're being anti-Semitic. That is bullshit, that is emotional blackmail, that is incredibly toxic. We can see what they're doing. And the United States government is left behind on all of the other world's democracies and criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu. And we're supposed to be a beacon of democracy, but now we have this new alignment where the only time it seems like Kanks gets excited is when he's in the presence of fascist dictators. Look at what just happened with Saudi.

• 1:23:41Kara Swisher?

  Right, but the MBS, that was a speaking room.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  We also talked about Rahm Male trying to get Democrats to move away from say trans issues and saying things like I'm done with discussion of bathrooms. There's Ezra Klein, who's been doubling down, who's gotten a real glow up, by the way, who's doubling down on the idea the Democrats should run candidates who oppose abortion in some places, that it's necessary to win more House and Senate seats. Presumably, these are the kind of candidates they think Democrats should run in places like Oklahoma. What does it look like, a Democrat that wins in Oklahoma? I think of Laura Kelly of Kansas, for example, very popular Democrat. How do you do that? And without, I find a lot of whatever's doing is incredibly ridiculous compromises, and very calculating, in a way that's not genuine,

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  right? Like, trying to manipulate voters. But how do you, how do you do that? So, the most recent gubernatorial campaign that we had in Oklahoma, you had Governor Kevin Stitt, who ran, he's a Christian nationalist, he dedicated every square inch of the state to Jesus Christ. Yeah, I've met him. And, very polite. Yeah, polite. And then he ran against this woman named Joy Hoffmeister, I can't remember the last name, anyway, I voted for, helped campaign for. And she ran as Maga Lite, as a Democrat. And it doesn't work, because the indoctrination of people in red states to be Republican is very intense, and it's every bit as intense as to be a Christian.

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  And they use this spiritual warfare type thing in churches to also say the Democrats are demons, they're demon rats. So you have to offer something incredibly different and weaponize their faith for good, and say, would Jesus want us to fund all of these billionaires? And so that's why I think a candidate like Tyler Rico, or Andy Beshear, who uses their faith in these instances, if you try to be a Maga Lite, you're not, they want...

• 1:25:39Kara Swisher?

  The OG.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. So it doesn't work. And the problem with Ezra Klein throwing women under the bus as a person who just moved out of a state that has a total abortion ban. Kara, there are so many women, and this disproportionately affects the poorest, which then becomes the black and brown people of my state, that go to get an ultrasound for their pregnancy, 18, 20 weeks. And there's some debilitating issue with the fetus. And they're told this baby is, if you, whenever you deliver it, it's not going to live. And there's nothing we can do for you. And so if they can afford it, they have to drive to a state where they can get health care.

• 1:26:21Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  And if they can't afford it, then they're risking messing up all of their reproductive parts to deliver this baby and then watch it basically suffocate. And so when I hear liberals that have never lived in a red state, try to focus group and workshop how to deal with red states. And part of that plan is to throw trans people under the bus or to throw women under the bus. It really pisses me off. It really, really, really pisses me off.

• 1:26:54Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, yeah, it's so, it's so compromising. Anyway, we, in that, I have two more questions. We had Senator Bernie Sanders on the show a few weeks ago. And one of the things he talked about was how the Democratic Party had abandoned huge swaths of the country in places like West Virginia, he said the party is virtually non-existent. So what's the biggest thing the party gets wrong about the so-called flyover states like Oklahoma? If you could sit down with the Chair of the DNC, what would you tell him?

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  If I could sit down with the Chair of the DNC, I would say you have to start a 50-state strategy immediately. Even if you lose several cycles, it will make an impact. Look at the impact that Bernie Sanders has made. Every time he's run for president, he's lost, but his message permeates. And he made the soil ripe for AOC, for Zorin Mumdani. I would tell them, what's interesting about a state like Oklahoma, and what's interesting about red state people, is if you poll them individually on things. Are you for gun control? Yes, majority. Of red state Oklahomans would say this. Are you for a woman's right to choose? Yes. And so they need to start running

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  progressive candidates that talk about values, progressive values. And they, I wish that they would send a Democrat to Oklahoma. Rural Oklahoma everywhere and said, you have been lied to. You have been lied to and used by the Republican Party. I would start branding them as liars that exploit people's faith, which is the most diabolical thing you can do and the most un-Christian thing to do. I would get so aggressive about rebranding this Republican grift that has happened in red states. And, and speak to them and tell them what you're seeing, what has happened to you is real. You have been lied to. You have been gaslit by this Republican Party.

• 1:28:42Speaker 01

  I know it's hard to think about voting for somebody else. But why is Bernie Sanders, the atheist Jew? Why does he sound more like Jesus than Kevin Stitt? Why is that? And people are, I believe in people.

• 1:28:55Kara Swisher?

  They're smart. I agree. I think voters are smart. I do. I think we talk down to them. I was in a red state and started, as I think I told you yesterday, was explaining what was going to happen to their coal mines. And everyone else was making all these pretend things about how they were going to become software and Silicon Holler. And I was like, mm mm. I said, this guy's going to replace you with a robot. He's not going to tell you that, but I'm telling you that. And so many people came up to me and they were like, you're a lesbian from San Francisco, but you just told the truth. I'm like, I said, I was like, and I said, I don't really think that it matters. And I'm just telling you, you know, I'm telling you what time it is. And these people are lying to you. So, and I know they're your friends, but they're lying to you. Like, and it was, it does permeate. It abs, not with everybody, but it's, I mean, not like my mom,

• 1:29:39Kara Swisher?

  who's a, who's like a Fox News propaganda, propagandized lady. But every now and then it does. It gets through to her sometimes. I don't know. Maybe not. She's too old. It doesn't really matter. So she's only got a few more elections in her. Like, it's so kind of, it's, but it's really hard. Once they be get, get that way, but they're certainly reachable. Okay. So you end your shows by playing a game with your guests called Had It or Hit It? So since you just moved to New York, six weeks, I want to play a game of Would You Rather? I've got a list of things specific to New York City. Here we go. You ready? Would you rather sit on a subway next to a rat or someone watching porn on their phone?

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  Oh, the porn, for sure. I would go porn.

• 1:30:19Kara Swisher?

  You'd watch it yourself? He'd be like, hmm, interesting.

• 1:30:23Speaker 01

  I don't like rodents. I would go with the porn all day. Yeah.

• 1:30:26Kara Swisher?

  All right. Eat a Papaya King hot dog or a Zabar's black and white?

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Papaya King hot dog.

• 1:30:32Kara Swisher?

  Have you had one yet?

• 1:30:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:30:34Kara Swisher?

  Go.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  Okay, maybe I will for lunch after we finish this.

• 1:30:37Kara Swisher?

  Eighty-six, where are you? Oh, you're in Chelsea. There's one down there. Yeah.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:30:40Kara Swisher?

  Papaya King. And get the drink, too.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:30:43Kara Swisher?

  Be trapped in an elevator at Trump Tower with Don Jr. or a dirty Elmo from Times Square?

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm going Elmo for sure. I'm going with Elmo.

• 1:30:53Kara Swisher?

  Have you met Dirty Elmo yet?

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  No, I haven't.

• 1:30:56Kara Swisher?

  Another thing. It's a great New York experience. Do not let them hug you by as hard as you can. Not let them touch you. Same thing with Don Jr. Okay. Get a drink and an extended hug with Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams?

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:31:12Kara Swisher?

  Sorry.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a good one.

• 1:31:15Kara Swisher?

  I know. I try my hardest.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  I think I'm gonna go, oh, I'm really splitting hairs here, Kara. Okay, I think I'm gonna go with Eric Adams.

• 1:31:26Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:27Kara Swisher?

  He wouldn't grope your ass, right?

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:31:30Kara Swisher?

  Right. Allegedly. Allegedly. Oh, the Cuomos are mad at Kara Swisher because I had Curtis Lee on stage in New York. They're mad.

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  He's hilarious.

• 1:31:40Kara Swisher?

  They're in Kansas.

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  He's hilarious.

• 1:31:42Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, wasn't he? Yeah.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  Oh, my.

• 1:31:44Kara Swisher?

  Get him on.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  He is hilarious.

• 1:31:46Kara Swisher?

  You know, I walked into that theater and the, my Brooklyn fans were like, what is he doing here? And I'm like, just wait. And then they were like, we love him. Like, I was like, see? I told you. Yeah, he is funny. He likes cats. That's all I need to know.

• 1:32:00Kara Swisher?

  Go to, okay, two more. Go to Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or the New Year's Eve ball drop?

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade because I think New Year's Eve is, it's past my bedtime. I like to be asleep by 9:00 PM.

• 1:32:17Kara Swisher?

  Yeah. Yeah, sorry, Anderson. You just insulted me.

• 1:32:20Speaker 01

  I know. Sweet Anderson came on and asked me a question.

• 1:32:23Kara Swisher?

  All right, last one. Jump in the East River or eat a piece of pizza from the subway platform?

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. I think I'm gonna go with the East River.

• 1:32:34Kara Swisher?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:32:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:36Kara Swisher?

  Because then you can just go home.

• 1:32:37Speaker 01

  You're never coming back from that.

• 1:32:38Kara Swisher?

  You don't think so?

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  E. coli.

• 1:32:40Kara Swisher?

  Mariska Hargitay is gonna come have fish you out. Anyway, I love your show. I think it's great, Jennifer, and thank you so much.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me, Cara. You're cool. I love talking with you, and I hope that we continue our budding friendship to many more episodes and collabs on and off the air.

• 1:32:59Kara Swisher?

  Absolutely. Yep, we have to do it. We're like the nice version of Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson.

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:33:04Kara Swisher?

  Thank you, Cara.

• 1:33:10Kara Swisher?

  Today's show was produced by Christian Castor-Russell, Kateri Yokum, Michelle Aloy, Megan Burney, and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwaz is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Andrea Lopez-Cruzado and Catherine Barner. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get my favorite hot dog, the Papaya King hot dog. If not, you're blowing bubba. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.