The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell on How Democrats Can Defeat MAGA for Good

As ballots start to hit mailboxes ahead of the November midterms, Democrats are finally feeling some long-awaited electoral optimism. But to build a coalition that can defeat MAGA politics for good, the party will have to win back voters it's lost. In her new book, “How to Eat An Elephant,” Sarah Longwell, founder and publisher of The Bulwark, gives readers a blueprint to do just that. In a live conversation recorded at Sixth & I in downtown Washington, D. C., Kara and Sarah talk about the hundreds of voter focus groups Sarah’s conducted since President Trump first won the White House a decade ago, how Trump convinced swing voters he was the “lesser of two evils” in 2024, and why she thinks Democrats need a stronger message on immigration. Sarah also offers her opinion on which Democrats are — and are not — best positioned to win the White House in 2028. 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?

  It's like we're Olivia Rodrigo or something.

• 0:04Kara Swisher?

  Oh, my goodness, there hasn't been this much lesbian energy on the stage since Rachel Maddow dined alone.

• 0:24Kara Swisher?

  Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. We're less than two months away from the midterm elections, and Democrats are feeling a kind of optimism they haven't felt in a while, for good reason. Voters have clearly soured on President Trump, as evidenced by his abysmal approval ratings. Democrats have had some big wins in recent elections, and the party in power historically struggles in the midterms. Still, the Democratic Party isn't exactly winning any popularity contests with voters right now, either. If the party wants to build the kind of coalition that can consistently win elections and defeat MAGA politics for good, it will have to win back some of the voters who've abandoned Democrats over the last decade. My guest today has a blueprint to do just that. Sarah Longwell is the founder

• 1:09Kara Swisher?

  and publisher of The Bulwark and a former Republican strategist. She has a new book out called How to Eat an Elephant, One Voter at a Time. It draws on the hundreds of focus groups Sarah has done with voters since Trump first won the White House, and it offers advice to Democrats on how they can permanently defeat his authoritarian style of politics. I think it's important to listen to Republican strategists. Now, Sarah's been a real critic of President Trump, so she's not exactly a Republican anymore, but she's really real situated to help our country out of our slide into authoritarian politics, because she listens to voters. All right, let's get to my conversation with Sarah. We recorded it in front of a live audience last week at Sixth and I in downtown Washington, DC. Our

• 1:51Kara Swisher?

  expert question comes from California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton. Don't go anywhere.

• 2:09Speaker 01

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• 2:40Kara Swisher?

  I'm Ina Garten, and each week on Happy Hour, I invite new and old friends for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. On this week's episode, I'm joined by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. We talk all about attending a fashion show in Paris together, throwing dinner parties, and making her Broadway debut in other desert cities. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  What if Bruce Springsteen had never become the superstar he is today? I'm Will Anderson, and this week on my music history podcast, The Monday Music Club, we're talking about the making of his breakthrough album, Born to Run, with the guy who wrote the literal book on it, Peter Ames Carlin.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  He had put so much of himself into his music, like, all of himself. I mean, it was hard for him to have romantic relationships that could last, you know? He didn't really do anything but put all the energy into his guitar.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  It's a fun ride, so listen to the episode right now by searching for Monday Music Club anywhere you get your podcasts.

• 3:52Kara Swisher?

  Sarah, thank you for coming on On.

• 3:55Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

• 4:01Kara Swisher?

  We're going to cover a lot in the conversation: Trump's unpopularity, the divide on the left between moderates and progressives, essentially punching left, and fears of the upcoming midterms. But we're going to start with your book. So you spent a decade listening and talking to voters to better understand what's happening in American politics right now. You've probably heard thousands of people at this point. What's the biggest thing in general that Washington gets wrong about the kinds of voters you're hearing from? And what is the overall message you're getting now? Because it changes, you know, goes in and out.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, so one of the stories I tell in the book is, do you remember when Donald Trump stood on the stage with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, and he sided against America's intelligence community? So I was really early in my focus grouping endeavors, because, you know, we were trying to primary Donald Trump, and I really wanted to know what Republican voters thought about him. And I was like, OK, this is great. All of these Republicans are going to be furious that Donald Trump is siding with Vladimir Putin against America's intelligence community. And I walked into the room, ready to hear it, ready to hear how mad they were, they were going to abandon Trump. And I said, so what do you guys think about the fact that Trump did this? And everybody's like, I have no idea what you're talking

• 5:21Speaker 04

  about. And it was a real moment for me to understand that the things that we obsess about in Washington, because you've got to understand, back in Washington, Paul Ryan was like throwing the biggest fit you'd ever heard of. Donald Trump was getting yelled at so much by Republicans. Remember, he tried to lie and say he didn't say the thing that he said, that everybody just misunderstood him. So he's walking

• 5:42Kara Swisher?

  So unusual for him.

• 5:43Speaker 04

  I know. It's not like him at all. But this still happens all the time. It's like the beginning of a shutdown, and 100 reporters will say, Sarah, what are you hearing in your focus groups about the shutdown? And I'll say, nothing. They have no idea that it's happening. And so so many of the things that just consume us in Washington don't even break through to voters.

• 6:01Kara Swisher?

  Is it because of lack of information or poor information sources, or they don't have time for following every single moment?

• 6:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a bit of everything, right? But I think a lot of it, and this goes to the lesson of what I learned, was how much people, look, they are consumed with their own lives, right? And I ask people all the time, you know, where do you get your media? It's a standard question in a focus group. And they'll say, whatever, I see the headlines when I'm scrolling. And if you think, like, OK, that's how the vast majority of Americans' media diet is, it doesn't surprise you that they're not sort of breaking down everything that happens that we obsess about. And also, you know, we talk about low-information voters in political science. Aren't they just normal, right? Like, I always think, like, these are people who are not sick, like us, who are not deciding to make ourselves crazy all the time by consuming this and scrolling on Twitter, right? They've got kids to feed,

• 6:55Speaker 04

  they've got jobs to go to. And so a lot of people get really mad that voters aren't better informed. But I have a hard time blaming them for trying to live their lives. And also, you throw on top of that, many of them are algorithmically siloed, which is something I think we've all come to understand now. But especially in the right-wing media ecosystem, it used to be that you would go and you would get your news, right, local news, maybe some national news, and then you'd go, like, to the Daily Wire or something else to get a conservative perspective. Now, they live in that ecosystem, right? They may never hear a different perspective, and that sorting is affecting all of us.

• 7:33Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, it's an interesting thing, because I might tell the story, like, my mom, when the stock market was melting down, called me up and said, there's a real issue with trans fencers. And I was like, fencers? Trans people who fence?

• 7:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:45Kara Swisher?

  And she goes, yes, it's a big problem in this country. And I said, really, it isn't. There probably isn't even one. I was surprised there was one. And it was because she was being fed on Fox News, or she didn't know about certain things at all.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  This is an enormously common response that I get in focus groups of Trump voters, actually, where they're like, they're mad about the war in Iran, because they know gas prices are high. They know prices are high in general, so they're upset, maybe about tariffs. But some of them, they'll be like, but you know what? He's got trans people out of sports. And so it's OK. Like, you know, it's like, war, gas prices, but as long as trans people are out of sports, we're all all right.

• 8:24Kara Swisher?

  Right. So talk what does break through. And has it changed? Are people, are they paying attention, these voters? Because, I mean, obviously, Democrats pay attention to it. Independents seem to be paying attention to the things he's doing. What is breaking through with each group?

• 8:39Speaker 04

  So this is true, I think, just in general about politics. The things that break through are the things that have negative personal consequences for people. Why do people know about the war in Iran? Because gas prices are high. They don't feel the bombs dropping. They don't feel the idea that we're over there. Now, they understand that Trump is going back on his word, but mostly, they're experiencing it through high gas prices. And I think, you know, the tariffs, again, it's not that they understand a lot about tariff policy, but they understand that things are more expensive, and that Donald Trump's central promise was that he was going to lower prices. That hasn't happened. And he owns tariffs, and he owns the war, because he's done them unilaterally. And so that

• 9:20Speaker 04

  is the thing that has broken through, that voters are, because they're feeling it themselves, and they understand it as a direct product of Trump's actions.

• 9:28Kara Swisher?

  What else, what other topics have surprised you? I think a lot of people, and I wasn't one of them, were surprised by the reaction to data centers, for example. A year ago, I was telling the tech companies, you're in big trouble here. Again, it was because it was in people's lives. And this reaction has been massive, probably too much on some level. I mean, I'm not down Howard Lutnick Highway, that moron, but there's no water used in data centers. He's such a moron. He's such, like, anyway, sorry, that was just me.

• 9:57Speaker 04

  So I also, last year, we were doing focus groups on all the primaries, right? And so there were these off-year elections, Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey, Abigail Spanberger here in Virginia. And

• 10:08Kara Swisher?

  Oh, yeah, Abigail Spanberger's great.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  She listens to the Focus Group Podcast.

• 10:14Kara Swisher?

  Yes.

• 10:16Speaker 04

  But I did hear, I was hearing all through those races, voters were saying the thing that they were most frustrated about was the data centers. And I had not been tracking it until it started coming up in all the groups. I'll tell you, the one that's coming up now all the time is the flock cameras.

• 10:29Kara Swisher?

  Yes.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  Like, this has become a big issue. In Texas, it's a big issue in that

• 10:32Kara Swisher?

  I did an interview about it yesterday, just yesterday, yeah.

• 10:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, it is. And, look, the data center one is really interesting, because I think it hits across a bunch of vectors for voters. Not only does it hit them with the sort of, like, these really rich tech people are going to make all of this money, two, they're doing it in our neighborhood that is raising my energy prices, which is the thing that most people talk about, is feeling like their energy prices are going up. And then the third thing is, they think it's going to come take their jobs, right? They're like, someone's going to get rich, I'm going to lose my job, and I'm going to pay more for energy. And that is why there's this enormous backlash. And also, the tech community, this is your area, not mine, but it feels like if they were going to go into people's communities and do this, they had to talk to them first, right? It feels like it's something being done to people.

• 11:18Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, what a surprise to me that they didn't.

• 11:24Kara Swisher?

  They can't even talk to their-

• 11:25Speaker 04

  These aren't the most socially adept people, is that what you're saying?

• 11:28Kara Swisher?

  No, at this point, they're just assholes, and they're rich, so that's-

• 11:33Speaker 04

  You know, I'm sorry, yes.

• 11:36Speaker 04

  I will say, I did promise my eight-year-old James there that I would not swear tonight, but it doesn't apply to you.

• 11:41Kara Swisher?

  Sorry, James. So, so sorry, and I'll try my best.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  It's okay, there's not normally eight-year-olds in your audience, I'm sure.

• 11:50Kara Swisher?

  So, what is resonating, data sent, because Trump is very tied to the tech moguls, he's very tied to AI. Every day, he says, "You're stupid," if you don't, or "China's gonna beat us," or there's- every day, they have a different... Today was J.D. Vance, as if, "If we don't win, China will beat us in AI."

• 12:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:10Kara Swisher?

  You know, and again, another person who's moronic about these topics, but he doesn't- they seem to be doubling down on telling people they're stupid.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't think that works with voters, generally.

• 12:21Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 12:21Speaker 04

  But I also don't know that voters pick it up as much. Donald Trump, you know, he used to- Twitter was really a better medium for him. The fact that he has Truth Social and he's kind of sequestered there has done him a lot of good, because people don't always, you know, catch all of that stuff now, like, they don't hear that he's calling them stupid. But they did hear, you know, last year, when he would say things like, "Forget about Epstein, I love the inflation," like, those things do- and, and, but I gotta say, the thing that I hear about right now all the time is, voters genuinely can't believe we're in this war in Iran.

• 12:54Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  Like, they say all the time, "I think Trump thought it would be like Venezuela, and it would be like, in and out, and it'd be done," and that's not happening, and they are furious. Like, there is a reason he is living in the low 30s right now, and it's because, and once you're down the low 30s, you are at his core base that is basically like, uh, these are the people who- I was doing a focus group in Florida, and one of the guys was like, "You know, I am frustrated with Trump, because he is not doing deportations hard enough." That's a different kind of voter. Most of them are just, most of them are upset, and it really is, listen, it's not that, um, the reflecting pool, or the east wing, that doesn't have a personal, like, consequences

• 13:39Speaker 04

  for voters, but it is a contrast for voters about what Trump is paying attention to.

• 13:44Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  Voters will let him do all the weird stuff he wants, as long as the economy is working, like, his voters. But the second that he is focused on the east wing-

• 13:53Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 13:54Speaker 04

  -instead of affordability-

• 13:55Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 04

  -that contrast breaks through to voters, including his voters, and, and, you know, there's always a, a spectrum of Trump voters, right? There are the ones who just think, "I love Donald Trump, no matter what, no matter how poor I get, like, I could, like, be naked in the street, have no food, no water, I just have a red MAGA hat, you know, hat on, and I'm running around going, 'I still love this guy, because he is making the libs mad, and he's triggering them, and that's great.'" That is not the entire Trump coalition. There's also a bunch of people who are either just, like, Republicans, who are like, "I'll never vote for Democrats," but a lot of people are these low-information voters who are like, "I don't like the wars, I wanna see the Epstein files, and I want my costs to go down." Those people are infuriated with Trump.

• 14:35Kara Swisher?

  Do the silly things like, like, America and everything else break through, or not?

• 14:40Speaker 04

  They do break through, but that's the stuff that actually, look, I'm in the camp where that Trump does that because he knows that it sort of just distracts people, it gets them talking about something other than the war, other- he does these things whenever he's losing. There's also, we just went through a massive news cycle about, uh, you know, trans women in the WNBA. Why? They gotta change the subject from the other- and Trump's good at changing the subject, and that's what Lake America's all about.

• 15:06Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 15:06Speaker 04

  So, they know about it, but it doesn't, other than, people will talk about it, like, "Oh, that's a stupid thing," but they don't really care.

• 15:14Kara Swisher?

  Right. Although, you notice, the numbers of MapQuest have gone up massively, it's really kind of interesting.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  MapQuest?

• 15:20Kara Swisher?

  Yes.

• 15:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:21Kara Swisher?

  They had 1.5 million downloads, someone's paying attention, and it's not just a lot of angry Democrats, you know, it's really, it's an interesting thing. Please use MapQuest, everybody. Anyway, in the dedication to your book, your friend and podcast co-host Jonathan V. Last has a warning to readers, he writes-

• 15:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, JBL!

• 15:41Kara Swisher?

  "Do not read this book with a mind to argue with voters, that way lies madness." We all know voters often have, sometimes incoherent, sometimes contradictory views, but what you see close up, most of us don't. So, talk a little bit about the contradictions and what that reveals to you.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  I mean, I remember when abortion became a dominant issue, and we started talking about it all the time in focus groups, I heard this line, over and over again, that said, "Well, I'm, I'm pro-life, but I believe in a woman's right to choose." And I get me like, "What are you talking about?" I was like, "That's like a binary thing, you're either pro-choice or pro-life," and obviously, or you could be like, "Well, you know, I think that it's at this point," but it wasn't that, it was, "I'm pro-life, but I believe in a woman's right to choose." And like, pollsters aren't gonna pick that up, that that-

• 16:29Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 16:30Speaker 04

  -that that contradiction sits in people, and frankly, it was a lot of, you know, women over 50, who were saying, like, "Well, I personally, for myself, am pro-life, but like, this right is there, and I'm glad it's there, and I want it to be there." And I hear those kinds of contradictions all the time. The other one that is my favorite is, we start every focus group the same way, "How do you think things are going in the country?" And everybody's like, "Bad."

• 16:57Speaker 04

  And, and a lot of people, right now, people are mostly talking about the economy, they're talking about the war in Iran, but oftentimes, people will lament the deep divisions in the country, they'll be like, "We are a powder keg, we are too mean to each other, we hate each other too much." And that same person, and I'm thinking, "This is so good, they, they, it's bad, they don't feel good about the fact that we're so divided," but five minutes later, that same voter is like, "These libtards are doing this, or that." And, you know, people are complicated, and, uh, one of the things, I, it's one of the reasons I'm optimistic, though, is I do think that people contain both multitudes and sort of light and dark, uh, and I do this thing in the book, it's maybe a little cheesy,

• 17:39Speaker 04

  but I don't care, I'm gonna live and die by it, about this Native American parable where the grandfather's talking to his grandson, and he's like, "Grandson, inside each of us there are two wolves." And there's the good wolf, which is, you know, light and truth, and everything brave, and whatever, and then there's the bad wolf, and it's avarice, and greed, and everything terrible, and they're always in tension, they're always fighting. And the grandson says, "Well, which one wins?" And he says, "The one you feed." And the idea of leadership, right, is about saying, this, and it's, it's the same thing, it's the Federalist Papers, all right? If, if men were angels, we wouldn't need government, uh, it's the better angels of our nature, it's the devil and the angel on your shoulder, like, this is the human condition.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  And leadership is there to try and draw out the better angels of our nature, and Donald Trump's, literally, his political mission is to do the opposite. He has been feeding the bad wolf for a decade, and so, you can feel people struggle, right? You can feel people saying, "I know that this, you know, in my life, I want this better way, I wanna not hate my neighbors, I don't wanna be angry all the time," but like, the everything, the algorithm, Trump, uh, you know, the outrage cycle, everything feeds that bad wolf.

• 18:56Kara Swisher?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:56Speaker 04

  Um, and the pitch in the book really is about, like, how do we get our leaders, and how do we build a country where we're back kind of in the, our leaders aren't trying to divide us for sport?

• 19:08Kara Swisher?

  Except you're gonna wanna eat the elephant, which means you wanna kill it, correct? Presumably? No, it's eat one, one bite at a time, isn't it?

• 19:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it is a, um, look, the "How to Eat an Elephant," obviously, it's a great title, I thought of it, um, but it is-

• 19:23Speaker 04

  it really is about, like, how do you solve a big, intractable problem? And I think after 2024, which is when I was like, "You know what, I'm gonna write this book," it was because I was coming to bulwark events and doing bulwark things, and everybody was sure we were cooked. Everybody thought it was over, "We're not gonna survive this, America's done, people are bad, if we are a country..." It was one thing to elect Trump the first time, but people really felt like, if America could elect him a second time after the insurrection, and look, I felt this way too, they're like, "Then we're not a very good country." And I just can't let that sit there. Um, I, I, I think that's not the right lesson to take, and I think that we do have agency to make things better, I think there's a lot of things that need to change, a lot of

• 20:06Speaker 04

  things we need to build, but I kinda wanted to do, "Look, we're lesbians, we're sitting here like a softball coach, being like, 'Everybody pull it together.'"

• 20:13Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, I'm a little bit like that, I'm like, "Get the fuck up."

• 20:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:16Kara Swisher?

  They're like, "I'm really depressed," I'm like, "I don't care."

• 20:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:19Kara Swisher?

  "Just move along, let's get it done."

• 20:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:21Kara Swisher?

  Lesbians should run everything and have all the children, but that's another, another show.

• 20:26Speaker 04

  There's not enough tiny lesbians to save democracy, though.

• 20:30Kara Swisher?

  Yes.

• 20:30Speaker 04

  Like, I don't know if there's enough of us, it's gonna take everybody else.

• 20:34Kara Swisher?

  Very true. You know my joke, the militia Etheridge? We're gonna form one.

• 20:38Speaker 04

  Militia Etheridge?

• 20:40Kara Swisher?

  That's for the older people in the audience. Right there.

• 21:38Speaker 02

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• 22:06Kara Swisher?

  So, as I know, nearly every election is won along the margins, something you talk about in the book, and you identify a handful of distinct groups whom you call the persuadable electorate. But I want to talk about the double haters. These are people who distrust both parties, but say they're also, you said they're the most gettable.

• 22:22Kara Swisher?

  Why was Trump the lesser of two evils for many during the 2024 election? And cynicism is always part of politics. It always is. And you hear a lot of people talk that way, or I'm zoning out, I'm not listening to news and things like that. So, talk about this dissatisfaction and how you turn it into, you know, turn that frown upside down, kind of thing.

• 22:45Speaker 04

  You know, I always say that if we had a drinking game in the focus groups and we took a shot every time somebody said lesser of two evils, we'd be dead every time. Because the vast majority of American voters are not that psyched about either political party. And they are, you know, deeply cynical. And this is one of the, that cynicism really plays to Trump. He wins that jump ball.

• 23:08Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 23:09Speaker 04

  Oftentimes, because when, if you think both political parties are corrupt, the scale of his corruption doesn't land, because you're like, wow, they're all corrupt, so they're all bad people, they're all sex pests, you know? If you think it's all, that they're all like that and you're a double hater, then you're like, the only thing I care about is like, is this person going to make the economy better? And the reason that Trump won was because, and this, one of the, I'll talk about this something else that I, knocked me off my feet very early in my focus group endeavors was, I would ask people, people started bringing up The Apprentice. How many of you watch The Apprentice?

• 23:46Kara Swisher?

  I watched every episode.

• 23:48Speaker 04

  How many of you watch The Apprentice, seriously?

• 23:51Speaker 04

  All right, I'm embarrassed for you, but that's fine.

• 23:52Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 23:54Speaker 04

  That's fine.

• 23:54Kara Swisher?

  I watched every single episode.

• 23:57Speaker 04

  I'm embarrassed for you too.

• 23:58Kara Swisher?

  Why?

• 23:58Speaker 04

  Wait, hold on a second. Did you watch that show and you thought, boy, this is a compelling guy? I want to sit down and hang out with him.

• 24:03Kara Swisher?

  No, no, no, no. But the reason now why I'm extraordinarily wise, the last season was a fucking disaster. And that's where we are. We're in the last season.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  Well, I'm not deep on The Apprentice.

• 24:13Kara Swisher?

  I like wrestling, I like that kind of stuff, so.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  The thing that would stunned me was, in the focus groups, they'd all watched The Apprentice, all these Republican focus groups. And so, they had a parasocial relationship with Donald Trump that preceded his relationship with politics, and they got to see, like, this is like, what, he was like firing Gilbert Godfrey on a soundstage and everybody's like, that's a good businessman right there, you know, like Andrew Dice Clay, he told him to get the hell out, that's business in America. And so, he, people think of Trump as a good businessman, and even worse, because his first, and I heard this just a million times, everybody thought his first term was a success, they

• 24:57Speaker 04

  forget the part where a million people died from COVID, but they remember the pre-COVID economy as really strong. And so, I would just hear person after person say, I'm going to turn off the news, he's a buffoon, I'm not going to listen to it, and I'm just going to enjoy his economy. And that's why he won that jump ball. And then, there's the deficiencies of his opponents, which is a different story. Because, you know, when you talk about the parasocial relationship, one of Kamala Harris' biggest deficiencies, and I went back and listened to all my Kamala focus groups after she lost, and I also did a bunch of ones with people who had not turned out to vote, and I just heard the same thing over and over again. I had no idea who she was. I didn't know what she stood for. I just didn't even, is she a liberal? It's funny, because there's this fight among elites.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  Did she lose because she was too moderate, and she ran as a moderate, and she ran with Liz Cheney, or did she lose because she was a California progressive and she was too progressive? I'm like, I don't know, these voters were like, I don't even know anything about her, I don't know what she's like. And so, her inability, I think, to connect with people.

• 25:53Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 04

  And his ability to be so durable with people, ultimately thinks.

• 25:58Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, I think the parasocial thing is absolutely right. When he first showed up, a lot of Washington reporters, I was at a dinner party, and they're like, oh, he's a joke. I'm like, no, no. No, no, no.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  It's because you were watching The Apprentice.

• 26:08Kara Swisher?

  I was watching The Apprentice.

• 26:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:10Kara Swisher?

  I didn't want to vote for him. I said, but like, I literally said, if a San Francisco lesbian finds him vaguely appealing, there's a problem. We've got, because he's a terrible, horrible con man. So, who are the critical groups? The double haters, the, who else?

• 26:23Speaker 04

  Are you talking about the swing voters, all the different swing voters? Look, there's, so there's a bunch, and I do six, and the chance, it's a chapter called Anatomy of a Swing Voter, and I do my best to come up with a heuristic for who these people are, but it's Hispanic voters. If I can do all six right now, I'll be shocked. It's young voters, and young voters, it's not that they're swingy, it's that they're unformed, right? Like, there's a lot of people right now, young voters, who thought he was a vibe, you know? And now, that there's a war in Iran, and their lives aren't getting better, and they can't afford houses or rent, he's much less of a vibe to them.

• 26:54Kara Swisher?

  Yes, he is.

• 26:54Speaker 04

  Right? And so, now Trump is underwater with young people. Similarly, Hispanics, another swingier group, they've been moving right. They are, they have now moved back. It's one of the reasons Texas is in play right now, is because Hispanics, the bottom has dropped out for Trump with Hispanics. Then there's the double haters, then there's the people who switch sides, right? So, there's the people like me who are like the college-educated suburban voters, but this is actually really important, for anybody who thinks that it is just easy-peasy to beat Donald Trump. Why is Donald Trump winning? Democrats now have people like me, lucky you guys, that, that college-educated suburban voters, and we're great in the midterm, man, we will always show up.

• 27:36Speaker 04

  Donald Trump and Republicans have taken over, they've built a multiracial working-class coalition, but they win white, working-class voters. And the median voter in this country is a 55-year-old white guy without a college degree. There are more of those voters than there are the college-educated suburban voters. And that is one of the reasons that, in the general elections, which are very different than the midterms, Republicans have had, because of Trump, a structural advantage.

• 28:02Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, so talk a little bit about the media space, because, you know, these voters do tend to vote on vibes, as you said, and I think that was.

• 28:09Speaker 04

  The rise of the vibes voter.

• 28:10Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, so, this gets, in the ways that right dominates a lot of this, or has, it's not going as well now, because they're all fighting with each other, which is a pleasure to watch. But right-wing podcasts, still, you know, when we look at the numbers for ours, we're like a sandwich between Megyn Kelly and Mark Levin, and I'm like, ugh, you know, and Dan Bongino's wandering somewhere below us. And so, how do you, but they're changing, it's changing. There's, you've got Hassan Piker, you've got Crooked, and I would say yours is sort of more liberal, let's just say, than those.

• 28:43Speaker 04

  I'm sorry, I'm what?

• 28:44Kara Swisher?

  You're more liberal than those. So, so talk about that. What's the key to winning those voters? I mean, how is that going in the information space? Because you, you've built a thriving media business with a distinct point of view at the bulwark. So, so talk a little bit about reaching them that way. Does that work? I think it does. I think those, the podcasts and that whole news, independent media space works rather well.

• 29:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, to say what we do is to basically ask me to explain the entire book, and I'm going to actually try and give you as short of a version as I can, which is this. Donald Trump is going to not be president in two years and a few months, right?

• 29:33Speaker 04

  Now, you might be like, well, JVL, if he was sitting right here, he would tell you, that guy's not going anywhere. But like, let's just assume that whether for actuarial reasons or for constitutional reasons, 2028 is the end of Trump. What is the Republican Party post-Trump? They have built an entire political party around one guy. The Republican Party is going to be in its weakest state that it has been in a decade, in 2028, as you go into those. Okay, well, that's good, that's the good part. The question is, can the Democratic Party, there's only two of them, guys, there's only two.

• 30:19Speaker 04

  Can the Democratic Party build a coalition that is big enough to dominate a post-Trump Republican Party that is fractured between the MAGA establishment and the America First coalition? You got your Tucker, you got your Marjorie Taylor Greene. On one side, you got your Marco Rubio and your, God, I don't know, Pete Hegseth, how many of them are going to run? Sean Duffy's probably going to run, okay?

• 30:43Kara Swisher?

  Oh, man.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  They're going to be weak, though. Donald Trump's not going to be there to turn it out. So, Democrats have this historic opportunity. I wrote the book, because I don't think people realize that there is a chance to go overwhelm what is happening right now, but it requires building a new media ecosystem. The Republican Party, I was there when they did it. They said, hey, the mainstream media shuts us out, you know, we didn't say, and so they whined about it a bunch, and they worked the refs, but they also built their own competing media ecosystem. The Democrats have to do the same thing, and not just the far left, because that comes with its own challenges, but like, the center-left too, the entire spectrum, I'm pro all of it. They've got, I can't just keep relying on mainstream media, because the mainstream media.

• 31:25Kara Swisher?

  I'll push back, I think there's a lot of stuff going on. There's tons and tons of shows like this now, that are starting to really gain numbers and popularity. And you may not like Hassan Piker, but my son sure does. Like, it doesn't really matter, and he's accepting the messages of Medicare for All, that's what attracts him. I mean, that would be a very interesting focus group, because the stuff they want is Medicare for All, affordable housing, those things resonate and resonate. Let me.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  But the point is, is that, and now, look, it's not even my, it's, why do we have to, every time someone says Hassan Piker to me, I'm going to say, just talk about Epstein instead. Instead of fighting about Hassan Piker, please talk about Jeffrey Epstein.

• 32:02Kara Swisher?

  Yes, absolutely, yeah. You're right, you're 100% right.

• 32:22Speaker 05

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• 32:52Kara 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.

• 33:30Speaker 06

  What if we told you there was one thing you could eat to reduce your risk of death by about a quarter? Interested? And what if we added that this magical substance can dramatically lower your cholesterol, improve your mood, and keep your weight stable?

• 33:44Speaker 07

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• 33:50Speaker 06

  But what is fiber? How could one nutrient do all those amazing things? And how can you get enough? Is a powder you stir into some water gonna do it for you?

• 33:59Speaker 07

  All that, plus the strange tale of the gorilla poop-obsessed father of cornflakes in the latest episode of Gastropod. Find Gastropod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

• 34:12Kara Swisher?

  Every episode, we get a question from an outside expert, speaking of Republicans, who are trying to make that shift. And there was a big story about him in the New York Times today. Let's listen.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Hi, Sarah. Steve Hilton here, running for governor of California.

• 34:26Kara Swisher?

  Oh, God.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  Congratulations on the book.

• 34:28Kara Swisher?

  Thanks, Steve.

• 34:29Speaker 04

  Here's what I'd love you to answer. This populism thing has been going on for at least a decade now. You saw it really arise 2015, 2016, on the right and the left with Trump and Bernie Sanders and that whole movement, and of course Brexit in the UK. And it's a decade later, and still, the things that gave rise to the populism, working-class people pissed off about their opportunities in life, all those complaints that really made the populist movement take off, they're still there. Why hasn't anyone figured out, whether that's a conservative government, a socialist government, anywhere in the world, to be honest? Why hasn't anyone figured out answers to the problems that actually promoted the rise

• 35:14Speaker 04

  of populism in the first place? That was actually a pretty good question.

• 35:18Kara Swisher?

  I know. He's smart. I'm sorry to tell you.

• 35:21Speaker 04

  How was he? I asked him a question on your show.

• 35:23Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, you did.

• 35:24Speaker 04

  Was his answer good?

• 35:25Kara Swisher?

  Why didn't you listen to the show? It was.

• 35:27Speaker 04

  He's right. He's right. And this is what the book is about, ultimately. Where does the populist anger come from? It comes from the fact that people have pitchfork at the ready anger over the fact that they think, it used to be called income inequality, but now that they think there is so much money with these tech oligarchs and with billionaires, like, that's where that anger comes from. And people feel like they're not getting their share of things. They feel like working-class voters are getting the raw end of the stick. Now, the Republicans are not addressing the material economic side of that, but they are addressing the social angst part of that, right? They know how to make it about immigrants and immigration. And frankly, one of the reasons that right-wing parties were winning all over the globe is

• 36:12Speaker 04

  because of immigration, is because mass migration rose and people started crossing borders. It doesn't matter whether we like it or not. The point is, that was the backlash from a lot of those voters. And I say this, too, about Trump, and I'd say it about Mumdani. Trump never built his wall. When he ran in 2016, he talked about the wall all the time. It was the centerpiece of his campaign. Just a wall. He was gonna build a wall. It was like, we were all like, what do you mean, you're gonna build a wall? Voters didn't care if he built a wall. What they wanted was somebody who said they were gonna take immigration and border security seriously. That is what he did. Mumdani's does this in a different way. I think Mumdani's policies, just like the wall, like, I'm gonna, we're just gonna lower prices by having socialist grocery stores, whatever. These are dumb ideas.

• 36:57Speaker 04

  These are not gonna work, and they're bad ideas. But he's taking affordability seriously. What voters hear is, you understand that my rent is too high, you understand I can't afford to live in this city, and you're gonna try to do something about it. And so I do think that if a party could both be normal on the social stuff, which is part of what I'm begging Democrats to do, just be a little more normal, and not even on exactly their position, although they could change a few things about their positions, but primarily about emphasis, Democrats should spend 70% of every word coming out of their mouth talking about the material well-being of voters. What voters wanna know is, are you gonna make my healthcare cheaper? Am I gonna be able to afford groceries?

• 37:41Speaker 04

  Is my gas gonna be affordable? Do I have upward mobility? Do I have a job? Am I gonna get a raise at that job? That's all voters really-

• 37:48Kara Swisher?

  And will AI take my job?

• 37:49Speaker 04

  And will AI take my job, right?

• 37:51Kara Swisher?

  And what will you do about it? Yeah, I agree with you on that. But there is, you know, an element of what he was saying is that actual delivery of services, talking about getting people things like that, I think one of the reasons Mumdani feels effective is he plowed the snow, fixed the basketball. He starts to look like he's-

• 38:09Speaker 04

  Mumdani is so funny to me, because I was sort of like, ugh, you know, about Mumdani at first. And now, he's like, doing licensing reform?

• 38:16Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  And I'm like, I'm listening, Mumdani. Are we doing licensing reform? Hell, yeah.

• 38:21Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's doing things for people. I think people feel like-

• 38:25Speaker 04

  Do you know what? So, I'm sorry to get all, but-

• 38:27Kara Swisher?

  That's okay. I can see that.

• 38:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know. I'm very excitable.

• 38:31Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 38:32Speaker 04

  It's funny. Ossoff, I'm doing a bunch of focus groups on Ossoff, and I'm thinking they're gonna love his soaring rhetoric and how handsome he is.

• 38:40Kara Swisher?

  The Hotlanta thing, yeah.

• 38:41Speaker 04

  And they're all like, constituent services. You can always get somebody on the phone at his office. And I'm like, when was the last time you heard people really talking about constituent services? It matters to people, right? Do they feel like you are responsive to them? It's actually not rocket science. So much of what we talk about is so stupid and not relevant to people's lives. What they really want is like, is someone gonna pick up the phone and say like, yeah, I'm gonna help you out with that?

• 39:04Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, right. Or talk about things that matter to voters. So that gets us to the pro-democracy movement needs to do to win elections and defeat MAGA permanently. I think you're right, that the lineup behind Trump is pretty weak sauce. You know, they're all sort of suckups and sycophants and charmless, or one or the other. And then there's Ted Cruz.

• 39:24Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. Did you see that Ted Cruz is right now number one on the New York Times Bestseller list?

• 39:28Kara Swisher?

  Is he?

• 39:29Speaker 04

  Not that I'm looking for any reason, but it is Ted Cruz is the number one book. And it's about Clarence Thomas. Go buy 10 of my books so I can knock him off. That's it. Just kidding. I'm just kidding.

• 39:45Kara Swisher?

  Yeah. Everyone's gonna love four years of Ted Cruz. I don't think so. So your first step is to make Trump the most unpopular president in US history. Your goal is to drive down his favorability numbers into the 20s. Democrats are currently getting a lot of help from Trump on that front. Why is that important? And what do Democrats need to do they aren't doing to make that happen? Obviously, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. All right, let's go.

• 40:13Speaker 04

  This is when we talk about the Bush line.

• 40:14Kara Swisher?

  You look like you're about to build a shelf.

• 40:18Kara Swisher?

  Drill.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. This is what we do. We get Trump below the Bush line, right?

• 40:29Speaker 04

  Bush left office, you guys all know, you listen to me, right? What'd you say? Dick line. Yeah, that's right. That's a deep cut, right there. You're listening to Tim. Richard Nixon, the dick line, as Tim calls it, that's not a swear, it's a person.

• 40:46Speaker 04

  You know, you get Trump in the 20s, here's what it does. Number one, the lower Trump is right now going into the 2026 midterms, the better Democrats will do, number one, because there's gonna be a big enthusiasm gap going into 2026. But next, I want Trump to be an albatross around the necks of everybody who runs in his wake, right? They're gonna be Trump administration types. You want all of them to have to wear like a boulder around their ankles, this idea that they're dragging the Trump administration record with them. And also, you never want another Trump coming near this, you know, they're gonna talk about Donald Trump Jr. and everybody else, but you want people to look back and say, oh, yeah, I didn't vote for that guy. I had nothing to do with Trump. Those were bad times. I wasn't part of it. And for everybody to think it was a mistake.

• 41:31Speaker 04

  That's the Bush line. And then what was the next part of the question?

• 41:34Kara Swisher?

  What are the things you do? You know, you wanna make him deeply unpopular. How do you? He's already unpopular.

• 41:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's doing, that's right. He's doing a lot of it himself. But here's something I do. Okay, so I don't know if you saw Speaker Jeffries the other day was doing a call with Jared Kushner.

• 41:50Speaker 04

  So, you can do that, yeah? I think that's probably doable. What I would like is for Democrats to... You listen to Jon Ossoff right now. I am a little obsessed with Jon Ossoff's messaging and his tight shirts.

• 42:05Kara Swisher?

  Wow, okay.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Even for me. He's got me. You talk about...

• 42:11Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 04

  He's wearing those pants, man. He looks like a pre-brainwurm Kennedy.

• 42:18Kara Swisher?

  Okay, we're moving on. Move along.

• 42:20Speaker 04

  But his communications, though. What is he out there doing? He's out there talking about Trump's corruption. Why is Hakeem Jeffries not talking every day about the level of corruption we're seeing? Why is... We really do... I have been an operative on both the Republican side and on the Democrat side. There's not that many people. And when I got to the Democrats, I went, "Oh, no. This is what you guys do? It's all conference calls and icebreakers? And sometimes people are knitting and people don't want to go into the office ever or put on pants and they want a four-day work week?" And I'm like, "You don't get to defeat authoritarians. These guys are over here being straight-up mercenaries and you want Fridays off?" That is not... If democracy is at stake...

• 43:04Speaker 04

  This is my big thing for Democrats. Do you know why they're so unpopular right now? Because they've spent the last 10 years telling us democracy is at stake. Donald Trump's going to end democracy. I believe that Donald Trump's an existential threat to democracy. So it would be nice if the other political party would act like it, like it's a threat to democracy.

• 43:22Kara Swisher?

  So, in that vein, there's a lot of energy on the left. There is. They feel more muscular. There... I mean, there is, of course, this moderate versus progressive frame. And you're right, everyone should just say Epstein all the time instead of not Hassan Piker. Talk a little bit about this. If that's where the energy is, how do you bottle it for the rest of the party?

• 43:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm not... Look, I actually, I don't believe that... And I reject in the whole book, I prebut right up front, that this is a book about whether the Democratic Party needs to be more moderate or more progressive. This is not a book about Sarah Longwell's personal politics. If you left it up to me, we'd all just be like libertarians and you'd get all your drugs and all your gay marriages, but also we'd be fiscally responsible and paying down the debt. And, yeah, that's right. Exactly.

• 44:14Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, sexy. Go ahead.

• 44:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. But I'm not... You know, Republicans tried to sell people on this, some version of this. And this, you know, it's enough for a dinner party. I'm not sure it's enough for a political party. But I do think that the way that you build that energy is, it doesn't... Right now, who are the best communicators? It is Ossoff, it's Pete Buttigieg, it's AOC, it's Mum Donnie. Well, they don't all share... And this is what I would like to see Democrats do. I think that this idea that you have to fight each other or punch left or that it has to be this factional fight, like, I reject that. Even if I don't like Hassan Piker, I don't think we should talk about Hassan Piker. Like, right... I mean, I can't... I talked about him one time because I was like, "Tim, I think your assessment of Hassan is wrong." And suddenly, I don't know, I guess maybe I started it, I'm not sure, but now everybody's

• 45:01Speaker 04

  talking about this guy. And I'm like, "Hold on. He may have some, like, bad ideas, some good ideas, but also, have you looked at the President of the United States lately? Like, this is like one guy on a Twitch stream, like, half the time talking about, I don't know, his dog and his collar or whatever. And the other... The authoritarians are inside the gate. And I would like people to be able to focus a little bit on the actual problem that we're dealing with."

• 45:25Kara Swisher?

  So, one of the things you say, you say, "One Democrat in that vein who should not run for president is former Vice President Kamala Harris, and she cannot speak with clarity and directness." That's... You were talking about that energy. How do you make this case to her supporters? She has a lot of them. She's pretty high up in the polls, probably name recognition.

• 45:44Speaker 04

  It's name ID, I think.

• 45:45Kara Swisher?

  Well, she ran for president, too. So, talk about what it has to look like. And obviously, you like Ossoff, but if you could build the perfect Democratic candidate right now?

• 45:55Speaker 04

  I mean, Ossoff's not far off. Like, somebody who... I know, sorry, sorry. But, and look, I love me, I love Pete and I love Ossoff. These are my personal things. But I also... Let me tell you about AOC. So, let's just talk about AOC for one second. So, she and I probably don't share a lot of politics, but I think that AOC is a decent human being. Like, she seems like a very nice, kind person whose heart is in the right place. And so, do I think that she would make, like, the best president ever? I don't know. Do I think that she's better than J.D. Vance and the cynical bullshit that's being done by Republicans? I do. And I also think, I've watched her grow in the office, which has been sort of nice to watch. I think she's been growing into herself. As a result, some people on the far left don't like her as much as they once did.

• 46:38Speaker 04

  But actually, my favorite thing, and I talk about this later in the book, and I talk about it in terms of the bulwark. A lot of you guys are bulwark community. Yeah, right? One of the deepest lessons that I've taken from building the bulwark and finding this community is that to build a community, you have to be a community, right? And I think that the reason that people were attracted to the bulwark is that Tim, JVL and I, and some of the other people at the bulwark, like, we argue with each other, we don't always agree, but we have honest conversations about where we stand, and we treat each other kind, and we treat each other with a lot of love. What if Democrats were campaigning together? What if they were working, they were holding big events where they sat...

• 47:21Speaker 04

  Republicans are doing this all the time at these, you know, weird America Fest, whatever. They have all of the Republicans there. They've got different opinions, but they show up as one entity. Democrats don't do that. And I would like Democrats to try to show people that they can be a community and hold... Democrats love the phrase "hold space." I hadn't even heard this. Holding space. How about we hold some space for, like, all of the Democrats to figure out how to exist together, right? And to show up and say, "Yeah, we're all part of the same team, even though we disagree and we can have those disagreements," as opposed to this need to just, like, punch left or punch right?

• 47:57Kara Swisher?

  So, you're, as you argue in the book, a candidate that can show the case for order and compassion of getting along.

• 48:03Speaker 04

  Well, that's specifically around immigration. Look, I think that one of the things that Democrats are going to have... There's only a few places where I think on potluck... And this, again, not exactly my preferred policies, but listening to voters. Voters cannot access compassion around things like criminal justice reform or immigration if they feel unsafe. And what Donald Trump did, his big trick was to say, "They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists..."

• 48:35Kara Swisher?

  Cats and dogs.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  And some of them are good people, right? They're eating the cats and the dogs. That creates for people a sense that they are not safe, that they are under threat. And when people feel under threat, they can't, like, access that compassion. And so, I do think Democrats are going to have to say to people, "We are going to keep you safe. We are going to make sure that the border is not just open and anybody can come across." Because voters, actually, I don't hear most voters, lots of Trump voters, they're like, "I'm glad that immigrants are coming." They're like, "My grandparents were immigrants. I'm married to an immigrant," whatever. And what they say is, "I want people to come the right way." Now, to be fair, just about every American has no idea what that means because they never had to come into this country. They got golden ticket, they were born here.

• 49:20Speaker 04

  But their sense of fairness is, "Well, there's a line somewhere, and I think people should wait in it."

• 49:25Kara Swisher?

  Right, enough. Not this way. I hear a lot of, with my people I know that are Trump voters, "I don't like this way. This way is not the right way." There is a real... I often go crazy when people say "centrist." I don't even know what that means. Like, what is...

• 49:38Speaker 04

  It's like a mushy word that doesn't mean anything. And nobody wants...

• 49:41Kara Swisher?

  Well, it's Hakeem Jeffries, actually, or Chuck Schumer.

• 49:45Speaker 04

  You just end up with blah.

• 49:46Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, exactly. It's boo. Okay. Democrats have momentum going into the midterms, it's pretty clear, so far, but there's some scary headwinds. There's gerrymandering, which will help, is going to help Republicans. More concerns with Trump's threats to mail-in voting. He's trying to bring it to the Supreme Court. What should the Democrats be doing right now? They've been very aggressive in courts. They have been very aggressive pushing back on the postal stuff and the Kennedy Center. Everything he does, they push back, but it's a defense. It's a defense kind of thing, and the Republicans are endlessly aggressive. What are you most worried about going into the midterms?

• 50:22Speaker 04

  You know, especially with this mail-in voting. I just think that Trump... Look, Trump isn't trying to do apps... He's not trying to do anything to help Republicans actually politically, right? He's basically sending them in in the worst possible environment. He's unpopular, his agenda's unpopular. So what does he have left to figure out how to keep Democrats from practicing any oversight over him, which he obviously doesn't want? The mail-in ballots isn't really about ending mail-in ballots. It's too late. I can't go through the entire case and why it's relevant, but go listen to my episode of the illegal news, either with George Conway or Andrew Weisman. We all talked about, we talked about this on both the pods. They're trying to create chaos, right?

• 51:03Speaker 04

  They're trying to create a postal system chaos so that he can cast doubt on the election results once they happen. Like, we've seen this playbook, we all know what's happening. The thing that I worry about the most, honestly, is that they get sort of desperate and desperate people backed into a corner, do weird things. And it's like, we already have... You guys live here, you see the National Guard everywhere. And, you know, if they send ICE to places, they send the National Guard... Now, the National Guard look like they're all, like, very nice teenagers that just stand in groups and eat ice cream, like, they're not trying to mess with anybody. But the ICE, sending ICE into people's, you know, to try... And they'll say it's about, "We're making sure illegals aren't voting," but really, it's just an intimidation tactic. Although, again, I think that Democrat...

• 51:48Speaker 04

  Like, ask yourself, would you crawl over broken glass to vote in this midterm election? I do think that that is how...

• 51:55Kara Swisher?

  I also think, I've been interviewing a lot of mayors and governors, and they're all going to have their own police force. They seem very intent on... Even in Wyoming, they weren't happy about it. Like, they aren't happy about disenfranchising their voters.

• 52:09Speaker 04

  And I got a lot of friends who work in voting. Some of them are here tonight, and they are, they're on top of this. They all know what Trump is going to try and do.

• 52:16Kara Swisher?

  So, the last question. For a decade now, voters have been told that Trump's hold on American politics is slipping only to have him come back. And for Democrats, that's been very psychologically demoralizing. You think this moment is different. I do, too, having watched all The Apprentice, unlike you.

• 52:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:33Kara Swisher?

  Because you're obsessed with Jon Ossoff.

• 52:37Kara Swisher?

  Why do you think this moment is different?

• 52:40Speaker 04

  Again, going back to sort of the actuarial realities as well as the constitutional ones.

• 52:45Kara Swisher?

  So that's the Kankel theory, but go ahead.

• 52:48Speaker 04

  I just mean, I just mean like Trump, if, look, I would feel differently if Trump was 55, right? If Trump was 55, I would think, I would be much more worried than I am. And already, he is like very weird now. Like, he's always been weird, but like, he is, I think, not super well.

• 53:07Kara Swisher?

  What? Natalie Harp thing is totally normal. What?

• 53:10Speaker 04

  That Natalie Harp thing is bananas, right? And the idea, he, I think he's psyched that anyone thinks they're sleeping together. That that, they think that's, anyway, sorry, my kids are here, I'm gonna just pivot. I do think this moment's different, and I think that part of why I really think it's different is that I believe that, because I watched it happen to Republicans, they don't know what to do without Trump. They can't go back to the Paul Ryan, limited government, free markets, American leadership in the world, because they feel like voters rejected them on that. But they can't beat Trump. And so they're looking around for a leader of what comes next, which is why you're getting a

• 53:52Speaker 04

  bunch of sort of two-bit players like Tucker Carlson and then J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio. Like, the party already said what it thought about Marco Rubio. And I also think there is an exhaustion, finally. But I do think, look, I think that, here's, I'll say this, though, and this is why I do think Democrats still need to, I talk to disaffected Trump voters all the time, they are still very leery of Democrats, right? Democrats are still having trouble convincing the majority of Americans that they are going to be better stewards than this absolute clown show. And I think that it requires some introspection on Democrats' part on why that is. Maybe even changing a thing or two.

• 54:31Kara Swisher?

  When you think about the election coming up, going into 2028, if you had to pick right now, based on the focus groups and what you've written, the two ideal candidates for the Republicans and Democrat, the presidential candidates, who would you like? Obviously, Ossoff. Creepy.

• 54:50Speaker 04

  Look, I think an Ossoff-Pete ticket would crush. But we'll see, it's very, very early.

• 54:59Kara Swisher?

  From what you're hearing from voters right now?

• 55:02Speaker 04

  You know what's interesting about Democratic voters? I know that people don't want like a super long answer, but I will say, Democrats are so, this goes back to Kamala, Democrats told themselves that the reason that Kamala lost was because of racism and sexism. And the inverse of that is that, I'll do focus groups of black women, and they will be like, I want you to find me the straightest, whitest man right now to run on the Democratic ticket. And I do think that there's something, there's an appetite for that in the Democratic Party. They're like, we can't take any more risks with anything.

• 55:33Kara Swisher?

  I've heard it from some women candidates.

• 55:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, the women candidates are feeling this. And so I do think, and I think people are really hesitant about a gay president with Pete. Pete's gonna have to get people over this idea that America might, wouldn't elect a gay president, and I think a lot of Democrats are gonna be worried about that. And they're also gonna be worried about him with black voters, I think he's working on that. But I think as a ticket or a team, they could go really far.

• 55:58Kara Swisher?

  All right, give me the ticket that you would pick right now.

• 56:01Speaker 04

  Ossoff-Pete.

• 56:02Kara Swisher?

  Ossoff-Pete?

• 56:03Speaker 04

  Ossoff-Pete. That would be my ticket.

• 56:05Kara Swisher?

  All right, and Republicans? Don't make a face.

• 56:10Speaker 04

  Their best chance is probably Rubio. Who would they put, I mean, maybe Rubio runs with Vance, although, people don't like Vance.

• 56:23Kara Swisher?

  No.

• 56:23Speaker 04

  People don't like Vance, but the Trump family does.

• 56:26Kara Swisher?

  You heard my famous joke, he's the Cybertruck of politicians, but go ahead.

• 56:32Kara Swisher?

  Keep it, spread it far and wide.

• 56:35Speaker 04

  It's amazing how Trump could be like grabber by the whatever, and everybody is like, oh, that's whatever, that's just Trump being Trump. J.D. Vance said childless cat ladies, and Republican women in these focus groups are like, screw that guy.

• 56:49Kara Swisher?

  You don't go for the cats.

• 56:50Speaker 04

  And they're also, they just say things like, I don't like his face, you know, like, they don't...

• 56:56Kara Swisher?

  All right, Rubio and?

• 56:59Speaker 04

  Okay, who would be like good that they would actually, it's probably, it's, no, no, Nikki Haley is done. Here's the only reason Marco Rubio is, the only reason Marco Rubio even has a chance is because now he's been memed into a position. Everybody's like, Marco Rubio's the only competent person in this administration, you have to give him every job. I think that it would probably be like him and a woman. Who's a popular?

• 57:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like an America firster. I don't know if it's MTG, but it is an America first wing person.

• 57:34Speaker 04

  Megyn Kelly, that's a great one. I think, I think, I think that's real. I think Megyn Kelly's a real one for, I do. She has no Fs to give. I'm trying hard here. And she's just like a full-on lunatic now.

• 57:49Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 57:50Speaker 04

  She will eat your face.

• 57:51Kara Swisher?

  Oh, she tries. She often attacks me, and I finally shut her down by saying, it's never gonna happen, Megyn.

• 58:05Kara Swisher?

  It works.

• 58:06Speaker 04

  Oh, to have the confidence of Kara Swisher.

• 58:08Kara Swisher?

  I know, but, I mean, definitely not gonna happen. No, no. Anyway, I really appreciate, this book is great. Everybody should buy How to Eat an Elephant. They're delicious. Sarah, thank you so much for your time, and let's beat Ted Cruz. Let's beat Ted Cruz.

• 58:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, let's beat Ted Cruz.

• 58:27Kara Swisher?

  Thank you.

• 58:28Speaker 04

  All right, thank you.

• 58:36Kara Swisher?

  Today's show was produced by Nishat Kurwa, Michelle Aloy, Catherine Millsop, Madeline LaPlante-Duby, Megan Burney, and Kaitlin Lynch. Special thanks to Eamon Whalen, Lissa Soap, Jim Mackel, and Manola Moreno. And thanks again to Six and I for hosting our conversation. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you are not, I repeat, not arguing with the voters. If not, you're trapped in a Republican triangle of doom. 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.

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