On with Kara Swisher

On with Kara Swisher

It's on. Twice a week, award-winning journalist Kara Swisher gets to the heart of the story through no-holds-barred interviews with power players across business, tech, media, politics and beyond. So why do her guests show up? “Smart people,” says Kara, “like difficult questions.” Mondays and Thursdays from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Episodes

August 7, 2025 58 mins
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in 2022, more than one in three U.S. adolescents between the ages of 18 and 25 had some form of mental health disorder, including anxiety and depression. There’s also a loneliness epidemic: Teens and adults are more connected than ever, yet, somehow, more alone. Kara and three panelists  explore how much blame should be placed on technology like smartphone...
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Democrats have abandoned the working class, according to former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, leading working people to fall for President Trump’s hollow and hateful cultural populism. But he argues that an economic populist message that exposes how corporations and wealthy people abuse their power could turn the tide. Kara and Reich discuss how that would work in practice, why Democrats have repeatedly sided with Wall Street, h...
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Legacy media isn’t dead, but journalists are leaving traditional outlets in swarms to launch their own newsletters, podcasts and social media ventures, and they may be forcing a reboot. As one of the early media entrepreneurs (and a trusted advisor to many of those who aspire to follow in her footsteps), Kara sits down to discuss the current landscape with Oliver Darcy, founder of the “must-read” media newsletter “Status”; Katie Dr...
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Ever since Trump was re-elected in 2024, his MAGA base has been eagerly awaiting the release of the Epstein files. So it came as a shock when, in July, a Justice Department memo said they had reviewed the matter and determined that there was “no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials,” that the rumored “client list” did not exist, and that there was no evidence Epstein “blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his a...
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What happens when artificial intelligence collides with family, morality and the need for justice? Author and University of Virginia professor Bruce Holsinger joins Kara to talk about his new novel, Culpability, a family drama that examines how AI is reshaping our lives and our sense of accountability.  Who is responsible when AI technology causes harm? How do we define culpability in the age of algorithms? And how is generative A...
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Social media algorithms are leading to the creation of new words, new accents, and even new identities. And while using the apps may seem like a fun, trivial way to waste time, they’re actually having a profound impact on how we communicate — and on our our democracy. To find out more, Kara talks to Adam Aleksic, a 24-year-old Harvard-educated linguist and social media influencer, and the author of Algospeak: How Social Media Is...
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“Not my type” is what President Donald Trump said about writer and former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexually assaulting her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman. Despite his denials, in 2023, a jury found Trump liable for assault and defamation and awarded Carroll $5 million. After he continued to defame her — leading his supporters to launch an avalanche of threats against her — a second jury in 2...
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How skeptical should we be about the bill of goods (often marketed as needs) sold to us by Silicon Valley? Very, says Adam Becker, an astrophysicist and author of the new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. From colonizing Mars to building god-like AIs, Becker argues that the fantasies propagated by tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, S...
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Rep. Robert Garcia was recently elected as the ranking member of the powerful House Oversight Committee by his fellow House Democrats. He won a top job that usually goes to a senior lawmaker who has spent many years (sometimes decades) in line, dutifully waiting for a turn. And his win might be a sign that the unofficial seniority system of congress is eroding under the weight of young Democrats itching for a bigger seat at the tab...
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Despite the chaos of January 6th, 34 felony convictions, and his party’s underperformance in the 2022 midterms, Donald J. Trump is once again president.  How did he defy political gravity to win again? Why did former President Joe Biden run despite overwhelming evidence that voters didn’t want him to? Was there a coverup to conceal his decline, as Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book, “Original Sin” alleges? Why did former Vice ...
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President Trump and other Republicans keep throwing around the C-word — Communist — to smear anyone slightly progressive, including Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s new Democratic mayoral candidate. But right-wing fearmongering isn’t the only reason it feels like McCarthyism is on the rise again.  So, just in time for the 4th of July, Kara speaks to New York Times reporter and author Clay Risen about his latest book, Red Scare: Bla...
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Kara Swisher sits down with Emmy-winning comedian Jerrod Carmichael for a raw and revealing conversation about truth, family, faith — and the art of standup. They dig into Carmichael’s work, including his deeply personal special “Rothaniel,” his genre-bending documentary “The Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show” (which he describes as a sitcom), and his latest special, “Don’t Be Gay.” The two of them talk about class in America, the ...
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President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran shocked much of the world — but America’s involvement was over almost as soon as it began, and so far, it hasn’t sparked a broader war, like so many feared.  So how did we get here? Was the bombing a success? Will the ceasefire between Israel and Iran hold? Is the regime in Iran any closer to collapsing — and if it did, would that be good? Finally, what’s the long term solution to the nuclea...
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Molly Jong-Fast is best known as a writer and political commentator. But before she became the host of Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast, a regular on MSNBC, and a novelist and memoirist, she was the daughter of Erica Jong.  Jong catapulted to literary stardom with her 1973 novel Fear of Flying.  The bold — and, at the time — shocking story of a married woman looking for casual sex made her a literary icon of second-wave femi...
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As President Trump considers striking Iran, Kara talks to Nicolle Wallace — host of MSNBC’S Deadline: White House and the new podcast The Best People.  They unpack President Trump’s mixed messaging on Iran and his growing credibility gap with the American public, the political calculus behind his domestic shows of force, and the disturbing rise of political violence in America. Plus, a look back at the 2008 presidential campaign...
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June 16, 2025 59 mins
“Democrats in disarray” is more than just a trope — after last year’s disastrous elections, Democrats are openly fretting about how to pull the party out of its crisis. Kara speaks to a panel of millennial leaders about how to rejuvenate it; what role the generational divide plays in policy and agenda setting; and what Democrats need to do to win back younger voters (and older ones, too). Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) was first elected t...
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After reportedly speaking to President Trump on the phone, Elon Musk took to Twitter, on Wednesday, to say he regrets “some” of his tweets about President Trump — but that doesn’t mean all is forgiven. As the dust settles on last week’s cross-platform showdown, the long-term consequences from the breakup of the world’s richest man and its most powerful one are just beginning to emerge. So, Kara gathered a panel of four expert gue...
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For the past five decades, every Republican president except Gerald Ford has tried to cut funding for public media. But NPR and PBS have never dealt with a moment like this, where the Trump administration is attacking them from every possible angle. A recent executive order demanded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (or CPB) and executive agencies halt all funding for NPR and PBS; the FCC is investigating their corporate unde...
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From media moguls to tech billionaires, Oscar-nominated and Emmy award-winning writer, producer and director Jesse Armstrong knows how to tap into the psyche of the rich and powerful. In the “Succession” creator’s new HBO movie, “Mountainhead,” a tech-bro poker weekend turns into a life-or-death battle over who will control the future — in both business and the real world. From their isolated lair in Utah, four millionaire/bil...
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Jeffrey Goldberg has been a thorn in President Donald Trump’s side since the real-estate developer–turned reality-show host first ran for office in 2016. Back then — ten months before he took over as editor-in-chief of The Atlantic — Goldberg wrote a piece headlined “A Brief Exercise Meant to Illuminate the Prejudices of Donald Trump.” The magazine has continued its unsparing criticism of Trump ever since, and Goldberg’s recent Sig...
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