Claim OwnershipOn with Kara Swisher
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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.
197 Episodes
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2How did Vice President Kamala Harris raise a historic $126 million in just over 48 hours for her 2024 presidential run? The Harris campaign says 1.4 million voters and key constituencies chipped in after President Biden pulled out of the race, but maybe even more important: Harris has long-standing ties to tech titans in Silicon Valley and influential celebrities in Hollywood. On today’s show, Kara discusses the BIG money behind the blue flood with two top campaign finance reporters, Wall Street Journal reporter Emily Glazer and Teddy Schleifer from The New York Times. They also discuss how Harris’s haul compares with the pledges to former President Trump from Elon Musk and his cohort. Plus: will a complaint from Trump’s campaign keep Harris from accessing the $96 million left in the Biden/Harris war chest?
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Threads/Instagram @karaswisher
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Audie Cornish, Franklin Foer, Ashley Parker, and Alex Thompson join Kara for a special bonus episode about the recent historic tumult in this year's presidential election. The panel breaks down how and why President Joe Biden decided to drop out of the race; what his legacy will be; and what a run by Vice President Kamala Harris could look like.
Audie is a CNN anchor and correspondent and host of The Assignment podcast. Franklin is a staff writer for The Atlantic and author of The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future. Ashley is a senior national political correspondent for The Washington Post. Alex is a national political correspondent for Axios, and he’s currently writing a book about President Biden.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Musician, producer and EGOT-winner John Legend and model, TV personality and cookbook author Chrissy Teigan are not just a celebrity couple. They are also entrepreneurs, business partners and passionate surrogates for Democratic politics. Kara spoke with the couple for a live taping of On at Cannes Lions in June about how they’ve built/collaborated on their respective business ventures and what it takes to curate successful brands that work with, not against, their outspoken personalities and political activism.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Surgeon General Vivek Murthy isn’t afraid to go after powerful interests. In mid-June, he published an op-ed in The New York Times calling for a warning label on social media platforms that says they’re associated with mental health problems for teens. The following week, he declared that gun violence is a public health crisis. However, the surgeon general's powers are limited. It'll take an act of Congress to put a warning label on social media platforms, and thanks to the Roberts court, even legislators are limited in their ability to regulate firearms.
Kara and Dr. Murthy discuss this country's seemingly intractable gun problem and the debate around the research into the harms caused by social media, along with his work on loneliness, and how Covid has eroded trust in the public health sector.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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As unlikely as it may seem, until this episode was recorded, Kara Swisher and Rachel Maddow had never met. The two sat down for a riveting conversation that connects America’s unsavory and under-told authoritarian history with the unprecedented political peril we find ourselves in today.
After addressing the increasingly desperate calls for President Biden to step down from members of the media and his own party, Kara and Maddow turn to her latest project: the podcast Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra. It focuses on far-right extremism and Nazi propagandists in American politics during the 1930s to 1950s. It’s a story that she connects to the country’s present existential crisis — and one she looks to for guidance, as well. We ask her to explain.
Please note — this interview was recorded prior the the assassination attempt on former President Trump on July 13th.
SEND US A QUESTION: Kara is talking to Dr. Becky this week about parenting, tech and social media and we’re opening the floor to listener questions. What would YOU like to ask her about kids and tech? Leave a voicemail at 1-888-KARA-PLZ.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Gretchen Whitmer might be one of the most down-to-earth politicians in America — the governor from Michigan began her conversation with Kara with a bawdy joke about menstruation that she takes with her to the debate stage, and at no point during the interview did she hesitate from cursing. But with the calls for President Biden to resign growing louder, the Governor is an unenviable position. She’s considered a rising star within the party, and potential presidential candidate by some, but as a co-chair for the Biden/Harris re-election campaign she has to toe the line without seeming unaware of concerns that Biden just isn’t up to the task.
Governor Whitmer and Kara discuss the Democratic party’s current conundrum, as well as her new memoir, True Gretch, the infamous foiled attempt to kidnap and assassinate her, the best way for Biden (or any Democrat) to win Michigan’s 15 electoral votes, and her campaign slogan for 2028.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Threads/Instagram @karaswisher
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The Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed 75 years ago to protect Europe and North America against Russian aggression – a mission that is once again top priority, as NATO supports Ukraine’s battle against President Vladimir Putin. Ahead of the NATO summit and anniversary celebration in D.C. this week, Kara sits down with US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith to talk about the war and Ukraine’s prospective membership in NATO, why the alliance is increasingly looking for partners in Asia and Africa, what members are saying about former president Donald Trump’s threats to quit the team, and how cybersecurity, climate security and AI will play a greater role in the years ahead.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Trump’s historic felony conviction, a SCOTUS ruling in favor of presidential immunity, and a dumpster fire Biden vs. Trump debate: Those are just a few of the things that have happened on the American democracy front since Kara spoke to historian Heather Cox Richardson in January. In a special Independence Day episode, Kara and Heather replay that conversation, including history lessons from her book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, and then rejoin at the end. They discuss what Heather thought of the first presidential debate, why she believes changing presidential horses mid-race would be disastrous for Democrats, and how events of the past six months have (or haven't) changed her perspective about American Democracy.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Hands with six fingers, mouths with dozens of teeth, hairlines and limbs out of whack: We’ve all seen eye-roll worthy generative AI images. But despite the prevalence of these easy to spot fakes, photography and video media companies like Getty Images are already feeling the impact of AI and trying to integrate the technology without compromising their core business. Kara speaks with Getty CEO Craig Peters about why he can promise users of the Getty AI Generator “uncapped indemnity”, whether he thinks licensing agreements with OpenAI and similar AI companies are “Faustian” deals with the devil, and how better standards to protect visual truth and authenticity could help the industry remain financially viable in the long run. Plus: how worried should we be about deep fakes impacting the 2024 election?
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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The 2024 race is ON and the gloves are coming off: President Biden and former President Donald Trump will go head-to-head tonight, in the first debate of this campaign season [Thursday, 9 pm ET on CNN]. The two are basically tied in the polls, so both candidates are vying for independent voters in a handful of swing states to secure the Oval. Kara hosts a panel of political junkies (Stephanie Ruhle, host of MSNBC's The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle; Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief at the neoconservative Washington Free Beacon; and veteran Republican strategist Mike Madrid, co-founder of the Lincoln Project and author of a new book The Latino Century, How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy) to discuss the top issues for voters, what could turn the tide for Trump or Biden, and whether this debate – or any – can change hearts and minds.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Actor and Director Griffin Dunne grew up surrounded by Hollywood fame and celebrity — his father was a TV producer, his aunt the renowned writer Joan Didion, his sister a blossoming actress and the late Carrie Fisher his best friend and onetime roommate. But the Dunne family became famous for tragedy when Griffin’s 22-year-old sister Dominique was murdered by her boyfriend. Dunne’s father, Dominick, chronicled the tumult of the murder trial for Vanity Fair, while privately struggling as a closeted homosexual. Kara talks to Dunne about the difficult decision to revisit these moments in his new memoir The Friday Afternoon Club.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Threads/Instagram @karaswisher
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Late spring/early summer is always a busy time for the Supreme Court, but this year, it’s not just the controversial decisions that are making news. The justices themselves have been in headlines — for all the wrong reasons. Kara and an expert panel discuss the ethical lapses, refusals the recuse, and of course, the cases themselves — including the big one, over Trump’s claim to “complete and total” immunity.
The panelists are: Judge Nancy Gertner (retired), a lecturer at Harvard Law School and former US District Court judge for the District of Massachusetts who served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court; Kedric Payne, vice president, general counsel, and senior director for ethics at the Campaign Legal Center; and Judge David Tatel (retired), a former judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and author of the new book Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice.
This interview was recorded on Tuesday June 18.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus is most famous for her comedic TV characters Elaine Benes in Seinfeld and Veep’s Selina Meyer. But in recent years, Louis-Dreyfus has been showing her dramatic chops, including in her latest film Tuesday, in which she takes on grief, denial and death. She's also been winning awards as the host of her podcast Wiser Than Me. Kara and Julia discuss how in-depth conversations with iconic older women have radicalized her, her concerns about the commercialization of art films and why she thinks comedy is risky - but still very much possible.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Kara takes the stage with Laurene Powell Jobs at Sixth & I in Washington D.C. to talk about Kara’s recent memoir, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. In this bonus episode of On, Powell Jobs interviews Swisher about her life as a tech reporter, the incredible influence of tech CEOs, the need for regulation, AI and the best devices of all time.
This episode was originally taped on February 29, 2024 and has been edited for clarity and length. You can find the full version of their conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrSy8XJgjjE
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Kara interviews Mira Murati, Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI, and one of the most powerful people in tech. Murati has helped the company skyrocket to the forefront of the generative AI boom, and Apple’s recent announcement that it will soon put ChatGPT in its iPhones, iPads and laptops will only help increase their reach.
But OpenAI's rapid ascent has included its fair share of growing pains. There was “the blip,” as company insiders refer to the brief ousting of Sam Altman as CEO. (Murati became CEO for two days.) There have also been high-profile departures, an open letter accusing the company of putting product over safety, questions about highly restrictive NDAs, and even controversy over whether the company had stolen Scarlett Johansson's voice. On top of that, many fear that generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, will be used to fuel disinformation during the upcoming presidential election. Kara and Murati talk about all this, and more.
This interview was recorded live at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, DC as part of their new Discovery Series.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Abortion will be a key issue in the election this fall and it's also the focus of two Supreme Court rulings expected later this month. This week, Kara speaks with Cecile Richards, activist and former President of Planned Parenthood, about the fight for reproductive rights in the post-Roe era, where abortion fits into the electoral landscape, the potential outcomes of the two SCOTUS rulings, and how technology is enhancing access to abortion.
On a more personal note, Cecile also talks about her recent brain cancer diagnosis and how it’s impacted her work as a lifelong activist.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Kara sits down to talk with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The social media-savvy congresswoman from the Bronx is a member of the bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, and she recently introduced a bill to combat nonconsensual deepfake pornography.
Kara and AOC discuss the bill, and her opposition to the TikTok ban, along with her take on the overall tech landscape. They also dive into her recent back-and-forth with Marjorie Taylor Greene, her relationship with the Left, Trump vs. Biden and Gaza.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Broad City co-creator Ilana Glazer’s new friendship flick Babes is a no-holds-barred comedy about pregnancy, parenthood and the losses that come with adulthood. Kara talks with Ilana about why women’s bodies are considered “raunchy,” whether YouTube is still a good launch pad for breakout comedians, and how she is rallying Gen Z and Millennial voters to “microdose democracy” through her political non-profit Generator Collective. Plus: why, as a Jewish American, she’s calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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When it comes to political comedy, Bill Maher is practically an institution — he’s been hosting a late-night political talk show since 1993 (with a brief hiatus in 2002-03, after Politically Incorrect was canceled following a 9/11 comment). And now the host of Real Time with Bill Maher has a new book out: What This Comedian Said Will Shock You. Kara sat with Bill in his “den of iniquity” to discuss his childhood, politics, the war in Gaza, and, of course, cancel culture.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher
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Today, we’re sharing Kara’s recent appearance on Possible, a podcast hosted by Aria Finger and Reid Hoffman from Wonder Media Network. We’ll be back with a new episode of On with Kara Swisher on Thursday, May 30th.
You can follow the Possible podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/possible/id1677184070
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Maher & Swisher: Best Podcaster ever. Kara was able to get the essence of Bill with patience and skill. Maher, snappy at times, allowed Swisher to guide the interview to accomplish her purpose
I'm tired of Bill Maher.
Yep, totally agree with Kara (in that one can dream about Elon going to Mars and staying there). This guy had a real chance, and the potential, to rise up and give something GOOD and positive, to the world. Instead, he has squandered and IS squandering that opportunity, in a tragic, Shakespearean fashion. He had a uncommon opportunity in front of him, but is showing himself every day, to be a limited, weak, and all-too-common character.
omggg, this interview is such a treat !! thank you, Kara, for chatting with Paul Giamatti the way I wished to have had the opportunity to. Paul "caught my eye" in American Splendor in a totally unexpected way, and ever since ,i was smitten, although he always plays the characters that are really not to be smitten with . but I guess the voice makes a lot of soothing ,too. Simply a great episode, thanks a billion ✨
So are you going to tell us what happened to Nayeema???!!!!
So enjoyed this episode! Keep up the great work; all the best to the ON team in 2024.
I find it strange that Kara cannot easily understand Martina's explanation of why male bodies should not be allowed to compete in any female sports category. It makes perfect sense. This is IN NO WAY transphobic. It is about maintaining a fair playing field, and upholding women's rights. This has to be made crystal-clear to trans athletes who identify as female.
Kara's sick voice is annoying and hard to understand, sounds like reverb is on. How about using some tech to clean it up?
Love your podcast. It is invaluable to me, to find sources like this, that cut through the bullshit. Thanks for your work 🙏
Yikes, Linda's reactions/responses are painful to listen to. Such a clear example of a person who has sold their integrity and their soul along with it. She's trying her best to justify it to the audience...and perhaps to herself.
Conan carried this one. The outro was quite distasteful.
he's Mr. Burns so he's the evil one
Oppenheimer was a disappointment. no need for imax as it could have as easily been a netflix original or TV movie. Great performances but really bad creative choices by director and producers. We get it, he got screwed over but way too much time in the dramatic (zzz) hearings and didn't even really touch on Oppys management of the project or the plates he must have kept in the air. Which didn't allow for audience who isn't familiar with the project to really feel the screwing he got. The choices made by the powers that decided how to tell the story made the film an hour too long. Juice not worth the squeeze. Hype.
Rarely disagree with too many of Kara's takes but Nayeema was absolutely right to push back and hold her feet to the fire at the end. You CAN regulate your way to healthier society. That's literally what the FDA should be doing, but isn't. Tons of governments have strict food regulations (Finland, Japan, Canada, Ireland) AND are also effective in having healthier citizens because of those policies. McDonalds ketchup tastes different on either side of Niagara because Health Canada simply does not allow certain ingredients, or above certain concentrations of additives. Companies always take the path of least resistance no matter the human cost. It's not totalitarian or anti-capitalist to acknowledge that and want your government to want what's best for its citizens, and actually intervene on their behalf (what the FDA doesn't do). Ironically people can now live longer and consume more of that corpo's products. This baked in presumption of failure or incompetence of government is really a
These two are insufferable. Finding excuses for china during a moment of high tension. Way to go.
his vitriol towards meghan stems from the fact that he had a romantic interest in her that wasn't reciprocated. he's been relentlessly trashing her ever since. he's an awful human being
I would never defend Elon or his actions, but you guys do get that he's neurodivergent, not neurotypical like you, right?
"The laws I make they may be wrong, but that depends what side you're on. ... don't question me. I am the law." -- Saucy Jack in Captain Andy https://youtu.be/vy32krRMkEk
is there such a thing as too-many-same-same-slacker-ads? am ready to unsubscribe - so sorry you see me leave.
Thought your intro was a bit self important and your first guest was too. hope the next episode is better.