America’s New Power Order: Kara in Conversation with Walter Isaacson

22:10Kara Swisher:You don't understand that it's going to live online. It's going to be a podcast. There's going to be a podcast. I may do an event. There's going to be a book. I'm sure I'll deliver it soon, Simon & Schuster. but there's going to be I think about everything and not necessarily all of them but just depending on what the product happens to be like it may be a podcast it may be this maybe merch I haven't gone into merch yet we don't need t-shirts yes you kind of do I'm going to make a lot of money at it if I have Scott saying it's good, it'll work we have plans we'll be back in a minute

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24:55For the last 10 years, everything in American politics has basically revolved around one man. And as a political journalist who came of age during Donald Trump's rise in 2016, I've had a front row seat. I am officially running for president of the United States. It's going to be only America first. America first.

25:20Kara Swisher:Thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol building. But is it possible to talk about politics without talking about Donald Trump? That's the question I'm going to ask in our new show from Vox. The idea of like a post-Trump or not exactly Trump-focused show can exist because he's not really driving any agenda items. It really does feel like so reactive. You know, I think this Iran thing is also going to cause a big split in the GOP. So far, it doesn't among like people who say they're MAGA voters are still with Trump. But like for the first time, you see on a major issue, open opposition from the start of this war.

25:55I'm Estet Herndon and welcome to America Actually. truly. Let's take the longevity thing you're planning, which is about people in Silicon Valley, in particular, want to live forever type of things. How are you going to make it? It'll be a book. Will it be a 10-part series?

26:14Kara Swisher:It's a six-part series. It's already done. The CNN series is done. And the original title, before all this happened, was Peter Ati as a schmuck. And that was in my... It turned out to be right. Yes, it did. That could be a large t-shirt, yeah. You need to pay attention to what I'm telling you. What I was irritated with was one Silicon Valley people lecturing me on all manner of things they didn't know about, including health. And because they are godlike, they think they should live forever or they should hack death. And I think it's just nonsensical. And what I was referencing was this amazing speech that you know about with Steve Jobs.

26:52Kara Swisher:Steve Jobs had a very good sense of death and understood that mortality is what creates innovation. And he gave this amazing speech I recommended, which really inspired me about, you know, live your everyday like it's the last. This is the Stanford commencement speech, which you can find online. He was sick, and then he wasn't sick for a little bit, and then he was sick again. In that period, he did this amazing, astonishing speech. And so that was my inspiration, the Steve Jobs mentality versus, say, a Brian Johnson or an Elon Musk idea of, like, we're so amazing, godlike creatures, we should live forever.

27:26Kara Swisher:And part and parcel to this is my obsession with the conspiracy theories all over the internet, politically and otherwise, but in the healthcare area, it's really awful. Like all this nonsensical bullshit that's there. And so the charlatans bothered me, especially online, because they had weaponized health. And then at the same time, there's this astonishing blossoming of science happening right now, whether it's someone you wrote about, Jennifer Doudna at CRISPR, the cancer research, mRNA vaccines. Like, they're going to have a vaccine for cancer. All this incredible use of AI to detect illnesses, GLP-1s, there's all this astonishing stuff happening.

28:05Kara Swisher:And then there's all these charlatans. And so I go and try all the charlatan stuff and try to blow it up. And then I try to focus in on people that are doing the real work, so it's substantive and silly at the same time. And then I'm going to do podcasts around it. Then I might do an event. You know, there's going to be a book. You know, I'm going to try to, like, focus in on the people that are doing the amazing work, but also slap the charlatans wherever I can slap them out of the picture. All right. And tell me about The Audacity. Oh, I didn't work with these people, but it's a series that...

28:47Kara Swisher:It's interesting. The Times wrote about this yesterday, but the shift of tech people from very silly and you kind of root for them and they end up at the end of Silicon Valley, they do the right thing. They have a technology that could really hurt people. To today, you have Mountainhead and this, where the technologists are the villains and really ridiculous, drug taking, sex having villains, essentially. How did the techies become both villains and right wing? Oh, I don't know if they're right-wing. I don't think they have any... Well, I shouldn't say that. Go ahead. Yeah, I think they're not right-wing.

29:23Kara Swisher:I think they're just people, as I joke with you, they're people who weren't hugged enough as children that now are taking it out on the rest of us. I think whatever is in their financial self-interest is what they do. Even down to Tim Cook, who I happen to like, bringing that golden statue to Trump. I mean, what an embarrassment. To me, there's a level of, if you have that much fuck you money and not saying fuck you seems kind of ridiculous like on some level. Now he can do damage to them. That is 100 % true. But for how long and not much longer I suspect. And so I think some of them very much real, very real.

30:04Kara Swisher:I think like David Sachs was conservative. He was conservative-ish. Libertarian, Thiel-like. I would call it libertarian. Peter Thiel honestly is the only one who was always like this and deserves his ridiculous stuff is something he's consistently heinous, essentially. But he's consistently a very smart person, has consistently sort of espoused this idea that democracy doesn't work and that the Uber men should be running everything. You've read all their stuff, is that the unitary executive theory and, oh, these women are so irritating, and when they got the vote, that sucked. That kind of stuff.

30:46Kara Swisher:And then you have people who have come along to it and sort of entered the picture. I would, you know, Elon was never, I never knew, Elon was somewhat liberal. I remember him call me when they were going to do this anti-trans and anti-gay thing in the first Trump administration. What can I do, Cara? And now today, couldn't be worse on the topic, you know, and really terrible. I don't, lots of things happened with him, including ketamine. But among other things, he just morphed, I think, because the woke mind virus, it's actually not a woke mind virus that affected him. It's a Twitter mind. It's an X mind virus.

31:23Kara Swisher:You know, this Nazi porn bar, he's been hanging in it too much. And therefore, he's become... Talk about that a little, because we had Salman Rushdie sitting there a moment ago. And he said his life and mind have been liberated now that he's taking social media of his phone. Because you're living, let's call it Twitter or X. Yeah. But if you're living in that world, you think the world is more dystopian than it actually is. I made the mistake of going on it the other day for a second, and I was like, oh, God, this place again. I love Twitter. I did. I did. I was one of the first people. I still have 1.6 million followers on there, and I'm not on it.

32:01Kara Swisher:Like, that would be good for my marketing. But I just can't. It's like a real thing. By the way, you're on Blue Sky. I am on Blue Sky. How come those didn't work? They didn't catch up. Threads? is bigger than Twitter right now. And Mark Zuckerberg's run right over that. Never then. Instagram is massive. Instagram. But Instagram and threads is bigger than X right now. Okay. And growing. When you post on threads, do you get the same? Oh, absolutely. Actually, you know, listen, I ain't no fan of Mark Zuckerberg, but it's a nice product, I have to tell you. Like, it doesn't, like one of the, I shouldn't, I'm not going to say the word they always call me on Twitter, but it starts with C and ends with T almost regularly.

32:41Kara Swisher:It's a really good place. It's a really interesting, you know, sometimes it's not great, but it's sort of a version of what Twitter used to be for me. And actually, I'm doing a lot of news discovery on it. Again, I'm not one who loves to compliment Mark Zuckerberg, but it's a good product. And there's all kinds of issues with it, like a lot of things. I think Blue Sky has reached this founding CEO just step down. They need to do more, that kind of stuff. But I have both of them. I have half a million people on each of them. That's pretty good. And I'll tell you, the response rate is great. But X is so polluted with bots and malignant figures that it's useless.

33:20Since you talked about Section 230, I want to make sure people know what it is, which is it's just the section of the law that says if somebody posts something on social media, the company, X or Facebook, can't be sued.

33:33Kara Swisher:It wasn't envisioned for social media. It was for chat groups. Right. It was way back at the beginning of the Internet. Right. But on X, you can say anything you want, including the words that are used about you. Yep. Why is it you have no recourse to even sue the person who said it? I don't even care if any stupid... But leave you aside. I don't care if an incel calls me that name. Good luck. Enjoy whatever you're doing. That doesn't bother me at all. I think it's not a recourse. it's what kind of place do you want to create as a gathering place online? That's really the idea. What kind of business do you want to run?

34:10Kara Swisher:And again, if Elon wants to do this, he should be able to, right? I do think it has a deleterious effect on society. I think what it creates is this sort of hateful toxicity. It's a death cult. I don't know what else, you know, having just done this, there's a really interesting scientific studies that people who avoid death and try to get away from it create polarized societies of hatefulness. Those who accept it and make it part of their world, to me, it's suicidal. Is that partly responsible for the type of politics we have now? Yes, I think it is. I think it's really an interesting moment where dunking on people.

34:47Kara Swisher:Nobody's talking about, like, what do we want to solve? And it's sort of a basic hatred of humanity. Like, ugh, these people. Like, how dare they be different? How dare they be, you know? And you can have a good argument about DEI programs. Fine. Whatever. But it's really not our biggest issue, is it? I mean, I remember sitting with someone in media where they were like, you know, you can't say what you want anymore. This was a rich white guy. Like, you can't say what you want anymore. I go, it seems like you can. All your direct reports are other white guys. So it seems like you do whatever you want.

35:20Kara Swisher:And he's like, yeah, but I get shit for it. I'm like, oh, sorry, sweetheart. Like, I think I called him sweetheart. I was like, so sorry you can do it. And he goes, well, I think it's one of the biggest issues of our time. And I go, oh, I think poverty and child abuse would be my choices. But, you know. I don't know if you're proud of this. You actually should be. But if I remember correctly, because I've followed you forever. Oh, you have. You were the first person to say, you know what, Trump can win. I did. This is way back in 20... It was. You remember we had that discussion? Because here's why.

35:52Kara Swisher:I watched The Apprentice. I watched all... I loved that show. I thought it was... Oh, God, really. I mean, a terrible show, but it was a great show. I like that kind of thing. I also like anything Gerard Butler is in, so this is my taste. Greenland 2. Everyone's like, go see One Battle of the Other. I'm like, Greenland 2 is where I'm going. So it's really good. So I was watching The Apprentice, and I knew how popular he was with Jeff Zucker created there, even though it was sort of false. And you could see sort of what was happening online with these fake personas, these personas, but people who were genuine.

36:29Kara Swisher:And I had just done an interview with Kim Kardashian, who was enormously popular online, not just in the reality TV business, but she had numbers. And I had done an interview with her. She is genuine to who she is, right, online sort of erupting beyond media companies, politics and things like that. And so I thought he was really good online. Like he was he was he's our first Internet troll president. Right. And so was Barack Obama. But to a much more sort of hands off. Right. You know, you know. like everything is like that with him. He's gotten a lot better, I can tell you that. But AOC is the, I did a comparison in the New York Times between AOC and Trump, and they're sort of doing a, they're not the same thing, but a similar.

37:10Kara Swisher:And Mom Donnie. Mom Donnie. I'm up there. Friggin' like Olympic level online stuff. But, and very sweet too. He's got a very, it's a very sweet but pointed kind of thing. Everyone's different to themselves, but Trump was really good at that. And I remember Arianna Huffington's like, We're putting Trump in the entertainment section. I was like, no, no. And I was with a bunch of political people and Washington reporters. They're like, oh, he's so ridiculous. I'm like, no, he's not. He's a poor person's version of a rich person, at least that I can tell. Actually, in this audacity, one of the characters said, you're a dumb person's version of a genius, which was a great line.

37:50Kara Swisher:It's so true for so many people. He was also self-deprecating. He used to be. Now he's sort of, something's occurred in his cognitively disabled brain. But he understood the joke. He was using all the, I studied Roy Cohen quite a lot because he was speaking of the original conspiracy theorist and a manipulator of media who was his mentor. You know, I could see that it would work on people. And the Democrats had such a flaccid, after post-Obama, did not have the same kind of idea and was very much not, And I don't mean listening to people. Like, I had this encounter when they were trying to do Silicon.

38:29Kara Swisher:Remember they were doing Silicon Holler, Silicon Beach. They were going to make the Silicon area in Kentucky. I traveled there. And they were promising all these software jobs. They did all these tours where they would go, and Trump was promising, I'm going to bring back coal and bring back whatever. And I went there also to speak in front of these people. and they got up and made all these ridiculous, we're going to make you software and digital and this and that. And I got up, I go, listen, everybody, first of all, coal is not coming back. And when it comes back, it's going to be robotics. You know why?

39:03Kara Swisher:Because you get black lung and a machine don't. And they work 24-7. So FYI, this guy right here, the owner, he can't wait to replace you. So they were doing that. And one of the things, and I said, you are not, this is not going to happen to you. But one of the people came up to, And I was scared I was going to get hit by these people. But they came up and said, thank you for telling us the truth about this. I said, no problem. And they said, it's nice for you to come visit real Americans. And I looked at this guy. He was a big gold miner. And I said, I'm a fucking real American. I don't know what you're talking about.

39:34Kara Swisher:Why don't you come to San Francisco and hang out with me in the Castro? Like, why do you get to be the real American and I don't? Like, I was like, such bullshit. And he liked that. He was like, oh, I'll come. I said, well, make sure you get your thong and it'll be great. And we laughed. Careful of it. My family's from West Virginia, so I kind of know these people. But with AI, yes, it's going to supplant all kinds of jobs, and it's going to happen at a speed. We've had it happen before. Farmers were the original entrepreneurs. There were 90 % of people were farmers. That's an entrepreneurial job in the back of the day, figuring out what to do.

40:12Kara Swisher:Now it's 2 %? Something like that. It's some number that's really low. Manufacturing underwent that. Of course, we had the Luddites and everything else, as you know. And then now we have this. And the Internet. But in the previous two revolutions, there were more jobs after they happened than fewer jobs. There became more jobs. But there was also, which we forget because we have a deficit of memory about history, incredibly socially problematic revolutions and feists. This is happening at such a speed that people don't understand. And so companies are doing layoffs. They did too many hiring during COVID.

40:49Kara Swisher:Now they're doing layoffs and they're using AI as the excuse. But the fact of the matter is you are going to need like someone. Here's a good example. Barry Dillard, I had lunch a couple of years ago, I mean, a year ago, I think, two years ago. And he said, you know, he had 6 ,000 programmers. He's like, I bet I have 2 ,000. So a lot fewer people can do a lot more using AI tools. It's just not clear. But that increase in productivity could end up creating more jobs. Yes, but will it create more jobs or less jobs? And what are the other people going to do? If you're a plumber or an electrician, that doesn't really...

41:25Kara Swisher:It's in good shape, actually. Which is what the Palantir, did you see that Palantir? That guy needs to stop talking, like seriously. Alex Karp? He really needs to stop talking. Soon he's going to pontificate on Salman Rushdie, which then I'm going to tackle him. And we're going to... Please stop talking. about things you know nothing about. And so, or Bill Ackman, the other one. I think I'll start talking about hedge fund investing because I know this much. I know more about hedge fund investing than he knows about almost anything except hedge fund investing. He has an IPO coming up, by the way.

42:00Kara Swisher:Personally, I wouldn't buy it. How do you personally use AI? What do I know? How do you use AI? I try to use it every day, and I think everyone here should do that and understand where it fits in with your life. You know, I think it's critically important. It's back when the Internet first started. Walter was around at CNN at the time, I think. Or Time Magazine. Time Magazine. I think you have to see. I'm going to give a shout-out to Jim Barksdale came in. What? He and Tim Berners-Lee. Is Jim here? Both here. There's Jim. Wave your hand or whatever. But Jim was the one who came in 1992. He'll correct me if I'm wrong.

42:34Kara Swisher:Let me tell you, quality person. I really don't like Silicon Valley people, and he's amazing. Ethics, quality, great business, knew what he was talking about. Sadly did not reign in Mark Andreessen, but you tried. I really appreciate it. He was an amazing guy. Amazing leader. Yeah. And when he came, he said, all right, 1992, web browsers, they were just creating mosaic. Difficult situation. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that Jim said, and he knows this, he had a bunch of minds. and I found, Jim, I found this the other day in a box when you left. They did a party for him and they have a book of his sayings.

43:14Kara Swisher:And one of his sayings was, it's important to keep the main thing the main thing, which I loved. It's such a great idea. But he was trying to bring financial discipline to a business that really was under siege because of Microsoft at the time and tried his best and sold it off correctly to AOL eventually. And you wrote a book about that. I did. He was in it. But one of the things that was important was just because AOL sort of missed the boat, it doesn't mean it wasn't important. And that's what I think about, like which of the ones coming forward are going to be. But getting back to using AI, you've got to figure out if you're in insurance, what does it help you do better?

43:55Kara Swisher:There was a great book by the guy who just died, Daniel Kahneman, marvelous book about there were 20 insurance adjusters versus AI. AI was more accurate. Something like that. They got 20 different decisions from 20 different people, depending on if they had a bad coffee that day or something. But you keep saying we have to keep humans in the loop. Yes. So what does it do? It's sort of like, how did the car help us? The car doesn't run everything. The car changed this country, right? Absolutely. So did the plane. I was just at the Air and Space Museum with three of my kids, and there was a bunch of quotes, nobody ever reads what's on the wall there, about when Orville Wright, and there was a sister involved that was very critical, FYI.

44:42Kara Swisher:There was a Wright brother's sister who's his Wright sister. And the mother was also critically involved. Very interesting family. There was a bunch of quotes of the day. This is going to ruin everything. Like, this is going to, society is now doomed. And then others who said, no, it's going to change everything. Well, it did both those things, right? And so will AI. So will AI. And so what can we do to stress the things that are good about it? And what can we do to mitigate the obvious dangers, the ability to do autonomous drones, the ability to make decisions? In the early days of AI, I was at a dinner with a bunch of very well-known people, and they were debating this.

45:27Kara Swisher:And they were truly terrified at the possibility. I mean, I hadn't seen them. Usually they're frequently wrong, but never in doubt. But they were very much worried about where it was going. And one of them said to me, you know, if you tell it to solve world hunger, which it probably could pull from all sorts of disparate sources, the number one answer would be kill 100 million people. But that's the best answer if you want to solve world hunger. But it's not the best answer. It's a bad answer. But from a logical perspective, it's sort of like Spock's running all over the place. The logical answer is to kill people.

46:03Kara Swisher:The same thing when they just tested nuclear, what should we do in the Mideast? Most of these things said nuclear bomb would work. Well, yes, it would, but it would be bad. Speaking of drones. And then the other thing, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a group that Elon is trying to put out of business and has been unsuccessful. They just showed that, you know, when they were showing different things of building bombs, causing harm, violence, attacks, all of them recommend the worst thing to do. How would you regulate it? You could start with just based, first of all, we haven't done privacy regulation around our data.

46:47Kara Swisher:You're being used, you know, you've seen the matrix, that's all of you, just so you know. They're using your data. Like yesterday, Grammarly, you ever heard of it? It's another AI thing. They took all of my information and were giving advice as Kara Swisher. They were saying they were Kara Swisher? No, they were taking all, I have said a lot of things and have done a lot of interviews. They were bringing it all together, and then they were offering people advice from Kara Swisher without asking Kara Swisher or paying Kara Swisher or anything else. And Matthew McConaughey has talked about this, lots of people.

47:22Kara Swisher:They are rapacious information thieves. And they will take what Sam Altman talked about this, is we're going to take all of intelligence and sell it back to you. Well, it's our intelligence. It's not theirs. So basic data, we should have a federal privacy law. We do not have one 20 years in to this thing. Algorithmic transparency. What is in there? What is in your little black box? How does it go in? What happens? How do you decide? You know, they pretend they're like, they think they're like Kentucky fried fucking chicken. Like, it's not a secret. You can actually, by the way, you can figure that recipe out today using AI.

48:01Kara Swisher:But we need to know what's in there. What is going in? What are the inputs? What is the data you're having? Garbage in, garbage out is one of the famous tech phrases. We need to have an ability to sue these people. And by the way, if they win, good for them. If they lose, great for us. So in other words, if an algorithm amplifies hatred and causes a problem, you should be able to sue the company that created that algorithm. And you can't do that now. Not in many ways. And by the way, let's have that debate. They don't want to have that debate with us. They don't want privacy. Right now, we should be debating our tax system.

48:42Kara Swisher:Now, I'm not for that California billionaire's tax, but there's a new one they're proposing that's pretty good, makes sense, makes it much more fair. The idea, like, rich people don't pay, the numbers are just there, the math is there. They haven't been paying as many taxes. There's a way to do it that doesn't create class warfare, although maybe a little class warfare is not a bad thing sometimes, right? That these people are advantaging themselves through every single possible means, and everybody else gets to pay the bill, whether it's through, and they take, you know who paid for the internet, everybody?

49:16Kara Swisher:You did. The American taxpayer paid for the internet. And it's a good, and guess what? Our government did that. The government paid for research around these amazing mRNA vaccines, around space travel. Guess who's benefiting? Not us. They are. And so to me, we should get a piece of that. We'll be back in a minute.

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50:45Hi, I'm Brene Brown. And I'm Adam Grant. And we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop. A podcast that's a place for listening, wondering, thinking, feeling, and questioning. It's going to be fun. We rarely agree. But we almost never disagree. And we're always learning. That's true. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursday. Tell me about the politicians now. I'll get you a bit out of your tech comfort zone. No, I live in Washington now. I spend a lot of time with politicians. And tell me which ones you think get it, from Tallarico to Ro Khanna.

51:25Who do you like?

51:25Kara Swisher:I just did a long interview with Mark Warner that's great about Iran and cybersecurity and election security and a number of things. I think he's a former venture capitalist, really sharp, especially on cybersecurity issues. I think he's terrific. Amy Klobuchar, even though her legislation has not made it, I think she's trying really hard to do the right thing. She wrote an amazing book on antitrust that is so big. I used to joke with her, you could throw it at a poodle and kill it. It's like this. I read the entire thing. I know a lot about antitrust now. Should we be using the antitrust laws to break up the big tech companies?

52:02Kara Swisher:We need to innovate the antitrust rules. They're written for an era of 100 years ago. You know, they're written for the gilded, like not quite the gilded. Although they still say if you have a dominance in a field and you leverage it in another field, then we're letting that happen. It changes. So it's not the same thing. It's very, it's like, what is antitrust today? We need a wholesale rethinking because it doesn't work. Like, correctly, I know the judge in the case that Facebook just won because things have changed, right? And so now Facebook has plenty of competitors. Things change really quickly.

52:36Kara Swisher:and government doesn't keep up with law. So a redo of the antitrust bills. To me, the only way is litigation. Like, because our government is not going to respond because of the deleterious effects of Citizens United. I did an amazing interview with Larry Lessig about this other case that is going to possibly knock the stuffing out of super PACs, which will go a long way. But that will never pass the Supreme Court. No, no, it looks like it will, actually. It looks like it might. And so we just have to stop having this dark money stuff is really problematic because the tech people are taking advantage of it and causing all manner of nefarious things.

53:13Kara Swisher:And years ago when the Tea Party was sort of going around, I got a call on the phone from, I like to stay on the line with these callers, right? And they go, you know, our government has never, you know, done anything. It's the people. Give it back to the people. And I said, oh, how did World War II work out for you? I was like, because if not, we'd be goose-stepping down, you know, Pennsylvania Avenue if we didn't have the government who fought the Nazis. I was like, that worked out pretty fucking well. How do you like the road you're on? Guess who built that? The national highway system. Get off the fucking roads if you don't like the government.

53:46Kara Swisher:You know, I agree there's too much regulation in certain areas, but the deli on my corner should not have more regulations than Elon Musk. It just seems like... What about Palantir and Alex Karp? Yeah, I just said he talks too much. He's insane to me. I mean, it's interesting, because everyone who refuses to talk to me, I realize, you know, they all refuse now, because I won't lick them up and down anymore. But I think it's fine to do that business. He's in the defense business, and that's been a, you know, Lockheed or whatever. I think they have demented ideas about our society that perhaps they shouldn't be involved in.

54:28But let me talk about the Defense Department, which can't build anything. It can't get the vaccine. It can't get a rocket in orbit.

54:37Kara Swisher:It's great to work with U.S. companies to do that. There's nothing wrong with it. Right. So should there be, I think, Palmer Luckey is doing, Andrew and Palantir, obviously Musk. Should we have these private tech billionaires be taking over our defense? I think we should have competent people in the government buying this stuff just like a good vendor might. I don't think they should be pontificating and involved in, I don't think they should install their minions in positions of power. And look, I'm not naive. This has happened over here. You don't think Lockheed and Boeing did that? Of course they did, but did you know what their personal politics was?

55:16Kara Swisher:Did you know they were tweeting about white supremacists? not peace. The last time we had this problem, it was Henry Ford. And by the way, rest in not peace, Henry Ford. Even thanks for the car, but fuck you, essentially. But, you know, that's... And he bought newspapers and they ran his ability. He did, that's correct. That was the last time. If I recommend anything, Rachel Maddow did an amazing series of podcasts called Ultra, where you get a sense of what happened here. And she just did one on the Japanese internment. It has so many echoes of today, of misinformation, of lies, of the government manipulating things, of business getting weird billionaires.

55:57Kara Swisher:There was a weird Texas billionaire wandering around doing something terrible. Huey Long, all this stuff. This is something that's happened again and again in our history. But we've never had such wealth. I mean, he's going to be a trillionaire if the SpaceX thing goes off as it's supposed to. He's going to be a trillionaire. There's nothing, it's unprecedented in terms of wealth and power and the ability to overwhelm government. And when you have, again, a moron like Pete Hegseth in there, who just today said, this is incredible, this is astonishing. CNN had a chyron, and who reads the chyrons except this narcissistic prick, said, war intensifies.

56:42Kara Swisher:That's a neutral word. It is intensifying. More service members were killed. It's not going away. We're not stupid. He doesn't like the word intensifies. He goes, the Chiron should be Iran on its last legs. And then he said, swear to God, he goes, I can't wait until David Ellison gets in charge. He's arguing with the word intensifies. If this doesn't remind you of Brave New World and the rest of it, you really should start reading that. Speaking of David Ellison and the media and stuff, you've been working with CNN. I have. What should happen to CNN? I don't think he should own it. Barry Diller?

57:21Kara Swisher:I'd love Barry Diller to own it. That'd be a lot of fun. He's a really smart programmer. I don't agree with Barry on lots of stuff, but at least he likes journalists. I just don't think he's qualified. I don't think because you're born to a rich person, you should mortificate on media. Wait, are you talking about Barry Diller or Allison? No, Barry Diller is a pro. No, David Allison. He's a nice guy. He's a very nice guy. I did a podcast with him. But the fact of the matter is he was born on third base and hit a home run, thinks he hit a home run. And that's great, but I don't know why we're, this is a lot of media properties in one person's hand.

57:56Kara Swisher:Now, I think these are, some of them are declining media properties, so I'm not as worried. But he has shown a proclivity to suck up to Trump. He happens, I knew him as pretty Democratic, but I don't really care. But he's shown a proclivity to suck up to Trump, and Trump is very aggressive. What does that keep, I mean. What? What is Trump's power to get people all over? You said Tim Cook at the beginning. You got Ellis and Nair. Tariffs. He wants to get out of tariffs. Everyone has a different... Everybody's just doing it for money, you think? Money, yes. Like I say, they're so poor. All they have is money.

58:30Kara Swisher:They're so poor. They don't have a sense of civic duty and about a bigger picture. So they want shareholders. And I appreciate that. I'm a capitalist. I like making money. I make a lot of money. But, you know, I also can make decisions. And so depending on what they do at CNN, I'll leave. I don't make that much money from them, and I can wander over to somewhere else. And so we all have to make our decisions. And I've said I'll leave, and I've spoken to some of their executives, and they're like, will you really leave? I go, I'll really leave and really loudly, and there'll be a lot of fuck you.

59:05Kara Swisher:So I don't know what to tell you. But I do that, right? And I have the choice to do that because I have choices. A lot of people don't in those situations. Well, none of the people we're talking about lack choices. Tim Cook doesn't lack choices. Correct, but I get his argument. I do get his argument. I get why they all have to do it. But again, they also have, there's a, like Dario said no. Yeah. You know, and then Sachin. And he's been banned as a cop. But you know what? You know who then said no? Sachin Adela said no. Guess what? There's going to be a lot more no's. Lisa Murkowski just said no to this stupid save act.

59:43Kara Swisher:You know, it's a really good word. You should all use it and we can all say it. And by the way, there's going to be a price. You know what? Maybe I won't have season two of Kara Swisher wants to live forever. But guess what? I'm going to do something called Kara Swisher wants to not die. I don't know. I'll call it something else. I don't care. It's like. Since we're at a book festival. Yeah. Talk to me just a little bit. Let's finish up with what you read in the future. When is your book coming out? The Marie Curie? Yeah, that one. Probably. I don't know. Priscilla, when is it coming out? Benji?

1:00:21I'm supposed to go home right now and type, she said.

1:00:23Kara Swisher:I thought so, yeah. I know that. I think that was a hand signal for go home and type. Yeah, yeah. Now, tell me what you read and whether the... I tend to read fiction now. I'm doing a lot. I just reread The Underground Railroad. I just reread that amazing book. Oh, yeah, Colson? Yes, I just reread it. I read it quickly, and I spent a lot more time on it. I love Northwoods, which I love that. I love that author. He's amazing. I just love it. It's such a beautiful book about time, and I love time track. It's a little bit of, it's just wonderful. I just finished The Piano Tuner. I tend to read everybody.

1:01:02Kara Swisher:I'm now going to read all of Salman Rushdie's books, and I was just... I was about to say, I recommend Salman Rushdie. Yeah, I would. I've always felt like, my wife was a book editor at the Boston Globe and was an editor, was also an editor. Amanda. Amanda at a publisher. She's an incredible, has incredible taste. I'm kind of dumb. Like, I feel like I'm dumb around nonfiction. And so I always felt Salman Rushdie was too hard for me. I know it's, like, and I have a lot in my head. And so I tend to, I'm reading mostly fiction right now. And when I get recommendations, I try to read it. And I actually, right before this, I went online and I said, what's the easiest Salman Rushdie book to start with?

1:01:44You should go to ChatGPT. Well, it gave me a good recommendation. I'll recommend David Eggers' books. I have interviewed him.

1:01:51Kara Swisher:I've read all his books. It's all about what you write about. No, when The Circle came out, I did a great interview with him. Those are sort of in my genre, so I tend not to want to read in my genre books. I probably will read the book Hail Mary, as Project Hail Mary is based on, because it looks like an amazing movie. And I will note that what's really interesting about the Oscars are coming up, I just did a great show with Matt Bellany. All the, speaking of humans and not A, there's all this controversy in Hollywood about AI slop and AI replacing, and there's going to be definite changes in Hollywood because of this.

1:02:26Kara Swisher:But the two most important movies, three or four most important movies, were all from original artists, whether it was Sinners, One Battle After Another, or Ryan Coogler's brilliant, or Weapons. All the popular movies with regular people, humans, not AI. And so that, to me, was really important. Kara Schlesher, thank you. Thank you.

1:02:54Kara Swisher:Today's show was produced by Christian Castro-Russell, Michelle Eloy, Catherine Millsop, Megan Burney, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Madeline LaPlante-Duby, Corinne Ruff, and the New Orleans Book Festival. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're building an omnimedia empire like Martha Stewart and me, and you're a genius. If not, you're a moron like Pete Hegseth. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow.

1:03:28Kara Swisher: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.