Making Trump Pay with E. Jean Carroll and Roberta Kaplan

22:58What I had done was I had laughed. And boy, did he make a big deal out of that. I mean, Robbie had arguments against it. She laughed. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, she laughed. Of course I laughed because, of course, in an erotic situation, what you do is you laugh at a man. It sort of calms things down. But being questioned about it, it just pissed me off because he was trying to knock me down, just trying to knock me down. So, man. Which is his job, to be fair. This is his job to do so. No, he's an excellent defense attorney. Let me tell you, Joe Takapita is one of the best. But the thing where I did break down on the stand was our own great attorney, Mark Ferrara, asked me this question.

23:55Are you sorry that you've gone to trial, E.G.? And that did it. Hot, blazing tears behind my eyes. That's when you cried. It was. Why? Because I just hated Donald Trump so much. And they just came gushing down my face.

24:14Kara Swisher:We'll be back in a minute.

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24:58Kara Swisher:Hey friends, Olivia from OLLI. Between new routines and the ultimate group project known as parenting, you need science-backed solutions that work with your life. That's where OLLI comes in. Start your mornings off right with Maltese made to support nutrition and immune health. Choose from our lineup of gut-supporting probiotics, and we've got occasional sleep support to help the whole fan chase their big dreams. Head back to class with the number one gummy supplement brand. Stock up on OLLI.com today. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

25:29Kara Swisher:This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love, and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.

25:57Kara Swisher:There are three chapters in the book about evidence you did not or could not introduce, including evidence related to Jeffrey Epstein, who obviously has been in the news a lot recently. Robbie, explain why you didn't want to introduce it as evidence. And what do you both think about Trump and A.G. Pam Bondi saying there's no Epstein list? Let's start with you, Robbie, and then E.G. I mean, the main reason is I don't think Judge Kaplan would ever have let it in. and we need, you know, one of the most important things when you're in court is having credibility with the court and not making arguments that he's going to be disdainful of.

26:31So I just thought under the rules of evidence that there's no way he would let that in and I didn't even try. There was other stuff that I did try that he didn't let in. For example, Trump wrote a book and one of his books he wrote, he suggested going to Bergdorf Goodman to buy gifts and he had denied that he ever went to Bergdorf Goodman and the judge wouldn't even let that in. And the argument was, well, Takapina said, well, he didn't write it. And we were like, what do you mean? The copyright's in his name. I'm like, what do you mean he didn't write it? But I think Judge Kaplan was thinking at that point, you know, we had what we had, and he wasn't going to add anything into the case.

27:06Kara, Robbie's not telling you something. Oh, okay. All right. When the Epstein stuff came in, it was in Michael Wolff's book, and he had a tape recording. He had hundreds of hours of Jeffrey Epstein on tape. Robbie's so calm here at the time she was. Jeffrey Epstein, in 1996, shortly after the attack in Burgdorf, running into Trump on the street and Trump, quote, regaling him with the, quote, torrid details of what happened in Burgdorf. Robbie was dying to get this into court. All right. Talk about that, Robbie. Yeah. I mean, it would have been great evidence, but under the rules of evidence, I couldn't get it in.

27:47It was hearsay. He was dead. Yeah. And it wasn't necessarily all that reliable. I mean, there are all these strict rules of evidence, which is why we won the case in the first place, because these rules generally are good. But they limit the kinds of evidence that may not be as reliable as other kinds of evidence. And I just knew I had no chance at hell with Judge Kaplan on that.

28:06Kara Swisher:So first you, Robbie, what did you think of what's happening right now on the knee, Jean? Look, you know, what's always been most astounding to me about Jeffrey Epstein is that it happened in plain sight. Right. He wasn't hiding in some upstate cabin somewhere where he was doing this. He was in a townhouse in the upper east side of Manhattan that people would come to all the time. And so, you know, I don't know whether you call it a client list. I doubt he even called it a client list. But there's no question that there were a number of other people. He wasn't the only person engaged in the kind of misconduct he was engaged in with women.

28:47That wouldn't have made any sense. I mean, I just would be shocked if that were true. And so, look, I don't know what's going on, and I don't know who's on the list and who's not on the list. But it was obviously a grave miscalculation on the president's part to kind of trumpet this all these years and then become president and need to squash it.

29:07Kara Swisher:Right, right. Absolutely. He trained them up in QAnon, and now he's saying, please don't behave the way I've trained you, which is interesting. What about you, Eugene? How do you look at it? Well, I interviewed Jill Hart in Vanity Fair, and she was running a beauty contest back in the day in the 90s, actually. And she was in Mar-a-Lago, and she's got all her beauty contestants. She brings Jeffrey Epstein. He brings—Trump brings his best friend Jeffrey Epstein with him to meet all these beauty contestants. They lived—I don't know why people don't talk about this. back in the day, very close to each other in Florida, very close.

29:48Jill sort of led me to, I believe, walking distance. I don't know if that makes sense, but maybe to a New Yorker it does. But there's Trump running over with Jeffrey Epstein to meet the girls, ignorant, had not been around money or even out of their home states at the time. I mean, total prey. Horrible, you know, horrible. One of Epstein's selling points, as I understand it, to people was that he was really good at saving people on taxes. Yes, that was one of them. Right, saving taxes. So I can't imagine that that wasn't attractive to Donald Trump. Yes, probably more attractive. That's probably the most attractive thing.

30:24Kara Swisher:It's interesting. At the time, I think a lot of people did know what was happening, especially after the Florida settlement. I had been invited to his house for one of those dinners. You remember he invited well-known people, and he was particularly fixated on tech. And the person, his representative, said, oh, Jeffrey would really like you to come. And I said, I don't dine with pedophiles. I'm sorry. Bravo. Yeah. And they were like, well, it was, you know, I was like, I just know it's not happening in this life or the next. Love it. Which was interesting because a lot of people did. A lot of journalists did.

30:55Kara Swisher:That's for sure. So let's go back to the trials really quickly. The juries came back quickly. How surprising was that? Both of you. Talk about the moment the$83 million verdict came down. Robbie, you first on why it came back so quickly and then Eugene. So both of them came back very quickly. It was under three hours for both, which is shockingly fast for almost any case. The first case, we had a much tougher jury. We had this guy who's a Tim Pool, who got all his news from Tim Pool's podcast, and we couldn't get off the jury. And it had to be unanimous, so he had to vote with us. So I thought that was going to take longer.

31:32And the second jury was more, there were people from New York City, so I thought it was a more sympathetic jury.

31:42but I was actually I mean two things one I thought they were going to issue punitive damages that were going to be hefty you know I wasn't expecting honestly the number as high as we got which is really only 3.6 times the compensatory so it's well within constitutional limits but I was surprised by that and I think the reason for it was Donald Trump's own behavior in the courtroom it's a really bad idea if you if you're fighting a period of damages claim to act like you're contemptuous of the court in the courtroom. And they saw that every day. He would come in in the morning, he'd sit through court, make lots of nasty comments, make, you know, huffing and puffing and derisive comments.

32:20And then he'd leave and he'd go to, I think it was Trump Tower, somewhere downtown, and they would do a press conference that he would videotape in which he continued to defame Eugene. So like, imagine what a case this was for us. I got to say to the jury, Not only do you need to give enough money to make him stop, he continued to do it through this very trial. And we showed all the videos. So in retrospect, that all makes sense.

32:47Kara Swisher:Eugene, what about you? Were you surprised by the speed and also the money? When the jury goes out, we had a Manhattan jury for the second trial. We had an upstate jury for the first trial that came from Trump counties. That we won the first trial was a real achievement because that was not Manhattan. And those were upstate red counties. This jury, she stands up. The judge says, do you have a verdict? The forewoman stands up. She says, we do you, Anna. He says, hand it to Andy the clerk. Andy the clerk opens it, starts to read it, cocks his head, frowns, goes like this, hands it up to the judge.

33:25Judge Kaplan looks at it. His eyebrows writhes.

33:28Kara Swisher:And he says, Madam Forewoman, what does the M mean? Yeah. And just, Robbie was on this side of me, we were holding hands, and Sean G. Crowley was on this side. We floated up to the ceiling. Yeah. Because I'm going to be giving away that$83.3 million to everything Donald Trump hates. Once you get it. We'll get to that in a second. I think he's the same. Oh, Robbie's going to, we're going to get it. No, we're going to get it. Totally. So first, before that, every week we get to a question from an outside expert. Here's yours. Hi, it's Lisa Birnbach of the Official Preppy Handbook and True Prep. I've met Donald Trump, and I have this question for you all.

34:17Why do American women vote for him? Why did they support him? He is a bully. He has only contempt for women. He claims he can grab us whenever he wants, wherever he wants. And yet women, not all women, find him charming, amusing. He tells it like it is. But yet he votes against all of our interests and has taken away so many of our rights. So what's in it?

34:47Kara Swisher:For transparency, Lisa is one of two people E. Jean told about the assault right after it happened in 1996. She testified on E. Jean's behalf. But to her point, were you surprised that Trump won the 2024 election? First you, E. Jean, and then you, Robbie. Yes, I was surprised and not surprised. It's just that they don't know it. They don't. We live in a Berlin Wall. On this side is all the liberals. On this side is the conservatives. They didn't hear the news. They just didn't hear it. Their Facebook feeds don't give them that kind of information. After he was voted president, it, the news that he lost in the United States Court of Appeals to Robbie on his trying to overturn the verdict, that was the first time many people in this country heard he had been found liable for sexual abuse, only when Robbie beat him in the appeals court.

35:44So it's not really women's fault. They just didn't know it in the number of people that we needed to know it. What about you, Robbie? I agree, and I think it's due to a lot of other factors that are somewhat unrelated. One, and I know you focus on this, Cara, the rise of disinformation and misinformation on the Internet. I mean, people were probably getting access to Alina Habba's videos, but not to any real news about what had happened to the case. and two there's obviously this incredible resentment obviously in our society of certain very large segments now and that Donald Trump appeals to that because Donald Trump himself is very resentful and he can channel that in ways that so the grievance industrial complex yeah

36:33Kara Swisher:that in ways that no one has been able to do one of the things that's interesting is you know he is funny like you just said at the beginning I watched all the apprentices I was like he's very good at social media and to pretend he's not is kind of silly on our part. And I was saying, this is not an excuse. It's an explanation. I'm explaining it. And I have to tell you the one thing that really, it didn't surprise me, but much on the left was like, how dare you say that? I'm like, it's factual. The man is really good at social media. And if you pretend he's not, you know, he's loathsome. He's not good.

37:02Kara Swisher:I'm like, no, he's good. He's also loathsome. It's very hard for people to do that. And so I do think a lot of people miss that, especially with women because he has an appeal that is hard to understand and yet is obvious to me, at least. You were trying to talk to him that day at Bergdorf until you got to the dressing room and he pounced, right? No, he said, look, I'm going to say something that's going to cause fire to be lit across the Kara Swisher universe. But to me, he's one of the great geniuses of the 21st century. Not only is the country following him, people all around the globe. He has set off a firestorm around the globe, of this conservative backlash.

37:42Women in this country, half of us have been put 50 years behind. This is Donald Trump. He is smarter than any of us give him credit for. And we got to do what Kara just said. We got to realize he is a genius at social media. And he only thinks of himself and therefore everybody around him only think of him. Right, right, right. And that is what we're dealing with.

38:06Kara Swisher:And all the great demagogues have been good, whether from Hitler to Huey Long to everybody else. And whether you like them or not doesn't seem to, doesn't matter. It does matter, but it doesn't matter. So it's not over yet. Obviously, Trump appealed both cases, but you've had new wins in recent weeks, including the court blocking Trump's attempts to get the Department of Justice involved in the case because he's now president. For the third time, so you understand. They're trying to wear you down, presumably, but can you say things where things stand in the appeals process? Where is the money now?

38:34Kara Swisher:And the$5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict, the only option Trump has left is to take the case to the Supreme Court. In 2024, you told me you didn't think he had any federal issues that the Supreme Court could legitimately take it. But his new claim is that he has presidential immunity. When he made those defamatory comments about Eugene, you've won a case before the Supreme Court, U.S. versus Windsor, which was a landmark gay marriage case. You may be arguing that again soon. But it was a different court at a different time. So talk about where we are from a legal point of view with this claim.

39:07So on the first verdict, which is kind of the cornerstone of everything, because that's the underlying sexual abuse verdict, the money, Trump, believe it or not, I've never seen anyone do this before, but they deposited the$5 million plus with the court. And I've been doing commercial litigation in the Southern District for eons at this point, and I've never seen a defendant just deposit the money with the court. I don't know what the reason was. I don't know why they didn't just take out a bond, which is what he did for the bigger verdict. But they didn't. So you're right. That case, they're going to try to, they told us they're going to try to take it to the Supreme Court.

39:40The main issue, there's no issue really of presidential immunity there because when he made that statement, he wasn't president. And obviously when he assaulted Eugene, he wasn't president. Their main argument at the Second Circuit, and I think they'll try it at SCOTUS, is this argument that we admitted the testimony of Jessica Leeds, who was on a plane in 1979 when Trump, she got bumped up to first class. it's the same pattern they were making polite chitchat and then all of a sudden he kind of pounced um the other natasha stoyneff who was a people magazine reporter who came to mar-a-lago um uh right after right before baron was born as i recall so that would be probably oh five i think or late oh five and um she also he brought her into a room and kind of did the whole pouncing thing with her um and their main argument was kind of ridiculous their main argument was really about Jessica Leeds.

40:34And it was this argument that because she was on a plane and you didn't know what state they were flying over when this happened, that it wasn't necessarily a federal crime, then you couldn't admit it under the rule of evidence that allows prior bad acts to come in when it's a case of sexual assault. In most circumstances, they don't come in. The problem with that argument is, as I said in my argument at the court, is it was too many lawyers trying to screw in a light bulb because it was a crime in 1979 to do what Donald Trump did to Jessica Leeds. It was just a different crime. Even if the Supreme Court thought there was any doubt there, it's not what's called a SCOTUS-worthy issue.

41:15It just isn't. There's no split between the circuits. There's no big deal. And we have so much other evidence that came in as the court concluded it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. the big verdict the 83 million uh is in a different position so there we have argued it they raised two issues they raised this westfall act claim which is how they got the case of federal court at the very beginning and he's now trying to reassert that for the third time and they raised the underlying claim of presidential immunity they're related claims but they're under separate legal doctrines. That I argued before the circuit three weeks ago.

41:53And she killed. It was like King Henry at Agincourt. It was unbelievable. Really. I thought I was Alexander the Great. What happened to Alexander the Great?

42:02Kara Swisher:Now you're king. Now you're king in Agincourt. So I think that argument went well. As you noted, they've already rejected the Westfall Act argument because that they made in a different route to the Second Circuit. I think they're going to reject the presidential immunity argument because he waived it in this case. at the very beginning of the case when we were still in state court, the other side submitted a letter that literally said to the state court judge, no one is seeking to escape accountability here. E. Jean can pursue her claims when he is no longer president. If that's not a waiver of presidential immunity, I'm not sure what is.

42:36Kara Swisher:So if it gets to the Supreme Court, do you think it has a chance of getting there? This is a different court, a different time. I think it certainly has a better chance than the$5 million, which I think has very low chances. On the second claim, I think if you're the justices, you have to be thinking to yourselves, is this really the factual scenario where we want to deal with presidential immunity again? And my guess is for most of them, the answer to the question will be no. We'll be back in a minute.

43:42We'll be right back. Thursday fits handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Croc store today.

43:51Kara Swisher:Hey friends, Olivia from OLLI. Between new routines and the ultimate group project known as parenting, you need science-backed solutions that work with your life. That's where OLLI comes in. Start your mornings off right with Maltese made to support nutrition and immune health. Choose from our lineup of gut-supporting probiotics, and we've got occasional sleep support to help the whole fam chase their big dreams. Head back to class with the number one gummy supplement brand. Stock up on Ollie.com today. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

44:21Kara Swisher:This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.

44:50Kara Swisher:So, Robbie, President Trump separately has been targeting big law firms. You have a new law firm. But many of them have struck deals with Trump administration to avoid being penalized. So far, at least nine firms have promised pro bono work for Trump support initiatives totaling$1 billion. Many lawyers are leaving those firms. You of a new hire has done that. It's turned out a lot of these things have turned sour for the firms who had acquiesced. What happens here, including potential Trump opponents like yourselves? So let me say, first of all, that the first firm that did the deal with Trump was Paul Weiss.

45:24And that was the firm where I learned to be a lawyer when I was there for over 20 years. She made partner before she was 30 at Paul Weiss. I page in to be my press agent. I'm glad I'm here for this interview so I can instruct people what a brilliant mind you were at 29, 28. And so there were certainly tears in the culture. It wasn't perfect, but a lot of us, certainly my generation and up at Paul Weiss, really believed in the culture and the principles that the firm had. And so this kind of, this quote-unquote deal that the firm did with him is just devastatingly painful to so many of us. Paul Weiss was known for its litigation practice.

46:12That's what people came to Paul Weiss for. That's what I did. That's the kind of work they did. And for their dedication to pro bono and public interest work. It's not clear to me today that if a law firm has a big private equity M &A hedge fund practice, that that practice is necessarily compatible with having a truly independent litigation department. And so kind of the movement of big firm lawyers to smaller firms has been happening now for years. Just like in media. Exactly. And I think this is only going to make it more pronounced because you can't have, it's not even just having technical conflicts.

46:52You can't really be a litigator if you have to worry that what you say or do in a case involving a completely different client is going to irk one of your private equity guys. You just can't do it.

47:01Kara Swisher:Yeah, you look at someone like Abby Lowell who defended Jared and Ivanka, or Jared, and then you look at, and he's done Hunter Biden, right? He should be able to do whoever he wants. So speaking of people who have been helpful, Eugene, LinkedIn co-founder, he's founded a lot of things. Reid Hoffman helped finance your case, someone I know very well. It might have played out differently if you hadn't had that option. One, are you worried that Trump will use that Trump money to go after you again? And what is the prospects of that happening again, given the shift of tech? Now, not Reid, by any means.

47:35Kara Swisher:I think he's probably doubled down on his beliefs in many ways. How do you think about that money and the kindness of billionaires? In this case, it benefited you, but most of the billionaires have gone to Trump's side in tech, at least. Reid Hoffman is a hero. He not only helped our case, he called Robbie because he wanted to help with the Charlottesville case. When, you know, Robbie trounced the Nazis, the white supremacists, the proud boys, took them all down. That was it. Reid Hoffman made that possible. Then there was a little bit of money left over, and Reid called Robbie and said, how about using that for the E.G.

48:16and Kerr case? So he's, listen, you don't get better than Reid Hoffman. He is fighting the billionaires who are, well, I don't need to tell you.

48:28Kara Swisher:Would you be worried about getting that now? Because a lot of them are acquiescent at this point. We're not actually that much. You know, oddly, I'm not. Oddly, I think we're going to get that$83.3 million. And I think we're going to give it away, first of all, to help women get our rights back. because Robbie and I have enough money. You know, we don't need more stuff. But the country is hurting right now. He's torn it apart. Democracy is hanging by a thread. And I am not worried about getting the money. I think it's going to take a while, though. It's definitely going to take a while. Yeah, it's definitely going to take a while.

49:04Kara Swisher:He'll do everything possible to slow you down. And has done that. So you're also going up against Trump with the MTA congestion pricing. And you had the Elon lawsuits. You have a lot of... CCDH, yeah. You're sort of the, I would say, the go-to Trump gladiator or whatever. Talk a little bit about that because it's a slightly dangerous role, including with tech people like Elon, although now they're on opposite sides inevitably. Talk a little bit about that and the difficulty. I think about it all the time, right, when I'm saying things. But litigation is a little different. You're causing them financial and other harms that they consider harmful.

49:43You know, it's something that I think is on my wife's mind for understandable reasons all the time. In order to do what I do, I'm very good at repression. And so I can't tell you that I, like, wake up or, you know, think in the middle of the night that I'm afraid. This is who I am and what I do. And if people like me don't fight back, if lawyers who know how to use the court system and who have judges' respect, don't fight back, then who will? What are you afraid of, actually?

50:20You know, it's not Trump or Elon so much. It's all the people who follow them. And, you know, like that poor Will Stancil, who was attacked, you know, based on Garak. That's the people you have to worry about, kind of the nutjobs who actually believe all this QAnon craziness.

50:38Kara Swisher:Well, they're fighting with each other right now. So the ball is then eyes off. But do you imagine it returning once the money gets it? Because he will have a fit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I do think that that he is not attacking Eugene or myself right now because he's very worried about how that will be perceived by the justices of the Supreme Court. I think that's absolutely correct. E.G., you're also a fighter. We've talked a little bit about your threats, the threat level you get. Talk about that and how your life has changed. Do you ever believe there will be a moment to move on? You know, Robbie had talked about sort of a moment where everything stopped for you.

51:16Oh, listen. I don't care if they shoot me. I don't care. I like to get shot in the arm. I like to get shot. I don't want to be shot in the head and dead. I don't care. I do not care. I want everybody in the country to get off their lazy asses and walk outside, look at their neighbors. That's what I'd like people to do. We're living in—it's stupid to be afraid. Why live your life that way? I've been here 81 years. and I'm not going to waste the last of it worrying about that guy in marmalade-colored makeup. It makes no sense. So that's what I'm going to do.

51:52Kara Swisher:That's what you're going to do. And when this money gets to you, is there anything you're going to do for yourself? I got it. Look, you can see, I got all my stuff. I don't need anything. I don't like stuff. You know what? It occurred to me, Kara. Okay, shh. We won't tell anybody. I was thinking of getting a facelift. $65 ,000. Then I think, what do I want a fucking facelift for? $65 ,000. That's a lot of money. That's six scholarships to a community college. No. If I'm sagging and bagging all over the place, good. I don't care. No, it just, I can't wait. E.G., you wrote about all of Robbie's superstitions.

52:34Kara Swisher:Which ones do you think are funniest? And Robbie, which ones do you believe helped you win this case and ensure that you prevail in the future? Oh, my. For me, every single one of them. No question about it. You know, I was on the stand for three days. Joe Takapina cross-examined me for two straight days. After I got off the stand, we went back to the offices. And Matt Craig, who was on the Carroll team, went over, and guess what he did? He opened a bottle of, oh my God, of champagne. It may as well have been a hand grenade. Robbie backed up like, no champagne until we win. No champagne. I mean, she was terrified.

53:19And Matt just said, fuck it, I'm drinking. But Robbie wouldn't touch it. So that's. Yeah. That's the one that was funny.

53:26Kara Swisher:You think they all helped you, Robbie? That's very. Look, I have no way of knowing, obviously none of us do, what helped or what doesn't. So I believe every single one of them is necessary. I had to do it. And if we have to do another case, I will do it again. Carol Martin got off the stand. Robbie's in the car next to me. She said, Carol Martin just won our case. And then she spits three times. Meaning? Because God is listening to Robbie Kaplan say that Carol Martin just won the case. and God will punish Robbie Kaplan if she doesn't spit three times. I pretend to spit. I don't actually spit. Okay.

54:05Kara Swisher:My grandmother used to do that, Robbie. She was Italian. Kara, what are you superstitious of, Kara? Nothing. Really? I believe that. No, not at all. You don't wear special shoes, special socks? No. You have a lucky outfit? Nope. Lucky pair of jeans? Nope. Lucky sunglasses? And when people ask me what I'm scared of, I say scary things. To tell you, like most things, no, but scary things, yes. Nope, nothing. I'm not superstitious at all. You weren't raised Catholic, were you? I was, but I walk under ladders, I guess. Wow. So let me ask you your last question. When we're in this situation, and there's a feeling of spiraling out of control of the Trump people with this Epstein thing.

54:46Kara Swisher:You're seeing, I was telling Scott on Pivot just a second ago, you're starting to see their ass, right? You're starting to see the fractures and fissures and things like that. But that said, the damage being done is vast and will continue until he either is gone or he lacks power or both or whatever. And the likelihood of it continuing, I feel, is not, is very clear that no one can hold it together except him. How are you looking at this moment right now? Despite your victories and everything else, how do you look at this moment? I just believe that my job is to keep fighting. And even though a lot of people would say that my cynical instincts as a lawyer are very good, at bottom, I think I'm hopeful.

55:29And I do think we will be able to turn this around. It's going to take some time. It's going to take a lot of pain for a lot of people. This moment, Cara, I grab the joy whenever it comes on. That's how I'm looking at this moment. We have to stop being despondent and look at each other. It's called praxis. We organize. When we organize, we can change laws. That's what we need to do. I'm going to suggest that at the end of this month, we all get together on social media and all text the same thing. I don't know. Do you have an idea what we could all text? Really, Kara? Yes, I do. This fucking guy.

56:08Oh!

56:09Kara Swisher:There you go. May I put that on Substack? You may. Please do. This fucking guy is my favorite expression for so many people. Why don't we all get on whatever social media we have? I don't know if that'll help. publish that at the same time the same day at the same hour okay go for it the pants this fucking i say that about a lot of people this fucking guy oh boy i am going to rebecca traister says all over let's get this going okay all right all right okay this fucking guy okay well yeah well you seem to have beaten him anyway you guys is good thank you so much for both of you and three spits for everybody.

56:44Kara Swisher:Thank you. Thank you, Cara. I appreciate it.

56:51Kara Swisher:On with Cara Swisher is produced by Christian Castor-Russell, Kateri Yoakum, Megan Burney, Alison Rogers, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Annika Robbins. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're ready for a battle like Henry V at Agincourt. If not, pew, pew, pew, three spits for you too. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at On with Kara Swisher.

57:26Kara Swisher:Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.

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