Sen. Smith on the Shutdown, Democrats’ Future, and Retiring Early

22:06Kara Swisher:Right. But I think the point is not to talk to you. I think that's the goal is not to. So in shutting down, what is the worst case scenario you have, given it's a worst case scenario? Because he may not even follow any deal you make. That's right. I mean, he might not follow a deal. If we say we gave him the votes, he might not follow that deal. Right. And if we don't just give him our votes without any understanding about what's going to happen, then we will go into a shutdown. And then what happens next? Then what I think will happen next is that the pressure will build. Right now, he just is sort of blithely going about and doing whatever he feels like doing.

22:43And I don't think that he's feeling any pressure. And I think that he will start to feel that. And I think the Republicans will start to feel that.

22:50Kara Swisher:And we all will because shutdowns are bad. Right. And I recently interviewed former Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Well, he agreed the shutdown debate is different than one in March. He also said, quote, one thing Republicans are really good at is apportioning blame. A recent Gallup poll found the Democratic Party has never been more unpopular than it is now. It has 34 percent favorability rating. If the government does shut down, how do you avoid taking blame and hurting the reputation of the party? Well, so the polls right now also show that if there is a shutdown, Americans understand that Republicans are in charge of the presidency, the Senate and the House.

23:23They're in charge. And if they can't figure out how to get their act together, then they're going to be the ones who get the blame. Now, you know, I've been involved in this line of work for a while. And I know that things also, things can change and things morph. And, you know, what the president does in this situation, nobody can predict. Right. Hell, we can't predict what he's going to do when we're not in shutdown. So I think then it's going to become an intense competition about what we need to do to fight off this president who is, let's remember, deeply unpopular. People's costs are going up and up and up on a variety of things.

24:00And it's going to get worse in October. It's not going to get better. And is he just going to sit there and go play golf? I mean, I think the pressure will build on him. You think that's the case? I do. I really do. And then what? then ultimately how all shutdowns end if that's where we end up if they don't negotiate with with us beforehand they'll negotiate with us after that's how you end things it always got to be bipartisan even in this incredibly uh fraught moment the only way to avoid it is negotiation the only way to get out of it is negotiation you do you at this moment believe

24:33Kara Swisher:shutdown is inevitable and something you would say bring it on i mean i don't want it but i'm not going to give my vote to do something that I think is bad for my constituents. And that, I think, is the situation that we're in because of their refusal to... And there's nothing right now that you see... I mean, sure. You know, John Thune could call up, you know, the majority leader in the Senate could call up Chuck, you know, tomorrow or this evening and say, let's see if we can't avoid this. We both really believe he might say that we should not allow these tax breaks for insurance premiums for people who buy their insurance on the exchange.

25:10We shouldn't allow those to expire. So let's come up with an agreement on that.

25:16Kara Swisher:We'll be back in a minute.

25:25Kara Swisher:Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for$15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made$15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months, $90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. Support for this show comes from Cohere.

25:59Kara Swisher:As AI advances, one thing matters more than ever, staying in control. Most AI comes with strings attached, like sharing your data and infrastructure or compromising your independence. With Cohere, you don't have to give up control to gain capability. You can have both. Cohere started seven years ago with a bold mission, scale enterprise intelligence without sacrificing sovereignty. Their solution? AI leaves you in charge of your data and infrastructure, allowing you to maintain your competitive edge. It's designed for enterprises, governments, and organizations that refuse to give up control in pursuit of innovation.

26:31Kara Swisher:From frontier models to out-of-the-box tools, Cohere gives you everything you need to build and deploy secure, scalable AI that drives growth and delivers results. Their platform is designed around your business with models that can be customized and trained on your proprietary data so the solution is uniquely yours. And control doesn't stop at customization. Cohere is built with multi-layered protections, access, and industry-certified security standards that help safeguard your data while supporting privacy compliance and other requirements. As AI continues to transform every industry, Cohere gives you the power to put it to work today on your terms.

27:05Kara Swisher:Take charge of your AI with Cohere. To learn more, visit Cohere.com slash Vox.

27:18You might need MIDI if you ever hairsprayed your bangs into a waterfall, layered slouch socks, tied as crunchy to the bottom corner of your t-shirt, or tried to go for a run with a CD player. If this took you down memory lane, you might need MIDI. Perimenopause can start 10 years before you actually go through menopause. So for some women, that can be as early as 35. Nobody ever told you that? Well, nobody told us either. That's why we built MIDI. If you're experiencing symptoms like night sweats, weight gain, or just generally don't feel like yourself anymore, you may be in perimenopause. But here's some good news.

27:54With the right care, these symptoms are treatable. Book a virtual visit with a menopause specialist at MIDI.

28:00Kara Swisher:Visit joinmidi.com to schedule with an expert who gets it. Specialist-led care. Virtual visits. Insurance eligible. Midlife needs MIDI. Results may vary. Medications prescribed only if clinically appropriate based on a consultation with a clinician. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage. So in June, we're going to move to political violence, the moment we're in right now. It's a little more serious than just a government shutdown. A gunman killed your friend, State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. The gunman reportedly included you on the hit list. You said at the time you felt like the country was at a real tipping point, and after conservative commentator Charlie Kirk's assassination this month.

28:38Kara Swisher:Talk how you feel, right? How did you feel being on that list? Are you fearful? Do you feel like we can pull things back? I mean, I know you have an optimistic Minnesota feel to you. I feel it right now. Right. But how do you feel right now about the violence? Well, you know, I say and I mean it that I wake up every single day feeling pretty confident that everything is going to be fine, that I'm going to be safe, that my family is going to be safe. That's sort of, it's like this innate thing. But let's, you know, I mean, it shook me. It shook my family. I will never forget, you know, waking up at 7.30 in the morning, the morning that Melissa was shot, you know, in her own home.

29:23And realizing that I had all these messages on my cell phone because my staff learned, the governor's office learned, that my name was on the list. And they couldn't reach me because I turned my phone off at night. and so you know there was um we you know immediately got this you know security uh there was a um you know a suburban parked outside my yard my in my front driveway for over 24 hours with a like a young uh young private security officer and I will never forget our one of our sons we were trying to have our grandchildren not be afraid of the scary black car in the front driveway. And so we rolled down the window and Harlan looked in and waved at the guy sitting there.

30:15And our son, Sam, walked away and just like burst into tears because it's so real. And so it's been a very weird thing to be in a position of trying to translate this, the trauma for our state, the bigger issues of political violence in this country sort of through all of these different prisms. And one thing that I've been feeling a lot is that, you know, a lot of people will say, oh, this isn't who we are. This isn't who we are. And I do believe that almost everyone in this country abhors political violence. But violent behavior is not, it is not an aberration in our country. No. It is part of who we are.

30:59That's correct. Slavery, the Tulsa race riots, the massacre at Wounded Knee. I think we have to see that and understand it. And then we have to always, we just have to come back to the universal condemnation of using violence to resolve our political differences. And that's why what the president and the vice president and Steve Miller and these folks are doing. That's why it is so dangerous.

31:27Kara Swisher:Do you, obviously Democrats and Republicans are pointing fingers at each other for the rise of political violence, each armed with their own statistics. I think most of the statistics are very clear, but you've said you think Trump is fueling it, and there's plenty of reasons to believe that. How do you then drop the temperature if Trump keeps fanning the flames, and J.D. Vance does do the same thing, although more cloddishly and more spectacularly uncharming. Yes. He's so uncharming. He's like, everyone's always like, oh, he's getting president. I'm like, he's spectacular. But that's like a whole other show.

32:04That's another show. That's a whole other show. And I would love to do that show. I served with. You saw they raise tariffs on upholstered furniture.

32:12Kara Swisher:But go ahead. Yeah, I know. I know. I don't think. I'm not going to go into it. You don't need to do this. I was thinking about, as I've thought a lot about this this last several months, and I was thinking about the horror of 9-11 and what President Bush did. And I disagreed with him on many, many, many things. But in that moment, what did he do? He stepped forward and he said, we must not use this moment to stoke Islamophobia. Yeah. Muslim folks are our friends. They are our neighbors. That was the right thing to do. It was the leadership thing to do. It's completely the antithesis of what the president is doing.

32:59I mean, what I'm doing in my own life is I am trying to confront in a real and human way when I see that unfolding in real time. I mean, this is why I chose to talk to Mike Lee in the way that I chose to talk to him.

33:14Kara Swisher:Yeah, for people, I'm going to just note, after Hortman's murder, you confronted,

33:21Kara Swisher:you confronted Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee about some posts on X where he fanned the conspiracy theories about the attacks. He's since taken them down. Talk about that. What did he say to you when you confronted him? And has he said anything more since Kirk's death? So I wanted very much when I saw what he was putting up there. It was so cruel. It was so heartless. And it was so performative, right? He was performing for his online audience. And what I wanted to do was to communicate to him that this is real. These are real people, people that I cared a lot about. I'm his colleague. And so that is why I went to talk with him personally rather than fire off myself some, you know, snarky thing about how awful he was.

34:04And honestly, I think he was like kind of stunned because this is what happens. People who do these shitty things are not used to being confronted in person by another human being. And that was to me just about saying, like, there's, where is your humanity here? He did ultimately take it down, but he never really, he didn't like take responsibility for it. He just sort of took it down. What did he say to you when you confronted him?

34:38Have you ever been around a guy who isn't used to being confronted? Many times. I'm sure this has never happened. You know some of these. I mean, like, it might be a senator. It might be a tech billionaire. I mean, every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

34:56Kara Swisher:Also my three-year-old. Yes, exactly. he, and you can see it was kind of serendipitous in a way that there was a picture taken. So I'm standing there and he's, you know, he's got his sort of hands on his hips and he's leaning forward a little bit like he's trying to physically intimidate me. But that guy, I know. And people later said, well, did you feel intimidated? And I said, no, I actually felt like I was quite a bit taller than he was. Yes. Yeah. That's what I was noticing. He sort of stuttered a little bit. And And he said something along the lines of, I certainly didn't mean to do any harm, which is very different from saying, I did wrong, I'm sorry.

35:37And that was kind of it. That was it. That was kind of it. I didn't mean to do harm. I didn't mean to, you know, I certainly didn't mean to hurt you or I didn't mean to upset you. And that's kind of another classic thing. Don't be upset. Right, right, yeah, right.

35:49Kara Swisher:I didn't mean to do it. But I didn't mean to do it. No, I didn't. Like, no, it's more like, I'm sorry that you're mad at me is more the thing, right? Yeah, right. That sucks. That sucks. Don't be, yeah. It's like, it's when someone says, I don't mean to call you a bitch, but, and then that's what they do. Right. Oh, no, it's even, it's more like, if calling, if me calling you a bitch upsets you, I'm sorry that I upset you. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. That's better. Have you encountered him since? Have you, he's had an unusual journey. He used to be relatively reasonable. Now he's extremely online.

36:25Kara Swisher:Yes, he is extremely online. He's someone who's been diseased by online. Yeah, yeah. And of course, in the context of this bigger conversation we're having about political violence and how important it is that political violence is condemned immediately, regardless of whether the person who was injured or killed is somebody that you support or somebody that you don't support. The condemnation has to be universal. And, of course, you know, he immediately condemned the murder of Charlie Kirk as well he should, and as did I. Yes, most Democratic leaders did. Most Democrats. All the Democratic leaders did.

37:04Kara Swisher:We all did, right. We all did. But what they're doing now, of course, is trying to manipulate the facts of this case to use their power to further erode people's rights. And, of course, famously, the president of the United States was, when he was asked, why did you not lower the flags to half-mast for Speaker Hortman, Melissa Hortman, when you did for Charlie Kirk, the president went, who? Right. Who was that? Right. Which is, of course, such a sign of disrespect and cruelty. Yes, he does that on purpose. Were you surprised they tried to do that with Jimmy Kimmel, which sort of ignited a lot of people?

37:39Kara Swisher:And were you surprised that Disney was such a suck-up? Yes. I think that's the word I was looking for. Again, right? This is the lesson of this age, is that if you try to appease a bully, it will never end. It only ends when you stand up to them. And Disney, you know, took them a few days, right, to realize that they were on a bad path. Because they started to get all this external pressure. And I wasn't surprised about Jimmy Kimmel. And I'm sure in their world, they were thinking, oh, this guy, nobody watches his show. He's not that popular. You know, this is going to be a great example. Of course, let's remember, this is the corruption here.

38:21Because this is really about corruption. It's about the corruption of Brendan Carr putting pressure when he can on these television stations because they need the approval of the FCC in order to get a multi-billion dollar deal done. And so that's the corruption here.

38:40Kara Swisher:Right. Well, he certainly got his on South Park this week. I encourage you all to watch it. I felt for maybe a millisecond sorry for Brandon Carr. And then I thought, no. No. It's really funny. No. Are you surprised by the acquiescence of, you noted the tech billionaires, but law firms, university presidents, everybody else? you know i um i talked to a lot of uh university presidents when all of this was happening as the trump administration was going after universities and um there were some that understood that they that this was an essential moment that they were part of the civil society of this country and if they were to kind of kowtow to the president in this moment that it was never going to end and then there were others who sort of felt like they had to work it out and I think that that's exactly what happened with the law firms as well and again this is the this is the corruption of this issue it's not I mean it is certainly about free speech rights it is certainly about standing up for your your your your freedom but it is understanding that the the corruption here is intense because you've got these law firms that are trying to figure out how to make lots and lots and lots of money, and I'm not opposed to that.

39:58I mean, you know, that's the capitalist system. But as soon as you start to have to appease the government in order to be able to do your business, I mean, that's what, you know, that's what Hungary looks like.

40:12Kara Swisher:Right, right. That well-known center of innovation. Yes. Right. Capitalism, Hungary. It is not. I'm meaning to say it is not. They've not invented anything. No. The goulash is excellent, but otherwise, from an innovation point of view, they don't matter. What does that do when you think of all the various industries that have done that? Which to you is the worst? Tech, presumably, correct? Yes, to me. Well, I don't know. I mean, there's an overlap between tech and crypto. And I think that the corruption around the crypto money flowing into fund campaigns at the same time that the Trump family is making billions of dollars on crypto, at the same time that Republican members of Congress, primarily, not exclusively, are trying to pass laws to create a so-called bespoke regulatory system that allows the crypto sector to escape from the basic consumer protections that make sure that people don't get ripped off.

41:24That, to me, is the worst example that we are seeing right now.

41:27Kara Swisher:Right now. And with the tech companies bigger and more powerful than ever, are you surprised they haven't pushed back? Are you? No. I warned you all. I warned you here a couple of years ago. I had to. When you saw, I will never forget being in the Capitol Dome on Inauguration Day. And I felt that I needed to be there to bear witness to this and to see there on the stage former presidents and members of the new cabinet. but their front and center in some cases, not always, but in some cases sitting in front of the new cabinet were some of the most, some of the wealthiest tech billionaires in the world.

42:16That tells you a lot.

42:18Kara Swisher:Yeah. I was not surprised in any way. Well, I ran into one of them and said, a phrase I use a lot, which was, you're so poor, all you have is money, which they don't like. What do you mean? No, I run into them. I live in D.C. and I run into a bunch of them and one of them also came up to me and said, looks like we won and I go, but you're still an asshole.

42:47Kara Swisher:And then he looked at me and I was like, have a good day. Okay. Anyway, speaking of Washington, you're retiring. Your Senate seat is one of at least four Democrats had to defend in the next midterms. Gary Peters in Michigan is also retiring. So is Dick Durbin in LA and Jean Shaheen in New Hampshire. Talk about why you decided to retire now, given the long odds of retaking control of the Senate. Well, so there's two pieces to this. The first piece is I'm 67. And when you're 67, you think differently about the next 10 years of your life. You're not thinking, oh, this is the next 10 years of the next 40 years.

43:26You think this is the next 10 years of, you know, God willing, I'll stay healthy. And how do I want to spend that time? Who do I want to spend it with? And so that for me was the personal part of the decision. And also, no, I will have been in the Senate for nine years, which seems to me like a pretty long, I think it's the longest gig I've ever had. And it seemed like enough for me. and but then this is the second part and it's really really important if I had felt in any way that me not running was going to put this seat in jeopardy that it was going to be hard to win this seat now the people that are running hard to win this seat are working really really hard and I I'm so grateful for them so it's not easy but I have full confidence that we will keep this seat and that we'll have a great next Minnesota senator.

44:17Kara Swisher:So did you retire because you an old lady, which you just said, or is it because, which I don't believe, or because you've had enough of this? I think, I mean, it's because I don't think of myself solely as a United States Senator. I don't want to be a United States Senator until I die. I don't feel like I'm an old lady, but I also feel like there are other things that I want to do. Now, there was a really interesting question a lot of people ask me, which was like, well, if we had won the presidency or if we had kept the Senate, would you have made a different decision? And I don't think that I would have.

44:54Kara Swisher:You would have continued to make the decision. So every episode, we get a question from an outside expert. Yours comes from Amanda Littman, co-founder and president of Run for Something, who is doing a lot of stuff around, especially young people running for office. Let's listen to it. Senator Smith, thank you for modeling the kind of leadership we need more of By retiring and stepping away, you are showing us what true selfless patriotism looks like right now. So thank you. Why is it so hard for so many of your colleagues to do the same? Can you make a hypothetical argument to them that they too should be retiring and make this their last term?

45:30Kara Swisher:I just, I don't think they can take it from us on the outside. I think they need to hear from one of you all. Go ahead. Hypothetically speaking. You know, it reminds me, sometimes Archie and I, my husband and I will be walking around the lake and someone will come up to me and they'll say something like, thank you for retiring. And I will immediately turn to Archie and say, like, they liked me, they thought I was doing a good job. It's not that they didn't, you know, let me explain this. But so, I mean, I think people get this idea that their whole identity is their job. And this happens in all different sectors of our society.

46:13I mean, in the corporate world, there's usually a succession plan in place. They also many have to retire at 65, 70. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And I think, honestly, I think too many of my colleagues have this idea that I'll just stay here unless something changes or unless I shouldn't stay here anymore. They sort of opt, they feel like they have to opt out rather than opt in all the time. And I mean, there are, you know, tragic examples of people who stayed too long who are, you know, I think of Dianne Feinstein, who I looked up to so much when I was a young student at Stanford and she was such a icon and she stayed way longer than she should have.

46:54And why did that happen? Why did her staff allow that to happen? Why did her family allow that to happen? Because sometimes it's just easier to stay. What would you say to them? What I would say is, because I know my colleagues, I would say you should think of your legacy. And what do you want your legacy to be in terms of the work that you've done? But think about your legacy in terms of paving the way for the next generation of leaders who are going to step in and who are going to do great work that you made, you did not you not only did I do great work myself but I made space for the next generation of young leaders to step in not when they're 50 or 60 or 70 but now so you told uh you told the

47:39Kara Swisher:New York Times a part of the problem with the Senate right now was we can't get shit done which is sometimes I'm pretty direct okay I think that you're accurate in that assessment what would you do to make it more appealing and less toxic to young people to make those moves Well, so we have a huge problem with how much money it costs to run for office. And so I don't think we can stop talking about how we need campaign finance reform so that it's feasible for somebody to run for office. I mean, this is the other thing. What would you have had to raise to run if you ran again? Well, Minnesota is a relatively inexpensive state to run in.

48:16So I probably would have had to have raised somewhere between$15 and$20 million. Which is not a small amount. Now, John Ossoff, who is running in Georgia, raised$11 million in one quarter to pay for his race. John Tester, I mean, for God's sake, he raised, you know, tens and tens and, I mean,$70,$80 million. I mean, he could have taken everybody out for a steak dinner many times over. I mean, that's, think of the corruption of that, what that really means. It's not, you know what I understand, the power of the money in this situation.

48:51Kara Swisher:term limits? Would you say, so, you know, why not? Because I think you can't run the New York Times after you're 65 years old. You can't be in military. You can't. Why not have term limits? Not term limits, age limits. Because I think that takes the power away from all the people in this room and all of the Minnesotans. Somebody else, some legislature somewhere is saying, I'm going to decide when Amy Klobuchar or Tina Smith can't run anymore, rather than you, the people of this state. Why can't we, the people of the state, pass a term limit? I mean, we could. We could. Why don't, would you think that would be a good idea?

49:26If everybody, if there was like a constitutional amendment or something like that, even that I think I would have, I mean, I don't, I would probably vote against that because I am tying the hands of voters who are going to be making decisions about who they want to have to represent them 20, 30, 40 years from now. So I just fundamentally think that term limits are taking power away from voters. But, and I should say, people are staying too damn long in their jobs. What about mental acuity testing?

50:00Kara Swisher:Yeah.

50:03Kara Swisher:You seem sharp. Yeah.

50:09Kara Swisher:If you passed it, would you have to stay? Oh, no, but you can stay. But you can stay. You didn't answer. That's all right. I'll let you off on that one. We'll be back in a minute.

50:34Trying to locate news sources that reliably separate fact from fiction can seem like looking for a needle in a haystack. That's why The Guardian is launching Stateside with Kai Wright and Carter Sherman, a conversation with experts who slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's actually happening in the world. Three times a week, hosts Kai and Carter utilize all the reporting resources The Guardian has to discuss the news, international affairs, climate, culture, sports, lifestyle, fashion, and wellness. And The Guardian is not billionaire-owned, meaning they're free to report the whole picture without interference.

51:12Go to theguardian.com slash stateside to learn more. And listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's theguardian.com slash stateside.

51:26Kara Swisher:We're all feeling it, getting pulled in a million directions. In a world full of distractions, focus is increasingly hard to find. And when you're needing to reset and refocus, you'll want something revitalizing. Pure Leaf Mental Focus is a new line of sparkling, real-brewed iced teas made with naturally occurring caffeine, from black tea and added L-theanine to help support attention and focus, without the sugar or calories. And it's available in two delicious flavors, peach and raspberry. Time for a tea break. Time for a Pure Leaf. Try it yourself. Check out the product locator at pureleaf.com slash find dash us.

52:08Kara Swisher:This is advertiser content from Comcast Business. As cyber threats become more and more machine-based and driven by AI agents, those of us in the cyber defense space, we're having to invest at the same pace. Hi, I'm Chris McFarlane, Chief Development Officer at Comcast Business. So when we think about the threat of cybersecurity attacks to businesses, they're just a lot more automated. They have the ability to think. They can scale literally anywhere from 100 to thousands of times faster than a human can. The reality is that today you need to protect every device, every endpoint, every workload that's running on a server, whether it's your own server or in the cloud.

52:49Kara Swisher:This is an area that Comcast's business excels at. We're enabling intelligence-driven defense with integrated visibility, AI-powered threat detection, and automated response capabilities that prioritize, correlate, and contain risks before they escalate. And so it doesn't matter whether you're a small business or a medium-sized business or a really large enterprise. We've got this incredible portfolio of cybersecurity solutions and services to really enhance your cybersecurity posture. To learn more about how Comcast Business can help protect your business today, visit comcastbusiness.com slash cybersecurity.

53:32Kara Swisher:So let's finish up talking about the Democrats, the feckless Democrats. You saved the easy part for last, I can tell. Yeah, so in the 2024 Democratic primaries, you roasted Minnesota Democrat, former Congressman Dean Phillips, who launched a long shot campaign to challenge President Biden. And after Phillips lost in New Hampshire, you said, quote, he's staying on the ballot in South Carolina because he can't spell Phillips with only one L. Do you regret those jokes now in hindsight? How, you know, he was one of the few Democrats willing to acknowledge what voters were seeing and saying about Biden.

54:05Kara Swisher:And I'll tell you, Scott and I got on pivot, got enormous amounts of pushback from pointing out what was quite obvious to anyone with eyes. I mean, again, we're not doctors, but it seemed a problem. early on. So talk a little bit about that. Well, so here's how I see it. I mean, Biden shouldn't have run, I don't think. And I think that he came to that conclusion too late. Mm-hmm. And I think that those of us who were in this, you know, I could just, I'll speak to my, I'll speak from my own perspective. When it became obvious that he was going to run, and I was not one of the five people that had any influence over that decision, seemed to me that there was only one thing to do, which is to try to make sure if he was going to run that he was going to win.

54:58And that's why I questioned what Dean was doing, because I did not think that it was going to be helpful to the cause of having Biden win, given that he was going to be our candidate, obviously. I think it's quite interesting. I've been reading Kamala's book, which just, you know, 107. I'm interviewing her in a couple of weeks. And you're talking to her in a couple of days. And it's quite interesting to read what she, reading that book, I really recommend it. I'm good friends with Kamala.

55:27Kara Swisher:It's a little bit like reading somebody's diary, but in a good way, not like you weren't supposed to, not like, you know, but she also kind of asked, what should I have done differently? But then also realizing it would have seemed so self-serving. if she had gone into Steve Rischetti or that handful of people, Mike Donilon, who were close to the president. So... You don't think she should have said something publicly if they weren't going to listen to her? I think that if she had, think of what would have happened to her. And I think she was honestly making this... I mean, we all know we were wrong now.

56:04but if she had done that um as far as anybody can tell and he was going to run she would have been undermining him she would have been making it harder for him to win given that he was going to run and that was this sort of horrible circular logic right that we were all caught in in uh you know in that in that moment and then when we had the disastrous debate and it became clear to me in that moment that this was never going to we had to change why did it take nancy pelosi to say

56:32Kara Swisher:step down or else? Why was there not more of stepping forward? And I understand, I agree, it's very difficult for Harris to have done that. At the same time, it was pretty obvious there were problems, cognitive problems for most people. So what has to change in politics where we don't just go along? And, you know, she said it's the ego of one man, right? That's essentially. That's right. And that's essentially what Kamala says, which is that it shouldn't be left up to just, you know, the one person there should be. So why did it take until Nancy Pelosi decided to put her, like, jacket on and go down there and say, step down or else?

57:11She is truly the scariest grandma. Yeah, I'm aware. And I think, I'm joking, but I mean, it goes to the gravitas and the power that she still wields. And, you know, I was in a meeting with, it was probably four days before the president announced that he was going to step down. And this was a meeting of Senate Democrats. And we had the 45 of us were quite sure that he needed to step down. And they, you know, the, the kind of brain trust of the Biden campaign came in to basically tell us that everything was going to be fine. I've never felt so, you know, gaslit in my life. Well, maybe previous, you know, before Donald Trump.

57:59And, you know, we all said, you know, this is not going to work. You have to understand that this is over. And then, you know, Pelosi did what she did. Others did what they did. And he ultimately reached the conclusion that he did. But as I said, it was too

58:14Kara Swisher:late. And too late for her to build. Too late for her. So going back to the Gallup poll that found record low favorability for the Democratic Party among all voters, it's low partly because Democrats have historically a dim view of their party. Between now and midterm elections, what are the three concrete things they can do? Obviously, you have Gavin Newsom doing a very muscular attack at Trump. People seem to like it. His numbers have risen rather dramatically. Rahm Emanuel's another person advising for more muscularity. I'm not using this in a gender specific way, but it's, you know, more toughness, more aggression and everything else.

58:53Kara Swisher:So what is, what do Democrats need to do to win back their own voters and convince others to go with them besides Trump sucks? So, right. So we, we can't just accomplish this by telling people how bad Donald Trump is. People already actually believe that he's pretty bad. Even Republicans are starting to think that he's pretty bad. And so that is just the base. But that doesn't make you like Democrats more. Exactly. So I think of a handful of things that we need to do. I mean, one, we are struggling right now because we don't have a national leader. Gavin, it's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about Newsom too.

59:31I don't know if he is what we need, if he is the thing, but we are struggling because we don't have a person at the top who can kind of guide us through this and the caucus leaders are never going to be that person right now so two other things that I think we have to think about one is that we have to get much more clarity about what we are for and not just what we are against and in my book

1:00:00in my book we have to make it clear that we are going to fight against the concentrated powerful interest in this country that are taking all the money and leaving everybody else with the crumbs and that is not a right-wing or left-wing idea that is actually what people believe about what is wrong in this country and too often democrats have been in the position of sort of defending the status quo, sort of trying to defend institutions that folks fundamentally don't trust. And until we get our brains around the fact that, you know, our sort of, you know, neoliberal approach to politics is not what people want, and in fact they feel talked down to and dismissed, we are not going to find a path out of the wilderness.

1:00:45If you don't feel like your kids are going to have a chance to buy, or even you are going to have a chance to buy a home and have a chance to do well, to earn enough money that you can even take a vacation once in a while and Democrats don't have a solution for that, then we have to be able to be providing solutions. And this is, I think, where we are getting it wrong in our party right now is that there's this big debate about, oh, we don't wanna be too progressive or we wanna be more moderate, but this is not a moderate progressive continuum. This is about being for the 80 % of what Americans want.

1:01:19They want their family to be able to own a home. They want their kids to be able to have childcare. They want to be able to afford their health insurance. And we have been sort of like, oh, but we have a policy for that. And so that, I think, is the really important thing we have to do. But then there's the last thing, which is that we are not actually talking to the voters that we think we are talking to. This is a tactical problem. And you know this as well as anybody. The Democratic Party spent literally billions of dollars advertising on television to on MSNBC and CNN. Where do you think Americans are getting their news right now?

1:02:03Facebook. Right. Social media platforms. Podcasts. They're getting it from you. They're getting it from Aaron Parnas. They're getting it from Brian Tyler Cohen. and we have to get on top of that and figure out how to communicate and connect with people in the places where they're getting the news and we did not do that nearly well enough and that is I think one of the reasons. Something Trump did very well. It's something that he did extremely well. I mean we were you know as deplorable as the words that came out of Charlie Kirk's mouth were he understood that you have to go and talk to young voters in a very specific you have to be there.

1:02:41And I think that's, I've been working on that with our caucus, with Cory Booker, and I think this is a place where another very tangible thing we have to do better.

1:02:49Kara Swisher:Gosh, you sound like you're running for something.

1:02:56Kara Swisher:I'd like to let you all know right now. Would you like to run for president? No. That was a pause. No. No. No. No. But when you, But there are people running for president, several of them from Minnesota, apparently. There's a vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Amy Klobuchar, I'm sure, will make another run for it. Have you backed anybody in this state or elsewhere? What do you want in a presidential candidate? I believe that we have a great governor and a great United States senator. Oh, wow. Well done. Are you a little disappointed by that answer? You can say what you want now.

1:03:37You can say what you, who would you vote for if you had the choice? So I actually think that what we need, I really, I don't know who I will vote for and I don't know who I will support, but I am looking for somebody new. I am looking for, I'm looking for like the national version of this oyster farmer who's running against Susan Collins in Maine. or the guy who owns the beer company or Dan Osborne in Nebraska or Mary Peltola in Alaska. I'm looking for younger, fresh voices, people who have the capacity. Even a Pete Buttigieg. I was saying even because he's been on the national stage for a while.

1:04:18Kara Swisher:You didn't mention someone who did very well, Zoran Mondani, with young voters. Exactly. I mean, I mentioned him as well. This is the kind of... you know, too often, I think our party has developed these sort of gray beard gatekeepers who are deciding who's going to do well and who isn't. And we have to trust people who are willing to be bold. What is your prediction right now of winning the House, assuming a free and fair election without a lot of Trump nonsense, which you're going to get? Which of course is a big assumption, but you know, we have to, we have to work. Do you think this is a moment that will happen?

1:04:53Kara Swisher:Because everyone's relying on these 2026 elections, I think a little more than they should. all I know how to do is to have hope and then turn that hope into action. And that is, I think, what we have to do. And I am optimistic. I am hopeful that we have House candidates that are going to be able to win this election and that that will be the essential stopgap towards what Donald Trump is doing. And then do you put him in the rearview mirror? Rahm Emanuel said then we put him in the rearview mirror like he does, like he's an old man, and put him out to pasture. Well, I mean, I think we all have to get our minds around the fact that, I mean, Trump is a unique talent, but the MAGA movement that he has built is not going to go away.

1:05:36And so we have to be prepared for that. We have to be thinking about our next conversation about J.D. Vance. You know, what horribleness is Stephen Miller going to get up to next? What's going to happen to those folks?

1:05:48Kara Swisher:He's probably going to run Disney. Yeah. He'd make it the unhappiest place on earth.

1:05:59Kara Swisher:So I have one final question. What are you going to do next? I'm curious. You know, who the hell knows, really? And I mean, I'm not being facetious about it. I will be in this job until January of 2027. And I'm actually very grateful that given the challenges of this moment, that I'm not trying to figure out how to run a campaign at the same time that I'm doing this job. And then... Dream job? I really don't have a dream job. Sometimes I think that I want to do something that is much more tangible and much more kind of close to the work than sometimes being in the Senate feels like. But honestly, I'll probably take a little bit of a vacation and then see what good trouble I can get up to.

1:06:43Would you run a university? I don't know. I mean, honestly, I really don't know. I know there's going to be good work to do.

1:06:52Kara Swisher:Well, your world is yours, presumably. All right. Thank you so much, Senator Smith. Thank you, everyone.

1:07:08Kara Swisher:Today's show was produced by Christian Castor-Russell, Kateri Yoakum, Michelle Eloy, Megan Bernie, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Eric Litke, Annika Robbins, and Steve Bone. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Juan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, we will telepathically coordinate outfits from now on. If not, Stephen Miller will be replacing Bob Iger. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us.

1:07:46Kara Swisher:We'll be back on Thursday with more.

1:07:53Support for this show comes from St. Germain Elderflower Liquor. Nothing says summer like a sunny backyard hang. Think light-colored linens everywhere and an easy conversation on your lips, your favorite hors d 'oeuvre in one hand, and the bright, refreshing taste of a St. Germain spritz in the other. Those are the details that stick with us. And the St. Germain spritz, an elevated take on the Hugo spritz, is the simplest part. Just mix sparkling water, wine, and Saint-Germain for your go-to summer cocktail. Visit SaintGermainLiquour.com to shop and explore recipes. Enjoy responsibly.

1:08:34Kara Swisher:Support for this show comes from CoreWeave. Everywhere you look, AI is expanding what we thought was possible. And at the center of it all is CoreWeave. Medical research and diagnosis. Education. Complex visual effects for movies. science and technology breakthroughs. CoreWeave powers AI pioneers around the world with purpose-built tech, building what's never been built before. CoreWeave is the essential cloud for AI, ready for anything, ready for AI. To learn more about how CoreWeave powers the world's best AI, go to coreweave.com slash ready for anything.

1:09:14Support for the show comes from Engine. Running a small business means every dollar has to work hard. But if your team is still booking travel the old way, it's costing you more than you think. Engine is the fastest growing travel and spend platform in the country, built specifically for businesses like yours. Book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes. Earn up to 10 % back on hotels. And in 2025, Engine customers saved more than$300 million on travel with zero booking fees, no contracts, and no BS. More than a thousand businesses join Engine every month. Join them and get$500 when your business signs up and starts traveling at engine.com slash Vox.