On with Kara Swisher - High Stakes with HRC: The Accountability Episode

Episode Date: October 21, 2026

Welcome back to High Stakes, a limited series from Kara Swisher and cohost Hillary Clinton. Ten years after Hillary called Trump Putin’s “puppet” on the debate stage, the label is back, and so is the fight over Russia.  Corruption is now one of voters’ top concerns. If Dems take the midterms, Kara and the Secretary break down what a Democratic Congress should investigate first. Plus: Hillary looks back on her time as a young lawyer during the Nixon impeachment inquiry, and the two weigh in on Trump’s push to rename New Mexico. Everything you need to prep for midterms, right here.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Ina Garten, and each week on Happy Hour, I invite new and old friends for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. On this week's episode, I'm joined by Julia Louis Dreyfus. We talk all about attending a fashion show in Paris together, throwing dinner parties, and making her Broadway debut in other desert cities. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers. How far would you go to have a healthy baby? Embryo editing is very much illegal in the United States.

It is illegal in most countries. But there is growing interest as the technology has gotten better. This week on Explained It to Me, The Ethics of Embryomaxing. Listen to new episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Are you running a marathon this season? Then I need you to know the next. 10 mistakes that will disrupt your race before you even reach the starting line. I'm Robin Auxon and I am running my 28th marathon and 9th New York City Marathon in two weeks.

In the latest episode of my podcast, Project Swagger, I'm turning my mistakes into your lessons. Watch or listen now wherever you get your podcast, just search Project Swagger. See you there and at the finish line. He could get you if he wanted him. Oh, he has tried. Don't let anybody tell you contrary. I can tell you about that, too.

Hi, everyone. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Hillary Clinton. We back. We're back, Hillary. We are. They're back again. What the heck. Have you got good response for this? I have had an amazing response. And it's been lovely. People have told me that they loved listening to us together. A lot of people say they're a Kara Swisher fan. So thanks for, you know, doing it with her. So yeah, it's been terrific. Oh, good. Well, I'm glad. Well, we have a lot to get to you today. And I just want to say, welcome back to high stakes from New York. magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Now, the midterm elections are less than two weeks away, and we're talking about issues that matter most to voters. We're very interested in helping voters with substantive discussions here. This week, we're going to be digging into corruption and accountability as our topic of the week, because there's plenty of that. We're going to get into the headlines. But first, were you out of a karaoke party last night? Oh, I was. I have a political organization called Onward Together, and we partnered with the Latifian.

Victory Fund to have a night of karaoke. And it was incredible. We had Broadway stars, we had TV stars, movie stars. We had all kinds of people who gave their time to this event last night. So, yeah, I'm a little bit tired. I heard you did not sing. I did not sing because... Why not? Well, Kara, I do have a Grammy, but my Grammy is for the spoken word. Drop that one right. I do have a Grammy. I mean, in high school, the drama teacher let me join my friends in our annual musical as long as I lip synced. What would be your karaoke song if you sang? You know, I would sing anything because they put the lyrics up there.

And there's a lot of songs that I really like. I would have loved to have sung Keep Marching from Suff's because I thought that would have fit the moment, right? I was thinking Gloria Gaynor, I will survive. Yeah, I will survive. That's not bad. I would maybe sing fight song by Rachel Platton. The fight song, right? Yeah, that's right.

You have a lot. I'm still here with Stevenson time. I love that, yeah. You know, you can have a whiskey in your hand. President Trump is catching bipartisan flack. This is right in your wheelhouse now for waiving new Russian sanctions days before they kicked in. And now the White House is trying to buy some time. Marco Rubio says the president will take up to two months to weigh what the sanctions would do to the economy and doesn't want to scare Russia.

away from peace talks. You posted a snippet from one of your 2016 debates. It's going all over the internet with Trump. That was very prescient. Let's play that. Putin, from everything I see, has no respect for this person. Well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president of the United States. No puppet. No puppet. And it's pretty clear. You're the puppet. It's pretty clear you won't admit that the Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line,

sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race. Well, I think you're right. So true. So little background, How did you come a puppet is a great word?

And he drove him crazy. That's clear. You're a puppet. You're a puppet. That was so strange. But this, like, everybody is putting this up and it's like a 10-year anniversary. This is 10 years, exactly. I know.

Talk about then and now. I'd really like to get sort of the background when you decided the word puppet, because that was a very particular word. You knew it would get under his skin. And what's happening now? And I'm going to, you're going to have to talk about this because I'm not the expert here. You know, Kara, 10 years ago, it became very clear. although maybe not to enough people, that Trump was enamored of Putin's absolute power,

that he had been trying to do business. And we later learned he continued to try to do business to build a Trump Tower in Moscow throughout the 2016 campaign, despite, you know, claims to the contrary, that he called on Putin to basically hack into, you know, my email account. We had information from our intelligence services about how Russia was helping Trump to win. I mean, the list was really long. And he also was on record. Which he called the Russia hoax, right? He calls it the Russia hoax.

He does that with every claim against him that is provable, whether it's in court or in politics, because he never wants to admit what the truth is. And so, yes, he has been now for 10 years trying to downplay the, the importance of the help that Putin gave him in order to win. And the record is incredibly convincing that not only was he favored by Putin, but Putin used intelligence assets to help him online, to help him, you know, by trying to bring me down and a lot of other, what the Russians call active measures to get the result they wanted, which was, you know, Trump is president because I had tangled with Putin.

I had stood up to Putin. I had pointed out, you know, a lot of the actions that, you know, Putin took that were not only bad for the Russian people, but bad for Europe, bad for the United States. And so now fast forward 10 years. We are seeing in real time everything that I warned about and everything that evidence proved, which is that, you know, Trump is more devoted to Putin. than he is to freedom, democracy, and frankly, America's national security. And why? Why is he doing this now? Because first of all, the Senate passed that bill, the bipartisan bill, the Lindsey, in honor of Lindsey Graham, who recently died. Why do this, right? This second, is he trying to help the midterms? Because that's one of the excuses is that it's, you know, it'll clear the way for the midterms in some fashion. But everybody's pushing back, like everybody, which is pretty astonishing to have sort of a bipartisan. partisan response, including Lindsey Graham's sister who's running for Senate. Why do this now? Well, I think he made an attempt to link the Ukrainians' efforts to defend themselves and take

the fight to Russia as somehow affecting gas and diesel prices. That's a total lie. The rise in fuel prices is predominantly due to his reckless war, unsuccessful reckless war against Iran. So he did try to make a political case, but nobody's taking that seriously. I think it comes down to really three things. I think, first of all, he remains enamored of strong men leaders who can do whatever they want, including killing their opponents. I mean, it's truly unbelievable that we have a president who wants to be an authoritarian dictator with all of the unchecked power that that suggests. So I think that's the first thing. The second thing is he is, he is. desperate to make more money by making more deals with Russia. You know, there's been a lot of coverage. The Wall Street Journal, by the way, has done a really good job on covering a lot of what Trump is up to along with his family and his, you know, close associates. They want to make financial deals with Russia, including, you know, oil and gas deals, critical mineral deals. They want... And in Ukraine. And in Ukraine.

Well, both with Russian assets like oil and gas fields, you know, luke oil, their, you know, their national oil company. But it's also about carving up Ukrainian assets and getting Ukraine to basically give up on the territory that Russia has invaded and held. So whenever you see Trump doing anything, the old, you know, slogan, follow the money. Follow the money. So number two is money. one is he likes strong man. Number two is the money. And, you know, third, I continue to believe that Putin has things on Trump. I continue to believe that he is holding photos, videos, whatever it might be. It's just how strongly Trump has fought against the release of the Epstein files. And when we finally see all

the Epstein files. I think even the people who supported Trump are going to be shocked by what it shows about Trump. So honestly, I think it's, you know, want to be dictator. It is money, money, and it is, you know, let's keep Putin happy so he doesn't dump what he has on me. I think it's called compromise. Compromot. That's exactly right. Compromise. What will happen next? Can he hold the line here? Because he doesn't seem to have any support for this. anywhere, including. No, but here's the problem. The way that that we have other sanctions bills that should govern his behavior. This recent one, which was bipartisan, passed in memory of Lindsey Graham, you know, did have a provision that the sanctions could be waived for national security reasons by the

president. And so by waiving those sanctions, he lifts the pressure off of Russia. And the pressure was really beginning to take hold. Yeah. And he's also trying to do other things like cutting intelligence sharing, cutting, you know, Starlink and Star Shield coverage for Ukraine, trying to slow down the European deliveries of Patriot missile defense equipment. So honestly, he is doing everything it can to hurt Ukraine, this really brave, resilient country with its brave, resilient president, standing up to Putin, who thought he was going to be able to sweep in and take over, Ukraine in a week. They have held out. They have pushed back. And they have really damaged a lot of the oil refineries and other facilities along with data centers inside Russia. So my hope is that enough pressure from Republicans and others causes Trump to turn on Starlink and Star Shield, causes him to, you know, not prevent the Europeans.

But I would, if I were the Europeans, go ahead and deliver whatever I had to the Ukrainians. I mean, why should they do, you know, his bidding? Right. But it creates, he's being very explicit. He's being very explicitly anti-Zolensky. He's sort of mad at him because he's pushing back. Yeah. Well, that's what, you know, it's always a tell with Trump.

He always accuses people of what he himself is doing. And it's, if somebody were to link all those together, you would see the pattern so clearly. Yeah. So you stick with puppet. Yeah. Puppet. He is a puppet. He's a willing Putin puppet to help Putin.

Okay. You know, Putin's not going to stop with Ukraine. And I guess, you know, Trump has this idea that he wants to divide the world. He gets the Western Hemisphere. Putin gets Russia and Europe. And Xi Jinping gets the rest of the world. But, you know, that's the kind of mindset these guys have. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like a hundred years ago. Anyway. All right, we're going to move on. Actor Matthew McConaughey, who. I'm interviewed, which was a little, a dicey interview for him, is slamming the two-party system and posted a six-minute video over the weekend calling voters to check out independent candidates. I do like independent candidates. I do think there needs to be sort of a shake-up and stuff like that.

I don't think he articulated it very well, but here's some of what he had to say. The reality is midterms are coming. And this November, in more places than ever, you do have more than two choices. And I'm not telling you who to vote for. I'm telling you to look at your ballot, study up, see if they represent you what you believe in. Check if they can be that voice of reason in the middle for you. And if they can, treat them like a potential winner because they can be. You know, I think it's really unfortunate that somebody who's such a great actor with such a reach would be two weeks before a midterm that is aimed at stopping Trump's corruption,

impunity and extreme damage to our country would suggest that any independent candidate is really a better choice. Right now, we have a broad range of Democrats running and Democrats are representing, I think, every kind of American in these elections. And we know, I mean, it's just a fact. We know that if we don't vote for Democrats to defeat Republicans, then Trump will have two more unchecked years to do whatever he wants to our country. One of the things that was surprising, and someone who worked in the Clinton administration, James Carville told Bill Crystal on the Bullwark podcast, I would be disappointed if it comes in at 225 House seats. I would rather the Republicans keep the House by five than Democrats

win by five because if that happens, they're hostage to the DSA. That was something. Were you surprised by that? Well, I just disagree with James. I mean, I think a win is a win. And I remember when Nancy Pelosi had to deal with the so-called squad, she figured out a way to do it. And, you know, all the DSA candidates are not all the same. They're not a monolithic block. And I think that Hakeem Jeffries, as Speaker, can manage, you know, how to get to, you know, enough of them to support a Democratic agenda. Because look at what the alternative is. I mean, are we going to turn our country back over to the crazy Republicans who we have seen not only be, do nothing, things, but refuse to hold Trump accountable for anything. But I actually think we're going to do better than that. I think we're going to have a bigger margin based on, you know, everything that I'm seeing and hearing. Yeah, it looks like it's crashing for Trump right now. But when you think about the idea of an independent party, because they've got so much for check, people are terrified. People are terrified of Trump winning in any way. Right. When is the right time to have an independent

talk? And I think McConae's timing couldn't have been worse. And he seems a little dizzy. honestly. Look, I think we have two independent members of the Senate right now, Angus King from Maine, Bernie Sanders, from Vermont. We have a really good independent candidate running in Montana, who I do think is a real alternative to the Democrat who seems to, you know, in my view, not really represent the Democratic Party very well. So, yeah, there are a few select places where independence number one can win, because that's remember. that's what this is about. It's about winning. It's not about, you know, an emotional catharsis. It's about winning enough seats. And Angus King and Bernie Sanders, both caucus with the Democrats, because they understand that their views are much closer to the Democratic Party than to the Republican Party. So if you have, you know, what I would call common sense independence who can win and not just take votes away from Democrats so that Republicans win, but those are very few and far between. So in this election, in particular, the vast majority of voters are going to be better off if we end up with a, you know, good, healthy majority in the House and a majority in the Senate of Democrats.

Right, right, right. But this longing for an independent party, I mean, you're a student of history so am I, this idea that these parties are not working for Americans and there have been shifts in our country when this has happened. Do you see that happening anytime soon? I can't see it happening anytime soon. I can see, you know, a very strong and I hope healthy debate within the Democratic Party between the center, the center left and the far left. Because as I've said over and over again, I think that does represent a full range of views in America. The Republican Party is no longer a political party. It is a cult devoted to Trump and Trump's power. And so the Republican Party needs a total, you know, transformation. And I think that's what the country really needs. If we're going to have a healthy government that actually gets things done and delivers for people, then the Republican Party has to purge itself of, you know, everybody who lost both their conscience and their backbone over the last 10 years. And that's most of them. But if that doesn't happen, then I can see an independent effort within the Republican Party, frankly, on the center right to the, you know, non-crazy right, to try to reinvent itself after Trump. Right. And do you think that will happen? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. He has a hold on them, even with the declining ratings, right, as they're going down to the basement.

It is unlike anything I ever thought we'd see in American politics. I mean, he has a whole. on them out of, you know, maybe they believe him, maybe they agree with him, maybe they're intimidated and scared of him, maybe they're cynical and they just want to stay in power, whatever the reasons are. He has a grip on the Republican Party. Now, it'll be interesting if we win the House and Senate, and if you vote for Democrats, we will win the House and the Senate, in my opinion, if we win, when we win, and we start trying to hold him a accountable. I'm going to be interested to see which Republicans start moving back off the cult cliff into a more reasonable political position. Any guesses? I don't know. I don't know yet.

Vance didn't back Nettanyahu didn't say it wouldn't back Netanyahu for the election, for example, anybody? I think he's such a shapeshifter. Nobody knows what he believes. And so whatever whatever looks like it might be to his advantage, he's going to say he believes, as he has apparently throughout his entire life. But I think whether there's a contest for the Republican presidential nomination is going to be very telling. If people just anoint Vance because he was vice president, first of all, I think we'll have a really good chance of beating him, no matter who we nominate. But if there's a contest within the Republican Party, and I don't know who would have the guts or the means to stand up and say we can't continue to be the cult of Trump. We've got to

get back to being a real political party and getting things done for the American people. But, you know, maybe one of the Republican governors will say, I'm taking my country back. I'm not going to sit by. I'm going to be the successor to Trump. And, you know, here I am. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? We'll see. Massey. There's all kinds of. Marjorie Taylor Green. Why are we leaving out Marjorie Well, she may run too. Who knows? She may run too. That'll be fun. She is now to the left of me at this point. Like, I don't know what is going on. Every time I'm like, ma'am, what is happening?

I don't trust it. I'm not sure she's quite to the left of you, but she has moved off of a lot of her positions. That is true. It's like, what happened? I think what happened is, you know, was it creatine? What? Nothing like a woman scorn. She was scorned and she's getting even in every way she can.

So just sit back, buy your popcorn, and let's watch. Yes, we'll see, Marjorie. We'll see. Okay, Madam Secretary, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we're going to get to the big issue, one of your favorites, corruption. Support for this show comes from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. On high stakes, Hillary and I talk about the choices shaping our democracy. Here's a fundamental one.

Who should hold power in America, the people, or religion? Our founders created a constitution that bars religious tests for public office. and the First Amendment protects your freedom to believe or not believe. Yet we're seeing growing efforts to blur the line between religion and government from public schools to public policy. When government takes sides on religion, everyone's freedom is at risk. The freedom from Religion Foundation works to keep state and church separate. FFRF also stands up for free thinkers, atheists, agnostics, and millions of non-religious Americans whose voices deserve to be heard. Visit ffrr.us slash Kara or text Kara K-A-A-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E to learn more or to join, because promoting democracy means protecting freedom for everyone.

Text-KERA to 5-E-E-1-1 or go to FFRF. dot U.S. slash Kara. Text fees may apply. I'm Kara Swisher and I like people who say the quiet part out loud. In fact, I love it. That's Tiger System. is a new podcast that recently joined the Vox Media Podcast Network. Sheree Brooke Lou and Jean Lou are real sisters who built their careers at LinkedIn and Goldman Sachs.

On their weekly podcast, they're giving the next generation practical tips on how to get ahead, how to write emails people actually answer, how to make your LinkedIn profile stand out, and how to keep learning as an adult. It's straight talk about money, career, and relationships every Monday. Follow Tiger Sisters wherever you get your podcast. I'm Phoebe Judge, host of the podcast Criminal. Usually I'm telling stories about other people, but this fall I'm headed out on the road with a brand new show.

Stories about me and the people I love. It's called Don't Worry. I hope you'll come out and see it. We'll be in cities like Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and lots more. Get your tickets at thisiscriminal.com slash live. All right, Madam Secretary, we're back. corruption is now the top concern among voters in a Fox News poll. This was really interesting, even beating inflation and health care. Usually those are inflation. The economy is usually at the very

top. We're going to talk about who's cashing in and what to do about. But first, let's hear from our good friend and that charm offensive, J.D. Vance. Do you hate fraud? Do you think it's despicable when fraudsters steal from our fellow Americans and then go by luxury mansions and fancy cars? Does it tick you off when our elderly and most vulnerable are taken advantage of? And do you want to do more to stop it? Then join my pledge to protect Americans from fraud. I'm calling on every member of Congress as well as local and statewide officials and anyone seeking public office to rise to the occasion and make a simple commitment.

And by committing to this effort, you will pledge to protect all Americans from fraud, relentlessly find the fraudsters, throw criminals, in prison and ensure that our government programs benefit law-abiding citizens, not the fraudsters who are stealing from our country. Oh, my God. The fraudsters! You were laughing the whole time. I mean, how absurd and how dumb does he think we are.

Unless, by that, he's suggesting that he's going to start with all the people who have been defrauding America who are starting with the president and everybody around him. Yeah, he should look up. That's what I kept thinking. This is a video we put out calling on elect officials to sign a six-point nationwide anti-fraud pledge, which fraudsters. Fraudsters, everybody, is coming at one of the most corrupt administrations of all time. I think most people agree. Before we get into the many, many specific examples, explain for us how corruption affects voters in their daily lives.

There are so many ways that corruption affects individual Americans. For example, if contracts are given to people who are unqualified and ineligible, like members of Trump's family and their associates, you know, that is a level of corruption that wastes taxpayers' money. It comes right out of your pocket because when you pay your taxes to the government, you are expecting a level of accountability and standards that are going to be fulfilled. You can also see that pattern in the pardons that Trump has given, and the ones that I find particularly obnoxious are all the people that he has pardoned for health care fraud. People who have raised the cost of what hospitals charge you or what Medicare can pay. These are people who have stolen your hard-earned money and your tax money to put into their own pockets. And Donald Trump has pardoned them. And he's not only parted them from their criminal convictions and the prison sentences that they were supposed to be

serving, he's pardoned them so they don't have to make recisions to the individuals that they defrauded and the hospitals that they defrauded and the government programs that they defrauded. And we also see a lot of fraud that begins to creep into how effective our military is. because if you're giving contracts to people who don't know what they're doing and are not producing good equipment, that's like what happened to the Russian military. The Russian military is riddled by corruption, which is one of the reasons why all of the fears that they would conquer Ukraine in a week turned out to be non-founded fears because they were so corrupt. The money was being siphoned off, probably starting in the Kremlin all the way down to I'll tell you a really quick story. So when I was Secretary of State, when people talk about terrible civilian massacres, you know, the worst in the last 30 years has happened in the Eastern Congo. So one of the reasons was because the Congolese military was never paid. And why weren't they paid? Because the way the government in Kinshasa would pay them was to put cash into

suitcases. And that the cash would go from the general to the colonel, to the captain, to the lieutenant. And by the time it got to the soldiers on the front line in eastern Congo, there was no money left in the suitcase. And so soldiers would leave. They would go home or they would join a militia that promised to pay them. And I said to the government, why don't we go to paying the soldiers through their phones? Let's set up a system. We will help you do that. And I put people to work on it and we put up a great system and we took it to the Congolese government. And we said, here's how you can make sure your soldiers are paid. And they at first said, oh, that's wonderful. What a great idea. And then when they got pressure from the military and government officials who were also profiting, they came back and said,

no, no, that's not going to work. So I use that as an example because when people have their hands out, either getting corrupt contracts, making deals with corrupt cyber companies and others around the world, pardoning fraudsters, you know, that all is coming out of. our pockets. The profit that the Trump family has made off of the presidency could actually pay for a full year of SNAP benefits for about 1.3 million people, more than 600 million free school lunches or three months of groceries for the 5.2 million people who have been thrown off SNAP. So that's putting it into, you know, very concrete terms. You're wasting your tax money. The corruption is rife. It's undermining government services, even our national defense. And it is hurting people who should be able to get some support because of their, you know, needs for food or their need to pay their bills. Look, we already know that he's a fraudster. You know, just to kind of keep this in line with the evidence that we have. Here's the stuff that's actually been taken to court. And the courts have ruled against Trump.

Let's remember this because, you know, what they say politically doesn't have to stand up to the rules of evidence. What happens in court actually has to be proven, either beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal court or with the preponderance of evidence in a civil proceeding. So there were the 34 felony counts in the so-called hush money case, which was really an election interference case, for falsifying business records to mislead voters. He got the civil fraud finding on the books for inflating the values of his assets and his businesses to get better business deals. And then he was found liable in the E. Gene Carroll case for sexual abuse and defamation. So I think it's important that whenever he's been to court, and that and that has happened numerous times, because remember, he went bankrupt a bunch of times. That was through the court system. and in the court system he tried to overturn the 2020 election, but couldn't do it because he didn't have the evidence.

So I think it's important to keep in mind when we talk about him being a fraudster, which he is, we're not just saying it for political purposes. We have real solid evidence. There's also stuff that's legally mercury or unethical. And let me give you a few examples. The Qatari Jet, the pay-to-plate pardons, as you noted, using the Justice Department to investigate political enemies. You're often, he could get you if he wanted. Oh, he has tried. Don't let anybody tell you contrary.

I can tell you about that, too. Attacking universities, law firms, and broadcast networks. The ballroom renovation paid for by donors with businesses before the government, renaming the Kennedy Center. And there's all manner of stuff now brewing there about who's taking what money and where it went. The Putin connected oligarch paying for Don Jr.'s wedding parties and more. And it just, these are unethical or things people. didn't think people would do, right, including tearing down trees, which is just a shitty thing to do, right?

But it's not, doesn't stop. So I think one of the things that's really surprising to me is how much you really can't do anything about right now, especially if you're not in power, right? That's why we need to elect a Democratic Congress among many reasons, Kara, to, you know, help the American people with affordability, but also to go after the corruption. And, you know, congressional investigations, state attorneys generals have been really in the forefront of this. The federal courts, when cases have gotten to them, have, you know, been pretty good until, frankly, they get to the Supreme Court. And so, honestly, I know that you and Scott have been doing your Griff watch over on Pivot. So what in your mind are the worst examples of corruption? To me, I think, you know, of course, all those tech people sitting in front of the inaugural was a big tell for me. They were sitting there because they were, I call them pigs at the trough, right?

That they really knew if they put in this coin operated president some money, they'd get a lot out. And so that's, look, this has been around forever, this kind of thing. But it was so explicit. That was one of them. I think if I had to pick all of the various things, and I think we get, like, he's so corrupt all over the place that it's, you know, easy is hard to make. But I would think to me is the cyber stuff, the cyber, because according to his own financial disclosures, he's pulled in at least $2.2 billion this first year in office. And a big chunk of that, it came from crypto. And to me, I think crypto is where everybody should look at. This is, this is,

this is something that's really easy to track, easier than you think. And I happen to know there's a bunch of techies tracking all these crypto transactions. Well, we're going to need them. Tell them to keep doing it. That's correct. Yes, they are because I think it's really, to me, crypto is where he's doing the most damage. And that's where we need to push is what they've been doing and playing games. So when you say that, you know, people are following that, we really need them to keep following it. Because I'm a little bit hopeful that once we get control of the Congress again, we can do some deep dive investigations.

And we need to bring it all into the, you know, bright light of the sun. and let people make up their own minds. Although we could all spend our, I think we need to be very specific because if we spend all our time chasing down all his corruption, it is going to take up all our time to do things for the American people. No, I think you could walk and chew gum at the same time, but it has to be highly disciplined and it has to be, you know, much more than the usual kind of, you know, confusing display of congressional hearings where everybody's talking for five minutes. But I also want to ask you, so when a UAE. backed firm buys half of the Trump family's crypto company. Does that mean that crypto is the new way to buy access? Oh, yeah. And, you know, we know crypto is used for money laundering. So tell us about how it's being used in Silicon Valley. Well, I think it's just, you know, one of the things that was really interesting about the last election was how much crypto money was in there. And Sherrod Brown certainly found out the hard way. And a lot of them, you know, they have backed off a little bit.

but because they didn't get quite what they wanted in that bill, the Clarity Act, that's what it's called, that didn't go through. And there needs to be some regulation in this area. And probably under the Biden administration, there was too much, right? There was too much pushback. And so these guys got all their money together and put people down. They just did. Very similar to what tech is doing in this election. And I do think that there's all these great uses for crypto. But I think in this case, the UAE buys half of this crypto company and these various people investing in it's to me it's just a way to pay bribes. It feels bribe like, bribe adjacent. And of course, Silicon Valley, you know, is part of that. It's part of creating this system so that the Trump family can can create these gains. And what really sort of, excuse me, chaps my ass is that all these people in his cult buy into these, whether it's a Melania coin or the Trump coins or, or whatever. And then, I don't know, 90% of everybody loses money, like quite a substantive amount. And so

it's, that's what's really grotesque about it. Like, it's just a scam, just like fraudsters, right? You know, fraudsters are at you. And it feels so cheap and, and again, also a way for foreign countries to come in here and buy power. Now, let me ask you a question. You know, everyone gets accused of corruption in some cares. And you were called crooked Hillary. to push him back against what you were accused. I think it was about Goldman Sachs, buying access to the Clinton Global Initiatives. Why is Trump getting away with so much? And again, all politicians are accused of this, including yourself.

No, look. Yeah, look, I've been accused of nearly everything. And ironically, you know, when people actually investigate it, because believe me, they investigate it. And even when Trump was president the first time, he had everybody investigating me again. and, you know, thankfully, there was no there there. But with him, what's happened is that he has a supine Congress that will not hold him accountable. He has a Supreme Court that is majority movement conservatives who have given him immunity from, you know, God knows what, because it's a broad grant of immunity, which is disgraceful, in my opinion.

He has some appellate courts that are still majority in favor of him. the district courts have actually done a pretty good job trying to rein him in. But then as they go up to the Supreme Court, these cases end up on what's called the shadow docket. And what John Roberts basically does is to say, well, we're not going to get to the merits. We'll get to the merits at some future date. So we're going to let him keep doing whatever it is he's doing. He also has no shame. And apparently that seems to be an advantage in these times. times when there's no accountability. He also makes alliances with foreign interests, financial interests in foreign countries that understand that it's all transactional. So it's a real witch's brew of impunity and it's so dangerous for the country. You know, if there are checks and balances, if there are rules that you're supposed to follow, and if people actually follow those rules, Like, you know, one of the things that chaps me is the Supreme Court has literally no rules about ethics. So all the stories we heard about all the benefits going to certain of the justices, you know, there are no rules.

You know, if you had become a Supreme Court justice, you could have had, you know, a big giant van to drive around the country. Yeah, that was never anything I ever wanted. But, you know, you can say I wish the rules were stronger and I wish they were, you know, tougher on enforcement. But if you follow the rules, that's one thing. But if you don't follow the rules and you don't get held accountable and in fact you are rewarded for not following the rules, you know, Trump just basically thumps his nose at every norm, law, you know, ethic that you can imagine and gets away with it because he has a cult and he has, it's got, you know, a mafia boss. He has everybody bought in to what he's trying to achieve. And I think part of what we have to do is. is put in new rules that cannot be flouted the way he has flouted them. Should we have? So one of the things, Scott often, and Roxanneuxner drives me crazy, he's like, well,

Nancy Pelosi was doing these stock deals. Like, the whole stock issue with Congress is insane. Like, I don't think they should be able to turn. I agree with that. That's my feeling. They can have blind trust, but that's different. Yeah. Yeah, but one of the things is equating them.

That's the difficulty is like, okay, that's bad but, right? What Trump is doing is far worse. Well, it is bad, but because you've got members of Congress and Some of them may be, you know, trading stocks, and we want to put an end to that because it's not a good look. And then you have Trump who literally has personally traded more stocks than I think every president combined by a factor of 10. Right. And nobody holds them accountable. But the beginning parts lead to this. Like if they're going to take a small amount, I mean, to me, you should be paying politicians more money. They can't trade. And they can't do this revolving door the minute they leave office, right?

I mean, is there any way to stop that? I don't disagree with any of that. But I think we need to pass laws that actually have teeth in them. And unfortunately, you know, Trump's view of the presidency is, if I want to do it, it's legal and get out of my way. That's what he says. And we need tougher laws in Congress because I agree with you. We want to try to, you know, make sure people aren't, you know, second guessing and wondering why these decisions were made. But we have to have tougher laws on the executive and judicial branches, too.

I mean, if we're going to have checks and balances, we need to remove the reality and even the hint of corruption from all three branches of government. All right. To end this, what do you imagine, I will say what I think needs to happen initially is term limits on everybody, term limits on all politicians and Supreme Court justices. We have one on the president, two terms, right? but term limits on everybody with either an age limit or a number limit or something like that or probably probably a number limit like nine years for the Supreme Court, et cetera. Well, I don't agree about term limits, so I disagree with you. I think that term limits are artificial.

I think voters get to make the choice. And if somebody you and I think shouldn't be running again, then vote against them. But I don't think term limits are a particularly good. device, I think limiting corruption, I think putting, you know, boundaries around what they can do. And I also think it would be very difficult to have term limits on Supreme Court justices because you'd have to amend the Constitution. I think instead, we should seriously look at expanding the court while the Democrats are in power. You know, it used to be that you'd have one justice for each circuit. We now have 13 circuits. We should have 13 justices. So I would be in, you know, favor of looking at that and see if we could, you know,

make it work. All right, Madam Secretary, let's take a quick break. We come back. Can anyone actually hold them accountable? Kara, we're back and we're talking about how to get accountability. Now Trump officials from cabinet secretaries all the way down to, you know, local officials are reportedly loyering up in case Democrats win Congress, which I hope and pray we do. And Democrats are already sending warning letters. And why are they sending that? Because they're telling them to preserve evidence and lawyers think the subpoenas could start flying as soon as February. So, Kara, if the Democrats win the House, what do you think is the very first investigation they should open?

Oh, probably around crypto. I think it's the easiest one, crypto, because, you know, there's so many to choose from. I mean, I think what I don't want them to happen is go down a bunch of loudmouth highways, right, where they get to just pontificate in front of Congress. Everyone will think they're kind of wasting time. If they talk about, even though the reflecting pool makes me sad, that or something like that. To me, the money is, we need to look where the money is, where all the money is and what he's doing with the money and everything around these arrangements with Putin, like that kind of stuff. The big heavy duty stuff to me is the most important.

And the second thing is to look at the relationships between tech and Donald Trump. that's where I would go. And, you know, one of the things that Tech is counting on is the Democrats will be weak about this. And disorganized, yeah. Yeah, not just disorganized, but like, oh, let's just forgive them. We like their money. Like, and you sort of start to see bits of that. And so they've said that to me. They're like, well, Trump will kill us. The Democrats will forgive us. And I'm like, I'm not if I'm there. Yeah, or me either. The two of us, if our voices can still be heard, you know. Yeah. First of all, it's good for the Democrats to go after corruption. And it's good for the country, which is even more. important. So what should they leave alone? What do you think should happen and what accountability and what's just payback in that regard? I am against impeaching Donald Trump because I think it's a sideshow and he can't get convicted, but I am in favor of opening impeachment investigations into some of the elected officials or the appointed officials. I mean, you know, people like Pete Hegsatz, who I think is hollowing out our military, politicizing our military, you know, turning it into a militia for his Christian

national ambitions. And I think he needs to be held account. And there are others as well. I also think, along with you, we need really smart, disciplined investigations. And that does go to where the money is coming from, who is receiving it, and what are they getting in return. So we need to look at government contracts. We need to look at government contracts. We need to look at the pay for play that we saw with the ballroom and everything else. So I think follow the money. That's where it should, you know, be the first order of business. The other one I would look at would be doge. Like what happened and where did the information go and what did Elon get? You know, I think if you had to pick one tech figure, I suppose one of the reasons he backed Trump in the first place,

and I said this at the time, everyone was surprised, was that it was an existential crisis for him. If he didn't, those investigations that were already beginning and the scrutiny would have continued. And he managed to take down every agency that was investigating him. And so to me, he is the example, right, of that kind of shadow president. And looking into him would be, I think, a lot, it would be an example and might be effective for the Democrats. And also, it's another reason to vote for Democrats because he's now putting in somewhere north of $300 million to try to elect Republicans, because he knows that if Democrats have the guts to do the investigation that you're talking about, you know, he is going to be in the hot seat.

Yeah. How do you avoid payback, though? I mean, that's the thing, right? I mean, there's probably times in your political years like, I'm going to get that son of a pitch. Well, like, how do you push that away? Because you want to have accountability. And then, of course, it's seen as a witch hunt or that's what Trump uses. It's a witch hunt.

You have to not only do a good job with really smart lawyers, investigators with integrity, but you've got to have a good narrative to go along with it. And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. How does this link to the lives of the American people? You know, why does it matter that people in the Trump administration took money from certain companies? Well, one thing might be in order to try to, you know, speed up data centers, for example, which the American people have expressed real opposition to. So we have to make the linkage all the time.

You know, we're not investigating for the sake of investigating or payback. We're investigating to get to the bottom of who's buying what in our government. So we can hold the people who are taking money to make decisions that are not in the best interest of the American people accountable. Right. So you link them. Now, our good friend Scott Galley posted a conversation he has. with Arizona Senator Mark Kelly on social media. Let me play a clip. Let's brainstorm.

You decide to run for president. You're elected. If you could pass one major piece of legislation, your first year in campaign finance reform. That fixes all the other things. I mean, it makes it much harder for, you know, lobbyists to have influence on members of Congress. Citizens United and stock trading. Get the massive amounts of money out of politics. Do you agree?

I do. I think Mark is absolutely right on that. I do think, however, that legally the only way to really enshrine it and get it done is with a constitutional amendment. I think that you could pass some legislation that tries to tighten it up and, you know, prevent it from being overturned by the Supreme Court in the meantime. But at the end of the day, I think we have to pass a constitutional amendment to, you know, overturn these ridiculous rulings that this court has given. us about what would it say? What would your constitutional moment say? No corporation can contribute money under any circumstances. There's no such thing as dark, unaccounted money. All money must be accounted for. All money must be put into the bright light of public awareness. I mean, the language of it we would work on, but it would be in direct answer to the court's overturning citizens united. The court deciding that, you know, political parties could cooperate with candidates so that, you know, there was literally no difference. And all of the dark money, unaccounted for money that could be dumped into a party because it couldn't go to the candidate could be put to the

candidate's use. So I am in favor of an amendment to overturn Citizens United and all of the rulings that have made our campaign finance so corrupt. An amendment is difficult. Yeah. Difficult. We haven't done one in what a hundred? Yeah, but I think, well, you know, the ERA actually got the number of states that it needed, but the argument is whether it was timely enough. So we could do this if we put our mind to it. And somebody like Mark Kelly could, you know, use a lot of his time and political capital making the case as he traveled from state to state. Mm-hmm. But do it. It isn't effective. I think people are feeling that way, too. So what does every Democrat need to be saying about corruption? that it's costing you money. And when we get the House and Senate back, we're going to end it. And you've got to give us the gavels so that we can pass laws to hold Trump accountable. And if he vetoes them to put the Republicans on the hot seat so they will overturn the veto. And why do we trust you? I'm pretending. Why do I trust you, Hillary? Why do I trust the Democrats? They're just, they're in it for themselves, too. You know, you've learned you can't trust the Republicans to stand up to Donald Trump. It's in our interest to stand up to Donald Trump, you know? that is who we are. And if we can have your trust to be in charge again, you know, judge us by

results. We will get to work day one on an affordability agenda and an anti-corruption agenda. And we will do everything we can to bring as many Republicans along with us, but we'll pass it without Republicans if you give us a big enough margin. And do you think Democrats will do that? Because I have the memory of the privacy bills that never got passed. Amy Klobuchar told me year after year it would pass and then she got shut down by money that flowed into the Congress that the Democrats kneecapped it. Well, I think, you know, both sides of the political divide have been too influenced by money. And, you know, we need to make sure we have rules that apply to everybody.

But if I had to choose between, you know, the two parties as to who's done more to stand up, who's done more to, you know, try to tax billionaires, who's done more to deliver health care despite the opposition and the list goes on, you know, there's no question that the Democrats are much more on the side of the American people. And that's why the Republicans have always used culture war to try to divert attention away from our economic well-being and the end of corruption, which affects our economy. So I think that you can make a reasonable bet on the Democrats trying to produce results when it comes to affordability and being against corruption. Right. Can I ask you one last question? You served as a young woman on the committee when you were a lawyer, young lawyer.

Right. Where did you learn from that? I'll tell you, I was very privileged to be selected as a really young lawyer, like, you know, a year out of law school. How old were you then? Oh, my gosh. I was 26, probably when I started. And to serve on the impeachment inquiry that the Democratic House Judiciary Committee had set up to serve. study whether or not Richard Nixon should be impeached. And here's what I learned. Number one, it was a totally nonpartisan investigation. The lawyer chosen to run it, John Doer, had been a Republican appointed to the Civil Rights Division under President Eisenhower, stayed on under Kennedy, impeccable reputation for being a straight shooter and a hero of the civil rights movement in enforcing the laws. On the other side, a guy named Albert Jenner, the Republican's choice, who was a very old-fashioned Republican who believed in the rule of law. And we were given instructions,

Kara. You cannot have an opinion about whether or not we're going to recommend impeachment for President Nixon because it's going to be the facts that determine that. And this was before computers. This was back, you know, in the early 70s. And we literally would. write down facts on, you know, index cards and then file them and shuffle them and try to make sense of them. And we also got access to the tapes listening to Nixon. And I was one of the people who was listening to those tapes. And it became really clear that Richard Nixon was obstructing justice and conspiring with his aides to keep the truth from the American people about the Watergate break-in and the use of campaign financing to benefit his campaign. So when the time came,

we had established credibility. We were forbidden to talk to the press. I mean, we could not talk to the press. You know, we were leakproof, which was, you know, pretty unique. And when it came time, and we recommended articles of impeachment, they were bulletproof. They were based on the evidence. And in fact, they were so convincing that the committee had a bipartisan vote. And when that happened, several Republican senators, including Barry Goldwater, went to the White House and said, you're going to be impeached by the full House and you will be convicted based on the evidence. It wasn't partisan. It was looking at the law, looking at the facts. And then Nixon decided, based on what the Republicans had told him, not Democrats, Republicans.

Republicans that he would resign. So I learned about how to run an investigation with real integrity and discipline. Integrity. How to follow the evidence. You're 26 years old. This fucking sucks at the time. It must, you believe in government. You believe. I do. How do you say? Because I have sons who are like, oh, government just, government doesn't work when they're actually talking about Trump, right? Right. What do you say is a 26th? What kept you very briefly being, positive about that? Because I saw government work. I saw it both fail because of the crimes and illegal activities by the Nixon administration. And then I saw it work by Republicans and Democrats coming together and saying, we can't let this continue. This is terrible for our

country. So at the end of the day, I believe in government working if you have people of integrity. That doesn't mean we don't make mistakes. It doesn't mean that, you know, people are not human and, you know, don't do things that are dumb. That's just the, you know, way life is. But overall, we saw a government work. And we saw then a vice president come to office who made a decision which a lot of people disagreed with to pardon Nixon, but did it not because it was a partisan and move in his opinion, Gerald Ford, but to do it because he wanted the country to go on and government to get back to work. So you could argue with him and say that wasn't right, but he didn't do it from a corrupt intent. He did it because he thought it was the right thing to do.

And then we saw Jimmy Carter, who, for all of his political, you know, problems, you know, really did try to run an ethical White House. It made mistakes, but, you know, it was at least on the right side. All right. So government works. All right, Madam Secretary, we'll be back after one more quick break. We're back for our completely unscientific focus group. I want to get your thoughts on Donald Trump saying New Mexico should change its name. Yeah. He posted on Tuesdays, shall, that the state should, quote, immediately change its name to New America.

We're not Mexico. We are the United States of America. The name would add great value and prestige to the state. New Mexico governor, Michelle Lujan. Grisham replied, who is a pistol, let me just say. I love her. I know. Under Democratic leadership here in New Mexico, we are providing families with free child care in college, protecting access to health care and investing in housing. While the White House waste time coloring on maps, Nuevo Mexico is busy doing the work. And then she had a chili pepper emoji. What? I don't know what to say.

You know, I think if we, if we, you know, had a list here, New York would have to change his name, along with New England, and we can go down the list. This is such a psychological, emotional problem that Trump exhibits on a regular basis. He thinks he can dictate names of bodies of water. He thinks he can dictate new names for states because that's what dictators get to do, and that's what he envisions himself as. And the governor of New Mexico did a great job in just saying, we're actually doing the business of the people. You're cutting down trees, building ballrooms, renaming, you know, centers that were named for President Kennedy and all the rest of it. What have you done for us lately? And the answer literally is not much, if anything.

Right, right. Well, does New Mexico get to keep the new last name in the divorce? I don't understand. The whole thing is so strange. I don't know. Is he going to build a wall around New Mexico? I don't know. I don't know. But deeper, here's the deeper thing about accountability. He did change the name of the lake. in an executive order. And it'll go back. And of course, all the tech companies fell into line. Yeah, it'll go back. And a lot of, you know, companies fell online and a lot of companies didn't. And the rest of the world didn't. One. MapQuest. Everybody else did. So we're making a long list of everything we need to change immediately upon getting back into the Congress and then hopefully back into the White House in 2029. So we've got to fix it. And we fix it starting in two weeks at the midterms. Right. So last question, how are you feeling about the numbers keep cratering for Trump? It's getting worse, I think. And voting has started, by the way. Voting has started all of the country. Yeah, no, I'm still feeling good, but you got to take into account the massive amount of money that the Republicans and their allies are pouring into these states because, you know, money does talk. That's why they use it. It's not a wasted effort on their part and they have so much of it. I still feel optimistic, though. I still think we're going to wake up the day after the election. And then we're going to have to worry about what Trump and his allies will do to try to prevent vote counts, to try to prevent, you know, candidates taking their seats in the House and the Senate. And we're prepared. We've done a lot of work on that. So, you know, we're going to fight back, just like we're fighting back on the campaign trail. Yeah, that's true. If only he would sing a karaoke song to raise money, that might help. I don't know. Well, look, I'd even sing if I thought it would stop Trump, you know.

Yeah, yeah. I'll make that offer. Okay, you make that offer right here. Anyway, thanks for listening to High Stakes from New York Magazine in the Box Media Podcast Network. In upcoming episodes, we'll be talking about health care, big tech, and more, including a special post-election day analysis on what's to come. Hillary sort of signaled that just a second ago.

You can also find this show on YouTube on the On with Kara Swisher channel. Hillary, thank you for another great episode. This is such a nice, fun thing to do every week, I have to say. Oh, thanks a lot, Kara. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman and Madeline LaPlante Duby. Our tape editors are Moes Bergman and Brandon McFarland. Rosemary Ho provided fact-checking. Nick Merrill was in charge of lint rolling.

Thanks also to Art Chung, Renee Batterson, and Anna KC. Nishat Kerwa is Box Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to High Stakes from Vox Media. We'll be back next week.