On with Kara Swisher - Hillary Clinton Lets Loose with Predictions

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

This is Kara’s 5th interview with Hillary Clinton. So what’s changed since their first conversation in 2015? According to Kara, it’s that the former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic nominee for President has “run out of f***s." In this conversation, taped live at The Texas Tribune Festival, Kara notes that many of Clinton’s past predictions about Donald Trump have come through and asks what may unfold if Trump runs again in 2024. They discuss Hillary’s role in the Democratic Party, and the upcoming midterms. And they talk about the emails (again), with Kara laying out one conservative narrative that seeks to equate Clinton’s emails with the documents Trump stashed away at Mar-a-Lago. As Hillary puts it: “I have testified for 11 hours. I would love to see Donald Trump testify for 30 minutes in public about any of this.” Before the interview, Kara and Nayeema talk about newsmakers – from Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell’s decision to back a bill that would overhaul how Congress counts electoral votes to Giorgia Meloni’s win in Italy. They also run down things they’ve found despicable, delightful – or both – this week. Plus, Kara gives some advice. This time: it’s solicited.  Do you want Kara’s advice? Send us your questions! Call 1-888-KARA-PLZ and leave a message.  You can find Kara and Nayeema on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca Oh, Scott's just calling me. I'll just call you right back. Later, Scott. I love that you're screening Scott Gallow just calling me. I'll just call you right back. Later, Scott. I love that you're screening Scott Galloway for me. It's on!

From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Cuomo with Kara Swisher. Just kidding. This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Naima Raza. I entered this podcast as a sidekick on Monday, but Kara, I am already plotting a hostile takeover to be Top Gun. So watch out, Maverick. Yeah, we have to move along from Top Gun. We have to have other sidekicks. This is your way of making sure I'm not branded on the internet as Goose. That's correct. So you want to keep me moving. You want to keep me down. I want to keep you moving. Yeah, I'm keeping you. No, I'm not keeping you. I'm trying to rise you up. So, Carol, we're going to get into newsmakers we're watching this week. So we have two of them.

Do you want to share? Yeah. Senator Mitch McConnell and new Italian PM Giorgia Maloney, as I've called her, Mussolini. Yes, the likely new prime minister or anticipated new prime minister. It takes 16 years for the Italian elections to be counted. Go ahead. There you go. Well, it's more a parliamentary system. All right, let's just jump into our first newsmaker, which is Mitch McConnell. Yep. He's backed this bipartisan bill that, quote, overhauls how Congress counts electoral votes. That's how it's being reported. I mean, it tries to address many

of the things that occurred on January 6th, like what the vice president's role is in certifying election results, kind of what the bar is for election objections, etc. So, Carol, what do you think of this bill? You know, look, Mitch McConnell's one of the most successful operators of the Dargards in Washington for years. And I think in this case, he has decided to back Liz Cheney, really. I think that's pretty much it has decided to back Liz Cheney, really. I think that's pretty much it. This is a Liz Cheney push bill. I think, I forget who it is in the Senate. It's Joe Manchin and Susan Collins in the Senate. But it was inspired by Liz Cheney and Zoe Lofgren's House bill, though. That's correct. Mitch McConnell has said that Liz Cheney's bill was a non-starter.

They disagree over how many members of the chambers are required to object to hold up the vote. And currently, like, it's one in each house, which means you just need Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene to hold back the system. In the House bill, they've asked for a third of each chamber. And in the Senate bill, it's just a fifth. They'll work that out. That's just, that's just technicalities. And they'll figure it out. That's what he's doing. And he's doing a lot of stuff, like a lot of people felt that he should have gone further. He spends a lot of time insulting Trump behind the scenes, as they often do, whether it's Ron DeSantis or Mitch McConnell, and then never say it in public. McConnell goes from giving Trump this kind of bear hug in the first impeachment trial to after January 6th saying Trump did something bad, really, really bad.

He seemed generally shaken. They all were saying that at the time. But he didn't vote to convict Trump in the second impeachment. Do you think he's stepping up, though? Do you think it's a significant change? No, all he wants is power for the Republican Party to do whatever they want. I mean, I'm not a fan, but nonetheless, he should do this. It's the very least, it's the bottom rung of the ladder of decency. It's curious that he's emerged as the sensible wing of the GOP in the forthcoming election. Like versus Trump. Shows how far the Overton window has moved.

You know who's not a fan of the bill is Ted Cruz. But he is a fan of someone else. Do you know who that is? No. It's our next newsmaker, Cara. Okay. Mussolini. Georgia Melanie.

So you've called her Mussolini. Why do you call her that? I pay attention to the words coming out of people's mouth and how they use them. And so, you know, I paid a lot of attention when Trump kept talking about immigration. And I had a big back and forth with tech people who said he was just pontificating. I said, no, he's not. He means it. And so I just pay a lot of attention to the things she's saying and the things they're

using to try to scare. And she used a word, financial speculators, which is a term that Mussolini was using for Jewish bankers, I think, back in World War II. And I just found that uncomfortable. The first thing to come out of her mouth was something that was just terrible. You know, I love women being elected, but it doesn't mean you have to support

every woman who's been elected. That was being used by a lot of, oh, she's the first one. I'm like, I don't care. She's not someone I agree with. And she uses terms like financial speculators like that, which everyone knows what she's doing. So one thing I think is really interesting in Maloney is that it's a conservative woman that wins. And I actually wonder if that will be a lesson for the United States, Cara.

Like if we will see Nikki Haley or Liz Cheney be the first female president in the United States versus a liberal. I kind of wonder about that. I think that's the case. I think that's the case. I've always thought it was going to be a conservative woman first. about that. I think that's the case. I think that's the case. I've always thought it was going to be a conservative woman first, just like in England, that was the case with Margaret Thatcher and now Liz Truss. I think that's the way it's going to be. We'll see what happens. It's like fighting wars. It's easier for Democrats to do it than Republicans because Democrats feel like, oh, well, you must have a point if you're going to

go against your values and run for war. I don't think the Italians, by the way, are going to let her get away with much. They're much more, they're not going to let her repeal abortion. Three hours until they start complaining about her. All right. Now we're going to play a little game before we get on to our interview. So it's called Despicable and Delightful. It's super simple. You just have to tell me something that's delighting you and something you find despicable. You know, I wrote a long tweet about this. People who trashed their former city after moving to Florida for lower tax, essentially for lower taxes. And this time it was this guy who made a big splash for himself, I guess, writing about, you know, how bad the parents of Brealey were over a bunch of whatever woke, whatever they wanted to call it.

Which comes as a surprise to nobody of these rich schools. And I get it. It's fine. Whatever. But he sort of made a little grievance industry out of it, like a lot of people do. So he wrote another thing about leaving New York for Florida and had to do the whole hand-wringing about how terrible. We love New York, but blah, blah, blah. And I find it a really interesting trend

because a lot of tech people did this. Keith Urboy, Shervin. Yes, a lot of them. And Keith in particular has to constantly be, you know, trashing San Francisco. And I know he goes back to visit. I've heard he was there recently. But it's really quite something to like, just you move somewhere, and you have to trash your previous thing. And I compared it to someone's talking about their exes almost continually in front of their new partner. Well, they still love the ex, right? That's really what's happening.

They love the ex. They love to hate the ex. They love to hate the ex. It's exhausting. And, like, just leave. Just go. And we will enjoy our 2 a.m. hot bagels and our lovely Central Park. And somehow we'll survive the terrible situation in New York.

Well, that's a delightful send-off. What's delighting you, Cara? Oh, you're going to think it's weird, but I liked the movie Hocus Pocus a million years ago, and it got terrible reviews. I have to say, I've never seen this film. Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy. And I love it.

It's so terrible, but they have a new one. I don't know how this happened. And the trailer's very funny, and they're back. They're witches? They're witches. Oh, forget it. I'm not going to talk and they're back. They're witches? They're witches. Oh, forget it. I'm not going to talk about this with you. It's wonderful. It's like The Craft with Neve Campbell for my generation. I have one that's despicable and delightful all at the same time. And I also must say, I'm not 100% sure it's true. The chess scandal of the last couple of weeks. I read about it also in our friend Brooke Hammerling's Pop Culture Mondays newsletter. Yeah, it was a young chess whiz, Hans Nieman, who apparently

had some vibrating, how can I say this in a classy way? He had a vibrator. Vibrating anal beads, which I was going to call vibrating insert in his rectum to alert him. Is that better or worse? No. Okay. All right. To help him, yeah, cheat and get information. Anyways, I don't know if it's true, but it feels kind of disgusting, despicable. Oh my God. Oh my God. Cheating is despicable. But if you're going to cheat and you use anal beads, it is delightful. All right. When we come back, this will be a very natural segue to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Oh, God. I'm so sorry, Secretary Clinton.

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Texas is sending their migrants to New York City and to the East Coast, and we're sending our Cara Swisher to Texas. Yes, yes. It is my fifth interview. I've done a lot of interviews with Hillary Clinton. Your first one was when? I think it was in 2015, either before she ran, where I got her to talk about having multiple phones, which later came to haunt her.

And then I interviewed her after she lost, and she sort of predicted a lot of stuff that happened in the Trump administration. Yeah. I'm just looking here. 2017, 2018, 2020. So it's almost an annual meetup for you. Yeah. She's an interesting figure. One of the things that I think people don't get, and some people have said it who cover her, is she's much more interesting privately. And I've often thought if people could experience her privately, there's some glitch that happens with a lot of people with her publicly. She's really quite salty and very honest and also honest about herself because there's a lot of flaws there, obviously. And so she's a much more interesting people.

And I think I tend to bring that out in her, that part of her. But for you even, do you notice a difference in her in private and then the moment she steps on stage, like going from backstage to onstage? No, it's moving closer and closer. I thought this interview was exactly that. Like it's starting to move closer and closer. She certainly defends herself on some of the indispensable stuff, like having that server. But she's going to always be a figure of hatred for the right. They've made her into this. She talked many years ago about a vast right-wing conspiracy.

You know, I think it's a little right-wing conspiracy that really did tar her for history. It did her in. I mean, I feel like I would be... Not the only reason. She did herself in in certain ways, too. She did. Do you think she's gotten looser

since she lost the election and she's become... Yeah, she's run out of... As I like to say, she's run out of fucks. She really has. She really has truly run out of fucks. In 2018, there was a moment in your interview with her where I thought she was going to run for office again. And you were like, would you want to run for president? And she took a minute. Yes. And she took

a minute. That was on purpose. She's such a political animal. And then she said something like, I would like to be president, but I wouldn't like to run again. Ah, yes. Appointed president. I don't think she meant it that way. Sounds tropey to me. But in this case, you know, I asked her again. All right. So what was your big question for her going in? Her relevance. To the party today? To everything. She's definitely a lightning rod, and I want to, you know, it continues to be, continues to be. Well, before you went in, I pestered you a lot

to ask her about the emails. Because a lot of people are making this kind of analogy between what's happening with Trump. Equalization. Yeah, they're trying to equalize what happened with Trump and the National Archives, these papers he's held hostage in Mar-a-Lago for a while or he had to her in the emails. And I pushed you and was texting you late at night because it's very important to be asked the questions and to answer them. So let's hear how you did. I tried to. I tried to keep up with it because I do think she has to be held accountable just the way Donald Trump did.

I don't think they're equalized, but she had some answers. All right. Let's listen. Hey, everybody. How you doing? Without further ado, my guest today needs no introduction. I like to call her that housewife from Chappaqua who lives rent-free in the head of a Florida retiree. That's how I like to refer to her.

Without further ado, Secretary Hillary Clinton. Thank you, my dear. All right. There you go. What do you think about that? I love Austin. Do you? Yeah.

Yeah. Love Austin. Yeah. Came here, I know I hate to say this, came here for the first time 50 years ago. Uh-huh. It looked a little different back then. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let's get to it. We have to start with Donald Trump. Uh-huh. It looked a little different back then. Yeah, okay.

All right, well, let's get to it. We have to start with Donald Trump. We just do. Sorry. We're going to talk about the midterms. We're going to talk about your thoughts on Putin and Ukraine. But Donald Trump feels like he should rise to the surface immediately,

like styrofoam. Anyway, so orange styrofoam. You've made a number of predictions about him, including in lots of interviews with me right after the election. You made a bunch of them. I want to run through a bit of a lightning round. You said in 2016 that he'd be Putin's puppet. You said that he'd avoid paying taxes. Fine, obvious. That he'd take the courts and overturn Roe versus Wade, and that he would claim that the election was rigged if he lost in 2020. That's pretty accurate. How do you feel about that? Well, yeah, I did say all that. And I can't say that I feel any satisfaction for having predicted it, because I think

it turned out to be even worse than I knew at the time. So now we're in this big fight for our democracy and the rule of law, and he is still out there making all kinds of dangerous statements. So it's not over yet. All right, let's make some predictions now. Will he run in 2024? He will run if it's at all possible for him to run. Meaning? Meaning that he will run because of his ego and narcissism that will just absolutely drive him to run, and because he will also have the belief that the only way he can escape legal accountability, both civil and criminal, is to be elected president again. All right. Will he win? I don't think so. But who would have thought he would get more votes the second time after

people actually saw what he did? That was an unfortunate wake-up call, too. Why I don't think so? Is that I don't hope so? No, no. I don't think so at the end, except, because here's the big caveat, you have a concerted effort by Republicans in power and states like this one and so many others to make sure that they will never lose the electoral college again. You know, I won by three million votes, Biden won by more than 7 million. But if you look at the Electoral College, I lost by about 70,000 votes. So literally 35, 36, 37 going a different way in three states, I would have won. Biden only won by about 100,000 votes in the electoral college. Part of the fury of Trump

and his Republican allies was because they thought they had avoided that happening. They don't care about the popular vote. They don't care about majority rule or will. They only care about manipulating the outcomes in states like Georgia, like Arizona, like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, so that they now don't control the states that they did when I lost the electoral college, but they do control some of the states that Biden won by really narrow margins. So suppressing the vote, purging voters, and this crazy idea that state legislatures should be able to pick electors. So that's why I say, I do not think he can ever win the popular vote. And I do not think that he could actually legitimately win the electoral college, but I believe that he and his allies will do everything possible to try to upend that. All right. Will he face charges for

January 6th? Well, I don't know. You're a lawyer. I am a lawyer, recovering lawyer. And I think that he's facing a lot of really serious issues. January 6th may be harder to prove than maybe some of the charges that could come out of the material found at Mar-a-Lago, that could come out of the civil suit filed by the Attorney General of New York about his financial doings. So I think there are so many cases being pursued right now that concern him and his business that I don't know what will end up being civil penalties or criminal charges. But unlike him, I'm not going to predict it. And I'm certainly not going to call for it because I still believe in the rule of law, and I think you should follow facts and evidence as opposed to demagoguery. All right, let's talk about the documents.

On a recent Fox News interview, an unusual one was Sean Hannity, that ace reporter who I so admire for his skills of journalism. I love her mutterings as much as her questions, you know. He wondered if the reason behind the raid at Mar-a-Lago was because they thought your deleted emails might be there. He actually did say that, didn't he? He did say that, I know. Well, I mean, we're now into the real weeds.

I mean, first it was... Well, first, do you think your emails are there? I mean... You know, who knows? Okay, all right. Who knows? He's asking. You know, there, the Kremlin, I don't know.

That's called a follow-up in journalism. No, look, I think that he's gone from nothing was there, the FBI planted it, even if stuff was there, I had a right to have it there. And now this latest claim, I declassified it in my mind. And, you know, I did put out a tweet last week because people were calling and asking me, you know, to respond. And I said, well, I, you know, I'm sick about talking about my emails, but I do think it's important to remember at the end of the day, after two parts of an FBI investigation, two separate State Department investigations, one under Tillerson and one under Pompeo, so the Trump years, they did not find one piece of paper of any kind marked classified, zero. And so,

you know, I don't know what to make of what he did. I find it deeply disturbing and troubling that he would leave the White House with stuff marked top secret. And now, according to reporting, one of them may have been about the nuclear posture of an ally or, quote, an adversary. That's scary stuff to me. So I know it's kind of weird because he's trying to deflect and make all other sorts of claims. But the bottom line is, what the heck was he doing with that material? I remember, Cara, when I was Secretary of State, sometimes things would be so sensitive that literally a courier from the CIA or the DOD would come with a metallic briefcase handcuffed to his wrist containing a document that I had to look at

immediately. There wasn't time to call a meeting and they would, you know, come to my office in the State Department, and they would unlock it, not take the handcuff off, just unlock the suitcase, take out the document, I would read it, I would sign that I'd read it, I would give it back, and off they would go. So some of this stuff is really sensitive. It's about people who risk their lives to give us information about what's going on, pictures that they take. I don't know what he's doing with it, but I can't help but believe that he thought there was some financial or political gain to him having it. All right. So the last time we spoke, you told me the letter that FBI Director James Comey sent in October 2016 played a role in the three states you lost. Do you think the FBI or Merrick Garland has information that they need to act well before the 2024 presidential primaries to avoid looking as if they put their, you've been subject to this. Oh yeah, look, that is a sore subject, as you might guess. But I think what the circuit courts ordered in response to the district court judge,

who either doesn't know the law or doesn't care to know the law and is doing everything she can to help Trump, what the 11th Circuit basically said was, wait a minute, of course the FBI can look at this material that is marked classified that they took from his estate, his country club, and they're conducting a counterintelligence examination of those materials as well as a potential criminal investigation. So I think that that will continue. The rule or the unwritten rule was you don't say something that could upend an election.

And it was ironic to me that they came out with that bogus thing about finding more emails and then 10 days later say, sorry, we were wrong. They never said, oh, you know, we are concerned about Trump's Russian connections and we're looking into that. You never heard that because the Republicans led by Mitch. So in this case, which you think you've suffered from, should they be very careful to do that? They should be very careful unless it's some kind of an emergency. And it wasn't an emergency for me, but they did it anyway for their own reasons. In this case, I don't know what's in those documents, but if they can get beyond the 2022 midterm, then they're free to pursue whatever leads they might have.

So using political calculations, you do not recommend, yet they might have to do it in the middle of a political... I think that they might have to do it in the middle of a political... I think that they will have plenty of time before the 2024 primary starts. So I know you don't like to speak of the emails, but you also are selling hats that say about the emails. Actually, we raised a lot of money for Democratic candidates and Democratic groups working to elect Democratic candidates,

so it did quite well. So lemons to lemonade, I guess. But it did call attention to it. Let me go through Republicans. They keep using that, comparing your emails to Trump's, trying to equalize them. I'm going to give you the strongest Republican argument. And I'd love you to respond.

You did keep these emails on a private server while Secretary of State, and there were classified information on seven chains. Anyone would know that an unsecured server was not the place to correspond about such things? First of all, never did I correspond about classified material, number one. Number two, unlike servers in the State Department

and elsewhere, the server we had, which was also my husband's post-presidential server, was never hacked. And believe me, if it had been, you would have heard about it. Okay. The argument that goes that even though Comey didn't find wrongdoing because he didn't see Wilford in the treatment of those emails, it's still a security issue. It never, it wasn't. I mean, the thing that I think proves it more than anything is, so after Comey upends the election with his intervention that amounted to nothing, Trump gets elected. He installs Tillerson as a Secretary of

State. Tillerson launches another investigation into, quote, my emails and could find nothing. Two years later, Pompeo, under pressure, I am sure, from Trump, launches yet another investigation, finding nothing. So believe me, if I had classified material on that server, that device that I carried, my old BlackBerry and phone, they would have found it. Found it. And they didn't. And they basically gave us letters which says there were no violations, except you shouldn't have used a server, which I say in response, oh, boy, I mean, if I were Secretary of State again, I wouldn't use another server. I would use the unsecure, often hacked into State Department servers.

That's what I would do. Okay. One of the newest ones, you have said they didn't contain classified information, that there is some included classified information, even if they weren't marked as classified. That is the biggest bunch of baloney. I mean, you know, this was the retroactive classification argument, which made no sense to anybody. And again, that's part of what Tillerson and Pompeo were looking for and did not find. I've answered these questions a million times. I have testified for 11 hours. I would love to see Donald Trump testify for 30 minutes in public about any of this. Fair point. To the heart of that, this is the last question on that. This is my last one. David French argued that if you treat emails like this, regular people would be prosecuted.

Talk about security and the handling of secure information by all politicians. Is it, you just mentioned the State Department, is it too sloppy that is there's too much of a sieve going on here you know i don't know how you compare anything to what was found at mar-a-lago i just don't know how you compare it i mean do people make mistakes do they overlook something of course that's human nature but i don't know how you load documents that have on their cover big red lines and big top secrets stamped on them, and they end up stored in the storage room under the pool of your country club. And we already know that Mar-a-Lago has been penetrated. We already know of the Chinese-American or Chinese-national woman who was found to be a security risk.

We already know that. So what was he doing with that stuff? What he did was clearly intentional. Whether it broke a law, that's for others to decide. When people make a mistake or whatever passes for trying to comply, but you misstep on something, that's one thing. And that's why people don't get prosecuted when something like that happens. But when you are intentionally taking material,

and we don't know what he did with it, and remember that we now know there are empty folders. But when you are intentionally taking material and we don't know what he did with it, and remember that we now know there are empty folders, what was inside those folders? I mean, that's a totally different set of circumstances have to be investigated. And I know Marco Rubio said, oh, it's just a storage issue. Listen, Marco Rubio chaired the Intelligence Committee in the Senate, co-chaired by Mark Warner from Virginia, who conducted an extensive investigation about Russian interference in the 2016 election and came to a bipartisan conclusion that Russia had interfered. And I know from having been in the Senate for eight years

that the material they were looking at was carefully handled in secure rooms that you would go into leaving your phone, leaving your laptop, whatever you had. When you walked into that room, you were going in to sit at a table to read those documents. Marco Rubio knows better than

what he said. So the idea of being above the law, if politicians do this, should there be more stringent rules and prosecutions around this? The rules should be the same for everybody. You know, nobody should be above it and nobody should be, you know, the target of it unfairly or wrongly. So I just want everybody held to the same standard. And that's what the rule of law to me means. You are equal before the law, and that's how we should conduct ourselves. Okay. And you think that's going to be the case here with Donald Trump? Well, I hope so, because I don't think anybody's above the law. Okay. Let's talk about the midterms. Before the presidential elections, we have these midterms.

Do you think the GOP is more motivated by the narrative around the vast conspiracy, the vast left-wing conspiracy? What would you call it? I don't know. Or the Dems are more motivated with abortion and other things. What do you... Well, I think it depends upon where you are, but we've got three examples. We had a New York special election. We had the Kansas referendum, and we have the Alaska special election. And the evidence is, number one, that the pro-choice candidates and the pro-choice position in Kansas won. Secondly, we know that registration is going up dramatically among Democrats and women and young people. And that suggests to me that there

is motivation on that side. I assume that Republicans are also being motivated by whatever they're being told on social media or from people they listen to. So that's why this midterm is so critically important, because it all comes down, and this sounds simplistic, but it's totally true, it all comes down to who turns out. I personally believe that we have a chance not only to hold the Senate, but add one or two senators, but it depends upon who turns out. And I also believe that we could hold the House if Americans knew several things. Number one, the Republicans are now on record of wanting to put Social Security and Medicare up for a periodic vote. Can you imagine letting these people vote as to whether you get Social Security or you're eligible for

Medicare. Number two, that if they get the majority, they will pass a national ban on abortion. And number three, that there is a lot to be worried about when it comes to protecting our democracy. And part of the way you help protect our democracy is to, you know, keep the Senate and the House under democratic leadership and try to give us a few more votes in the Senate so we can try to prevent what some in the states are planning to do, which is to, you know, essentially declare victory no matter what the vote is. So what do you think the motivators are? Some people think it's inflation, some people think it's abortion. If you, from your sort of political sense, what do you think has more motivation of the many topics? There would be inflation in the economy,

there'd be abortion, there'd be Trump who's inserting himself in the process now, which to the chagrin, I think, of many Republicans. What do you think is the most important? Well, I think, again, it depends upon where you are. Clearly, the governor of this state and the governor of Florida are doing everything they can to turn the attention to immigration. And that is a motivator for a lot of people in the Republican Party or people, you know, who might consider themselves independent. And that's what they're trying to do. Forget abortion. Forget all the other things that we're doing. Don't look over here where we're trying to prevent people from voting and doing all the other stuff. Look at immigration.

Do you acknowledge it's effective, though? What did you think of the Martha's Vineyard stunt? Honestly, because of the way Martha's Vineyard people responded, I think it blunted the stunt. I mean, if people had been hysterical because, you know, mostly it was Venezuelans, as I understand it, had shown up on their island, well, what did they do? They opened their churches. They let school out so the AP Spanish students could come and translate. in their churches. They let school out so the AP Spanish students could come and translate. They began to provide them food. And they did what we like Americans to do. And then I think the Republican governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, did a great job in working with the federal government to have them move to a military base on Cape Cod where they could be processed. So the stunt was kind of like, ah, not so smart.

And it used to be, I mean, this sounds very nostalgic, but it used to be that we could actually find bipartisan solutions. And like I say, governors like Abbott or DeSantis, I guess they both think they're going to run for president. And if I were them and Trump still wants to run, I'd be looking over my shoulder. Which I think Trump is not for these stunts, correct or not? I think he's going to run. They may not think he is. No, that's correct. But I don't think he likes these stunts. He was not. He doesn't what? Like these stunts, these immigration stunts. I'm not sure he thinks they're very effective. Because he didn't do them. Yeah, okay.

So are you going to have a role in the midterms? Do you get asked? Oh, my God. I'm already, you know, I run a group called Onward Together, and we raise money, like the hat that you referred to. We sell in our little merchandise store, and we put the money into groups that are recruiting training supporting candidates and do you show up physically because you are a lightning rod still to this day oh come on yeah really I literally had a family who's saying she is the most worst

thing ever to happen to the world and I was like I have a list that's a little longer. Well, yeah, I know there are people who may not, I may not be on their Christmas card list. I understand that. But that's not who I'm trying to attract. I'm trying to motivate Democrats to turn out and vote for Democrats. And I'm trying to motivate. So in that vein, I'm trying to motivate... All right. So in that vein... I'm trying to motivate women to stand up and fight for their rights by voting for Democrats. Okay.

Well done. Well, in other words, you don't give a fuck. Well, if you put it that way. Yeah, okay. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot.

It's an AI powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing and makes writing blogs, creating videos and posting on social a breeze. So now it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. This summer, Biden had a streak of wins, the Inflation Reduction Act, student debt relief, renewed focus on DACA and gun control. Are you impressed by Dark Brandon? I have been supporting him ever since he won the nomination. And I will tell you that I know a little bit about how hard it is to get anything done. And his legislative record is pretty impressive when you go through what he got accomplished. And I'm particularly focused on the infrastructure bill. I'm particularly focused on the infrastructure bill. I did love the fact that apparently the White House has finally hired somebody who knows how to mix it up on social media.

And I was thrilled that whoever this new person is went after Ted Cruz for taking credit for a project in the infrastructure bill that he did not vote for. And we need more of that, more of that. So, so, so go ahead. And so, and so I also want to say the CHIPS bill is huge. It'll be good for Austin because you guys are a tech center and there may be, you know, some benefits for that and the inflation reduction act, what it's going to do on climate, on healthcare. the Inflation Reduction Act, what it's going to do on climate, on health care. This is, as he would say, a BFD. Okay. So do you, this aggressive stance on extremism, you think this will pay off? Now, you said deplorables many years ago. He essentially said deplorables, fascists, semi, I don't know what a semi-fascist is. Yeah, but he's a man and I'm a woman. Okay, all right.

He did tout relationships during the campaign. Do you think the aggressive stance works better, as you said, or trying to find comedy between the two parties? I think you're seeing not only Biden, but others who are kind of unshackled. And remember, here's what we're trying to do. In midterms, and we have two very sad examples.

After my husband's first two years and, you know, raised taxes on the rich, balanced the budget, took on the NRA, got the Brady Bill, banned assault weapons, on and on, you know, the Democrats got killed in the midterm. After the first two years of Barack Obama, the Affordable Care Act, saving the economy from collapse, everything that happened started to lose the Congress in 2010. So who is it that doesn't show up for us? It's Democrats who don't think Democratic presidents have done enough for them or don't understand what has been done. Or who feel like, oh, I don't need to show up because that worked. You know, I voted for so-and-so for president. So I think the more aggressive, fiery tone that you're seeing from Biden is exactly aimed at trying to motivate Democrats to come out and vote and save what's been done and try to get even more accomplished. I've got a few more questions about international, but you were Secretary of State. You've seen failed democracies. Are you worried America's becoming one? Look, I

think that if Trump and his enablers had their way, that's what would happen to us. Admiring Viktor Orban in Hungary, cozying up to Putin and being embarrassed when he invaded Ukraine that you couldn't keep cozying up to him, you know, that is a repudiation of our values and of the kind of democratic principles that I think we used to believe everybody essentially took for granted, right? So yeah, I do worry about the undermining of the rule of law. I worry about the tinkering and the efforts to make sure the electoral college, no matter what the popular vote is, never goes against the Republican candidate. I worry about the, and it's no longer just the whiff of violence, but the appeals to violence that we saw

on January 6th, but have seen and heard since then. I do, I worry about it a lot. You know, I remember as a young student, you know, trying to figure out how did people get basically drawn in by Hitler? How did that happen? And I'd watch newsreels and I'd see this guy standing up there ranting and raving and people shouting and raising their arms. I thought, what's happened to these people? Why did they believe that? You saw the rally in Ohio the other night. Trump is there ranting and raving for more than an hour, and you have these rows of young men

with their arms raised. I thought, what is going on? So there is a real pressure, and I think it is fair to say we're in a struggle between democracy and autocracy. I believe one of the reasons that Putin decided, what the heck, I'm going to go invade Ukraine, I can take them over in three or four days, is because he assumed if Trump had been reelected, Trump would have pulled us out of NATO. And then Trump didn't end up back in the White House. And so Putin's saying, well, I can't wait. I'm not going to wait around. I'm going to do it because I am the Russian emperor. So I do think that the threats to democracy are real. And the only way to defeat

them is showing up and voting. And when I say that, people go, well, what else can I do? Well, there are a lot of other things you can do. But if you don't do that, you're seeding the ground. So Putin, you brought him up. What is his endgame? You're Secretary of State. What do you imagine is going to happen now? He's got protests in the country. Yeah, we do.

Look. His country. He has always believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union, as he said himself, was one of the great catastrophes of human history. And he wants to reconstitute as much of the Russian empire as he can get away with. And I remember when I was Secretary of State, and I'd be warning about this, a lot of people were again saying to me, oh, come on, you know, it's the 21st

century, that's not going to happen. I say, look at what he's doing. He's undermining democracies. He's buying media that is going to then feed propaganda to people, including RT in our own country. And I said, what do you think he's doing all this for? He wants to undermine democracy, both from within and without. And so Ukraine has been a particular sore point for him. He, you know, went in in 2014, seized Crimea, went into the Donbass. He consolidated his hold on that. Nobody stood up to him. Everybody was like, oh, my God, well, you know, that'll satisfy him.

It sounded a lot like appeasement to me, but nevertheless, that's what happened. And he wasn't satisfied. So what happened? He cannot run a modern country. You know, we tried, Obama and I tried, to persuade Medvedev when for that short period of time, Medvedev was president because Putin was busy being prime minister doing something else. And he let Medvedev, you know, be the front guy. And we tried to convince him, look, you have all these Russian emigres leaving Russia to go work in the tech industry. You guys could have the Silicon Valley of Moscow. You could really make a modern economy. You're right now a commodity economy. That's

really it. And what happened, I mean, Medvedev got kind of excited, and, you know, he loved hanging out with Obama. It made him feel cool. And he thought, wow, that might be a great idea. And then all of a sudden, Putin says, are you nuts? You know, you have to have too much freedom for that. You can't let people invent, innovate, think for themselves. Are you crazy? We're going to keep drilling.

And that's all they have. So what does he do now? What happens? I'm afraid he, for the foreseeable future, doubles down with additional bombardment of civilian sites. He clearly has this idea that he can somehow persuade his people and whoever else he can convince in the outer world that now that he's had these sham referenda in the areas that they have taken over, and of course the vote is 90%, we want to be part of Mother Russia, that then when the Ukrainians launch an offensive against those areas, he's going to claim it's an attack on Russia. And Zelensky is absolutely right. This is an attack on freedom, on democracy,

on truth. This is an attack that has ripple effects for all of us. And one of the things that Biden has done remarkably, along with his team, is to unify Europe, the U.S., and Canada, and other countries like Japan in a sanctions regime and providing military support. We're going to have to keep it up because I think the Ukrainians, what they've proved in the last few weeks about taking territory back is really important. Could you comment on, we're seeing the biggest anti-government protests in Iran in years. There was the Green Movement when you were Secretary of State. The current protests have met with a crackdown. All this is happening as the U.S. and Iran are trying to negotiate a nuclear deal. The protests were sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman

held in police custody for moral issues. Is there a real possibility for regime change in Iran right now? Well, I think it would be very difficult, but it's possible. And, you know, you mentioned the Green Revolution when I was Secretary of State, and Facebook was supposed to go down for some kind of maintenance in some of their territories, and one of them was Iran, and we convinced them to stay online so that people could communicate. Eventually, it was suppressed and right now there's a heavy suppression effort but the reason she was arrested is because too much of her hair was showing and the women who are ripping off their hijabs who are burning them who are cutting off their hair it appears that this is a much deeper reaction than even we saw in the Green Revolution. Now, the Iranians are fanatics, and they are brutal, and they will do everything they can to suppress this. So it depends, I guess I would say, on how many people stand their ground and are out in the streets and are

protesting, and how many people in some positions of influence they're able to persuade to be supportive. I mean, I tweeted about it yesterday. I'm just furious about this repression because think about it. It is largely aimed at controlling women and women's lives. All right. In that vein, I'd be remiss,

since we're not talking about Liz Cheney. Obviously, I wouldn't imagine you see eye to eye on policy on almost anything, correct? Well, we don't agree on policies, but we sure agree on democracy. That's true. So... But she herself has no party now.

Many people feel like she's become the face of the Trump resistance, or for lack of a better term. She's a staunch conservative who by one count voted with Trump nine out of ten times when he was in office. What advice do you have for Liz Cheney? Oh, I would not venture to give her advice. She's a troublesome woman. What did Trump call you?

A troublesome woman? An annoying woman? Oh, he's called me so many things. I can't keep track of them all. Thankfully, I don't pay much attention to him. I think she has performed a great service to history, to truth, to our democracy, to the rule of law. And I hope. Look, I hope before her term expires that she and the committee keep providing us with this devastating evidence about what happened when and who knew what and everything connected to it. to it. I have no idea what her political or public future might be, but if she were to retire, you know, at the end of her term, she would have already done a great service to our country. What would you do if you were her? Oh, I would keep speaking out and standing up and being a truth teller because, you know,

that's her reputation and the people who admire her will keep admiring her for it. And the people who are scared of her and fearful because she is telling admire her will keep admiring her for it. And the people who are scared of her and fearful because she is telling the truth will keep trying to undermine her. And, you know, look, I've been in that position. I understand that it's not easy to do, but it's very important that people, you know, not fold up and just walk away or give up in the face of this concerted attack on our democracy. And I have no reason to believe she will. Okay. All right. So speaking of that, would you run again? No. No. Not for president. Not for president and really not for anything that I can think of.

Would you like to serve again in some capacity? Oh, you know, I don't know. I haven't thought about that because it's just not something that I see is likely to happen. Let me ask you a final question. As you know, I have a lot of children. My first daughter, she's three years old. I got on Twitter, someone was like, liberals. I mean, I'm from San Francisco. I'm clearly a liberal,

but don't believe in the future. Democrats don't believe in the future. And I said, I have four children. I believe in the future. Do you believe in the future? Absolutely. But I believe it's what we are going to make it. You know, the future is going to happen whether we do anything or not. So let's take responsibility to try to shape it for your kids and my grandkids. And, you know, I am done with the doomsayers and the hand wringers. Forget all of that.

Get up and do something for our democracy, to fight climate change, to provide health care. Whatever it is, get up and do it. Hillary Clinton. All right, Cara, that was a wide-ranging interview. She does seem political at times, like how she's rousing the crowd around her. She likes it. She likes it. She's a ham, just like you.

You guys talked about a lot of things, but afterwards, Fox News, Newsweek, and others who had kind of paid attention to the live event in Austin all glommed on to one thing, which is the comparison she was making between the Trump rally in Ohio and Nazi rallies. Why do you think that's the thing they stuck onto? It's interesting. And look, lots of people have said this. It wasn't a new fresh take on this thing. When everyone saw those pictures, hundreds of people were like, whoa, that looks kind of familiar. They do it a lot

at these rallies. And Trump is trying to tamp down on it, actually. They send around security people. They don't want people to do that because they understand the visuals. And so I don't think it was a very fresh thing. It just was a way to make news, I guess. Why do you think they didn't talk about the emails? Because you did ask her a bunch of questions about emails. Not everyone, but you did ask her a lot of them. And why do you think they didn't kind of capture onto that? Well, because it's hard to, you know, they're trying to link them together, and it's quite hard because they are quite different.

And so it's too complex to explain. Yeah, and she was very technical. Hillary was very technically accurate in most parts of things. None of the emails in the review by Comey were marked as classified. But she did have emails that were confidential, the lowest level of classification. They just weren't marked as such. So they weren't marked. They weren't marked as such.

So it doesn't matter. The one point she made that I think was clear, there were three investigations. She cooperated with them. She didn't do this, what Trump is doing. And two of them were done by Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo. Yeah, Mike Pompeo. So Trumpies. They weren't able to get her.

Yeah. And while she said she didn't correspond about classified material, I think her point was that she didn't know it was classified at the time. It wasn't marked as such. Yeah. And she does get into technicalities, but that's where things live. One question you didn't ask her about that we wanted, I wanted you to ask her about 33,000 emails deleted from the server.

We'll never know. We'll never know. We'll have to take her word for it that they were personal. I would agree. I think that's a sore point. And even though Donald Trump makes political hay out of it, it's certainly what I thought it does point to is how sloppy our document management is in-ness about them. And you and I disagree about this. We were chatting about it. But I think that they are.

They think of themselves as above the law. I think it's a level of difference. You know, I think your point is that they're garden variety corruption, which you can say about almost any politician, I think. Well, you can't say it about Obama, I don't think. Well, okay. And I don't think. Well, okay. And I don't think the Bushes were. Oh, come on. Come on with the Defense Department stuff. No. Well, George, the first, 41. But Trump has taken it to a new level. And I hope it's a level that will

go away. Yeah, well, I hope it's a level that will, I think Trump should be held accountable. I also think it's important to hold that same standard no matter who's in office. Because I am concerned that I grew up in Pakistan and Indonesia. I've seen a lot of these dynastic families from the Bhuttos to the Sahartos and others are people who rule for a long time or believe themselves above the law. And I've always thought that what separates the United States is the laws and institutions. And those are eroding very, very quickly, faster under Trump than ever before. But, you know, that started before. have always been corrupt. You know, you go back in history and it's... Anyway, I agree. I agree that she is not above the law. Trump is not above the law.

We should be able to get satisfaction from a justice point of view from anybody who serves. Well, next time you see her, which will probably be next year at the going rate, you got to ask her about the 33,000 deleted emails. I shall. I shall. Okay. So I was surprised she didn't give any advice

to Liz Cheney, by the way. Maybe behind closed doors we can arrange that. She was very supportive of us. She was very supportive. Yeah. Yeah. But Kara, speaking of advice, today we have some for you that's solicited from a listener. So let's play a clip.

Hey, Kara. It's Michelle in San Antonio, Texas. As you approach a milestone birthday, what would you tell your younger self? So excited you have a new podcast. Gives me one more reason to love you. And also Scott, I guess. Thanks. You can love me now, Michelle from San Antonio.

Oh, yes. Love Naima. I'm bringing in new characters to the show. New characters. That's how you keep it fresh. Look, here's what I told my younger self. Be even more like the way you are. I hate to use a Sheryl Sandberg phrase, but lean the fuck in further. Oh, God. I was pretty sassy back then, and I would do even more so. I didn't have a lot of self-doubt. I mean, I know it sounds, people are like, yes, you did. I'm like, no, I really didn't. I did a lot of stuff, but I think I would be even more. Just don't worry so much. Don't feel like you're on achievement wheel, and do what you want. I have choices, and I always think that if

you have choices, you should not make excuses for not doing what you want. So many people don't have choices across the world in this country. And I would speak even more truth to power. I think I did. But I think I would have done more so, spoken up a lot more. And, of course, I would have bought Apple stock with the money I used for Columbia University. Getting greedier with age. I would have. I would with the money I used for Columbia University. Getting greedier with age.

I would have. I would have gone back. Taken that Google job. Do you remember in Back to the Future where we went back and got the sports book and then Biff got it and then this and that? I loved all those movies. I love time travel movies. I would have gone back and said, invest in Apple right now. That is, I think, the best payoff and stuff like that. I've taken that money and then I would put it into Apple. That's what I would do. Oh, I like this.

I like this. Yeah. And then I wouldn't be here. I'd be on an island, you know. Kara, what's your milestone birthday? Do you want to tell the people? 60. I turned 60 in December.

We're going to party. Yeah. I'm also not afraid of saying how old I am. No, I know. I'm quite old. I know. Yeah. Yeah.

So I would say more. Have more children. Oh, God, Kara. Be more aggressive. You're like the Chinese Communist Party. I would have Yeah. Yeah. So I would say more. Have more children. Oh, God, Cara. Be more aggressive. You're like the Chinese Communist Party. You're always counting for people to have more children. That's your advice. All right.

Well, nonetheless, I would have more. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Michelle. And thank you for tuning in. We're going to try to provide you with a great podcast. We love our listeners. We love them.

Yes, if you want some Cara advice, you can call 1-88-CARA-PLEASE. That's 1-888-K-A-R-A-P-L-Z. Today's show was produced by Naeem Araza, Blake Neshek, Christian Castro-Rossell, and Raffaella Seward. Rick Kwan engineered this episode. Our theme music is by Trackademics. Special thanks to the team at the Texas Tribune Festival and especially Evan Smith. I love Evan Smith.

If you're following the show, love Evan Smith. If you're already following the show, you get a gold star. If not, what are you waiting for? Go wherever you get your podcasts. Look for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. for. Go wherever you get your podcast, look for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. And of course me. Us. I mean us. Us, Kara, us. I'm sorry, it's so hard. I'm still here. There is no me in team. Yes, there is. And we'll be back on Monday for more.

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