On with Kara Swisher - How Donald Trump Helped the Democrats

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

After Kara and Nayeema have a chat about — what else? — Elon Musk’s latest moves, we dive into democracy and the midterms. The results are (mostly) in, and the “red wave” that Republicans predicted never came. To understand why, Kara gets deep into political reporting in three key swing states: Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Our guests are three veteran journalists who know their respective states' politics inside out: Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, democracy reporter covering Arizona for The Washington Post; Tia Mitchell, Washington correspondent for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Chris Potter, government and accountability editor for WESA FM, Pittsburgh’s NPR news station. Together, the panel unpacks the midterm results and the decision by Democrats to focus on democracy, Dobbs and, yes, Donald Trump. Plus, stay tuned for Kara’s RANT about why she’s savoring John Fetterman’s win — and why President Biden deserves more credit than he’s gotten.  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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this is Blake Masters with 100% less Peter Thiel money. Just kidding. This is On with Kara Swisher. And I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Naima Raza. I think that's actually called a Blake Masters parody account these days, Kara. Yes, it's a parody. Everything I do is parody.

Parody. That's reference to Elon Musk. How was your birthday, by the way? It was your birthday. Oh, it was my birthday. Yes, it was. It was election day. I celebrated in advance on the weekend.

I had a big party with 120 of my closest friends. Yeah, but you were expecting a bad birthday present because of the election, because one of your birthdays was a Trump thing. Yeah, 2016. 2016. So here you are. Yeah. And it wasn't about Republican or Democrat, but about like the crazy amount of election deniers that were running this year. But because I celebrated early, there was no bad luck. So you're welcome, America. You're very welcome. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's it. I think we should thank the American voters for being like, you know what? Everybody calm the fuck down. Everybody turned out. Yeah. But the elections were a surprise. They were a surprise. Were you surprised? No, because I always believe in the American voters. I really do. Constantly. I think

the screamers and mostly in the right this year, they're indulgent to their screaming about election denial. But this was really bad because it was about things that really hurt democracy rather than disagreements. And they were screaming about election denial and the electorate wasn't having it. They were also concerned with abortion just as much as the economy. They're much more substantive. I always say that. But you know, John King's kind of framed it as a referendum on Biden and Biden being this kind of stable car America had bought only to find out it wasn't that stable. But actually, Democrats ran on democracy on abortion and turned out that those actually did turn out voters.

Or maybe it was just the Trump backlash. Yeah, I know. I mean, why throw over like a whole goal? I've never everyone was like Zeldin's catching up because Ron Lauder gave him all this money. You know what? She's been very competent. Like, why would you throw out a competent person? I don't people don't like to Zeldin's catching up because Ron Lauder gave him all this money. You know what? She's been very competent. Like, why would you throw out a competent person? I don't, people don't like to do that.

I was worried about that race in New York because the crime narrative in New York has been very strong. And, you know, Kathy Hochul and the bail reform has been a big issue. Not her fault. Not her fault necessarily, but voters have little recourse.

So they go to the ballot boxes with these concerns, the economy and crime. Yeah. That I think is the Trump pushback. If you were a Republican who was tough on crime but didn't back Trump, you could probably have won New York last night for governor. Which race surprised you most? I thought Lake would sweep it, but she's not. She's behind right now. And I thought the Republicans would get more seats than they didn't. So good in a lot of ways. They only picked up, it's going to be like in the tens of seats versus- Maybe less, yeah.

Not 60, not 40, not what we've seen in past years. I'm excited because of the panel today, it's a panel with really longtime journalists from a lot of these purple and reddish states. These are the people on the ground and deserve much more attention than they get. And they do the spade work that's so critical to our democracy and to journalism. First is Tia Mitchell. She's representing Georgia. Yvonne Winjet Sanchez, based in Phoenix. And that's obviously Arizona.

Chris Potter in Pittsburgh. Obviously, Pennsylvania. Christian Castorizel, one of our producers, pitched this idea of having a very local panel. I'm glad he did because I learned a lot, not just about those three states, but about the country. So I'm excited for people to hear it. But before we get there, Cara, I want to take a moment to discuss some big news of the week, which is Elon Musk. What's he up to? I just listened to him for an hour because you made me. I didn't make you. He made you. The world made you. You did. You text me. Go ahead. I did make you. But you did listen to me as you do.

And you listen to the Wednesday meeting of the minds with advertisers that he just hosted on Twitter Spaces. Yeah. Let's talk about this meeting. So he met with the advertisers on Twitter Spaces. You know, it was a do-over because as I tweeted last week, the first call with Elon went so badly that some advertisers paused or shifted their ad buys during the call. Lots of automakers for General Motors, Volkswagen, cereal and snack companies like General Mills, et cetera, et cetera, consulting groups, big brands. You know, why should you dive into this

mess until you know what's going on? And then he was then he kicked them in the nuts, like constantly saying he's going to go thermonuclear on them. He was saying he wanted to thermonuclear name and shame them, which is basically like his reaction to it seemed like he was thinking this is some kind of cancel culture on him. This idea that it's woke people, it's ridiculous. Advertisers will advertise where it works. If they feel like there's a safety problem or it seems crazy or why is the CEO tweeting anti-gay conspiracy theories, they're going to step away for a minute.

And by the way, Twitter's not their biggest platform, so it's not that hard for them. They had a hard time walking away from Facebook, and they did it anyway. So no problem here. The whole construct of this meeting is also a little bit odd because obviously in the long term, Elon hopes to move Twitter's dependency for revenue away from advertisers and towards subscriptions. So it's like he needs the advertisers to keep him going. Yes, he does. He but he was he drinking i think he had just a little moment and i again maybe he did some 420 because he seemed real nice and real chill he seemed smart when you do this and he's funny sometimes that was an elon i encounter quite a lot and not this sort of toxic meme lord that he's playing on television essentially and he's like that,

too. I've seen, of course, I've been on the receiving end of that quite a bit, too. But this was the one I deal with much more. And, you know, he doesn't know much about advertising, it seems. I mean, he's trying to be, he did say that. He goes, I'm a tech guy, I can fix the tech. Yeah. Robin Wheeler, the client solutions leader, was running kind of the meeting. And then Elon and Yul Roth, the head of trust and safety, were chiming in. And lots of people were on this. There was over 100,000 people listening concurrently. And there was a total live turnout, I think, was over half a million people, which is huge for Spaces. Yes, of course. People are interested in him. He's a star. So one question I thought was interesting, David Cohen, who's the CEO of the Interactive

Advertising Bureau, asked a question saying, look, I'm paraphrasing this question, but there's the Elon brand and how it shows up on Twitter. And then there's Twitter as a platform and the business that exists. And he was saying, these things are kind of coming to blur. So the question is, how should we think about the coexistence of these two distinct and obviously related perspectives? And I thought Elon's answer was that if I say Twitter is doing something, it's Twitter. If I say it's me, it's me. And if there's any confusion about the two, then I would just ask me on Twitter, basically. But obviously Twitter cannot simply be some extension of me

because then anyone who doesn't agree with me will be put off. No. He's merged them together. All the questions were super nice and cordial because what happens when you get in front of him, except for like me and some others, you get real nervous and you get real polite. And if he's nice, you're like, oh, okay, he's nicer than I thought. The actual question is, is when are you going to stop being such an asshole? Because we'd like to buy ads. We'd like to sell things. We'd like to sell Fitbits. Can

you stop being such an asshole? Do you think he can keep on being an asshole and Elon, the brand, keep on being Elon as Elon is, but the company be better run? Elon is not good for the brand if he indulges himself with stupid memes, posting Nazi pictures, insulting gay people, insulting advertisers. Nobody wants that who's gonna buy stuff from him. Being nasty to people,

the richest man in the world being nasty to people is just not a good look. Or chiming in on what voters should do. That's probably not a great thing either. Or foreign policy. I mean, well, why should he be? I know you don't care. I don't care. That's fine.

But he should probably stay away from controversy. He should stay away from it. Probably. For the business. I mean, he's really in a hole right now. He's having to sell his Tesla stock to float this company. Yeah, Tesla's getting hit hard. So we'll see.

Yeah. Okay, so he used the word struggling. He's struggling with bots. He talked about adjusting course, talked about the possibility that he'd be wrong. Do you see a business path forward for Elon? Of course. There's a course here to make a really fun service.

People like, I love Twitter, but if I have more people calling me names, I'm just not going to use it. You know, and if he keeps being such a jerk, I don't use Instagram and Facebook because I just don't like the way they behave. And everyone's like, oh, you'll never leave. I'm like, oh, you're wrong. I think people are loud and clear. They want a great place and fun place to be. If he can do that, great. If there's things worth buying, great. If he isn't such a polarizing figure, people don't like polarizing figures anymore. I'm putting my MBA hat on here. And I think that, you know, the amount of stuff he's

shipping, he's come in, he's calling the organization, he's gutting it. He's like basically gut renovating Twitter. You bought this house without the inspection. Now he's doing the gut renovation. And he's learning as he's going and he's fucking up tremendously. And, you know, they're having to call back people they fired to bring them back. But the organization he inherited was very much against his theory of change. And he needs to rebuild an organization that is much more like Tesla or SpaceX, where the engineers are grinding under his leadership because they're mission oriented in his direction. And so a CEO I really respect was telling me that Elon is trying to build a culture

that attracts a very specific type of engineer to come and build for him. And it clicked to me that this is kind of like a thirst trap. He's trolling us and he's kind of building a thirst trap for a specific kind of engineer that can build his company. I get your point. I don't think it works in media. I think Twitter was much too slow about rolling things out, but now this is chaos. There is a medium. I don't think you can just ride people like this anymore, not in media companies.

And that's, I think, where his Achilles heel will be, because this is consumer social. This isn't building a car and people will buy it if it's nice. That's correct. Okay, last thing that I'm going to ask you about. So another topic that came out in the spaces that was interesting was this idea of how he framed it, elevating citizen journalism. He was saying that he wasn't trying to diminish the voices of major publishers, but he was trying to elevate. But here's the thing. There's a difference between that and actual journalism, which is a hard, you don't, one time many years ago when people were going on about citizen journalism, Barry Diller, who is very good at media, by the way. Yes, IAC chair. Said, oh, citizen journalism. How do you like citizen surgery? I love that. And I thought it was a

little elitist, but I think he's right. I think Walt said that, not Barry. But Twitter is a big source for breaking news given its hyper local, hyper fast user generated content. But you still do need kind of organization with editorial judgment to look through it, sift through it, see what's factual, see what's true. And I don't think that Community Notes is going to have the same impact or Birdwatch or whatever he calls it. He doesn't like the bird names. One thing I wrote is that you don't have to beat up on journalists the way he's doing. There's no reason for it. And I think if you understood, he has, let me just take apart him very quickly. Well, we're going to have a whole episode about this. He has gotten a lot of fanboy kiss-ass press, a lot, a ton.

Like, people are very slavish about him. He's gotten it for years. He's gotten some tough articles he deserves. He's gotten some snarky, mean stuff, absolutely. On the whole, compared to Mark Zuckerberg, he gets a walk in the frigging park from journalists comparatively until now, really. I do feel like we have to move the conversation away from Elon being so powerful to what is he doing with the business? Because I think the way his one gripe that I think stands is this gripe

against, oh, he's too powerful. He owns too much. It's like every single paper, every single publisher. Rupert Murdoch. Yep, exactly. So that's not the issue. The issue is the devils in the details, the details of content moderation, the details of how he builds this thing. And we'll see. And I don't think David Sachs and Jason Kalkanis and all these guys have actual power. The Tesla people have power in that building right now, not them, right? Elon Musk has power. That's it. That's true. Okay. So speaking of journalism, our last point, we do have three excellent journalists here

today with us, as you mentioned, Tia Mitchell out of Georgia, Yvonne Vigit-Sanchez out of Arizona, and Chris Potter based in Pittsburgh. These are three swing states with massive influence. They could serve as a bellwether for the 2024 presidential election. They were really tests of Donald Trump's influence, I think. Kara, we're going to get to the interview in a moment, but what do you hope to learn from these three journalists? Everything. Okay. That's really low expectations there, Kara. I'm excited to hear what they think. Me too. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back with the panel. And by the way,

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Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. We wanted to talk to journalists covering some of the most consequential races in the country. Tia is the Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Yvonne is the Washington Post democracy reporter for Arizona. And Chris is the government and accountability editor at WESA, Pittsburgh's NPR news station. Thanks for joining us on a very busy day. I know you've got to get back to things because things are still roiling in, I think, maybe not Pennsylvania, but other states. So I guess we'll start with you, Tia, about what's

going on in Georgia. All eyes are on Georgia right now. Yes, all eyes are on Georgia and depending on how some of these other Senate races, you know, shake out, it could come down once again to a Georgia runoff to determine whether Democrats control the U.S. Senate. You know, there's a slight chance Raphael Warnock wins outright, but it's looking more likely that he and Herschel Walker are headed to a December 6 runoff. But in all the other statewide races, Republicans swept the field. And Marjorie Taylor Greene won also. Yes. In our congressional races, all of our incumbents won. So there yes, there was always a lot of attention and a lot of money.

And a lot of money. Her they basically drew nine safe Republican seats, four safe Democratic seats, and one toss-up. But that toss-up race is a seat that is held by Sanford Bishop, a longtime incumbent. He's the dean of the Georgia delegation, and he won. So Republicans had hoped to maybe flip that seat, but they were not successful. Okay. All right, Chris. Yeah. I mean, what we've had here, I'm somewhat NVTA and I'm somewhat glad I'm not her because all of our races have pretty much been decided at this point. We don't do runoffs in Pennsylvania in any case, but our Senate race, which drew national attention and all the money that comes

with it between Mehmet Oz, the celebrity TV doctor, and John Fetterman, sort of the celebrity mayor of Braddock at one point, appears to be wrapped up. Dr. Oz conceded a little earlier this morning to John Fetterman, which means a seat that had been Pat Toomey's, a Republican, is now flipped to Democrats, which is a big deal. The other big statewide race is our gubernatorial contest, Pat Toomey's a Republican is now flipped to Democrats, which is a big deal. The other big statewide race is our gubernatorial contest where we had State Senator Doug Mastriano.

Trouncing. A trouncing. Yeah, absolutely. It was one of these weird things. The polls were actually correct. They showed Josh Shapiro, our attorney general, up by 10, 15 points. And that's pretty much the margin he looks to win by. Beat a guy who, a Republican who was present on January 6th at the Capitol. Says he didn't go in the building, but was

definitely there. Brought some people down with him when he went. Somebody who's been very active in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Lost big. And in fact, up and down the ballot, it was a really difficult night for Republicans. You know, in 2020, Pennsylvania voted out Donald Trump. They voted him down. But that down ballot stuff that Democrats thought there would be sort of a coattails effect that they could really turn things around, it didn't really materialize. A lot of that stuff did materialize last night. The statehouse, it's not clear yet. There's still a couple races.

But the statehouse is in play. It's possible that Democrats could take it. And that would be for the first time in 20 years. Yeah. My brother's just dying up in Pennsylvania. He's in Scranton. My family's from that area. He's a Republican. And it's like two races that are like a couple of dozen votes, a few dozen votes between them that could really determine it. So, you know, in 2020, Trump lost. In 2022, Trumpism kind of lost. So we've really kind of seen it on him. Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of Republicans are. I've got the texts to prove it. We'll talk about them in a minute. OK, Yvonne. Arizona's closing just as we anticipated it would, which is it's going to take many days, especially in some of these statewide contests from the U.S. Senate race to the governor's race, secretary of state's race on down to determine winners.

The ballots that have been tabulated and posted so far tend to favor Democrats. The closer you get to Election Day voting, those trends start to shift and they start to favor Democrats. The closer you get to Election Day voting, those trends start to shift and they start to favor Republicans. And so what we're seeing right now is, I think, a scenario in which perhaps Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, pulls out a win against Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel's backed candidate. That's okay. You can leave it. Blake Masters. Yeah. The Republican who's just not performing as well as perhaps he should have. And we saw Katie Hobbs, who's the secretary of state. She's a Democrat running for the governor's seat. She performed really well in those initial results. But Carrie Lake, former TV news anchor, an election denier backed by Trump, is closing the gap. And the other race that has been really interesting to watch the results come in on is the Secretary of State's race, where Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, is running against Mark Fincham, another very vocal proponent of the Stop the Steal movement, and sort of a backbencher here at the state legislature. And what we've seen is that the

Democrats in both the Senate race and the Secretary of State's race were able to build in significant firewalls that are going to allow them to perhaps squeak it out as the rest of these votes are tabulated. And they're going to perhaps be able to withstand this just chipping away and chipping away that we're going to see in the coming days from Republicans. The media consensus going into these midterms was that the Republicans had the momentum. What did we get wrong? Was it Trump? Was it not a focus on Dobbs? Tia, let's start with you. In Georgia, you know, our AJC polling, particularly for the Senate race and the governor's race, turned out to be pretty accurate. What was the big issue, do you think, that pushed forward abortion? Well, we and again, even our polling showed that we when we talked to voters, we knew that inflation, the economy, pocketbook issues were number one. And that's still true. But I think we should not ever have downplayed how abortion threats to democracy. We're still playing into voters decisions on which candidates to support. No, it wasn't necessarily number one,

but they were still important factors. And I think the people who tried to dismiss like, oh, abortion's not going to win on election day, threats to democracy, you know, all the wokeism. And that's, you know, to me, that downplayed the fact that voters were thinking about these issues. Yeah, absolutely. OK, Chris, what was the big issue in Pennsylvania? I mean, I think it had a lot to do just with sort of candidate quality. Dr. Oz was just absolutely bedeviled by the perception that he was a carpetbagger, essentially. Guy Luce in New Jersey, only the most tenuous ties to Pennsylvania, never overcame that. In fact, a lot of his gaffes had to

do with precisely that kind of mistake. Appeared at a Trump rally over the weekend and made a reference to the Steelers not realizing they had a bye week, which is like the kind of mistake you don't make in Western Pennsylvania. So I mean, I think that was a big part of it. Democrats got exactly the candidate they wanted there. And also in the gubernatorial race. I mean, Doug Mastriano, in addition to being a very conservative guy, never really reached out. He did not talk to reporters unless you were already sort of in the right wing media ecosystem. And consistently, his kind of go-to move was to always sort of go back to the base that he already kind of had with him. And he just didn't seem interested in or perhaps capable of I don't know, and sort of connecting with a broader electorate in what is after all still very much

a purple state. All right, Yvonne. So I think what Republicans got wrong is going all in on MAGA and not being as nuanced about some of these issues and about some of their messaging as perhaps they should have been really more focusing on the economy, focusing more on perhaps border security and illegal immigration and how that issue actually affects families, how that affects safety. On the Democrat side, I'm just going to go out on a limb and say it. I think that there needs to be some reflection about whether or not Katie Hobbs should have run for governor or perhaps Adrian Fontes should have run for governor. He's quick on his feet. Former prosecutor takes the fight to. Many have criticized her campaign, the Hobbs campaign, although it's hard to fight a TV news anchor in some ways. Yeah. But if you're going to run as the pro-democracy candidate, there's a there's an argument to be made that you should indeed participate in a democratic process of debating. Yeah. So and I think that that that really hurt her and it sort of rebranded her as someone who

is just too afraid to meet her opponent, talk about the issues. And, you know, how does that translate if you're sitting in the executive office? Are you going to be afraid there, too? That's a really good point. All right. So we're going to go through each of the states. We'll start with Pennsylvania because that's where you have the most results. So Fetterman beat Oz, as we said, flipped the Senate seat blue. Oz was a flawed candidate, as you noted, Chris, barely won his primary. Would former Bridgewater CEO David McCormick have done better? A lot of people are talking about Republicans putting in these, you talked about, candidates that aren't likable.

Certainly, David McCormick feels more, I mean, I know my brother and cousin who's there wanted him and were not happy. I mean, they certainly voted for Oz, but they weren't happy doing it. And that was, I think, a big issue. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a lot of a lot of Republicans are asking that question. I know McCormick was the candidate that Democrats feared they were going to get. He's he's apparently sticking around. So we may see him again in a couple of years to challenge Bob Casey when he's up for election. All right. So do you think this idea of candidates that are

more centrist, I guess, is that an important thing? I don't know. It's hard to say. I mean, John Fetterman, I don't think would count in anybody's book as a centrist candidate per se. I mean, he certainly had a sort of stylistic connection in terms of sort of how he came across as a public persona. But, you know, he was pretty unapologetic about where he was coming from on a variety of issues like criminal justice reform in the economy. Sure. Democrats went in all on abortion rights in Pennsylvania. Fetterman certainly did. They even bought an ad during the World Series that highlighted Dr. Oz's anti-abortion rights stance. Was that important in Pennsylvania, at least? Yeah, definitely. I mean, it was definitely a huge motivating issue for Democrats

and even for a lot of kind of college educated suburbanites as well. And, you know, the stakes here were very high because although, as I said before, the statehouse may be in play, nobody expected it to be. And the legislature has been in Republican hands. Has Doug if Doug Mastriano wins that gubernatorial election, we're talking six week abortion bans, potentially the whole card table gets upended. So it was a big issue. So he was unelectable, though, because of that? Or which one? Election denialism?

Yeah, I think he struggled for a lot of reasons. And election denialism, I think, is one of them. And then just his own sort of weird refusal to engage with reporters, with really anybody who already wasn't in his camp. And so turnout was high for the midterm. Both Fetterman and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Pirro ran ahead of Biden. That was somewhat interesting. What explains the margins?

What got people out to vote? Young people? Did young people vote finally? Yeah. I only have anecdotal evidence of this, but Pittsburgh is a college town. And there were reports of students lined up outside the polling places in Oakland, which is kind of the university district here. A lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that they were paying attention because of abortion

and some of these other issues as well. Lastly, the stroke didn't seem to resonate with people. This is John Fetterman. Yes, John Fetterman, who had a stroke just days before the primary in May, kind of was sequestered for several months and then sort of only very gradually returned to the trail and then had what, you know, by my standards, it seemed like a fairly disastrous performance in the debate to me, stammering, unable to kind of speak to shifts in his own position about natural gas drilling, things like that. But, you know, apparently, I see no evidence to suggest that it actually did him any lasting

damage at all based on polls and everything else. And, you know, I mean, that's that's the thing I'll be thinking about myself. Yeah, he was out on the road a lot. I'll tell you that. I think he visited every county. I think people saw him in person. Yeah.

And that became truer and truer as time went on. So I do think he was committed. And that's the funny thing about Oz, again, to speak to candidate quality. Oz, for all of his talk about Fetterman's infirmities, there were a lot of places he just wasn't showing up. Yeah. You know, in what is a 67 county state where you got to be in places. Yeah, he was at Teterboro Airport getting on his plane. Anyway, that's in New Jersey, for those who don't know. All right, Yvonne, Arizona. So the governor's race and the Senate race are both too close to call. What's the key thing people should be paying attention to? And how long will this take? Arizona always takes time. We're notorious for

taking time. Most of our voters, about 80 percent, vote by mail. We have a lot of people who still vote in person. And then we had a lot of problems yesterday at more than a quarter voting sites, which led to a lot of people having to drop their ballots into these slots that are essentially drop boxes. And we don't know yet how many people had to do that. So to set the table, it was a printing problem, correct? There was a printing problem. And then when the voters put it in the tabulator, the tabulator couldn't read the ink, the ink was not dark enough. That led to a lot of confusion, a lot of misinformation. But what everyone really needs to know about Arizona is that this is normal. It took many days, for example, in 2018 for Kyrsten Sinema to be declared

the winner in the U.S. Senate race against Martha McSally. Maricopa County is home to Metro Phoenix. Martha McSally. Maricopa County is home to Metro Phoenix. It's where 60% of the state's voters are from. They have been setting the table for many weeks now. It could be as many as 12 days for all of the ballots to be counted. Now, keep in mind, we have a new recount law. That means we probably are going to have a larger number of races go to recounts that could last through December, through December 31st. So and that happens after the results are certified. A judge has to OK that and then it goes to recount. So we should know more by the end of the week. The patterns typically are going to be favoring Republicans in the coming days. Carrie Lake's campaign feels very good about have broad enough coattails to carry the ticket. Yeah, that's not what we're seeing. And so there's going to be it's going to be mixed results. I mean,

there's going to be perhaps some counterbalances. If we have a Carrie Lake as governor, we might have Adrian Fontes as the secretary of state. What does that look like? The other thing that I'm sort of already sizing up is what do these relationships that have been so damaged right look like how does carrie lake for example get along with mark kelly and kirsten cinema how do you and the press after telling him she's going to teach him things and the press yeah and threatening to uh support legislation that would punish the press for all sorts of things. So that's definitely what I'm going to be watching. We also need to get some answers on what went wrong with these voting locations. So another few weeks of Carrie Lake screaming at us. OK, great. Arizona used to be

John McCain. You don't have to say it. She's really screaming. And Hobbs could be screamier. Arizona used to be John McCain country, also known as the home of reasonable Republicans, but MAGA election deniers have taken over the party infrastructure. Explain the civil war within Arizona's Republican Party, the role of Charlie Kirk and his organization Turning Point, and what the takeaway is for the rest of the country. So I would really encourage our listeners to check out a piece that I wrote recently with my colleague Isaac Stanley Becker, and we sort of set the stage for this moment and what is happening. There's been a rightward bent of the party over the last four years under chairwoman Kelly Ward, who is full-on MAGA, helped create the alternate elector, carry out the alternate elector plan here in Arizona.

carry out the alternate electorate plan here in Arizona. She has focused her last two terms as chair on the same issue that Turning Point USA and its affiliates have focused on, which is revolutionizing the party from the inside out, recruiting precinct committeemen, really implementing the precinct strategy. And they've seen enormous, enormous success. And your listeners might remember that Kelly Ward took it to John McCain starting in 2016 when she unsuccessfully ran against him. And then in 2018, as he was dying, she suggested she said that he was timing his death to hurt her campaign. That obviously was not true. But there's been an anti-McCain, anti-Jeff Flake, anti-Cindy McCain, anti-establishment thread through the party that has only been amplified in the era of Trump. Turning Point and its affiliates are a huge part of this. They are very big allies of Kelly Ward. Their associates helped get her elected as party chair. And they've sort of been running in tandem to reshape Republican politics here. Turning Point is now headquartered in Arizona. They've been using Arizona as their laboratory to sort of create this new brand of

Republican organizing. And it's something that we're going to see them export to other states in the lead up to 2024. And they're going to have quite a few allies in the state legislature. Rusty Bowers, who is a moderate, which is nuts because by all measures, he was a conservative and is a conservative, except on this issue of the 2020 election. He refused to help overturn the results. They ousted him, one of the most powerful Republicans in the state. Now they're going to have a lot of allies in the state legislature, and they are going to use this moment and use the problems that Maricopa County saw last night on Tuesday night to try to advance legislation that's going to be a hell of a lot more favorable to Republicans in the lead up to 2024. So in that, Carrie Lake, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, is an elected denier who said her opponent should be jailed.

People also talk about her as a potential vice presidential candidate. Where does she go from here if she wins and if she loses? If she wins, she is going to push the state farther rightward, going to be as divided as it ever has been. We've had eight years of Doug Ducey, pretty moderate establishment guy. It's going to be a local version of Trump. I mean, that's what we're going to see for four years, should she win. If she loses, there's going to be a dogfight,

legal fight for a long time about this vote and perhaps claims of fraud and disenfranchisement. And we could see the same sort of thing that we saw in 2021 with the Cyber Ninjas ballot review of 2.1 million ballots here in Maricopa County. I also think that there's going to be like a really important place for her if she loses in Arizona in Republican politics. She's not going away. I could definitely see her becoming chair of the state Republican Party in the lead up to 24. And her allies are already eyeing the state party. So

while Kelly Ward will be departing as party chair, you're going to see a lot of allies of Carrie Lake take over that party. This whole vice presidential thing, which I've sort of been saying for 15 months, if that becomes a real thing, and if she wants to be a contender for that she's gonna really have to thread the needle and make a real credible case as to why she thinks she lost and to really do a good job of prosecuting that case i don't know that she'll be able to do that yeah we'll see that's a lot of angry if she runs with say trump it's a lot of angry coming at you you need someone who's sort of reasonable i suppose um democratic Democratic, last one, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly made a big deal

of breaking with President Biden on immigration. Walk us through the calculus he made on that. We're a border state and border security is really important. And independent voters, moderate Republicans want to hear their candidates acknowledge that there's a problem, Republicans want to hear their candidates acknowledge that there's a problem, say they're doing something about it and call balls and strikes where they think the president is not doing a good enough job. And that's something that Kelly has done. That's something Kyrsten Sinema has done. That's something Janet Napolitano, when she was governor, did. This has been a strategy for a long, long time for centrist Democrats. You have to talk about the border. The other thing that Kelly has in his favor is his biography. Everyone knows him as Gabby Gifford's husband.

Everyone knows him as an astronaut. He seems reasonable. He walks around in black T-shirts and is sort of a relatable, nice guy. And he's running against Blake Masters, who, again, went so far right. And in Arizona, there's not there is no pivot. There's no time to pivot.

And so you have to take that angry primary language and try to flip it to reach a general electorate. And that's really difficult. And it was really difficult for Masters to do it. And you're showing up with Carrie Lake and Abe Homaday, who's the attorney general. I mean, all the whole MAGA slate, they're just, they're, yeah, they're, they only doubled down. From what I understand, people who know him, he's not like that. That's the problem. And it's not genuine to him. I think Meg Whitman had that problem in California. Nobody believed when she went right.

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LegalZoom is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice, except we're authorized through its subsidiary law firm, LZ Legal Services, LLC. Tia, let's talk about Georgia, starting with the Senate race. Warnock is leading right now. It doesn't seem like he'll break 50 percent and then they'll head into a runoff. Can you game it out for us? What will be the deciding factors from your point of view? And the third candidate who won two percent, I think, is out. Yeah. And in a lot of ways, the third candidate was the spoiler candidate because we heard from conservatives who said, you know, they can't stomach Warnock. They don't want Democrats to win, but they were not comfortable voting for Herschel Walker.

So that libertarian candidate became an alternative for some of them. But we also know that there are some Republicans who just left left it blank. But we also know that there are some Republicans who just left left it blank. You know, there is a little bit more counting to do, but it looks like a runoff slim chance that maybe Warnock pulls it out. And then what's the deciding factor in December? I think some of it will depend on what happens in these other states. happens in these other states, you know, if, you know, Democrats are able to clinch control of the Senate without Georgia, then that reduces a main motivating factor that many Georgia Republicans have cited as the reason why they stuck with Walker. We heard from many Republicans who said, I'm not enthusiastic. I don't necessarily think he's a great candidate.

He polled badly on like asking voters, even Republicans, do you trust him? Do you think he's prepared? But they still said they were voting for him because they want Republicans to control the Senate. So if it doesn't matter, they'll sit it out. If it doesn't matter, they might sit it out or just be, you know, less less likely to put someone in office that they don't really think will be a strong lawmaker. Did his son's role of speaking out? And I'm talking about one of them, Christian Walker. Did that make a difference? Yes. Again, most Republicans, the vast majority told us we're voting for Herschel Walker no matter what. we're voting for Herschel Walker no matter what. But I do think there were moderates and some conservatives who are like the type of evangelical Christians that really want their candidates to reflect the principles who once Christian Walker began speaking out and remember Christian Walker

is like a Republican. He really is not some bleeding heart liberal, you know, Gen Z-er. And so when he, I did hear from a woman who said, you know, that hurt her heart because she was a Christian Walker fan. So to see him not just criticize Herschel Walker, not just say, I have brothers and sisters I didn't know about, but he said, you were abusive to me and my mom and abandoned. And so, yeah, I do think, again, that hurt Herschel Walker's perception, but I don't think it turned off a huge number of voters, again, because their overlying goal was bigger than Herschel Walker. You were at Senator Warnock's watch party last night. What was the mood of the room? Very festive, very much a party atmosphere. And Senator Warnock, even starting in the weekend, this last weekend, has been very optimistic. So when he addressed the crowd as results were still coming in, because he made two speeches. The first one was, stick with me, keep the faith, I'll be back. And then he came back around 1.30,

almost 2 a.m. and said, hey, we still got some counting to do, but I hope you're with me. I feel good. He cited a gospel song that says, I got a feeling. He's a pastor. about three or so weeks ago. And the perception coming out of that debate was that Herschel Walker exceeded expectations because his sentences made sense and that Raphael Warnock did not meet expectations because he didn't go after Herschel Walker and Warnock did change his tone after that. Yeah, he said, you don't want him to be my mama's senator

or something like that. There was a tweet. And he talked about, you know, he's unfit, he's un you don't want him to be my mama's senator or something like that. There was a tweet. And he talked about, you know, he's unfit, he's unqualified, not ready. You know, he started speaking specifically to the controversies where before Warnock was not directly attacking Walker on the abortion issues and the abuse issues. He started doing that. Okay, move to the governor's race where Brian Kemp beat Stacey Abrams. I've interviewed her. I have not interviewed Kemp. I hope to. We've seen the movie before, but this time Kemp won by a much wider margin.

You know, Stacey talked about his, he seems reasonable and said, but it's not reasonable to stop an insurrection. I thought it makes people comfortable with him that he did the right thing at the hard time. I think the fact that he did the right thing at the hard time. I think the fact that he did the right thing at the hard time really gave him a buffer when it came to voters in the middle who maybe, you know, could have been inclined to support a Democrat if he had more leaned in on the MAGA stuff. So because he didn't, that allowed him to retain support among moderates and even some Democrats. You know, he's the incumbent. It's hard to unseat an incumbent when people say,

hey, I think the state's doing okay. He's doing an okay job. But he also never lost his base. He is, I mean, abortion limits, more access to guns with open carry gun laws, resisting Medicaid expansion, going after crime in big cities like Atlanta, you know, all those talking points that Republicans love. He has those. But not election denial. He doesn't do that. But not election denial. And in a swing state like Georgia, that proved to kind of be a winning calculus to go all in on the issues, but not on the Trumpism. So speaking of Trumpism, Marjorie Taylor Greene got reelected in Georgia's 14th district. If the Republicans take the House with a narrow majority, what does it mean for her? Does she

continue to be a troublemaker? Oh, yeah. And And she's already last night, like around 2 a.m., she put out this long message basically saying we have a mandate. We are supposed to. That's again, this is Marjorie Taylor Greene's message. But she says Republicans have been given a mandate and she is going to hold her party accountable for doing these conservative things that she says voters want her to do. And the message, the underlining message is don't mess with me, Kevin McCarthy, because she knows that she's got a huge MAGA following. Her and the House Freedom Caucus, now they can really play ball. We're talking about 50 members in a caucus, in a conference that might have, you know, at best, a 10 vote majority. And so she really will be able to say she and others.

But, you know, we know that she's ready to be out front when it comes to the MAGA. She seems really shy, but go ahead. to be out front when it comes to the MAGA Republicans. Yeah, she seems really shy, but go ahead. Yeah, not shy at all and ready to lean in, you know, on issues that may be- Is that a good idea? It seems like there's no mandate at all in this election, except calm the fuck down, everybody.

She doesn't care about helping Mitch McConnell make sure that he can govern from, you know, center right. She wants to go as far to the right as she can. She doesn't care about governing. The question is, how does Kevin McCarthy govern with question for you guys about local news. I'm going to steal a question you recently asked an interview and ask it to you. When you look at the root causes of today's division and polarization, how much of it boils down to race? at any level, at the very root, there are at least racial implications, if not flat out race. Even we've been talking about Georgia's runoff system that's rooted in racism because it was easier for black candidates to get a plurality than to get to a majority. So, so many things come down to race, not always the one thing, but a contributing factor in so many facets. We talk about abortion, of course, immigration, of course, health care, affordable housing. There are always racial implications, and we can't ignore that as we talk about the motivations on either side. OK, so I want to finish up two things. One, what is the race each of you is looking at

as the most important in the state? Chris, first, one race and why? Make it brief. The gubernatorial race, clearly, because, again, depending on what happens at the legislative level, the chance for Republicans to have really reworked election law, abortion law, Republicans to have really reworked election law, abortion law, labor laws would have been huge. OK, Yvonne, what's the race you are looking at, decided or undecided? Everything Chris just said, the governor's race. And I expect the legislature to remain in Republican control. And so everything they're going to be doing for the next couple of years in the lead up to 2024 is going to be pivotal. Tia? And so everything they're going to be doing for the next couple of years in the lead up to 2024 is going to be pivotal to you. The obvious answer is Georgia's U.S. Senate race and, you know, Warnock versus Walker potentially determining the balance of the power in the U.S. Senate. But the real answer, and this is one national audiences probably aren't aware of, is Georgia's speaker of the House is no longer seeking that position.

Speaker of the House is no longer seeking that position. And so now within Republicans who have a super majority to decide, are they going to put someone in who's super conservative and super MAGA or keep that position of power are coalescing around a more centrist candidate, still conservative, but more centrist. But, you know, anything can happen within a Republican caucus. All right, last question, local news, you work for different kinds of news organizations. Chris is at WESA, a local newsroom. Tia is at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a major regional paper, and Yvonne is at the Washington Post, a national newspaper, which is important to focus on this. But she spent over 20 years at Arizona Central, the biggest paper in the state. local and regional journalism in the country. I think it's the most important thing. I know it's not going to sound crazy, but anytime a billionaire asks me what to invest in, I say local journalism, stop buying big things, start investing in local journalism, putting money behind it. I think it's the most important journalism, regional and local journalism. So let's start with you, Tia. What is the thing that you think is most important about the role it plays? We've seen that particularly in conservative rural areas, as smaller newspapers have gone away, there have been created news deserts.

And the only thing that has filled them has been conservative outlets like Fox News, Newsmax and OAN. News, Newsmax and OAN. And yeah, and so we see how that has, you know, helped spread misinformation and propaganda, particularly among conservatives. And that's because local journalism in rural areas has gone away. Okay. Yvonne? I now work at a national newspaper, but I still consider myself a very local reporter. And I think now more than ever, with the rise of misinformation, particularly around elections, voting, these positions, local reporting positions are as critical as ever, because we are combating tweet by tweet, story by story, the truth. We're fighting for the truth.

And not a lot of people are out there fighting for the truth. Candidates on down some of these partisan newspapers that are now cropping up in some of these news deserts that Tia talked about. And so I'm pretty terrified about what the future holds if local journalism continues to be decimated in the way that we've seen in recent years. Very well said. Chris, you have the final word. Yeah. I mean, I'm one of those rare reporters who prefers off-year elections because I feel like you can connect and make a difference. You're not being drowned out by the Senate majority fund or whoever. And there is this sense of the, the scale is small enough that the ground is close enough where we all can kind of agree on what the facts are, as opposed to sort of like

taking our cues from TV or what we find on the internet or, or any of these other kind of national, you know, very partisan outlets. And so Pittsburgh has been blessed by having sort of on a per capita basis, a lot of news, a lot of reporters per capita because of sort of a legacy of old money. Unfortunately, one of the challenges we face is that traditionally our biggest daily newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has been on strike. So there were reporters missing. And I think that made a difference. And, you know, I hope they resolve that situation because these small local races, if nothing else, they're providing you the candidates that will be running state for state legislature and statewide down the road. And that ability to kind of have a common ground of fact and of discourse, I think is just huge. And it's missing on the national scale.

And I just think it makes us susceptible to the kind of misinformation Yvonne's talking about. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to ask you one more question, if you indulge me. I want you to pick a race not in your state that surprised you. I thought Whitmer sort of trouncing Tudor Dixon was a big one. I thought that she's kind of a Carrie Lake wannabe kind of thing, similar thing. That surprised me, the amount given all the anger in the state and, of course, that trial. So that would be mine. amount, given all the anger in the state and, of course, that trial. So that would be mine. What about you, Yvonne? Somewhere else, very briefly. The Fetterman-Oz race. I thought Oz would pull it out. So I was actually really surprised to see

Fetterman take that. Tia? I feel like I've been interested in those Arizona races because that dynamic of like super Trumpy MAGA Republicans and whether in a swing state, if Republicans like that could win. And we didn't have that. We only had one election denier running statewide in Georgia. He did win, Lieutenant Governor. I'm just going to go with the Lauren Bovert race, which I don't even know where that is right now. But the personalities there are just crazy. And again, the fact that it came out of nowhere in a year where everything was supposed to be going her way, I just think is fascinating. Again, it speaks to this ability for candidates to surprise us and for voters, more importantly, to surprise us. And I think that's really worth

And of course, she's the Marjorie Taylor Greene wannabe, which is kind of interesting. Anyway, I really appreciate it. I think you guys are doing amazing work. Get ready for 2024. Oh, sorry. Don't do that to me. I'm sorry. Go get some sleep. Go get some sleep. Thank you so much and keep up the great work. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. Get back to work. Thanks so much. Thank you. Bye. Get back to work.

I think it would have been very hard to have a conversation with this much texture without those local journalists we had. I agree. I agree. I think it's so critical. They really do know what's going on a lot more ways than others. I mean, it's hard being a local reporter because, you know, you have these big footers coming in, these national reporters who then become experts when they're not about things on the ground. Yeah, for sure. What was your big takeaway from that conversation?

Well, I think that it's still out there. These MAGA Republicans are going to continue coming on, whether it's Marjorie Taylor Greene in the Congress, in the House of Representatives, or it's these Arizona people who've seized the infrastructure, where I think most of the public doesn't like this. My takeaway was people are sick of this. They're sick of election denial. They're sick of looking at the past. They're getting very sick of Trump. And I think they want to move forward. And I think Ron DeSantis winning in Florida as much as he did, if he played it right and doesn't let, he's got a very- Good shot at 2024. He does, but he's got a very, Sarah Longwell, who was on our podcast, had a great thread,

which I retweeted, which was, it's going to be very hard for him to go up against Trump and simultaneously kill him and praise him. It's really, it's a tough, it's a tough road. And he's not particularly charismatic. And he hasn't been tested outside of Florida, really. Nobody has a mandate. Nobody does. Nobody. Not the Democrats either. Well, a little bit, you know, a little bit, a little bit, not but no mandate. Not enough. Not enough. And I'll tell you the last thing. And I'd love your thoughts. I think we owe a debt of gratitude to Biden to stop giving him such a hard time. Even if the best case scenario works out for the Republican, it is not a good night for them. What do you think?

Yeah, I thought the key takeaway for me is kind of this race of how much the national outcry over democracy and election integrity or other issues like abortion outpace the misinformation around election denial. I think that race between fact and fiction is going to be what determines 2024. It's going to be what determines the next midterms. I also appreciated how curious they were about their other races. I think that Trump is like a secret sauce, like a weapon that the Republican Party can deploy very effectively. Well, he's not controllable. Yeah, exactly. You can't contain it. It's like you can't focus the laser. Someone noted he's easy to manipulate, but impossible to control. Yes. Very different things. But like Ohio, J.D. Vance would not have won without Trump.

But he didn't. He almost didn't win. That was a great race by Tim Ryan. Boy, we haven't seen the last of that guy. Great race. That's how you do it. Vetterman, same thing. It's appealing to working class people. It's being genuine. And I do think there's ways to combat people moving away from Trump 100%. Yeah, that's a really interesting question. Who wouldn't you count out from these elections who lost anyways? Tim Ryan is definitely on that list. Great, great run. Beto? I don't know. I feel like does Beto have a third flag? I kind of feel it's... No. Meh. No. Same thing with Stacey Abrams, I'm sorry to say. Yeah. I think she's unelectable. I don't think that. She's other contributions to

make. She's got a woman of many talents. I've never been a Beto fan. As you know, I call him a man boy. But I think she has a lot of talents and she will deploy them. She's really smart and strategic. So very tough against Kemp because he did do that one right thing, even if he's very conservative. That was a critical right thing to do in that state in particular. So what race are you riveted to? Warnock Herschel. Yeah. And by the way, Warnock is a person I wouldn't rule out. Even if the race goes to a runoff and he loses that runoff, I think that he has real capacity. We've interviewed him before. Warnock has a quality of religiosity that touches on something that's very deep and heartfelt in this country and is an alternative to the kind of evangelical right wing that we see, I think. What about you?

I'm looking at the Carrie Lake thing. Marjorie Taylor Greene is one thing. This woman is just not a nice person. And I hope that it doesn't survive her because I think she's I think at least Marjorie Taylor Greene believes her craziness. This woman is obviously so opportunistic that she's dangerous in that regard. So, Kara, you have a rant for us today, unsolicited rant for us today. Yes. Get out of my way. All right, go. All right, let me read you my rant. It's called In Veggie Trays, Out Crudite. The win by John Fetterman in Pennsylvania was remarkable in a lot of ways. Big money, big celebrity versus the

little guy who is actually a very big guy. I have interviewed the newly elected senator two times, once when he was an up-and-comer with a great social media jam in the midst of the pandemic, more recently post-stroke as his opponent Dr. Oz tried to turn a major health crisis into a cudgel. I got some beefs for defending Fetterman and for saying he would heal and get better, something I know a lot about. I had a stroke too, as most people know. As I noted last night on Twitter, it's really heartening for, quote, anyone who's ever been knocked down that got back up, which Fetterman said in his victory speech last night. It was a big moment, and it was clear to me, at least, and I think everyone else, that he could speak just fine and is cognitively solid, which was my point all along. As I wrote, I cannot

explain how frustrating and embarrassing it is to have sensory audio issues. But he did that debate in which he stumbled badly anyway, which showed heart. It was nice then to see his progress last night, even from the podcast we did. There's no question I'm emotional about this issue since my own stroke scared me so much. But sometimes that's the right way to be since the attacks from people like Dr. Oz and Donald Trump Jr. were heartless. And thankfully, it was rejected by the voters of Pennsylvania, where I was born, and which welcomed my immigrant grandfather and his family so long ago and gave him the chance to make a success of himself from nothing. But there's another Pennsylvania son I

was also thinking a lot about last night, and that's Joe Biden. He and my grandfather were from the same area of the state around Scranton in the Northeast. Scranton, as we like to say. Biden is also a genuine figure in politics and someone who knows about struggle, from his first wife and daughter's tragic car crash to his eldest son's untimely death. He's certainly not perfect. See Anita Hill. But it has turned out he is a political figure we needed to calm down this angry country and get to a place of better angels. Obviously, that is a

long road, but the recent election, if it showed anything, showed that the voters, not the bases, want some comedy and quiet, want the yelling and personal dunking to stop. Biden himself has and will continue to get attacked for his age, but he has had remarkable success at passing substantive legislation, moving us out of the COVID era and even holding back that red wave that was allegedly coming.

Good on him. The thing is that people like that kind of attitude and want to move on. This is what America is about. We get knocked down, and as Fetterman said, then we get back up. I feel like we should play that song. We get knocked down, but we get up again. You know that song, Carol? No. Okay. All right.

Today's show was produced by Naeem Araza, Blake Neshek, Christian Castro-Rossell, and Raffaella Seward. It was engineered by David Wilson. Special thanks to Hayley Milliken and Adam Schibble. And our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're my favorite. If not, well, you could still be my favorite. Just go to wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making content that no one sees

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