On with Kara Swisher - Pete Buttigieg Thinks Trumpism is in Its Last Season

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Pete Buttigieg burst onto the political scene in 2019, and his rapid ascent into a legitimate presidential contender was one of the most surprising storylines of the 2020 Democratic primary. Today, he’s one of the most effective communicators in the party. He was also one of many Democratic voters’ favorite candidates for the Harris VP pick.  Kara and Pete get straight to all of that in this episode: is the Harris campaign strategy working? ; Was Tim Walz the right pick for VP? How is Pete prepping the Minnesota Governor for his upcoming debate against J.D. Vance? And what is his strategy when he goes on Fox News? Kara and Pete also discuss the Trump cult of personality that has taken hold of young men and tech bros alike; the tech CEOs that need to “come home” to “normal” (you know who we’re talking about); and why some of them continue to support politicians who vote against technological advancement and the core missions of the industry. *Note: Buttigieg appeared for this interview in his personal capacity. Kara was limited in asking questions relating to the Department of Transportation or anything about his role in President Biden’s administration due to the Hatch Act. Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find Kara on Threads/Instagram @karaswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. If you struggle just to get your customers to notice you, Constant Contact has what you need to grab their attention. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform offers all the automation, integration, and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support.

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Today, we have an interview with Pete Buttigieg. Pete first burst onto the political scene in 2019 and became one of the most surprising storylines in the 2020 Democratic primary. No one could have predicted that the 38-year-old gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, would make a credible run at the nomination, but Buttigieg won the Iowa caucuses. If the Iowa Democratic Party hadn't completely flubbed the counting, Pete would have been declared the winner on caucus night, and who knows how far that momentum could have taken him. Instead, as we all know, Joe Biden became president, and Pete is now the Secretary of Transportation, and by far one of the more effective communicators in the Democratic Party. His ability to answer questions clearly and directly is almost unparalleled, but I think I can knock him off a few of his talking points, although I don't know, it might be a draw. I've interviewed Buttigieg several times, once when he was on the campaign trail running for president and once in his capacity as transportation secretary. In this case, he's appearing in his personal capacity as a Harris

surrogate, which means I can't ask him about SpaceX or Palestine, Ohio, but I can ask him about the Harris campaign strategy, playing J.D. Vance during Governor Walz's prep debate, his take on Democrats' tech policies, and his own personal ambitions, among other things. And today's expert question comes from Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson. Let's get to it. Pete, thank you so much for coming on on. Thanks for having me. So let's start with the state of the race. It's exceptionally close. Everyone's going to coin toss, whatever metaphor you feel like using. Vice President Harris has executed her strategy incredibly well from the moment Biden announced he was stepping down. Talk about why it's been difficult to open a lead up from your point of view.

Well, I think low ceilings and high floors is kind of the result of the polarized moment that we're in. It's fed by a dynamic where people have their own source of information, their own kind of reality. And you add to that the electoral map and the electoral college system, and it's just keeping this a close race. Now, lately there are dynamics that show that she's rising in the polls, but she'll be the first to remind all of us that there's a real underdog dynamic to this campaign. And I expect that's going to continue. It is a game of inches, and it will be all the way until the final bell rings.

Well, talk about that game of inches, because several people have said high floor, low ceiling to me recently. Talk about what that means and what inches means. Well, it's just hard to see either candidate getting less than something like 46% of the vote. And it's hard to see either one of them going much above 50. Now, of course, all you need is 50. You don't even need 50, right? I think if I remember right, it was 46% of the popular vote that Donald Trump got the time he won, nevermind the time he lost. And again, I think a lot of this is fed by the fact that this isn't just people thinking over which way they're going to vote this year compared to last year. It's, there's like a whole affect, like a whole kind of tribal setup, right? That a lot of

people have a sense of belonging to this or that campaign. And yet, people move. People can move, obviously, because he won in 2016 and lost in 2020. And because a lot of people aren't actually deciding how to vote, they're deciding whether to vote. And that's one of many things that I think has shifted in our favor since Kamala Harris became our candidate. Right. Well, he barely lost by less than 50,000 votes. The whole race could come down to three states, as everybody knows by now. Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina seem to be the focus right now. There are other ways and various configurations of the puzzle, essentially. But Mark Robinson, the lieutenant governor who is running for governor in North Carolina,

is not doing Trump any favors. Talk about the dynamics here in these states. Look, one thing I've always believed is there's no such thing as a permanently red state. And that also means there's no such thing as a permanently blue state, right? These alignments, they feel very entrenched in the moment. But in just like one or two elections, things can really shift. I don't think most Democrats thought of Georgia as really being on the map until it very suddenly was. First with Stacey Abrams coming close and then with the victories that we had. Two Democratic senators. how much our history, like the course of the country in the last few years is different because of those two close Senate seats and how they went in 2020. North Carolina is interesting because it also has a lot of those same patterns as Georgia. By the way, I remember when North Carolina and Indiana both went for Obama in 2008. You know, Indiana's more of a reach, but it again

shows you, you can't just write off a state. Part of what's interesting is, you know, this poll showing that she may be within four points of Trump in Iowa. Doesn't mean Iowa has become a purple state, but it does show you that even with things feeling dug in, things can move. The New York Times Santa poll, the one that everyone is focusing on is Pennsylvania. And they show her beating him right now, the recent one in the Keystone State, which is where I was born, and my family lives. But what is the strategy for each of these three states and what's different? How do you look at it? Well, look, obviously, there are specific things that come up in specific states,

but I think it's really important to have an overall and cohesive message. And I think she does. So in the same way, when I was mayor, I always used to say, never say something at the union breakfast that you would be embarrassed to have repeated when you get to the chamber lunch, like be who you are in front of different audiences in different geographies. And, you know, whether you live in Georgia or in Pennsylvania or in North Carolina, fees. And whether you live in Georgia or in Pennsylvania or in North Carolina, chances are you are pissed off that Donald Trump took away the right to choose. Chances are you were skeptical of the Trump plan to cut taxes for the rich. Chances are the more you hear about Project 2025, the less you like it. And this, by the way, is something I think is especially important and interesting because sometimes people like me, and I'll be the first to admit that I can be a policy

nerd, but people like me are told, you know, you're being way too academic about this. Elections aren't about policy. Well, last time we checked our mailbox at our house in rural Michigan, there's a mailer in there from the Trump campaign saying, Donald Trump has nothing to do with Project 2025. We swear. And he didn't write it. Blah, blah, blah. And I think it's really, really important in revealing that the biggest scandal to confront the Republican Party all year, certainly the Trump campaign, is policy. It's not a sex tape. It's not the criminal stuff. It's policy. It's not even a leak about their policy plans. It's that they publish their policy plans. And it turns out people hate them, right?

And that works in Pennsylvania. It works in Georgia. It works in, you know, it's not just like people in liberal states hate them. Like people across America and even the most remotely competitive district or town or precinct or state don't like most of Donald Trump's policies and prefer most of Kamala Harris's policies. So one of the things I've been saying a lot, and I have to attribute it to Audie Cornish every time, but they're Kamala curious about her. And one of the things that I'm seeing in a lot of when you see these focus groups is they are interested in policy. They know he's what he is. They acknowledge he sucked at the, even his supporters sucked at the debate, a lot of them.

But they're like, I don't know her. I don't know her. And I think that's the opposite problem he has. They know him. So when anything comes out, whether it's hanging around with someone like Laura Loomer or whatever that's controversial, they don't—it's like, yeah, right. It's another weirdness, right? You know, next week. Yes, but I would say it's true that there may not be some sudden new revelation

that changes how his supporters feel about him, but I still think there's another dynamic. And this is where I lift a little bit out from my view that policy matters into something else about kind of what they, I guess, are calling vibes now, which is it might be the same stuff with him, but it feels more tired now. Yes, that's true. And I think that's what she's getting at when she talks about the same old tired show. It's not just like, you know, the racism is horrifying and we all need to condemn it. It is horrifying and we do need to condemn it.

But it's also that like that move of like doing something racially provocative to get tongues wagging for a week over that instead of how he's cutting taxes for the rich is getting like boring. And you have this sense that he's kind of jumping the shark like trying to you know i think that the whole you know people eating cats thing is is kind of like a show in its last season before it's a bit about to get canceled um that's just kind of no longer capturing where people are at the way it did for all too many people in 2016. But boring is the Democratic attack line, which is kind of funny. But I'm curious what then she fills into that gap in terms of being... And I get the idea of when someone's making a mess of

themselves, be quiet and let them make a mess. But people are curious about her. They want to know more. I have a lot of Trump voting relatives who are like, well, I'd consider her if I knew more, like that kind of stuff. Well, that's what relatives are like, well, I'd consider if I knew more, like that kind of stuff. Well, that's what campaigns are for, right? And one thing she has going for is the more people see her, the more they like, right? People kept saying when she got picked, it's like, well, yeah, there's a glow after a few days when the party, you know, officially made her the nominee or before that, right? When she was unofficially consolidating the party. And they were like, okay, this is honeymoon week, but then, you know, it'll evaporate. And it didn't. She grew stronger. And they said, okay, but then she's going to have

a debate. Or like, okay, but what about her first sit-down interview? And every one of those moments, right, the more people see, the more they like. Well, welcome to the world of women. But, you know, if you do one thing, you do the next thing. But she's being cautious, and I know her pretty well. And she's a cautious, and she and I have actually talked about this. She's a cautious politician with the press, with policy details. Does she need to be more aggressive from your perspective? I mean, she has you out there being quite aggressive, I would say. Well, I think it makes sense to aggressively communicate what we're for and the difference between what she's going to do. Stuff like growing small business, stuff like dealing with this housing problem that really, you know, even the left, I think, is rethinking what we can do, left of center, to have more housing supply come online. And she's got a specific, you know, policy proposal on things

like that. And yeah, I think the whole campaign, whether it's her, whether it's Tim Walz, whether it's surrogates, people like me going out there, or whether it's the organizers knocking on doors, it's Tim Walls, whether it's surrogates, people like me going out there, or whether it's the organizers knocking on doors, should continue to aggressively communicate both what she's out to do, which people are generally on board with, protecting a right to choose, making sure the wealthy pay their fair share, doing these things like expanding housing and small business, making it easier to raise a family, her proposals on paid family leave, child tax credit, versus the other side, which you can take one of two ways. You can look at what they're planning, Project 2025 and those unpopular policies, or you can

just look at what they did, right? Where he came in, all kinds of promises, and we have the results, right? Which the other thing I think we need to more aggressively communicate is the results. I get that, but I need you to answer the question, like, does she need to even be more so? Because obviously, again, people know him and don't know her. And it's, even if they think they've said enough, a lot of people don't feel you've said enough. And it's not a vibe thing. I get this all the time. Said enough what though, right? I mean, if the question is about adding more kind of intricacies to the policy framework she's laid out, I think we will see that. I mean, look, we already know, you know intricacies to the policy framework she's laid out. I think we will see that. I mean, look, we already know, you know, down to the percentage point what she thinks

the best rate for capital gains tax is. But I also think there's a little bit of humility here too, right? Where you know that you explain what you're about, what your values are, how you would make the big policy calls. And then you get to Washington and Congress happens. Certainly. The negotiation happens, right? Right. It's not like where we wound up with the Inflation Reduction Act or the infrastructure bill. Right. But it's like, I would like to do this, this, this, and this.

Yeah. One of the people people seem to like right away and don't really need a lot more from is Tim Walls. You know, a lot of people really, I think he reminds someone of their favorite teacher. And so he's got a sort of an easy road there. But you're prepping him for his debate with Senator J.D. Vance on October 1st. You played Mike Pence in 2020 to help Harris prepare for her debate. Talk a little bit about this. How are you doing this? What is his weaknesses as a debater?

And how should Wald's exploit them? Yeah, well, first of all, it's funny. As I'm spending more time with him, I was asking myself, I was reflecting last night, like, why is it that I feel like I know him well, even though, you know, we've interacted through my job and his job. You know, we've talked here and there, but I feel like I know him better than I actually do in terms of how many hours we've spent. And I literally had the thought, you know what, come to think of it, he reminds me of my English teacher. Like that literally is something that, you know, but it's the same when you're in a room with him as it is when you're watching him in a rally. And, you know, as with the VP, I think one thing I like is the more people see him, the more they'll appreciate him. But especially coming back to that question of policy, the more people see the policy wins that he

delivered leading Minnesota, the more they'll see an example of how a democratic party's approach and values also lead to really good results like, you know, kids in school being able to get lunch and economic growth. And, you know, in terms of the debate, you know, he'll be the first to acknowledge that, you know, he's not, he's, you know, he's not the Yale law graduate. He's the high school teacher. But, you know, of course, he also knows what he's doing as a leader and I think is going to have an opportunity to really lean into this fact that when you cut through the noise and you cut through the BS and you cut through all of the distractions and the outrageous things that the Trump fence tends to throw up, all the chaff they kind of put in there. When you come down to like what we should do as a country about our big problems, people tend to agree with us. And I think his kind of straightforward way is going to help get that across. Okay. So what's the strategy with Vance? How are you playing him? He obviously didn't grow a shaggy beard or anything like that, but what are you going to play? If the day job were permit, maybe I'd stop shaving just to get into it. But look, I mean, I don't want to get too much in the process. It's,

you know, it's important to understand how the other side's going to come at you. And, you know, what we see from the campaign is that their strategy involves a lot of distraction and a lot of outrage. And, you know, who knows what it'll be by next week, because it's something new every day. But the point is, the very point is to get Americans, commentators, journalists, voters, talking and thinking about anything but the difference in plans and visions between the two campaigns. Because if you get down to the plans and visions on, you know, choice or marriage or whatever, most Americans are with us and against them. So it'll be all about trying to change the subject and the discipline. By the way, this is part of why I

think debate-wise she did so well against Trump is he did all of these things or tried to do all of these things. Any one of which we could have spent all day talking about. And it's really tempting to. It's really tempting that he thinks there's some guy named Abdul who runs the Taliban and whatever many- Cats or dogs. Obviously the dogs and cats or geese or whatever. She dealt with it to the Taliban and, you know, whatever, you know, many, obviously the dogs and cats or geese or whatever. You know, she dealt with it to the extent that she had to, but she never let the debate go on. So that's the same strategy here if he goes on to not to, I mean, is attack one of the plans? I would assume so. This guy is easily attackable.

Look, I think, yeah, there's always going to be lots of opportunities to remind viewers of the fundamental difference between what the two campaigns and candidates actually plan to do. And it turns out, even if we're debating on terms that Republicans, that the Trump-Vance campaign thinks are favorable to them, even then, elections are about the future and Americans tend to disagree with what they want to do next. So take inflation, right? They want to talk about inflation because we had this terrible bout of inflation as a country. By the way, every developed country did after COVID. But the real question, of course, is what's going to happen next. And if you look at the Trump-Vance plans, you know, Center for American Progress estimates that will add about

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That's anthropic.com slash clawed. The Capital Ideas Podcast now features a series hosted by Capital Group CEO, Mike Gitlin. Through the words and experiences of investment professionals, you'll discover what differentiates their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories, and how do they find their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Trump has an emotional bond with tens of millions of Americans, very durable cult of personality, more than I think people realize. And they are both selling, and Vance in particular seems to be the agent for this, a darkness when Americans want joy, which is something you talked about at the DNC. But obviously a significant portion of Americans are okay with darkness. Some may prefer it. How do you, you know, I mean, to use an old metaphor, how do you bring them to the light?

the light? Well, I think show versus tell, right? Some of it is just literally presenting a campaign that if you watch, you know, especially if Oprah's there, but not only that, if you just watch our campaign, if you watch Tim Walls, if you watch Kamala Harris, you feel like you're watching something that it would be nice to be part of, that you would like to be part of that, something that it would be nice to be part of, that you would like to be part of that, and that you would belong. And, you know, look, I think you're not wrong, like in a way that, of course, I consider to be misleading and twisted, but still, in a way, you know, Trump created that in 2016. He created this sense of this thing that I want a lot of people to get on board with, if only because they were so pissed at everything that they felt like every institution needed to be burned down, right?

Yeah, it had a Reagan quality with more anger. Mourning in America. Well, make America great again. Well, I don't know. It was American carnage, right? Right, right. Well, then the speech. That's correct.

And then it was only I can fix it. But there was this thing, right? There was this idea that maybe there was this kind of dark fun to being part of that campaign, which was in many ways kind of a response to the conflicted mood of America in the middle of the last decade, which is when he won. Now we're in the middle of this decade. And the feel in the middle of this decade is not like everything's great, everything's fine. It's more like we as a country have been through some shit, right? A pandemic that killed a million Americans, all the economic upheaval that followed, lots of things happening in the world. The spectacle of a former American president being convicted of a crime. And yet, like, we're also dealing with it. Like, we're dealing with, you know, we pulled through

the pandemic. We got our economy not just, like, alive, but defied the basically 100% prediction that we'd have a recession with very much the opposite of a recession. We're adding jobs. With very much the opposite of a recession. We're adding jobs. We've gotten prices back on a trajectory, you know, pulled inflation down. Right. I understand. And it just feels, I think he's misaligned with the moment right now. Right. Except that even though the U.S. is far outpacing every other developed nation completely, and China, forget it, is a hot mess.

There's also a whole generation of people I know well, as you know, tech dude bro influencers. Their king is Elon Musk. They love Trump. Crypto bros, YouTubers, podcasters, comedians, MMA fighters, reggaeton stars, and they're probably voting for Trump. There is a shift of young men towards Trumpism. How do you look at that? You know, how do you see what is happening there? And they seem still quite excited about it. Although Joe Rogan seems to be wavering all over the place now, which will be an interesting situation. So, you know, yeah, one thing I think has been really important to try to come to terms with is this scrambling that's happened in Silicon Valley, where a lot of these guys, and as far as I can tell, all of them are guys.

Yes, they are. One might have thought were Democrats, you know, one or two cycles ago, were suddenly kind of all over the place on this. And some of them, I just want to like grab them by the shoulders and shake them like, wait a minute, you think of yourself as libertarian and you're aligning with the politics of somebody who wants total control. It's like the opposite of libertarian. Sure. Not to mention against the right to choose, which like even as a dude.

Well, not control of them. Not control of them. They don't mind control of other people. But even, yeah, I mean, leaving aside bodily control of women, they're, you know, if one is going to leave that aside, then they're still like the political. Because they're well known for helping women. They're super well known for that. No, I mean, I do think that pattern is obviously, it's hard to miss. But also like, you know, some of them are gay, and they want to like, suddenly make excuses for, you know, these politicians who are still officially anti-marriage equality, to say nothing how they treat the rest of the LGBTQ

community. You know, some folks who are Jewish who, I guess, have no problem with a guy who's, you know, hanging out with Holocaust deniers and inviting them to dinner. I mean, J.D. Vance, literally, right, going on Tucker Carlson right after he platforms a Holocaust denier. So what is going on with these contradictions? Now, one, one thing I think is really basic, really old fashioned politics, which is a lot of these guys are wealthy and there's a sense that if you're wealthy when you don't have rule of law, we don't have like stable and responsible leadership in institutions. That's really bad for business. That's really bad for tech. That's really bad for Silicon Valley. And I think that's true. Well, Cuban has done, Mark Cuban has done the same. But one of the things, you know, but their leader is the richest man in the world right now, Elon Musk. And you and I discussed him,

and I know you can't talk about your role as a Secretary of Transportation, but one of the things he was mad about was not being invited to that White House event. How do you look at that, you know, exemplified by him, not him in particular, but exemplified by him, how to turn those voters back? Because he's a very powerful, he's got money, he's got means, he's got a platform, and he's doing his level best to get Trump elected. I see why, because he's in a lot of trouble if Trump doesn't get elected, I think. Yeah. And again, as you acknowledge, I can't get into my day job here, but what I will say is it's not that unusual. Matter of fact, it's true most of the time through history that the richest guy

in the world is not going to be aligned with a party that believes in making sure the rich pay their fair share, in making sure there's adequate regulation of businesses so they don't go too far and hurt people, and in making sure that we have a kind of more responsible way forward. And by the way, you know, we're a pretty pro-union party, right? And yet for all that, like, I don't think it's anywhere kind of certain that, you know, most business leaders in Silicon Valley shouldn't prefer Democrats. Again, first of all, because the rule of law issues that are there. Secondly, because we're a little bit more, you know, as the ones who believe in science and don't call climate change a hoax and don't constantly put ourselves in a state of warfare

against the academy. Like we recognize the role of the federal government in promoting research, literally invented the internet, right? The federal government invented the internet. They did. Because there was a consensus that we needed government not to handle everything, not to solve everything, not to do everything, but to do certain things, including basic research, right? You know, you're known as the guy who'll go on Fox News, debate just about anyone. You're very good at it. The Atlantic Magazine called you a soundbite and surrogate sensation. We're told you've done approximately 1,800 interviews since joining the administration. Have you, you've gone

on Fox, you go on all of these things, and you do rather well there, and they seem to like you, the audience does seem to like you, you create viral moments, you sharpen arguments, you communicate to them. Have you thought about going to see Elon Musk and talking about his problems with you? So usually when I talk to him, it's over on the official side. But yeah, if he wants to call up and talk politics, I'd be happy to do that. I mean, like, look, he reminds me of like your super smart friend who's really good at lots of things. But then you get him going on politics and suddenly he sounds like your roommate from freshman year who just discovered libertarianism and like doesn't make him any less smart, but it's certainly wacky, right? And I do think there's going to be a moment when a lot of

folks, and this is not directed at any one person, but as a lot of folks in this mode today, who are sooner or later going to have to kind of come home. It doesn't mean they'll come home and agree with me on everything politically, but like, get to a place that's like a little more responsible and normal. And I'm happy to talk to anybody to try to bring that about. So talk about this strategy of going to Fox News. I mean, you've talked about this a little bit, but you've got to persuade conservatives, correct? I mean, you have to persuade people who aren't necessarily on your side. And now Vice President Harris has been underestimated by the political class constantly. She has outperformed expectations here. How do you get her heard by those people? You are heard

by those people, but how do you get her heard by those to appeal to disengaged voters who were turned off by politics and aren't just moved by vibes necessarily? Well, part of what I'm trying to do is make sure that certain facts get aired. And before those facts can be believed, they at least have to be mentioned. And I think in certain spaces like Fox News, they won't be mentioned unless they're mentioned by somebody like me. And again, I'm just talking about facts, like the fact that crime went up under Donald Trump and the fact that crime went down after he got beat. Something everybody cares about, but definitely something conservatives care about. And yet literally probably don't know. Most conservatives now get most of their information from news sources that won't mention that fact,

even though they cover crime all the time. Certain facts, you know, all the way down to like facts about Springfield, Ohio, right? And so part of it, before you even get to me saying why I believe Kamala Harris will be a good president, is just like some facts about what's going on in our country that a lot of people literally don't know. I can't get mad at them for not believing it if they don't even, they've never even heard it. The manufacturing numbers. I mean, this is really personal for me coming out of the industrial Midwest. A lot of people literally don't know. And you can tell from JD Vance's speeches that he's trading off of this. A lot of people literally either don't know, or they knew, and then they haven't been reminded lately, that we had a manufacturing recession under Trump

before COVID, right? And that we have this massive manufacturing boom now where places like where I grew up, where, you know, we hadn't had a multi-billion dollar investment in manufacturing where I've come from since Studebaker closed in 1963. There was like one exception in 1990. And now we've got like three different things going on right now in St. Joe County, Indiana. So does she need to do that to go to those places? You're great, but let me, actually, let me get to this expert question because it's in that vein. Hey Pete, it's Rick Wilson from the Lincoln Project. I think most of us agree that Kamala Harris is running a great campaign so far, but no campaign is perfect. So I'm curious what you would be doing right now if you were in her position, and what do you think the campaign has left on the table so far?

There's always things you can't get done in a campaign, and there's always things you want to try to do in a campaign, but you'd never quite get the resources or the bandwidth at the time. What's missing right now from the Harris campaign? Thanks. Well, look, if you're the candidate, you would do things differently because it's you, right? Every campaign is designed around the strengths of the candidate. So I would never advise her to do all of the things that I would do because each one of us builds a campaign around our strengths. But the biggest piece of advice I would have for anybody running this cycle is something that she doesn't just understand. biggest piece of advice I would have for anybody running this cycle is something that she doesn't just understand. She's doing it in ways that I've really, really appreciated and admired, which is

finding a way to address the insane things he does or says quickly enough that you get right back onto your core so that this election is not about him or about her. It's about you, the American voter. In terms of what we can do more, I continue to think there's opportunity in rural areas. I watched back in Indiana, I watched Joe Donnelly become a senator. And I don't know how many of our 92 counties he carried, but it was probably about 12. But the other thing is, in some of those other 80 or so counties that he lost, he lost 60-40 instead of 80-20 because he made sure they knew that he cared. I think we have some more opportunities to do that. And I'm excited to see the campaign find ways to do that.

It's tough with principal travel. You got to multiply. You got to have surrogates out there. You got to think about, you know, look, there's a superficial understanding of rural America where people might think that a rural online influencer is a contradiction in terms because you kind of have this stereotype of like, you know, old farmer type versus like the young tech, where the reality is like, of course, like, especially, you know, it's part of why broadband matters so much. But, like, of course, there are online voices who are especially influential in rural communities who might be different than some of the ones that we're in the habit of engaging. So reaching out to them. Yeah. I mean, I recently interviewed Robert Reich, and he pointed out the Great Recession as a turning point that soured many Americans on politics and made them believe the system was rigged against them. You worked as a management consultant at McKinsey then, and fairly or not, some voters you represent the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. So how do you reach those voters who may or may not be gettable? I think it's what we're actually going to do. I saw the good, the bad, and the ugly of

corporate America during the couple years that I spent working in the private sector. And the reality is that people are not wrong to think that a lot of times, especially in rural areas or parts of the country like where I come from, they've been screwed over by the way that Washington has been way too responsive to those corporate interests. But again, the question isn't like what posture you strike, it's what have you done, right? So Kamala Harris has been a leader in an administration that has done more for consumers, standing up to big pharma, making sure you can get $35 insulin, fighting for monopolies to be broken up. You know, a lot of

stuff that even democratic administrations previously just didn't do. And Republicans definitely aren't going to do. And again, some of this is back to basics, right? Like Donald Trump's economic, there's lots of bluster, but the core of his economic vision is tax cuts for the rich and undoing regulations that affect how corporations can behave. Or putting on regulations. The six largest companies in the world by market cap are tech companies. The richest people in the world come from tech industry, including Elon Musk. One of the few issues that unites Democrats and Republicans is our desire to limit their influence. Is that an area that you all can focus in on at all? If you had to pick one area,

you just talked about manufacturing base, but is this an area? Because I would love to talk to Vice President Harris. I know I have an idea of what she thinks about this. But is that an important thing? There hasn't been much discussion of the enormous wealth in this country. Amy Klobuchar has been trying to pass an antitrust bill, and it hasn't happened. Is that an area of possible interest to people, or is it just not enough time? I think people are interested to hear, you know, what her administration will do in order to make sure that it works for people, right? So again, part of it's like really basic stuff, like a fair tax code. We're not attacking people, we're not going after them, but like everybody's got to pay a fair share, right? That's kind of a basic thing with recalibrating the tax code. I think when we

think tech, a lot of times we're thinking jobs, right? And like, how do you take these developments that have happened, machine learning, you know, and everything from the implications of machine learning for, you know, trained skilled jobs in the cities that are going to shift to the implications of machine learning for, again, St. Joe County, Indiana, where I grew up, where there's an Amazon facility going in that's $11 billion, which is about 11 times the biggest investment we've had in that county in my lifetime up until then. So there's tech as jobs. And I think as somebody who was a senator where Silicon Valley is part of her constituency, understands that better than most. And then there's tech and

democracy. And we continue to be a campaign that's focused on democracy precisely because we think democracy should not be a partisan issue. And I economic and political advantage, which again is a new problem, but it's also a very old problem. I mean, you look at the Hearsts and the, you know, the newspaper barons 130 years ago. Yeah, no, nothing is new. It's just what we do, we did something about them back when, now we don't do anything about them. We'll be back in a minute. We'll see you next time. think about them, sure, you think about a product with demand, a focused brand, and influence-driven marketing. But part of their secret is actually the business behind the scenes, as in the business that makes selling and buying simple. And for millions of companies, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. With their

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Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. I know you've got to go, so I just have one more question for you. You ran for president as a 38-year-old mayor of a college town. You did very well. I don't know if you noticed, but you did. Obviously, you're too smart to sit here and tell us about your presidential ambitions. But I'm just wondering, what's next for you after this? Do you want to stay in the administration? Do you want to do something else, run for senator? How do you look at post-election if Trump wins and post-election if Kamala Harris wins? Well, I don't know. I mean, that's the honest answer, even if it's also the answer I'm supposed to give. I love my job. It's also not a job that you can do forever. She'll have decisions to make

about how her administration ought to look and ought to work. I love public service, but I also love being a dad and I love lots of things that are kind of hard to do right while in public service. And one thing I do know, and obviously when you run for president, you reveal yourself to have ambition and to be interested in public service, but it's not the only thing that brings meaning in my life. I will figure out a way to make myself useful. But I also know that everything I've done in politics or public service would have come as a surprise to me like a year and a half before I was doing it. So even more than usual, I think this is a time to be really open

and to know that like the most important thing politically is to make sure there's a good outcome in November. And the last thing I would like to ask you very quickly about your kids. There's been so much about parenting and sort of cosplaying by the Republicans. It's offensive to me as a parent of four kids. I'm sure it's offensive to you, not treating you as though you have children for some reason, which is bizarre because I know you do. How do you think of that, the parenting thing? How do you think of yourself and a father going forward with your children? It's a very easy question, but it's difficult, I think, in a lot of ways.

Yeah. I mean, I think every parent would say it changes everything, right? And one of the first things that happens to a lot of new parents, at least it happened to Chastin and me with our kids, is there's a side of your brain that imag you'll you'll eventually have your life go back to the way it was once they're sleeping through the night or once they're uh in daycare or school or once they're potty trained or once you find a consistent babysitter or whatever and it turns out that's not how it works and big part of parenting is uh understanding that your life will not go back to the old life. And that's okay, right? Better than okay.

It's better than before. But it is different. The other thing you learn is that it's not about you, right? There's that, Brandi Carlile has that lyric, the first things that she took from me were selfishness and sleep. Brandi Carlile has that lyric, the first things that she took from me were selfishness and sleep. And like, you know, the sleep somewhat comes back, although we're going through some new, you know,

ups and downs there, Chaston in particular, as the twins get into their early threes stage and can get out of bed at any time and come wake you up. But the more important thing, of course, is the selfishness, like all these reminders that it's not about you. And, you know, what hurts to watch somebody like JD and a lot of these politicians talk about parenting is they're so close to something that we could all find pretty unifying. This marvel that is parenting and this question of how do we make it easier to be a parent on everything from affordability to stuff like parental leave, which is, as you know, I care a

lot about. But it should be something unifying. And weirdly, he's managed to take one of the most humbling, human, unifying things in the world, which is the way we relate to those we love most, family, parenting, and somehow turn it into a wedge or a cudgel or a way to attack people. He doesn't say like, I really think we got to do these things because these are my family values. He says, if you don't agree with me, you're anti-child. That's what he said. It's just like, are you like, I don't care how wrong I think you are. I would never say you were anti-child. Look, who says that? And it's too bad because I really think on the other side of this, there is a chance in the name of our identities, not as

Democrats or Republicans or politicians or whatever, but as parents, for those of us who are parents, and as people, for those of us, which is all of us who have people in our families that we love, to have that actually be where we find the source of humanity and dignity that's going to be our salvation cutting through all the politics. All right. Well, we'll leave it at that. Thank you so much, Pete. Thanks. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castor-Russell, Kateri Yoakam, Jolie Myers, and Megan Burney. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher, Kate Furby, and Kaylin Lynch.

Our engineers are Rick Kwan, Fernando Arruda, and Aaliyah Jackson, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're the really smart friend. Full stop. If not, you're that annoying freshman roommate who just discovered Ayn Rand. Go 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.

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