On with Kara Swisher - Sen. Smith on the Shutdown, Democrats’ Future, and Retiring Early

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

At age 67, Sen. Tina Smith (D, MN) is doing something that’s still rather rare for senators: retiring at a relatively young age, after just one full term in office. Smith’s open Senate seat is one of five Democrats will have to defend in next year’s midterm elections, in what’s shaping up to be a tough cycle. But with a little more than a year left in office, she still has to work on the big problems facing the Democratic Party, and the nation more broadly, including a rise in political violence and this week’s looming government shutdown.  In a live conversation recorded Saturday at the annual MinnPost Festival in downtown Minneapolis, Kara and Smith talk about why she thinks Democrats shouldn’t cave to Republican demands to keep the government open; how more of her colleagues should opt to retire instead of run for re-election; and what Democrats need to do to come out ahead in next year’s midterm elections. Smith also reflects on the recent spate of political violence, including the assasination of  her friend and fellow Minnesota Democrat, Melissa Hortman, in June. (The gunman reportedly included the senator on his hit list.)  Thank you to MinnPost for hosting this conversation.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We coordinated our outfits, obviously. We've never met one another before, but we're like, oh, my God, we have the same, you know, fashion consultant. I always dressed like this since eighth grade. I think she's dressed like this since she's not running again, and she's like, fuck it. It's on. Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. this is on with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota.

Earlier this year, Smith announced her decision to retire from the Senate so she won't run for re-election next year even though she's only in her mid-60s. If you can believe it, that's relatively young by Senate standards, but of course it's not young. Her retirement puts more stress on Senate Democrats as they head into an already tough midterm election cycle. The party will need to flip four seats currently. held by Republicans while also defending the 13 they currently hold if they want to win back the majority. But Democrats are facing more immediate problems. We taped our conversation with Senator Smith on Saturday evening just a few days before the government is expected to run out of money.

If Congress doesn't pass a spending measure by Tuesday night, the government will shut down. And with Republicans in control of every branch of the government right now, the Democrats' lack of political power means they don't have much leverage. I want to talk to Senator Smith because she's leaving. And perhaps she can actually say what's happening in Congress, which has lost an enormous amount of power in the Trump administration and what the Democrats can do to try to equalize that power. All right, let's get into my conversation with Senator Smith. Our expert question comes from Amanda Littman, co-founder and president of Run for Something. The interview was recorded in front of a live audience at the annual Minpost Festival in downtown

Minneapolis. Thank you to MinPost for hosting the conversation. Stick around. of the Fortune 500 use the Service Now AI platform. While other platforms duct tape tools together, ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data, workflows, and AI, connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters most. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at servicenow.com.

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people tend to be more forthright. Suddenly, for example, Tom Tillis suddenly found. Well, you know what he found. So anyway, thanks for coming on on. We're going to talk about political violence, President Trump, your retirement announcement, and the state of the Democratic Party. So there's lots to talk about. So let's dive in.

Let's start with some news. The indictment of former FBI director James Comey came after constant pressure on the Department of Justice by President Trump, were you surprised? When the news came, he'd been talking about it and trothing about it. Anybody who was surprised that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he was going to do

has not been paying attention. And so I think it's hard to say surprise, but I was certainly like, you know, oh shit, like another time. Here's another thing, another thing that he is doing. And, you know, it's been since the 19th, 1970s after the debacle with Watergate and with Richard Nixon, that there has been a norm in this country that we don't allow, we don't, presidents don't use the Department of Justice to prosecute their personal grievances and to go after their political enemies. That's what Richard Nixon did. And yet we have this president, here is yet another norm that he is overturning. And, you know, we'll see what happens. I mean, I believe that James Comey will not be, you know, he'll be exonerated.

But think of what this is doing to his life, to his daughter's life, to his son-in-law. Both of them work for the Department of Justice. And they used to work for the Department of Justice. It is fundamentally undermining of the rule of law and the idea that the Department of Justice is there without fear of favor to prosecute the law. Again, he's putting himself above the law. What is the problem? Is it Pam Bondi?

Is it that he's put in place someone who's willing to do his bidding? I think he has put in place at justice, at defense, at interior, at health and human services. I mean, at the Department of Agriculture, really big thing in Minnesota, he has put in place people whose loyalty is solely to him and not to the work of those agencies or to the American people. And so they all just do his bidding. And they're going to continue to do his bidding until somebody stops him. So when it comes to going after his enemies, there's no reason to think he will stop at Comey. On Friday, he even said, frankly, I hope there are others. You said on blue sky that Trump had successfully turned the DOJ into his political weapon. What does it mean for the country

if he keeps going? Well, you know, I think what we are seeing, we are in the middle, of, I believe, the middle of a authoritarian takeover of our country. It's not like it might happen or it's starting to happen. We are in the middle of it. And so I think that there is this sort of inexorable process that if we don't stop it, it's not going to stop. He's not going to stop. People sometimes have this idea, oh, we're going to be able to make it through this bad patch and then he'll have had enough. But understand how he has surrounded himself. The second term, he's much, much more dangerous, the second term, because the people that he's surrounded himself with actually know what they're doing.

You know, Russ' vote knows what he's doing. He knows how to dismantle the prerogatives of Congress and concentrate power in the executive branch. And so that's the situation that we're in. And what do we do about it? I mean, I think the whole mode of this administration is to try to tell everybody in this room, people in other rooms like this

that we actually don't have any power to shape the outcome to wear us down, to exhaust us, and to basically cause us to just sort of give up. But of course that's not true. We do have the power. We just have to agree to

use it and to not give up. And that's the job ahead of us for these next 18 months. So talk about the exhaustion element because this week it was let's see, Tylenol, which you should take if you're practicing. Having been pregnant, you should take it. And I'm not a doctor, but I'm going to give you that piece of advice.

My doctor, Donald Trump, R of K. I'm going to trust my doctor. So you had that. That went on for a while. There was the Jimmy Kimmel situation. There was the escalator. There was the escalator and the teleprompter. There was a tax, tariffs, new tariffs.

New tariffs on pharmaceuticals and everything else. So it does seem inexhaustible. Talk a little bit about that as a public official when there's so many things coming at you, and this is, of course, a long-time theory of Steve Bannon. I kept trying to get people to pay attention to him because he was really, he's quite smart in that area. This flood the zone approach,

and a lot of people do feel like it's a distraction from the Epstein files, of course, which are now, again, this week, is still not been released, but possibly could be. unless there's a government shutdown, we'll get to that. So talk about the inexhaustibility of this effort. Although I just have to acknowledge that today, in the face of the Epstein files, the president announced to the country that he's planning on releasing the Earhart files.

Okay. The files, these are the files that would maybe shed some light into why it was that Amelia Earhart's plane crashed all those years ago. undoubtedly this was also caused by Antitha. Right, right, right. So, but again, it's like, you know, I don't want to go get to... That one I'm kind of interested, and I'll be honest with you.

All right. I am too. I'm not uninterested. I'm aware when I'm being distracted, yet I am also interested at the same time. Not to go all literary on you, but one of my favorite poets, Edna, great feminist, Edna St. Vincent Malay, said,

it's not one thing after the other. It's the same damn thing over and over again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what we're seeing here. It's the same damn thing over and over again. And I mean, I say this to myself every morning when I sometimes scrape myself out of bed and try to figure out how to go on. And I say this to people, whether it is the, you know, whether it is the parents at Annunciation School or whether it is the tribal leaders I was just meeting with yesterday up at Red Lake Nation. I mean, we don't pick the time when we are called on to lead. And we're all leaders here, not just me. All of us are leaders. And in these

moments, we have to do whatever we can. We have to rise to the occasion. And that is actually the story of this country. It is individuals appreciating that they have the power to make this country what they want it to be and then using that power and not being exhausted. And I am not saying it is easy. It is really damn hard. But that's it. That's what it is. So Trump is now accusing another former FBI director Christopher Ray, who he put in place, I believe, of lying about hundreds of undercover agents being president, the January 6th insurrection. There's no evidence to support this claim. And in fact, almost a year ago, the inspector general said hundreds of officers were at the Capitol as part of a response after the attack. He's hinting that he wants to name those

ghost agents. He may go after Ray 2. How do you forestall this? You said you've got to get up every day, but what options do you actually have until the election in 2026? Are there any options? Well, and we are talking about this a little bit earlier. The options that we have, they're basically, what are the powers of power that we have? I mean, one, we have the levers of power of the people that we've been talking about, the rapid decline in the popularity of the president, which is a very good thing because that does diminish his power. So that's one thing.

The second thing is the power of the judiciary to stop him from doing things that are clearly lawless. And we could talk about that, right? Because we've had some good successes, especially in the lower courts, stopping. Not the upper court. But not in the upper court. We continually see it just happened again yesterday. The Supreme Court issuing these shadow docket opinions where they don't say why. They just say what.

And they have been increasingly saying, yes, the president, until we decide finally, the president can continue on. And then so that's like not working out as we need it to, especially. once these cases get to the Supreme Court. And then you have the power of Congress. And Congress has important powers. It has oversight powers. It has the ability to not only shine a light on the bad stuff that's happening, but to actually use our oversight powers to stop it.

But, of course, the problem is right now that the Republicans are not doing that. They're either saying, oh, we have to, this is going to pass. This is a bad patch. Yeah, this is pretty bad, but we're going to hope it gets better, which, of course, it's not going to happen. Or some of them are saying, no, really, we're working on a plan. We just have to wait for that one thing. And, well, what, this is one day and this is what they say to you with a straight face.

Yes, this is what they say? And what do you say? It's sort of like when your kid has done this, I mean, I don't even want to compare them to children because children are better behaved. Have a higher moral standard, I think. But when somebody comes and tells you over and over and over again, no, trust me. You know, trust me, I've got this. I'm going to get this figured out.

I'm going to do the right thing ultimately. And they tell you that over and over again, and they never do the right thing. You don't trust them anymore. And that's the position that we're in right now in Congress, which is why I think that Americans, and I feel strongly about this, are looking for Democrats to fight on this and to stand up and say no. Right. Well, we'll get to that in a second, but two other things that just happened. He signed a memorandum directing the administration to crackdown on funders of so-called

left-wing terrorism. He named George Soros, Reid Hoffman, someone I know very well, the Democratic donor. He's also said California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Latista James are guilty as hell. If he's able to punish these enemies, even on these spurious charges, what tools do you have? But you can ignore the Republican senators are not going to help you.

Obviously, the Republican Congress is not going to help you. Right. What do you do? Because he also was announced, he announced Saturday he's deploying troops to what he calls War Ravage, Portland. There was just a lovely picture

of a farmer's market there today, so I'm not sure if War Ravage is the right word I would use. Probably overpriced tomatoes, perhaps. To protect ice facilities, his officer is using full force as necessary. these actions don't have a precedent. It really does, in this country,

it has a precedent in other countries. So what do you think the end goal is and what are the critical tools when you say fight back? What does that mean if he continues to do this with impunity? Well, I think there is power in us calling out what we see

and not going along with it. And that is, I mean, as I, you know, Democrats, my party, our party might not be in power. but we are not powerless. And that means that we have to exercise the authorities that we have. And but there, you know, there is no, there is no like, oh, yes, this is my secret tool that I'm keeping in my trunk until things get really bad. Because I think we're already there.

It is, it is the question of, you know, marshalling our kind of our collective authority as the people of this country to say we're not going to put up with this. But at the end of the day, is it protests? What is the, what is the tool? I mean, I think it is, I think it is, I think it is protest. I think it is visible action. I think it is anything that anybody in this room can do. Everybody can do what they can do. And I, you know, I got involved in politics very, you know, at the very beginning as an organizer, literally like going door to door and knocking on the doors in my neighborhood and talking to people about what mattered to them and then understanding that that is the source of power in this country.

and that our job is to tap into that and to connect it and to build a powerful coalition. And that is what the job is ahead of us. And of course, as long as we have free and fair elections, and I am optimistic. I mean, I'm not like terribly, I'm realistic, but I believe that we're going to be able to save this country. But that is why these elections are so important coming up

in what is it now 14 months, at least for the House. And it is why what Democrats do over the next 14 months is so important because we can't just be against them. We have to have a better idea. So let's turn to the looming government shutdown. You said you won't vote for a spending bill unless it's bipartisan. And during the shutdown debate in March, which divided Senate Democrats, you voted against the funding bill.

Minority leader Chuck Schumer initially signaled Senate Democrats would block the Republican funding bill but change course. Would Democrats be in a better position now if Schumer had held the line? You can tell us now. Well, so I, of course, voted no in March, and I'm going to vote no again, because I do not think that, I don't, I think that, you know, these people are bullies, and they will bully you until you say you're not going to be bullied anymore, until you say no, until you're not, I'm not going to be intimidated. I'm going to fight on this. So, yes, of course. Of course, I believe that if more Senate Democrats had voted the way I voted, that we would be in a better position.

And I think, you know, people are people. And as you're walking around amongst those 100 people that are in the United States Senate, the question is how many of those people on the Republican side believe that the Democrats are going to get rolled again? Mm-hmm. You know, that we're going to, at the end of the days, like, go along. And if more of them think that, then they are less likely to actually get serious about negotiating with us. Where are they? Do they think Democrats are going to roll over again? I think we showed them right before we left last week that we actually got more votes for our proposal than the Republicans got for theirs. And that was because, like, eight of them couldn't even bother to show up.

So that's pretty bad. So I think they are starting to understand that we're not going to give him. So if the government does shut down now, what comes next for Democrats? What's the strategy? The administration is going to use it to push mass layoff. Russell vote has already said this, and the federal government, as they're reportedly planning to do, although other news shows they're trying to rehire people from the Doge cuts.

Right. So what is the worst case scenario? Because I think one of the things the Democrats often do is say, well, if we don't vote for it, all hell is going to break loose, but all hell is going to break loose. Why not just let it? I mean, not to be all-male Robbins on you, let them, let them.

All held, did break loose. Yes, it did. It did break loose. And so I think, you know, he made this effort last week to say, you know, first thing he said was don't even bother talking to those people, you know, that being us. You know, I represent five and a half million Minnesotans. So if you're refusing to talk to me, that means you're refusing to talk to everybody in this room.

And then what he did is he started, they started to issue these threats that you're referring to. Oh, we're going to fire a bunch of people. Well, for God's sake, they're already. firing a bunch of people. Right. They're not going to be better behaved. They're not going to follow the law if I go ahead and vote for their thing with no guarantees. In fact, all I'm really doing is giving them a blank check. Right. That's what it sounds like. I'm giving them a blank check and say, go ahead. And not only that, but I'm saying, oh, and this is kind of okay with me because I voted

for it. So listen, this is not a situation where there is one action that has no risk and another action that has all the risk. Right. We are in a bad place. So what is Chumert telling you? How confident are you in his ability to lead you through talks in a possible shutdown?

I think that Chuck and Speaker Jeffries have made it very, very clear that we are ready to sit down and talk with them any time to figure out how we could come up with some sort of a compromise. At the very least,

they should say to us that if we pass a BAM budget, that they're going to make sure that the president follows that budget or we are really truly just talking to ourselves. And so I have great confidence that there's, unlike in March, that in September and October now that we have, first of all, much better coordination between the Democrats in the House and the Senate, that's super important. And of course, we're willing to negotiate, but I'll work

with anybody who wants to work with me to help lower costs from Minnesotans and try to avoid these terrible health insurance premium increases, but you've got to talk to me. Right, but I think the point is not to talk to you. I think that's the goal, is not to... So in shutting down, what is the worst-case scenario you have, given it's a worst-case scenario

because he may not even follow any deal you make? That's right. I mean, he might not follow a deal. If we, say we gave him the votes, he might not follow that deal. Right. And if we don't just give him our votes without any understanding

about what's going to happen, then we will go into a shutdown, and then what happens next. Then what I think will happen next is that the pressure will build. Right now, he just is sort of blithely going about and doing whatever he feels like doing, and I don't think that he's feeling any pressure. And I think that he will start to feel that. And I think the Republicans will start to feel that. And we all will, because shutdowns are bad.

Right, and I recently interviewed former Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Well, he agreed the shutdown debate is different than one in March. He also said, quote, one thing Republicans are really. really good at is apportioning blame. A recent Gallupol found the Democratic Party has never been more unpopular than it is now. It has 34% favorability rating. If the government does shut down,

how do you avoid taking blame and hurting the reputation of the party? Well, so the polls right now also show that if there is a shutdown, Americans understand that Republicans are in charge of the presidency, the Senate, and the House. They're in charge, and if they can't figure out how to get their act together,

then they're going to be the ones who get the blame. Now, you know, I've been involved in this line of work for a while, and I know that things also, things can change and things morph and that, you know, what the president does in this situation, nobody can predict. We can't predict what he's going to do when we're not in shutdown. So I think then it's going to become an intense competition about what we need to do to fight off this president who is, let's remember, deeply unpopular.

People's costs are going up and up and up on a variety of things, And it's going to get worse in October. It's not going to get better. And is he just going to sit there and go play golf? I mean, I think the pressure will build on him. You think that's the case. I do. I really do. And then what?

Then ultimately, how all shutdowns end, if that's where we end up, if they don't negotiate with us beforehand, they'll negotiate with us after. That's how you end things. It's got to be bipartisan, even in this incredibly fraught moment. The only way to avoid it is negotiation. only way to get out of it is negotiation. Do you at this moment believe shutdown is inevitable and something you would say bring it on? I mean, I don't want it, but I'm not going to give my vote to do something that I think is bad for my constituents. And that I think is the situation that we're in

because of their refusal to. And there's nothing right now that you see. I mean, sure. You know, John Thune could call up, you know, the majority leader in the Senate could call up Chuck, you know, tomorrow or this afternoon and say, let's see if we can't abort this. We both really believe he might say that we should not allow these tax breaks for insurance premiums for people who buy their insurance on the exchange. We shouldn't allow those to expire. So let's come up with an agreement on that. We'll be back in a minute. Swisher comes from Grooons. There's no dietary secret that's magically going to get you in great shape, but there are products that can help you feel your best, and Grooons is one of them.

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That's LinkedIn.com slash Kara to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Hey listeners. I want to tell you about a new podcast. from a box media podcast network called Access with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger. It's a show about the inside conversation happening across the tech industry. You may know Alex Heath from shows like Decoder and The Vergecast, and he's a founder of sources, a new publication about the tech industry, and a contributing writer for The Verge.

And you'll probably only know Ellis if you worked in Silicon Valley yourself. He's the former tech reporter turned tech industry insider working closely with today's hottest startups. Their first episode features an interview with Mark Zuckerberg about Meta's latest smart glasses, the AI race, and what's next for the social media giant. You can find the Access podcast with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. So in June, we're going to move to political violence the moment we're in right now. It's a little more serious than just a government shutdown. A gunman killed your friend, state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, the gunman reportedly included you on the hit list. You said at the

time you felt like the country is at a real tipping point and after conservative commentator Charlie Kirk's assassination this month. Talk how you feel right. How did you feel being on that list? Are you fearful? Do you feel like we can pull things back? I mean, no, you have an optimistic Minnesota feel to you. I feel it right now. But how do you feel right now about the violence? Well, you know, I say, and I mean it, that I wake up every single day feeling pretty confident that everything is going to be fine, that I'm going to be safe, that my family's going to be safe,

that's sort of, it's like this innate thing. But let's, you know, I mean, I mean, this, it shook me. It shook my family. I will never forget, you know, waking up at 7.30 in the morning, the morning that Melissa was shot, you know, in her own home

and realizing that I had all these messages on my cell phone because my staff learned, the governor's office learned that my name was on the list and they couldn't reach me because I turned my phone off at night. And so, you know,

there was, we, you know, immediately got this, you know, security. There was a, you know, a suburban parked outside my yard, in my front driveway for over 24 hours with like a young, a young private security officer. And I will never forget one of our sons.

We were trying to have our grandchildren not be afraid of the scary black car in the front driveway. And so we rolled down the window and Harlan looked in and waved at the guy sitting there. And our son, Sam, walked away and just like burst into tears because it's so real. And so it's been a very weird thing to be in a position of trying to translate this. the trauma for our state, the bigger issues of political violence in this country, sort of through all of these different prisms. And one thing that I've been feeling a lot is that, you know, a lot of people will say, oh, this isn't who we are. This isn't who we are. And I do believe that almost everyone in this country, it abhors political violence.

But violent behavior is not, it is not an aberration in our country. No. it is part of who we are. That's correct. Slavery, the Tulsa Race riots, the massacre it wounded me. I think we have to see that and understand it. And then we have to always, we just have to come back to the universal condemnation of using violence to resolve our political differences. And that's why what the president and the vice president and Steve Miller and these folks are doing, that's why it is so, dangerous. Do you, obviously, Democrats and Republicans are pointing fingers to each other for the rise of political violence, each aren't with their own statistics. I think most of the sticks are very clear. But you've said you think Trump is fueling it, and there's plenty of reasons to believe that.

How do you then drop the temperature if Trump keeps fanning the flames? And J.D. Vance does do the same thing, although more clottishly and more spectacularly. Yes. Uncharming. But yes. he's so uncharming he's like everyone's always like oh he's getting present i'm like yeah well that's like a whole other show that's another show that's a whole other show and i would love to do that show i served with you saw they raise jaddy vans tariffs on upholstered furniture but go ahead yeah yeah i know i know i don't think i'm not going to it um you don't need you know i was thinking about as i've thought a lot about this this last several months and thinking about the horror of 9-11 and what President Bush did.

And I disagreed with him on many, many, many things. But in that moment, what did he do? He stepped forward and he said, we must not use this moment to stoke Islamophobia. Muslim folks are our friends. They are our neighbors. That was the right thing to do. It was the leadership thing to do.

is completely the antithesis of what the president is doing. I mean, what I'm doing in my own life is I am trying to confront in a real and human way when I see that unfolding in real time. I mean, this is why I chose to talk to Mike Lee and the way that I chose to talk to him. Yeah, for people, I'm going to just note, after Hortman's murder, you confronted, you confronted Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee about some posts on X-Refean, conspiracy theories about the attacks. He's since taken them down. Talk about that. What did he say to you when you confronted him? And is he said anything more since Kirk's death? So I wanted very much

when I saw what he was putting up there. It was so cruel. It was so heartless. And it was so performative, right? He was performing for his online audience. And what I wanted to do was to communicate to him that this is real. These are real people, people that I cared a lot about. I'm his colleague. And so that is why I went to talk with him personally, rather than fire off myself some, you know, snarky thing about how awful he was. And honestly, I think he was, like, kind of stunned. Because this is what happens. People who do these shitty things are not used to being confronted in person by another human being. And that was to me just about saying, like, there's, where is your humanity here?

He, he did ultimately take it down, but he never really, he didn't like take responsibility for it. He just sort of took it down. What did he say to you when you confronted him? He, um, have you ever been around a guy who isn't used to being confronted? Many times. I'm sure this has never happened. You know some of these.

I mean, like, it might be a senator. it might be a tech billionaire. I mean, every day of the week and twice on Sunday. So when you see that... Also my three-year-old. Yes, exactly. He, and you could say,

it was kind of serendipitous in a way that there was a picture taken, so I'm standing there, and he's, you know, he's got his sort of hands on his hips, and he's leaning forward a little bit like he's trying to physically intimidate me, but that guy? I know.

And people later said, did you feel intimidated? And I said, no, I actually felt like I was quite a bit taller than he was. was. Yes, yeah. That's what I was noticing. But he sort of stuttered a little bit and he said something along the lines of, I certainly didn't mean to do any harm, which is very different from saying I did wrong, I'm sorry. And that was kind of it. That was it. That was kind of it. I didn't mean to do harm. I didn't mean to, you know, I certainly didn't mean to hurt you or I didn't mean to upset you. And that's kind of another class of thing. Don't be upset.

Right, right, yeah, right. I didn't mean to do it. Not, but I didn't mean to do it. No, I didn't, like, no, it's more like, I'm sorry that you're mad at me is more the thing, right? Yeah, right, that sucks. It's like, it's like, it's when someone says, I don't mean to call you a bitch, but, and then that's what they do.

Right. Oh, no, it's even, it's more like, if calling, if me calling you a bitch upsets you, I'm sorry that I upset you. Yeah. Yeah, you're right, that's better. Have you encountered him since? He's had an unusual journey.

He used to be relatively reasonable. Now he's extremely online. Yes, he is someone who's been diseased by online. Yeah, yeah. And of course, in the context of this bigger conversation we're having about political violence and how important it is that political violence is condemned immediately, regardless of whether the person who was injured

or killed is somebody that you support. or somebody that you don't support, the condemnation has to be universal. And, of course, he immediately condemned the murder of Charlie Kirk as well he should, and as did I. Yes, most democratically. Most Democrats. All we all did, right.

We all did. But what they're doing now, of course, is trying to manipulate the facts of this case to use their power to further erode people's rights. And, of course, famously the President of the United States, was when he was asked, why did you not lower the flags to have mass for Speaker Hortman, Melissa Hortman, when you did for Charlie Kirk, the president went, who? Right.

Who was that? Right. Which is, of course, such a sign of disrespect and cruelty. Were you surprised they tried to do that with Jimmy Kimmel, which sort of ignited a lot of people? And were you surprised that Disney was such a suck-up? Yeah. I think that's the word I was looking for. Quizling.

Again, right? This is the lesson of this age, is that if you try to appease a bully, it will never end. It only ends when you stand up to them. And Disney, it, you know, took them a few days, right? So if you realize that they were on a bad path, because they started to get all this external pressure. And I wasn't surprised about Jimmy Kimmel. And I'm sure in their world, they were thinking, oh, this guy, nobody watches his show, he's not that popular. You know, We're, you know, this is going to be a great example. And, of course, let's remember this is the corruption here. Because this is really about corruption. It's about the corruption of Brendan Carr putting pressure when he can on these television stations because they need the approval of the FCC in order to get a multi-billion dollar deal done. And so that's the corruption here. Right.

We certainly got his on South Park this week. Yes. I encourage you all to watch it. I felt for maybe a millisecond, sorry for Brandon Carr, and then I thought, no. It deserves. It's really funny. No. Are you surprised by the acquiescence of,

you noted the tech billionaires, but law firms, university presidents, everybody else? I talked to a lot of university presidents when all of this was happening as the Trump administration was going after universities, and there were some that understood that this was an essential moment that they were part of the civil society of this country

and if they were to kind of tout to the president in this moment that it was never going to end and then there were others who sort of felt like they had to work it out and I think that that's exactly what happened with the law firms as well and again this is the corruption of this issue It's not, I mean, it is certainly about free speech rights.

It is certainly about standing up for your, your, your, your, your freedom, but it is understanding that the corruption here is intense because you've got these law firms that are trying to figure out how to make lots and lots and lots of money, and I'm not opposed to that. I mean, you know, that's the capitalist system. But as soon as you start to have to appease the government in order to be able to do your business, I mean, that's what, that's, you know, that's what Hungary looks like. Right, right, that well-known center of innovation. Yes, right, capitalism, hungry.

It is not, I'm meaning to say it is not. They've not invented anything. No. The goulash is excellent, but otherwise, from an innovation point of view, they don't, they don't matter. What does that do when you think of all the various industries that have done that, which to you is the worst, tech presumably, correct? Yes, to me. Well, I don't know. It's, I mean, there's an overlap between tech and crypto, and I think that the corruption around the crypto money flowing into fund campaigns at the same time that the Trump family is making billions of dollars on crypto at the same time that Republican members of Congress, primarily, not exclusively.

are trying to pass laws to create a so-called bespoke regulatory system that allows the crypto sector to escape from the basic consumer protections that make sure that people don't get ripped off. That, to me, is the worst example that we are seeing right now. Right now. And with the tech companies bigger and more powerful than ever, are you surprised they haven't pushed back? Are you? No.

I warned you all I warned you here a couple of years ago I had to When you saw I will never I would never forget Being on the Being in the Capitol

Dome on inauguration day And I felt that I needed to be there To bear witness to this And to see there on the stage Former Presidents And members of the new cabinet But they're front and center In some cases not always

But in some cases Sitting in front of The new cabinet were some of the most, some of the wealthiest tech billionaires in the world. That tells you a lot. Yeah, I was not surprised in any way. I ran into one of them and said, a phrase I use a lot, which was, you're so poor,

all you have is money, which they don't like. What do you mean? No, I run into them. I live in D.C. I run into a bunch of them, and I run into a bunches of them, and one of them also came up to me and said, looks like we won, and I go, but you're still an asshole. And then he looked at, man, I was like, have a good day.

Yeah, okay. Anyway, speaking of Washington, you're retiring. Your sentencing is one of at least four Democrats had to defend the next midterms. Gary Peters in Michigan is also retiring, so it's Dick Durbin in Illinois and Jean Shaheen in New Hampshire. talk about why you decided to retire now, given the long odds of retaking control of the Senate. Well, so there's two pieces to this.

The first piece is, I'm 67, and when you're 67, you think differently about the next 10 years of your life. You're not thinking, oh, this is the next 10 years of the next 40 years. You think this is the next 10 years of, you know, God willing, I'll stay healthy. And how do I want to spend that time? Who do I want to spend it with? And so that, for me, was the personal part of the decision. And also, no, I will have been in the Senate for nine years, which seems to me like a pretty long time. I think it's the longest gig I've ever had.

And it seemed like enough for me. And but then this is the second part, and it's really, really important. If I had felt in any way that me not running was going to put this seat in jeopardy, that it was going to be hard to win this seat. Now, the people that are running hard to win this seat are working hard to win this seat are, working really, really hard, and I'm so grateful for them, so it's not easy. But I have full confidence that we will keep this seat and that we'll have a great next Minnesota senator. So did you retire because you, an old lady, which you just said, or is it because,

which I don't believe, or because you've had enough of this? I think, I mean, it's because I, I don't think of myself solely as a United States Senator. I don't want to be a United States Senator until I die. I don't feel like I'm an old lady, but I also feel like there are other things that I want to do. Now, there was a really interesting question a lot of people asked me, which was like, well, if we had won the presidency or if we had won the, you know, kept the Senate, would you have made a different decision? And I don't think that I would have. It would continue to make the decision. So every episode, we get a question from an outside expert.

Yours comes from Amanda Littman, co-founder and president of Run for something, who was doing a lot of stuff around, especially young. people running for office. Let's listen to it. Senator Smith, thank you for modeling the kind of leadership we need more of. By retiring and stepping away, you are showing us what true selfless patriotism looks like right now. So thank you. Why is it so hard for so many of your colleagues to do the same? Can you make a hypothetical argument to them that they too should be retiring and make this their last term? I just, I don't think they can take it from us on the outside. I think they need to hear from one of you all. Go ahead. Hypothetically speaking. You know, it reminds me sometimes Archie and I, my husband and I, will be walking around the lake and someone will

come up to me and they'll say something like, thank you for retiring. And I will immediately turn to Archie and say, like, they thought I was doing a good job. It's not that they didn't, You know, let me explain this. So, I mean, I think people get this idea that their whole identity is their job. And this happens in all different sectors of our society. I mean, in the corporate world, there's usually a secession plan in place. They also many have to retire at 65, 70. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. And I think, honestly, I think too many of my colleagues have this idea that, I'll just stay here unless something changes or unless I shouldn't stay here anymore. They sort of opt, they feel like they have to opt out rather than opt in all the time. And, I mean, there are tragic examples of people who stayed too long, who are, you know, I think of Diane Feinstein, who I, you know, I looked up to so much when I was a young student at Stanford and she was such an icon. And she stayed way longer than she should have. Why did that happen? Why did her staff allow that to happen? Why did her family allow that to happen? Because sometimes it's just easier to stay. What would you say to them? What I would say is,

because I know my colleagues, I would say you should think of your legacy. And what do you want your legacy to be in terms of the work that you've done? But what, think about your legacy in terms of paving the way for the next generation of leaders who are going to step in and who are going to do, great work that you made, you did not, you not only did I do great work myself, but I made space for the next generation of young leaders to step in, not when they're 50 or 60 or 70, but now. So you told, you told the New York Times a part of the problem with the Senate right now was we can't get shit done, which is sometimes I'm pretty direct.

Okay, I think that you're accurate in that assessment. What would you do to make it more appealing and less toxic to young people to make those? moves? Well, so we have a huge problem with how much money it costs to run for office. And so I don't think we can stop talking about how we need campaign finance reforms so that it's feasible for somebody to run for office. I mean, this is the other thing. What would you have had to raise to run if you ran again? Well, Minnesota is a relatively inexpensive state to run in. So I probably would have had to have raised somewhere between $15 and $20 million. She's not a small amount. Now, John Ossoff, who is running in Georgia, raised $11 million in one quarter to pay for his race.

John Tester, I mean, for God's sake, he raised, you know, tens and tens and, I mean, $70, $80 million. I mean, he could have taken everybody out for a steak dinner, oh, many times over. I mean, think of the corruption of that, what that really means. You know what I understand, the power of the money in this situation. Would you... So, you know... Why not? Because I think that...

You can't run the New York Times after you're 65 years old. You can't be in military. You can't... Why not have term limits? Not term limits. Age limits. Because I think that takes the power away

from all the people in this room and all of the Minnesotans. Somebody else, some legislature somewhere is saying, I'm going to decide when Amy Klobuchar or Tina Smith can't run anymore rather than you, the people of this state. Why can't we the people of the state

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

If you passed it, would you have to stay? No, but you can stay. But you can stay. You didn't answer. That's all right. you off on that one. We'll be back in a minute. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your

travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Today explained Sean Romsferam, a third. The thing about me is I don't drink coffee, but I can handle a matcha every now and then. Recently, I found myself in New York City at a very cute, straight out of Tokyo, tiny little matcha shop in Soho, and there was a line, of course, and one by one, I watched almost every person ahead of me broke out their telephones and filmed like a mini documentary while getting

their iced macho lattes. They were getting all the angles, selfies, regular camera, front-facing camera, peace signs, one with boo, one with the squad. And I was like, what is going on, you guys? It's a drink. And then I read that there was a worldwide matcha shortage. And then I was really like, what is going on? And it turns out Labou-Machia-Dubai chocolate was going on. Manta 24-carat Labu-Dubu-Dubon-Beam.

It's not clocking with me to try the new golden Labu-Dubai chocolate, Mata Latte, Moonbeam, ice cream, boba, crumble cookie, and my breakfast. And for anyone who missed it, we're going to explain on the show. Join us over it Today Explained. What makes for a happy life? In 1938, scientists at Harvard started tracking the well-being of over 250 young people to figure that out. Now, almost 90 years later, the results are in. There was learning. People who learned and read and read and read and liked to learn.

They were much happier as they got older. people who are really good at managing their feelings. But there was one thing that stood above all the rest. I'm Henry Blodgett, and this week on Solutions, I talked to best-selling author Arthur Brooks about the science of happiness. Follow Solutions with Henry Blodgett for more, wherever you get your podcasts. So let's finish up talking about the Democrats, the feckless Democrats. You save the part for last. I can tell. Yeah. So in the 2024 Democratic primaries, you roasted Minnesota Democrat, former Congressman Dean Phillips, who launched a long-shot campaign to challenge President Biden. After Phillips lost in New Hampshire, you said, quote, he's staying on the ballot in South Carolina

because he can't spell Phillips with only one L. Do you regret those jokes now? In hindsight, how, you know, he was one of the few Democrats willing to acknowledge what voters were seeing and saying about Biden. And I'll tell you, Scott and I got on Pivot got an enormous amounts of pushback from pointing out what was quite obvious to anyone with eyes. I mean, again, we're not doctors, but it seemed a problem early on. So talk a little bit about that. Well, so here's how I see it. I mean, Biden shouldn't have run. I don't think. And I think that he came to that conclusion too late. And I think that those of us who were in this, you know, I can just, I'll speak to my,

I'll speak from my own perspective. When it became obvious that he was going to run, and I was not one of the five people that had any influence over that decision, seemed to me that there was only one thing to do, which is to try to make sure if he was going to run, that he was going to win. And that's why I questioned what Dean was doing, because I did not. think that it was going to be helpful to the cause of having Biden win, given that he was going to be our candidate, obviously. I think it's quite interesting. I've been reading Kamala's book, which just, you know, 107. And you're talking to her in a couple of weeks. And you're talking

to her in a couple of days. And it's quite interesting to read what she, reading that book, I really recommend it. I'm good friends with Kamala. It's a little bit like reading somebody's diary, but in a good way not like you weren't supposed to but she also kind of asked what should I have done differently but then also realizing it would have seemed so self-serving if she had

gone into you know Steve Roshadier that handful of people Mike Donnellan who were you know close to the president so you don't think she should have said something publicly if they weren't going to listen to her I think that if she had think of what would have happened to her

And I think she was honestly making this, I mean, like, we all know we were wrong now. But if she had done that, as far as anybody can tell, and he was going to run, she would have been undermining him. She would have been making it harder for him to win, given that he was going to run. And that was this sort of horrible circular logic that we were all caught in in that moment. And then when we had the disastrous debate and it became clear to me in that moment that this was never going to, we had to change. Why did it take Nancy Pelosi to say, step down or else?

Why was there not more of stepping forward? And I understand, I agree, it's very difficult for Harris to have done that. At the same time, it was pretty obvious. There were problems, cognitive problems, for most people. So what has to change in politics where we don't just go along? And, you know, she said it's the ego of one man, right? That's essentially. And that's essentially what Kamala says, which is that it shouldn't be left up to just, you know, the one person there should be...

So why did it take until Nancy Pelosi decided to put her, like, jacket on and go down there and see... Because she's, like, she is truly the scariest grandma. Yeah, I'm aware. And I think, I'm joking, but, I mean, it goes to the gravitas and the power that she still wields. And, you know, I was... in a meeting with, it was probably four days before the president announced that he was going to step down. And this was a meeting of Senate Democrats. And we had the 45 of us were quite sure that he needed to step down. And the kind of brain trust of the Biden campaign came in to

basically tell us that everything was going to be fine. I've never felt so, you know, gaslit in my life. Well, maybe previous, you know, before Donald Trump. And we, you know, we all said, you know, this is not going to work. You have to understand that this is over. And then, you know, Pelosi did what she did. Others did what they did. And he ultimately reached the conclusion that he did. But as I said, it was too late. And too late for her to build. Too late for her. So going back to the Gallup poll that found record low favorability for the Democratic Party among all voters, low, partly because Democrats have historically a dim view of their party. Between now and midterm elections, what are the three concrete things they can do?

Obviously, you have Gavin Newsom doing a very muscular attack at Trump. Right. People seem to like it. His numbers have risen rather dramatically. Rahm Emanuel is another person advising for more muscularity. I'm not using this in a gender specific way, but it's, you know, more toughness, more aggression and everything else. So what do Democrats need to do to win back their own voters

and convince others to go with him besides Trump sucks? So, right. So we can't just accomplish this by telling people how bad Donald Trump is. People already actually believe that he's pretty bad. Even Republicans are starting to think that he's pretty bad. And so that is just the base. But that doesn't make you like Democrats more. Exactly, right.

Exactly. So I think I think of a handful of things that we need to do. I mean, one, we are struggling right now because we don't have a national leader. Gavin, it's interesting, I've been thinking a lot about Newsom, too. I don't know if he is what we need, if he is the thing. But we are struggling because we don't have a person at the top who can kind of guide us through this. And the caucus leaders are never going to be that person right now. So two other things that I think we have to think about. One is that we have to get much more clarity about what we are for and not just what we are against.

And in my book, in my book, we have to make it clear that we are going to fight against the concentrated powerful interest in this country that are taking all the money and leaving everybody else with the crumbs. And that is not a right-wing or left-wing idea. That is actually what people believe about what is wrong in this country. And too often Democrats have been in the position of sort of defending the status quo, sort of trying to defend institutions that folks fundamentally don't trust.

And until we get our brains around the fact that our sort of neoliberal approach to politics is not what people want, and in fact they feel talked down to and dismissed, we are not going to find a path out of the wilderness. If you don't feel like your kids are going to have a chance to buy, or even you are going to have a chance to buy a home and have a chance to do well to earn enough money that you can even take a vacation once in a while. And Democrats don't have a solution for that. Then we have to be able to be providing solutions. And this is, I think, where we are getting it wrong in our party right now, is that there's this big debate about,

oh, you know, we don't want to be too progressive or we want to be more moderate. But this is not a moderate progressive continuum. This is about being, for the 80% of what Americans want. They want their family to be able to own a home. They want their kids to be able to have childcare. They want to be able to afford their health insurance. And we have been sort of like, oh, but we have a policy for that. And so that, I think, is the really important thing we have to do. But then there's the last thing, which is that we are not actually talking to the voters that we think we are talking to. This is a tactical problem. And you know this as well as anybody. The Democratic Party spent literally billions of dollars advertising on television

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

I've been working on that with our caucus, with Corey Booker, and I think this is a place. where another very tangible thing we have to do better. Gosh, you sound like you're running for something. I'd like to let you all know, right now. Would you like to run for president? No. That was a pause. No.

No. No. But when you, but there are people running for president, several of them from Minnesota, apparently. There's a vice presidential candidate, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Amy Globetcher, I'm sure we'll make another run for it. Have you backed anybody in this state or elsewhere?

What do you want in a presidential candidate? I believe that we have a great governor and a great United States senator. Oh, wow. Well done. Are you a little disappointed by that answer? I'm not. You can say what you want now. You can say what you... Who would you vote for if you had the choice?

So I actually think that what we need, I don't know who I will vote for and I don't know who I will support, but I am looking for somebody new. I am looking for a, I'm looking for like the national version of this oyster farmer who's running against Susan Collins and Maine, or the guy who owns the beer, you know, the beer company or, you know, Dan Osborne in Nebraska or Mary Peltola in Alaska. I'm looking for younger fresh voices, people who have the capacity, you know, even a Pete Buttigieg.

even because he's been on the national stage for a while. It's usually he didn't mention someone who did very well, Zoran Mandani, with young voters. Exactly. I mean, I mentioned him as well. This is the kind of, you know, too often I think our party has developed these sort of gray-beard gatekeepers

who were deciding who's going to do well and who isn't, and we have to trust people who are willing to be bold. What is your prediction right now of winning the House, assuming a free and fair election, without a lot of Trump nonsense, which you're going to get. Which, of course, is a big assumption, but, you know, we have to work.

Do you think this is a moment that will happen? Because everyone's relying on these 2026 elections, I think, a little more than they should. All I know how to do is to have hope and then turn that hope into action. And that is, I think, what we have to do. And I am optimistic. I am hopeful that we have House candidates that are going to be able to win this election and that that will be the essential stopgap towards what Donald Trump is doing.

And then do you put him in the rearview mirror? Rahm Emanuel said then we put him in the rear room like he doesn't think he's an old man and put him out to pasture. Well, I mean, I think we all have to get our minds around the fact that, I mean, Trump is a unique talent, but the MAGA movement that he has built

is not going to go away. And so we have to be prepared for that. We have to be thinking about our next conversation about J.D. Vance. you know, what horribleness is Stephen Miller going to get up to next? What's going to happen to those folks? He's probably going to run Disney. He'd make it the unhappiest place on Earth.

So I have one final question. What are you going to do next? I'm curious. You know, who the hell knows, really? I mean, I'm not being facetious about it. I, you know, I will be in this job until January of 2027. And I'm actually very grateful that given the challenges of this moment, that I'm not trying to figure out how to run a campaign at the same time that I'm doing this job. And then, um, dream job. Yeah, I don't have a, I really don't have a dream job. Sometimes I think that I want to do something that is much more tangible and much more kind of close to the work than sometimes being in the Senate feels like.

But I probably, honestly, I'll probably take a little bit of a vacation and then see what good trouble I can get up to. Would you run a university? I don't know. I really, I mean, I'm honestly, I really don't know. I know there's going to be good work to do. Well, your world is yours, presumably. All right, thank you so much, Senator Smith. Thank you, everyone. Today's show was produced by Christian Castor Roussel,

Kateri Yocum, Michelle Eloy, Megan Bernie, and Kaelin Lynch. Nishat Keroua is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Eric Littke, Annika Robbins, and Steve Bone. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, we will telepathically coordinate outfits from now on. If not, Stephen Miller will be replacing Bob Eiger. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Carrow Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On With Carousisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine,

the Box Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more. Thank you.