On with Kara Swisher - The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell on How Democrats Can Defeat MAGA for Good

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

As ballots start to hit mailboxes ahead of the November midterms, Democrats are finally feeling some long-awaited electoral optimism. But to build a coalition that can defeat MAGA politics for good, the party will have to win back voters it's lost. In her new book, “How to Eat An Elephant,” Sarah Longwell, founder and publisher of The Bulwark, gives readers a blueprint to do just that. In a live conversation recorded at Sixth & I in downtown Washington, D.C., Kara and Sarah talk about the hundreds of voter focus groups Sarah’s conducted since President Trump first won the White House a decade ago, how Trump convinced swing voters he was the “lesser of two evils” in 2024, and why she thinks Democrats need a stronger message on immigration. Sarah also offers her opinion on which Democrats are — and are not — best positioned to win the White House in 2028. 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

It's like we're Olivia Rodrigo or something. Oh, my goodness. There hasn't been this much lesbian energy on the stage since Rachel Maddow dined alone. It's on. Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Box Media Podcast Network, this is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. We're less than two months away from the midterm elections, and Democrats are feeling a kind of optimism they haven't felt in a while for good reason.

voters have clearly soured on President Trump as evidenced by his abysmal approval ratings. Democrats have had some big wins in recent elections, and the party in power historically struggles in the midterms. Still, the Democratic Party isn't exactly winning any popularity contest with voters right now either. If the party wants to build the kind of coalition that can consistently win elections and defeat Maga Politics for good, it will have to win back some of the voters who've abandoned Democrats over the last decade. My guest today has a blueprint to do just that. Sarah Longwell is the founder and publisher of the bulwark and a former Republican strategist.

She has a new book out called How to Eat an Elephant, one voter at a time. It draws on the hundreds of focus groups Sarah has done with voters since Trump first won the White House, and it offers advice to Democrats on how they can permanently defeat his authoritarian style of politics. I think it's important to listen to Republican strategists. Now, Sarah has been a real critic of President Trump, so she's not exactly the Republican anymore, but she's really real situated to help our country out of our slide into authoritarian politics because she listens to voters. All right, let's get to my conversation with Sarah.

We recorded it in front of a live audience last week at 6th and I in downtown Washington, D.C. Our expert question comes from California Republican gubernatorial candidate, Steve Hilton. Don't go anywhere. Ripple has been powering modern finance for a decade. We're leading the charge to bridge the gap between existing financial systems and the future of finance. You can have it all. Legacy, stability, and digital innovation. Systems that work with your other systems. Because with the right partner, the question isn't crypto or traditional finance. The question is simply, why choose? A new standard of modern finance.

It's happening with Ripple. For informational purposes only, availability of products can vary and may be provided by different Ripple entities. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow none of them ever talk to each other. That's where Odu comes in, an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform.

No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try it today for free at Odu.com slash Kare. That's O-D-O-O-O-com slash Kara. Megan Rapino here. This week on Why Are You Like This? I'm talking with Vice President Kamala Harris. We talk about her thoughts on public service, how D.C. has shaped her.

And we find out if she's planning to run for president in 2028. Check out the latest episode of Why Are You Like This, wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. Sarah, thank you. for coming on on. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. We're going to cover a lot in the conversation. Trump's unpopularity, the divide on the left between moderates and progressives, essentially punching left, and fears of the upcoming midterms. But we're going to start with your book. So you spent a decade listening and talking to voters to better understand what's happening in American politics right now. You've probably heard thousands of people at this

point. What's the biggest thing in general that Washington gets wrong about the kinds of voters you're hearing from? And what is the overall message you're getting now? Because it changes, you know, goes in and out. Yeah, so one of the stories I tell in the book is, um, do you remember when Donald Trump stood on the stage with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki? And he cited against America's intelligence community. So I was really early in my focus grouping endeavors because, you know, we were trying to primary Donald Trump, and I really wanted to know what Republican voters thought about him, and I was like, okay, this is great. All of these Republicans are going to be furious that Donald Trump is siding with Vladimir Putin against America's intelligence community, and I walked into

the room ready to hear it, ready to hear how mad they were, they were going to abandon Trump, and I said, so what do you guys think about the fact that Trump did this? And everybody's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And it was a real moment for me to understand that the things that we obsess about in Washington, because you've got to understand back in Washington, Paul Ryan was like throwing the biggest fit you'd ever heard of. Donald Trump was getting yelled at so much by Republicans.

Remember, he tried to lie and say he didn't say the thing that he said that everybody just misunderstood him? So he's walking. It's so unusual for him. I know. It's not like him at all. But this still happens all the time. It's like the beginning of a shutdown. And 100 reporters will say,

Sarah, what are you hearing in your focus groups about the shutdown? And I'll say, nothing. They have no idea that it's happening. And so so many of the things that just consume us in Washington don't even break through to voters. Is it because of lack of information or poor information sources? Or they don't have time for following every single moment. Yeah, it's a bit of everything, right? But I think a lot of it, and this goes to the lesson of what I learned, was how much people look. They are consumed with their own lives, right? And I ask people all the time, you know, where do you get your media. It's a standard question and a focus group. And they'll say, whenever I see the headlines, when I'm scrolling. And if you think, like, okay, that's how the vast majority of Americans'

media diet is, it doesn't surprise you that they're not sort of breaking down everything that happens that we obsess about. And also, it's, you know, we talk about low information voters in political science. Aren't they just normal, right? Like, I always think, like, these are people who are not sick like us, who are not deciding to make ourselves crazy. all the time by consuming this and scrolling on Twitter, right? They've got kids to feed. They've got jobs to go to. And so a lot of people get really mad that voters aren't better informed,

but I have a hard time blaming them for trying to live their lives. And also, you throw on top of that, many of them are algorithmically siloed, which is something I think we've all come to understand now. But especially in the right-wing media ecosystem, it used to be that you would go and you would get your news, right, local news, maybe some now. And then you'd go like to the Daily Wire or something else to get a conservative perspective. Now they live in that ecosystem, right? They may never hear a different perspective and that sorting is affecting all of us.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing because I might tell the story. My mom when the stock market was melting down called me up and said there's a real issue with trans fencers and I was like fensers, trans people who fence? Yeah. And she goes, yes, it's a big problem in this country. And I said, really it isn't. There probably isn't even one. I was surprised there was one. And it was because she was being fed on Fox News,

or she didn't know about certain things at all. This is an enormously common response that I get in focus groups of Trump voters, actually, where they're like, they're mad about the war on Iran because they know gas prices are high. They know prices are high in general, so they're upset, maybe about tariffs. But some of the, they'll be like, you know what?

He's got trans people out of sports. And so it's okay. Like, you know, it's like, war, gas prices, but as long as trans people are out of sports, we're all right. Right. So talk what does breakthrough, and is as it changed, are people, are they paying attention these voters? Because every, I mean, obviously Democrats pay attention to it. Independence seem to be paying attention to the things he's doing. What is breaking through with each group? So this is true, I think, just in general, about politics. The things that

break through are the things that have negative personal consequences for people. Why do people know about the war in Iran because gas prices are high. They don't feel the bombs dropping. They don't feel the idea that we're over there. Now, they understand that Trump is going back on his word, but mostly they're experiencing it through high gas prices. And I think, you know, the tariffs, again, it's not that they understand a lot about tariff policy, but they understand that things are more expensive and that Donald Trump's central promise was that he was going to lower prices. That hasn't happened. And he owns tariffs and he owns the war because he's done them unilaterally. And so that is the thing that has broken through that voters are because they're feeling it themselves

and they understand it is a direct product of Trump's actions. What else? What other topics have surprised you? I think a lot of people, and I wasn't one of them, were surprised by the reaction to data centers, for example. A year ago, I was telling the tech companies, you're in big trouble here. And again, it was because it was in people's lives. And this reaction has been massive, probably too much on some level. I mean, I'm not down Howard Lutnik Highway, that moron, but there's no water used in data centers.

He's such a moron. He's such like, anyway, sorry, that was dismayed. So I also, last year, we were doing focus groups on all the primaries, right? And so there were these off-year elections, Mikey, Cheryl, and New Jersey, Abigail Spanberger here in Virginia. Oh, yeah, Abigail Spanberger's great. She listens to the focus group podcast. Yes. But I did hear, I was hearing all through those races, voters were saying the thing that they were most frustrated about was the data centers.

And I had not been tracking it until it started coming up in all the groups. I'll tell you the one that's coming up now all the time is the flock cameras. Yes. Like this has become a big issue. In Texas, it's a big issue in that race. I didn't interview about it yesterday, just yesterday. Yeah, it is. And look, the data center one is really interesting because I think it hits across a bunch of vectors for voters.

Not only does it hit them with the sort of like these really, rich tech people are going to make all of this money. Two, they're doing it in our neighborhood that is raising my energy prices, which is the thing that most people talk about is feeling like their energy prices are going up. And then the third thing is, they think it's going to come take their jobs. They're like, someone's going to get rich, I'm going to lose my job, and I'm going to pay more for energy. And that is why there's this enormous backlash. And also, the tech community, this is your area, not mine, but it feels like if they were going to go into people's communities and do this, they had to talk to them.

first, right? It feels like it's something being done to people. Yeah, and what a surprise to me that they didn't. They can't even talk to their... These aren't the most socially adept people, is that what you're saying? No, at this point, they're just assholes and they're rich, so that's... You know, I'm sorry, yes.

I will say, I did promise my eight-year-old James there that I would not swear tonight, but it doesn't apply to you. Sorry, James. So, so sorry, and I'll try my best. It's okay, there's not normally eight-year-olds in your audience, I'm sure. So what is resonating? Because Trump is very tied to the tech moguls.

He's very tied to AI. Every day he says you're stupid if you don't, or China's going to beat us. Every day they have a different. Today was J.D. Vance, as if we don't win, China will beat us in AI. Yeah. You know, and again, another person who's moronic about these topics,

but they seem to be doubling down. on telling people they're stupid. Yeah, I don't think that works with voters generally. But I also don't know that voters pick it up as much. Donald Trump, you know, Twitter was really a better medium for him. The fact that he has Ruth Social and he's kind of sequestered there has done him a lot of good because people don't always, you know, catch all of that stuff now. Like they don't hear that he's calling them stupid.

But they did hear, you know, last year when he would say things like, forget about Epstein. I love the inflation. Like, those things do, and I got to say, the thing that I hear about right now all the time is voters genuinely can't believe we're in this war in Iran. Yeah. Like, they say all the time, I think Trump thought it would be like Venezuela, and it would be like in and out and it'd be done, and that's not happening. And they are furious.

Like, there is a reason he is living in the low 30s right now, and it's because, once you're down the low 30s, you are at his core base that is basically, like, these are the people who, I was doing a focus group in Florida, and one of the guys was like, you know, I am frustrated with Trump because he is not doing deportations hard enough. That's a different kind of voter. Most of them are just, most of them are upset. And it really is, listen, it's not that the reflecting pool or the east wing, that doesn't have personal consequences for voters, but it is a contrast for voters about what Trump is paying

attention to. Voters will let him do all the weird stuff he wants as long as the economy is working, like his voters. But the second that he is focused on the East Wing instead of affordability, that contrast breaks through to voters, including his voters. And, you know, there's always a spectrum of Trump voters, right? There are the ones who just think, I love Donald Trump, no matter what, no matter how poor I get. Like, I could like be naked in the street, have no food, no water. I just have a red maga cat, you know, hat on. And I'm running around. And I'm running around. going, I still love this guy because he is making the libs mad and he's triggering them and that's great. That is not the entire Trump coalition. There's also a bunch of people who are either

just like Republicans who are like, I'll never vote for Democrats, but a lot of people where these low-information voters who are like, I don't like the wars, I want to see the Epstein files, and I want my cost to go down. Those people are infuriated with Trump. Do the silly things like America and everything else break through or not? They do break through, but that's the stuff that actually, look, I'm in the camp where that Trump does that because he knows that it sort of just distracts people. It gets them talking about something other than the war. He does these things whenever he's losing. There's also, we just went through a massive news cycle about, you know, trans women in the WNBA. Why? They got to change the subject

from the other, and Trump's good at changing the subject. And that's what Lake America's all about. So they know about it, but it doesn't, other than people will talk about it like, oh, that's a stupid thing, but they don't really care. Right. Although you notice the numbers of MapQuest have gone up massively. It's really kind of interesting. App Quest? Yes. They had 1.5 million downloads. Someone's paying attention, and it's not just a lot of angry Democrats. You know, it's an interesting thing. Please use MapQuest, everybody. Anyway, in dedication to your book,

your friend and podcast co-host Jonathan V. Last has a warning to readers. He writes, Yeah, JVL. Do not read this book with a mind to argue with voters that way lies madness. We all know voters often have sometimes incoherent, sometimes contradictory views. But what you see close up, most of us don't. So talk a little bit about the contradictions and what that reveals to you. I mean, I remember when abortion became a dominant issue, and we started talking about it all the time in focus groups, I heard this line over and over again that said, well, I'm pro-life, but I believe in a woman's right to choose.

And I get me like, what are you talking about? I was like, that's like a binary thing. You're either pro-choice or pro-life. And obviously, or you could be like, well, you know, I think that it's at this point. But it wasn't that. It was, I'm pro-life, but I believe in a woman's right to choose. And like, pollsters aren't going to pick that up. That that contradiction sits in people.

And frankly, it was a lot of, you know, women over 50 who were saying, like, well, I personally for myself in pro-life, but like this right is there, and I'm glad it's there, and I wanted to be there. And I hear those kinds of contradictions all the time. The other one that is my favorite is we start every focus group the same way. How do you think things are going in the country? And everybody's like, bad.

And a lot of people, right now, people are mostly talking about the economy. They're talking about the war in Iran. But oftentimes people will lament the deep divisions in the country, they'll be like, we are a powder keg. We are too mean to each other. We hate each other too much. And that same person, and I'm thinking, this is so good. They don't feel good about the fact that we're so divided.

But five minutes later, that same voter is like, these libtards are doing this or that. And, you know, people are complicated. And one of the things, it's one of the reasons I'm optimistic, though, is I do think that people contain both multitudes and sort of light and dark and I do this thing in the book. It's maybe a little cheesy, but I don't care.

I'm going to live and die by it about this Native American parable where the grandfather's talking to his grandson and he's like, grandson, inside each of us, there are two wolves. And there's the good wolf, which is, you know, light and truth and everything brave and whatever. And then there's the bad wolf,

and it's avarice and greed and everything terrible. And they're always in tension. They're always fighting. And the grandson says, well, which one wins? And he says, the one you feed. And the idea of leadership, right, is about saying, and it's the same thing. It's the federalist papers, right? If men were angels, we wouldn't need government. It's the better angels of our nature. It's the devil and the angel on your shoulder. Like, this is the human condition.

And leadership is there to try and draw out the better angels of our nature. And Donald Trump's, literally his political mission is to do the opposite. He has been feeding the bad wolf. for a decade. And so you can feel people struggle, right? You can feel people saying, I know that this, you know, in my life, I want this better way. I want to not hate my neighbors.

I don't want to be angry all the time. But like the everything, the algorithm, Trump, you know, the outrage cycle, everything feeds that bad wolf. And the pitch in the book really is about like, how do we get our leaders and how do we build a country where we're back kind of in the, our leaders aren't trying to divide us for sport. Except you're going to want to eat the elephant, which means you want to kill it, correct?

Presumably. No, it's one bite at a time. Yeah, I mean, it is a, look, the How to Eat an Elephant, obviously, it's a great title I thought of it. But it is, it really is about, like, how do you solve a big intractable problem?

And I think after 2024, which is when I was like, you know what, I'm going to write this book, it was because I was coming to bulwark events and doing bulwark things, and everybody was sure we were cooked. Everybody thought it was over. We're not going to survive this. America's done.

People are bad. If we are a country, it was one thing to elect Trump the first time. But people really felt like if America could elect him a second time after the insurrection. And look, I felt this way too. They're like, then we're not a very good country. And I just can't let that sit there. I think that's not the right lesson to take. And I think that we do have agency to make things better.

I think there's a lot of things that need to change, a lot of things we need to build. But I kind of wanted to do, look, we're lesbians. We're sitting here like a softball coach being like, everybody pull it together. I'm a little bit like that. I'm like, get the fuck up. Yeah. They're like, I'm really depressed.

I'm like, I don't care. Yeah. Just move along. Let's get it done. Lesbians should run everything and have all the children, but that's another show. There's not enough tiny lesbians to save democracy, though. Yes. Like, I don't know if there's enough of a.

us. It's going to take everybody else. Fair true. You know my joke. The militia Etheridge. We're going to form one. Militia Everidge. That's for the older people in the audience. We'll be back in a minute. Hi, I'm Bella Freud. Each week on fashion neurosis, I invite guests from the world of fashion, art, film, music, sport, and literature

to lie on my couch and explore the connection between identity and fashion. This week on fashion neurosis, I welcome Charlie XX. To be childlike as an adult, I think, takes a lot of bravery. Because there's always this fear of being embarrassed, I suppose. You also have to kind of like be willing to completely fall on your face all the time. Pursuing that childlikeness can sometimes really open you up to ideas that maybe you would feel too embarrassed to have if you weren't doing that. And I think that's quite a scary thing, but a really beautiful thing.

Find fashion neurosis on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Support for this show comes from Delete Me. Stalkers, scammers and hackers are doing whatever it takes to get their hands on valuable data. Luckily, there's Delete Me. Delete Me removes your personal information that's being sold online. It does all the hard work to wipe your personal information from data broker websites. It's one of the reasons Delete Me was named the top pick for data removal services by wirecutter. Plus discounts get even better with a two-year plan when you enroll with your partner or family.

I think Delete Me is one of the best services out there. It's very easy to use. I look at my report quite a lot. There's a lot on there that really is disturbing. It's really important to keep track of what data brokers have about you and how they're putting it together and an ability not just to see it, but to do something about it. Take control of your data and keep your private life. private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners, get 20% off your

deleteme plan when you go to join Deleteme.com slash Kara and use the promo code Kara at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to join deleteme.com slash Kara and enter the code Kara at checkout. That's join deleteme.com slash Kara code Kera. Frontier AI didn't just accelerate cyber attacks. It multiplied them. Before an attack shows up, It's already moved through the network. And while seeing these attacks early matters, stopping them takes fusing security into the infrastructure itself. That's why the network that connects everything is also your best defense. Because you don't win by outrunning the attack.

You win by leaving it nowhere to go. Cisco, the critical infrastructure for the AI era. So, as I know, nearly every election is one along the margins of something you talk about in the book. And you identify a handful of distinct groups whom you call the persuadable electorate. But I want to talk about the double haters. These are people who distrust both parties, but say they're also, you said they're the most getable.

Why was Trump the lesser of two evils for many during the 2024 election? And cynicism is always part of politics. It always is. And you hear a lot of people talk that way, or I'm zoning out. I'm not listening to news and things like that. So talk about this dissatisfaction

and how you turn it. into, you know, turn that frown upside down kind of thing. You know, I always say that if we had a drinking game in the focus groups and we took a shot every time somebody said lesser of two evils, we'd be dead every time. Because the vast majority of American voters are not that psyched about either political party. And they are, you know, deeply cynical. And this is one of the, it, that cynicism really plays to Trump. He wins that jump ball oftentimes.

because when, if you think both political parties are corrupt, the scale of his corruption doesn't land because you're like, wow, they're all corrupt. So they're all bad people. They're all sex pests. You know, and if you think it's all that they're all like that and you're a double hater, then you're like, the only thing I care about is like, is this person going to make the economy better? And the reason that Trump won was because, and this, one of the, I'll talk about something else that I, knocked me off my feet very early in my focus group endeavors was, I would ask people, people started bringing up The Apprentice.

How many of you watched The Apprentice? I watched every episode. How many of you watched The Apprentice? Seriously. All right, I'm embarrassed for you, but that's fine. That's fine. I watched every single episode. I'm embarrassed for you too.

Why? Hold on a second. Do you watch that show and you thought, boy, this is a compelling guy. I want to sit down and hang out with him. No, no, no, no. But the reason now why I'm extraordinarily wise, the last season was a fucking disaster. And that's where we are. We're in the last season.

I'm not deep on the apprentice. I like wrestling. I like that kind of stuff. The thing that would stunned me was in the focus groups, they'd all watched The Apprentice, all these Republican focus groups. And so they had a parissocial relationship with Donald Trump that preceded his relationship with politics. And they got to see, like, this is like what he was like firing Gilbert Godfaxie.

free on a soundstage and everybody's like, that's a good businessman right there. You know, like Andrew Dice Clay, he told him to get the hell out. That's business in America. And so he, people think of Trump as a good businessman and even worse because his first, and I heard this just a million times. Everybody thought his first term was a success. They forget the part where a million people died from COVID, but they remember the pre-COVID economy as really strong. And so I would just person after person say, I'm going to turn off the news. He's a buffoon. I'm not going to listen to it. I'm just going to enjoy his economy. And that's why he won that jump ball. And then there's the deficiencies of his opponents, which is a different story. Because, you know, when you talk about

the parisocial relationship, one of Kamala Harris's biggest deficiencies. And I went back and listened to all my Kamala focus groups after she lost. And I also did a bunch of ones with people who had not turned out to vote. And I just heard the same thing over and over again. I had no idea who she was. I didn't know what she stood for. I just didn't even know. Is she a liberal? It's funny because there's this fight among elites. Did she lose because she was too moderate and she ran as a moderate and she ran with Liz Cheney or did she lose because she was a California progressive and she was too progressive? I'm like, I don't know. These voters were like, I don't even know anything about her. I don't know what she's like. And so her inability, I think, to connect with people. Yeah.

And his ability to be so durable with people ultimately things take his way. I think the parissocial thing is absolutely right. When he first showed up a lot of Washington reporters at a dinner party and they're like, oh, he's a joke. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. It's because you were watching The Apprentice. I was watching The Apprentice. I didn't want to vote for him. I said, but like, I literally said,

if a San Francisco lesbian finds him vaguely appealing, there's a problem. We've got, because he's a terrible, horrible con man. So who are the critical groups, the double haters, the, who else? Are you talking about the swing voters? Yeah. So there's a bunch and I do six

and the chance, it's a chapter called anatomy of a swing voter, and I do my best to come up with a heuristic for who these people are. but it's Hispanic voters. If I can do all six right now, I'll be shocked. It's young voters. And young voters, it's not that they're swinging.

It's that they're unformed, right? Like, there's a lot of people right now, young voters, who thought he was a vibe, you know? And now that there's a war in Iran and their lives aren't getting better and they can't afford houses or rent, he's much less of a vibe to them. Yes, he is. Right? And so now Trump is underwater with young people. Similarly, Hispanics, another swingier group. They've been moving right.

they have now moved back. It's one of the reasons Texas is in play right now is because Hispanics, the bottom is dropped out for Trump with Hispanics. Then there's the double haters. Then there's the people who switch sides, right? So there's the people like me who are like the college-educated suburban voters, but this is actually really important.

For anybody who thinks that it is just easy-peasy to be down from, why is Donald Trump winning? Democrats now have people like me, lucky you guys, that college-educated suburban voters, and we're great in a midterm, man. We will always show up. Donald Trump and Republicans have taken over. They've built a multiracial working-class coalition,

but they win white working-class voters. And the median voter in this country is a 55-year-old white guy without a college degree. There are more of those voters than there are the college-educated suburban voters. And that is one of the reasons that in the general elections, which are very different than the midterms, Republicans have had because of Trump a structural advantage.

Yeah. So talk a little bit about the media space because, you know, these voters do tend to vote on vibes, as you said, and I think that was clearly. Rise of the vibes voter. Yeah. So this gets in the ways the right dominates a lot of this, or has. It's not going as well now because they're all fighting with each other, which is a pleasure to watch.

But right-wing podcast, still, you know, when we look at the numbers for ours, we're like a sandwich between Megan Kelly and Mark Levin, and I'm like, oh, you know, and Dan Bongino is wandering somewhere below us. And so how do you, but they're changing. It's changing. You've got Asan Pike or you've got Crooked. And I would say yours is sort of more liberal, let's just say, than those. I'm sorry, I'm what?

You're more liberal than those. So talk about that. What's the key to winning those voters? I mean, how is that going in the information space? Because you've built a thriving media business with a distinct point of view at the bulwark. So to talk a little bit about reaching them that way, does that work? I think it does. I think the podcasts and that whole new independent media space works rather well.

Yeah, to say what we do is to basically ask me to explain the entire book. And I'm going to actually try and give you as short a version as I can, which is this. Donald Trump is going to not be president in two years and a few months, right? Now, you might be like, well, J. if he was sitting right here, he would tell you, that guy's not going anywhere. But like, let's just assume that whether for actuarial reasons or for constitutional reasons, 28 is the end of Trump. What is the Republican Party post-Trump?

They have built an entire political party around one guy. The Republican Party is going to be in its weakest state that it has been in a decade. in 2028 as you go into those. Okay, well, that's good. That's the good part. The question is, can the Democratic Party, there's only two of them, guys, there's only two. Can the Democratic Party build a coalition

that is big enough to dominate a post-Trump Republican Party that is fractured between the MAGA establishment and the America First Coalition? You got your Tucker, you got your Marjorie, Taylor Green. On one side, you got your Marco Rubio and your, God, I don't know, Pete Hegseth, how many of them are going to run. Sean Duffy is probably going to run. Okay?

Oh, man. They're going to be weak, though. Donald Trump's not going to be there to turn it out. So Democrats have this historic opportunity. I wrote the book because I don't think people realize that there is a chance to go overwhelm what is happening right now. But it requires building a new media ecosystem. The Republican Party, I was there when they did it. They said, hey, the mainstream media.

shuts us out, you know, we didn't say. And so they wind about it a bunch and they worked the refs, but they also built their own competing media ecosystem. The Democrats have to do the same thing and not just the far left because that comes with its own challenges, but like the center left, too, the entire spectrum, I'm pro all of it. They've got, I can't just keep relying on mainstream media because the mainstream media. I'll push back. I think there's a lot of stuff going on. There's tons and tons of shows like this now that are starting to really gain numbers and popularity. And You may not like Hassan Piker, but my son sure does. Like, it doesn't really matter.

And he's accepting the messages of Medicare for all. That's what attracts him. I mean, that would be a very interesting focus group because the stuff they want is Medicare for all, affordable housing. Those things resonate and resonate. Let me speaking with that. But the point is, look, it's not even my, it's, I, hey, why do we have to, every time someone says Asan Piker to me, I'm going to say, just talk about Epstein instead.

Instead of fighting about Hassan Piker, please talk about Jeffrey Epstein. Yes. Yeah, you're right. You're 100% late. We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Rippling. Imagine you just found out your sales team is at risk for missing quota. No need to panic, just ask Rippling AI. Since it's built on your real-time people and business data,

Rippling AI can pull metrics from Rippling and Salesforce into a meeting-ready dashboard showing quota attainment, headcount trajectory, and monthly revenue to quota by region. In seconds, you can see exactly what's behind your quota risk and fix it before it. It's missed. Question answered, action taken, crisis averted. So when you have critical business questions that need answers, don't just file a ticket and wait weeks for an outdated report. Describe what you need and have Rippling AI build it instantly from your live people and business data, whether it's a dashboard with detailed charts or automated workflows with the right triggers, conditions, and approvals. Ready to rule your business, head toripling.a.a.

slash Kara to get only AI built to give you full visibility and take complex actions across your entire organization. That's R-I-P-P-L-I-N-G dot AI slash Kara, K-A-R-A, sign up for exclusive access today. Support for the show comes from HEMS. Aren't you tired of hearing about weight loss products targeted for the summer? Just because the season is almost over doesn't mean your goal to look and feel good should either. That's why weight loss by HIMS now offers access. to the FDA-approved Wagovi pill and Wagovy Pen. Wagovi is the first ever GLP1 pill for weight loss. With Wgovi at Hems, you can lose up to 20% of your body weight

when combined with diet and exercise. It helps you regulate your appetite, eat less, and keep weight off. If prescribed, your medication is delivered right to your door. HIMS makes hitting your goals seamless by offering you access to 24-7 messaging with your care team plus lifestyle and nutrition support in their app. Ready to reach your goals?

visit hymns.com slash Kara to get a personalized affordable plan that gets you spelled h-im-s.com slash Kara. Hems.com slash Kara. Weight loss by Hems is not available in all 50 states. Will Govi is a registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wagovi clinical study information and restrictions, visit hymns.com. Hi, I'm Bella Freud. Each week on fashion neurosis, I invite guests from the world of fashion, art, film, music, sport, and literature to lie on my couch and explore the connection between identity and fashion. This week on fashion neurosis, I welcome Shania Twain. I didn't really want to flaunt it.

I just wanted to be myself and be natural. Like, you know, this is my body. and so why shouldn't I wear things that flatter it and that I enjoy wearing that make me enjoy my body instead of not wanting my body. I resisted it until I started making videos. And then, man, I feel like a woman was, that was, oh, now I'm like, oh, you know, this is way too much fun.

Like, this was blowing my mind. Find fashion neurosis on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Every episode we get a question from an outside expert, speaking of Republicans, who are trying to make that shift. And there was a big story about him in the New York Times today. Let's listen. Hi, Sarah. Steve Hilton here running for governor in California. Congratulations on the book.

Here's what I'd love you to answer. This populism thing has been going on for at least a decade now. You saw it really arise, 2015, 2016, on the right and the left with Trump and Bernie Sanders. and that whole movement and of course Brexit in the UK. And it's a decade later. And still, the things that gave rise to the populism, working class people pissed off about their opportunities in life, all those complaints that really made the populist movement take off,

they're still there. Why hasn't anyone figured out, whether that's a conservative government, a socialist government, anywhere in the world, to be honest? Why hasn't anyone figured out? answers to the problems that actually promoted the rise of populism in the first place. That was actually a pretty good question. I know, he's smart. I'm sorry to tell you.

How was he? I asked him a question on your show. Yeah, you did. Was his answer good? Why didn't you listen to the show? It was. He's right. He's right. And this is what the book is about, ultimately. Where does the populist anger come from? It comes from the fact that people have pitchfork at the ready anger over the fact that they think, it used to be called income inequality, but now that they think there is so much money with these tech oligarchs and with billionaires, like, that's where that anger comes from. And people feel like they're not getting their share of things. They feel like working class voters are getting the raw end of the stick.

Now, the Republicans are not addressing the material economic side of that, but they are addressing the social angst part of that, right? They know how to make it about immigrants and immigration. and frankly, one of the reasons that right-wing parties were winning all over the globe is because of immigration, is because mass migration rose and people started crossing borders. It doesn't matter whether we like it or not. The point is that was the backlash from a lot of those voters. And I see this, too, about Trump, and I'd say it about Mamdani. Trump never built his wall.

When he ran in 2016, he talked about the wall all the time. It was the centerpiece of his campaign. Just a wall. He was going to build a wall. We were all like, what do you mean you're going to build a wall? Voters didn't care if he built a wall. What they wanted was somebody who said they were going to take immigration and border security seriously. That is what he did. Mamm'd does this in a different way.

I think Maldani's policies, just like the wall, like we're just going to lower prices by having, like, socialist grocery stores or whatever. These are dumb ideas. These are not going to work and they're bad ideas. But he's taking affordability seriously. What voters here is, you understand that my rent is too high, you understand, I can't afford to live in the city and you're going to try to do something about it. And so I do think that if a party could both be normal on the social stuff, which is part of what I'm begging Democrats to do, just be a little more normal, and not even

on exactly their position, although they could change a few things about their positions, but primarily about emphasis. Democrats should spend 70% of every word coming out of their mouth talking about the material well-being of voters. What voters want to know is, are you going to make my health care cheaper? Am I going to be able to afford groceries? Is my gas going to be affordable? Do I have upward mobility? Do I have a job? Am I going to get a raise at that job? That's all voters. And will AI take my job? And will AI take my job, right? And what will you do about it? Yeah, I agree with you on that. But there is, you know, an element of what he was saying is that actual delivery of services

talking about getting people, things like that. I think one of the reasons among done, feels effective as he plowed the snow, fix the basketball, he starts to look like he's... Momdani is so funny to me because I was sort of like, you know, about Mondani at first. And now he's like doing licensing reform. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm listening

Mumdani. Are we doing licensing reform? Hell yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's doing things for people. I think people feel like... Do you know what? So, I'm sorry to get all, but... I can see that. Yeah, I know. I'm very excitable. Yeah, when we come back in... Awesome. I'm doing a bunch of focus groups on Assoff, and I'm thinking they're going to love his soaring rhetoric and how handsome he is.

The Hotlanta thing. And they're all like constituent services. You can always get somebody on the phone at his office. And I'm like, what was the last time you heard people really talking about constituent services? It matters to people, right? Do they feel like you are responsive to them? It's actually not rocket science. So much of what we talk about is so stupid and not relevant to people's lives. What they really want is like, does someone going to pick up? the phone and say like, yeah, I'm going to help you out with that. Yeah, right. Or talk about things that matter to voters. So that gets us, the pro-democracy movement needs to do to win elections and defeat Mugga permanently. I think you're right, the lineup behind Trump is pretty weak sauce. You know, they're all sort of suckups and sycophants

and charmless or one of the other. And then there's Ted Cruz. Oh, my God. Did you see that Ted Cruz is right now number one on the New York Times bestseller list? Is he? Not that I'm looking for any reason. But it is Ted Cruz is the number one book and it's about Clarence Thomas. Go buy 10 of my books so I can knock him off. Just kidding, I'm just kidding. Yeah, everyone's going to love four years of Ted Cruz.

I don't think so. So your first step is to make Trump the most unpopular president in U.S. history. Your goal is to drive down his favorability numbers into the 20s. Democrats are currently getting a lot of help from Trump on that front. Why is that important?

And what do Democrats need to do? They aren't doing to make that happen. Obviously, Epstein, Epstein. All right, let's go. This is when we talk about the Bush line. You're about to build a shelf. My drill. Yeah.

This is what we do. We get Trump below the Bush line. Right? Bush left office. You guys all know. You listen to me. right? What'd you say? Yeah, that's right. That's a deep cut

right there. You're listening to Tim. Richard Nixon, the dick line, as Tim calls it. That's not a swear, it's a person. You know, you get Trump in the 20s. Here's what it does. Number one, the lower Trump is right now going into the 26 midterms,

better Democrats will do, number one, because there's going to be a big enthusiasm gap going into 2026. But next, I want Trump to be an albatross around the of everybody who runs in his wake, right? They're going to be Trump administration types. You want all of them to have to wear like a boulder around their ankles, this idea that they're dragging the Trump administration record with them.

And also, you never want another Trump coming near this, you know, they're going to talk about Donald Trump Jr. and everybody else. But you want people to look back and say, oh, yeah, I didn't vote for that guy. I had nothing to do with Trump. Those were bad times. I wasn't part of it. And for everybody to think it was a mistake. that's the bush line

and then what was the next part of the question? What are the things you do? You know, you want to make them deeply unpopular. How do you, he's already unpopular. Yeah, he's doing, right. He's doing a lot of it himself. But here's something I do. Okay, so I don't know if you saw Speaker Jeffries

the other day was doing a call with Jared Kushner. So, you can do that, yeah, I think that's probably booable. What I would like is for Democrats to, you listen to John Ossoff right now. I am a little obsessed with John Osse. and his tight shirts.

Wow. He looks... Even for me. He's got me. You talk about... Yeah. He's wearing those pants, man. He looks like a pre-brain-worn.

Kennedy. We're moving on. Move along. But his communication still, what is he out there doing? He's out there talking about Trump's corruption. Why is Akeem Jeffrey's not talking every day about the level of corruption we're seeing? Why is, like, we really do. I have been an operative on both the Republican side

and on the Democrat side. There's not that many people. And when I got to the Democrats, I went, oh no, this is what you guys do. It's all conference calls and icebreakers. And sometimes people are knitting and people don't want to go into the office ever or put on pants and they want a four-day work week. And I'm like, you don't get to defeat authoritarian. Like, these guys are over here being straight up mercenaries and you want Fridays off?

Like, that is not, if democracy's at stake, this is my big thing with, this is my big thing for Democrats. Do you know why they're so unpopular right now? Because they've spent the last 10 years telling us democracy is at stake. Donald Trump's going to end democracy. I believe that Donald Trump's an existential threat to democracy. So it would be nice if the other political party would act like it, like it to threat to democracy. In that, in that vein, there's a lot of energy on the left. there is. They feel more muscular.

There, I mean, you know, there is, of course, this moderate versus progressive frame. And you're right. Everyone should just say Epstein all the time instead of any, and not his own beggar. But talk a little bit about this. If that's where the energy is, how do you bottle it for the rest of the party? Yeah, I'm not sure. Look, I actually, I don't believe that, and I reject in the whole book, I pre-butt right up front, that this is a book about whether the Democratic Party needs to be more moderate or more progressive. This is not a book about Sarah Longwell's personal politics. If you left it up to me, we'd all just be like libertarians and you'd get all your drugs and all your gay marriages, but also we'd be fiscally responsible and paying down the debt. And yeah, that's right, exactly.

Yeah, sexy. Go ahead. But I'm not, you know, Republicans try to sell people on this, some version of this and this, you know, I don't, it's enough for a dinner party. I'm not sure it's enough for a political party. But I do think that the way that you build that energy is it doesn't right now who are the best communicators It is Aosoff. It's Pete Buttigieg. It's AOC. It's Mom Dhani. Well, they don't all share like and this is what I would like to see Democrats do. I think that this idea that you have to fight each other or punch left or that it has to be this Factional fight like I reject that even if I don't like Hassan Piker I don't think we should talk about Hassan Piker Like right? I mean, I can't I talked about him one time because I was like Tim I think you're acessing. I think you're acessing.

of Fassan is wrong. And suddenly, I don't know, I guess maybe I started it. I'm not sure. But now everybody's talking about this guy. And I'm like, hold on. He may have some like bad ideas, some good ideas, but also, have you looked at the President of the United States lately? Like, this is like one guy on a Twitch stream.

Like half the time talking about, I don't know, his dog and his collar or whatever. And the other, the authoritarian are inside the gate. And I would like people to be able to focus a little bit on the actual problem that we're dealing with. So one of the things you say, you say one Democrat in that vein, who should not run for president, is former Vice President Kamala Harris, and she cannot speak with clear in directness. That's, you were talking about that energy. How do you make this case to her support? She has a lot of them. She's pretty high up in the polls, probably name recognition. It's name ID, I think. Well, she ran for president, too. So talk about what, what it has to look like. And obviously,

you like Aosov, but if you could build the perfect Democratic candidate. it right now. I mean, Asaf's not far off. Like, somebody who, I know, sorry, sorry, but and look, I love me, I love Pete and I love Alsop. These are my personal things, but I also, let me tell you about AOC. So let's just talk about AOC for one second.

So she and I probably don't share a lot of politics, but I think that AOC is a decent human being. Like, she seems like a very nice, kind person whose heart is in the right place. And so, do I think that she would make, like, the best president ever? I don't know. Do I think that she's better

than J.D. Vance and the cynical bullshit that's being done by Republicans, I do. And I also think I've watched her grow in the office, which has been sort of nice to watch. I think she's been growing into herself. As a result, some people on the far left don't like her as much as they once did. But actually, my favorite thing, and I talk about this later in the book, and I talk about it in terms of the bulwark. A lot of you guys are bulwark community. Yeah, right? One of the deepest lessons that I've taken from building the bulwark and finding this community is that to build a community, have to be a community, right? And I think that the reason that people were attracted to the bulwark is that Tim JVL and I and some of the other people at the bulwark, like we argue with

each other, we don't always agree, but we have honest conversations about where we stand, and we treat each other kind, and we treat each other with a lot of love. What if Democrats were campaigning together? What if they were working, they were holding big events where they sat, Republicans are doing this all the time at these weird America Fest, whatever, they have all of the Republicans there, they've got different opinions, but they show up as one entity. Democrats don't do that. And I would like Democrats to try to show people that they can be a community and hold. Democrats love the phrase, hold space.

I didn't even heard this. Holding space. How would we hold some space for, like, all of the Democrats to figure out how to exist together, right? And to show up and say, yeah, we're all part of the same team, even though we disagree and we can have those disagreements, as opposed to this need to just like punch left or punch right? So you're, as you argue in the book, a candidate that can show the case for order and compassion of getting along. Well, that's specifically around immigration.

Look, I think that one of the things that Democrats are going to have, there's only a few places where I think on potluck, and this again, not exactly my preferred policies, but listening to voters, voters cannot access compassion around things like criminal justice reform or immigration if they feel unsafe. And what Donald Trump did, his big trick was to say, they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists.

Cats and dogs. And some of them are good people, right? They're eating the cats and the dogs. That creates for people a sense that they are not safe, that they are under threat. And when people feel under threat, they can't, like, access that compassion. And so I do think Democrats are going to have to say to people,

we are going to keep you safe. We are going to make sure that the border is not just open and anybody can come across. Because voters, actually, I don't hear most voters, lots of Trump voters. They're like, I'm glad that immigrants are coming. They're like, my grandparents were immigrants. I'm married to an immigrant, whatever. And what they say is, I want people to come the right way. Now, to be fair, just about every American has no idea what that means.

Because they never had to come into this country. They got a golden ticket. They were born here. But their sense of fairness is, well, there's a line. And I think people should wait in it. Not this way. I hear a lot of with my people I know that are Trump voters. I don't like this way.

This way is not the right way. There is a real, I often go crazy when people say centrist. I don't even know what that means. Like, what is it? It's like a mushy word that doesn't mean anything. And nobody. Well, it's, it's Hakeem Jeffries, actually, or Chuck Schumer. You just end up with blah.

Yeah, exactly. It's, boo. Okay. Democrats have momentum going into the midterms. It's pretty clear. so far, but there's some scary headwinds. There's gerrymandering, which will help it's going to help Republicans, more concerns with Trump's threats to mail-in voting. He's trying to bring it to the Supreme Court. What should the Democrats be doing right now? They've

been very aggressive in courts. They have been very aggressive pushing back on the postal stuff and the Kennedy Center. Everything he does, they push back. But it's a defense. It's a defense kind of thing, and the Republicans are endlessly aggressive. What are you most worried about going into the midterms. You know, especially with his mail-in voting, I just think that Trump, look, Trump isn't trying to do apps. He's doing, not trying to do anything to help Republicans actually politically, right? He's basically sending them in in the worst possible environment. He's unpopular. His agenda's unpopular. So what does he have left to figure out how to keep Democrats from practicing any oversight over him, which he obviously doesn't want? The mail-in ballots isn't really

about ending mail-in ballots. It's too late. I can't go through. the entire case and why it's relevant, but go listen to my episode of the illegal news, either with George Conway or Andrew Weissman. We all talked about this on both the pods. They're trying to create chaos, right? They're trying to create a postal system chaos so that he can cast doubt on the election results once they happen. Like, we've seen this playbook.

We all know what's happening. The thing that I worry about the most, honestly, is that they get sort of desperate and desperate people backed into a corner do weird things. And it's like, we already have, you guys live. here. You see the National Guard everywhere. And, you know, if they send ICE to places, they send the National Guard. Now, the National Guard look like they're all

like very nice teenagers that just stand in groups and eat ice cream. Like, they're not trying to mess with anybody. But the ice, sending ice into people's, you know, to try. And they'll say it's about we're making sure illegals aren't voting, but really it's just an intimidation tactic.

Although, again, I think that Democrat, like, ask yourself, would you crawl over broken glass to vote in this midterm election. I do think that that is how. I also think I've been doing a lot of mayors and governors and they're all going to have their own police force. They seem very intent on even in Wyoming. They weren't happy about it. Like they don't they aren't happy about disenfranchising their voting. And I got a lot of friends who work in voting. Some of them are here tonight. And they are on top of this. They all know what Trump is going to try and do. So the last question

for a decade now, voters have been told that Trump's hold on American politics as slipping only to have him come back. And for Democrats, that's been very psychologically demoralizing. You think this moment is different. I do, too. Having watched all the apprentices, unlike you, because you're obsessed with John Assov. Why do you think this moment is different?

Again, going back to sort of the actuarial realities as well as the constitutional ones. And that's the Kankle theory. Go ahead. I just mean, like, Trump, Look, I would feel differently if Trump was 55, right? If Trump was 55, I would think I would be much more worried than am. And already, he is, like, very weird now. Like, he's always been weird, but, like, he is, I think, not super well.

What? Natalie Harp thing is totally normal. What? That Natalie Harp thing is bananas, right? And the idea, he, I think he's psyched that anyone thinks they're sleeping together. That that, they think that's, anyway, sorry, my kids are. here. I'm going to just pivot. I do think

this moment's different and I think that part of why I really think it's different is that I believe that because I watched it happen to Republicans, they don't know what to do without Trump. They can't go back to the Paul Ryan limited government, free markets,

American leadership in the world because they feel like voters rejected them on that. But they can't be Trump. And so they're looking around for a leader of what comes next, which is why you're getting a bunch of two-bit players

like Tucker Carlson and then J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio. Like, the party already said what it thought about Marco Rubio. And I also think there is an exhaustion, finally.

But I do think, look, I think that, here's the, I'll say this, though, and this is why I do think Democrats still need to, I talk to disaffected Trump voters all the time. They are still very leery

of Democrats. Right? Democrats are still having trouble convincing the majority, already of Americans that they are going to be better stewards than this absolute clown show. And I think that it requires some introspection on Democrats' part on why that is. Maybe even changing a thing or two. When you think about the election coming up, going into 2028, if you had to pick right now,

based on the focus groups and what you've written, the two ideal candidates for the Republicans and Democrat, the presidential candidates, who would you like? Obviously, also. creepy look I think an awes off Pete ticket would crush but we'll see it's very very early

from what you're hearing from voters right now you know what's interesting about Democratic voters I know that people don't want like a super long answer but I will say Democrats are so this goes back to Kamala Democrats told themselves that the reason that Kamala was because of racism and sexism and the inverse of that is that

I'll do focus groups of black women, and they will be like, I want you to find me the straightest, whitest man right now to run on the Democratic ticket. And I do think that there's something, there's an appetite for that in the Democratic Party. They're like, we can't take any more risks with anything. I've heard it from some women candidates. Yeah, the women candidates are feeling this. And so I do think, and I think people are really hesitant about a gay president with Pete. Pete's going to have to get people over this idea that America,

I wouldn't elect a gay president. And I think a lot of Democrats are going to be worried about that. And they're also going to be worried about him with black voters. I think he's working on that. But I think as a ticket or a team, they could go really far. Give me the ticket that you would pick right now. Asoff Pete. Osoff Pete.

Osoff Pete. That would be my ticket. All right. And Republicans, don't make a face. Their best chance is probably Rubio. who would they put, I mean, maybe Rubio runs with Vance, although people don't like Vance. No. People don't like Vance, but the Trump family does.

You heard my famous joke. He's the cyber truck of politicians. But go, that's a. Keep it. Spread it far and wide. It's amazing how Trump could be like grabber by the whatever, and everybody is like, oh, that's whatever. That's just Trump being Trump.

J.D. Vance said, childless cat ladies, and Republican women in these focus groups are like, screw that guy. And they just say things like, I don't like his face. You know, like they don't... All right, Rubio and? Okay, who would be like good

that they would actually... It's probably... No, no. Nikki Haley is done. Here's the only reason Marco Rubio is... The only reason Marco Rubio even has a chance is because now he's been memed into a position. Everybody's like,

Marco Ruby is the only competent person in this administration. You have to give him every job. I think that it would probably be like him and a woman. Who's a popular? Yeah, it's like an America firster. I don't know if it's MTG, but it is an America first wing person. Megan Kelly, that's a great one.

I think, I think that's real. I think Megan Kelly's a real one for, for, I do. She has no Fs to give. I'm trying hard here. Yeah. And she's just like a full-on lunatic now. Yeah. She will, like, eat your face.

Oh, she tries. She often attacks me, and I finally shut her down by saying it's never going to happen, Megan. Oh, to have the confidence of Kara Swisher. I know, but. I mean, definitely not going to happen. Anyway, I really appreciate this book is great. Everybody should buy How to Eat an Elephant. They're delicious.

Sarah, Thank you so much for your time. And let's be Ted Cruz. Let's beat Ted Cruz. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Today's show was produced by Nishat Koura, Michelle Alloy,

Catherine Millsop, Madeline LaPlante Duby, Megan Bernie, and Kaylin Lynch. Special thanks to Aymann Wailen, Lisa Soap, Jim McEl and Manola Moreno. And thanks again to Six and I for hosting our conversation. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Requan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following this show, you are not, I repeat, not arguing with the voters.

If not, you're trapped in a Republican triangle of doom. Go wherever you listen to a podcast, search for On with Carrow Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On With Carous Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.