On with Kara Swisher - The Onion’s Ben Collins on Political Satire & Why Trump Isn’t Funny

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Since becoming CEO of the Onion two years ago, former disinformation reporter Ben Collins has helped revitalize the satirical newspaper by relaunching its print edition, bringing back the Onion News Network on YouTube, and launching a bid to take over Alex Jones’s Infowars. The Onion even recently released its own mockumentary about Jeffrey Epstein and his connections to President Trump, called "Jeffrey Epstein: Bad Pedophile."  Kara and Ben talk about the role of humor when reality seems more absurd than satire, and the threats the Trump administration poses to free speech. They also discuss why they’re both bullish on the power of independent media — especially satirical media — to hold powerful people accountable. 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 tend to try to make fun of how people get their information. And right now, people get their information in the most base and stupid ways possible. Like, we're all competing with people who seem to, like, drink paid for a living. Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Box Media Podcast Network. This is On with Caro Swisher, and I'm Caroswisher. Today, my guest is Ben Collins, the CEO of The Onion. Ben started his career in journalism. He covered disinformation up until 2024.

That's right. the former reporter who covered fake news is now leading a website. That's whole brand is fake news, but in the best kind of way. Since then, Ben has helped the Onion relaunch its print edition and grow its circulation to tens of thousands of people. He brought back the Onion News Network on YouTube. He kicked off a bid to take over Alex Jones's Info Wars. And late last year, the Onion also released a mockumentary about Jeffrey Epstein called Bad Pedophile. The Onion's success has been a bright spot in an otherwise bleak period for the media industry.

And actually, it's very common. There's a lot of these really. interesting entrepreneurial efforts that are doing really well. I think it's really important to have successes like The Onion, especially satirical when reality feels more absurd than satire. And it's just really fun. You know, most of you experience it online in social media, but I got to tell you, I was a big reader of Mad Magazine, of Crack Magazine, National Lampoon as a kid, and it's in that genre, and they really skewer powerful people in just the right way. And it makes me laugh out loud. All right, let's get to my conversation with Ben Collins.

Our expert question comes from actor and screenwriter, Justin Thoreau, who's a good friend of mine. This is a serious conversation, but it's also a fun one. We're talking about the onion after all. So stick around. Do you ever look back on something you posted on the internet and think? Well, that was cringe. Yeah, I mean, I look back at that stuff, and I'm just like, it's so emblematic of the era. And it's also just like, why did I think this would.

age well, like in the slightest. This week on Explain It to Me from Vox. What to do with your online regret? New episodes on Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. I got in the water in the very early morning before the sun had risen, and the water was pitch black. I started swimming, and I felt the water hollowing out around me and felt like something really big with Swimming Below.

I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is Love. A show about the surprising things that love can make us do. More than 100 episodes available now on This Is Love. Ben, thanks for coming on. Kara, thank you so much for having me. I have wanted to have you on for a long time. It's been close to two years since you became CEO of the Onion. You said one of the big reasons you wanted to buy it was because you don't want Elon to own it

and kill an iconic comedic publication for the left. But since Trump returned to office, comedic voices on the right have gotten very powerful. As you know, it feels like there had been a broader shift. I think it's shifting back again. So talk a little bit about that shift and what it means for The Onion's Place in comedy, which has a very prominent role, by the way.

Yeah, look, we just stuck to the process throughout that whole weird fever that was going on throughout the comedy world. It's very clear that that fever is now breaking and that people were like, maybe we got a little bit too hot in the collar about the racism. Maybe we were a little bit too hard on that one. We just, we stuck to our process. And that's a big reason why I want to take it over is because I didn't want somebody with that fever to come in and try to lay everybody off and install people with whatever weird disease those people had in their brain.

So like, we stuck with it. And, you know, when I took over the onion, we kept the staff, we gave everybody raises and we said, what's the ultimate form of, this process that you guys run where you throw away 99% of jokes and keep the one good one. And we stayed true to that, and now it's really paying off. I think like, where other places the Austin comedy seem dying, other places starting to realize they may have had something to do with the installation of a fascist regime, we never wavered. We've just always been exactly who we are. So it's really interesting because there's always a place to go where other people are and

everyone sort of rushed over to that Manosphere comedy scene. And then there's lots of them. You can't tell them apart. That's who I feel. I'm like, which one has the mustache? I don't know. They all sound the same. But what would you compare yourself to?

What sets it apart? It's in the great late-night tradition of, I would say, having 15 people in a room and coming to the best sentence about what happened that day. It's closer to, like, Colbert or, you know, Letterman, like a great Letterman monologue than anything else. And I don't think there's another thing specifically like it. You're doing the basics. Yeah, we're doing the basics.

Right. Exactly. And I think there are satirical places on the internet, like the hard times that do really good stuff. There's also like, there's little onions throughout the world. There's the Beaverton in Canada. There's one in Australia. There's ones that are literally called the onion that we don't care to send ceases and desist to throughout Asia. We don't care about that.

I think that the difference is in quality is that we just, we have the best comedy writers. So the last few weeks in America, have been extremely bleak. But as a hysterical newspaper, the Onion's job is to find humor in them. Let's talk about Minnesota. In last few weeks, ICE agents have killed. I say murdered two American citizens.

I want to read two onion headlines about Minnesota superficially similar. One is Democrats condemn ICE for murdering without proper warrants. And the second is Christine Nome calls on Minneapolis residents to stop obstructing murders. Talk a little bit about this, how you're thinking about this.

The one from this morning is, Ice agent stuff sock under mask to give himself chin, which is precisely how we're thinking about it. I love a penis reference, but go ahead. Good. Look, I'm from the news, so I went in here hot and under the collar, and I was like, guys, like, we got to hurry up, we got to do things quick. And they're like, no, we take a breath. Like, we take a breath before things happen to really contextualize stuff and see how things feel in the moment. And that's become a really big part of what this company is, is sort of providing like the one sentence that is able to distill American life right now.

And they take it very seriously in the room. Like they are ruthless about word choice and where people go with each word in the sentence. So I'm proud of them for just telling me to shut the fuck up and just be like, guys, like, we need to take a step back here. And by the time we have that like perfect take, take on the moment, it gives people a lot of catharsis, I think. People struggle for nine or ten hours to come up with the thing that, come up with the feeling that they're thinking put into words.

And right when people are at their breaking point of where they are emotionally, we do tend to provide exactly the right sentence. And that's our role. The Democrat one is as equally funny as the Christine Ome one. They're powerless, though, at the same time. Is it hard to satirize the powerful Or easier at this moment? I mean, there's several parts of that. They think they're omnipotent, and they look incredibly weak. Weak. They look soft.

In the chasm between that, there lies a lot of comedy. So going in for power structures like that, I think you have to do it in a way that isn't exclusively filled with rage. And you have to take a, like, again, just contextualize everything and take a step back. take them for who they are, psychoanalyzed. And I think that's really what we do. I also think we do something that the news just simply can't or won't do, which is we say the unsaid sentence in American life, the people that, you know, when you're talking to people on the street about what's going on,

they say it, but the news will never say it. Right, right, what they actually think are making jokes about it. But is the powerless Democrats funnier than the powerful Trump administration? People who were just kind of standing there and saying, stop hitting me, but have a little bit of power. We had some headline that was like, somebody has to do something to stop this, says Democratic fundraising email from sitting a U.S. Congress person. Yeah, yeah, right. Like you have more, like they may not have power, but they have more power than us. They can at least yell at the person down the hallway.

And everybody else has to go to work and go to the gas station and do all those other things, you know, bring their kid to soccer practice. And they don't see anybody fighting this thing. This is a little severe, but I read a, and I hate to bring up a meme because we try to stay away from memes. But, like, I read this thing about how, like, Republicans are the Uvaldi shooter and democracy or the Uvaldi cops. Like, you can be mad at both things here. Like, there's enough to be mad at both things. That's a really good point. The true evil are the people, you know, shooting people in the street.

And you can be mad that the people passed with standing up to that aren't doing it. That's an excellent analogy. Let's move on to another serious story. Elon Musk's chatbot Groch generated millions of sexualized images of women minors in late December and early January. When you were a reporter covering disinformation in NBC news, you were actually suspended over your critical coverage of Musk. As the CEO of the Onion's parent company, you're not involved in the Onion's editorial process. But nonetheless, what's it like to go from covering him as a reporter to critiquing him through satire, which I think he hates more, probably would be my guess. Oh, yeah, definitely.

It's a definitely more powerful weapon right now. As you know, throughout all of history, fascists hate being made fun of more than anything. They can lie their way through factual stories in the press. They can easily go through that. But once they feel like they're being taunted to the point where they're unpopular widely, which is really all they care about is being loved and liked and thought to be funny, that's where they get really obsessed. So there is a ton more power here in terms of taking down power structure.

and how people feel about what's going on. Because we were, you know, I was reporting on Elon in a very straightforward way for a while. And it was, I think part of it was, he was so extraordinarily nuts that it made it, you know this. It made it seem like I was, like, like I had a grudge against him. But he was doing, you know, he was doing drugs

and firing every person. And he thought that there was some sort of like, wokeness switch that once he bought Twitter, he could just turn it off. But it turns out there's people who actually believe stuff. Right, right. So, like, I, yeah, it was difficult to go on the news and just allude to the fact that he had lost his mind. It's much easier to just sit here and watch the world's best comedy writers.

Go ham. So talk a little bit about that. I mean, in terms of having the freedom to do that, the difficulties of being reported day is hard because you're sort of looking at, say, a Christyome, say something really heinous or anybody else, and you have to be like, you know, I'm said this today, right? It's kind of exhausting on many levels. I find it exhausting. Obviously, that train has left the station for me.

But talk a little bit about that because you can just say explicitly in the form of a joke what you're talking about. Look, Carrie, you know this. A lot of the best reporters that we know at the big places are making a lot of concessions that are being quieter just to keep their job so they can. pop up with their big story once every few months, or they'd quit. That's really what they're not in a position to tell the truth accurately and correctly consistently because of the incentive structures of what these big places are.

They want to, even if they have good intentions at the top of these places, which is like, we've got to maintain somebody on Air Force One or whatever, so we can't piss them off too much. That's still a deal with the devil that you actually don't want to make. And also with the misinformation stuff, people who covered that have been effectively criminalized. People who covered disinformation, people who stood up advocacy groups to try to steal away Nazis from these platforms and say, like, hey, guys, they're actual Nazis and they're coming back. Those people are being targeted by this administration. And those people are doing truthful things. So, like, under the guise of stopping censorship and under the guise of free speech, they are actually censoring people for speech.

That is true. Yes. So, like, we are actually in a much worse position speechwise than we've ever been. And one of the safe havens of that in the world right now is satire. Right, right. Which is where Elon started off. He was angry that Babylon B wasn't able to make a trans joke, kind of a stupid trans joke, but it was a joke nonetheless. And that's what got him there.

And so he got to be this free speech warrior that he is simply not. Yeah, of course. He famously tried to buy the onion once. About, I don't know, 10 years ago now or something, he tried to buy the onion. The deal didn't go through. A lot of people didn't want to work for him. So then he started picking off Onion staff writers one by one. And he put them in like a weird hanger in like the SpaceX facility in California.

And then just forgot about them. And those people wound up coming up with something called Thud, which is probably aptly named. And then, you know, a lot of the stuff, a lot of the origin stories of these people are, they weren't accepted as funny. They never really understood jokes. They never understood punching up. And they became hell bent on power instead. Yeah. So let's get to one more story.

The near collapse of NATO Trump's demands to get Greenland. At one point, he was linking his threats to the fact that Norway didn't give him the no-bolemen. about Peace Prize, even though the Norwegian government doesn't give out that prize. We've been talking about the end of satire for years, but I have to ask, how's it possible to satirize stories like these when reality is so absurd on its own? Well, I think it's, we're lucky, in a sense, that the press has capitulated so much because they're splitting hairs with people who are actively lying, and we're just like, no, this is the thing that's taking place, and we get to be funny about it.

Like, we're in this, like, really interesting and prize position. So, yeah, look, it's gotten harder because everything's so stupid. Well, because Trump threatens to invade Greenland because he didn't get the Nobel Priests and Onion headline. Yes, exactly. Like, everything is so stupid. So in that sense, it is hard to compete with reality. So in the bigger picture, at one hand, it's not funny times we're living in. And at the same time, one of the key news figures is a parody of himself on purpose.

How difficult is it to do satire in 2026? I actually think people keep saying this as if it's like this horrific burden. And it is like it's harder to be funny now, but it's actually easier to push the lines. Yeah. Think about this. Like we made a 22-minute documentary where Jeffrey Epstein rises from the dead like a horror movie figure at the end of it. He was called Bad Pedophile. Yeah, it's called Jeffrey Epstein, Bad Pedophile.

We had a, we still can't get this off the wall. this gigantic cock gun that was filled with fake cum in it. Sorry, to be weird. That's okay. Please go ahead. The boundaries through which that we can play in humor right now are the furthest they've ever been. Like, we are very lucky to be able to say literally whatever we want all the time.

It's part of like acceptable American adult society. Yeah. Although the theater chain pulled it out in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder, correct? Is that right? That's true. Yeah, we had a, we had a distribution deal for that, and then they pulled out. But like, we, here's a thing that just keeps happening in American life that I'm just like genuinely proud of. And I think that once people start to embrace it, that you start to realize, like, oh, this is actually what is good about this country. So we made this documentary called Jeffrey Epstein Bad Pedophile. We were going to release it with a theater chain throughout the country. Charlie Kirk gets shot and we get a email the next day saying, we're not doing this anymore. And initially we were pissed off. and we're like, this is just straight capitulation. The fact that Charlie Kirk gets shot

means we can't make fun of Jeffrey Epstein. Like, what the fuck? How does this, like, what is the chain of command here? Right. But then we're like, okay, so what do we do? So then we told everyone that we're going to put in the theaters everywhere in a few weeks, and we don't have any place to put it. But if you want to put it in your independent cinema

throughout the country, we'll just give you the movie and you can keep the gate. And within literally six days, we had many, many more than that. that theater chain. We had, like, that theater chain was going to be 20, 30 cities nationwide. We were in 50, 60 throughout United States and Canada. And people had to, like, add extra screenings. People were making whole nights out of it. So a different experience than Melania, the document. Yeah. Great movie. That should be called married to a. Anyway, go ahead. Oh, just a joke. Yeah, same ending, though. Jeffrey Epstein comes back to life in both moves.

So, yeah, look, the traditional mainstream power structures here are just going to capitulate. They're just going to fail repeatedly. You can't count on them. But then, like, the people you actually want to hang out with are going to step up. You're seeing it in Minneapolis. You're kind of seeing it nationwide. Once you start to embrace this thing, and we have, we've had a lot more fun. It's just been a lot easier to live like this.

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podcast. Indeed.com slash on terms and conditions apply. Hiring, do it the right way with Indeed. Support for today's show comes from Hungry Route. Sometimes we just don't have the time or brain space for proper grocery shopping. Sure, you know what's better for you. But when you're in the grocery aisle, it's usually grab whatever looks the easiest. Thankfully, Hungry Root wants to change that. Hungry Root basically works like a personal nutrition coach and shopper in one by planning, recommending, and shopping everything for you. They take care of the weekly grocery shopping, recommending healthy groceries,

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and a longtime onion subscriber. My question, perhaps not surprisingly, is about Donald Trump. Throughout history, political strongmen that have emerged like him or authoritarians like him usually take themselves very seriously. They're very austere figures. But Trump, I've noticed, has added something unique to this authoritarian playbook, which is he spreads his unique authoritarian message through what some people, perhaps not yourself, would call.

humor or comedy. It's this new kind of authoritarianism that has learned how to shitpost. He uses memes. He uses bad AI, famously him flying a jet fighter over protesters and dumbing feces on them. He uses irony. And when he's cornered on it, he usually just pulls that kind of, you know, I was just joking or what are you stupid? He sort of goes through that escape patch. As someone using satire to cover not just the news, but also disinformation. How does this change the game for the onion? Or when your targets are already operating in sort of a bad faith irony mode where everything is dangerous but nothing is serious, has the onion's brand of satire had to evolve? How do you satirize someone who's already performing in a post-sincere world where, sadly, cruelty is often the joke?

Great question. Justin, it was. And I heard he's your handsomest subscriber in indeed. Yeah, I was going to say it's unfair that he gets to be handsome and smart. What does that shit about? I got him specifically for you because you said that. We were laughing our asses off, so I asked him to do it. So talk about that.

That's a great question because Trump uses humor quite a bit. And when he was running, everyone was making fun of him. I said, no, he's funny like he is in a weird way. And he makes fun of himself. And he's very self-deprecating. And, of course, that's moved into using cruelty. as humor, which sometimes is funny to people. So talk about what he's saying there. It's a very complex and interesting question of what you do then when the authoritarian's take the playbook that

hurts them. Yeah, no, he's funny in a way a bully can occasionally hit on something, right? But I always ask this to people, have you ever heard this man actually laugh? Like, in a way that you can't control yourself, every good person you know, you've been around them and they have laughed so hard that they can't handle it, right? he's never done that. And that's because he might be operating with the functionality of like the baseline of what humor is, like, A plus B equals joke. But he doesn't, you know, there's no wider thing there's something that keeps you around. He's not funny in a way that is illuminating or interesting.

He's just bullying people. It's just school year of bullying. And like, I think there is a shelf life on this. We went through this sort of in the 80s with like Andrew Dice Clay style comedy. And people just get tired of it. People get tired of people being mean. And you can deal with it for a few years and it might feel fresh that there were sacred cows and there aren't anymore. But it gets tiresome.

And look, I have no doubt that there is some base humor in him. And I do think that he's much funnier. Well, he'll say things that are attempts at comedy that and most politicians simply will not do that. Right? They are talking about farm bills and stupid shit like that. That's what's set him apart. But he's not actually funny. Like, I'm a genuinely funny person ran for office and was able to keep that lightness. I think they would do probably even better than him. I'm going to be devil's advocate. I had Judge Appetown, and he talked about it. He thinks the funnier presidential candidate always wins, the one who has more wit or humor. And Trump does draw people in. I think it's getting tired. You're absolutely right. Because it's like, oh, are you still going to make another poop joke, you two-year-old? Or Elon does the same thing. He is definitely not funny. He is wildly unfunny, and he thinks he's funny. Yes. It's an interesting dynamic going on where they think they're much funer than they are. And at the same time that they're using humor is interesting. I actually think it's like who is leased in a box, right? It's not like who's funniest.

It's like who is most willing to call a spade of spade in the moment, even if the calling the spade of spade is just fucking wrong, right? Like Donald Trump will call immigrants whatever he wants to call them, and it's incorrect, and it's based on shit that he read on his weird little racist Facebook knockoff. But he will say it as plainly as he can. Again, I don't know if it's humor. I think it's just like other people, are tying themselves in knots to like make sure they don't offend specific things.

It's shit talking. It's shit talking. It's shit talking. Right, exactly. And I think now that's what you see as well is that the shit talking, the Trump people are in the box now, right? They're, they find themselves in the last few weeks with the Alex Prattie murder being like, you can't walk around with a gun and you can't stand in the street, but the second amendment is the most important thing. But all these, like they are just like they're in the box now. Well, I think they use cruelty. is a joke sometimes, and this isn't funny, right? There is a moment where it's not funny. Does that change the way you all think about it?

I mean, I thought one of the ones you did recently, a totally different person, Tim Cook, your headlines about Tim Cook were very funny. It really depends. There are, we were really cruel to Donald Trump when everyone was really cruel to Donald Trump, right? And I have no problem with it. I'm just going to look up the exact time.

I think it's a little long. Okay, we wrote this. on January 23rd of 2013. And it says, when you're feeling low, just remember I'll be dead in about 15 or 20 years by Donald Trump. And we, yeah, Michael Cohen sent us like a season to sis letter for that. Oh, kind of ridiculous. I guess we didn't open until he started running for president.

We was just sort of like in an envelope somewhere. Now it's framed, obviously. Yeah, the one for Tim Cook was police repeatedly shoot Tim Cook after mistaking iPhone for gun, which, ow. Yeah. I laughed, and I thought, oh, wow. Yeah, yeah.

By the way, I think that's an archive full. I think that one is like 10 years ago. But like we'll go for it when the situation demands it. It demands it. Yeah, exactly. But let's pivot a little bit and talk about the bigger picture of the onions vision, the wider media world, because what you're doing is really interesting because it seems to be working.

You brought back a print version of the onion. You've got more than 50,000 subscribers, including my son. I didn't know this. He knows everything about the onion. And you said you wanted to help more publications get into print. Obviously, social media is probably your strongest area in terms of bringing in subscribers, etc. Even if it's not necessarily profitable, bottom line, it's a marketing tool, I guess. And there's a lot of comedy out there.

So talk about this with a print thing and how you have to balance it with online to stay culturally relevant, because a lot of the stuff moves there. Yeah, so we brought back the print because we just thought it was, I grew up with the onion imprints and getting it on the side of the road felt like stealing something. It felt it felt very cool to have that around. And it's been a miracle. Like jokes are supposed to be read in this way. And I'm not trying to be like one of those like weird vinyl guys who's like, actually, you're supposed to listen to music music. I'm not trying to be like that.

I hate that guy. I know. But if you like, if you just keep scrolling through headlines all day, And like, you pop up and where obviously the funniest thing you see on Instagram, you're still going to forget about it. If it's like a physical object, it works better. So we thought it was going to be successful. We didn't think it was going to be this successful.

It's like it is most of our business. We have around 65,000 subscribers now. And we are close to having more than the Washington Post in terms of print subscribers. That's our goal for this year. Well, yeah. They're actively trying to be. They're trying to go down while you're actively trying to go down. We didn't think they were going to not be a newspaper anymore.

So, like, that was maybe a different goal. But, like, look, another thing we didn't expect is, like, your kid is it, I don't even subscribe. We didn't know. It's being used as, like, contraband in schools, and we love it. Like, we keep hearing people stealing it from their kids. He's older. He's 23. Oh, okay.

I didn't know that. Wait, seriously? Yeah. Oh, my God. Karen, I had no idea. He watches most of everything online, like he told me he was watching Frontline. And I was like, oh, PBS. He was, I don't watch PBS.

Like, he watched it on YouTube, obviously. So he's quite online in his media consumption. But in this, I was surprised. I'm interested. Yeah, and that's great. And, like, we, I thought he was 14, because that's the thing that keeps happening. Yeah. Well, I had Mad Magazine.

Mad Magazine was my version of that. Yeah, exactly. Or National Ampoon. Or Cracked. Cracked. Cracked is great. Cracked. Cracked turned out a bunch of incredible, like, truly remarkable writers.

They did. Cracked was amazing because it was sort of mean. than Matt. And Matt was pretty mean. Matt could be pretty mean. Yeah. So most of your revenue comes from print right now, correct? Yeah. You know, people pay 100 bucks a year. And, you know, we don't have the world's biggest staff. I mean, I think in our lower, I think we have like 500,000 employees, but I think we actually have like 30. And then like the other way we make money is brands come to us because no one can speak normal anymore. Everyone, relies on AI too much. So they come to us to get their brands to like, we have a copy agency,

we get them to talk normal or be funny or whatever. So business is good, but we really, we need people to buy the paper and the paper's great. So people are very happy. But online, what's, how important is that to your business, even if it's not a revenue driver? Sure, it's top of funnel. Like we try as much as we can to get as many people know what the onion is. And we have this weird gap where every teenager knows what it is and every 35 plus person does, but there's this gap in the middle trying to bridge that gap. And also, like, to me, it's important that people look to us in these moments and these, like, big national crises for the right, like, for us the threat and evil. Like, after Charlie Kirk was shot and everyone kept getting fired, people were

like, when are you going to say something about this? We had a headline that was a report you to fired for reading this headline about Charlie Kirk. And it was just exactly what was needed in that moment. Yeah, you have to wait and have the right thing to do. So another thing, you're still in the middle of trying to buy Alex Jones's site Info Wars, but it's been on hold for more than a year.

As I said, you were a reporter who covered fake news and you're trying to buy one of the biggest spreaders of actual fake news, or at least used to be. I mean, one could say it's trolling, which it is a little bit. Talk about what is happening right now and what your actual goal might be.

Sure. I don't recommend trying to buy the world's most famous sagopath's website. I think it's a bad idea. However, it's been, you know, it's the fight of our life, I guess. We have, so the Sandioke families will basically only sell this thing to us, and it's the only way they're ever going to get money. The lawyers around this case have made lots of money. Alex Jones lawyers made a lot of money, a lot of money in the first. four-plus years after it was decided that he owes these families $1.5 billion, but they literally have not seen a penny. They have not, yeah. So we're trying to get them a penny. And maybe, you know, some recurring pennies over time. I will say we have grand designs if we end up with this thing. Like we really, the comedy world in Hollywood has been really hollowed out.

They had several repeated disasters over the last few years, between the writer's strike and the pandemic and then the fires. And then they came back and the situation wasn't the same. People who are, you know, the world's best comedy writers are out of work. And the way that we satirized stuff also has kind of update itself. So I don't want to blow too many things, but if we end up with this thing, which we're hopeful we do, like we're kind of at the mercy of the court, but we're hopeful we do.

we're going to make it as big a deal as we possibly can. We think this is like a very big opportunity. So what, give me a grand design, the annual Alex Jones Award. What? No, we, I mean, look, the Alexes. Yeah, there are plenty of people worth mocking that aren't straight news things. The Onion was invented to sort of like be a take on the New York Times. The Onion News Network, which is incredible.

And we brought that back to you, was it was a take on CNN, more traditional news. Then we had Clickhole, which we eventually sold, but that was supposed to be like BuzzFeed news stuff. We tend to try to make fun of how people get their information. And right now, people get their information in the most base and stupid ways possible. Like we're all competing with people who seem to like drink paid for a living. So nobody has done the widespread take on that. It's not just obviously Alex Jones is not the only guy who does that. So we're going to be playing in that space.

And there are professionals who are kind of doing it. kind of seem around on your feeds already. We just want to give them a more centralized hub. Oh, interesting. Would you do it again? You're already deep in it, but is it draining to do this? It's deeply draining. Like, I've had to learn about bankruptcy law.

I don't know anything about this shit. I don't care. Yeah. I don't care. So what's your chances of getting? It comes down to a bunch of court decisions, but the Supreme Court has already ruled, like, dude, you have no outs.

Yeah. It's just that everyone's afraid to deal with him because he is, the guy has abused the justice system in every step. And he has, anyone who walks in his path, he harasses and harangues. So we're basically purchasing a, like, a permanent harassment campaign. Right, right, right. Right. He does it from his car now. Yeah, everybody who, everybody gets involved in the process.

Like, Jesus Christ, why did I do this? Look, Carol, like a couple weeks ago, I turned it on, turned on in for words after, because he's still going just as is. after René Good was shot. And he had Kyle Rittenhouse on saying that Renegood had lost custody of her kids because she was putting cigarettes out in her kids, and that he had read that on X. And I was like, these motherfuckers are just going to keep doing this forever, aren't they? And they're going to make so much money.

They make so much money doing it. Yes, they are. And I just think that there is, there just has to be somebody who is just going to say, okay, enough. Enough. Yeah, I agree. Someone was talking about Minnesota. for we won. I'm like, they're going to Ohio next, just so you know, they don't stop.

These people do not stop. Which, do you have any sense when you'll get an answer? I sound like Donald Trump talking about health care. I'm like, oh, it's going to be two weeks, but I've been saying that to my staff for like six months and they're like, dude, fucking, what are you talking about? Like, they think I'm insane. So I just like, at this point, I'm just like, if it happens, it happens, and if it does, we are ready to go. Like, we have, we've had a game plan. Yeah, every week is in for. Yeah, exactly. So, like, yeah, at some point, by the way, like, we're just, we're going,

to do this. Like we can't leave with this whole terrain unmade fun of. So we're going to press go at some point. Yeah. Okay. So the Trump administration's not been shy about going after news outlets. Obviously, the admin is clearly satires. It's a little different, but it's also true that doesn't matter with these people. So

where's the line? Are you worried about litigiousness from anybody? I mean, basically the defense is, fuck them if they can't take a joke. But is that something that worries you? Because it certainly has affected lots of big news organizations, as you and I know.

Yeah, look, I'm not saying we're immune to this. In fact, I think we're, like, explicitly targeted. You know this. My girlfriend's been indicted for protesting ICE. Yes. Federally indicted. She's, like, one of the only people who've been federally indicted for protesting ICE.

Just so people who don't know, your girlfriend is Kat Abu Ghazale, a progressive candidate who's running in the Democratic primary for Illinois's ninth congressional district. She's indicted for allegedly conspiring to injure offices during an anti-ice protest. Yeah, she is, and she's the coolest person I know. But just because you're scared doesn't mean you stop doing the thing you're good at. I think it's especially important now where the people who have caved since the start of this, universities, news organizations, everybody who is like, okay, sir, what do you need? They just kept stepping on them afterwards.

They just kept going. I'm not going to tell this staff to change what they're doing at all. Like they are doing, they're going as hard as they want. And if they come to me with a 50-50 ball, I say go for it. Like, and if they come to me with a big idea, I'm like, let's find funding. Let's find a sponsor. Let's find a thing to make sure that this thing can happen. And I just want to, if people like get one thing out of this, there are more of us than there are of them.

There just are. And that doesn't mean necessarily politically or emotionally. I'm not saying that for you to get through the day. I'm saying that if you're marketing a product, if you're trying to start a business, there are more people who don't like this shit than the offices. And there's fertile ground. There's a reason the Washington Post is going to die

before the onion becomes one of the biggest newspapers in the country. It's because they licked the boot and we kick back. Right, right. That's a really good point. We'll be back in a minute. Now streaming on Paramount Plus, It began on the shores of New Jersey. The calls of Jim, tan, laundry, reverberated north to Canada, where a new type of party animal resides. They move as a herd migrating to their favorite watering holes, asserting dominance by flexing, grinding, and twerking.

Coupling is quick, steamy, and sometimes in hot tubs. When morning arrives, they do it all over again. Canada Shore, new original series, now streaming on Paramount Plus. With AmX Platinum, U.S. access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more

journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News. A lot of these news organizations that have given in certainly are still doing a lot of good news, and you've been critical, so have I, about legacy media, bowing to the administration, being too soft and powerful people, this centerization. And by the way, I think it was your a thread bucket of gravy. Made me laugh for days.

This is about CBS news contributors. You're like Stephen Miller. No, not that one. Wait, we found a third. Very funny. But their work does drive a lot of when independent media covers, too. And I know it's easy to, they say it's easier to criticize them. I'm like, no, you actually have gone so

far in a very bad direction. I'm not so sure it's undeserved. But if you were running a big news organization, what would you do? Like, You are now the head of CBS. What would you do? You'd do a much better job.

First of all, I would be like, no thank you. Second one, that would be one big thing. Look, they have dismantled so much, and I don't know if you just hire those people back and be like, trust me, I'm not going to do what just happened. I don't think you can do that. I also, like, I'm, you know, when I was in NBC News, I was a good reporter on my section of the world,

but I knew nothing about immigration reporting, and they had incredible immigration reporters. I knew nothing about this woman in Adiela who worked there, who was able to effectively make it so UPS. I don't know if you know this, but UPS drivers didn't used to have AC in their cars, and they used to drive through the desert. She outlined how many people were getting heat stroke and then got them, it made sure there was legislation

that made sure that there was. these people that happen. Incredible work at these big places if you're given that, if you're given some leeway in time to do those sorts of things. All that stuff is going to go away if you hire the three Stephen Miller's a big bucket of gravy to talk about, you know, every, like to talk to both sides literally every single issue. Like it is not a sustainable model. I will say the first place to be brave and step up and be like, no, actually, we're covering

this as a fascist administration. because we've talked to enough history professors to know that's what's going on. And like we're going to, we're going to view this through the lens of history. Guess what? You're going to be worth as shit. Like, I know it sounds heavy and hard,

and they might harass you. And they might, I get why you wouldn't do it. You might have a kid at Little League, the FDA's a Little League, and like your life is going to be harder. But you're doing the right thing. And I just, business will be better. I'm telling you.

Yeah, I agree. People don't like what's happening. People understand that both sides are when people are getting executed on the street is repugnant, if you just stand up and just report information objectively as it's going on, you're going to be in a good spot. I would agree. It's truthful, not neutral, this expression I use from Christian Aunpur.

Do you think a shift is happening after Minnesota? Because I've noticed suddenly all of them, like on CNN, they've got it like Wheaties or, you know, like wait a minute nicely done like or Anderson Cooper had a great interview with the lady in the pink coat um Dana Bash's play I'm just using

Santa but I've noticed that not at every organization but uh but it several of them it's gotten a little bit better you know even the free press called it a lie finally to describe the administration's defense of killing and didn't then have a separate

editorial saying what is a lie really is was he you know should he have been carrying gun whatever talk about is that you think that has happened do you think there's been like just a fucking second or not i think there's been a sea change and i think that um i think people are starting to realize that a whole entire city of people cannot be paid protesters like this can't have it it can't be the case and all of the abject disinformation that they see going through their feeds is just not aligning with their realities.

I also realize it's more difficult, by the way, because news people are human and they wake up and they go on Twitter or they go on TikTok and they see stuff that isn't, or, you know, whatever, I don't want to blame TikTok specifically. I do want to blame Twitter. But, you know, whatever feed

they have. And they see stuff that is deliberately designed to make them at least upset. And they're less engaging than those conspiracy theories. And algorithm prioritize that. Right. Yes.

And, you know, news people are not a nerd to this. And it's like just because they're, you know, they're a little bit more aware of the dynamics. That's the case. But I don't think they realize how fundamentally, from a structural standpoint, it's designed to help the oppressor here. Right.

Absolutely. And we're like the, it all happens so fast that maybe, maybe a situation like this where, a man was executed on the street, the administration came out and said he was going to do a mass shooting or something, and everyone knew it was like you could not justify the two realities. People might be waking up to the fact that like, oh, maybe the entire, maybe the pipes are broken.

Right, right, right. So what happened with these new organizations? Because, you know, in an interview with Molly Jungfest, you said, we're standing in the rubble of what our media ecosystem used to be, the only people who don't see that are that way. the people who own the rubble, which is, I like that idea. I agree with you. The real influence comes with what's next. Now, you're backed by a good, I've interviewed him. Your billionaire is good, like, or he's not bothering you. He's, he would also dispute that he's a billionaire.

All right, yeah, whatever. He's rich. He's rich. Yeah, he's a rich guy. He's a rich guy with money to burn for this kind of stuff. But, you know, and they do shift on a dime, by the way, just apply. You also, you're in satire, so you don't have to do fact-checking. You get the juicy bits, I think, right? But most of the new media ecosystem is dependent on the whims of social platforms owned by tech billionaires, many of whom are really, have become really venal fox. At the same time, we don't want news just fed to us by influencers also. And that's what I was joking with your list of CBS contributors, a bucket of gravy. It made me like, exactly. Gravy is what you're getting here, which might be delicious, by the way.

Who doesn't love gravy? So good. How do you wear that? Now, you're in a fortunate position in many ways. There are two major things that I did, I think. And I didn't do it. My staff did. My team did everybody here did this.

That includes our chief project officer, Daniel Sterlay, and our chief marketing officer, Leo Brilsson, and our whole editorial team. One, we really steled up, like, this is the process, and the onion is its process. So if you come in and break the process, it's not the onion anymore. And the onions process is you go in, you have 15 joke writers that come in through a long pipeline that start with fellowships and all these other things.

And they learn over the course of time what an ideal onion headline is. And then every day they come in with 15 headlines and they leave. So it's like 150 to 200 headlines a day. And then they leave with like one or two. That process has to remain in place. And if we deviate from that, we're no longer the onion, just the way it is. So that's one very major thing is making sure editorially it remains the same and you can't mess with that thing. Our editor-in-chief has been here for 30 years.

People, there are people on our staff who, when it was going through the private equity phase, they were, we have a woman on staff who was an engineering degree from Brown, and she at any moment could have left. And she was making like probably like $50,000 year. And she stayed, she believed in this thing. Those people are the onion, and we're going to make sure they're protected. and we're going to make sure that the process that feeds into this makes it to what remains that way forever and can update into all those things.

And the second thing is you get own your own thing. That's why we have a newspaper. Like, I don't think they'll go after the U.S. Postal Service. Isn't it like in the Constitution? They could try. And it's people, it's a pamphlet. Like, it feels like a civil war, baby. Like, we get to send these things out to people's mailboxes,

and it feels like a secret. Yeah. And that will help us endure, and we're very big into archiving our old archive. We want to make sure that what we do is enduring and, like, totally separate of these pipelines that are being eaten alive by rich people. I've had several really wealthy people. They're all interested in media now. I don't know if you've noticed or gotten calls. But they're like, hey, I'd love to talk about investing.

I go, I don't want your fucking money. And they're like, what? And I'm like, I make plenty of money. Like, Kara, do you even want the Washington Post anymore? Because, like, you would have to, like, call five rich guys. And, like, I don't even know. Like, why would you want to put something like that? Well, because I'd have a lot of them, so none of them would have power.

I have a whole scheme to keep them in a position. Are you going to do it? I don't know, but I don't know. No, no, he won't talk to me. What am I talking about? No, he's in busy. He's been, if I go to, I guess, a fashion week and take some Botox, I suppose I could get to talk into him. He doesn't even fucking want it.

He doesn't care. Like, he doesn't, has no utility to him whatsoever. I actually, I would turn it into a satirical publication at this point. But this one rich guy was like, oh, you don't want to have a talk? I'm like, I don't. Like, thank you. Like, and he's like, why? I go, I don't want to talk to you.

Like, I know it sounds dumb, but I just am very happy making money. And when I don't, I'll stop doing it, I guess. But right now. Kara, like, I keep talking about this. It's freeing. It's freeing. Yes, there are the two economies. It's sort of like what we were talking about with the theater scene earlier.

I keep talking about the two economies. It's the economy of the real, and then the economy of gambling and speculation and all this extra shit. And I want this company in the economy of the real. I want people to give us dollars for goods and services. I don't want to tie up our fate in like a shit coin. I don't want to come up with the perfect onion AI generator. I don't want any of the shit. I just want people to live in the human world with us.

And trust me, Kara, That's clearly what's going on right now. There is a split right now between like real money and a real economy and human connection. And then whatever the fuck, this other thing is, which is much bigger but much worse. So if five years to me, how do you think the media business will look? When I get asked that question, I was like, I'll do something else. Like I didn't know I was going to do podcasting 10 years ago. And that worked out rather well.

And then we just did this tour. That worked out rather well. I don't know. And when I get to the answer, I'm like, we're going to keep making stuff people. want to buy. I don't know what else to say. That's the answer. And so I don't know what it'll be. Like, I just announced this documentary for CNN on longevity. I'm like, oh, this could have some legs, right? You know what I mean? This idea. I'm bullish on the future of media, especially independent media. What do you think it looks like in five years? Or what would you see the onion being

in five years? Yeah, I think a big change for me personally is over the last couple of years, I went from like all of my childhood media dreams are gone and my, you know, my dreams are dead to all my childhood media dreams are gone and my dreams are dead. Like, like, I get to live in this new, cool, functional thing that is like, that allows me a lot more agency and everything's a little bit better. And you're happier. I'm okay with this. And I'm so much happier. Like, we are allowed to say what we want say. And, you know, Kara, there's never, like, there's never going to be a world where people don't seek out, like, gossip and information and the funniest sentence and connection. That's just never, that's never going to exist. And I actually think that that's a fundamental problem that's

going on. Right. Is that the world's richest people think that they don't need that. Like, they're building humanoid robots and they're building all these complement machines that tell them exactly what they want to feel and how they want to act. And everyone else is, like, I don't, I have no desire for that. I want to hang out with my friends. I want them to yell at me and, you know, tell me I'm stupid and then, like, and then hug me and go to my funeral. Like, that's what I want to happen. And they don't care about that. And that's all of the money, all of like the big amounts of, like, seemingly fake money, seems to be going towards this, like, disconnect stuff that people don't want. People.

really want this connection. And I think in the next five years, like, you can see where it's all headed. People are starting to come back together to be like, ah, I want, I want a funny person to say a funny sentence to me. Or I want to hang out with friends. You know, one of the positives from this Minnesota thing is Minneapolis is rediscovered community again. So cool. You know, I think it's a terrible way to do it. But I think a lot of people are rediscovering community and how easy it is to pull away from some of this stuff, which is there's no mistaking why these tech billioners want to buy these things. It's because they don't like the insults they get from people like you or I, you know, and they want to control it, but you can't control it. That's the whole thing. So on the last question,

earlier you talked about how when it comes to disinformation, the people who spread it aren't going to stop. I agree with you. There is too much money in it. You're trying to combat that. I'm trying about that, but even if most of us don't want that, give people an idea of what you do to fight it from your perspective. Yeah, I hate to keep bringing back, bringing Minneapolis back into this, but it really is, it's community and all that stuff,

and living in the real. You know, we've worked ourselves into a froth in this country over the last 10 years, blaming immigrants for everything, taking videos that turns out it largely aren't real, like they're eating the cats and dogs kind of stuff.

That's next week, by the way. They're going for that. There you go. Yep. They're going to sprinkler, right? Like, turning them into moral panics and then trying to punish these fake things. They're trying to punish things that don't exist. And now we're on the other side of this where the dog caught the car.

Apparently the dogs that we were eating caught the car. And we're doing Gestapo shit to every immigrant in this country and everybody who stands in their way. And guess what? The economy is not fit. your life's not better. You don't feel any better. All these people who thought the world was going to get fixed once they got all the brown people out of their line to say. Turns that everything's worse. Everything still costs way too much. Culture got worse. You are not respected.

And you're an asshole. And you're a fucking asshole. So I am hopeful since the dog caught the car that people will just, like, I don't think everybody comes to this conclusion immediately. Some people just stay in it forever, and that's the thing that I've realized is that some people like. to be upset and they like to complain about shit. It's fine. But I hope when the people who like to be upset complain about shit can start complaining about the guy next door who sucks, like the fictitious thing that we all have to kill, I kind of already think this happening. Young people are a nerd to this. Young people have lived through this entirely. All they know is people blaming a fictitious thing and their life not getting better.

My hope is, and I know I can see it everywhere, they're rediscovering community, they're rediscovering each other. I'm not one of those people who is a touch grass person who thinks that, like, I'm not a crunchy granola guy. No, I get it. And I think a lot of this can be accomplished and will be accomplished on the actual internet. I think, like, it's smaller communities in the internet doing stuff, separate of scale. But it's about talking of each other and make an art for the sake of art, like not for the sake of, anything else. Like, I just want to make one thing clear, by the way.

The onion does not use AI. Our AI is a guy named Carl who does awesome Photoshop's. He's great. He's wearing a beanie. He's on the other side of the door right now. You can use in your advertising placing. It's fun. You're right.

Sure. Look, I'm not saying AI has no purpose, but for us like... I mean in the creative process. Yeah. It's like soil it or like hot dogs or something. It's just like this amalgamation. It's calories, but like it's not... Every now and then, it's funny.

Every now and then, it says like something good. I have to say, but not much, not much, not compared to people. Yeah. And what's really ironic in this moment is all these people who were talking about how nobody could be funny anymore, they've never been funny a day in their lives. And fuck them if they can't take a joke. They never been funny. They've seen some of the funniest shit in my life over the last couple of years,

the people who are like who can't seem to find humor and who seem to be upset all the time about not being able to say like one specific word. They even found the new words. They're much funnier. Yeah. Like there's like, we're literally. living in a golden age and you'll see it, once you look back on it, you'll figure that out, comedy-wise. We're not living in a golden age of anything else.

Yeah. Anyway, Ben, thank you so much. I love The Onion. Everyone should subscribe. It's really funny. It's just really funny. It makes me laugh all the time. And we could all use a good laugh. Thank you. Kara, big fan. Keep doing what you're doing. Today's show was produced by Christian Castro, Wessel, Michelle Alloy, Megan Bernie, and Kalin Lynch. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Bradley Sylvester. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics.

If you're already following this show, you're building community and laughing with friends. If not, you're angry because you're the butt of the joke or Elon Musk. Go wherever you listen to a podcast, search for On with Caro Swisher, and hit Follow. Thanks for listening to On With Caro Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Box Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.