On with Kara Swisher

• The 2024 Election Post-Mortem: How Trump Beat the Odds

  Despite the chaos of January 6th, 34 felony convictions, and his party’s underperformance in the 2022 midterms, Donald J. Trump is once again president.  How did he defy political gravity to win again? Why did former President Joe Biden run despite overwhelming evidence that voters didn’t want him to? Was there a coverup to conceal his decline, as Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book, “Original Sin” alleges? Why did former Vice President Harris run such a cautious campaign and refuse to distance herself from Biden? And was she doomed by Biden’s late withdrawal, or did her own mistakes cost her the election? As America enters its 250th year and a new political era, Kara speaks with the authors of 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America to answer these questions and understand how we got here. The trio breaks down how Trump beat back his Republican primary opponents, the Biden campaign’s fatal missteps, the Harris campaign’s stifling paralysis, and why Trump is now governing more like a king than a president.  Isaac Arnsdorf is a senior White House reporter for The Washington Post. His reporting on the first Trump assasination attempt was essential to the Posts’s 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News, and he’s the author of  "Finish What We Started," about the MAGA movement post January 6th. Josh Dawsey is a political investigations and enterprise reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Josh was part of teams at The Washington Post that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2022 for coverage of Jan. 6 and in 2024 for coverage of the role of the AR-15 in American life. And Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The New York Times. In 2022, he won the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• The Red Scare Returns? Lessons from McCarthyism in the Age of Trump 2.0

  President Trump and other Republicans keep throwing around the C-word — Communist — to smear anyone slightly progressive, including Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s new Democratic mayoral candidate. But right-wing fearmongering isn’t the only reason it feels like McCarthyism is on the rise again.  So, just in time for the 4th of July, Kara speaks to New York Times reporter and author Clay Risen about his latest book, Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America. They unpack Joseph McCarthy’s insane antics, parallels between the Republican party of the 1940s/50s and today — and what lessons, if any, we can learn from McCarthy’s ultimate downfall. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• Jerrod Carmichael on Truth in Comedy, Coming Out Late & Religion

  Kara Swisher sits down with Emmy-winning comedian Jerrod Carmichael for a raw and revealing conversation about truth, family, faith — and the art of standup. They dig into Carmichael’s work, including his deeply personal special “Rothaniel,” his genre-bending documentary “The Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show” (which he describes as a sitcom), and his latest special, “Don’t Be Gay.” The two of them talk about class in America, the fears that kept him closeted, the role of religion and spirituality in his life, and why standup must evolve or die. Plus, why he’s the son his mother deserves, what he’s learned from artists like Jay-Z and Spalding Gray, and why he wants to “remove hyphens” from his name and focus on stand-up comedy. Happy Pride — and happy listening. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• Trump's Iran Strikes: Triumph, Stalemate or Setback?

  President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran shocked much of the world — but America’s involvement was over almost as soon as it began, and so far, it hasn’t sparked a broader war, like so many feared.  So how did we get here? Was the bombing a success? Will the ceasefire between Israel and Iran hold? Is the regime in Iran any closer to collapsing — and if it did, would that be good? Finally, what’s the long term solution to the nuclear issue? Kara gathers a trio of experts to grapple with these questions, and more.  Jason Rezaian is the Director of Press Freedom Initiatives and a writer for The Washington Post’s Global Opinions. He was the Post's correspondent in Tehran before he was unjustly imprisoned by the Iranian regime, and he’s the author of Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison. Jim Sciutto is CNN’s chief national security analyst and the anchor of The Brief with Jim Sciutto. He’s also the author of The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China and the Next World War. Robin Wright is a contributing writer and columnist for The New Yorker and a distinguished fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She’s the author of several books, including The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran, and Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• Molly Jong-Fast on How to Survive Anything

  Molly Jong-Fast is best known as a writer and political commentator. But before she became the host of Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast, a regular on MSNBC, and a novelist and memoirist, she was the daughter of Erica Jong.  Jong catapulted to literary stardom with her 1973 novel Fear of Flying.  The bold — and, at the time — shocking story of a married woman looking for casual sex made her a literary icon of second-wave feminism. And although Jong-Fast was an only child, she grew up sharing her life with the fictional alter-egos Jong created and longing for a deeper connection with her alcoholic and mostly-absent mother. But now, Jong-Fast has turned the tables. She’s written an unsparing memoir about her relationship with her mother and Jong’s struggle with dementia titled, How to Lose Your Mother.  Kara talks to Molly about difficult mothers, the perils of writing a memoir, her pivot to journalism, and what gives her hope for America.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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