Today, Nayeema sits down with dating industry veteran Lakshmi Rengarajan and journalist Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz before we play you an episode of the podcast they host — Land of the Giants: Dating Games. In conversation, the three explore the business of online dating, the incentive apps have to keep users swiping and the power the people who run and build these dating services have in shaping our love lives. Kara and Nayeema will be back on Monday with a fresh episode of On with Kara Swisher. Until...
Feb 02, 2023•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast When Meta announced Donald Trump would be allowed back on Facebook and Instagram, it wasn’t the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg who made the decision. He punted. So why is an executive who holds such control hiding from the power he has amassed? Kara has some ideas — she’s covered Mark from the jump, seen him sweat through interviews and gotten Mark to say things he probably wishes he hadn’t. So today, we then turn the tables and Kara Swisher is On with Nayeema Raza. Together, Nayeema and Kara unp...
Jan 30, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rapid-fire layoffs, activist investors at the gate and tumbling stock prices — tech has had a bad year. But Kara tells Nayeema she’s seen it all before and that the industry, if not all its captains, will survive this shake-up, too. In the panel interview, Kara is joined by two other journalists: Jessica Lessin, founder and CEO of The Information, a scoop-laden tech news platform covering Silicon Valley, and William Cohan, a former M&A banker and a founding partner at Puck, another excellent sou...
Jan 26, 2023•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast In his first extensive interview since he stepped down as the Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy on the National Economic Council, Tim Wu shares what he learned in the West Wing. We find out who holds most sway with the President, how Lina Khan undid any perception that there is any antitrust exception for “nice guys,” and get Wu’s predictions on lawsuits against Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. Also: Kara presses him on why Biden — who campaigned on ...
Jan 23, 2023•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we're sharing an episode of the podcast Intelligence Squared, which provides a forum for balanced debate where people disagree — but talk about it. It’s Kara Swisher vs. Anthony Scaramucci. And the question is: Is Elon Musk Killing Twitter? Shockingly, Kara argues, "yes." You can find Kara and Nayeema on Twitter at @karaswisher and @nayeema. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jan 20, 2023•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast He was King Charles’s Communications Chief for almost a decade. She wrote the book on Charles (literally). Our guests today – Patrick Harverson and Catherine Mayer – are two insiders who take us beyond the media spectacle and into the inner workings of both the Crown and the British media. They consider whether the revelations inside Prince Harry’s best-selling book “Spare” will shake-up a stodgy palace. They discuss the unquenching hunger of the tabloid machine, debate the resilience of the mon...
Jan 19, 2023•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Kara and Nayeema are taping from Europe this week, so today we decided to tackle all things international with Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group and the man Fortune 500 CEOs seek out to make sense of political risk and exposure. In the interview, Ian projects the Top Risks for 2023 -- from a rogue Russia to a global energy crunch. He breaks down recent developments in Brazil, Ukraine, Iran and China. We double click on the risk of disinformation, divisive social media and other “weapon...
Jan 16, 2023•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast The dust from last week’s once-in-a-century, marathon voting session in the House has settled, and Kevin McCarthy is finally Speaker of the House — for now. But what’s next? We talk to Manu Raju, CNN’s Chief Congressional Correspondent, and Charlie Sykes, a former conservative talk radio host and a founder of The Bulwark, to make sense of it all. They run through some of the colorful personalities in the House Republican Conference, unpack how the Republican Party unraveled and discuss the oppor...
Jan 12, 2023•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Geena Davis became a breakout star in Hollywood, with an Oscar under her belt and starring roles in hit films like “A League of Their Own” and “Thelma & Louise.” Yet even all that success didn’t always protect her from feeling small in Hollywood. In this episode, we visit her memoir, “Dying of Politeness,” and Davis opens up about moments in her life and career when she felt too polite to speak up. Decades later, many of these moments remain raw. Before and after the episode, Kara and Nayeema re...
Jan 09, 2023•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Less screen time: it’s on everyone’s list of new year’s resolutions — or, at least, it’s on ours! Today, Kara and Nayeema discuss the addictiveness of tech and social media, before Kara dives into a conversation about the present and future of tech with a person who’s been around Silicon Valley for decades: engineer and designer Tony Fadell. The “father of the iPod,” as he’s known, helped bring the famous 5,000 songs to your pocket before helping design the iPhone, co-founding Nest ( selling it ...
Jan 05, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast For our final episode of 2022, Kara and Nayeema unabashedly dish out advice and answer questions you sent in (and some you didn’t). They tackle dating woes, difficult family dynamics, salary negotiations, choosing between career and travel and even give … fashion tips? In addition to listener questions, we hear from past guests and friends, including Kathy Griffin, John King, Rick Wilson, Mike Birbiglia and Walt Mossberg. Stay tuned till the end to hear Kara’s ultimate escape plan — which involv...
Dec 29, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're sharing Kara’s September 2022 conversation with Tim Cook, Sir Jony Ive and Laurene Powell Jobs on the life and legacy of Steve Jobs. It’s one of Kara’s favorite conversations of the year, and one in which she cried (though she denies it). Kara handpicked this trio to join her for her final Code interview. Cook, the CEO of Apple, worked with Jobs for decades and succeeded him as CEO. Ive, now co-founder of the creative collective LoveFrom, collaborated with Jobs on the design many of Apple’...
Dec 26, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast From the high speed train wreck that is Twitter 2.0, to the extradition of a fallen crypto kingpin and AI that can rewrite your dating profile, there’s a lot happening in tech right now. Nayeema Raza moderates a conversation with Kara Swisher and Casey Newton, the founder and editor of Platformer. They break down the biggest stories of 2022 and look at what lies ahead in 2023. Will there be less billionaire grift? Is this the year that AI takes your job? And, "OK Google," could this be the year ...
Dec 22, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast What’s more toxic: Tabloids or Twitter? Piers Morgan may know – the outsized personality has been an outsized influence in both spheres for decades, since his start as show business editor at Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun. In this interview, Morgan discusses his rise – and stumbles – and the return to Murdochland, where he now hosts the Fox Nation show, “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” We tackle characters with whom Morgan has beefed — from Donald Trump to Meghan Markle. And Kara asks Morgan, who is famous...
Dec 19, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast What’s one way to stop misinformation? It might just be a giant defamation lawsuit. This week, media titan Rupert Murdoch was deposed in a $1.6 billion suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News and Fox Corporation. They allege Fox knowingly and maliciously aired baseless claims accusing Dominion of an election fraud conspiracy. Somewhat surprisingly, instead of settling out of court, Fox News is denying the allegations, and the case is scheduled to go to trial in April. To unpack ...
Dec 15, 2022•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Aging, parenting by mortality and dying alone or kinless: these are just some of the uplifting topics Kara and Nayeema tackle today before our interview with Mike Birbiglia. The comedian and writer is deep in his latest Broadway show, “The Old Man and the Pool,” which doesn’t shy away from such heavy topics either. Birbiglia and Kara discuss mortality, parenthood, their last words and finding comedy in all of life — even the sad bits. You can find Kara and Nayeema on Twitter @karaswisher and @na...
Dec 12, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s been a bad week for Donald Trump. Herschel Walker lost the Georgia Senate runoff and a New York jury found the Trump Organization guilty of criminal tax fraud. But the former President (and current presidential candidate) still has something to look forward to: a busy conservative Supreme Court which has three Trump-appointed justices. Today, Kara and Nayeema discuss two of the cases the court heard this week. One focuses on a North Carolina election law case that could upend democratic pro...
Dec 08, 2022•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Love them or hate them, chances are that you’ve watched at least one Darren Star series. Kara once called them the “hottest trash on TV” but for over 30 years she has devoured shows that Star has created and executive produced, including “Sex and the City,” “Beverly Hills 90210” “Melrose Place,” “Uncoupled” and — most recently — the Netflix hit “Emily in Paris.” In this conversation, Kara and Darren discuss how HBO paved the way for risqué television, how streaming has eclipsed network televisio...
Dec 05, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Elon Musk's Twitter is a spectacle, and the drama and meaning of the last six months is perhaps best unpacked by Yoel Roth. The company’s former head of trust and safety survived the early flood of firings and resignations — in fact, he was ascendant, in the early days of this new Twitter, and he became the face Musk presented to advertisers. Kara asks Roth whether he felt “used” by Musk and why — having been embraced by Elon’s inner circle — he ultimately decided to abandon Elon. Before the int...
Dec 01, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kara interviews Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi, a Stanford University scientist who, along with Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry earlier this year for developing bioorthogonal chemistry and click chemistry. Bertozzi explains what bioorthogonal chemistry actually is before breaking down how identifying different sugars in the body — which she calls “the dark matter of biology’’ — could lead to breakthroughs in treating diseases ranging from the flu to cancer. She also ...
Nov 28, 2022•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we’re sharing a special episode of Into It: A Vulture Podcast with Sam Sanders about one of Kara’s favorites: Taylor Swift. What is the meaning of Taylor Swift? She's performed damsel in distress, but represents women’s empowerment. She’s a confessional artist, but is careful about how much she reveals. She's an adult, but is often still viewed as the teenager she used to be. On the eve of Midnights, Sam dives into the mythos and craft of Taylor Swift with NPR music critic Ann Powers abou...
Nov 24, 2022•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Should anything be off-limits in comedy? Kara and Nayeema discuss this question, and the recent Dave Chappelle SNL monologue, before Kara’s interview with our guest today: writer-comedian Eric Idle who is an OG in the craft. When he and his fellow sketch artists launched Monty Python on the BBC in 1969, it was unclear whether anyone would even watch. Now there are generations of Python fans. Today, Idle talks about what made Monty Python unique and how they pushed the line and the social convers...
Nov 21, 2022•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Chris Licht faces an uphill battle at CNN. He got the CEO gig in the midst of a prickly merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery and right after the shocking exit of beloved long-time boss, Jeff Zucker. In his first six months, he’s shut down CNN+, ousted Brian Stelter, and shuffled anchors around, including Don Lemon and Jake Tapper. This week, the network chief held an internal town hall meeting where he faced a staff of thousands and discussed upcoming layoffs. Shortly afterwards, he sat dow...
Nov 17, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Elon Musk is a puzzle, but if there’s anyone who can make sense of him it’s Kara Swisher. She’s covered him since the late 90s – back in her early days as a beat reporter at the Wall Street Journal and she’s had many in-depth interviews and exchanges with the tech titan since, perhaps more than any other reporter. She’s also covered Elon’s latest fiefdom, Twitter, before it even was Twitter. So today we turn the tables, and Kara Swisher is “On” with Nayeema Raza. We’ll unpack how Elon became Elo...
Nov 14, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast After Kara and Nayeema have a chat about — what else? — Elon Musk’s latest moves, we dive into democracy and the midterms. The results are (mostly) in, and the “red wave” that Republicans predicted never came. To understand why, Kara gets deep into political reporting in three key swing states: Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Our guests are three veteran journalists who know their respective states' politics inside out: Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, democracy reporter covering Arizona for The Washi...
Nov 10, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kara is nervous about the elections — and she should be, control of the House and of the Senate is up for grabs, as are 36 governorships. She and Nayeema discuss the big day ahead, and specifically how social media and misinformation may sway results. They then turn to our guest today — the man who will be sharing those results with us, at least on CNN. John King and Kara talk about how he prepares to helm the “Magic Wall” and talk millions of viewers through the red and blue board. They go beyo...
Nov 07, 2022•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kara and Nayeema kick off this Thursday’s episode with a feisty discussion about Elon Musk’s Twitter and how he’s “kicking the most active users in the teeth.” They give us the run-down inside Elon’s band of merry advisors and Nayeema gets to the heart of why exactly Kara is so angry with Elon … and so sad. Today’s interview is with John Legend, the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony-winning artist (aka EGOT) who famously moonlights as a social justice activist. But before he was John Legend, he was J...
Nov 03, 2022•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Twitter deal is done, and Elon Musk is now, officially, “Chief Twit.” Bloomberg Opinion columnist and “MoneyStuff” writer, Matt Levine, has been analyzing the deal (and the drama) over the past seven months. Now, Matt and Kara consider what the future of the social media platform might look like under Musk. They discuss whether Elon’s seemingly genuine belief in the utility of Twitter, paired with his business and engineering acumen, will be a game changer for the company. And they discuss h...
Oct 31, 2022•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Election Day is less than two weeks away, and Republicans are poised for some major midterm gains. So today, Kara talks to three Republican strategists about midterm predictions and the effect that Donald Trump is having on these elections. Our guests are veteran pollster Frank Luntz, Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson, and Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell. All three are long-time Republican operatives who believe that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and to the party but they disagree ...
Oct 27, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we’re sharing a bonus episode of Kara’s Twitter Spaces conversation recorded on Monday night. In the first part of the conversation, Kara talks to Jonathan Freedland, a British journalist and columnist for The Guardian, about the fall of Liz Truss, the rise of Rishi Sunak and the role of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in U.K. politics. In the second part of the episode, Kara and Freedland are joined by yet another Jonathan: Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. The trio d...
Oct 25, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
