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 Nouriel Roubini, a.ka. "Dr. Doom," became famous for predicting the 2008 global financial crisis. Now, he is back with another grim forecast, in his new book, "MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, And How to Survive Them." He and Kara discuss the book, his prediction that we’re headed towards a stagflationary debt crisis, and US-China relations. Dr. Roubini also explains why cryptocurrency is fundamentally flawed (in fact, he thinks it’s less sophisticated than what the Fli...
Oct 24, 2022•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky took the company public, laid off 25% of its staff and navigated worker demands for flexibility – all during the pandemic. Oh, and his mom moved in (and made him quiche every day). In this conversation with Kara, Brian discusses the challenge of being professionally successful and, sometimes, personally lonely. They talk about how the pandemic may have permanently changed how we work, travel and live. And Kara gets answers about the company’s lack of transp...
Oct 20, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we’re sharing a bonus episode of Kara’s Twitter Spaces conversation that was taped on Monday night. She’s joined by William Cohan, journalist and founding partner of Puck, and Scott Galloway, business professor and co-host of the Pivot podcast. Nayeema pops in with a question at the end — and you can too, if you join our next Twitter Spaces. Follow us on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema to tune in for future conversations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoi...
Oct 19, 2022•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kara and Steve Case go back — way back, to the 1990s. She was a young Washington Post reporter covering a new thing called “the Internet” … and he was a co-founder of the company that became AOL. In this conversation, they take a walk back through time to look at how far the world has come and where tech companies have stumbled or fallen flat. They discuss Case’s new book, “Rise of the Rest,” which offers an optimistic future for the expansion of entrepreneurship and innovation beyond a handful ...
Oct 17, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast It feels like deja vu. Stacey Abrams is running for governor of Georgia, again … against Brian Kemp, again. The two last faced off in a heated contest in 2018, with Kemp’s win hanging on 54,723 votes. This time, he’s an incumbent and even further ahead in the polls. So, Kara asks Abrams: what is different now? Before the interview, Kara and Nayeema talk about newsmakers – from the LA City Council members to the artist formerly known as Kanye West. And afterward, Kara answers a listener question ...
Oct 13, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pennsylvania Lt. Governor and Senate candidate John Fetterman and Kara share a few things in common. As she puts it: they were both born in Pennsylvania, both wear sloppy clothes and both have survived a stroke. Kara’s hit 11 years ago, while Fetterman’s came last May. But for Fetterman, who is recovering steadily, that health incident has been weaponized against him in the race against Dr. Oz. In this conversation, Fetterman explains why it won't stop him in a contest that is critical for Democ...
Oct 10, 2022•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Donald Trump has said journalist Maggie Haberman is like his “psychiatrist” — a remark she dismisses as a meaningless and failed attempt at flattery. Yet Haberman does have a deep understanding of what makes the former president tick, cultivated through years of covering City Hall in New York City and then Donald J. Trump for The New York Times. Her recent book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” tells Trump’s origin story and chronicles his unexpected take...
Oct 06, 2022•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kara loves air fryer TikToks. But she only dares to scroll through them on a burner phone, as she tells TikTok’s Chief Operating Officer, Vanessa Pappas. As the social media platform has gone gangbusters – accumulating over a billion monthly users globally – concerns have emerged about TikTok’s ownership structure and roots in China. The U.S. government has questions about what data the app is amassing, whether that data can be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party and if the platform is a too...
Oct 03, 2022•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is Kara’s 5th interview with Hillary Clinton. So what’s changed since their first conversation in 2015? According to Kara, it’s that the former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic nominee for President has “run out of f***s." In this conversation, taped live at The Texas Tribune Festival, Kara notes that many of Clinton’s past predictions about Donald Trump have come through and asks what may unfold if Trump runs again in 2024. They discuss Hillary’s role in the Democratic Party, and the...
Sep 29, 2022•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kara Swisher is back — and so, it seems, is Chris Cuomo. In an interview that is frank and feisty, Kara presses the former CNN anchor on his unceremonious exit from the network last year, and they discuss whether he can cut through the noise with his new podcast, “The Chris Cuomo Project,” and a forthcoming show on NewsNation. But first, Kara and her sidekick, exec producer Nayeema Raza, the “Goose to her Maverick” (and yes, Goose eventually died in Top Gun) chat about the newsmakers and news Ka...
Sep 26, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s on. Kara Swisher is back, getting to the heart of what makes powerful people tick… by asking the questions that make them squirm. New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday starting September 26. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sep 03, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
