Kamala Harris on Trump, Tech’s Power Grab, and the Fight for Democracy

Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher.

My guest today is Vice President Kamala Harris.

The former VP recently published a book about her 2024 campaign titled 107 Days.

On Thursday, I interviewed her live on stage at the Warner Theater in Washington, D.C., and I should note that, as you would expect, it was a very Kamala-friendly crowd.

107 Days is a first-person account of what will probably go down as the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes.

Although the book has gotten mixed reviews, it's also been on the best-selling lists, and it's a fascinating window into what it's like to get suddenly thrust into an ultra-condensed presidential campaign for the most powerful office in the world against, of all people, Donald Trump.

I wanted to talk to Harris about the election, recent news, including the indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, the tech industry, her thoughts on how Americans can fight back against Trump's authoritarian tendencies, and what comes next for the country.

To me, the most interesting thing about Harris right now is how right she was about the things Donald Trump would do.

It's not exactly, and I told you so, but she did tell us.

At the same time, she and Democrats are powerless to do anything about it.

And this was a great opportunity to delve into some of the most complex topics facing America with someone who is almost president.

Before we get to the interview, I'm doing a live pivot tour with my co-host, Scott Galloway.

The live tour runs November 8th through 14th and it hits Toronto, Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and L.A.

Tickets are available at pivottour.com.

All right, let's get to it.

Our expert question comes from another person who ran against Donald Trump, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

So stick around.

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Thanks for coming on On.

We're doing this for my On podcast.

I really appreciate you.

And we do have lots to talk about.

So you've already been asked every possible question question there is about former President Biden and his decision to run for reelection.

I don't really care at this point.

It's because it's about the past.

And by the time we finish here, probably nine or ten crazy shit things are going to happen, like in the next.

I had told Vice President about Robert F.

Kennedy Jr.'s link between circumcision and autism today.

And literally, she goes, What?

Do your reaction again.

Well, here's the thing, Kara.

I mean,

in all seriousness,

and many of you know my background, and you also know that I am the daughter of a mother who was a scientist.

And

my mother had two goals in her life, to raise my sister Maya and me, and to end breast cancer.

And my mother, when we were growing up, used to go to this place that Maya and I only knew as mommy is going to this place called Bethesda.

Because you see, my mother was an advisor at NIH.

And she would

leave us in the Bay Area to go to NIH to work with scientists who have as their goal to alleviate pain

and to uplift the human condition.

And when I see what these people are doing right now

to

end the war on cancer, to deny science and fire scientists, Kara, it's personal for me.

It's personal for me.

And

I can't laugh at it because, like so many of you who have known

people who suffer

because of unknown diseases or cancers for which there are no cures or there is the beginning of but more work that needs to be done for the cure?

What they are doing to push misinformation and lies at the highest level of government, it's criminal.

And people will die because of what they're doing.

It's a weird one.

It's fucked up.

It's fucked up.

During.

So let's

get into that.

So during the campaign, you said Trump was unstable, unfit to serve, dangerous, and a fascist.

He's proven you right in innumerable ways.

But since you're a former prosecutor, let's focus on the legal dimensions of what's happening.

You know, you did talk about in the book, you don't love saying I told you so, but a lot of your quotes now are getting replayed.

She said that.

That's right.

He pardoned the J-6 rioters.

He attacked law firms.

He's firing lawyers at the DHA, investigating and prosecuting perceived enemies, deploying troops domestically.

He just indicted Letitia James, as you know, just today.

Mr.

A Department of Justice prosecutor who was a Republican reviewed the evidence and decided there was not sufficient evidence to charge her and is now longer there.

And he puts his

funky in

to pursue a political vendetta.

Right.

And now the Attorney General of the state of New York

has been indicted.

Think about this.

Yes, exactly.

So I'm going to ask you about that.

So

and he's deploying troops domestically, which is something you said would happen.

Even Republican Governor Stitt of Oklahoma has objected to sending the National Guard into states against the wish of the governor.

Can our system of justice survive three more years of this?

Because even though.

Okay, well, I want her to answer not you

because I care about what you have to say because he's the the judge

judges have intervened but he is moving relatively unchecked one thing after the next

every day

every day

every day something is coming out of this White House every day

The point you made about the Secretary of Health and Human Services this afternoon indicting the Attorney General of New York every single day.

And I will be very candid with all the friends here.

I don't know that it won't get worse before it gets better.

And I said that yesterday in Atlanta, and then this happened today.

Now, I'm serious.

I said it yesterday, I said it the day before, been on this book tour.

And every single day, something happens, Kara.

And part of my dilemma, if you will, that I know is shared,

I don't have the solution right now to how it stops

before the end of his term,

but I know that we have to fight.

We have to fight.

We have to stand strong.

We cannot get used to this.

We cannot be overwhelmed.

We cannot be silenced.

I was talking to there's a young man here who is a senior in high school.

I'm not going to call you out, but get your college applications in, like we discussed.

He's here with his father, who is a former member of our administration.

And

I said to him, he said that he grew up as a high school senior, really only being aware of a Trump as president.

But the three and a half months of our campaign, the 107 days, gave him a sense

of hope.

And it inspired him in a way that he had not been before about what could happen through our government for our country.

And here's what I would say to him and to all of us.

One of the reasons I wrote this book is to hopefully remind us of how those 107 days felt, to remind us of the sense of optimism, possibility, and dare I say, joy

that we feel that everyone brought to it.

It's inside of us.

And that light that is inside of us, especially in this moment of darkness, we cannot allow it to be extinguished.

We have to see it in each other and let that guide us during this darkness to get through this without giving up.

We cannot let that light be extinguished.

And Kara, I'm out here

talking to a lot of people.

Right.

And I cannot tell you the number of people who come up to me crying.

It is a regular experience that I have because people are in so much pain.

about what's happening in our country right now and on edge.

And part of what I hope this book does and these conversations do is just allow us all to see the community in which we gather today

and remind ourselves that we're all in this.

We feel the same way.

I know I said something the other day that apparently went viral.

Above, we're not crazy.

But we have to remember that because to your point, three years, we have three more years of this.

And we can't.

I want you to

put your legal hat in.

I know you said, I don't know what to do, but you've been in jams, you've been

in legal.

The courts are the things that are pushing back the most.

I mean, even if they don't feel like except the Supreme Court, except this, I'm going to get to the Supreme Court.

It's the last guardrail.

And certain federal judges, but at a local level, I mean, at the lowest level in terms of federal courts and where state courts have jurisdiction, yes, but

the guardrails are failing to a great extent.

And And I did predict that.

To your point, I predicted almost all of this, except I did not predict the capitulation.

I did not predict

that, you know, the titans of industry,

I thought at some point, I mean, I say this as a devout public servant, I thought at some point they would kick in if push came to shove.

And no, they're just bended knee at the foot of a tyrant.

And so, yes, the courts to some extent are, but you know,

there's a agenda at play here.

What we are experiencing in terms of what this administration is doing is the culmination of decades of work.

Part of the mistake that I think we are making is we're so overwhelmed by this because it feels chaotic when in fact what we are witnessing is a high velocity event that is about the swift implementation of a plan that has been decades in the making.

The Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation,

Project 2025 didn't just fall out of the air.

It is the product of decades of work.

And the people around this president are very much as culpable as he is

for facilitating an implementation of this plan that includes years of work gerrymandering the states

and building it up so that we would have the Supreme Court we now have.

So when you say you don't have a solution and it hurts you that you don't have a solution, there is nothing as someone who's an experienced prosecutor, a senator, you know, an AG

thinks about.

Like you mentioned the Supreme Court.

Give us your judgment on what it's doing right now and And do you think it'll ever rein in the excesses or not at all?

They've given him an expansive view of executive power.

I mean, listen,

we talked about it in those 107 days when the Supreme Court basically told the President of the United States he would be immune as President of the United States for any misconduct while in office.

That happened before the election.

We talked about it at rallies.

We knew this would happen.

We knew this would happen.

And so, the question, when I say I don't have a solution,

the point is that the guardrails have failed for the most part, except one guardrail, which is the people.

And the power of the people

to organize and not give up and pay attention to how we got here, see where we are now, and think about where we are headed, both in terms of whatever we can do to determine our destiny, but also to not repeat where we've been.

And part of that requires that we understand the solution is not going to be the next election necessarily it'll be part of it we got to take back the house we have to take back the house we have to take back the senate but it's going to be more than that

and the solutions that we need are going to have to be about yes the immediate term but also a reconstruction of how we've been thinking about how we end up in a place like this and understanding it's about what happens at the local level, the statewide level, as well as what happens here in D.C.

Have you yourself felt with Letitia James being targeted?

There's many others, have you felt that you could be targeted, worried about being indicted?

Sure, of course.

For the people that are watching this on radio.

See what I just did there?

Yes, of course.

I just raised my hand.

So, right now, in this moment, if the Supreme Court isn't a guardrail, which it isn't, it hasn't been so far, what is in this moment, from a legal point of view, the guardrail that you see?

Just the people?

Well, no, it's the courts, of course.

From the legal perspective, it's the courts.

But when we talk about an overall system, it is not only the courts, especially when we know that if it goes to the highest court, which most of this litigation will,

we can count on this court basically telling this president he can do whatever he wants as the leader of the executive branch.

So, what can we do?

We can reinvest in the three co-equal branches of government and hope that where the courts fail, if it goes to the highest court, that we at least at another branch have a Congress, but we can also see that we've had complicit legislators who are Republicans and know what is wrong about this and are not stepping up.

You know, I do believe there are a lot of people who know what's wrong with this, don't agree with it, even though they vote a certain way.

But they are living in fear of retribution and more invested in their own political survival than speaking up and taking the hits that might come.

Do they say that to you?

Do people say that to you?

You were colleagues with a lot of the people in the Senate, for example.

Well, you know, I look right now at what my former colleagues in the Senate are doing, and I praise them for having the ability to say that we are not going to compromise affordable health care for the American people.

What about the Republicans?

I know there are plenty of Republicans who know this is wrong, but they're not stepping up.

It's like these CEOs who know it is wrong.

I don't believe that the people who are flattering Donald Trump,

who are offering him favors, necessarily believe in what he is doing or believe it is right, but they want power.

And that's part of what we are dealing with right now.

They want power and they're not willing to compromise their power or access to power for the sake of the Constitution and our democracy.

They are feckless and they are self-interested because understand.

So many of, for example, those heads of industry who are doing it, they know what is wrong, but they want that merger to go through or they don't want to be investigated or they want to hold on to not that they're going to lose that house and the Hamptons and that yacht

but it's about power

and that's why I have always said and do believe that ultimately the power rests with the people look for example at what happened

Around, and by the way, did you see that Donald Trump just said, yeah, he's basically getting rid of free speech?

He said it.

He said a lot of things that he meant, including just that most recently.

But here's what happened: when he, as thin-skinned as he is, could not take the criticism of a political satirist,

the people spoke with the power of the purse, and Jimmy Kimmel is back on that stage.

We'll be back in a minute.

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So, we're going to get to the corporate, especially the tech executives, who you and I both know really well from being in California and especially San Francisco.

But I want to, something from the book.

You faced unique challenges simply because of who you are in many ways, besides the speed of what you had to do.

I want you to talk a little bit about

what you thought was the most complex part of running for president.

Was the time?

Was it being a woman?

What was it being a woman of color?

What, from your perspective, was the most difficult parts of those 107 days?

Well, I've always been a woman.

Yes.

And a woman of color, so that kind of is.

But it's the time.

It's the time.

I think that one of the biggest,

the thing that I was most acutely aware of was the time.

And that's why I named the book 107 Days.

And for those of you who have not yet read it, I basically wrote it like a journal.

Not every single of the 107 days, but many of them.

So it's by date and what happened on particular days.

And I was acutely aware, as I have talked about, my prayer every night was, God, please let me have done everything I could possibly do in this one day.

I mean, I traveled several states in a day.

I couldn't do enough.

And

that was probably the most

time constraint in doing what?

Didn't people get not getting to know you enough?

Not what?

No, it's not that simple.

I mean,

it's about, yes, getting to know me and my background and what I've done and

the fact that I was elected district attorney for two terms as the first woman elected Attorney General of the state of California.

Ran the second largest Department of Justice in the United United States, second only to the United States Department of Justice.

I was a United States Senator, second black woman elected in the history of the United States Senate.

And I was the first woman vice president of the United States.

So

there are those things that I needed to make sure that people knew.

That is a decent

decent resume, but go ahead.

But there.

Well, some people have actually said I was the most qualified candidate ever to run for president.

I like the some people say very nice, but go ahead.

I'm just speaking fact.

Yeah.

But for example,

I discuss in the timeline

we had policy work to do

that was about letting people know where I stood on the fact that I wanted to make sure that, for example, it was my intention, and I know there are a lot of beautiful public servants here today, some of who are not,

have been let go over the last several months, and some of who are furloughed.

And I thank you all for your service and everything that you do.

And if we can just applaud those who are here.

But, for example, one of the things that I intended to do was, as

the president,

we then have the largest workforce, right, is the federal government.

And I intended to figure out a way to reclassify job descriptions by skill, not just by college degree.

And then to challenge the private sector to do the same.

Because I do believe as we think about the future of work, that is how we should think, and not just think that only someone with a college degree has the skills to perform the job in a way that adds value to all of us.

The work that we wanted to do around $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, and I could go on and on.

It took time for people to hear those things.

One of the things that was very popular,

and we knew that, and every day it was gaining around people knowing about my policy, was around having Medicare cover home health care.

It was very popular when people learned about it because when my mother was sick, I helped take care of her.

And I was blessed and fortunate enough to have a job where I could leave work to do that

and get paid.

And but there are so many families, especially if you're in the sandwich generation, raising young children and taking care of an elder relative that you just can't afford to do it.

And my policy was to cover it, have Medicare cover it.

The more people found out about that, the more they understood that it related to an immediate need of theirs.

But there just wasn't enough time.

You know, as many people have heard, people need to hear the same thing at least three times before it sinks in.

That's about time.

I'm curious, did you think a primary would have done that if they had done a primary and you weren't it depends on when the primary would have been.

Right.

But no, not with 107 days.

When were you going to do a primary?

Right.

I invite, listen, I go through

on July 21st when I got the call from Joe Biden, and just to set the scene for those of you who haven't yet read it, I was in my sweats

on a carpet on the floor with my baby nieces six and eight doing a puzzle,

having just made pancakes

and I promised them lots of bacon and sausage for Sunday brunch.

I had been the night before.

in Provincetown, P-Town, which they named V P-Town

for

a fundraiser for the Biden-Harris ticket.

And I got in late that night, and I promised the kids who were staying with us, my niece and her husband and their children, that I would do pancakes the next morning.

And so we did.

And that's where I was with the kids when I got Joe Biden's call.

And

the challenge that we had from that day forward was having enough time.

Sure.

And you noted that because you wanted them to endorse you immediately.

You had that discussion with Steve Roschetti.

But I told all those people I called, I talked to over 100 people that day.

And I told everyone who wanted to know,

if you want to have some process, this is the process.

I'm calling everybody to ask for their support.

Anybody else who wants to jump in, come on in.

And nobody did.

So do you...

When you think you're noting time is the issue.

One of the things you talked about was was also media and the social media and getting out there and getting these messages out there, which Trump is very good at.

He really is quite good at those things.

You and I talked about it, and I think at the time I said you need to be promiscuous the way Trump is on social media,

in other ways, possibly too.

But you wrote in the book,

which I noted, that you wanted the first interview to be flawless.

Talk about

that.

In getting out these messages, were you too cautious?

you wish you what would you wish you had done differently or perhaps not at all I mean I know a lot was made of the Rogan thing I think he played you honestly

when you think about what you did what would is flawless better or maybe not so flawless

well

I I talk about this in the book, as you know.

Yeah.

And I talk about what I thought I could have done differently.

But listen,

my standard for myself has always been that I have to be flawless.

I won't always be, and I know that.

But I'm very clear about what my standard for myself has to be.

Because it was a great word.

Let me finish.

And I know.

Let me finish.

Oh, you did that.

And I know the standard by which I will be judged.

Right.

So, you know, this connects to the question you asked me earlier.

I'm very clear about that, and I'm sure it's a shared experience for many people here,

which is

we know know the standard by which we will be judged and

just clear-eyed about that.

So, yeah, that's the standard I hold myself to.

I know I am not flawless, and I certainly am not perfect.

Can you talk a little bit more about that in terms of why you feel that when so much of politics isn't that?

No, I just curious:

when you think about doing that and politics has degenerated, is that

has things have things changed from your perspective?

No.

Okay.

No, no.

No.

Is that her answer?

No.

I mean, things have definitely degenerated.

I agree with that.

And

I mean, the floor has just, I don't know that there is a floor right now.

Part of what I have

thought about and discuss is

Again, when we look at where we are now, it did not just happen overnight.

Part of what I discuss is that if you look at a pattern that was starting to set in,

think of it in terms of Ronald Reagan's celebrity,

Newt Gingrich's base level of discourse, Pat Buchanan's nativism, and then look at where we are now.

So there are connections to be seen that one can argue pointed out to us had we at least more clarity around it from hindsight that this this is where it was going

and this is where we are and it is it has been reduced to a level where

there's really apparently no desire to have real discourse or debate based on merit and fact

Not to mention, as you and I have discussed extensively, the rampant amount of mis and disinformation that is so very difficult to get in front of.

Part of what I would offer all of us is to really reflect on the fact that

there are many disagreements to be had by people that voted differently than us in that last election, but let's please not make an assumption that we're working with the same set of facts.

And that's something that we need to grapple with.

And again, when we go back to what are the solutions, well, that is, that won't end what's happening right now out of the White House, but it is part of the solution going forward, is to reflect on what is the power of the people of each one of us to really be intentional and conscious about the rampant amount of mis and disinformation.

And

with the facts that we know, how can we engage our neighbors, our family members, our friends in a way that is productive to make sure that we're all working with the same set of facts.

Because that's going to be, that is part of what what I believe is our undoing and will be a continuing source of our vulnerability as a nation

if we don't all participate in addressing that issue of misindication.

Which is something we've talked about a lot.

Is the prevalence of misinformation and now with the tech executives sort of sucking, not sort of, sucking up to Trump rather egregiously.

I want to get to them in a second because you and I have talked about that a lot.

I remember one of the last discussions we had when you were at the White House was when you were headed for the AI summit in Britain.

But let's talk a little bit about this because the person who is the most pernicious purveyor of this is has been President Trump, leading up, and you're right, to go from especially Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich.

It just moves its way up.

But we'll start with an expert question from someone who has a very unique insight into

President Trump, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Good, take a look.

Oh,

hello, Kamala.

Well,

you're on stage with Kara Swisher, and she invited me to ask you a question.

So really, I want to know this.

I debated Trump three times.

You debated him once.

He wouldn't debate you again.

We beat him four times.

Do you think we're the reason he is so unhinged today?

Oh,

all right.

She enjoyed doing that.

I talk about Hillary in the book too

with great admiration and

love and respect.

Yeah, I mean, he is, no doubt he is unhinged.

And Secretary Clinton

did the work in her debates of demonstrating that, as I attempted to do in my debate with him.

we have

in this president the most, not one of, the most

callous,

corrupt, and incompetent individuals that has ever occupied that White House.

And unhinged is the least of the concerns that I have, but

it ranks right up there.

And,

you know,

the debate, look, I mean,

okay, so part of it is, so what happened was.

So

debate camp, which was really intense.

And then we get to

Philly and my team,

and it's Kirsten Allen, who many people here may know, and Brian Fallon.

And they're getting me ready and they're like, hey, boss.

So we saw Donald Trump coming off the plane, coming to the debate.

And Laura Loomer was on the plane with him.

And so, they basically say to me, We didn't tell you, but she's been talking about people eating cats and dogs.

I was like, What?

And they said, We think we need to tell you because

his propensity is to say the last thing he heard.

And sure enough, on the debate stage, he's sitting.

He's sitting.

And they were ready.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

I was prepped, but not really.

Unhinged.

Okay.

Now, one of the things you do write in the book was about the appealing side of him.

You sort of turn it over, like, what is it?

Yeah.

Talk about what you think that is, and then the change, because there's been a, well he's always been awful but is there has there been a change from your perspective because you didn't talk about it you had to share facts look I don't I don't know the man more than anybody else here I debated him

I shake his hand at the debate because I always shake somebody's hand when I first meet them

but I do talk about the conversations that he and I had and I talk about Jekyll and Hyde.

Yeah, you said you had to remind yourself that he was a con man.

Because during this brief conversation,

he sounded very normal.

Right?

I mean,

so it's

I don't,

yeah, that's what con men do.

I mean, look,

so when I first got in the race after July 21st, we had to go at least about two weeks without any any polling, right?

So it was just my gut about what we should do.

And so I started giving this speech that I came up with.

And Adam Frankl is here, has always been part of my team and helping me get my thoughts together.

And

basically, I said, you know, I've been a DA, so I have prosecuted these kinds of things.

And when I was Attorney General, I took on fraud.

And I said, so basically, so all of those qualifications, so I know his type.

So I do know his type.

And therefore, I know that he is not unlike a con man,

that he can turn it on and he can turn it off.

But whatever he's doing, it's for his own well-being and to take care of himself.

Let's be clear about that.

Let's be clear about what he is doing to monetize this presidency for himself.

Let's be clear about the fact that he is in many ways compromising national security when he is taking a plane from a foreign government.

I call it, you know, you might call it a luxury jet.

I call it a Trojan horse.

It's so that's what conmen do.

But this con man happens to be President of the United States,

making decisions

that are

in such a tremendous way injuring the people of our nation and our standing around the world.

Have you noticed a change more recently or in this administration?

Obviously, there's a difference between the administrations, but have you noticed that or not?

Or it's the same administration, just more explicitly corrupt?

I think it's more experienced to know the levers.

And

that is part of what we are witnessing.

And then, but but again, to your earlier point,

compounded by the Supreme Court telling him he could do whatever he wants.

So there's no,

this is part of what we talked about in 107 days and everywhere, including on the ellipse that night,

which is

everything is basically suggesting there will be no accountability for anything he does in office.

That's why Mike Pence wasn't running with him and he got this other guy who would rubber stamp everything he does and hope that he'll be the successor.

You've got a court that has said you can do anything and get away with it.

You have a Congress that is bending the knee.

And so they came in, unlike, you know, before there was a vice president who stood up.

There was a chief of staff in Kelly, Mark Milley.

who would have, I'm sure, said, you cannot turn the United States military on the streets of America like what they're doing right now in Chicago with Blackhawks in the cities of America.

There were guardrails within the administration and external to the administration.

Right.

All gone.

These are people who know the level.

Now the administration is obviously

staffed by sycophants.

It feels very sycophantic.

Some of them like Russell Vogt, very effective.

Others, Pam Bondi, Brandon Carr, Stephen Miller, seem unhinged.

Carr seems to have overstepped with Kimmel and has moved back slightly.

Bondi is getting pushed back over Epstein.

Miller,

I don't know what to say.

Is there a way for Democrats to publicize their hackery and fanaticism and use it strategically?

Or is it just they know the levers and can and he's found people willing to pull them, like in Virginia with Letitia James?

We have to continue to highlight the corruption and the literally the violation of rule of law and all the and all of the the essence and spirit behind rule of law and the Constitution of the United States.

Free speech, free association, just freedom, period.

But

we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Right.

Part of

how I think about it is we do have to understand that there are, I think, a fair number of people people that voted for Donald Trump

because they believed him when he said he'd bring down prices.

They believed him.

He lied,

which is why the cost of groceries is up, unemployment is up.

And

part of then chewing and walking gum and chewing at the same time is as Democrats, we also have to emphasize what our plan is immediately for bringing down the cost of everyday life.

And all of those things have to happen at the same time.

We'll be back in a minute.

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So, one of the groups that had been effective and heinous at the same time is the tech moguls.

They were in the front row of the inauguration in front of the cabinet itself, in front of legislators and elected officials.

Elon Musk has said Trump wouldn't have won without him, and you say it's entirely possible his money was a deciding factor.

You also wrote, quote, our democracy shouldn't belong to the world's richest man.

Unfortunately, they are quite influential now, and they're right there

and getting all the juicy bits, right down to the recent TikTok deal, which they got at a massive discount.

How do you stop these tech billionaires from deciding future elections?

Because now they're starting to buy into all the media.

They certainly control the algorithm, et cetera, et cetera.

We can't, and I say this with all due respect

to my former colleagues in the United States Congress.

I believe at this point, whatever guardrails there are on the abuse of technology,

it will not come out of Congress.

You know, we've been talking forever about Section 230.

It ain't going nowhere.

It's just not.

We keep talking about it.

It's going nowhere.

And if we can't expect the guardrails on the abuse to come from the industry itself, although I must say that there are plenty of people, you and I both know this, within the industry who do agree with you and I and all of us that there should be guardrails.

But those at the highest level, if they are unwilling, and they clearly are, to self-impose

any requirement that they actually pay attention to the truth and do anything about reducing the amount of mis- and disinformation that is being spread, then we have to think about what other power centers are there.

If it's not going to come from Congress, if it's not going to come from the courts, especially because what are the courts going to enforce if the laws aren't there?

It doesn't come from the industry.

I say, and as a former attorney general in particular, having had two jobs, I was the top cop of the biggest state, and I was also the primary protector of consumers.

The other place of power, the center of power, I do believe, are the consumers.

Just again, back to the Kimmel example, people voting with their pocketbook.

The challenge there, Kara, around the consumers putting their foot down and saying, enough, this has to stop, you need to change, is we have work to do, all of us here, to help

increase the amount of information that is available about the connection between the abuses and the harm to everyday folks.

And that's the work that needs to be done.

The work that needs to be done is something that any parent or anyone who is parenting a child knows around the harm of social media to our children.

And AI going forward.

And AI going forward, right.

You know, I spent a lot,

the majority of my career as a courtroom prosecutor focused on abuse of children.

And what we're seeing now in terms of the use of social media and technology

is being applied to something that has happened always and we need to deal with the fact that social media is just making it easier and we need to figure out how we're going to help inform the public about how social media can be used in a way that harms our children so that we can as consumers say we're not going to buy your product or we're going to put pressure on you to conform to what we know is in the best interest of the safety.

The problem is you have to use it for work.

It is also the communication system, now the media system, and it's addictive.

I think that's the difficulty of getting off of it, right?

Because you're now so stuck in.

Let me ask you as a former person.

Yeah, but that's the same thing somebody said about tobacco.

Yeah, exactly.

Right?

But at some point, it is.

So we're not going to rely on the people who are doing the harm to tell us, oh, you're addicted.

It's about us saying that we know the addiction can occur, and we're going to require you to stop pushing stuff

that harms the people, and in particular, our children.

In particular, our children.

As a former senator from California,

you

had had a lot of relations with tech leaders and spent most of your life in the Bay Area.

And so you had a window into these people.

Were you surprised by this heel turn toward Trump, this sharp heel turn?

Even Bill Gates, who gave $50 million to a nonprofit backing your campaign, said the election was unprecedented significance, recently thanked Trump on camera for his incredible leadership.

You saw that dinner, didn't you?

I was, to answer your question directly,

I was surprised.

And the speed with which they did it.

I was surprised.

And

people are showing themselves to be blatantly, unapologetically transactional.

Who have you been most surprised by of all those leaders?

All of them.

Every one of them.

All of them.

All of them who,

again, I go back to my point.

I do believe, they're not unintelligent.

They are not uneducated.

So they do know about

the principles and

the values that we have in terms of free speech and everything else that's about a democracy.

And they can see what all of us are seeing every day.

They're not blind.

They're transactional.

They're transactional.

You know, at one point when I was talking to one of them and I said, if Kamala Harris had become president, you would have suddenly called yourself they them

or whatever it took.

They will do whatever it takes to get what they want.

I wouldn't have required them to do that.

Of course you wouldn't.

But I mean, here is the thing:

and that's too bad

that we are existing in a world where some of the most powerful people in the world

are not understanding that

what you do matters.

Right.

I've always asserted that it's because they've never felt unsafe a day in their lives.

A lot of them, right.

And

they aren't unsafe even now in a lot of ways.

Or they're protecting themselves to be so.

I mean, define safety.

Right.

Right.

Here's part of this dynamic that you raise is also a dynamic where they, meaning, okay, talk about they, them,

are

they're gaslighting and scapegoating,

but gaslighting the American people to suggest that your predicament

is, your predicament is to blame on the powerless.

Instead of the powerful.

Right.

Look at what they're doing.

They're basically saying to folks, you have less because of people who have even less than you.

That's what they're doing.

And part of, again,

communicating with our friends and our neighbors to at least help us all see what's happening and how we're being manipulated is to see just that, that they're deflecting.

from the responsibility of the powerful

by pointing fingers and blaming people who are relatively powerless.

All these attacks on immigrants, these DEI attacks, all of that.

And that's part of the truth telling that we all have to do right now is to point out that there are a whole lot of very powerful people that actually could do something.

Which they won't, just in case you're interested.

Who aren't?

They will not.

They love to cheer for the overdog, as they say.

What's ahead for the country's future, and especially the Democratic Party's role in it?

Talk a little bit about that, what we were talking about: the idea of where you keep talking about consumers being the strength, voters being the strength.

You're seeing it as a prosecutor, you're seeing juries not or not convicting people.

Here in D.C., it happens several times.

Right, the grand juries, yeah.

So, what I'm seeing is

a lot of people on edge.

What I'm seeing is that we're nine months in and

folks are

rested.

Plenty of us, I will speak for myself, stopped watching cable news for quite some time

and

are now

rested and

ready to get back in the streets.

That folks are you know the people I'm talking with who for example have read the book are are Remembering and are talking with each other about

Let's get back that thing that we had because it's still in us

You know in terms of how people are thinking about the Democratic Party look I think part of

what is

frustrating about some of the punditry about it all and the future of the Democratic Party is this whole savior complex.

I'm kind of bored with it.

This idea that there will be one savior who will come down to rally right now and we will all be saved.

That person's not on earth right now.

You know what I'm saying?

But more importantly, I must say,

we have so many stars in the party.

We have so many stars.

And let's focus on that instead of who is the one to the point that it's just a circular conversation.

Instead of seeing

at a local

mayor's to attorneys general to governors to members of Congress.

Well, name some of those stars.

What do you see?

It's not a singular person.

Baltimore is here right now.

He's one of them.

Where is he?

wait is where

where

he's here

where are

there he is

yeah

Jasmine Crockett

Robert Garcia

I could go through the list of all the Democratic governors right now.

I just talked to J.B.

Pritger, right?

My governor, Gavin Newsom.

I mean, there are so many who are doing great things.

And so

let's share

the understanding that we are not without fighters.

We're not without fighters.

And

what do those people share that you just named?

Is it fighting?

What do you think is necessary?

I think they are in it for the right reasons.

They're not just looking in the mirror every day.

They're for the people and looking out for the people.

When you think about the most critical element of those things, looking out for the people would be the number one thing.

If you don't mind, I'm going to ask you to assess some of the Republicans, just briefly.

I'm going to go through a quick list.

J.D.

Vance, I want one or two words.

I don't do that.

You don't do it.

All All right, okay, all right.

All right, okay.

Well,

talk about your own goals going forward.

The inevitable, are you running for president in 2028?

Maybe, maybe not.

Maybe, maybe not.

Correct.

Maybe, maybe not.

Okay.

Let's do a thought experiment.

It's January 2029.

You've just been inaugurated as president.

You knew I'd get you on this one.

What are your top priorities in the first?

I want to talk about two things: the policies you'd undo, and actually what you would do.

It's much too early to have that conversation, Clara.

I literally yesterday would not have known that this Department of Justice would have indicted the New York Attorney General.

But I'll go back to an earlier point.

I do believe that part of the responsibility right now for the Democratic Party

is we really do have to deal with the immediate needs of the American people.

I actually, in reflection, one of the things I would have done differently, and I talk about a few things, but one of them on this topic, I really do think we should have done

the families piece of Buildback better

before we did the infrastructure and the CHIPS Act.

It was good, good work.

That was good work, the infrastructure.

The CHIPS Act all was very good work, but it didn't address immediate needs.

In the family care piece of it, it was the extension of the child tax credit.

It was affordable child care.

It was paid leave.

And

I think we have to just be clear-eyed about the fact that we need to deal with the immediate and long-term issues, both of which are the climate crisis, for example.

And we have to really prioritize immediate needs.

Because I think that is one of the main issues on which people vote.

So let's just be clear-eyed and practical about that.

So you wrote this about your concession speech.

While I would concede this election, while I would engage in the peaceful transfer of power that distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, I would not concede the fight that fueled my campaign.

So I'd like to hear you talk about that fight to end this, and what does it look like for you?

And mostly,

what can Americans do to push back

this march towards autocracy?

I think we're already in it, but that's the phrase people use, this march towards autocracy.

And there was a question that came in online when I asked what I should ask you.

What does that look like for your nieces in their 30s?

Yeah, I think about that all the time.

Right.

So talk about that fight.

So,

one, it's about elections, and that means

focusing on the part of this administration and what it's highlighted is what has been a long-standing issue about how they will weaponize law enforcement even at the local level.

So that's about sheriff's elections, that's about DA's elections, state's attorneys' elections, attorneys general elections, governors' elections.

We have two governor's races happening right now.

Let's all put our resources and time into that

and take nothing for granted.

No matter how good our candidates are, take nothing for granted.

and put our resources into it.

So it's about elections.

It's about

one of the issues, again, that we are are seeing happen every day that we have some power over.

They want to threaten with lawsuits are nonprofit organizations.

They're going after them.

They're literally suggesting that

human rights organizations, civil rights organizations should be the subject of litigation and prosecution.

Let's go and volunteer at those organizations.

Right now, they are so strapped, whether it be an organization that is doing civil rights work, immigrants' rights work, tenants' rights work,

working on climate, they're so strapped right now.

That's the kind of work we do so we can build back up those advocacy organizations that when we get back in power will be part of our version of Project 2025.

It is the work that we need to do.

I cannot stress this enough.

Run for school board and encourage people to do that.

How they have weaponized, and this has been again years in the making, DeSantis in Florida, we saw it happening.

And now they're trying to get rid of the Department of Education and Head Start

and free lunches.

Let's get

parents who understand, yes, parents rights

to say what's happening and to enforce putting resources into our public schools and teaching children history as it occurred instead of this revisionist

you know so there is that kind of work that needs to happen I go back to the point about consumers rights let's pay attention to which corporation and which

industry are you know doing things that we don't like and Figure out how we vote with our pocketbook in those areas.

Run for office.

Encourage people that you know who want to do something based on a solution to a problem to run for office.

There are these things that we can do that include

another issue.

We have a massive amount of distrust in our country right now.

A distrust that the people have in our government and our systems.

I think largely

fueled by also the distrust that so many people rightly had after the pandemic about the system just failing them.

And but we also have an extraordinary amount of distrust right now between the American people.

Americans don't trust each other right now.

And it's

more than I don't, I'm gonna lock my door at night.

Americans don't trust

that

someone else is not out to harm them,

that someone else is not out to threaten their very existence.

And that's real.

And we have some deep work to do that's about building back up to that trust between the people

and between the people and our government and our systems.

And part of the responsibility for the government is we actually need to do a better job.

There's going to be a lot of debris

when this administration is done.

There's going to be a lot of broken stuff.

And part of what I write about is

when it comes time then

to be about rebuilding and hopefully transformation, let's not be too nostalgic.

Because it's not like what we had before was that perfect either.

And a a lot of it was broken and needs to be fixed.

Right?

So both.

Both rebuild and

remain.

And reform and reinvent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not reinvent, invent.

Yeah, and invent.

Yes.

You called yourself a joyful warrior in your campaign.

How would you describe yourself right now?

I'm still a joyful warrior.

Man.

Would you add anything else?

No, I am,

you know, emphasis on warrior.

But no, listen, I think we fight for something.

More than anything, we are fighting for something.

And we are not going to do it in a way that we don't allow ourselves a moment to have a good laugh or sing a song or dance

or love or enjoy anything that brings that enjoyment.

These things are consistent with one another.

The fight is consistent with allowing yourself something that feeds your heart and your soul and your spirit.

That's what the fight is.

I'll end it with this.

I ended every rally

with

the call and and response, when we fight, we win.

And on, and Adam was with me, Kirsten, everybody was with me.

So we know the outcome of the election, and it was an awful night.

And there were so many people that were at Howard that night.

We all thought we were going to have a victory speech.

And we asked everybody to come back the next day, and I needed to give a different speech.

And I had to reconcile in my head, and for everyone who would be there, how do I reconcile that I kept saying, especially to our young people, I kept saying, when we fight, we win.

How do I help them understand

that this is not as trite as, oh, you win some, you lose some?

And then on the way to Howard, I actually wrote in,

but the fight takes a while sometimes.

And that's it.

Sometimes the fight takes a while.

So knowing that we we have to have that level of endurance and we need some sustenance,

let's allow ourselves to be joyful and to fight.

Knowing that we can make a difference, knowing that we're not going to let any one election or circumstance or individual dampen our spirit.

and our sense of optimism.

They cannot defeat our spirit if we don't let them.

If they do, they're winning and they're not winning if we don't let them.

Today's show was produced by Christian Castro-Roussel, Kateri Yoakum, Michelle Aloy, Megan Burney, Kaylin Lynch, and Devin Schwartz.

Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts.

Special thanks to Rosemary Ho and Katherine Barner.

This episode was engineered by Aaliyah Jackson, and our theme music is by Trackademics.

If you're already following the show, you don't have to worry about your circumcision.

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Thanks for listening to On With Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us.

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