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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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As President Trump considers striking Iran, Kara talks to Nicolle Wallace — host of MSNBC’S Deadline: White House and the new podcast The Best People. 

They unpack President Trump’s mixed messaging on Iran and his growing credibility gap with the American public, the political calculus behind his domestic shows of force, and the disturbing rise of political violence in America. Plus, a look back at the 2008 presidential campaign and a candid conversation about how journalists can remain relevant in a rapidly shifting media landscape. 

Please note: This conversation was recorded on the morning of Tuesday, June 17th, before Senator Mike Lee deleted his heinous posts on X about the assassinations in Minnesota, and before President Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” on Truth Social.

Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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“Democrats in disarray” is more than just a trope — after last year’s disastrous elections, Democrats are openly fretting about how to pull the party out of its crisis. Kara speaks to a panel of millennial leaders about how to rejuvenate it; what role the generational divide plays in policy and agenda setting; and what Democrats need to do to win back younger voters (and older ones, too).

Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) was first elected to Congress in 2022. He is the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and he’s currently part of the “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

Amanda Litman is a co-founder of Run for Something, an organization that helps young, diverse progressives run for down-ballot races. Since its founding in 2017, Run for Something has helped elect nearly 1,500 candidates in 49 states and the District of Columbia – including more than 250 candidates in 2024, 18 of whom flipped their seats from red to blue. Litman’s new book, “When We’re in Charge: The Next Generation’s Guide to Leadership” was just published.

Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) was elected to the House last year, and she is the first openly transgender elected member of Congress. She is also member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a former Delaware state senator, and a Run For Something alum. Her campaign and first few months in office (which included being banned from using the women’s bathroom in the Capitol) is the subject of a new documentary “State of Firsts,” which just played at the Tribeca Film Festival and DC/DOX.

Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram, TikTok and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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After reportedly speaking to President Trump on the phone, Elon Musk took to Twitter, on Wednesday, to say he regrets “some” of his tweets about President Trump — but that doesn’t mean all is forgiven. As the dust settles on last week’s cross-platform showdown, the long-term consequences from the breakup of the world’s richest man and its most powerful one are just beginning to emerge.

So, Kara gathered a panel of four expert guests to unpack how the feud ignited, who holds the most leverage, why a ceasefire took place, if it’ll last, and what it all means for the future of tech, politics and power. 

Henry Blodget is the co-founder and former CEO of and editor-in-chief of Business Insider. Before that, he was a tech analyst on Walls Stree. You can find him on Substack at Regenerator. 

Kirsten Grind is an investigative business reporter at The New York Times, the author of two books, and the winner of more than a dozen national awards. 

Kristen Soltis Anderson is a pollster, contributing Opinion writer for The New York Times, author, and co-founder of Echelon Insights.

Rick Wilson is a former Republican political strategist and ad-make. He is a co-founder of the Lincoln Project and you can find him on Substack or listen to his podcast The Enemies List.

Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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For the past five decades, every Republican president except Gerald Ford has tried to cut funding for public media. But NPR and PBS have never dealt with a moment like this, where the Trump administration is attacking them from every possible angle. A recent executive order demanded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (or CPB) and executive agencies halt all funding for NPR and PBS; the FCC is investigating their corporate underwriting; and this week, the House is expected to take up a rescissions package that would claw back federal funding for the CPB.

Katherine Maher, the CEO of NPR, is fighting back. On May 27th, NPR and three Colorado member stations filed a suit challenging the president’s executive order. (PBS followed suit a few days later.) Suing the president is, obviously, an uncomfortable position for a media organization which has to cover him. But according to Maher, NPR is doing its patriotic duty to defend the First Amendment.

Kara and Maher discuss the potential effects the defunding would have on NPR, its member stations, and the communities that it serves; criticisms aimed at NPR and Maher, from both conservatives, on one hand, and some journalists, on the other; and her approach to innovation at NPR.

Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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From media moguls to tech billionaires, Oscar-nominated and Emmy award-winning writer, producer and director Jesse Armstrong knows how to tap into the psyche of the rich and powerful. In the “Succession” creator’s new HBO movie, “Mountainhead,” a tech-bro poker weekend turns into a life-or-death battle over who will control the future — in both business and the real world.

From their isolated lair in Utah, four millionaire/billionaire friends (played by Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef) watch as deepfakes created on one of their platforms lead to massacres, assassinations, and government takeovers around the world. This sparks the friends’ imperialistic fantasies and some unfriendly inter-group competition.

Kara talks to writer-director Jesse Armstrong about the real-world inspirations for these characters, how tech founders think about their own role in society, and whether the tech oligarchy has replaced legacy media giants like Rupert Murdoch.

Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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