High Stakes with HRC: The Blue Wave Episode

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1:45Cheers. You look great in blue, I'll tell you. I'm loving my blue wave outfit. Hi, everyone. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Hillary Clinton. And welcome back to High Stakes from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Are we doing the glasses today, Hillary? We are. Well, I think we should start with them because it's such a special occasion. Yes, explain. And I actually have a pair of blue, I mean, really, really blue sunglasses. Wow, where'd you get them? Oh, my gosh. I've had them probably since before you were born. Oh, I did. I've had them a really long time. You had a long time. Well, let me just say, the reason you're wearing those blue glasses and you're wearing a blue coat and I'm wearing a blue sweater,

2:34when you joined us on the first night of Pivot Tour on Monday, you said we were going to wake up to a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. You called it, so, Madam Secretary, has the pussy finally grabbed back? With all claws. I mean, we are so ready to get this show on the road. We have a lot to get to, but give me your top level thoughts, your initial top level thoughts. This is a total rebuke of Donald Trump and his cult and the many wrongheaded evil policies that he's inflicted on us and the world. But it's also a real tribute to Democratic candidates and the campaigns they ran and how strong they were on the main issues of affordability and corruption. So I am thrilled on both counts.

3:35I think we had to finally lift the poisonous cloud that Trump has put over our heads for the last 10 long years. But we also now have a new crop of very exciting public servants from, you know, state legislatures and state houses to the Congress. You're in a lot of the memes. These AI videos have been all over the Internet and of Democrats singing and dancing. I think we should take that on the road. There's a lot of them. And they were trying to make fun of you at first, but now they're selling. Do you mind your AI slop that you get everywhere? I have seen a lot of them and more have been sent to me and I get a big kick out of it. It's one of the few good uses so far that I've seen AI put to.

4:11So I'm all in favor. So I want to set the scene for us. What is a watch party like at the Clinton House? Where were you on election day? Scott and I, I will say, were in Canada and we were seeking asylum in case it didn't go our way. So we were all set. We got, no, we did, but we didn't need it because we then flew back to the U.S. and it was a completely different United States because we were on stage. The only thing we had heard that was John Ossoff, Hotlanta, had won early. What happened with you? Well, we are both really superstitious, so we were invited to a bunch of watch parties in New York, and we respectfully declined so that we could stay together and watch the television and pace around and call people and get texts and emails and cheer and hold our fingers and our toes crossed as tightly as we could.

5:00Just you. I'm assuming it's you and your husband. Yeah, me and Bill. That's it. We are our own watch party. We've been doing this for a very long time. I am somebody who, if it looks like the numbers are going down, I leave the room temporarily because I think it'll, you know, make the numbers better. And then I'll come back or I'll yell to Bill, are we getting, you know, are we getting back into better territory? Like a horror movie, right? Yeah, like exactly a horror movie. I don't want to watch any horror movies. I've seen so many. Yes. So who are you texting with? You know, we're texting with our friends. We're texting with, you know, people we know who are counting the numbers, looking at the data.

5:37We are constantly, and Bill especially, is trying to get every number he can get, you know, calling people. What does this mean? Where are these votes coming from? He went down to Mississippi to campaign for that fabulous candidate who, fingers crossed, is going to be the next senator, Scott Colombe. He went down on Friday. They asked him to come Friday and kind of be a closer. He went to Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis Presley. So it was quite— As the right people know. 100%. It was quite the event. And so, you know, he the right people know. So many of the people running and we're cheering them on. And last, you know, last Tuesday night was made up for a lot of sadder nights over the last years.

6:30When did you realize it was truly a blue wave? Because you, as you say, you've been on the other end of I thought I was winning and then I was not winning. Yes. Like in that kind of thing. So when, what point did you realize? What was the, what was the, was it Lauren Boebert's in trouble? Was it, was it? Let's have a moment. Max Miller. Oh, there's so many ha-ha-has. Where did you realize? It was like around 11, and some of the early races were being called. Obviously, as you said, John Ossoff was among the very first. Josh Shapiro was called early. That was not a surprise. But, you know, they were all expected. And so part of it was holding on. And I have to say, I mean, even though it was really trending in our direction, you know, I had done a lot of work over the last year on protecting our elections. And as late as Sunday, I was talking to, you know,

7:27Congressman Joe Morrell, who the next speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, put in charge of protecting elections. Sunday morning, we were kind of going over, well, what'll happen if this happens, and are we ready? And so I was waiting for some other giant shoe to drop. I kept thinking, wait, this is going too well. And that made me very nervous. What was the race? For me, it was Keisha Lance Bottoms. I was like, whoa, wait a minute. And I thought Tallarica would win. And Gina Hossa, when she was way ahead. And Annie Andrews in South Carolina. That was a big one. Yeah. But to me, it was the Georgia races, watching all the Georgia races come in the way they did and so overwhelmingly, which was really...

8:14Well, Kara, I assume you know this, but I'm not sure all of the listeners and viewers do. But, you know, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who is a friend of mine, I did a fundraiser for, I think she's terrific. She is the great-great-granddaughter of a slave. That's right. And in the election coverage in the Atlanta Constitution, I think it led with the fact that in the census, there was the record of her great-great-grandfather and who he was owned by back in the Confederacy. And to think about where we are today with her becoming governor of Georgia, it just gives me such goosebumps. And her dad was an amazing singer, too. Yeah. So there's a lot of firsts. You're talking about this. Minnesota sent the first Native woman to the Senate. Right. I was with

9:02Amy Klobuchar last night, who's the new governor. I think she's the first woman governor of the state. I think that's right. She said that. New Hampshire elected the first openly gay man to the Senate. Georgia, as you said, elected its first woman governor, and the entire nation's, which I cannot believe this, first Black woman governor. Abdul El-Sayed became the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. It's like it's an astonishing situation here. How do you look at that? Because it's again, it was across the board, whether it was Kansas, Iowa and now Mississippi, of course, Montana. They have one representative that correct. And he he he won himself. He's he's kind of a dreamy firefighter

9:43guy. How do you look at that? Because diversity was sort of a dirty word, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Yeah, well, it roared back on election night because this was, I think it's absolutely fair to say, the most diverse slate of candidates we've ever elected in such a moment as this. And people who were proud of who they were, people like, you know, Chris Pappas, who called his husband up on stage. You know, you just saw the diversity of America and you saw how exciting it is to have people represent us who really understand, not just a narrow, tiny slice of the top one-tenth of one percent, the ballroom people, but, you know, America writ large across our beautiful, diverse country. I was thrilled. And

10:34the more I look at the results and the more that, you know, results are finally coming in, because not every election yet has been called. It's Mississippi and Alaska are the two big ones. Yeah, Alaska, Mississippi. There are some races in California because, you know, they have a lot of votes to count and it takes them a while. But, you know, really the message has to be that, and I think John Ossoff or James Tallarico, maybe both of them, you know, said, e pluribus unum, you know, out of many, one, we are one nation under God, indivisible, and look at the people that have been chosen to represent us. Yeah. Now, one of the things you pointed out, I noticed you were on, I follow you on social media in case you're interested. You wrote about all the women. Georgia, for example, all over the map, at least 17 women were elected to lead states as governors. That means one-third of all states are now run

11:26by women. And it was a huge night for Democratic women in the House. There are now over 100 women Democratic representatives. That beats the previous party record of 95. And, you know, I could not be happier. And a lot of these women are women that I know that some of them worked in my campaigns. I mean, I am thrilled. Yeah. A hundred women Democratic representatives. Let me this speech you gave. Do you remember this speech? The glass ceiling? Would you mind reading this? Because after losing the Democratic presidential primary to Barack Obama, Read what you wrote. Although we were not able to shatter that highest and hardest glass ceiling this year, thanks to you, it has 18 million cracks in it, and the light

12:12is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time, and we are going to keep working to make it so. Today, keep with me and stand for me. We still have so much to do together. We made history and let's make some more. That speech made me cry when you did it. And it was sort of like you still spun it forward versus, oh, poor me, like what Susan Collins right now is doing in Maine in her recent interview. Well, you know, I really remember that moment as a very emotional one, obviously. But also, I wanted to encourage other women to get into politics, to get into the arena. Make it possible for, you know, us to break that glass ceiling.

13:10We had 18 million cracks in it, but it hadn't shattered. And I'm so gratified, really, about the numbers of women who have called me, who come up to see me, who thank me for, you know, doing what I did, but also to continue myself to encourage them and to stay involved. Because, you know, you can't walk away. Once you lose, right? Yeah. If you really believe in what you're saying, if it's not just a performance and you really care about the country and what's going to happen to us, you know, you got to stay and fight for your values. And fighting for what's going to happen to us, you know, you've got to stay and fight for your values. And fighting for what's right is always worth it. Yeah. What's interesting is a lot of

13:50people wanted you to say, take some credit for it, which and Stacey Abrams is another person who was very early. There's a lot of people who fought, did not win necessarily, but sort of blazed the trail. When you were making that speech at the same time, I'd imagine I wouldn't have been able to make that speech. I'd have been like, you fuckers. You didn't vote for me. That kind of thing. I don't know. I don't know how you managed to do that. I want to give a shout out to Stacey Abrams, because I don't think we would have had the results in Georgia in the first place of electing John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock if it hadn't been for the organizing that Stacey did. And although she didn't win her election, she laid the groundwork through a lot of organizing for what came next, including, you is her home state where she grew up.

14:45So I view politics as a kind of endless relay race. And, you know, you run your race and you pass off that baton and you want to pass it off to a runner who's really ready to just go full out to try to win. Sometimes they do. sometimes they don't. But then that runner has an obligation to pass on the baton. And I think we've seen a lot of that. Beto O'Rourke in Texas, you know, he ran a campaign that fell short, but he never stopped, you know, speaking out, organizing. He was with Gina on the campaign trail. And Wendy, the state senator, Wendy in Texas also was part of Gina Hossa. Exactly. Yeah. And Wendy Davis. Davis, right. Yeah, 100%. And so people who really understand what's at stake, not just, you know, I want to run and, you know, hooray for me or poor

15:39me, depending upon the outcome. But no, I want to be part of this relay race. I want to be part of the foundation that builds a better future. I just really think that we had a lot of candidates running this time who understood that, Cara. And they got out there against the odds because who knew that this was going to happen? I mean, a year ago, when they started running, a lot of them had no idea this would be as big a victory. Yeah, absolutely not. Now, one of the things is this idea of relay race. I want to play a clip that's going viral. It's of Abdul El-Sayed talking about the impact a word from your husband had on his political career. It was his college graduation in 2007 where he was valedictorian and President Clinton was the commencement speaker. So let's

16:26listen to Abdul. I give my speech. President Clinton gives his speech. He like praises me in his speech. It was a real honor. It gets my dad to clap for me for the first time. I didn't even see it. He was in the audience. My parents told me, like my siblings told me about it afterwards. But after the speech, President Clinton comes up to me. He's like, son, you know, why are you going to medical school? Which is not a question people ask you when you go to medical school. I'm like, uh, Brown and Muslims, what we do. But also, I love people. I love science. I want to serve. And he said, that's great, but you got a gift for communicating. And maybe someday you'll run for office. Amazing. that kind of shows you what we mean by the relay race. My husband spotted talent, went out of his

17:06way to say something to him. Whether it was encouraging or not, we never could have known all these years later. What, 19 years later? It's something that the next senator from Michigan is talking about. It's that kind of commitment to the, you know, the service that I think should be at the forefront of what we're celebrating this election outcome. Now, you know, I have to say, Cara, the hard work starts now. As tough as the election was, now people have to govern. And that means they've got to put points on the board that actually respond to what people were voting for on affordability and corruption. Yeah, we're going to be talking about that next. When we get back, we'll talk about some of the biggest surprises and where we go next.

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18:33With Alloy, your best hair isn't behind you. Visit myalloy.com and use the code ONWITHKARA to get 20% off your first order. Your menopause specialized doctor will tailor your care to your needs. Plus you get $0 unlimited messaging with your doctor. That's M-Y-A-L-L-O-Y.com with a code on with Kara to get 20% off your first order. This code is valid on products only. Support for this show comes from Vanta. Okay, the Vanta story, I promised you. Vanta's co-founder and CEO is Christina Caccioppo. She was a product manager at Dropbox and saw how painful security compliance could be for startups trying to get secure and close deals. So she taught herself to code from books and started Vanta. Early on, she did that work by hand in spreadsheets. She even flew

19:25to Colorado to pull data for an auditor herself. I love a founder who does the hard part herself. And now Vanta does that work for you. Over 1,400 automated tests collect your compliance evidence and monitor your controls all year, cutting audit prep by 82%. And Vanta pays for itself in three months. Right now, new customers get $1,000 off. Request a demo at vanta.com slash Kara, K-A-R-A. That's vanta.com slash Kara. Support for this show comes from Mutual Care Now. You may have heard of the book, Bullies, Parasites, and Slaves by George Byron Koch about how the working poor and even middle class are exploited to subsidize the bullies and parasites up at the top. George is a senior vice president

20:14at Oracle and a feisty Anglican priest of 30 years making good trouble around the world. He tells the truth about who, when, where, and how in history and today. Now George's son, George August Koch, has written his own first book, Mutual Care Now, and how in history and today. Now George's son, George August Koch, has written his own first book, Mutual Care Now, about how to lead us out of exploitation into shared prosperity. Go to mutualcare.com to get your copies of both books, Bullies, Parasites, and Slaves, and Mutual Care Now, or text my name, Swisher, to 511-511 to receive an immediate link to get the books, paperback, e-books, or audio. That's Swisher, S-W-I-S-H-E-R, to 511-511 to get a link to the books and then give them to someone who

20:53might need them. Again, go to MutualCareNow.com or text my last name, Swisher, to 511-511. It's time to change our world together. Tax fees may apply. Madam Secretary, we're back. I know you were cautiously optimistic, but the results were better than a lot of us could even hope for. So far, as we've noted, Democrats flipped seven Senate seats and possibly more. Voters ousted Susan Collins out after 30 years. Texas elected its first Democratic governor since 1990. Go through some of the biggest surprises for you. Well, let's start with the down-ballot races, because I think we also flipped maybe 10, 11 state legislatures. Critical. Both because we took majority, but we also broke super majorities in a lot of places. We had margins that were shocking. If you had asked me three months ago,

21:49would we win by that kind of margin in Georgia or Texas? Would we win South Carolina? I mean, those were reaches. Those were not in the original pool of people that we thought could win. There were some races, particularly for Congress, where the Democrat was outspent 10, 20, 30, sometimes 50 to one. There's a race in North Carolina of a young woman who, you know, seven years ago was homeless. I think she spent $50,000 against $2 million. And she, you know, she came to victory. Now, some of it, I think you have to attribute to the quality, the perseverance, the gutsiness of all the candidates. But some of it is because there was a wave against Trump. And when you look at what Trump did in this campaign, he literally

22:47refused to take responsibility for the Iran war and the raising costs to the effects of the tariffs on people's cost of living. He just refused to admit that anything he has done for the last now nearly two years had any impact. And his closing argument was standing in front of the reflecting pool, one of the biggest failures of the administration. And then yesterday after the election, he was talking about the ballroom and everything he is building. He's not only lost the plot of being president, but the gears are slipping. It's where he's comfortable. It's where he's comfortable. He can't get out of his comfort zone. And look at the money that was spent. That's the other thing. Usually, if you are spending nearly $500 million, as Elon Musk did, you expect something for that

23:42money. And they were shut out. They did not win any of the races. Why is that? Is it because the corruption message, it was attached to the corruption message? And why did it work this time? Because everybody, you know, thinks politics are corrupt. That's not a new, fresh idea. But was it the money that made it feel even more corrupt because it was so massive or and then it looked like there's no reason you're spending that much money without wanting something? I think it was all of the above. I think in a way, the publicity about Trump and his family and his associates making so much money finally broke through because it was undeniable. He actually had to write it down in his financial disclosure form. It was also because data centers really woke people up

24:29about the larger challenges that tech poses. And Elon was the poster boy of abusing his position, throwing his money around. And finally, it just sunk in on people. But the other point I wanted to add, Cara, is the real template for doing this came from the election in Hungary earlier this year, because there had been a lot of efforts to defeat Orban over the last 10 years, which had failed. But what Peter Magyar, who led the opposition and eventually won, figured out is he had to link the corruption to the living standards and aspirations of the people. And when I saw that, I remember, you know, reaching out to Hakeem Jeffries because he and I are friends and we have a regular ongoing dialogue and saying, this is how you do it.

25:23You don't just say corruption bad. You say their corruption is actually hurting you. And the Democrats were especially good at making that relevant to voters. That linking it together. Now, you talk about Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer is going to be the Senate majority leader. He recruited some successful candidates, but now some of the winners don't want him to be majority leader. I don't even know your take on this. I have thought they needed fresh blood myself. I jokingly said this to him, and his wife agreed with me, just as a joke at an event we were at. But how do you look at this happening? Obviously, they just won, and everyone should be basking in the glory. But a lot of people are talking about

26:08change because this is a change election. It was a change election, but you got to know how to run the Senate. And the rules are arcane and experience actually matters because you have 100 people. It's like a hothouse. I was there for eight years. and it takes a lot of discipline to be able to get things done, even with the majority we now have. If I were going into the Senate right now, I would vote for Chuck Schumer to be the leader for the next two years. That wouldn't mean, you know, luxury of, you know, having a leadership fight. I don't even know who would actually challenge him that would garner a majority of the existing and incoming senators. But we have to get to work. take into account the really successful recruiting that Chuck Schumer did and the money that he

27:07raised, but that, you know, this is going to be combat by another name because what's going to happen? The Republicans are going to, you know, join ranks. They're going to do everything they can to stymie this new Democratic majority. We're going to have to know every parliamentary maneuver there is to break through whatever, you know, shenanigans and deadlock they try to impose. We're going to have a hostile administration, regardless of what Trump himself says or does. The whole administration will be, you know, looking to trip the Democrats up. There's just going to be a lot happening. The Republicans, after exploding the national debt, are all of a sudden going to discover the debt again and try to strangle spending. So I want people who know what they're doing and we have a

27:56really good senior group in the Senate who can, you know, help the new, you know, the new senators. I had to learn how to be a senator. You don't walk in there know, help the new, you know, the new senators. I had to learn how to be a senator. You don't walk in there and know all the rules and figure out, oh, gosh, I know what to do tomorrow. You got to learn it. It's kind of interesting, despite having six new members of the House endorsed by the DSA, you didn't really see a DSA wave. It was more of a centrist wave, but it was a progressive wave, right, in some ways. And at the same time, there were a lot of sort of centrists. It was a mix. It's a massive mix. And I'm sure there's one or two Republican senators who are going to walk right

28:29over, even if John Fetterman walks the other direction, for example. How do you look at that, what's happening between and among both the House and the Senate, trying to get some bipartisanship going? It would seem that Republicans, this might be a good time not to stay with Donald Trump on a lot of things. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what they do. That's going to be up to them. I hope some of them begin to break with him. But going to your point, we have this very large majority in the Congress, largely due to winning purple districts and even flipping red districts. We're going to have to really figure out how to pass legislation. And that's, I think, you know, what Speaker Jeffries is going to be focused on. We have to

29:11put some points on the board. We can't be engaged in some kind of intramural, you know, rivalry. We've got to pull together and say, here's what we're producing for you. Here's how we're lowering your health care costs. Here's how we're dealing with energy costs, all of the things that people voted for. So I'm excited about getting organized to do the work. You know, I've been saying this now for months that if you want to have Medicare for all, write the bill and begin to get the votes for it. If you have a different idea, you write the bill and begin to get the votes for it. If you have a different idea, you write the bill and begin to get the votes for it. Let's get back to actually producing results for the American people.

29:49Legislation rather than posturing. Yeah, exactly. Let's change people's lives. If it was a change election, let's produce change. Don't just, you know, be, you know, engaged in finger pointing and, you know, score settling with your fellow members. No, that's for the Republicans this week, it looks like. You were a little worried about Texas. It went to Tallarico. He's now the youngest member of the Senate. Last time the Texas Senate seat was held by a Democrat, it was 38 years ago in 1988. Incredible. He did this in spite of all the money Elon spent to defeat him. And we reached out to Reid Hoffman, a big Democratic donor, to get his take. And here's what he had to say. I think the important thing is to, you know, kind of, you know, now raise the question is,

30:31you know, how much money has Elon made because of his influence? And I think the American voters, the Texan voters, have said nobody should get special privileges. And we need transparency. We need accountability. You know, billions of dollars should not be going off the blood, sweat, and tears of American people to individuals who are willing to buy political influence. And so I think it's important that we have complete and transparency and understanding of that. And I think that's part of what the Texas vote has made extremely clear. So talk a little bit about that, because this was an enormous amount of money. I think he was the single biggest donor to Ken Paxton by far. Someone was saying to me, I was at lunch today and they said,

31:19you just don't give that kind of money if you don't want something. Like there's certain amounts of money rich people always give, you know, to be able to go to the Senate or to get a small thing here or there, or at least just an audience. This was something else. So talk a little bit about that is how much money he's made. He's losing money today because Tesla and SpaceX shares are down. I think he's lost $80 billion since the election. But he made a lot of money with Donald Trump so far. He's benefited from contracts, etc. Talk about that idea, because he, as you said, he was a poster child for this. Well, I think Reid Hoffman is absolutely right. People want transparency. They want the same rules for everybody. We've got to get that kind of money

32:02out of politics. One of the things I hope the Democrats do is introduce an amendment to overturn Citizens United to get back some control from the Supreme Court, which basically said all bets are off. You can put as much money with no accountability and transparency into any election at any time. So I think there are steps that the Democrats have to take to bring about the kind of transparency and accountability that I and Reid and so many others are hoping for. And it's especially important for Elon Musk because his money is made largely through government contracts, government subsidies, government business. And I don't have an objection to that if we're getting our money's worth, but how do we know that we are if we don't have transparency about, you know, what's going out

32:51the door and going in the other door for, you know, his company and him personally? So that's part of what has to be done both legislatively and through investigations. We need laws that are going to tighten the rules on what people can and can get from the government and what kind of disclosure and transparency they have to give up in order to get anything. And we're going to need more investigations to get to the kind of transparency so that we really understand what did all of these companies get for all this money? Not just Musk, all the tech companies, for example. Well, the tech companies and frankly, a lot of other companies that lined up to, you know, give Trump whatever he asked for, who settled lawsuits they

33:35could have won, that went on bended knee to do his bidding. I mean, we've got to get to the bottom of this. Now, they may have thought it was a business decision, but we need to find out how much money was involved, what it went for, what Trump got out of it and what they got out of it. What they got out of it. So that's one of them. So Musk will be in the crosshairs, a number of things. Ukraine is one of them, right? If you were Secretary of State and someone did this, like a private citizen, where was Marco Rubio during this entire thing, for example? Where was Donald Trump? Some people said it was Trump's responsibility, but that's one investigation I'd like to at least see what happened.

34:16Illegal or not illegal, like how did that happen? Who was giving the orders about, you know, missiles or guidance systems or whatever in Ukraine. That's one. And Doge is the second one. I mean, he may have been appointed. And again, it's Trump's responsibility. But what happened would be no matter what, even if it's not illegal, what happened is useful. But talk about like Ukraine, for example, because that's really pissed off a lot of Republicans, as you know. It should. And, you know, Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, has basically said we cannot allow one man to make national security decisions by whim. to Starlink and the military component called Star Shield, which interfered with the Ukrainians

35:09being able to know when incoming missiles and drones were headed towards civilian targets, such as in Kiev. And that meant they couldn't sound alarms. And that meant that, you know, innocent civilians were being, you know, again, targeted by the Russians with no ability for the Ukrainians to protect their people. It's bad enough that Trump has slow-walked the Patriot air defense missile systems that the Ukrainians need to be able to shoot those incoming missiles out of the air. But not to even give people warning because we didn't know that they were headed toward civilian targets. It's just it's outrageous. It's cruel. Did that ever happen to you in any of your time as secretary of state? Back in 2009, when Iranians were out in the streets protesting, Twitter had a 90 minute upgrade scheduled, which would have shut it down right in the middle of the day

36:06in Iran. So my State Department asked Twitter to push it back, and they said, okay. That's the one example that pops into my head. But the government was involved in that. Our government. Yeah. It's not clear who pulled the trigger on the Ukraine thing. They kept going back and forth. Trump said it wasn't him. Well, they keep blaming each other. You know, I back and forth. Trump said it wasn't him. Well, they keep blaming each other. You know, I mean, Hegsath said it wasn't him. Trump said, well, maybe somebody called me, but I don't remember. I'm not sure. Elon said I wouldn't have done it without them. We need to find out. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, Cara, that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has sent letters already saying preserved documents.

36:42Yeah, it's critical. Yeah, we're going to look into this. And then Doge, of course. Yeah. It was a bad week for Elon Musk. Anyway, we'll go on a quick break and we come back. Let's talk about what the Dems need to do on day one, as you were suggesting. Support for this show comes from Delete Me. The size of your digital footprint is bigger than you think. Everywhere you roam on the web, socials, emails, forums, retail sites, the list goes on, you leave behind data. Unfortunately, all that info is vulnerable to data brokers who buy or scrape other people's data to sell. DeleteMe knows your privacy is worth protecting. When you sign up, you provide DeleteMe with exactly what information you want deleted from people's search sites,

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40:27let them know it was on with Kara Swisher. It's the best way to support the show. I do so by wearing quints all the time and I think it's great. Madam Secretary, we're back. The Dems have won and now they need to get to work. As you noted, let's talk about what comes next. How prohibited is a deadlock to getting anything done? And you've said the Democrats on day one have to tackle affordability and corruption. You talked to Hakeem Jeffries, pretend you're him. You win the floor vote to become Speaker of the House. What's the one thing you would do? I think they have to introduce legislation on both affordability and accountability, and they have to pass it as soon as possible with as near as possible unanimous

41:06Democratic votes. And then they have to send it to the Senate and Chuck Schumer needs to do exactly the same. I mean, this we have to show momentum coming off this very big win. Now, there's more games that can be played in the Senate than in the House. And that's what I was referring to earlier, that the Republicans will try to stymie. To deadlock. Yeah, they'll try to deadlock through the filibuster in other ways. But I think we can overcome that because a lot of these issues are going to attract at least some of the Republicans who are going to be looking over their own shoulder about their own upcoming reelection. And then if Trump doesn't sign what has been passed, you have two options.

41:47Number one, try to pass it with a veto-proof majority. See if you can get that done. Number two, go out to the country and say, we heard you. You voted for us. Donald Trump won't let us help you. I think that has to be a communications narrative strategy as well as an inside legislative strategy. Is there a specific bill you would say around? Give me one for each affordability and corruption. Well, on affordability, let's reinstate the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act and let's reverse the really cruel cuts in Medicaid that are going to shut hospitals and, you know, deprive people of health care. We've got to reverse those. That's going to be both a pocketbook issue and a health care access affordability issue. I think on the

42:40accountability corruption, we need finally to pass, you know, bans on stock trading, not just for the Congress, but also for the executive branch. Yeah. That needs to be as rock solid as possible. So I think that there are ideas that are already in the queue that have to be, you know, just put up into legislative form and get passed as soon as possible. As soon as possible. Now, another thing is the war. Now, Trump and Vance are conceding that the Iran war cost the GOP the election, especially Vance is trying very hard. Trump's now downplaying his earlier strike threats, which were very severe, actually. And you thought he was going to double down. Congress isn't sworn in until January. Is there anything, you know,

43:26the emboldened party leadership can do in the meantime? And what will happen in this interim period from your perspective? He seems rather docile this week for some reason, except for the ballroom. Yeah, no, except for the ballroom. I am waiting to see. I found Vance's comments to be particularly unconvincing, in part because if you followed the polling, people began to feel relieved when they claimed there was a ceasefire. And then when the ceasefire collapsed, partly because Vance negotiated a very bad deal, they, you know, people began to, you know, feel the pain of high gas prices again. So I think their attempt, especially Vance's attempt to kind of wiggle out from under the responsibility of Iran is not going very well for them. And at this point,

44:19I think Trump is in a bit of a pickle because I think he was planning to double down on attacking... Yes, Chris Murphy had said that before he had a stroke recently. ...on attacking Iran, and he thought Bibi would be his, you know, once again, wingman partner. I'm just not sure that that's going to fly right now because of everything else going on in both Israeli politics and American politics. The Congress, I think both, you know, Jeffries and chairs of committees, as well as Schumer and the same in the Senate, can be sending, you know, very clear messages, like a formal notice to the administration that we intend to cut off every penny for further attacks. We expect you to negotiate to get the Strait of Hormuz open because it was your reckless war that closed it,

45:15which is going to raise the cost. Because he's got more ability on foreign policy, right? Yes, he does. But you can cut off the money. We can cut off the money and we can also go to court, which the Republicans never would do, to prevent him from using one pot of money that was not meant for it to fund one of his other, you know, favorite items. We can stop that if we actually have a Congress with a backbone. Right. So that's it. Now, this Iran thing, there's two rumors. One is that Pete Hegseth is on his way out even before he can be impeached, which I think he was on the top of the Democrat list for that, and may take that Senate seat if I still don't think Marsh has given it to him. But that's my take. He might be out and there's Trump is talking to different people who could do it. One, I want to know who you think if he was picking a good person, who it would be from your perspective.

46:10And secondly, there's rumors now that Marco Rubio is going to leave to try to distance himself and then run for president. He's got to get out now before all hell does break loose, which it feels like it might. Talk about each of those things. And obviously, Vance is totally tethered to this guy, no matter what he tries to do. Well, first of all, I think the House under Republican leadership is going to impeach Hegseth next week with the motion by Congressman Thomas Massey. I think he's got the votes. I think he's going to impeach Hegseth in this lame duck session. So at that point, it seems sensible for Trump to put a lot of pressure on the new governor of Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn, to have her appoint Hegseth

46:55to the Senate seat. But I don't know what that gets her. You know, she's newly elected. She needs some chits. There's probably people that she owes a lot more to that helped her get elected. So we'll see. We'll see what happens there. What happens there, right. likely that he would appoint anyone I thought was good. And I'm not sure he can appoint anybody that he wants to appoint who can get confirmed by this new Senate. You know, this new Senate is not going to roll over like the old Senate did and, you know, appoint, you know, the vaccine denier, Bobby Kennedy and all the other people that they voted to confirm. So I'm not sure that he can get anybody confirmed for that job. Now, that means that he'll have temporary people in place, and that could be very dangerous because

47:52they will be totally beholden to him. Right. Unless he does pick someone. Do you see any? Because he is somewhat, I want to get to Ruby in a second, but he feels docile. I don't know if that's just because he doesn't know what happened to him, because it was so, I don't think he thought it would be this big. Is there, you thought he might double down on crazy. I don't think people told him the truth, Cara. I don't think they've been telling him the truth. He's allergic to the truth. I don't think they've been, you know, giving him an honest read for weeks, maybe months. So what happens in that situation? You've been in the White House. Now, you all told the truth to each other, presumably, but it's really hard, right? It is very hard.

48:29It's very hard to get the truth. I think Biden has suffered from it a little bit. You thought he would get worse, that you were saying this cycle that you can, when you're losing, you keep losing more. Is there any other scenario where he doesn't get worse? Well, he could maybe be convinced that some presidents have done very well with divided government and that he could actually get some wins out of truly cooperating with the Democrats. For example, you know, when my husband lost the Congress in 1994 after passing deficit reduction and reining in the NRA and assault weapons and all the rest of it and ended up with, you know, Newt Gingrich, it was painful. And he had to veto a lot of what they sent to his desk. But eventually, they were able to make

49:21progress on important issues like balancing the budget, which, you know, like it or not, is going to come back into the spotlight not so long from now. So he could, if he were willing, and who knows, and if the right people were talking to him, and I don't know who that is, you know, say to himself, hey, I can make, you know, a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I can come up with some things that I would actually sign with Democrats. They said put his name on it. Say the Donald Trump $25 minimum wage bill, the Donald Trump Medicare for all bill. That's exactly right. So I don't know which way it's going to go. And frankly, who is left? I don't know. That could influence him in the right way. Right. Natalie, Susan Wiles is supposed to be on the edge of whatever you have to be on. I mean,

50:13that always happens. So Rubio, speaking of Newt Gingrich, he sort of posted something that like advanced his toes. What do you do when you're, you know, he was, he's Secretary of State and Secretary of everything else, it seems like. What do you do in a position like that as secretary? Is the best thing for him to do to walk away? I don't know. He clearly wants to be president. But whether he thinks walking away now would give him some distance from the, you know, the wreckage of the first two years of the Trump administration, maybe he would. And, you know, thank the president for the honor of serving in two positions, both secretary of state and national security advisor, and then depart. But he may also still have the hope that

51:02he can be the liberator of Cuba. You know, lots of people think that, you know, maybe Trump won't attack Iran, but he might attack Cuba. And if he could pull it off, that that would be, you know, some kind of legacy achievement. And, you know, Marco Rubio would be on the first boat, you know, landing in Havana. Right. If he still entertains that idea, then maybe he thinks he has to do it from the inside. Or maybe he tells the president, I think I can be more useful if I get on the outside and I work on what's going on in Venezuela with the oil efforts and what's going on, you know, with Cuba. I don't know. I don't pretend to know. And a lot of people in the Republican Party like him a lot better than they like Vance.

51:52And so maybe he's taking his soundings and he's being advised, look, you need to separate yourself, go out and make some money, be an outside advisor, and then you can run for president. I don't know. Yeah, it seems like the Republican presidential election is now wide open in the way it wasn't. And now, as of this taping, and this is going to make it worse, votes are still being counted across the country in Alaska and Mississippi are both dead heat races. Who protects certification over the next few weeks? The governors, the courts, Senate Republicans? And what is the most dangerous thing Trump can do either in the wake of the election or in January in the House and Senate, Arswani? And will he?

52:28Nothing happened during the election. As you said, you guys were ready. But there wasn't ice at the election centers. There wasn't. He didn't do something. What can he do that would be very problematic? I think the size of our majorities in both houses are so daunting for him and his, you know, the next senator, Mr. Colombe, is going to be counted. We have lawyers in Alaska. When I say we, the Democratic Party, you know, Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, people who really are experienced in this. But I think it's going to be very difficult for them to pull either of these races away from the legitimate winner. Right. And then in the House, it would require such organization among a very demoralized Republican caucus that I don't see even Mike Johnson attempting that.

53:40I was very worried about it, you know, because who was going to certify and all the rest of it. What I am hearing is that in a couple of states, most particularly Texas, some of the Texas state legislators, because remember, you know, trying to convince Abbott to call them back into session to repeal some of the powers of the governor. Yeah. Which Brian Kemp declined to do in Georgia. Brian Kemp declined to do. They did attempt to do it in North Carolina when Roy Cooper and then Josh Stein were governor. So we have to watch the states. And again, I know that the newly elected, not yet sworn in governor, Gina Hinojosa, will be all over that. So I think we are well positioned to kind of knock down any of their illegal efforts to undermine the outcome of this election.

54:45And what about, you know, you're a lawyer. They'll have subpoenas going out in January for lots of people. What if these Trump people, they get pardons or they resist the subpoenas? What is the actual mechanism? Because it's Todd Blanch and the U.S. Marshals who have to force people in. Would it be the Capitol Police? I mean, it seems rather scary. It's very difficult if you have a Justice Department that doesn't follow the law. You know, technically, if you defy the subpoena and you are held in contempt first by the committee and then by the full House, that then is referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. That's what happened to Steve Bannon, as you remember. But the problem here is you have a totally unwilling Justice Department to follow the law.

55:39They consider themselves Trump's lawyers, not the lawyers for the United States. So I think that there'll be some legal battles, you know, back and forth. And if Trump does pardon people, as he has now threatened he would, you and I talked about that. The pardon means that they can't plead the Fifth Amendment, which means that they have to answer questions. So I think that there are many, many steps in this process. The most important thing is to get the facts out, you know, subpoena the papers, subpoena, you know, get the information, people down the chain who have relevant information. That's how we found out so much about the insurrection. It was brave people like Cassidy Hutchison who, you know, stepped forward and told the truth. And I think you need

56:22to get the people who are literally filling out the paper, sending the emails, you know, listening to the conversations who will come together and tell the truth. That's what we want. Because they don't have an interest in this breaking the law. Yeah, everybody should have an interest in the truth and transparency, right? Well, some people have an interest in breaking the law. Yep, absolutely. All right, Madam Secretary, one more quick break. We'll talk about the lessons learned. I'm Kara Swisher, and I like people who say the quiet part out loud. In fact, I love it. That's Tiger Sisters, a new podcast that recently joined the Vox Media Podcast Network. Cherie Brooke Liu and Jean Liu are real sisters who built their careers at LinkedIn and Goldman Sachs.

57:04On their weekly podcast, they're giving the next generation practical tips on how to get ahead, how to write emails people actually answer, how to make your LinkedIn profile stand out, and how to keep learning as an adult. It's straight talk about money, career, and relationships every Monday. Follow Tiger Sisters wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, y'all. It's Ested from America Actually at Vox.com. We know that you have big questions about the world, and so do we. At Vox, we focus on covering the things that matter in your life and the things that make you curious, whether that's the big politics questions of the day, climate solutions that might actually work, or hopeful news in cancer or Alzheimer's

57:47research. We believe that journalism made for the everyday curious person can make a difference in making a better world. And if that sounds like something you want to be a part of, Vox now has a brand new app, and it brings all of our journalism together in one place. Go to vox.com slash app to download today. As U.S. Americans voted in the midterm elections, a lot was uncertain, but one thing was clear. This year, many of the attention-grabbing candidates identified or were identified as populists. Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat who ran a surprisingly competitive race for governor in Texas. Populism is about economic power. Sam Forstag, who ran for Congress as a Dem in Montana. I'm running as a populist because populism is what the Democratic Party is supposed to be about.

58:35It's what democracy is supposed to be about. Josh Turek, a Democrat up for a congressional seat in Ohio. We want to once again have a common-sense prairie populist that is fighting for the people. And Senate hopeful Dan Osborne, who ran as an independent in Nebraska and didn't use the word populist, but... My life sucks too. Costs are too high. The last 10 years in the U.S. have been defined by Trump-style populism. This year, candidates from across the political spectrum embraced the populist mantle. On Today Explained from Vox, what has 10 years of populism gotten us and are we ever going back? Today Explained drops every weekday. Madam Secretary, we're back. Now that the dust has settled, let's talk about what we learned.

59:14Let's talk about dummy mandering. Republicans redrew naps all over the country and protect their House majority and Democrats won anyway by a lot. Is it the end of the redistricting wars or just round one? Well, I think the Republicans thought it was round one lot. Is it the end of the redistricting wars or just round one? Well, I think the Republicans thought it was round one. It may be the end for two reasons. One, as you point out, it didn't work because the Democrats fought back, particularly in California, but in a few other states. And then in the districts that were redrawn to try to put in bigger Trump numbers. It didn't matter this time because Trump was such a drag on the whole ticket. But I also think that the Democrats are

59:51looking at redistricting legislation on a federal level that can pass court muster and can be enforced so that they prevent this from ever happening again. Yeah, they'll probably not try again since they failed so badly. Now, another thing, you're no fan of the Electoral College, for good reason, but I'm hoping you put on your civics professor hat or your legal hat and explain what exactly the sexily named National Popular Voter Interstate Compact is and what it could mean for the next election. Well, you know, what it means is that the person who wins the most votes will actually be elected. And, you know, I have a very big interest in making this happen. And the way that it happens is that, you know, you won the popular vote, but not the electoral vote. Yes, I did, as did Al Gore. Let's include Al. But it's an agreement among a number of U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia, where a good idea because it's designed to ensure that the candidate who wins the most votes is actually elected as our president.

1:01:15You can't play games in certain districts to let like 10 districts govern the entire nation. That's right. It's the whole country. And I think we're pretty close. The last I checked, we had like states representing 222 or so electoral votes. You need 271, right? Yeah, we need 270. And if we now have states that are under Democratic governors and Democratic legislatures, I think we can get there. And honestly, I'd like us to try. The Electoral College is an anachronism. It's among the compromises made with slave-owning states and small states back in the day. And I think it's, if it ever had a usefulness, it has outlived it. And one of the problems is because once you look at the electoral map and you realize it's the same, you know, seven, eight, nine states over

1:02:06and over again. That's the only place people campaign. So if you're in a safe state, either a safe blue state or a safe red state, so to speak, you never see a presidential candidate because they're going to go to Pennsylvania and to Michigan and to Wisconsin. I mean, now maybe the map has expanded because of this election, but I still think it would be the right thing. One person, one vote. Let's elect the person who has the most votes. And so that would that would take care of it. That would be the that once the interstate compact were agreed to by states representing 270 electoral votes, there would be an immediate legal challenge. Maybe they would wait, but I think they'd try to go and knock it out before it had a chance to operate. But I think

1:02:57we'd have very strong arguments. Under the Constitution, the states get to allocate their electoral votes. Remember, that's what the whole nonsense in 2020 was about. They were trying to, you know, not have you vote your electoral votes for who got the most votes, but who didn't get the most votes. Right, right, right. And you would like to. We called the Hillary Clinton Act. Yeah, let's call it the Hillary Clinton Interstate Compact. Hillary and Al Pact. That's exactly right. Two more questions. Planning for 2028 starts today. Speaking of that, because that's a part of it. What lessons can't Democrats forget? One of them is not do revenge. A lot of people, Kim Jeffries and others, let's not get revenge. Let's get things done. That's

1:03:35sort of and actually it was it was echoed by everyone from El Sayed to Tallarico. They all were saying we're on the seem to be on the same singing the same chorus of that. Let's ignore. We're not going to ignore crime. We're going to ignore looking like we're taking revenge. So what lessons can't Democrats forget? As we noted on stage this week, you're just, you have not sealed the deal with voters. Democrats certainly haven't. But they, all they do know is they don't like this guy. That's not enough to win by any means. It isn't enough to win. I mean, we've been given both the challenge and the opportunity to prove what we stand for and what we can deliver for the American people. And I think the motto, you know, not revenge,

1:04:15but results. We've got to put some points on the board to show what we are capable of doing. I think candidates are going to have to expand their own map, which kind of gets back to the interstate popular vote compact. Don't write off the South. Campaign in the South. You may now have a receptive audience you did not have before, especially if the Democratic Congress performs with the kind of discipline that we're hoping for, to begin to tackle affordability and accountability as promised. So that, to me, is one of the biggest lessons. I think another lesson is be as focused on communicating, you know, broadly with the electorate and be very positive about any changes that we're going to hopefully get through on campaign financing,

1:05:05because we need to get out of the hamster wheel of donors. And although we don't have the same numbers that the Republicans have, you know, we still need to make it very clear we are listening to people and not to those who can fund our campaigns. Yeah, that's a bad look, hanging out with rich people. You got to put them away for a while. They can give you money. At least, you know, don't make it front and center. Although bad look, hanging out with rich people. You've got to're going to trans your, you know, your robot next week. And, you know, we're going to like all the kind of stuff that didn't really matter to voters in this case because they were interested. But those things can be started up again, like sort of. But it didn't really work for them to

1:05:57argue about trans, to argue about a whole manner of like cultural issues. This just didn't land this year at all. But one of the things that I think has to happen is a sense of humor about stuff, like not being quite so like censorious. Certainly the left can be censorious, the right bans. So that's very different. They're very different versions of censoriousness. And at the same time, laughing about it, being able to have these difficult discussions is something that I think probably, and not holding anybody to a purity test, if I were more on the left, is like, let's just lighten the fuck up and make jokes. Yeah. And stuff like that. I think this woke 3.0 stuff is very funny. It's just, let's hope it doesn't get back to that, because I don't think that was popular with citizens, for sure.

1:06:44You're absolutely right. And I thought the candidates exercised a lot of message discipline. You know, I saw an interview with Gina Hinojosa, who said repeatedly, I am an economic populist. I am a populist who wants to take on the economic problems of the people of Texas. And the interviewer kept saying, well, does that mean you're a progressive? And she goes, I use the word populist. You know, I'm not going to, you know, change from where I she was extremely disciplined. And so I think if if we want to stay away from what have been winning campaigns from the Republicans with their culture wars as, you know, really unfortunate as they were because of the way they tried to distort all kinds of situations of people.

1:07:29Well, jihadists at all kinds of games. You know, we just have to stay away from that. I mean, we can't get pulled into it and we can't, you know, be once again kind of outsmarted by the Republicans. Well, the governor of Kansas did a good job, the new governor. He was terrific. And I am really looking forward to seeing him as a senator. Yeah, he's there. Everyone had really good messaging. Now, last question. Do you think Republicans are learning their lessons, too? They seem very upset and blaming each other, of course. Have you heard from them dissing themselves from Trump? Where do you see it? Well, they're distancing in private. They're distancing off the record. I will believe it when they go public with their differences with Trump.

1:08:12And I will believe it when they cross the aisle and they vote for the Democrats' bills on affordability and accountability. And they basically say, look, there was an election and I agree with a lot of this. I will believe it when they ask Republican administration officials who are testifying in investigations, hard questions and don't, you know, just engage in nonsense like so many of them have now for two years. So I will believe it when I see them actually standing up to Trump, not just whispering behind their hands. Right. And is there anyone you think would do that? Is it John Kennedy? Is it John Thune? I don't know yet, Cara. I don't know, because they've been disappointing in so many ways. They all had chances to, you know, stand up. And

1:09:00on very few issues, to some extent on Ukraine, they all know better than what Trump is doing in Ukraine. They have, you know, voted for sanctions and then he's just basically gutted their vote. So I think that there will be some bipartisan votes in particularly the Senate, I hope also the House. But, you know, a lot of the people who are left in the Congress really are scared of him. They're scared of his money. They're scared of his power because when's their next election? Their next election is their primary, not the general election. So it's going to take them growing, you know, backbones and taking their consciences out of cold storage to stand up to Trump. Well, I would love to see John

1:09:45Thune. He stood up to Trump on the filibuster, which wasn't easy. I served with him. He's very conservative, but I never thought of him as, you know, somebody who believed the kind of nonsense that Trump and his minions put out. He could be, you know, I don't know if he'll be elected as their minority leader or not, but he could redeem himself in the next two years. Yeah. And is there any person of the Republican Party you're not sorry to see go? I'm not sorry to see any of them go. I'm glad to see all of them go. They disgraced themselves. They bent over backwards to deny truth, facts, evidence. It was painful. And, you know, again, in private... I got to say Vivek Ramaswamy for me. I might have picked one.

1:10:36Can I tell you, I was, you know, I was so proud of Amy Acton on many, many fronts in her campaign. And when she refused to take his call, allegedly conceding, go girl. Go girl. Why would you talk to that disgusting human being? Hopefully he will never, you know, have a single second of airtime again. Oh, don't count on it. Anyway. Okay. Hilary, thank you so much. It's been so substantive and long. Thanks for listening. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next Wednesday. I'm going to read us up. Thank you, Hillary. You look great in blue, I'll tell you. I'm loving my blue wave outfit. All right. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman and Madeline LaPlante-Duby. Our tape editors are Manolo Moreno and Brandon McFarland.

1:11:21Rosemary Ho provided fact-checking. Nick Merrill was in charge of pressing Steve Karnacki's khakis. Thanks to Art Chung, Abby Krinsky, Renee Bederson, and Anna Casey. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to High Stakes from Vox Media. Hillary, people around the country love it. I'm on my pivot tour and they just love everything you're throwing down, just so you know. It's so much fun being with you. You're fantastic. We'll be back next week. Support for this show comes from Alloy Health. Skin changes are a part of life. One way to treat them is to address your hormones, specifically estrogen loss. Alloy's M4 skincare made specifically for women in perimenopause and beyond can help.

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