See, we've had a good discussion about this. We're still getting dragged online, and I get dragged with him. Thanks, Scott.
Let's get to the news. First, Tucker Carlson, one of Trump's biggest supporters over the last few years, now says he regrets helping get Trump elected. He offered an apology on the latest episode of the Tucker Carlson show while speaking with his brother Buckley, a former Trump speechwriter. Tucker and Buckley. Oh my goodness. Let's listen.
You wrote speeches for him. I campaigned for him. I mean, we're implicated in this for sure.
It's not enough to say, "Well, I changed my mind," or like, "Oh, this is bad. I'm out." It's like in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now.
Yes. So, I do think it's like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences. You know, we'll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be. And I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional. That's all I'll say.
So, Tucker might be tormented. Is he trying to pull a Joe Rogan? He's going back to Trump when he needs something. I mean, he's done this before in those emails during the trial that Fox had and lost. He would call them demonic. He's been here, and I don't think Trump has been anything but explicit about what he is for a very long time. So I'd love to talk about this and the idea of redemption, like that Rogan was trying to do it, and of course the minute he gave him his psychedelics, he shows right up. And Green is one, you know, you got a lot of pushback for your Ben Shapiro comments this week.
Not my comments. My interview.
Your interview, excuse me, but also what you said about him and stuff. So these people seem to be moving this way in a way that's—is it real? Is it not? How much should we hold people responsible for the things they've said previously? Green has been terrible. Ben has been—many things are not the stuff, especially around trans and people of color, has been repugnant to me at least. Gay people.
But you would put Ben and Tucker in the same category.
I put them all in a different way because I think a lot of what Ben has said previously is really—if I read it, I mean, I can read it to you if you'd like. I want to talk about the bigger idea of giving people space. They are obviously—Tucker is, and Rogan is, and Theo Vaughn is, and Marjorie Taylor Greene are trying, even Megyn Kelly on this sort of redemption tour in a weird way. And I don't necessarily believe it, but I want to talk about this issue of when you let people say, "I made a mistake a couple years ago when I said this heinous thing. Forgive me." That which is what Tucker's asking for here.
Look, this is sort of do as I say, not as I do, because I think the right thing is be careful shaming people for saying they were wrong and coming back into the fold, you know, because that's how we maintain our virtue and indignance and elected JD Vance. I think we just need to be a little bit more—when people say, "I fucked up and this guy is bad," fine, welcome them. That's the smart thing to do. I have a difficult time resisting calling—telling Marjorie Taylor Greene, or a difficult time not telling her to sit down when all of a sudden, when it no longer matters and she doesn't get his support or endorsement to run for Senate, she's all of a sudden decided that he's bad. For me, when I saw those comments from Tucker, it seemed to me to be—I think I absolutely know what's going on here.
He's running for president, Kara.
Yeah. And do you realize what an enormous lane there is for somebody who has very conservative values, an enormous media platform, an enormous army of acolytes that he could weaponize right away, and by the way is anti-Trump and anti-the war in Iran, which a huge swath of Republicans are now. Who occupies that lane right now? And I disagree with Kowi on this. I think here and now Tucker Carlson is the most likely GOP nominee for president in 2028. Put him on stage with Rubio and Vance, he's going to slice and dice them. So, we do—I believe as Democrats, and I realize I bring some bias to the table—I think he could go six, seven people deep. I think the eighth most likely person to get the nomination, like a senator Klobuchar or an Ossoff, they are 10 times better than the person leading in the prediction platforms for the Republican Party, JD Vance. We have a deep bench. As deep as our bench is, theirs is that shallow.
JD Vance—I mean, he makes—Jesus Christ, he makes goals likable. I mean, the guy is unattractive. They're going to have a field day taking all of his statements and his gymnastics and his hypocrisy and his weirdness. Whether it's saying that the Pope should be more careful speaking to notions of religion. I mean, he's said so many ridiculous things that they're going to have a field day with. Yes, he shifted rather a lot.
And then they'll connect them, and they haven't even started connecting him to Thiel and that weirdness.
Well, but the shiftingness of this Tucker thing, for example? I mean, didn't he know, or why did he suddenly know, or was it just because it's Israel and this Iran war? What is it? It's like, how do you—
It's calculated. It's strategy. In this case, it's calculated because I think he's already said this privately, and it got out in those legal filings and—
He's always hated Trump. I think anyone—I think Tucker's a smart guy. I think anyone who's intelligent—
And whatever you say about Tucker, I don't know, he's an intelligent, impressive media figure. He is very good at what he does, and he could not stand Trump, and then saw that his audience was going there, and that's the way he was going to make money was to be just blindly supportive of Trump. Now he sees an opening. He's the leading candidate for president.
The heinous things he said—like, there are a lot of—look, Greenhouse.
He's trying to recast himself. He's apologized, and now he has two years to take on an anti-Trump Republican. He has two years to basically carve out and cement a lane of "I am anti-Trump. I'm an anti-Trump conservative that was anti-war" that neither Vance nor Rubio can carve out. He's very well positioned.
Right. But then how do you—I want to talk about the bigger picture of escaping this, like the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, and Shapiro was doing that, and you know, we've gotten a lot of—I get your flag too.
Okay. Explain, because you said—let me just push back at you if you don't mind. You said you appreciate his moral clarity and reasoning. I'm going to take issue. I think he's very smart. There's no question. I'm going to take some issue, and I sometimes agree with some of the things he says—not a lot of them, but some of them. Okay. He also took a shot at me that was inaccurate and put it in the commercial.
That's right. On my podcast.
Oh, no. You said on your podcast—
No, no, no. Before, previously, he did call to apologize to me about it, which I appreciated. But that said, the moral clarity thing—I mean, I would have trouble—how do you escape things like—let me just tell you a couple of things he said, which sort of is why I found it a little bit disturbing. He called transgenderism a mental disorder. He argues that homosexuality should remain in the DSM as a mental illness. He's called women who have abortions baby killers. He said a man and a woman do a better job of raising a child than two men or women. That's not even getting into some of the comments he makes about Arabs. He said—this was a long time ago, and he walked back those comments as being dumb—when he said Israelis like to build, Arabs like to bomb and live in open sewage, which I didn't think was something one should say, and any number of men and women things. But then Green herself, let me move on to Green, you know, is saying a lot of incredible things. That said, she's another person who attacks trans and gay people, says every now and then drops what I consider to be very anti-Semitic tropes very quickly once she gets past "I don't like war." She shifts, she says Jewish when she means Israel quite a bit. And so you kind of see the play there. I do want to—like, how do you—I couldn't—I don't think I could talk to Ben Shapiro because of a lot of the things, unless in some way—how do we talk about this, whether our country—and I just talked to a Hearnden about this—is that most regular people do forgive people, or they say, "Oh, he didn't mean it," and Tucker's trying to do the same thing, Joe Rogan's trying to do the same thing.
Gavin Newsom's trying to do the same thing.
Gavin Newsom's trying to do—yes, he's shifting the other way, which I also have written him and said, "I find—like, what are you doing here?" And we can disagree with each other, but how easy is it to let people back in, and what should be the—I guess what should be the criteria? I guess there'll be different criteria for each person.
Look, at a very spiritual level, the question around letting people back in is forgiveness is divine, and you know, you want to err on the side of forgiveness. Having said that, I think the more salient question is who do you decide to platform or not? So, I've had a lot of people from quote-unquote the manosphere contact me directly and say, "You have misrepresented me. You are part of the manosphere, but you're manosphere light. We could have a productive conversation. I'm coming on." And I'm like, to be blunt, I think what you have said is so unproductive and so damaging for young men that I don't want to give you any oxygen. I don't even want to get in your face. I don't want to have an argument. I don't use the most famous misogynist—I don't use his name because I don't want to give them oxygen. So the question is, do you give a guy like Ben—
Which one is it? Go ahead.
Well, you can probably guess anyways.
Well, someone who's been jailed for accusations of trafficking women.
I mean, okay. So, but I don't—he likes it. Every time his name is used, the algorithms elevate his content on other platforms. Yeah, he's number one on Substack right now. And the reality is, if you talk to young men, most young men have written him off a long time ago, but I think because he's such an easy punching bag, we mention his name and the algorithms pick it up and elevate his content. Anyways, and a lot of young people will be drawn, especially young men, to people who are controversial figures. So my feeling is there's certain people you just choke off their oxygen supply. So the question is, with someone like Ben, he has said, in my opinion, wrong, even maybe vile things. I said to him—I said in my post comments after my interview with him—the thing that really bothers me about Ben is that he has courageously called out these far-right people and said, "We can't engage in this conspiracy theory, this hate-mongering." He said that to that group. I thought that was fairly courageous of him to call out those people. My issue, or one of my issues with Ben, is that when these people were conspiracy theorists accusing world leaders, first ladies of having penises, or accusing people of just very heinous things—some of the transgender stuff—he sort of was a bit of an apologist. But then when they went against Israel, that was the red line for him. And so I'm like, okay, basically Ben has decided to excommunicate and call out people on the far right, not when they're homophobes or bigots, but when they become anti-Semitic. And I said that I disagree with a lot of what Ben says. This is Ben Shapiro. He grew up in a lower-middle-class home. He's so fucking smart. He got to Harvard. He's built a great company. He is willing to acknowledge points. I love just watching him debate to just take notes on how I make my progressive viewpoints—how I articulate my progressive viewpoints in a more compelling way. And also, I am done with this notion of this apostate culture on the left where if I don't choose the right words or have the right people on my podcast, people act as if I've betrayed them. There is a line. I will never have Candace Owens on my podcast. I will never have Nick Fuentes on my podcast. But I think Ben brings really intellectual, adept, clever arguments and viewpoints to issues I don't agree with him on. And I think it's a healthy dialogue.
I'm not sure they're saying you shouldn't have him on. I think it was the moral clarity thing, I think was what—
Okay, I chose the wrong word. I get it.
He doesn't back down. He has a view and then he doesn't back down. He's not trying to go where the wind goes or what gets him the most likes on Instagram. I respect that. I think he genuinely believes what he believes. He tries to provide evidence and argument. I'm—I said I'm a fan of Ben Shapiro. I'm a fan. You have to separate the person from the politics. I think he is an impressive young man who has demonstrated incredible intellect and really made an incredibly successful media company. And this notion that I believe—when we all start barking up the same tree, we get really fucking stupid. And I think that people on the left and the right have a tendency to all want to find the right words, especially people on the left, and get angry at anybody that wants to have a discourse.
Come on, Kara. The right has gotten so censorious—like, they're the ones who are actually doing the censoring. There is a purity test on the right right now around Trump, around everything else. And pushing these people—pushing back is hard, I have to say. Despite—I—
I find that the far right or the right—not the far right—I find the right just writes me and you off. They just say we're libtards.
The most hate I get is from progressives who are like, "We thought we—you could trust—"
When you said Biden was too old. "You don't understand the assignment. We thought we could trust you," right?
Or, "Oh, wait. Do you remember the hate I got on that podcast when I said that transgender women should not be allowed to compete in women's sports?" Do you remember that one?
Mhm. I mean, it's okay. You are with us 100% or you're against us.
Well, that's different than having a debate over a very complex issue and saying transgenderism is a mental disorder or that homosexuality—
No, he did. Ben did. Okay. So, should we not ever talk to Ben because he said that?
I think we should not ask him to defend his comments.
I think that's what I'm asking you. It's a really difficult thing. I've thought about having Marjorie Taylor Greene on, and then I read a lot. I'm like, uh, I'm going to—like, just because I like what she's saying. I don't trust any of these people, I'll be honest. And I just think they see the wind. And I think they have legitimate problems with Trump. I do think Green, for example, is an America First and she's always been. I think she's very committed to the Epstein issues, and I think she is—I think she's sincere in this, in that. And you can hear it goes way back, and I go way back to read her. But then when it's accompanied by this other stuff, how do you set—I think it's going to be a very hard road back for everybody.
But let me just call out a distinction. I struggle with the same thing you're struggling with. You have more license, I think, because you're a journalist, and so getting Marjorie Taylor Greene on with Kara Swisher and talking to her—and you're a great interviewer. You're a much better interviewer than me, knowing how to forcefully push back. You are great at that. But I'll give you an example. I don't think Ben would ever stalk people who came to testify in front of Congress who were Parkland shooter survivors and follow them for four blocks, accusing them of lying and being crisis actors. I don't see Ben Shapiro ever doing something like that. At the end of the day, this is your call, and people can decide that. All right, if you're—
That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about more as our country—like, when do we let it go? Like, that's going to be—the reason I'm asking is I just did this incredible interview with the status—like, when does it—the statute of limitations and when people—when does—do all of us have to just leave Trump behind us and all the bad—and I'm not—I blame him, but I blame ourselves because it's really hard. And it's—and the jumping—like, listen, I got attacked for saying Reese Witherspoon was just saying try AI.
That was weird. That was just stupid.
It was weird, but it was also—but I also get it, like the rage about it's—
The machine looking for soft tissue to pretend they're virtuous. That's stupid.
You know the right virtues—you virtuous—we all—
That's everybody. Everybody who's angry about AI—there's different—this is right—
That's all I'm saying is I get where it's coming from. I get where it's coming from, and so I discount it. And sometimes, you know, I was talking to Claire this morning about some—Skull was being mad about his socks or something like that. And I said to her—it was—we were driving to school, and she goes, "Oh yeah, he was really mad about the socks." I said, "You know, he wasn't mad about the socks. He was mad because I've been away for a few days, and he wanted me to drive him to school, and I'm driving you." And I said, "Sometimes people are mad about things that have nothing to do—"
For a six-year-old. I couldn't have that conversation with my 18-year-old.
And it was an interesting conversation.
You bring up Freud or Jungian resentment.
No, I just used Claire's—so smart. It's crazy.
Watch Frozen. Frozen 2. But it's just—I think we should be talking—like, what do we have to do to get back to some level of disagreement? And I do think—I—there's no question that the Greens, the Shapiro, the Owens, the Megyn Kelly, and definitely people on the left too, who I don't listen to as much, which is interesting, have tried to like poke at us and make us really dislike each other in a way that I think has been very dangerous. And at some point there has to be some level of reckoning over that because—
You know, it's a reckoning. And what is that reckoning is really important.
Well, three points. There's some nuance here. I would not group all of those people into the same group. I think there's different levels of maliciousness and disingenuousness and saying hateful things for money. The right word. So, the first is what I'll call cancel culture or forgiveness. I think in a culture where everyone's following each other around, where everyone's tweets live forever, if we don't expand the aperture of forgiveness, we're just all going to fucking hate each other. I say stupid shit all the time. I'm putting out 14 fucking hours a week of content. I'm shooting from the hip. If an 18-year-old shows up to a protest on campus and says "from the river to the sea," not understanding how some people perceive that, you know, I don't want to kick him out of school. I don't want to ruin his career. I don't want to contact JP Morgan, which some people want to do, and make sure his summer internship is rescinded. We have to get to a level of more forgiveness in a culture where there's incentive to make a cartoon of people's comments and press on the soft tissue and be outraged behind our computers. And we have gone so far from that. We need—I'm trying to do that. I'm trying not to call out people for clicks when I see an opportunity. I'm trying to take the temperature down. The word you bring up, though, and it's different, is reckoning. And that is—I do not think this nation heals until there is some form of reckoning. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Pelosi should discourage their profits from insider trading. The people who were in charge or supervisors of ICE in Minneapolis, where an ICU nurse somehow ended up with 10 bullets in his person, those people should be hauled in front of committees and punished. I'm not saying maybe they go to jail. When there are people in geopolitical advantage, they should disgorge those profits and be put on trial. There needs to be a reckoning here. At the same time, with respect to what people say or their views or being incendiary or playing into a far-left or a far-right media ecosystem that then elevates it online, we need to massively increase the aperture around forgiveness.
Yeah, I think—well, that's well said. See, we've had a good discussion about this. We're still getting dragged online, and I get—
I think you should do the interview with—I would tune in for the interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene. I would love to see what you said and how you approach it. I think that would be—
One of the reasons I would not interview MTG is I don't feel like I have the skills to handle that interview.
Well, yeah, it's hard because it's part of me—I'm like, "go girl," and part of me is like, really, some of the heinous things you've done. Shall I? There's a point. It's a difficult thing because, you know, I just—I'm like, you very clearly have issues with Jewish people. Like, it's—you know, you'd have to have an honest conversation. You'd have to be open to an honest conversation instead of just clap, clap, clap, we forgive you.
Can I give you a couple real-world examples? I was supposed to go on Bill Maher, and I found out that Steve Bannon was one of the panelists.
You did. You removed yourself.
And I said, "Uh, this guy made what looked like to me a Nazi salute." And a lot of people say, "No, he didn't." If I had more skills, I could handle that conversation. I don't have those skills. As a non-to my mother, I feel like I would have to fucking say something to him on live TV. I do not want to hijack Bill Maher's show, and I don't know how to thread that needle, so I backed out. I was invited to go on Steve Bartlett's podcast tomorrow. I was supposed to be on with Eric Schmidt on a discussion on AI. I have a lot of respect for the brain of Eric Schmidt. I would learn a lot. I'm like, I'm in. And they're like, "Eric can't do it. Can you come on in this panel with Sanker Chank?" I mean, every time I see that guy, he's yelling. I don't want to get into a yelling match with anybody.
You went on that Piers when I told you not to.
Well, I didn't know he was going to ambush me with some far-right weirdo.
Yeah. So, and by the way, I like Piers.
And he's been very generous to me. And I called the producer and I said, "Never again. Don't call me. You didn't warn me that you were going to bring on some right-wing weirdo to try and call me desperate and un-American. I don't need that shit." And it wasn't a civil conversation. It was you just trying to get the YouTube algorithm to have a call-out moment such that you'd get another fucking $40 from AdSense. I'm not going to engage in that. At the same time, I'm not going to get on with—I think that guy is far-left who every time I see him is yelling. I'm like, that—what good does that do me? What good does that do the ecosystem or any sense of civil discourse that this nation needs to move toward?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll see how it goes. It'll be interesting.
I'm so indignant right now.
I'm so indignant right now. What do you call—what do you call a black man on the moon?
Oh, no. Don't. Please don't. You're—I'm going to have to fire you soon. What?
An astronaut. You fucking racist.
Oh, I love it. That guy is amazing. He's with his dog. That guy is amazing.
He's amazing. Like, oh, all right.
They make $150,000 a year.
One of them said I wouldn't fly with a—Who was the person who said I wouldn't fly with a black pilot?
He was making a point around DEI that he thinks there's—and by the way, Elon's done it too.
Just so you know, how airlines—I'm not forgiving how airlines handle DEI. They do widen the aperture in terms of who makes it into the applicant pool, but any pilot, female, male, black, white, Latino, has to pass the exact same test at the same level.
Ridiculous. It's fucking ridiculous. That those things—I'm sorry. I'm not going to be forgiving. Anyway, that pilot is amazing. All right, we're moving on. Speaking of—
I didn't mean to sound offensive a lot in the last 24 hours.
I know. But you know what? It's good to talk about because everyone wants me to dump you.
Everyone wants you to dump me.
I'm not—we're not doing it. I'm just telling you today, today, today, Scott, did I have an effective and substantive conversation about the issue we talked about?
Just all right, I'm moving on. Speaking of people we may have to forgive, Apple will have a new CEO for the first time in 15 years come September. Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO and will move into a new role as Apple's executive chairman. Trump praised Cook in a post on Truth Social, also saying, quote, "I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple willing to kiss my ass," unquote. Unfortunately, this was accurate. John Turnis, the head of Apple's hardware engineering, will succeed Cook, first product person running the company in a while. He's been with the company for 25 years, overseeing the engineering of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Talk about the legacy, and you will have to include sort of being tainted by this relationship with Trump, including recently the statue and the Melania thing. And Turnis is joining Apple as the company is fighting for a space in the AI race and product innovation. Talk a little bit about predictions for the Turnis era and looking back at the Cook era.
May I start? I have to say he's 10x the amount—the value of the company. When Steve gave him the reins and then died, everyone thought it was curtains for the company, and that has not been the case. He has been innovative with AirPods and Watch, and not just—not as sexy as Steve Jobs has been or as visionary. So I think he's been a great leader for them. That said, he was tarnished by some China—all the China manufacturing stuff for sure, because he's a logistics guy. He was maybe too much of an automaton on those human rights issues. And then the President Trump stuff is not a great look, but I think he was taking one for the team, would be my guess in that regard. As a person, I really like him. He's been—he's a really calm person. I think he could have been slightly more outspoken about gay issues, but that's his choice. Again, I don't force gay people to have to talk about it, but he's a good role model. Probably could have talked a little bit more about it. That's my only—but that's again his choice. And I get why people don't want to. So, your thoughts?
I think people's careers are, you know, the second—in the blink of the corporate world in the universe. That second—35 mm, right? No one gets all 35 mm perfect, and Tim Cook's running at 34 out of 12. So to not—this is his legacy. Tim Cook is the most successful successor in corporate history. Talk about a guy that was set up to fail by virtue of the idolatry of the person who was taking over for. They were immediately second-guessed. His record was pretty amazing. The record itself, not just idol—
Yeah. It's like, okay, who inherits Jesus's mantle?
