He could get you if he wanted Hillary. He said that this
Oh, he has tried. Don't let anybody tell you contrary. I can tell you about that too.
Hi everyone. I'm Cara Swisher.
We back. We're back. Hillary, we are. They're back again. What the heck? Have you got good response for this?
I have had an amazing response and it's been lovely. People have stopped me, told me that they loved listening to us together. A lot of people say they're a Cara Swisher fan. So, thanks for, you know, doing it with her. So, yeah, it's been terrific.
Good. Well, I'm glad. Well, we have a lot to get to today. And I want to say welcome back to High Stakes from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Now, the midterm elections are less than two weeks away, and we're talking about issues that matter most to voters. We're very interested in helping voters with substantive discussions here. This week, we're going to be digging into corruption and accountability. But first, we're going to go through some headlines. But first, were you out at a karaoke party last night?
You know, I have a political organization called Onward Together, and we partnered with the Latino Victory Fund to have a night of karaoke and it was incredible. We had Broadway stars, we had TV stars, movie stars, we had all kinds of people who gave their time uh to this uh event last night. So, yeah, I I'm a little bit tired.
I heard you didn't sing. I did not sing because
Well, Cara, um I do have a Grammy, but my Grammy is for the spoken word. Drop that one. Right. I do have a Grammy. I mean, Cara,
I mean, in high school, the drama teacher let me join my friends in our annual musical as long as I lip synced.
What would be your karaoke song if you if you sang?
You know, I I would sing anything because they put the they put the lyrics up there and there's a lot of songs that I I really like. I would have loved to have sung Keep Marching from Suffs because I thought that would have fit the the moment, right?
I was thinking Gloria Gaynor, I will survive.
Yeah, I will survive. That's not bad. I would maybe sing Fight Song by Rachel Platten.
I'm still here with Steven.
You know, you could have a whiskey in your hand. Um uh President Trump is catching bipartisan flack. This is right in your wheelhouse now. Yes. Uh for waving uh new Russian uh sanctions days before they kicked in. And now the White House is trying to buy some time. Marco Rubio says the president will take up to two months to weigh what the sanctions would do to the economy and doesn't want to scare Russia away from peace talks. You posted a snippet from one of your 2016 debates. It's going all over the internet with Trump that was very precient. Let's play that.
from everything I see has no respect for this person.
Well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president of United States. It's pretty clear It's pretty clear you won't admit that the Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against the United States of America. That you encouraged espionage against our people. that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race. Well, looks like you're right.
So true.
Little background. What how did you come up? Puppet is a great word and it drove him crazy. That's clear. You're a puppet. You're a puppet. Like that was so strange. talk about then and now. I'd really like to get sort of the background when you decided the word puppet because that was a very particular word. You knew it would get under his skin. And what's happening now? And I'm going to I'm you're going to have to talk about this because I'm not the expert here.
You know, Cara, uh, 10 years ago, it became very clear, although maybe not to enough people, that Trump was enamored, uh, of Putin's absolute power, that he had been trying to, uh, do business. And we later learned he continued to try to do business to build a Trump Tower in Moscow throughout the 2016 campaign despite uh you know claims to the contrary that he called on Putin to basically hack into you know my email accounts and we had information uh from our intelligence services about how Russia was helping Trump to win. I mean, the list was really long and
which he called the Russia hoax, right? That's what
he calls it the Russia hoax. He does that with every uh claim against him that is provable, whether it's in court or in politics, because he never wants to uh admit what the truth is. And so, yes, he has been now for 10 years trying to downplay uh the importance of the help that Putin gave him in order to win. And the record is incredibly uh convincing that not only was he favored by Putin, but Putin used intelligence assets uh to uh help him online, to help him, you know, by uh trying to bring me down and and a lot of other um what the Russians call active measures uh to get the result they wanted, which was, you know, Trump is president because I had tangled with Putin. I had stood up to Putin. I had pointed out, you know, a lot of the actions that, you know, Putin took that were uh not only bad for the Russian people, but bad for Europe, bad for the United States. Uh and so now fast forward 10 years, we are seeing in real time everything that I warned about and everything that evidence uh proved which is that you know Trump is more devoted to Putin than he is to freedom, democracy, and frankly America's national security.
Why is he doing this now? Because first of all, the Senate passed that bill, the bipartisan bill, Lindsay, in honor of Lindsey Graham who recently died. Why do this right this second? He's trying is he trying to help the midterms because what that's one of the excuses is that it's, you know, it'll clear the way for the midterms in some fashion, but everybody's pushing back like everybody, which is pretty astonishing to have sort of a bipartisan response, including Lindsey Graham's sister who's running for Senate. Why do this now?
Well, I think he made an attempt to link uh the Ukrainians efforts to defend themselves and take the fight to Russia as somehow affecting uh gas and diesel prices. That's a total lie. Um the rise in in uh fuel prices is predominantly due to his reckless war, unsuccessful reckless war against Iran. So, he did try to make a political case, but nobody's taking that seriously. I think it comes down to really three things. I think first of all he remains enamored of strong men leaders who can do whatever they want including killing their opponents. It is truly unbelievable that we have a president who wants to be an authoritarian dictator with all of the unchecked power that that suggests. So I think that's the first thing.
All right. So authoritarian. The second thing is he is desperate to make more money by making more deals with Russia. You know, there's been a lot of coverage. The Wall Street Journal, by the way, has done a really good job on covering a lot of what uh Trump is up to along with his family and his, you know, close associates. They want to make financial deals with uh Russia, including, you know, oil and gas deals, critical mineral deals. They want
Well, both both with Russian assets like oil and and and gas fields, you know, Luke Oil, their uh you know, their national oil company. But it's also about carving up Ukrainian assets and getting Ukraine to basically give up on the territory uh that uh Russia has invaded and held. So there's whenever you see Trump doing anything the old you know slogan follow the money follow the money.
So number two is money. Number one is he likes strong men and likes to talk about them.
He likes strong men. Number number two is uh is the money. And you know, third, I continue to believe that Putin has things on Trump. I continue to believe that he uh is holding um photos, videos, whatever it might be. Um it's just how strongly Trump has uh fought against the release of the Epstein files. Um, and when we finally see all the Epstein files, I think even the people who supported uh Trump are going to be shocked by what it shows about Trump. So, honestly, I think it's it's, you know, wannabe dictator. It is, you know, money, money, money. And it is, you know, let's keep Putin happy so he doesn't dump what he has.
I think it's called compromat, right? Comprom
compromat. That's exactly right.
What will happen next? Can he can he hold the line here? Because he doesn't seem to have any support for this anywhere, including
No, but but but here's the problem. The way that that you we have other sanctions bills that that should govern his behavior, uh this most recent one, which was by partisan, passed in in memory of Lindsey Graham, you know, did have a provision that the sanctions could be waved for national security reasons by the president. And so by waving those sanctions, he lifts the pressure off of uh Russia. And the pressure was really beginning to uh take hold. Um and he's also trying to do other things like cutting intelligence sharing, cutting, you know, Starlink and Star Shield coverage for Ukraine. Uh trying to slow down the European deliveries of Patriot missile defense uh um you know uh equipment. So honestly, he he is doing everything he can to hurt Ukraine. This really brave, resilient country, which with its brave, resilient president standing up to Putin who thought he was going to be able to sweep in and take over Ukraine in a week, they have held out. they have pushed back and they have
really damaged a lot of the oil um uh refineries and other facilities along with data centers uh inside Russia. So my hope is that um enough pressure from Republicans and others causes Trump to turn on Starlink and Star Shield causes him to, you know, not prevent the Europeans. But I would, if I were the Europeans, go ahead and deliver whatever I had to the Ukrainians. I mean, why should they do, you know, his bidding?
But it creates He's being very explicit. He's being very explicitly anti um Zelensky. He's sort of mad at him because he's pushing back.
Well, that's what, you know, it's always a tell with Trump. If he always accuses people of what he himself is doing and it's if somebody were to link all those together, you would see the pattern so clearly.
Yeah. Absolutely. So you stick with puppet.
Anything like he is a puppet. He's a willing Putin puppet to help Putin. You know, Putin's not going to stop with Ukraine. Yeah.
Uh and you know, I I guess you know, Trump has this idea that he wants to divide the world. uh he gets the western hemisphere, Putin gets Russia and Europe and Xi Jinping gets the rest of the world. But you know that's the kind of mindset these guys have.
Yeah. Yeah. It's like a hundred years ago. Anyway, all right. We're going to move on. Actor Matthew McConaughey, whom I interviewed, which was a little a dicey interview for him, is slamming the two-party system and posted a six-minute video over the weekend calling voters to check out independent candidates. I do like independent candidates. I do think there needs to be sort of a shakeup and stuff like that. And I I don't think he articulated very well, but here's some of what he had to say.
The reality is midterms are coming. And this November, in more places than ever, you do have more than two choices. And I'm not telling you who to vote for. I'm telling you to look at your ballot, study up, see if they represent you, what you believe in. Check if they can be that voice of reason in the middle for you. and if they can treat them like a potential winner because they can be.
You know, I think it's really unfortunate that, you know, somebody who's such a great actor with such a a reach would be two weeks before a midterm uh that is aimed at stopping Trump's uh corruption uh impunity and uh extreme damage to country would suggest that any independent uh candidate is uh really a better choice. Right now, we have a broad range of Democrats running and Democrats are representing I think every kind of American in these elections. And we know, I mean, it's just a fact. We know that if we don't vote for Democrats to defeat Republicans, then Trump will have two more unchecked years to do whatever he wants to our country.
Um, one of the things that was surprising and I, someone who worked in the Clinton administration, James Carville, told Bill Crystal on the Bull Work podcast, I would be disappointed if it comes in at 225 House seats. I would rather the Republicans keep the House by five than Democrats win by five because if that happens, they're hostage to the DSA. That was something that was Were you surprised by that?
Well, I just disagree with James. I mean, I think win a win is a win. And um I remember when uh Nancy Pelosi had to deal with the so-called squad. She figured out a way to do it. And you know, all the DSA uh candidates are not all the same. They're not a monolithic block. And I think that Hakeem Jeffries as speaker can manage uh you know, how to uh get uh you know, enough of them to support a Democratic agenda because look at what the alternative is. I mean, are we going to turn our country back over to the crazy Republicans who we have seen not only be do nothings, uh, but refuse to hold Trump accountable for anything? But I actually think we're going to do better than that. I think we're going to have a bigger margin based on, you know, everything that I'm seeing and hearing.
It's crashing for Trump right now. But when you think about the idea of an independent party, because they've got so much push, Chuck, people are terrified. People are terrified of Trump winning in any way. Um, when is the right time to have an independent talk? And I I think McConaughey's timing couldn't have been worse. And he seems a little dizzy, honestly.
Look, I think we we have two uh independent members of the Senate right now, Angus King from Maine, Bernie Sanders from Vermont. We have a really good independent candidate running in Montana who I do think um is a a real alternative to the Democrat who seems to, you know, uh in my view not really represent the Democratic party very well. Um so yeah, there are a few select places where independence number one can win because let's remember that's what this is about. It's about winning. It's not about, you know, an emotional catharsis. It's about winning enough seats and Angus King and Bernie Sanders both caucus with the Democrats uh because they understand that their views are much closer to the Democratic party than to the Republican party. So if you have, you know, what I would call common sense independents who can win and not just take votes away from Democrats so that Republicans win. Uh but those are very few and far between. So in this election in particular, uh the vast majority of voters are going to be better off if we end up with a, you know, good, healthy, uh majority in the House and a majority in the Senate of Democrats.
Right. Right. But this this longing for an independent party, I mean, you're a student of history, so am I. This idea that there should that parties are are not working for Americans and there have been shifts in our country when this has happened. Do you see that happening anytime soon?
I can't see it happening anytime soon. I can see, you know, a very strong and I hope healthy debate within the Democratic party uh between the center, the center left and the far left. Um because as I've said over and over again, uh I think that does represent a full range of views in America. The Republican party is no longer a political party. It is a cult uh devoted to Trump and Trump's uh power. And so the Republican party needs a total, you know, uh transformation. And I think that's what the country really needs. We if if we're going to have a healthy government that actually gets things done and delivers for people, then the Republican party has to purge itself of, you know, everybody who lost both their conscience and their backbone over the last 10 years, and that's most of them.
Yeah. Um, but if that doesn't happen, then I can see a an independent effort within the Republican party, frankly, on the center right to the, you know, non crazy right uh to try to reinvent itself after Trump,
right? And do you see do you do you think that will happen? He has a hold on them even with the declining ratings, right, as they're going down to the basement.
It is unlike anything I ever thought we'd see in American politics. I mean, he has a hold on them out of, you know, maybe they believe him, maybe they uh agree with him, maybe they're intimidated and scared of him, maybe they're cynical and they just want to stay in power. Whatever the reasons are, he has a grip on the Republican party. Now, what'll be interesting, if we win the House and Senate, and if you vote for Democrats, we will win the House and the Senate. In my opinion, if we win, when we win, and we start trying to hold him accountable, I'm going to be interested to see which Republicans start moving back off the cult cliff into a more reasonable political uh position.
I don't know. I I don't know yet.
Vance didn't back uh Netanyahu. Didn't say it wouldn't back Netanyahu for the election, for example. Anybody?
You know, I think he's such a shape shifter. Nobody knows what he believes. And so whatever whatever looks like it might be to his advantage, he's going to say he believes as he has apparently throughout his entire life.
But I think whether there's a contest for the Dem for the Republican presidential uh nomination is going to be very telling if people just anoint Vance because he was vice president. Um first of all, I think we'll have a really good chance of beating him no matter who we uh nominate. Um, but if there's a contest within the Republican party, and I don't know who would have the guts or the means to stand up and say, "We can't continue to be the cult of Trump. We've got to get back to being a real political party and getting things done for the American people." But, you know, maybe one of the Republican governors will say, "I'm taking my country back. I'm not going to sit by. I'm going to be the successor to Trump and, you know, here I am." I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.
Well, Kennedy's maybe Tillis could run. There could be. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? We'll see. Massie, there's all kinds of people. And Marjorie Taylor, why are we leaving out Marjorie Taylor Green?
Well, she may run, too. Who knows?
She may run, too. That'll be fun. She's She is now to the left of me at this point. Like, I don't know what is going on. Every time I'm like, ma'am, what is happening? I don't I don't trust her. I know it's
I'm not sure she's quite to the left of you, but she has moved off of a lot of her positions.
What happened? What did she start to
I think what happened is, you know,
was it creatine? Nothing like, you know, nothing like a woman scorned. She was scorned and she's getting even in every way she can. So, just sit back, buy your popcorn, and let's watch.
Yes. We'll see, Marjorie. We'll see.
Um, okay, Madam Secretary, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we're going to get to the big issue, one of your favorites, corruption.
Support for this show comes from the Freedom from Religion Foundation. On high stakes, Hillary and I talk about the choices shaping our democracy. Here's a fundamental one. Who should hold power in America, the people, or religion? Our founders created a constitution that bars religious tests for public office. And the First Amendment protects your freedom to believe or not believe. Yet, we're seeing growing efforts to blur the line between religion and government, from public schools to public policy. When government takes sides on religion, everyone's freedom is at risk. The Freedom from Religion Foundation works to keep state and church separate. FFRF also stands up for freethinkers, atheists, agnostics, and millions of non-religious Americans whose voices deserve to be heard. Visit FFRF us/cara or text cara k a r a to 511511 to learn more or to join because promoting democracy means protecting freedom for everyone. Text cara to 511511 or go to ffr.us/CARa. Text fees may apply.
All right, Madam Secretary, we're back. Corruption is now the top concern among voters in a Fox News poll. This was really e interesting, even beating inflation and healthcare. Usually those are inflation. The economy is usually at the very top. We're going to talk about who's cashing in and what to do about it. But first, let's hear from our good friend and that charm offensive JD Vance.
Do you hate fraud? Do you think it's despicable when fraudsters steal from our fellow Americans and then go buy luxury mansions and fancy cars? Does it tick you off when our elderly and most vulnerable are taken advantage of? And do you want to do more to stop it? Then join my pledge to protect Americans from fraud. I'm calling on every member of Congress as well as local and statewide officials and anyone seeking public office to rise to the occasion and make a simple commitment. And by committing to this effort, you will pledge to protect all Americans from fraud, relentlessly find the fraudsters, throw criminals in prison, and ensure that our government programs benefit law-abiding citizens, not the fraudsters who are stealing from our country.
I mean, how absurd and how dumb does he think we are? Unless by that, you know, he's suggesting that he's going to start with all the people who have been defrauding America who uh are starting with the president and everybody around him.
Yeah, he should look up. That's what I kept thinking. Um it's this is this is this was a video he put out calling on elected officials to sign a six-point nationwide anti-fraud pledge, which uh fraudsters fraudsters, everybody um is coming at one of the most corrupt administrations of all time. I think most people agree. Before we get into the many many specific examples, explain for us how corruption affects voters in their daily lives.
There are so many ways that corruption affects uh individual Americans. For example, if contracts are given uh to people who are uh unqualified and ineligible like members of Trump's family and their associates, um you know, that is a level of corruption that wastes taxpayers money. It comes right out of your pocket because when you pay your taxes to the government, you are expecting a level of accountability and standards that are going to be fulfilled. You can also see that pattern in the pardons that Trump has given and the ones that I find particularly obnoxious are all the people that he has pardoned for health care fraud. People who have raised the cost of what hospitals charge you or what Medicare can pay. These are people who have stolen your hard-earned money and your tax money to put into their own pockets. And Donald Trump has pardoned them. And he's not only pardoned them from their criminal uh convictions and the prison sentences that they were supposed to be serving. He's pardoned them so they don't have to make recisions to the individuals that they defrauded and the hospitals that they defrauded and the government programs that they defrauded. And we also see a lot of fraud that begins to creep into um how effective our military is because if you're giving contracts to people who don't know what they're doing and are not producing uh good equipment, that's like what happened to the Russian military. The Russian military is riddled by corruption, which is one of the reasons why all of the fears that they would conquer Ukraine in a week turned out to be nonfounded fears because they were so corrupt. Uh the money was being siphoned off probably starting in the Kremlin all the way down to individuals. I'll tell you a really quick story. So okay, when I was Secretary of State, when people talk about terrible civilian uh massacres, you know, the worst in the last 30 years has happened in the eastern Congo. So one of the reasons was because the uh Congolese military was never paid. And why weren't they paid? Because the way the government in Kinshasa would pay them was to put cash into suitcases. And that the cash would go from the general to the colonel to the captain to the lieutenant. And by the time it got to the soldiers on the front line in eastern Congo, there was no money left in the suitcase. And so soldiers would leave. They would go home or they would join a militia that promised to pay them. And I said to the government, why don't we go to um paying the soldiers through their phones? Let's set up a system. We will help you do that. And I put people to work on it. and we put up a great system and we took it to the Congolese government and we said here's how you can make sure your soldiers are paid and they at first said oh that's wonderful what a great idea and then when they got pressure from the military and government officials who were also profiting they came back and said no no that's not going to work so I use that as an example because when people have their hands out either getting corrupt contracts making deals with corrupt cyber companies and others around the world pardoning fraudsters. You know, that all is coming out of our pockets.
Talk about what it means. The profit that the Trump family has made off of the presidency could actually pay for a full year of SNAP benefits for about 1.3 million people, more than 600 million free school lunches, or three months of groceries for the 5.2 million people who have been thrown off SNAP. So that's putting it into, you know, very concrete terms. Um, you're wasting your tax money. The corruption is rife. It's undermining government services, even our national defense. And it is hurting people who should be able to get some support because of their, you know, needs for food or their need to pay their bills. So we already know that he's a he's a fraudster. you know, just to kind of keep this in line with the evidence that we have.
Here's the stuff that's actually been taken to court and the courts have ruled against Trump.
You know, let's remember this because, you know, what they say politically doesn't have to stand up to the rules of evidence. What happens in court actually has to be proven either beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal court or with the preponderance of evidence in a civil uh proceeding. So, there were the 34 felony counts in the so-called hush money case, which was really an election interference case for falsifying business records to mislead voters. You know, he got the civil fraud finding on the books, uh, for inflating the values of his assets in his businesses to get better business deals. And then he was found liable in the E. Jean Carroll case for sexual abuse and defamation. So, I think it's important that whenever he's been to court and that and that has happened numerous times because remember he uh went bankrupt a bunch of times. Uh that was through the court system and in the court system he tried to overturn the 2020 election but couldn't do it because he didn't have the evidence. So, I think it's important to keep in mind when we talk about him being a fraudster uh which he is uh we're not just saying it for political purposes. We have real solid evidence.
