Dissecting Elon Musk’s Hostile Takeover with Anne Applebaum, Eoin Higgins & Ryan Mac

Is it strange that Wicked, a film about a marginalized person discovering her magic and rising up to fight against government oppression, has been a box office success under Trump 2.0 – or does the movie's message actually meet the moment? Wicked has been nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Actress in a Leading Role for Cynthia Erivo, who already has Grammy, Emmy and Tony awards under her belt. This week, Kara talks with Erivo about why, as a queer, Black woman, the role of Elphaba was especially meaningful and how she made it her own; what she thinks about the current attack on diversity programs and the LGBTQ+ community; which projects she wants to lend her voice and other talents to going forward; and what becoming the youngest EGOT winner (if she wins the Oscar) would mean to her. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elon Musk and a band of young DOGE engineers are taking control of key government infrastructure. The scale and speed with which they’re hijacking control of the federal government is shocking, and even President Donald Trump appears not to know all that Musk is doing.  In order to analyze what’s actually happening and understand how and why other tech billionaires are also cozying up to Trump, we’re joined by Anne Applebaum, Eoin Higgins & Ryan Mac. Applebaum is a staff writer for The Atlantic, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, and author of the recently released Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run The World. Higgins is a reporter for the IT Brew and author of Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left. And Mac covers corporate accountability across the global technology industry for the New York Times, and he is the co-author of Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. This episode was recorded on Monday February 3rd.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ben Stiller knew he needed to make Severance the moment he read an early version of the show in a writing sample its creator, Dan Erickson, submitted to his production company. Now, years later, Severance is a hit, reportedly generating $200 million for Apple TV, and Stiller is the series’ executive producer and go-to director responsible for some of its most pivotal episodes. Kara talks to Stiller about the most poignant themes of the show, from its commentary on surveillance and technology to its meditations on trauma and identity. Plus, they chat politics — including Stiller’s reaction to an angry post about him by Elon Musk and his view on making political art now.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump’s executive action granting clemency to all of the January 6th insurrectionists – violent and non-violent alike – has been met with concern by legal experts and people who have been studying and reporting on militia groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys for years. Kara speaks with Dr. Amy Cooter, director of research at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and author of Nostalgia, Nationalism and the US Militia Movement; investigative reporter Tess Owen who has covered violent extremist groups, including the J6 protesters extensively; and Paul Rosenzweig, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, who specializes in issues relating to domestic and homeland security about the message the pardons send to violent militias, the impact of social media (and Elon Musk) on far-right extremism, and whether Trump has the authority to deputize these groups, especially on the border. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since the inception of social media, content moderation has been hotly debated by CEOs, politicians, and, of course, among the gatekeepers themselves: the trust and safety officers. And it’s been a roller coaster ride — from an early hands-off approach, to bans and oversight boards, to the current rollback and “community notes” we’re seeing from big guns like Meta, X, and YouTube. So how do the folks who wrote the early rules of the road look at what’s happening now in content moderation? And what impact will it have on the trust and safety of the platforms over the long term? This week, Kara speaks with Del Harvey, former head of Trust and Safety at Twitter (2008- 2021); Dave Willner, former head of Content Policy at Facebook (2010-2013); Nicole Wong, a First Amendment lawyer, former VP and deputy general counsel at Google (2004-2011), Twitter's legal director of product (2012-2013), and deputy chief technology officer during the Obama administration (2013-2014). Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Attention is our world’s most endangered resource — and whoever commands it, commands power. That’s the thesis of Chris Hayes’s new book, The Sirens’ Call, which chronicles the rise of attention capitalism and how it’s fundamentally disordering our politics, our media, and our brains. It’s a book Hayes felt partly inspired to write after years covering President Trump, an unparalleled expert in manipulating this attention age. Well, unparalleled until Elon Musk. Kara and Chris discuss how "big tech" got us here, what makes Trump and Musk so good at commanding attention, and whether Democrats should figure out how to command more attention themselves.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Donald Trump has vowed to tackle immigration on “day one,” and that includes promising to close the southern border and begin mass deportations almost immediately. So who better to discuss the plausibility of those imminent plans than the man who led immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security for the past four years, former Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas?  Kara sits down for an exit interview with Mayorkas to talk about the backlash he faced, from both sides of the aisle, during a term plagued by “Biden’s Border Crisis”; whether he feels responsible for Trump’s election victory; his assessment of the threats posed by foreign and domestic extremists; his thoughts on calls to break up the mammoth DHS; and what he makes of his tapped successor, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Plus: why he thinks banning TikTok an imperative, if ultimately thankless, game of national security whack-a-mole. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They’re incredible pieces of technology, they’re unbelievably useful, and we feel lost without them. Nonetheless, smartphones have become the bane of our existence. So Graham Dugoni started Yondr with a surprisingly simple and analog solution to their ubiquity: locking pouches that force cell phone users to put away their device while still keeping their phones on them. Now, they’re used everywhere from comedy shows, to concerts, courtrooms, and weddings. After the success of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, more and more states and school districts are instituting cell-phone bans — and, oftentimes, Yondr is the first company they turn to when they need help. Kara and Graham talk about the push to ban phones from schools, the company’s success, and his philosophical take on smartphones, social media and technology. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transgender kids and adults have become a political punching bag for conservatives — but Laverne Cox is stepping into the ring. Kara talks with the transgender activist, Emmy award-winning producer and four-time Emmy-nominated actor, known for her groundbreaking role as Sophia Burset in Orange is The New Black, about the Trump campaign’s $200+ million spend on anti-trans ads during the election (and the Harris campaign’s lack of response); why Meta’s decision to no longer monitor hate speech could lead to more gender violence, and not just against trans kids; and how to stay resilient in the fight for civil and human rights (including packing a go bag). Plus: Laverne and Kara bust myths in a speed round about gender-affirming care, which is being targeted by laws across the country, and talk about her upcoming Prime Video comedy series Clean Slate. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Senator Amy Klobuchar has been legislating on Capitol Hill for 18 years. She recently won reelection and is now the number three Democrat in the Senate. And even though Big Tech has blocked her attempts at reform, at every turn, she is determined to keep pushing forward bills on everything from antitrust to privacy, competition, kids' safety and revenge porn.  Kara and Klobuchar talk about Trump’s nominations, January 6th and the upcoming inauguration (Klocuchar was one of four members of Congress who counted the electoral votes and she’s the chair of the Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies), her attempts to work across the aisle, and of course, tech and antitrust legislation. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices