Kara Swisher is everywhere.
She’s filling in for Joy Behar on ABC’s “The View.” Appearing alongside Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” Starring in a CNN documentary. Preparing a national tour. And churning out four podcasts most weeks featuring long-form interviews and commentary.
It’s a ubiquity born of more than three decades chronicling the technology industry with a professed indifference to power that vaulted her into a rare echelon of journalism celebrity.
She harnessed that reputation to persuade rivals Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to appear onstage together and make Mark Zuckerberg so uncomfortable under questioning that he broke out into a sweat. She had Elon Musk’s cellphone number — the two aren’t currently speaking — and often texts tech and business leaders.
She’s betting the influence that made her a Silicon Valley force will translate into politics as podcasts supplant traditional media as a destination for candidates seeking attention.
During Republican President Donald Trump’s second term, potential Democratic presidential candidates ranging from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris to onetime Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel have appeared on Swisher’s shows. She expects that roster to grow.
“We get called by all the presidential candidates,” the 63-year-old Swisher said in an interview at her home in a leafy corner of Washington, where her trademark high self-regard was on display. “We’re going to get to all of them.”
Swisher is hardly the only podcaster talking politics. Conservatives like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson and some liberals like the former Barack Obama aides who host “Pod Save America” have larger audiences. They’re all dwarfed by Joe Rogan.
But Swisher, who has evolved from a traditional print journalist to business owner and podcast host, has few rivals who can match her technology expertise and connect those observations to the broader political debate.
“When I first went on her podcast when I just got into Congress in 2017, she was very well respected in tech circles,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat whose district includes Silicon Valley. “But now she’s emerged as a larger cultural force, especially at a time where there’s such anger at the tech billionaires and tech arrogance.”
Interviews that produce revealing moments
When she’s not on the road, Swisher typically records from a basement studio in the Washington home she shares with her wife, children and a cat named Lovely. The conversations on her interview podcast “On with Kara Swisher” are often referenced later on “Pivot,” which she co-hosts with entrepreneur Scott Galloway.
They frequently produce revealing moments, as when Newsom filled in for Galloway on “Pivot.” Swisher derided him for being too easy on Steve Bannon when the longtime Trump aide appeared on Newsom’s own podcast.
“You had an opportunity to engage,” Swisher pressed. “Why not engage?”
The typically self-possessed Newsom conceded, “I’m not the pro that some of these others are, but I appreciate the insight.”
Swisher pushed Buttigieg on why he took so long to say President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, shouldn’t have sought reelection. Buttigieg said he wasn’t consulted.
“Sure, but you have eyes,” Swisher responded.
Her interview with Harris captured the former vice president’s tenacious side as she called policies from Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “f—– up.” Harris said gravely that she “can’t laugh” about such matters, though Swisher noted on a later podcast that the two had just joked about Kennedy backstage.
“Be the person backstage because that’s the person who gave a great answer,” Swisher said in the later podcast.
In an interview, Newsom said Swisher “calls out my bulls—-.”
“She’ll send me missives unsolicited,” he said. “She’s usually right, and it drives me crazy.”
Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who has long known Swisher, agreed that being interviewed by Swisher is “not a layup.”
Even Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a rare Republican to go on her show, said it was a worthwhile experience despite being pressed on whether his willingness to speak out against the Trump White House emerged only after he opted against reelection.
“If you’re a politician, you should be able to walk up anywhere and hold your own,” Tillis said. “Do the prep, get on the show. You may end up having an opportunity, like in my experience, to give a completely different perspective.”
‘Pivot’ was initially focused on tech and business
Shaping the political conversation wasn’t the objective when “Pivot” launched in 2018.
Galloway, who hosts his own “Prof G” and “Raging Moderates” podcasts, recalled the idea for “Pivot” was to focus on the intersection of technology and business. That’s still much of the show’s focus, but the biggest stories in those spaces, such as the initial public offering for Musk’s SpaceX or the rise of artificial intelligence, are now inevitably linked to politics.
“Show me a big business or tech story, and I’m going to show you a political overlay,” Galloway said.
The expansion converges with a sense of urgency among Democrats to be more aggressive on digital platforms, where audiences are increasingly concentrated.
“The single most important quality that every candidate needs to have is the ability to talk and the ability to talk anywhere,” said Teddy Goff, the co-founder of Precision Strategies and the digital director for Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. “That might mean a two-hour podcast interview. It might mean a 15-second digital video.”
Democrats are still stung by Rogan’s nearly three-hour Trump interview in the final weeks of the 2024 campaign. Rogan, who doesn’t consider himself a journalist, has said Harris’ campaign didn’t agree to his terms. Harris has described being spurned by Rogan.
Swisher agreed Democrats should embrace podcasts but insisted she’s not a left-leaning counter to Rogan.
“You can’t manufacture this stuff,” she said. “It just doesn’t work, right? The kids like what the kids like.”
Still, the podcasts add up to influence and financial success.
Galloway said “Pivot,” which is effectively a joint venture between himself, Swisher and Vox Media, will be a $15 million to $20 million business this year. With a staff of just five, that’s a robust moneymaker as media is disrupted by a wave of mergers and acquisitions.
Vox Media itself has been reborn after a recent acquisition by James Murdoch, who swept New York magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and the Vox editorial brand into a single company where podcasts are the fastest-growing business.
“Podcasts are the NBA,” Galloway said. “There’s a small amount of people making a lot of money.”
A goal to be popular ‘among the entire populace’
While Swisher largely hosts Democrats, she’s recently interviewed Tillis and Scott Jennings, a conservative CNN commentator. She hopes to soon bring on additional Republicans and said she texted Steve Hilton’s wife, a former Google executive, in hopes of booking him shortly after he advanced in California’s governor’s race.
“What we’re going for is to be popular among the entire populace,” she said. “So that people who don’t feel they want to be in a constant state of anger, whether it’s on the left or the right, can have a place to go.”
But her barbed comments about Trump and other Republicans could complicate that goal.
Kelly McBride, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, said shows like Swisher’s can sometimes “butt right up against the type of podcasts that I would not consider journalism.”
“The way you separate them out is that the intention and the system surrounding the podcast is engineered in a way to create fact-based information,” she said.
Swisher describes her work as “reported analysis,” citing tech writer Om Malik, who died last week, as an inspiration.
As for the tone of the podcasts, it’s all part of the authenticity that is central to Swisher’s brand. Beyond the takes on the day’s news, she and Galloway have developed a strong — if unlikely — chemistry in which his penchant for vulgarities can make her seem almost highbrow.
“We don’t shy away from our faults,” she said. “We don’t shy away from our biases. You know, we don’t shy away from things that most people try to.”
—Steven Sloan, Associated Press