On with Kara Swisher

Latest Episodes:

Imran Ahmed Researches Online Hate. Trump Wants to Deport Him Jan 12, 2026

Show notes

As the founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed specializes in researching how hate and disinformation spread online. His work has made him a target of Elon Musk and the Trump administration — he’s one of five European tech regulators and researchers the White House wants to bar from the U.S. over claims of “foreign censorship.” Ahmed, who’s a British national based in the U.S., has sued to block his removal, and he’s not backing down from a fight with the administration over his goal to hold social media and AI companies accountable.

Kara and Imran talk about the work his organization does to combat the spread of hate speech; why he thinks the Trump administration is targeting him at the behest of Elon Musk; and the stakes of his case when it comes to protections around free speech and immigration. They also talk about why so many tech CEOs are threatened by efforts to rein in the spread of disinformation on their platforms.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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Venezuela After Maduro: Can Trump Control Caracas From Afar? Jan 08, 2026

Show notes

The arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, on Saturday, sent shockwaves across the globe. And although the targeted military operation was a success, the repercussions of ousting the authoritarian leader will be long-lasting and hard to predict.

To make sense of the new world order ushered in by President Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine,” we convened a panel of experts: an oil industry specialist, a national security journalist, and an historian of Venezuela.

Luisa Palacios is the managing director of energy transition finance at the Center on Global Energy Policy and the former chairwoman of the Citgo Petroleum Corporation.

David Sanger is the White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times. He’s played central roles on three teams that have won Pulitzer Prizes, and he’s the author of four books, including his latest, “New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion and America’s Struggle to Defend the West.”

Alejandro Velasco is a historian, a professor at New York University, the former executive editor of the NACLA Report on the Americas, and the author of “Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela.”

Together, they unpack the Trump administration’s competing rationales for deposing Maduro; the feasibility of controlling Venezuela without American boots on the ground; how a “regime change” that doesn't change will affect the Venezuelan people; and the global implications for America’s credibility.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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Isaac Chotiner on Confrontation, Curiosity, and Being the 'Interview Assassin' Jan 05, 2026

Show notes

As the principal contributor to The New Yorker’s “Q&A” interview series, Isaac Chotiner has earned a reputation as “the interview assassin.” His persistent questioning has made for some awkward — and revealing — conversations with high-profile guests over the years, but Chotiner also rejects the caricature of the “gotcha journalist” that’s often applied to him.

Kara and Isaac talk about his interviewing style, how he prepares for difficult conversations, and his recent viral Q&As with the legal scholar Cass Sunstein and former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. They also talk about some of the stories that are likely to dominate headlines in 2026.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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ACCESS with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger Jan 01, 2026

Show notes

Happy 2026 from all of us at On with Kara Swisher! We’re ringing in the new year with an episode of ACCESS, a new tech insider podcast from the Vox Media Podcast Network that’s hosted by two highly connected tech journalists, Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger. Each week, Alex and Ellis have revealing conversations with Silicon Valley’s most influential leaders, from the tech titans of today to tomorrow’s most interesting entrepreneurs.

On this episode of ACCESS, they speak to Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev to discuss the rise of prediction markets, juggling priorities as a public CEO, and much more.

For full video episodes, subscribe on YouTube

Follow ACCESS on Instagram and TikTok.

Follow Alex's ⁠Sources newsletter⁠ and on ⁠X @alexeheath⁠.

Follow Ellis at ⁠Meaning⁠ and on ⁠X @hamburger⁠.

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Driverless Semi-Trucks Are Here & Coming to a Highway Near You Dec 29, 2025

Show notes

Kara sits down with Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of the autonomous trucking company Aurora, and Johnathon Ehsani, a professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University and leading road safety researcher, for a candid look at the future of AI-powered freight transport.

Recorded live at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center, the three discuss the rapid rise of driverless trucking, what it will take to convince a skeptical public that sharing the road with self-driving 18-wheelers will actually make driving safer, the potential for job losses, and how to regulate autonomous vehicles across state lines. It’s a deeply informed look at the promises and the trade-offs of autonomous trucking with two experts.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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The Long Game with Jake Sullivan and John Finer Dec 25, 2025

Show notes

Happy Holidays from the On with Kara Swisher team! To celebrate, we’re gifting you a recent episode of a new national security podcast from the Vox Media Podcast Network. “The Long Game” is hosted by Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s National Security Advisor, and Jon Finer, his Principal Deputy — both senior aides who sat in on the classified Presidential Daily Brief each morning and translated raw intelligence into policy advice.

On this episode of The Long Game, Jake and Jon cover:

- The fast-escalating U.S. pressure campaign against the Maduro regime in Venezuela — including the growing American military buildup and Trump’s post calling Venezuela a “foreign terrorist organization.”

- President Trump’s decision to allow the sale of Nvidia’s advanced H200 AI chips to China — announced on the same day that the DOJ called the chip a cornerstone of “AI superiority.”

- A Red Team/Blue Team exercise on the U.S.-backed peace proposal for the Ukraine–Russia war, with Jake and Jon stepping into the roles of advisers to Zelensky and Putin.

Follow The Long Game so you never miss an episode. New episodes drop on Fridays.

Show notes and a transcript of the episode are available here.
Watch the video of this episode on Youtube.

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Winners, Losers & WTF Moments: A Look Back at 2025’s Top Tech Stories Dec 22, 2025

Show notes

From an unenforced TikTok ban and a chatbot calling itself MechaHitler to mounting fears that we’re in an AI bubble, 2025 was another messy year for the tech industry. We watched billionaire CEOs fully align themselves with President Trump, Nvidia become the first $5 trillion company, and Elon Musk’s popularity tank, thanks to his DOGE antics (and yet he could still become the world’s first trillionaire).

Kara breaks down the biggest tech stories of 2025 with four journalists: Bill Cohan, a longtime financial journalist, author, and Puck co-founder who covers Wall Street; Casey Newton, founder and editor of the tech newsletter Platformer and host of The New York Times podcast “Hard Fork”; Joanna Stern, senior personal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal and author of a forthcoming book about how she surrendered her life to A.I. for a year; and Charlie Warzel, staff writer at The Atlantic and host of the tech and culture podcast “Galaxy Brain.”

(Please note, this conversation was recorded before news broke that TikTok had signed a deal to spin off its U.S. business to a group of American investors, the Justice Department released a trove of documents tied to investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, and Waymo halted service in San Francisco because of power outages in the area.)

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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The End of Human Driving? with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Dec 18, 2025

Show notes

Kara sits down with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to dig into how applied artificial intelligence works at scale.

At Uber, AI powers everything from pricing, routing, and customer service to autonomous vehicles and sidewalk robots that deliver food. It has partnered with more than 20 autonomous vehicle manufacturers, and it’s moving aggressively into robotaxis. And although it may take many decades, Khosrowshahi believes society may eventually decide humans aren’t safe enough to be trusted behind the wheel. Kara and Dara discuss what this all means for jobs, congestion, climate and Uber’s business model.

This conversation was recorded live at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center as part of its Discovery Series on artificial intelligence.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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Sam Harris on Silicon Valley’s Slide into Techno-Authoritarianism Dec 15, 2025

Show notes

One of 2025’s most memorable images was of Silicon Valley’s billionaire CEOs lined up in the front rows at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. It was visual proof of the tech industry’s embrace of MAGA’s authoritarian-style of politics — one it has benefited from considerably over the last year. Author and neuroscientist Sam Harris has been using his podcast, “Making Sense,” to talk about the ways tech moguls are corroding our politics, and although he used to be close with some of them, he’s become a vocal critic of their support for Trump.

Kara and Sam talk about why he thinks the left is to blame for the tech billionaires’ shift to the right, why all of us are bad at sorting through the glut of information we find online, and the potential risks that come with the Trump administration’s hands-off approach to A.I. They also talk about what possible tech regulation could look like, and whether everyday people stand a chance against tech oligarchs and their platforms.

(Please note: This interview was recorded before President Trump signed an executive order to block states from passing A.I. regulation.)

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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Rachel Maddow on Japanese Incarceration During WWII, Mass Deportation & Media Chaos Dec 11, 2025

Show notes

Rachel Maddow is an author, podcast host and producer, documentary producer, and, of course, the anchor of her eponymous show on MS NOW. Her newest podcast, "Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order," unravels how the incarceration of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants during WWII was planned and carried out. Shockingly, the full story behind one of the 20th century’s worst American human-rights abuses might never have come to light if not for the relentless work of a hobbyist researcher — who had been incarcerated herself.

Kara and Rachel dig into the story and explore the parallels to President Trump’s mass-deportation policies. They also discuss the recent boat strikes on alleged drug traffickers, the escalating drama around the competing bids for Warner Bros. Discovery and what it signals for the future of the news business, and MSNBC’s evolution into MS NOW.

Please note: This episode was taped on Tuesday, before President Trump said it was “imperative that CNN be sold."

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.

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