How John King Gets Ready for Election Night
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On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org slash bots. It's on! It's on!

Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Inside Politics with John King with 100% fewer magic walls. How sad for me. Just kidding. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Naima Razak.

But our guest today is 100% John King. That's true, it is. We'll have an interview with the CNN anchor many of you will be watching on election night. Which will be tomorrow by the time folks hear this. That's correct. Yes, it's also your birthday on election day, correct? It is, but last time that happened, that it was my birthday on election day, do you know when it was? When? 2016.

Wow. Do you remember what happened? Yeah, it wasn't a fun birthday. Yeah, the cake was literally sitting there and nobody sang me happy birthday. Nobody blew out the candles. It was so depressing. Oh my God, someone left the cake out in the rain. I don't think that I can take it. It was very sad. So I like to celebrate before and I did and I already voted. Look, I got a sticker, Kara. Oh, you're such a good citizen of the United States of America. Thank you.

for the country and for the sticker. Yes, there are huge stakes here. 35 Senate seats, all of the House seats, and 36 governorships. That's a lot. Even though midterms are supposed to be boring, these are not boring midterms. By the way, I recently went to a report that's going to be released about dating, and one of the things they found was sexiest to people on dating apps? Oh, no. Voting.

Okay. Political participation. All right. It's sexy. Okay. So before we get to John King and the midterm elections, I wanted to ask you, Cara, how you're feeling about the elections. And given your expertise, how big of a problem do you think misinformation and social media are now?

in 2022? I think it's big. It's the same thing. They've been trying to fix this problem for years. I think they've figured out some things that work and other things that don't work, but I think people are weary about that. And I think there's lots and lots of misinformation out there. I think Facebook has tried. I will give them credit for doing a lot of things. I think they still should do more. That's obviously the biggest font of misinformation, as well as YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet and Google. Mm-hmm.

But I think the problem is it's jumped into the mainstream that they're just lying right in plain sight. You're saying there's like source proliferation, basically. Yeah, I think that they just repeat and repeat and repeat lies. There was one the other night with Carrie Lake where she said something very clearly, making a joke about Paul Pelosi being beaten.

the terrible moderator, whoever that was, what a jackass he was, laughed about it. And she was clearly doing one of her deadpan jokes. And she loved the laugh line. She's a broadcaster. She knows what she's doing. It is not impossible to protect our kids at school. They act like it is. Nancy Pelosi, well, she's got protection when she's in D.C. Apparently her house doesn't have a lot of protection. But...

Well, she knows what she's doing. It seems if she can frame it as a joke, she can get away with saying it, you know, but she said it wasn't even a joke. I never said it. Go look at the tape. And then when you look at the tape, I never made light on the attack. I was talking about our children and why they don't have better security at school.

That's just gaslighting. Yes. I don't know what it is. It's just like, I'll just keep lying. No, there's no dead body. There's no dead, there's dead body lying there. No, I don't know what you're talking about. That kind of thing. There is a dead body. And speaking of people who are in the business of hiding or casting a light on the dead bodies, the platforms, you said something interesting.

You gave Facebook some credit. You said they're doing stuff. So are the platforms more ready for this election than they have been in past ones, you think? I don't know. I don't know. I think, again, I think it's just leaped off the page and it goes up and down the stack. And so I hope so. I hope some of this stuff has been cut. They have certainly, Yael Roth from Twitter said they had cut some stuff recently. Yeah, he had a long time the other day. Yeah.

You know, I hope. I don't think Twitter matters as much as other platforms because it's so small. Did you follow the elections in Brazil, Cara? A little bit. I know you did. I pay attention to Brazil largely because it's sort of the next big market in technology, aside from Europe and the U.S. So you can see a lot of trends. There's a lot of D.C.s down in Brazil. And so I do pay attention to what's going on there from a social media perspective quite a bit. Last week, Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing populist president and incumbent, said,

actually lost in the election to the leftist former president, Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva. It took him two days to acknowledge that loss, and he hasn't practically conceded, but the transition is going forward. And people continue to protest. There have been devastating roadblocks. But what's interesting about...

what happened in Brazil is that Bolsonaro really was a social media president, like Trump, like Modi, et cetera. Very much so. But what was so interesting to me about this election is actually the role of Brazilian internet law. Here's the fascinating thing about Brazil. They have the Supreme Electoral Court, which was set up decades ago, and it's different from the country's Supreme Court, although they share a couple members. And they have this concept, habeas data, which is basically the right to your own data. It's very advanced. It's obviously very different. They don't have a First Amendment. But

But 10 days before the election, the Superior Electoral Court said, hey,

Social media platforms, if you do not remove misleading content within two hours, we're going to block you from our servers. And then in the days before the election, they made that one hour. Right. Said, we're going to fine you $28,000 an hour. Yeah. So do you think it worked, Kara? It clearly did. I think that's what happens. It gins people up. And, you know, this is a great thing to have if it works well, right? If it's run by the right people. Yeah. Not only did it work, the companies complied. Not a single company paid a fine. Right.

And I was speaking to Brazilian internet law professor Carlos Alfonso Souza, who teaches at Rio de Janeiro State University. And he was describing that in the press conference after Chief Justice Alexander de Moraes of the Supreme Electoral Court was asked how it went. He basically said, great. In fact, we could have made it even shorter because most of the stuff was gone within 15 minutes. So what does that tell you about the ability of these platforms to

to take stuff down when they're incentivized to do so? Well, of course they can. They can. It's just a question of money, time, and effort. And that's really the problem. It can be very expensive and it doesn't pay off for them, right? And it doesn't necessarily hurt them to do nothing. Obviously, this is... I'm not saying this is the best model. I think Jack Nickus at New York Times has done some of the best reporting on this about the fact that it worked in this election, but also...

could, you know, overpower the Chief Justice of the Supreme Electoral Court. Puts a lot of power into the hands of one person. It can be very manipulated like in India and other places when the government steps in where you don't want the government to do that, where they're obviously trying to maintain power. But could something like this work in the U.S.?

No, because of the First Amendment. But there was a flirtation with Biden's disinformation chief, Nina Jankowicz. She was tapped to lead the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board, which was created in April 2022 to counter misinformation. But it was a lot of right-wing attacks and conspiracy theories. It was going to be a, you know...

something from Brave New World or they paused it. She resigned. It was just it was easily attacked. It was all within three weeks, right? Yes. Well, because it does have, you know, should we have an information bureau? Should we have a, you know, a central bureau of information where everybody's information? Should we have an information bureau, Cara? No, no, we can't. We can't. It doesn't matter. Because the First Amendment, we can't.

But what should we do? I think we should use the Department of Homeland Security and use it like it's a cyber attack. Think about it like cyber attacks and terrorism and monitor it that way through the department. Even if it's homegrown? Yes. They already do this. Chris Krebs did this to an extent and do things like what happened to Alex Jones, legal lawsuits in order to remove them. But we're never going to have a governance board around information. And I don't...

I don't see a way we could do it in a way that would work where people would trust it, depending on what side you're on. Yeah, because ultimately everyone will think it's 1984 and you're policing what the facts are. But what about Section 230 reform? Well, maybe. I was talking about that with someone the other day. Can you do enough to Section 230 to make liability, give them more liability? I think the Alex Jones trial was that in a lot of ways.

because it was about Alex Jones and what he said. I think it's hard to compel these platforms to do these things without some legal pressure in some way. The question is, look, Texas is trying to do it in a way that I find really reprehensible. At the same time, the idea of it is a good one, like as in Brazil, but it's a question of how you

carried out. And again, we have the First Amendment in this country, so it makes it very hard for the government to move in in any area of free speech whatsoever. I understand it, but it's sad to have to rely on private lawsuits because, you know, not everybody has the means, not everybody has the opportunity and the organization power. Lawsuits took down Alex Jones. Lawsuits changed cars. Lawsuits changed... Yeah, if there's some defamation or something like that where these platforms...

The lawsuits have worked. We're very good at lawyering in this country. And it just doesn't matter. But lawsuits are so slow. Lawyering takes years and elections move really fast. We have the First Amendment. I don't know what to say. And speaking of lawsuits, there's a big lawsuit happening in the country right now, Dominion against Fox News, which is for defamation, a huge billion dollar lawsuit. That will reveal a lot into how Fox News makes election decisions. And they're in depositions. They're revealing things that will never have gotten inside the palace walls before. Is it a palace?

I don't know. But we can get some transparency into another organization, CNN, with our guest today, John King. Yeah, John King is the king of the magic board at CNN. He's a longtime political reporter, covered the White House, etc. And he is very masterful at saying, look over in this county, look at this, and then the magic board comes alive. And I'm a big admirer. He's on year-round, but you really pay attention to him during the election. You do. He is on around all year. I watch him all year. But this is when he is time to shine, which is during elections.

It's obviously dramatic. They want to make it more dramatic for ratings, I'm guessing. I will talk to him about that. We wanted to understand kind of the people that were watching on election night to understand more about how the decisions are made. The Times added that disclaimer that says how we cover politics and politics.

There's been a lot more kind of shining a light on the process by which facts are deemed to be facts. Yeah, why not? I've always been very open with readers and stuff, like how I do things. When they say, you did this because of this, I'm like, no, here's why we did it. Yeah, I agree we should. And of course, Fox doesn't show it, but they will have to after this Dominion lawsuit or during the Dominion lawsuit, we will learn. Well, I'm excited to see that, how they make it. I think it's going to be a pretty toxic brew over there. I'm guessing there's some good emails. Okay, let's take a quick break. And when we're back, we'll have Dawn King here.

Welcome, John King. Thank you for giving me time. And I know you're really busy and I really appreciate it. And it's good to see you. It's great to be here. It's crazy election time. It is. It is. It is. And you're taking time out to explain it for the people so people understand what you do.

So I'm going to start off right, right fresh. So on Tuesday night, Americans will be watching you. Someone like you. I watch you in front of the CNN's giant and it is giant magic wall. You're the magic wall guy, as I call you. I call Steve Kornacki the guy who sweats with pants.

How are you preparing for election night? Can you explain to people how that all comes together? - It's a mix. It's a mix. And I love Steve, by the way. We're both Red Sox fans. And so I, you know, we're rivals. - So sad for you. - I guess on election, it is this year. On election night, I guess we're rivals or election season, we're rivals. But I understand what it's like to be on live television when all this is unfolding and happening and things are changing so fast. So I share his pain, if you will, and his joy. - Yes, not his sweat, but go ahead. - Sometimes you can over-prepare.

but

because you need to have an open mind. I think if we've learned anything, not just in the Trump age, but even rewind the tape to the Obama election, remember America's not ready to elect a black president. And then Hillary Clinton's a shoo-in. Donald Trump can't win the Republican nomination. Donald Trump, okay, he won the nomination. That was a fluke. He'll never be president. And then Joe Biden's knocked out because of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada. So we just live in this age of unpredictability and volatility in politics, in everything we do, in technology, in everything. So part of it is have an open mind.

Just don't over prepare to the point where you think you know what's going to happen because anyone who tells you they know what's going to happen is making it up. But so how do you prepare? You study. Where are the competitive districts? There are a lot of smart people out there. I do what I do. I've been doing this for almost 40 years now. I have my way and then I challenge my way by looking, you know, how's Nate Cohn doing at the Times? What is FiveThirtyEight doing? Watch a little bit of Kornacki to see how they come at it. Learn from how different people are just looking at the same rock but maybe they pick it up from a different side and you learn something else.

to the degree you can, visit America. COVID hurt that a little bit, but one of my assets on using the wall on election night is that for years, that's what I did. I was the guy on the plane and I was covering campaigns. I don't get to do that as much as I would like anymore.

Now I do it through my fingers, but using your feet also helps to get out there because things are changing. I'm going to constantly come back to that, but the volatility and the change is dynamic, and some of it is...

actually kind of dangerous, but it's our job to watch it and track it. And so study a lot of census data, visit the places you can, make a lot of phone calls, send a lot of texts, and have a lot of people on alert on election night when you see things that seem a little weird that you can get in touch with. Are there things that you must have your hands on or things that you have to have at all times that are key to doing your job?

Part of it is studying these districts. Who lives there? How much do they make? What's the demographic mix? What are the prior voting patterns? What has changed since the last election? A lot of these are Sunbelt states where we've seen some of the dramatic changes. But also, if you think about it, New Hampshire could be very important in this election. Pennsylvania will absolutely be very important in this election. Wisconsin is critical in this election.

Those are the older economy, not that they're not transforming, but you still have all the stresses of globalization and the stresses of trade, more white people, more older people. And so each state, some states have a lot of, there's a lot of similarities and that's the challenge on election night. Can you find a pattern?

Right. Can you find a pattern that you can take across the country? Because then you can be a little bit more forward leaning, even though we haven't counted the votes here yet. This town, this state or this district is a lot like, look, let's come back to the east as we wait to go to the west. So that's studying. It's studying and experience, a combination thereof. And then always having an open mind that, guess what? Things can change. Things can change. You haven't mentioned polling yet. Does that play a role in your path?

prep or do you just ignore it? No, I don't ignore it. But I always look, we've lived through the last five or six years of American life where there's been some suspect about the polling. And there's no doubt, there's no doubt there's been an issue. And those in the industry, you know, they're having a hard time because technology is changing.

People don't have landlines anymore. You have to introduce the whole cell phone dynamic. Then you have non-participation by some voters. Maybe some people think lying by some voters who are just resistant to quote unquote institutions, the big media or whatever. So I look at it, but I don't obsess about numbers.

What I tell the young people who work for the show and who I meet here in the building is look for trajectories, right? Is the president going up or is the president going down? More than any horse race, especially this close to an election, the president's approval rating or disapproval is always a North Star in midterm elections. So look at that. Again, don't obsess about it, but make sure you know it and understand which way is it going.

And then look at right track, wrong track. That tells you a lot about the country. Do people think it's going in the right direction? And then a Republican pollster probably 30 years ago said, you know what I use, even though I poll every day, I look at the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index because it's not political. It's just how you're feeling right now about your life when you're going grocery shopping and all that. So I do look at polling.

to study trend lines. I don't obsess about the numbers. - So speaking of horse races, election nights become a spectacle. Peak entertainment TV, music graphics, the chyrons, the noises, whatever noise they make around Wolf Blitzer, I don't understand it. You know, whatever it happens. It makes you feel like it's the Super Bowl. Is that a good thing? - So this is where John King, former AP Wire guy,

might give you a different answer than some people in television. My personal opinion on that would be, you know, in moderation.

This is not a sport. This is not a game. I may use that word sometimes and I regret when I do. Sometimes you're on live television, you do this all the time, you're talking all the time. Every day you take this headset off and you walk away, even on a great day, you know you could have said something better. I always call myself the world's most imperfect perfectionist. So I think music for pacing is great. Music to try to fake a drama, we don't need to do that. Again,

Go back through the last 15, 20 years of American life. Our politics are dramatic. They are volatile. They're also incredibly consequential. They're fascinating. There's change happening under our feet that we will see in this election, and then we'll compare this election in the months and months and months after.

That's actually when I learned the most. Right. Comparing it to past elections and then trying to figure out why. Why are so many Americans disaffected? Why are so many Americans going outside of their boxes? But on election night, look, to a degree, it is SportsCenter. You're picking winners and losers. You're telling the score. And so that's just a fact of life. It is a horse race among these candidates. But you don't want to. It's not. But it's not a sport. And so even I'm giving you a conflicting answer. Yeah.

So there's a lot of pressure on that night to call a state first versus the need to get it right. Can you talk about the pressure to project or call a state and what goes into it from your perspective? We have a fantastic team working on that. On election night, I will be sometimes asked my advice or sometimes asked to look around. We're thinking we're about to call, this is fictitious, but we think we're about to call Arizona. Right. Or maybe I should pick a different state because that one came up as an issue in the last campaign. But we're about to call this race or this place Arizona.

because we see this, this, and this. What do you think? And you find a rare moment on election night, you might see a wide shot where a panel's talking on the side of the studio, and you see me at the magic wall, and I'm digging, digging, with my hands are going furiously. That's probably what I'm doing, looking to see I agree or I disagree. But technically, if you looked at the letterhead, I'm not on the decision team. They watch me. I can help them. We have an amazing team, and they're very conservative. Yes, you want to be first, but not

At all costs. Right. Not at all costs. I was way back in my days at the AP, Walter Mears, who passed away last year, but a Pulitzer Prize winner at the AP. He covered Jack Kennedy when he was a kid. And I was 24 years old in my first campaign covering Dukakis. And Walter took me for a walk one day and he said, kid, you break a lot of news. That's really great. Just remember, you'd rather be second than wrong. And I carry that advice with me every day of my life.

And so does our team making the decisions. So what goes into the team making the decisions besides consulting with you? Well, they have data analytics people. They have political people. They have polling people. They have math people just to triple check the math. It's actually a great group of people. They're different, but they all get along. They debate sometimes. They're, you know, they're what,

What do you think? I think we can call this. I think we want to wait. So what do they do? They go through past elections. They might look at some of the polling. Does this track what we saw? With the caveat, be careful about that, but it can be a piece of it. It can't be everything about it. How has the voter registration changed since the last election? Mm-hmm.

What do we know about the campaigning in that state? We identify key counties in Pennsylvania, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. That's my swing county, right? Or Luzerne County right next to it. What about the places where we know it's always really competitive? Do we have enough votes there? Do we need to reach out and talk to anybody in the states? We're about to call the state for John King's opponent. I'm making up a name so I don't pick a politician here. Let's call the King campaign.

and say, "We think you're losing. Make your case." I see. Be reporters and say, "Do you have any information we don't have?" Right. And don't spin me, but if you can prove to me, look at precinct X. Right. We only have 2% of the vote in precinct X, and we think we're going to win that hugely. So I'm not saying that happens every time, but you have a list of options. If it's a close call,

You triple, quadruple, and then keep checking from there. And then you make the call if you think you're right. Does one person like David Chalyan decide this? He's the CNN vice president political director. David's our political director. And in the end, they're his decisions. But there's a team of people and they operate out of consensus. There's nobody he, you know, nobody can go rogue here and make decisions. But you mentioned David. I mean, I'm blessed to work here.

because we have an amazing group of people. And one of the sometimes frustrating things about television is that people know the people who are on television, but there are so many people whose names you will never know behind the scenes who are busting their asses, and they're really great, talented, cautious, conservative people. So let me ask you, it's helpful to talk through a specific example, Arizona 2020, high stakes,

Fox was the first to call Arizona for Biden just before midnight when he's nine points ahead of Trump. AP waited three hours when Biden was up by five points with 80 percent of the votes in. But CNN waited nine days to call Arizona after the election and called for Biden. Can you explain that? And what did you make of Fox decisions at that time? I was in the studio that night and they told me, you know, Fox has called Arizona. And so, again, whenever I can, it's the

presidential nights are pretty crazy. Midterm night's even gonna be more crazy because you have so much at play. So when I could find some time, I was like, "Hmm, that's curious, let me look." And I went through and I was like, "Okay, I see it. I see it. We are more conservative.

Or actually, I shouldn't say it that way. We are conservative. I don't know. I don't I'm not intimately involved with their process or the process they had then. That was obviously quite controversial there. There's still quite controversial there. So I don't know their exact process. I do know Chris. He's a very smart, incredibly smart guy. He's he's superb.

This is Chris Stierwald. Yes, yes. Right. Just for people understanding, Chris Stierwald was pushed out after that call, even though he was correct at Fox News for being correct, presumably. Right. One of the best in the business. So I was walking through and said, OK, I can I can get there. And again, it's not my decision. But had it been my decision, I would have stuck with our guys to say there's no reason to do this.

We don't need to do this. We're going to be extra conservative, in part because we're just conservative anyway. We should be. We should all remember 2000 and Florida. And I do think that bar gets even higher now, Cara, because you do have

a third of America, because they've been told lies about 2020, who either believe or are inclined to believe, or at least open to the possibility that somehow the system's rigged or there are forces out there that are lying to you about this. So we should be conservative anyway. You should learn the lessons of 2000. - But nine days, wow.

Why nine days and why just before midnight? I think both those things are really interesting to me. So there were times during that every day we would come to work or even several times during the day, you know, I go through it myself and I have a few minutes. I said, we could do this. We could do this and we could stand by it. And the take was, it is so close.

that we're just going to wait. And we were talking to people in the state, and it was like there was no need to do it. Right. That you could say, you know, look at the vote count, look what's happening. Same thing that happened in Pennsylvania. You know, you could see the progression of what was happening. And we can say what is happening that sort of leans into that's where we're going to get without making that call just because it was, A, Arizona hadn't gone Democratic in so long, and B, just it's close enough that what's the point? Let's just, let's, why, why?

Sometimes you make a decision to be extra cautious. And the way I always say it is we're in the middle of a fantastic book. Why do we need to think we need to write the last chapter? Let's just keep counting votes. We'll get there eventually. Two quick questions. Obviously, a lot of states have changed their maps over time, especially with the 2020 census. Has that gerrymandering made districts more predictable? Well, number one, it complicates this election night, the first election after a census that

Nobody's running in the same district. - Right. - So you will see all the time, and it is mathematically correct. Republicans need a net gain of five seats. - Right. - To take back the House. That is fact based on the current House majority. But it's actually not factual if you lay out the map because those seats don't exist.

Everybody's district is different. So it's correct, and it's a fair shorthand way of saying it. A literalist would say that's not true because all 435 districts are different. So it's more challenging explaining the results because you're not comparing apples to apples because every one of these House districts has changed at least a little bit. Not all of them, but most of them have changed at least a little bit. So that makes election night harder.

Back to the other point, we will see when we're done counting, and it's gonna take a week or more to finish the House. Remember what happened in 2018 when the Pelosi speaker election, California took more than a week and Washington stayed and you have the ranked choice balloting in Maine and in Alaska that could take some time. In the months after that, I can better answer your question, have these districts become even more predictable? - Right. - Right, because the legislature, to the victor go the spoils. I would say beyond that,

if you ask John King, who's done this for 38 years, the biggest problem in American politics, I would say it's how we draw house districts. Right. Because they're so partisan now. Both parties are guilty of this. Republicans have had a bigger edge in recent years because they control more governorships and more legislatures. But you can go back in time and find the Democrats doing it as well. The biggest cancer in American politics is that

it all becomes all about your primary. If you're in a red district, you just need to win the Republican primary. So what do you do? You flank right. If you're in a blue district, you need to win the Democratic primary. What do you do? You flank left. And you don't talk to the other side. And so...

We could list a hundred other political problems and discourse problems, and they all come back to respect and understanding. And if you don't have to respect the other side, if you never have to listen or win the votes of the other side, you don't learn to respect them and have respectful disagreements as opposed to in our politics today, if you oppose somebody, somehow you're un-American, you're evil. That's a cancer in our politics. And one of the major sources of that is the way we draw house districts.

So what about the impact of early and mail-in voting, which has expanded during the pandemic in key states like Pennsylvania, mail-in ballots are added to the vote tally after the votes are cast on election day. Rick Wilson mentioned to me last week that Doug Mastriano could basically use this to declare victory without all the votes counted. How do you look at that? We need to be very transparent about that because that is a real risk. We call them red mirage or blue mirage. If you go back to election night in 2020, there was a point in the night where, you know, Joe Biden was leading in Ohio and Texas.

and another red state that escapes my mind at the moment. And I was getting all these texts from Democrats, "Oh my God, oh my God, we're gonna win Ohio, we're gonna win Texas." And I was texting back, "No, slow down, slow down." Some states count the mail-in ballots first

And in those states, if the voting patterns track 2020, Democrats will jump out to a big lead. Those votes are real. So what you're seeing is not fake. It's just not contextual. It's not a full picture because they haven't counted Election Day ballots yet. Then you have a state like Pennsylvania, which cannot process the early votes until the polls close. And so they'll count Election Day votes first. And you're absolutely right. In a place like Pennsylvania,

Pennsylvania, we're going to have to watch this in Arizona as well. The Republican candidate, when we get to midnight, 1 a.m., election night or 1 a.m. would be Wednesday morning. You could have it's conceivable that a Republican candidate like Donald Trump did in 2020 could come out and say, I'm ahead. We're done. But but we're not done. We're not done. So the challenge on us, it's it's an unfortunate challenge.

because again, the system should be based on respect for math and respect for process. - It should be, John. - But we may have to say, we just showed you Doug Mastriano, it's above my pay grade whether you take that live. Do you take that to live television if you know that what's the person's gonna say? That's above my pay grade. But if it happens or if the world knows because of social media and everything else that Doug, you used the Mastriano example, he's claimed victory, we have to say he is leading in the votes now counted

But, but, but, but we have a lot more votes to count. And we have the 20 that there you have the 2020 experience to say, you know, Trump was ahead and ahead actually by a sizable amount at this same hour in 2020. And he lost.

So let's talk more specifically about midterms ahead of Tuesday. What would a red, you mentioned red wave or blue dream or whatever, whatever you call it. What would a red wave look like on Tuesday and what would be a decent night for the Democrats? Well, historically, you know, people out there may disagree and have their own standard. A partisan, certainly a partisan Democrat would say, we have to hold the House, we have to hold the Senate, we have to hold these big key governor's races. Sure. But history says that, you know, the party in power, I mean, look,

Barack Obama and Donald Trump both lost the House in their first midterm election. Obama lost 63 seats. Back to your point about gerrymandering, they draw the lines in a way now that there are not so many competitive districts. But there are, because of the late shifts in the campaign, if they are correct,

There are some Republicans who think they could win 25 or 30 seats. That would be a big night for Republicans. They used to were hoping for more earlier in the year. Yes, yes. And they may well get there. But I think even Republicans are being cautious in this environment. 12 to 25. Right. 12 to 25 is where they started. You know, you have some now saying it could be 25 or 30. You know, I could share a text or two with Republicans say we're going to get 40. It's their job to be bullish and to be cheerleaders. It's my job to count votes. Right.

Maybe they get there, maybe they don't. But that would be if, look, if Republicans get more than 25 and get the Senate and sweep governors, then you might call this a red wave election. I would urge caution. I would, everybody just, you know, let's take this. If we can say that at midnight Tuesday, that it is or it isn't based on the facts, okay.

But let's not try to, again, let's not try to write that unless we're sure. - Yeah. - That would be a big night. Think about it, we have a Democratic president who came into power with a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. If he loses both, if the Democratic president lost both the House and the Senate,

in the same midterm. Obama lost the House in 2010 and then in 2014. The same thing happened to Trump. Trump lost the House, didn't lose the Senate till after the presidential election. So if both chambers went in the same midterm, then you would also assume some of these governors, the blue governors are getting flipped as well. That would be a very big night for Republicans. We'll see when we get there. - What would be a decent night for Democrats?

Hold your own. Look, if Democrats can hold the House and hold the Senate, that's historic. If they can hold the Senate and keep the Republican margin in the House below 10 seats, that's

I would say, as a student of politics, based on historical data, that would be a decent night. Better than decent night. I understand a partisan Democrat would not agree with the statement because you just lost the House. But history would say that's a pretty good night. What states and races are you looking as kind of a bellwether for the rest of the country, very briefly? It's really the suburbs. The places that made George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush president...

and made Donald Trump president the first time, he won the suburbs by a smaller margin, but he won them enough over Hillary Clinton to become president. They revolted against him in 2018 and then again in 2020. You know, do the moderate Republicans in the suburbs who George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis in those suburbs on the Willie Horton ad, on crime, you know, soft on crime, big on taxes, right? The old traditional tax and spend Democrat, soft on crime Democrat. Does that work?

Does Mehmet Oz win Pennsylvania because the suburbs swing back enough? Do Democrats' hopes in North Carolina and Ohio and Wisconsin fade because the suburbs come back to Republicans? Is Kerry Lake the next governor of Arizona because Phoenix, Arizona, has become a big suburb, essentially? That's where all the people are. Close elections are won in the suburbs, especially the statewide ones.

And that was the repudiation of Trump. It was the election of Biden. And 2022 is going to tell us a lot. So does crime work more than inflation, work more than Dobbs? Which of the many things do you think is most important? I would imagine inflation would be it. Inflation in the economy by far. In our latest, you say, how much do you rely on polling? This is one thing you look at when it's like this. It was 51 percent of likely voters, a majority of likely voters voting.

said the economy and inflation was their number one concern, and abortion was second at 15%. You know, would I pour those exact numbers in cement? No. But when you have a 15 and a 51, that tells you something. And that's the challenge for the Democrats, trying to break through. The American people are exhausted.

After COVID, you're still exhausted, you're frustrated, you're anxious, you're worried about your kids in school, you might be worried about your job, you might still be worried about your healthcare or your situation, then along comes inflation. Joe Biden got elected for all these numbers, Cara. Joe Biden got elected because he was the adult who was gonna calm things down. - Yeah. - No tweets.

No bleach. We're going to calm things down. And things aren't calm. You can look at any economic indicator you want, any poll you want. That's how I look at elections. You know, what the American people in 2020 bought, what they thought was going to be a period of relative calm and stability, a grownup.

And we haven't had common stability. Now, is that all Joe Biden's fault? Of course not. - Almost none of it. - But that's the daily, your daily American life is, I thought I bought a, you know, that's not the car I thought I was buying. - Sure. - I think that's the mood of the country. - Does the country feel more divided and nasty to you than ever before? I was just thinking of Elon and Tesla, 'cause Twitter certainly does. But the Paul Pelosi tweet he did, for example. Was this because of Trump? Is there any calming down? Who could calm us all down? Dolly Parton as president? I don't know.

I wish I knew the answer. I don't know the answer to that. Is it all because of Trump? No. Did Trump put a lot of things on steroids? Yes. The politics of grievance. I mean, I trace this, you know, I go back to just in my experience, you know, when Ross Perot talked about the giant sucking sound, he was onto something, right? You know, he was onto the stress of the American people about change, right? Whether it's the manufacturing jobs gone, whether it's the demographics of your neighborhood changing, whether it's technology making you afraid, right?

You know, and we live this every day and now exponentially think just I mean, again, this is your wheelhouse, not mine. Technology is changing during this conversation. Right. And that that encourages some people and it makes some people incredibly rich and it creates all new businesses and entrepreneurs and it scares a lot of people. And Donald Trump has used the grievance politics part of that, whether it's demographics or

black or brown people, economics, global trade, your fear about what are you going to tell your kids? Are those jobs going to be there? He has put it on steroids without a doubt. He created none of this. He has magnified a lot of it.

And so can we be unified in this moment? It's I mean, you know, I'm an optimist. I live an optimist because of my own personal story and because of the gift of that I've had in this job and my prior job. I don't see it right now. And you said who I always look around. That's why I always look around. Like one of the things I'll study when I have time to come up for air, probably on a vacation because I'm a geek.

is who won the governor's races or who's an interesting rising star that people I trust out in the states, voters I've met over the last 30 years are saying, we just elected this guy mayor, or you should see this woman who's the new lieutenant governor of X. That's what I always look for once I come up here after election, is there somebody new and exciting out there, whatever their party that we want to look at. Yeah, that's what you do on your vacation. You must be a fun time. I'm a nerd. Yeah.

But one of the problems is, is over half the GOP candidates this year question the results, either for real or because it's good for them politically. I don't know, depending on who the person is. Some of them, I truly believe it. Some of them are just virtue signaling to the right.

How do you deal with that? Because that's a big chunk of people. It's an enormous chunk of people. You know, Washington Post, New York Times calculations are 300 plus. And you have all these candidates running for secretary of state who will be the ones who administer state elections. Important states like Nevada and Arizona and Michigan are not only still saying that Donald Trump won in 2020, which he did not, that, you know, maybe we need to rethink how we do this. And some of them think about, well, the voters said that, but maybe the legislature can overturn that.

These are dangerous things being proposed, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. And so you see the Liz Cheney's and the Adam Kinzinger's out there. You know, it's a little bit of Don Quixote right now in their own party, in the sense that they are tilting against windmills in the Republican Party because there's tiny minority right now. But what they're doing is important. And I don't say that as a partisan statement. If we, you know, I'm a sports fan, right? Baseball goes nine innings unless the score is tied. When the referee blows the whistle, you stop. And so if we have a political system

where people can keep redefining what the end is. Right. And then how we count. Math is math. That doesn't mean if you're close enough, you ask for your recount, you check the machines, you go to court. We need all of those things. We need all of those legitimate process-based, court-based, rule-of-law-based appeals. Donald Trump had all of those. He used all of them. He lost every one of them.

That should be it. That should be it. If anybody has a case to make about, wow, this system is horrible, it would be Al Gore. And Al Gore fought and fought and fought. And when he was done, when there was no place else to go, he was an American, not a Democrat. And he said, I'm done. I don't agree with this, but we're done. We have to have an end point. Different time, different person. If after this election, we have people in power who...

who think that they get to overrule the voters. That's dangerous. And that's gonna be a hard thing for our business too, because you're trying to cover people objectively. They've been newly elected. They won an election. We need to respect and honor that. That's the will of the people.

And then we need to watch very carefully what they do. To your point about do they really believe it, that's the first test, right? And again, the optimist in you hopes that they win an election and then they go, oh, actually the system works. And they don't go and try to rip it apart. We'll see. That'll be one of the many stories we have to worry about after the midterms. Oh, John, you haven't been covering tech like I have. They lie a lot. They lie a lot and then change their minds. CNN gets a lot of attacks called the...

at one point the Communist News Network, I don't know what to say. And there's lots of changes happening there. Chris Licht, the CNN CEO's Chris Licht replaced Jeff Zucker in February, trying to move the network more to the center with instructions from David Zasloff, the CEO,

Is that what you perceive is happening? Has your job changed? My job has not changed at all. And nobody has told me to move to the center or to do this or do that. Nobody has ever told me in any of my jobs, put your thumb on the scale this way or move this way. So John Malone's not calling you up and saying that? No. And if he did and he said something like that, I would shake his hand and say, thank you so much. Have a nice day. I'm moving on. But that has not happened.

I would not stay here for one second if someone told me to go in any direction, in any direction. I don't know Chris all that well. In my dealings with him, he's a good man who has to make a lot of tough decisions, tough decisions anyway. You know, we have a new boss, a new bigger management company, and that change is always hard, the getting to know you part and investigating. And we're in the middle of, you know, not a recession, but in a very tough economy. And so tough decisions have to be made.

Am I going to agree with every one of them? Probably not. Am I right? I don't know. But they're good people making tough decisions. And as someone who's been here a long time, I view my job as going out into the newsroom every day and saying there's nothing we can do about those things. Right. We can do our jobs, though. You're going into a big election. Is morale good? I mean, there's so much news. There's never been more news than ever. Is that hard to do if morale is low at an important institution like CNN? Layoffs are expected, etc.?

I mean, he talked about them. He talked about them publicly. Yeah, look, there's uncertainty in the building. Maybe my optimism blinds me to this, but this idea that there's incredibly low morale, I don't see that. We work in the news business. This is a building full of curious people. This is a company full of curious people. Do they have questions? You bet they do. Do they have concerns? Of course they do. The place where they work is changing before their eyes. Do I have people sitting in a corner unable to do their job because they're worried about something? No.

No, I have a team of mostly young people. They're mostly young women. They're fabulous. And yes, every now and then one of them pulls me aside and said, you've been here a long time. Are we okay? Yeah. And I say, we may not agree with everything that happens in the next two days or two months or two years, but we have to do our jobs. And if it ever comes a point where we're uncomfortable doing our jobs, that's when you shake hands and say, thank you. Can I give you another answer? Sure. Go say it's not Twitter. So just remember that. You know, this is...

This place- They're having a hard time this week over there. I've been through some of the cycles of this place. This place is the world's leading news organization for a reason. We have reach nobody else has. We have experience nobody else have. We have talented group of people and we're constantly being challenged and pushed

by young people, one of whom will take my job someday. That won't be in a bad way. It'll be in a good way. And yes, like everything else in life and all around us, there's a little bit of turmoil, a little bit of uncertainty, and that's life. We'll be okay. Yeah. So if you shook Malone's hand and left, what would you do? Is the magic wall a transferable skill? Yeah.

It's a fantastic question. You know, I never thought I would be here this long. And I don't mean that in any negative way. I've loved my ride here. And I've done different things. I've anchored a few different shows, some of which have failed miserably, some of which have done okay. I'm almost 60 years old. Me too. At some point, I might want to do something different. Yeah. I don't say that in a bad way, like I'm leaving CNN. No, it's just like, do you want to do something else? You know, is there another chapter? And is it similar?

Do you do some television or some, I miss writing. I used to work for the AP. I used to write more. I miss that. So there'll be another chapter for me. I hope it comes on really good terms where we have an election cycle and I say, you know what? Can I work for you part-time maybe? Or do I just leave? Do you get to keep the wall?

or take it with you? I could take it with me. Well, I've done many things. I've been a bartender. I've been a cook and a dishwasher, but I also once worked for a moving company that specialized in pianos. Yeah. I'll put that puppy on my shoulder and get it out of here. Well, let me ask last question. Something I read this story and I had no idea about this. You have relapsing, remitting, multiple sclerosis. You revealed you'd been diagnosed 13 years earlier. Explain to me why you decided to disclose it after so many years of not talking about it. Having had a stroke, I talk about it a lot.

Talk about this. This is my last question. I was sort of surprised and I just didn't know. How does it affect you as a person? It affects me every second of every day. I hope it makes me stronger and I hope it makes me more empathetic. And I hope that, as I always say, there's a blessing in every challenge. You learn about yourself and it teaches you things.

There are days when I have a hard time walking. There are days when I can't feel my hands. Today happens to be one of them. My hands are very tingly right now and I'm not sure sometimes. So when I pick something up, it is second nature for us to reach out for a cup of coffee or a bottle of water while we're having a conversation. We don't even think about it. Our brain's thinking about it, but we're not conscious of that. It just happens.

I have to grip this thing. I have to grip it. And sometimes I'll grip it so much that I will, like, someone will say, what's wrong with him? And so I didn't disclose it for the longest time because I was petrified at first. It's not any great reason. I was afraid. Will I be able to do my job? Will I be able to go to the park with my kids?

And then I got caught in the secret. When you get caught in a secret, then you can't find a way out. And I thought if I disclosed it, people would think, oh my God, something horrible must be happening to him. So only a tiny group of people very close to me knew. And then I did disclose it because of what I thought was a ridiculous conversation about masks and COVID vaccines, where I just had been thinking about it a lot. I was not planning to say it, but I just said on live television, you know, I'm immunocompromised because of the medications I take. I'm grateful.

that people can get a vaccine or wear a mask and come sit with me again because it's nice to actually be in the company of people and have human conversations. And why is it so hard to put on a mask? It doesn't take my freedom away. And how many people out there, invisible to me, have some similar challenge? If I see someone who's a little nervous, then put my mask on. If that makes them less nervous, great. So that's why I did it. I'm in awe of people like you. And I feel...

I've done a lot more speaking out about it now. I feel guilty in some ways. Number one, because I'm so late to the fight. Number two, one of my concerns was I'm blessed. I understand now fully the spectrum of MS and it is with me every second of every day. And sometimes it complicates my days and I may fall down the stairs or I may have things happen to me, but I also know how cruel this disease is to most people. And so I'm lucky.

I'm lucky. I work at a company. Don't feel guilty, John. I have a good health care plan. I did, though. I don't now because of the heartwarming support from people who do live cruel everyday MS lives who have said, thank you for helping. And so now that I've

dropped my foolishness and that I'm public about it, I will do anything I can to help people and anything I can to advocate for anybody. Anybody who is dealing with a struggle that might be invisible to somebody else, we all just need to be empathetic about that. I hope it makes me a better and a more empathetic person. It sometimes physically and occasionally mentally challenges me. But that motivates me.

That motivates me. Okay, I have something inside that's fighting me. I'm going to fight back. 100%. Well, on that note, I can't wait to watch you. And we really appreciate what you do. It's really, it's very illuminating. And this is non-illuminating time, I have to say. So it's very helpful to me and many others in the audience. And we appreciate it. I appreciate that. Thank you. It's on!

That MS conversation was interesting. Yeah. I feel bad that he felt guilty. He shouldn't feel guilty. It's hard to reveal something like that. When you're in TV, they might question whether you could be on television. There's so many things about physical looks and how you appear. And, you know, again, it's sort of that discriminatory idea of the people that have these chronic illnesses can't function in society, which you and I have talked about a lot. We have talked about a lot.

It reminded me a bit, by the way, of... Wasn't it West Wing? President Bartlett has the MS diagnosis. He's trying to keep it a secret. Yeah, John King was not doing that, but in that show, he was. And so many other presidents, real presidents, have. And others don't. Look, I don't like Greg Abbott, but it's very clear he's in a wheelchair and has no problem...

doing his job. You know, I don't like how he's doing his job, but that's not because of his legs. But, you know, it's hard because people do have preconceived notions of things without a lot of knowledge. Yeah, they definitely do. He was great. He was... Are you kidding? He has more energy than... You know, it reminds me a little bit. His energy is so high and it's really great. It just reminds... A lot of people have a lot of energy. Reminds you of who? Oh, I was just thinking Steve Jobs when I interviewed him the last time before he died. But he was the most energetic person in the room. That's all I remember thinking. He was so...

Well, John King is not going to die. No, of course not. No. What I'm saying is give people a break when they have these things. They're struggling already and they don't need your judgment on top of it. Yeah. Give a break, but don't lose all ability to ask questions. I think that's the learning from Fetterman. You should ask questions and have a conversation about it. He gave a lot of transparency both into the diagnosis, but also into the process at CNN. Yeah, absolutely.

And that was valuable, I think. Everybody wants to know how the sausage is made, basically. Yeah. What's there to hide? There's nothing to hide. Nothing we do is sneaky. And, you know, this site, all these like stupid right wing groups are trying to gotcha journalism. Most of it is the things that we do badly or make mistakes. That's allowed, you know, and then acknowledging them is important. Yeah. And ethically required for us. Yes, of course. Unlike other professions.

Everywhere I've worked has been very committed to doing a good job. Some better than others, for sure. No question. But I have not ever encountered like a bunch of like people, you know, doing with their hands going, ah, we've won one over on the people. It's just ridiculous. It's such a ridiculous thing.

trope. No, and even what he was describing, the process he's describing, that before they call the state, they're calling the opponent to say, hey, we're going to call the election this way. Do you have any information that isn't? It shows how thorough journalism and reporting is, really. Yeah, for sure. All right, Karik, before we get out of here, I think we have a listener question. So let's get to that.

It's the Ask Kara segment. Here we have a question from Max who called our 1-888-KARA-PLZ line. That's 1-888-KARA-PLZ. Let's hear from Max. Hey, Kara. The question I have actually is, aside from your professional life and your personal life, I'm curious whether you find any refuel in your spiritual life. If you don't have a fully charged battery, a fully charged soul, it's tough to get along. So,

I was curious what you find recharges you. Thanks so much. Gosh, that's a really good question. I'm a lapsed Catholic. I went to the catechism until I was confirmed because my grandmother was very religious and I did it for her. I can't stay in the Catholic Church. They're anti-gay and hypocritical about it, about the issues. And so I don't go to any church. I don't have a good relationship with churches.

But I also am not one of these people that goes out into nature and looks at trees and tries to find spirit. A lot of California people do meditation. I don't do that. I guess I don't have that much of a spiritual life in that regard. I certainly appreciate life. I certainly think a lot about death. I suppose that's my spirituality is thinking about how little time we have on this planet.

and how fragile it is and how fragile our lives are. But to fully charge my soul, I hate to say this, but I watch television. It sounds crazy. That's to charge your soul or clear your mind? Just to clear my mind. I clean, I clean. I'm very of this world. I'm not of the next world at all. I'm very here and now.

And I don't think about later at all. So I don't know what recharges me. Sleep does. I don't know. I don't have a spiritual life. Do you have a spiritual life, Naima? I do. I mean, I'm spiritual and not religious, but I do have a spiritual life. I think if you were to ask me, what is Kara Swisher's religion? I would say her holy trinity is...

Children, death and cleaning. Yes, that would be right. Is that your holy trinity? That is true. I love to clean. And in fact, I've got to go now and make some cleaning decisions right now. Organization. It's so meaningless. That's why I like it. I figured this out the other day.

like recycling or cleaning or any of this stuff. It's completely- Oh, you're an obsessive recycler. Like if you go to Kara's house and you try to recycle your own plate, she's like, no, do not touch the paper. And it's pointless when you read these things. And here's why I like it. Let me just say, I was looking at something the other day of mine. I was looking at this shelf and I thought, when I'm dead, this is not, it's just going to,

still be here. And then there's not going to be me to organize it. And I love that. I love that. I love that whole idea that it's pointless. The meaning is in the meaninglessness of it. Thank you. My dad, when he was, you know, my dad was obsessive, like organizer of things. He really liked having control. I think it's because my mom is not as like orderly as my father. Oh, neither is Amanda. Yeah.

We all have that dynamic in relationships. But when he was passing away, even to his last days, he would want everything organized a certain way, the Kleenex on one side, the medicine on this other. And I was thinking about how much it mattered to him. And

what chaos it would be, you know, when he was gone. So irrelevant, but it mattered to him. That's correct. I say that to people. When people always use, some people I've gone out with bothered me about it. I'm like, I don't pull, you don't have to do it. I want to do it. It makes me feel better. So anyway, it's interesting. That's my spiritualization is Marie Kondo. I love Marie Kondo. All right, Carol, let's get some credits in here and you can go get cleaning.

Today's show was produced by Naeem Araza, Blake Nischik, Christian Castro-Ozel, and Raffaella Seward.

Special thanks to Haley Milliken, Fernando Arruda engineered this episode, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, go vote if you can. If not, also go vote. What is wrong with you? We live in a democracy. You have the privilege of voting. So go vote. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, by the way, to search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow also after you vote.

Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday for more. But until then, what are you supposed to do? Vote. It's Naima's birthday. Vote. Get a sticker.