On with Kara Swisher: The Debate, the Dropout and the Dems' Future with “Biden Whisperer” Ron Klain
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We could all use more time. Amazon Business offers smart business buying solutions, so you can spend more time growing your business and less time doing the admin. I can see why they call it smart. Learn more about smart business buying at amazonbusiness.com. Hey folks, Preet here. The Cafe team is taking a well-deserved break from our usual programming this week to enjoy Labor Day. And we want to share another podcast we think you'll really enjoy. It's hosted by my friend Kara Swisher.

an award-winning journalist and a really tough interviewer who covers tech, politics, and media on her podcast, On with Kara Swisher. In the episode we're about to share, Kara speaks with Ron Klain, the former White House Chief of Staff for President Joe Biden and the Chief Legal Officer for Airbnb. They discuss President Biden's decision to drop out of the race and Ron's reaction to the news, Biden's legacy, and Vice President Harris's campaign.

It's another challenging, insightful discussion from one of the best in podcasting. You can listen to more of her show by clicking the link in our show notes or by searching for On with Kara Swisher in your podcast app. Okay, here's the episode. It's on. It is on.

Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. It's been just over a week since President Biden announced he would not be seeking a second term, but a lot of questions still remain about how the decision was made and what it means. The GOP is calling it a

coup from the upper echelon of the Democratic Party. And many, as I talked about on Thursday, are blaming rich donors. You know, Ron Klain, I thought was interesting. And one of the first comments, one of the first comments, he's like going after all these big donors. These big donors like played a role in Joe Biden becoming Democratic nominee in 2020, winning the election 2020. And now, you know, he's talking like Trump. He's talking like, you know, these evil rich people are forcing him out of the race. It was a spicy tweet. I was like, drop the spicy. What's going on?

Well, today we have Ron Klain here himself. The New York Times calls Klain one of the three men at the core of Biden's, quote, brain trust. Their relationship goes back nearly 40 years to when Klain was still a student at Harvard and worked for then-Senator Biden. By the time he was vice president, Biden, Klain had moved up to VP, chief of staff.

He hasn't always worked in politics. There were private sector jobs, including at Revolution LLC, where he overlapped briefly with Trump's VP pick, J.D. Vance. Ron Klain is everywhere, and there are other politicians. He did a stint with Biden's then-rival Hillary Clinton. That didn't go over well. But by 2020, Klain was back on the team and became President Biden's chief of staff.

Klain left the White House in 2023, and this past January, he joined Airbnb as chief legal officer. This spring, Klain announced he was taking time off from his new job for his old boss to help Biden prep for the debate. Yes, that disastrous, history-changing debate.

The fallout was huge, as we know, but until the end, Klain was rallying for Biden in the press, all the while trying to dodge accusations flying at him for the debate disaster and questions about whether he and other insiders had been covering up Biden's true condition. So we're going to ask him about all of that, and we'll also talk about tech today.

As a full disclosure, I've known Ron Klain since I was in college where we both worked for the Hoya at Georgetown University. He was on the business side. I was, of course, the star reporter. Our expert question today comes from someone who knows Ron very well, too, Jen Psaki, host of Inside with Jen Psaki, who reported to Klain when she was Biden's White House press secretary. It is on.

Thank you for being on On, Ron. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Kira. So I've had you on so many times. We talked about Ebola. Then we talked about your legacy as a chief of staff to President Biden when you left a couple of years ago. But so let's start about talking about President Biden's, Joe Biden's legacy. The phrase most consequential presidency has been thrown around so much it's become sort of rote.

But I think it's true. So I'd love you to sort of go through why you think that is and the most important accomplishments of his administration has been. Well, look, it's not over yet. It's not over yet. And, you know, I'll let historians make the final judgment here, of course. But I think if you look at what he brought the country through and what he achieved legislatively, I think they are enormously consequential achievements. And you start with the fact that he brought us through the pandemic and brought America back to life.

He took our economy and now we have the strongest economy in the world after having lost manufacturing jobs and lost jobs in the last administration. Now we have record job creation, record small business creation, booming economy. As he said in his address, at the time he came into office, people thought it was just a matter of time before China would surpass us as an economy. And now I don't think anyone really forecasts that. Our economy is robust and growing.

robust tech sector, robust manufacturing sector. I think his economic legacy is very, very strong that way. In addition to that, he

made progress on climate change with passing the most sweeping climate change legislation we've ever seen that's led to a revolution in clean energy in our country and tremendous progress and putting us back at the lead of of combating climate change uh and also his the rest of his domestic agenda and of course his global agenda unexpectedly being able to beat back russian aggression in ukraine um and actually growing nato at a time when people thought nato would shrink so if you look at that i think they're very consequential achievements

His appointments, he's transforming the federal courts. He's put more judges on the federal courts in three years than any president ever and with record diversity. It's not just in three years he's appointed more black women to the appellate courts than any president in history. It's in three years he's put more black women on the appellate courts than every single president in history combined before him. So I think, you know, there's longstanding changes he's brought about that will be with us for long after he leaves the White House.

And I think those are largely changes for the good. We'll talk about where the rest of administration is going because he's still got six months. It's a long time in president. Yes, indeed. But back in 2020, when he was running for president, people mocked him for talking about bipartisanship. Of course, things have gotten worse, I would say, probably. But then he became president. He did get the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed with 69 votes in the Senate. The CHIPS Act got 64 votes, the foreign aid bill, which sent money to Ukraine. And also, then TikTok got 79 votes in

Can you talk about getting bipartisan support in the face of so much partisan bile that's just built up and never seems to end? Well, I think the keys to it are, one, he started off with relationships with people on the Hill. He knew how to work with Mitch McConnell, not that they agreed on very many things, but he found places where they agreed and was able to strike deals with him on things like infrastructure and chips.

and the PACT Act to help veterans. And so I think that he found the deals where they were, and he had endless patience for talking to Republicans.

and never took it personally. When they, you know, he would meet with them on one issue, they'd go out and blast him on 10 other issues. He just kept plowing ahead. So I think you need relationships, you need patience and persistence, and you need a pretty thick skin. And President Biden brought all that to the Oval Office and I think had great success as a result. So when you look back, what's the one thing you wish you could have accomplished that was impossible? For example, at the State of the Union Address in March, Biden promised he would restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again. That's a direct quote from him.

Is that something you wish to take in steps to codify abortion rights before the Dobbs decision? Or is there anything that you think about and then we'll pivot to what could happen in the next six months? Look, I think that trying to codify abortion rights before the Dobbs decision would have been very, very hard. People have said, why are we doing this? Roe versus Wade has been the law of the land for 50 years. These guys all testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee they weren't going to reverse precedent. And so I think it would be very hard to round up the votes to do that.

I think the thing that we came close to doing but didn't get there on was voting rights reform and protecting voting rights. And we just couldn't get Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema to go along with filibuster reform to get that done. I think that's the thing that was like, I regret we didn't get done that I thought was doable. You know, I think it's going to take a different Congress in the post-Dobbs era to pass a bill to restore Roe as the law of the land. And hopefully we'll get that done.

So when you think about what's to come, he's got six months. I'm going to talk about how he's stepping down and the implications historically and in the immediate. But he's got six months to go forward. He wasn't particularly specific in his speech of what he was going to do. It's in the backdrop of an election. So he's got to also be careful because he doesn't want to hurt whoever is the nominee, which it looks like is going to be Kamala Harris.

Can you talk a little bit about what can someone do in the position he's in right now? I was just interviewing Nancy Pelosi, and she noted that when Lincoln did the Emancipation Proclamation, it was an executive action, right? It was not—it wasn't legislative. So there's a lot of power in the last couple of months of anyone's administration. Well, I think he has used his executive power throughout his tenure, and I think he'll continue to do so, but I think—

Look, I think he's going to also stake out some ground. And whether it gets done or not, there'll be ground he stakes out. So I think he's going to be the first president ever to call for Supreme Court reform since FDR. And I think he'll do that next week. And I think that won't get done during his term, but I think it will lay a path forward. I think he could do that.

I think he continued to press on gun control. I don't expect it to pass this year, given Republic control of the House. But I think, you know, continuing to make the case for why we were able to ban assault weapons in the 1990s and how many lives that saved, I think will help set up for possible progress next year. He'll obviously have to continue to monitor and support Ukraine and its defense against Russia, make sure he's keeping NATO together around that.

And I think there'll be other issues where he can make a difference in the next six months. Is there anything he can do that is significant? Because, you know, the word lame duck is there for a reason. But is there anything significant he can do, especially in the backdrop of the presidential election? What would you advise if you were chief of staff? Well, I think, you know, he talked last night in his remarks about trying to bring down prices for everyday Americans. I think there's things he can do on the competition front and, you know, to try to

make sure we're continuing to proceed to bring down prices. I think that he's going to have to continue to work again. I think that's significant on the war in Europe.

and hopefully bring peace to the Middle East. I think there's a lot he can do there where we could end the war in Gaza and put things on a track for more reconciliation between Israel and its Arab neighbors and hopefully a two-state solution in Israel. So I think there's progress. You can look at all those things. It would be historic. So there's still significant power in his office now from your perspective. I think so, yes. We'll be back in a minute.

Support for the show comes from Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice produced with Vox Creative. Former President Donald Trump has made voter fraud a key talking point in his 2024 presidential campaign, despite having no evidence of widespread fraud.

Historically, claims like this can have a tangible impact on ordinary voters. In a new three-part series, host Ashley C. Ford talks to Olivia Coley Pearson, a civil servant in Douglas, Georgia, who was approached by a first-time voter who had questions about how the voting machines worked. So she showed them. Because of this, she was arrested for voter fraud four years later. According to Coley Pearson, what happened to her was less about voter fraud and more about intimidating Black voters. I think people need to know

That people are, Black people, people of color, they are afraid to get out and vote because some of the things that have been going on. Hear her story now and subscribe to Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast. Support for this show comes from Amazon Business. We could all use more time. Amazon Business offers smart business buying solutions so you can spend more time growing your business and less time doing the admin. I can see why they call it smart.

Learn more about smart business buying at AmazonBusiness.com. Support for Stay Tuned comes from Wondery. No other police department has more global brand awareness than the NYPD. From iconic images of 9-11 to sought-after tourist souvenirs, the boys in blue would seem to go hand-in-hand with New York City itself. But underneath all the iconic imagery and tales of heroism lies a dark and secret history, one that you've likely never heard before.

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It's time to find out how the NYPD transformed into the most powerful police force the world has ever seen. From Wondery and Crooked Media, with Push Black, this is Empire City. Follow Empire City wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So let's talk about how we got here.

I'd love you to reflect on him stepping down from a legacy point of view and also in the immediate. How were you feeling about this? I know we'll get to your support of him because you were quite adamant on Twitter. In fact, I texted you like, wow, Ron, like you were pretty sharp about him. Talk a little bit about what's happened and how you feel about it first. Well, look, I think the president made—

a decision that he couldn't keep the party unified and that he wasn't just going to walk off the field and say, well, you guys sort it out. He was going to point the direction forward. And that direction pointed very clearly towards Vice President Harris. And so I think that was a sound, a wise decision. And I think he's executed it extremely well. You see the vice president merging in very short order as the consensus nominee of our party with strong backing, a lot of enthusiasm. I think that's great.

Look, I believe, as he said last night, he earned a second term based on his record and the vision he laid out in Michigan recently for what his 100-day agenda would be as president. So I was disappointed that people in the party

uh called for him to leave the race um and uh i thought they got out of control i thought it was uh unfortunate nasty in public and shouldn't have been uh you know and as i said to several people people who didn't hesitate to call the white house when they were a couple points behind in their races asking for help to win we never said hey you're behind you should drop out get someone new in there i thought they i thought they were doing him a disservice

But I think he handled it incredibly graciously and came up with a plan that is going to work for us in 2024 of handing the baton very explicitly to the vice president and throwing his campaign organization, his campaign resources behind her.

And I think we're headed in the right direction now. So I don't really love how we got here, but I think we're in a good place. We're going to move forward. We're going to win this year. I want to stick with how we got here first because obviously debate is what caused it. There were always questions about whether he was able to do four more years. Age was always an issue for both candidates, let me say, but it seemed to resonate more strongly.

with him, with the public and with media also. Let's talk about that as it was leading into it. Had you been worried about that before the age issue or is it something you didn't think would cause this to happen? Well, um,

Look, I'm a worrier. I worry about every debate. I've been on the winning side of debates, losing side of debates. It's no fun to lose. And, you know, President Obama had a very bad debate in 2012. And I thought overall, I thought the debate was an opportunity for the president to put some of these questions to rest.

But obviously it did not go well that night. And that is what it is. And so we took a gamble and the gamble didn't work. Right. But, you know, I thought it was a reasonable chance to take. I thought the president—

as he showed in the days after the debate, was fully capable of making his case forcefully on the stump, fully capable of answering unscripted questions as he did at his press conference. I thought we would see that on debate night, and we just didn't, of course. So one of the—let me tell you, I think this is unfair. You oversaw the preparation for the debate for People Don't Know. And I feel like you got thrown under the bus a little bit, honestly. And there are reports—

Ultimately, it's the candidate's fault in that case, but you may not blame him. But to me, that's the case. There were reports the family blamed you. John Morgan, a Biden donor, said he was overcoached over practice. Jim Clyburn, representative, blamed it on preparation overload. What do you think happened there from your perspective? Look, I didn't feel thrown under the bus. The president was very kind afterwards and took responsibility in our conversations about it and

said he'd had a bad night and told me not to feel bad about it. I think that he just was off. I think Trump is always a challenge to debate because he spews out so much craziness. You have to figure out which piece of craziness you respond to, which ones you're going to let go. I think the president also believed that the public would see Trump and realize how ridiculous it was

And that a lot of it was kind of self-executing and it just wasn't. And so I think that, you know, look, I'll take my share of responsibilities. I've always been, we win debates, I'm happy to get credit for our wins. I assume I'm happy to share responsibility for our defeats.

But I just think he was off that night and wasn't very good that night. And that's what he said. And it's just the way it worked out, unfortunately. So at the same time, it brought up this idea as whether he was in good health or not, whether he was in good mental health. Obviously, top advisors got blamed for this, the preparation itself, and also not being transparent about

that he wasn't able to campaign effectively. How do you answer those critics? - Well, look, what I say is look at what he did after the debate. I thought his speech in North Carolina the next morning was powerful and effective.

He did an interview with George Stephanopoulos I thought was very good. He did a foreign policy press conference I thought was superb, a tour de force about foreign policy. He then went to Michigan and laid out an agenda for the first 100 days of his second term that I thought was a powerful agenda. Got a great response at the NAACP convention. And so I think the proof that he could campaign was that he did campaign and campaigned very effectively. The idea that somehow people weren't transparent about the state of his health or the state of

His acuity, I think, is belied by the fact that the president did events all the time. And, you know, I understand there was a lot of viewership, but he went to the Roosevelt Room a couple times a week, would make a policy announcement, would take questions from the press corps. And, yes, as he said the next day in North Carolina, he does speak a little more slowly now. He doesn't debate quite as well now. And definitely he is older. But he is sharp as a tack. He's able to govern. He's able to lead. And I think he was able to campaign.

And I just think that, you know, there was just an overreaction to the debate, not so much among the voters, but among the elite class in politics. And then a couple weeks after that, it started to hurt him in the polls. Okay. And then people started to panic about the polls. Right. And then, you know, I just think it's—I think it was just a sad chain reaction of events. Even if he was still star-produced, his ability to communicate looked at least that it had diminished over the past four years. Right.

Were you ever concerned about it? Were you surprised by how it rolled through that this was a concern? And it was a concern for voters. It wasn't just the Washington elite. There were poll after poll concerned about age, period.

Did you not see it coming, that idea? Or were you surprised? Because I was looking upon the way you were reacting. You were sort of like, why are you all doing this kind of thing? Yeah, look, I think— You're public tweeting. And it was quite public. You've been quite public about it. I've been very public about this. Look, I wasn't surprised by the fact that there were questions about it. I thought the president went out and answered those questions.

So people said, well, look, we want to see that he can, you know, the day after the race, we want to see that he can do an interview. We want to see that he can do a press conference. We want to see that he can campaign. And he did an interview and he did a press conference and he campaigned and they all went well. And so what I was surprised by was people saying, here's the bar. And he'd jump over the bar and they'd go, well, how about this bar? Well, how about that bar? And then at the end, the argument just became, well, look, he's behind in the polls and he can't win. And I thought that was wrong. Not that he wasn't behind, but that he couldn't win. And, um,

You know, we had people who hadn't been in presidential campaigns telling me that, you know, well, he's three points behind. He can't possibly win. I thought that was very unfair. But look, I just think that I think it was fair that people asked questions after that debate. I think it was fair that people said, here's the bar. But I thought he cleared the bar. That was what was frustrating about that period. When he decided to drop out, because he was quite adamant before, and I get that. They would do that until the end, right? Yeah.

What was your initial reaction? I suspect you were talking to him. Is that correct or not? Yes, I was surprised by his decision, but respect it. Why surprised? Surprised because I thought he was going to continue to fight on. If you live in the Biden world, the Biden campaign, we've been down before. He got crushed in Iowa in 2020 and crushed even worse in New Hampshire. And we came back and won decisively.

And then, you know, throughout 2021, we were told that we would never get our agenda done. We couldn't get it passed. We were screw-ups. We blew this. We blew this thing with Manchin. We blew that. We blew this. We got it all passed. And then in the fall of 2022, we were told we were going to lead the party to a wipeout in the 2022 elections. And, in fact, we produced the best midterm result that any Democratic president had produced since FDR. Mm-hmm.

And so I just thought we would do it again. And so I was surprised when he made the choice he made. You advised him not to, correct? To not to stick with it? I had, yes. But he reflected on it and I think felt that the party was just too divided about his candidacy and that he had a very clear path forward. The path forward was to explicitly endorse the vice president. Right, which he did. And to throw all his resources and support behind her.

and quickly get to party unity around her and help her win. And I think it's a very smart path and it's going to be an effective path. You tweeted at donors about four separate occasions, which again is funny to watch. Each time it was a variation of theme, the big money donors trying to oust the president. The final tweet, which came after the president dropped out, said, now that the donors and electives have pushed out the only candidate who has ever beaten Trump, it's time to end the political

fantasy games and unite behind the only veteran of national campaign, the outstanding Vice President Kamala Harris. Let's get real and win in November. Talk a little bit about that because, you know, the Republicans are used trying to say it was a coup. They used et cetera, et cetera. You're saying the donors and lectures pushed out the president.

Talk about the idea of bringing her in and pushing back on the Republican narrative, since you want to do that, correct? That it's not a coup, it's a political decision here. Yes, it's definitely not a coup. I think that the president was definitely pushed, there's no question about it. But it was his decision ultimately, and the decision he made to unite the party and to point the party to her.

And I think that was a good decision, a courageous decision, a historic decision. And I think we all ought to unite behind that decision now and let bygones be bygones and move forward. Do you think bygones will be bygones? I think so. I think I know that's the way the president thinks about politics and life, what he always tells us to do. I mean, if you look at the vice president herself,

Her breakthrough moment in the 2020 campaign was when she attacked him on the debate stage. She did. And the president not only forgave that, he made her vice president of the United States. That's the kind of politics Joe Biden's always practiced. And what he's focused on right now is our party winning in 2024 and uniting behind the vice president to do that. And he'll do whatever it takes to get that done. Right. And pushing back on the Republicans saying it's a coup, when you say push, how do you do that politically? Well, I mean, in the end, he was pushed, but he made the decision. To jump. Yeah.

And most importantly, you know, what I was really talking about in that tweet was more the speculation out there that we should have some kind of mini primary or process where a bunch of people throw their names in the hat or like, oh, maybe we should have a whole new face or something like that. Yeah.

A lot of the stuff that James Carville had laid out in the New York Times where he was like, let's let Obama pick four people and Clinton pick four people and have those eight people square off. And I thought that it was all crazy when you have a person in the vice president who has won 81 million votes on a ticket before, who was part of the president's primary campaign in 2024 when he secured the nomination.

and who has unmatched experience for anyone other than the president in terms of being in the Situation Room and being in the Oval Office and, you know, dealing with intelligence matters, national security matters, representing the United States on the world stage. And so I think, you know, this idea that we should have some kind of like

Fandango where a bunch of random governors all put their hats in the ring and 4,000 people in Chicago pull one name out of a hat. It seemed like a very bad idea to me. What I was trying to point to was like, it's time to end this. If we're not going to have the president run, have the one person who's clearly qualified, who's won a national election before,

You yourself have been a big supporter of Kamala Harris. I want to get to her in a second. Again, with the rancor, Obama was blamed. Nancy Pelosi was blamed. How does the Democratic Party get over that idea of them and the donors pushing him? How do you heal that?

I think you heal it the way the president has healed it. I think he leads by example here. And I think his quick embrace of her, his enthusiastic embrace of her, his gracious remarks from the Oval Office, and his making the decision to hand his entire campaign apparatus, his entire campaign treasury over to the vice president, I think that should heal everything.

And look, we're all friends. We've all worked together. And I think it's easy for us to come together behind the vice president as a great candidate and with a focus on the stakes in 2024. I thought that was the most important point the president made, the stakes in 2024. Our democracy is at stake and the future of our country is at stake. With all that at stake, it's time to put everything aside and come together and win this election. Win the election. So on Wednesday, President Biden gave a televised address for the first time since dropping out of the race. Let's hear a clip. I believe.

I reckon as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America's future all married at a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition. So I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That's the best way to unite our nation. You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There's also a time and a place for new voices.

Fresh voices. Yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now. Wow, what a thing. The contrast between President Biden and Donald Trump couldn't be clearer. You know Biden as well as anyone. He wanted this job his whole life. He got it. Talk about what he did here and what he's saying. Well, I think it's a much more articulate version of what I was just trying to say to you a second ago, which is that given where we were in the political process, given how our party was divided about its candidacy,

It was time to bring people together, and the way to do that was to pass the torch to a new leader for our party.

As the president said, I think he merited a second term, but that just wasn't politically viable anymore. And the right way to go forward was for him to leave the race and for him to designate the vice president as his successor. How hard was that for him? Oh, I think the second part of that wasn't hard at all. He had a lot of confidence and faith in the vice president. I think it's hard to give up the fight. And, you know, I think in fairness to him,

A lot of people for a long time always said they could beat Donald Trump. And, you know, I did a panel with Chris Christie a year ago where it was like, you know, Joe Biden ought to get out of the race. I'm the one who's going to beat Donald Trump. And then Chris Christie didn't get a single delegate in the Republican primary process. And, you know, it's easy to talk about beating Donald Trump, but only one person had ever done it. That person was Joe Biden. And so I think this is not a question of personal ambition, but a question of his belief that

He had beaten him before. He was the right person to beat him again. But to beat him requires unifying our party. And he was able to do that in 2020, and he wasn't able to do that ultimately in 2024. And so I think that, you know, that made his decision. And, you know, I think it was never pleasant, but I think it was the only decision he could make. We'll be back in a minute.

Thank you.

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Do you think that Vice President Harris can do this, even if Joe Biden can't be the only one, right? Presumably. I know Chris Christie didn't do it, but what's her chance of doing this from your perspective right now? Obviously, the numbers have improved already. I'm very confident the vice president can win. Joe Biden's the only person who's ever done it. That doesn't mean he's the only person who can ever do it. I think that, you know, I think that Vice President Harris will do it.

Because I think she brings, there's a lot of enthusiasm around her candidacy. I think that helps. I've worked on incumbent re-election campaigns. There's not a lot of poetry in them. People in America like a new thing. And I think she'll bring, I think she brings that enthusiasm, that poetry to the campaign. I think it's a historic candidacy, the chance to have the first woman president, of course, first female black president. There's just a lot of enthusiasm behind her candidacy. And I think that's really helping. You've seen the grassroots donations.

that level of enthusiasm is just really strong. I think it's a boost for the campaign right now headed into the convention.

And I think she's just such an effective candidate also. Her remarks in the race so far have been really sharp. Yeah, she hasn't done a misstep. Yeah. And, you know, I think that's what she'll bring to this race. What should be the message for her and what should be her, from your perspective, some of the messages that are important? Because messaging, that is one of the issues, the messaging around Biden's accomplishments had not gotten through, had not broken through.

Well, I think the messaging, I think campaigns are about the future, not the past. I think it's important for her to talk about not just what they've done together, but also what she intends to do. And I think the most important message is around whose side she's on and around freedom and democracy. I think on the economic issues, it's a choice between someone who believes in middle-class economics, someone whose economic plan very much is tilted towards the wealthy. President Trump was running on big tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.

And Vice President Harris will run on a very different economic vision of the country. And I think that choice between which side you're on is an important thing for her economic message. I think she's been a very effective campaigner already on issues of freedom and democracy, restoring a woman's right to choose, voting rights, and protecting the basic institutions of our democracy. I think those are also important issues in this campaign.

And I think those are the key elements of her message. How key will issues around sexism and racism be? Because they've already started up. She's a childish cat lady.

So is Taylor Swift, etc. How does she push back against those forces where they seem to tolerate the racism, sexism from Trump? Enough people do. A lot of people do. How do you push back on that, given she's historic and because she's historic will be controversial with some people and they will use that uncertainty? I think people will raise these misogynistic and racist tropes against her.

But I think the American people will reject them. I remember all these same tropes, different kinds of tropes, but similar tropes were raised against President Obama in 2008 and he prevailed. And some of these same tropes were raised obviously against Secretary Clinton in 2016 and she did not prevail. I think Vice President Harris I think will prevail in this.

You know, no American president has ever given birth before. So the fact that she hasn't given birth doesn't make her unique. It makes her the same as every other president. That's a good line. She is a great mother to her husband's children who love her and call her mamala. And it's a great family. And I think people get to see that.

And look, I think she just has to run on who she is and what she's done and what she stands for. Right. And I think the haters will hate, but the same kind of hate has not really stood in the way of Taylor Swift being a phenom. Yeah, as the great cat lady says, the hater's going to hate. So is it important that she picks a vice presidential candidate that looks more like you, Ron, than herself? Yeah.

Well, she'll pick a vice presidential candidate for the same reasons the president picked a vice president. Someone who will be a partner in governing, someone who can take over the country if necessary. And I'm sure she'll pick wisely because I think vice presidents take this choice very seriously. They understand the importance of the vice president. And President Biden deliberated on this very carefully when he picked Vice President Harris. And she'll deliberate very carefully when she picks her running mate. Do you have a pick? No.

I don't. I think she's looking at the publicly reported list of candidates. She's looking at our great, great leaders, great future leaders in our party. And I think there are a number of great names on that list. And, you know, I think any one of them would do a great job. Is anything important besides those things? Geography? Look, I think geography can help at the margins.

You know, Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania, Senator Kelly from Arizona, Governor Whitmer from Michigan, Governor Cooper from North Carolina all bring a vital piece of geography to the map. And I think that's helpful. But in the end, she's going to pick someone not because of what they do in November, what they're going to do in January as a partner in governing. Right. And she'll take this choice very seriously, and that's what she'll be looking for.

I've got one more question about Vice President, and then I want to finish it by talking about tech. You've overlapped with J.D. Vance at Steve Case's VC Fund Revolution. You were a major executive there. He was not so major. The Journal just published an article that showed how unimpressive J.D.'s time in tech was, which I already knew. I think you already knew. What can you tell us about him and this choice? Because he is woefully underprepared for what you were just talking about, governing or running the country. Yeah.

Well, because I knew J.D. personally, I try not to talk about him in a political context. But he's now the vice president. He's now the vice presidential nominee. And I obviously disagree with him on every single issue. You know, I think that his views, which now line up with Donald Trump's views, which didn't seem to be the case when I worked with him, are very far out there. And I think that the Trump-Vance ticket would take America in the wrong direction on virtually every single issue.

And I think that's what the focus of the campaign should be. Was he good at tech investing? You know, I think he had very good perspectives. He worked well with a lot of our portfolio companies. And he really, you know, I thought had a very rigorous approach to it.

But we're not hiring a tech investor as vice president. We're hiring someone to stand up for the American people, to help working people in this country, and to stand up for democracy around the world. And I think J.D.'s view on Ukraine is very unnerving, and President Trump's view is even more unnerving. So I think there's—I'm not going to get into J.D.'s record as an investor—

That's a different matter. I've called him an empty vessel. Were you surprised by that total 360 turnaround having spent time with him? I was a little bit surprised, yes. I thought that in Hillbilly Elegy and his statements around the time, he was very strong in his anti-Trump views. Very. But he clearly moved over time. And he can explain that to voters. I'm not going to try to explain it to voters. He can try to explain it.

But I obviously agree more with the 2016 version of J.D. Vance than I do the 2024 version of J.D. Vance. Yeah, there's different J.D. Vances. That vintage was a better J.D. Vance. All right, each episode we get an expert to send us a question. This time we've got a question from someone you know very well, Jen Psaki. Let's hear it.

Hi, Kara Swisher. And hi, Ron Klain. Great boss. Best boss ever. You're amazing. OK, my question to you is I've observed over the last the period of time I worked for President Biden that he is somebody who's been remarkably consistent about what he believes and who he's fighting for. But he is also able to evolve to address the threats of the moment. And one of them is obviously the threat of unregulated transportation.

And there's a lot of meanings of that, and I'm sure you will discuss it.

But I wanted to ask you, with six months left and also with a knowledge of his views, what do you think he thinks should happen to better prepare for not just the opportunities, and you can speak to that too, but also some of the threats that are coming from an unregulated tech sector? So you are now working for a tech company. You're chief legal officer for Airbnb. And for years, I've been shouting at you and others about Congress's inability to pass significant

significant tech regulation. No one's been able to do anything about it. Maybe give us two perspectives, one from the White House and another from your current position. I'm not sure they're itching for more regulation, although they are more regulated than most companies, that's for sure. Yeah, I think we're quite heavily regulated at Airbnb. I'm not here to speak on their behalf, but I'll offer my personal views here. I think that

The most important issue, obviously, is how we navigate the policy issues raised by AI. And I think Vice President Harris has been very active on that in the White House approach here of working with the major tech companies to try to find a framework, given the fact that Congress, which had said it was going to act on this, has been unable to act on this, trying to find a voluntary framework that can work with the tech companies to

make sure that there are key guardrails around AI, around transparency, non-discrimination, compliance with copyright laws, things like that. I think it's been a very successful effort that the Vice President has helped lead at the White House. And also a major effort across the government to check the development of AI in China to make sure that nefarious uses of AI aren't coming out of China. And so I think that's been the administration's policy.

And I think it's been effective so far. And what I'll say is Vice President Harris obviously has very sophisticated views on tech, having come from San Francisco and having been the Attorney General of the state of California. And, you know, so I think she's certainly familiar with the industry very closely and I think brings a very good perspective here.

And I think we'll do a good job on these issues as president. Can Biden do anything in the months ahead? I mean, obviously legislation would be tough, but what would be if there was a single most important kind of tech legislation we need to pass? AI regulation, antitrust, privacy, child safety protection, something else? Well, I think that child safety would be a good thing to do. And it's the kind of thing that's still doable with a divided Congress. I think that the administration continues to

have at both the Justice Department and the FTC aggressive work on competition, which is competition is an important thing. I think they'll continue to work on the AI framework they've developed at the White House.

to continue to work with the major players in AI to make sure that there are guardrails around what's being developed and that we get the vast positive benefits we can get from AI without some of the negative impacts. I think that'll be the key focus the next few months. AI and not everything else they didn't do before. Nothing of privacy. I think it's going to be very hard to get Congress to move on some of these things. To move on anything. Last question. I'm going to give you a moment to reflect on Joe Biden. I think it's, you know...

You know, this is the end for him in that regard. This is someone you have definitely worked for most of all. Can you reflect on Joe Biden for us and what he means and what he's done here? Well, personally, I'll say he's an incredibly good person. What you see is what you get. He's kindhearted and generous to people and really devoted to his family and caring about other people's families. He's always been there for me and my family.

So I have a deep personal relationship with him, a question about it. I think as a president, he came to office at a very, very difficult time. Our democracy was in tatters after January 6th. Our economy was in tatters because of the pandemic and because of Trump's mismanagement of it. And we were all locked down in our homes. Schools were closed. Businesses were closed. There was vaccine, but no one had gotten vaccinated. And I think what he did to get us out of that dark moment

to restore faith in democracy, to get our economy booming again, to get people past the pandemic, I think is historic and transformational for our country. And you add to that what he did to bring us back into the fight on climate change. And I think it's an unbelievable record. I think it's a record people will stay for a long time. And he deserves a great deal of credit for his contribution to public service throughout the years in the Senate, as vice president, now as president. But I also say I just love him as a person,

You know, he's a great president and a great person both. And so what do you imagine he'll be remembered for? For leaving at the right time? Over time, I think his work on climate change is going to be something he's remembered for because I think 20 or 30 years from now, when we've bent the curve back in the right direction, where all these investments he started to make in terms of wind power, solar power, alternative energy, all start to really pay off and we start to see emissions dramatically decline.

People say, well, how did that happen? And they'll point back to Biden's presidency and the legislation he passed that kicked off this revolution in America that we're seeing going on right now. So I think that'll be a really key part of his legacy. And you feel hope now? I know you were definitely spicy, angry, angry.

upset. How do you feel right now? I feel hope that he's done this so effectively, made this handoff so effectively. And we have a great candidate, Vice President Harris, that will win in the fall and be able to continue the work that the president started. All right. We'll end on that note. Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Cara.

On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro-Russell, Kateri Yochum, Jolie Myers, Megan Burney, and Gabriela Bielo. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher, Kate Furby, and Kaylin Lynch. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan. Our theme music is by Trackademics.

If you're already following the show, like Ron Klain, you too get to work for Kara Swisher, star reporter. If not, Ron Klain preps your debate. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. 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 with more. Support for this show comes from Amazon Business.

We could all use more time. Amazon Business offers smart business buying solutions, so you can spend more time growing your business and less time doing the admin. I can see why they call it smart. Learn more about smart business buying at AmazonBusiness.com. And we're back with Canva Presents Secret Sounds, Work Edition. Caller, guess this sound. So close. That's actually publishing a website with Canva Docs. Next caller.

Definitely a mouse click. Nice try. It was sorting 100 sticky notes with a Canva whiteboard. We also would have accepted resizing a Canva video into 10 different sizes. What? No way. Yes way. One click can go a long way. Love your work at Canva.com.