On with Kara Swisher

Rachel Maddow is an author, podcast host and producer, documentary producer, and, of course, the anchor of her eponymous show on MS NOW. Her newest podcast, "Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order," unravels how the incarceration of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants during WWII was planned and carried out. Shockingly, the full story behind one of the 20th century’s worst American human-rights abuses might never have come to light if not for the relentless work of a hobbyist researcher — who had been incarcerated herself. Kara and Rachel dig into the story and explore the parallels to President Trump’s mass-deportation policies. They also discuss the recent boat strikes on alleged drug traffickers, the escalating drama around the competing bids for Warner Bros. Discovery and what it signals for the future of the news business, and MSNBC’s evolution into MS NOW. Please note: This episode was taped on Tuesday, before President Trump said it was “imperative that CNN be sold." Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Margaret Atwood is one of the most famous and prolific authors of the modern era. Though best known for her 1985 hit “The Handmaid’s Tale,” her dozens of works span literary genres — poetry, novels, children's books, essays, short stories — and often defy neat categorization. Now, at 86, Atwood has written her first memoir. At roughly 600 pages, it’s an intimate look at the ways her personal life inspired and shaped her writing.  Kara and Atwood talk about her lifelong passion for the outdoors, how she decided to become a poet when she was just a teenager, and her reputation for having an eerie prescience about major world events. They also talk about Atwood’s fears about the Trump administration’s use of power, and why she still considers herself to be a hopeful person despite her predilection for dark stories.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The tech billionaires of Silicon Valley and the Midwestern rural poor wouldn’t seem to have much in common. But somehow many of them have united under the MAGA umbrella. Kara brings together two reporters who have written about the opposite sides of the MAGA coin to talk about the role of social media in fueling enragement, why tech billionaires and poor Americans are coalescing around issues like education, the press and more; and how to bridge the political divide. Her guests are: Beth Macy, a newspaper reporter for three decades and the author of five non-fiction books, including her most recent: Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America. Jacob Silverman, an independent journalist with a focus on tech, political corruption and illicit finance. He’s written three books, including his most recent: Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How do you grieve the impending death of a lifelong friend when you are a multi-hyphenate comedian, actor, director and producer? If you are Tig Notaro, you produce a film about their life and work — as she has done for the late spoken word poet Andrea Gibson with the documentary Come See Me In The Good Light. Best known for her dry-witted stand up comedy, Tig is also a podcaster (Handsome), actor (Star Trek: Discovery, The Morning Show), director (Am I Ok?) and producer for film and television. Kara and Tig discuss the documentary, Gibson’s life and relationship with their wife Meg Falley after they were diagnosed with incurable cancer, how Andrea’s death opened her up to experiencing grief in a new way, and how it all relates to Tig's own 2012 cancer diagnosis, which she shared on stage in a genre-breaking set. Plus: how the comedy world is shifting under Trump and Tig’s plans for an all-lesbian action film. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the mid-2010s, television journalist and former chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellin left her job at CNN to go independent. A few years later, she founded News Not Noise, a multi-platform news outlet that publishes all across the internet  (mainly on Substack, Instagram and YouTube). It made Yellin one of the first journalists to ditch mainstream media for social media, and it’s given her a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing independent journalists, newsfluencers, and content creators in a crowded media environment.   In a live interview hosted by the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, earlier this fall, Kara and Jessica talk about what it takes to be a successful online news creator, the effects President Trump’s attacks on fact-based journalism have had on the news business as a whole, and how news creators can adapt to changing social media algorithms and AI. They also talk about solutions that could help the entire news industry in an era of waning public trust.  Please note: This conversation was recorded before X rolled out a new transparency location feature, revealing some prominent pro-MAGA accounts are not based in the U.S. despite claims on their profiles.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices