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The Bulwark Podcast

Kara Swisher: We're in an 'Eat the Rich' Moment

26 Dec 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 6.465 Tim Miller

President Trump made the right moves to get Puerto Rico out of a mess, putting private enterprise to work.

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6.966 - 24.403 Unknown

The electrical grid and other infrastructure were already in very, very poor shape. They were at their life's end prior to the hurricanes. And now virtually everything has been wiped out. We're literally starting from scratch.

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25.204 - 49.47 Tim Miller

But Governor Gonzales Colon thinks she knows better. Innovative companies ran to meet the challenge to rebuild Puerto Rico's grid. Now she's blowing up a valid contract to siphon money back to her closest political advisors. President Trump puts real businesses to work instead of fueling government waste. Don't let the governor send Puerto Rico back to square one. Support the rule of law.

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50.031 - 66.91 Tim Miller

Visit PuertoRicoInvestment.org. Paid for by the Committee for Puerto Rican Investment Incorporated. President Trump made the right moves to get Puerto Rico out of a mess, putting private enterprise to work.

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67.075 - 72.443 Unknown

The electrical grid and other infrastructure were already in very, very poor shape.

Chapter 2: How has the public's perception of tech oligarchs changed?

73.425 - 84.582 Unknown

They were at their life's end prior to the hurricanes. And now virtually everything has been wiped out. We're literally starting from scratch.

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85.383 - 109.645 Tim Miller

But Governor González Colón thinks she knows better. Innovative companies ran to meet the challenge to rebuild Puerto Rico's grid. Now she's blowing up a valid contract to siphon money back to her closest political advisors. President Trump puts real businesses to work instead of fueling government waste. Don't let the governor send Puerto Rico back to square one. Support the rule of law.

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110.226 - 143.016 Tim Miller

Visit PuertoRicoInvestment.org. Paid for by the Committee for Puerto Rican Investment, Inc. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show a fellow podcaster, usually just a little bit ahead of me in the charts. Not that I'm monitoring every day.

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Chapter 3: What are the implications of AI advancements in healthcare?

143.036 - 150.709 Tim Miller

Are you? I never know. She's co-host of Pivot. She's the host of On with Kara Swisher. It's Kara Swisher. How are you doing?

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150.729 - 156.499 Kara Swisher

Hi. How are you doing? How's it going? Thank you, by the way, for being a guest host on Pivot during scot-free August.

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156.479 - 166.51 Tim Miller

It was my honor. I had a blast. I had a blast doing it. I hope I get invited back next August. I also was invited to ask a question to Scott Jennings, which created like a little mini feud.

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Chapter 4: How is the relationship between tech leaders and politics evolving?

166.53 - 167.992 Kara Swisher

Oh, my God. What the hell?

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168.012 - 170.375 Tim Miller

It created a feud. He got very upset.

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170.535 - 174.339 Kara Swisher

I was like, it's a decent question, although it was a little obnoxious.

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174.379 - 176.521 Tim Miller

It was a little obnoxious.

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176.542 - 179.385 Kara Swisher

It was a little cheeky. Speaking of, he invented obnoxious.

179.405 - 181.908 Tim Miller

If he can't handle obnoxious and cheeky, who can?

181.948 - 185.912 Kara Swisher

Yeah, exactly. Cheeky is not how I describe him. It's smirky.

185.892 - 186.673 Tim Miller

Smirky.

186.733 - 188.294 Kara Swisher

Yeah, I'm a little cheeky here.

Chapter 5: What challenges do universities face in the current climate?

189.455 - 192.478 Kara Swisher

That's true. Cheeky and smirky. That should be a podcast you should do with Scott Jennings.

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192.498 - 199.145 Tim Miller

I don't think so. Cheeky and smirky. He brought it up on some random MAGA podcast a couple days later, how annoyed he was.

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199.565 - 200.987 Kara Swisher

I know. How silly. How silly.

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201.267 - 214.6 Tim Miller

Anyway, I have a take here I'm going to offer to you that's related to why you're here. I was like, I want to do a 2025 recap pod that focuses on... We're so obsessed with TDS on this show and politics and what's happening with Trump. But I kind of think...

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214.58 - 223.639 Tim Miller

If we look back five, 10 years from now, like the most meaningful thing that will have happened this year is something related to the tech oligarchy emerging. Absolutely.

223.68 - 224.682 Unknown

That's how it started.

Chapter 6: How does consolidation affect media companies?

225.103 - 243.405 Tim Miller

Yeah. And so I just have a little list here. The inauguration and all those guys being there. The Valley's embrace of MAGA at some level, we'll listen to you on how big of a level. Musk's rise and then break up with Trump, the crypto corruption, the LLM boom. Those are the kind of things I had.

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243.445 - 248.637 Tim Miller

What would you, of that list or otherwise, would you say is going to be the thing that has the most staying power?

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249.14 - 271.107 Kara Swisher

I think these chips deals with China are really problematic and Chinese efforts in AI and what will happen in the next year. I think Trump initially, and actually quite correctly in his first term, was quite wary of China. And remember, he said TikTok will never be sold. And then he changed his mind because one of his big donors was his tech people said, just a second, we own a lot of this thing.

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271.848 - 275.012 Kara Swisher

And I just think he was on the right track in terms of

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274.992 - 302.873 Tim Miller

china and he's been sort of captured by people are like if we don't give them the stuff they'll build it themselves and it's a ridiculous logic as far as i'm concerned but it's strange i wonder if he's got business deals there the whole thing is really it's been really eye-raising and whether it's the college campuses you know you would think that he would be more of a like that would go to the america first thing you think you do the xenophobic stuff the chinese flu the stuff he did last time that would seem to make more sense

302.853 - 320.153 Kara Swisher

One of the things also speaking of universities, the cuts to universities, I think it's sort of quieted down, but I was just visiting a number of universities, including around vaccines, around advanced technology. And this is setting back a generation of research and important innovation.

Chapter 7: What predictions are made for the future of tech and politics?

320.173 - 332.488 Kara Swisher

And tech guys always act like they invented the moon and they just didn't. It was invented on universities, campuses, much of this stuff. And so I think that to me is sort of a traffic accident well down the road, but

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332.468 - 349.853 Kara Swisher

So many of these researchers and these different innovators were like, at the academic level I'm talking about, were like, think I'll be moving to Canada or France, who are offering enormous stipends for people to move there. So that to me is one of these slow moving accidents of the Trump administration we're going to pay for.

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350.052 - 358.021 Tim Miller

Did Illinois get any credit, University of Illinois, for Marc Andreessen's work there when he was in the computer science department? No, it's just all him. It was all in the brain.

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358.041 - 377.022 Kara Swisher

No, it was not all him by any stretch of the imagination. So anyway, so I think those are two things I think about a lot and the damage he's done to universities and science in general and science and technologies are so interrelated. And I think it's not as exciting. And then, you know, the anti-immigration thing when, in fact, Elon's an immigrant and

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377.002 - 391.327 Kara Swisher

Sundar Pichai, all these people standing there are all immigrants, right? Came from another country and thrived and added to value to the American economy. So, you know, Sergey Brin is an immigrant.

Chapter 8: What cultural impacts are explored through entertainment in tech?

391.347 - 405.369 Tim Miller

Yeah, those are good. I should have added those to my list. You're right about the universities and the cutting of funding. I feel like it's something I bring up like once a week and I'm always like, I should mention that more. It's hard to, you know, because there is no like a cute thing happening anymore, right?

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405.389 - 414.18 Kara Swisher

No, when you talk to these researchers, they're so crestfallen. And, you know, the money is a real thing, like these kind of things. And all for what? You know, for what?

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414.541 - 417.164 Tim Miller

Nothing. We didn't even cut the debt or anything. Right, exactly.

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417.384 - 430.98 Kara Swisher

I mean, I get the idea of being angry at the students for being mean, but I just, the cost here is so massive. in order to get rid of DEI, which was directionally correct, even if it was rolled out sometimes excessively.

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431.421 - 447.559 Tim Miller

What do you think about the staying power of this little marriage between MAGA folks and tech CEOs? Is it a marriage of convenience that just goes away as soon as Trump goes away? Or is there something about a pivot to the right that is inherent in what they're doing?

447.927 - 462.147 Kara Swisher

No, it's not a pivot to the right. It's a pivot to give me everything and leave me alone. Right. It's a pivot that where they always were. Right. And a lot of them, you know, except for Peter Thiel, who's been consistent, I will say, has been since college.

462.527 - 468.315 Tim Miller

His appetite for authoritarianism seems to have gotten a little bit greater, but there's a little bit there always. Yeah.

468.295 - 490.16 Kara Swisher

Always. Go back and read some of his books or his early things. It's all in that genre. He was moving towards it and developing his theories, I guess. And his seasteading stuff, it's all about leave me the fuck alone, right? I think it's a version of leave me. And so when I was dealing with them, like Andreessen or any of them, I didn't ever know their politics. Like they never discussed it.

490.18 - 506.473 Kara Swisher

They were always gossiping about each other, which is what you do in Washington. I mean, you guys must be having a field day with Susie Wiles. Yeah, my old boss. Yeah, well, I think she knows exactly what she's doing, including from a social media perspective, but maybe not. Maybe she's just chatty. So chatty.

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