YouSaid · the spoken record

Astead Herndon

lines on the record: 71
first: 2026-04-27
most recent: 2026-04-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Along the way, because by the time we get to an open 27 primary, I think that's when they're going to be expressed. But the candidates will be vessels for those things. And those things will already be, I feel like, defining animating factors among voters themselves.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I 100% think that's where a lot of folks are. And so our goal is to see the seeds of that. Like, what are the groups who are going to define our post-Trump future? We're thinking about the growing parts of the electorate, first generation Americans, people of faith, people who had necessarily been marginalized, or people, young people, people under 30, I think are a big one for us in terms of who's going to drive some of that future. People's anxiety about changing work economy. And I think the place that tech plays in that is a huge thing for us. We want to attract some of that. You know, I'm in so many places that are talking about the inevitability of, you know, job displacement and things. And then you're in the electorate that feels kind of resentful that everyone's talking about this from a certain place, you know? And I'm like, what's the impact of that gap? How does that gap manifest itself in our elections and things like that? And so taking the issues and then taking the buckets of people, I think help us find some of the seeds.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Something that even I think back to the 2020 Democratic primary was a policy paper contest. I think that'll be a little different now, too. But I do think the burden will be on a party that even Democratic base wants ideas, wants a feeling of fight. Yeah, but I think that mostly is expressed in your level of political creativity. How are you showing me that you're going to do this? How are you showing me that you're going to go beyond the rhetoric we've already written?”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think solutions are the key point. Correct. I think there is a diagnosis of problems that's kind of agreed right now, partially because I think Trump era has lath and bare. And so I don't think you're going to win on just saying, hey, this is an issue. Like, I think that that was a...”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I think that that is an opportunity for anybody, particularly as we move toward this next election, to say that's part of my vision of a post-Trump America is to renew a commitment to some baseline principles that he's blown up. I just think that for Washington, they have a little bit of their self-interest, is that odds here too. And so that's where these outsider candidates are kind of interesting to me. Because that's ground that they can take up more clearly. And they can say things like, you know, removing money from this stuff or super packs. And I think Washington gets uncomfortable with that.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and that there was an opportunity to say, hey, you know, let's make this better. And that's the way that we recommit to this. Because I think what I hear from DR Independent is an understanding of a broken Congress, right? A desire for things like term limits, particularly if the stuff like the Supreme Court. Like there is an understanding among people who are distant from politics right now that things aren't necessarily working or that system seems at least outdated from responding to people's concerns.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, one of the things I remember from my time in Trump land is how many of their voters would clarify how we're not a democracy, we're representative democracy. We don't have a direct democracy. They would use that as kind of an insulation from their fear that a more direct democracy as the country was changing was going to displace them. In terms of power. And I think it's been a really motivating factor for Republicans, even as Donald Trump has made this authoritarian bend, is that a lot of them have come And now the thing that needed fixing overall.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's the risk of that sort of genuineness or authenticity. The clip farming can make one moment into a larger definitional space. And I think that's, if you're playing from a place of risk, particularly as a politician, that's been why they've been so distant from it.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Women candidates coming to media and electorate as full self. So I get the trepidation there. I just also get that it's required in this landscape. And I don't think you can get around that.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think that to your point, that gets you closer to the person we've seen her be. I think particularly as folks who have got to see her privately or cover her. Rather than, I think, prosecutor mode, which I think that's a bad thing. Yeah, sometimes I think when the lights come on was the switch that flipped. And so I kind of empathize sometimes with politicians about like the risk of authenticity, the risk of being genuine in that many settings. I think particularly like in a gendered way, like we have not supported.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Call her daddy and such. But I was like the content of what she brought to that platform was pretty much a stump speech. That's right. And so if you're going to go to new mediums and behave in an old way, I don't think it does the same type of work to that new medium. And that's where the magic happens.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can be a quote unquote normal candidate, and maybe not an open troll and still win. But I do think you have to command attention or have the ability to command attention in this economy. And so in this decentralized landscape, I don't think you can simply rely on the press release or the X statement or whatever. I think you have to have the ability to do the 30 second video, to do the three-hour sit-down, and to be able to have a message that cuts through on both fronts. Because sometimes I think that we only think about the delivery of message. But the biggest thing I think that helps Oron or AOC is the consistency of message too, that they can kind of bring to every platform. And they're very comfortable in that. I make the example there was so much back and forth, obviously, about Harris going on Joe Rogan in 2024. And she did do, I mean, big podcasts like.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People who can go directly to their audience and people who have kind of cut out that gatekeeper to create a sense of trust and they deliver their own news to their audience. The biggest thing that Bob Dani has is that kind of credibility as kind of direct to-camera, direct to Instagram audience organizing ability that he's cultivated over time. So I definitely think you're right that the new type of politician, I think led by Trump has played assignment editor for media by badpassing us, but also I think can talk to their voter more directly. So the point about Normie candidate, I still do think that”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of discourse on establishment that I don't think is necessarily there anymore. And so I think another thing that's hugely changed too is not just the news sources, but the fundraising mechanisms too from, you know, from small donors. You really have a specific activist class or people who are like most interested and you can raise a lot of money by just speaking to those people too. And so there's a lot of incentive for the influencer age of politics right now.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it definitely is a change in news ecosystem, and we've seen it as we've been on campaign trail. Would we ask people where they get their news or where they're getting information from first, you hear people increasingly who don't want that information at all. Like, I think that's the number one change. I feel like I picked up people kind of openly saying, well, I keep clear of that. I don't try to hear that. I try to insulate myself from that 100%. And then the second thing, I think, is leaning on individual voices who people trust who are increasingly, and I think in that Biden years especially, were more right-wing, were more of those broadcasters. I think we're starting to see that change a little bit as that ecosystem changes. But it was true that I think it did displace your kind of shared political reality of the times A1 or the kind of shared political reality of cable news, even if they're arguing about things electorate doesn't care about. It most leaked a kind of guard.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so, you know, it's not just that DeSantis was a personality flop or things like that. It is that there was a moment in time in which that kind of window for Republicans to see the ability to move past them collapse. And so their self-interest started aligning with where their base increasingly was post those indictments. And so I just think that some of those seeds we've seen in individual moments, but this election and the march to 2028 will bring them more clearly out.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's an underrated moment people forget about. In that post-2022 midterms, there was a big space of Republicans. I was at that Republican Winter Convention where they were talking about kind of how he was electoral drag on the party, how they had also assumed, like many others did, that his looming legal problems would be kind of the nail in his political coffin. And so sometimes when Republicans act as if they've seen this and they've been on the train the whole time. I'm like, that's not true. Like I remember those moments when they were trying to create space for other people to come in. It's simply that the base rejected it. And we saw this, you know, when I was making the run up my Times podcast when those criminal indictments came for a lot of that Republican electorate. It felt like a need to rally around the guy and that completely changed the tenor of what was going to be a more open race. And just the open convo of leaving him behind.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. So I don't really mean it more beyond him. I just mean non Trump centric more so. And I just think that takes the issues that we think about all the time and puts a different lens on them. And so instead of asking simply like, what's the impact is from the top down or what kind of the last person in the room was to push him for decision making, we're looking for the impact of that. We're looking for how that's going to play out in terms of other elected officials. And mostly we're looking to how people have largely been dissatisfied with the solutions that he's proposed. Right, no, he's not. I think that's really come through in the second term universally. And so it makes our framing, in my opinion, a little easier.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I also think that the way he has exploited political systems are lasting impact, the way that he has broken down norms or just increased some levels of shamelessness of elected officials. I think it's the last thing impact. But I still think there are some things, whether on the democratic side, that's defined themselves around opposition to them or on the Republican side that's kind of just deferred to him personally that we just simply don't know”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Linchell. And this one is unique in that, you know, it's the first time since 2016 we've had these two open primaries, or at least our building to open primaries. Made me think, you know, we're on this journey of theoretical Trump replacement, but it seems kind of implausible right now. I think he takes up so much of our ecosystem. It's hard to see past him. And so I thought that, you know, we can use these elections and we can use kind of this runway as an opportunity to start telling that story. Because I think that will be the deeply defined story. What parts of this do we take with us? What parts are we leaving behind? Like what parts of this are defining to a change country versus what was a crazed man?”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, it was really about kind of embracing our new media space. I wanted to do and be somewhere where I could embrace all mediums, write text, video. I wanted to do that based on the premise of my own kind of journalistic lens and kind of free myself of time subscriber. And I also just think that like in this kind of moment of politics specifically, people trust individuals. They trust people who kind of can put themselves out there transparently, can put their process out there transparently. And so I kind of wanted to just do that and its clearest form and felt like Vox was the best opportunity to do that. And to the point about Trump freeness, as we were thinking about what's going to define this show and kind of what do we want our lane to be, obviously my work has been around elections, national elections midterms.”
2026-04-27 · On with Kara Swisher · Life After Trump: Astead Herndon On What’s Next for American Politics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT