This transcript is generated with the help of AI and is lightly edited for clarity.
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REID:
This is a very clear repudiation of the last two years. And, you know, part of the midterms—like, you know, Trump saying he’s not on the ballot. Of course he’s on the ballot. You know, what the midterms are is, what do the last two years look like?
ARIA:
How do you square that, saying, I want to get money out of politics, but I’m still going to keep donating?
REID:
I think we should collectively get big money out of politics.
ARIA:
And what do you think about the types of people who won throughout the South?
REID:
They’re not trying to incite hatred. They’re going, Americans are hurting, and we’re going to do something about it.
ARIA:
It’s clear that the American people are distrustful of these tech companies.
REID:
It’s just that if you want a data center in my community, in my state, what are you doing for me?
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ARIA:
Reid, I could not be more thrilled to be with you today for this special midterm election edition of Riffs. Usually we talk about the future as it relates to technology. Today we are talking to the future, but sort of more how it relates to the election yesterday, the Democratic Party, what that means for tech, but also what that means for the American people in general. Welcome. Thank you so much for being here this morning.
REID:
It is an absolute pleasure on multiple levels, not just because of talking to you, but also because of what I think is a very good midterm moment.
ARIA:
So let’s get into it. You had a thread on Twitter, and in this election-night thread, you described results that exceeded your expectations and mine. And you pointed to Texas, Ohio, House races in Kentucky, Iowa, South Carolina, Indiana. I mean, so many races that overperformed and exceeded our expectations. And it was very clear that the voters wanted change. And your point was like, we should not discount voters anywhere, and we should listen to these voters. So what surprised you most about the results yesterday?
REID:
What surprised me was that despite a massive amount of Republican money—because there was both a huge spend from a whole bunch of people, including Elon Musk, and a lot of intimidation against Democratic donors over the last couple of years, especially this year, but over the entire two years—was how much the people made their voices heard of, we want something different. And, you know, the typical kind of commentary here is, you know, A versus B, red versus blue, Democrat versus Republican, David versus Goliath. And the really important thing for all of us to say is, look, what does this mean about, you know, American voters, and how are they experiencing, you know, their lives, their circumstances, and what’s going on with them?
Because that’s the thing that we should all focus on, whether or not we’re, you know, politicians or elected leaders or, you know, leaders of companies or citizens. It’s, you know, kind of, what does that mean for, you know, kind of where we’re at? And I think the voters, you know, made very clear that they demand a different kind of country with different leadership. They want an economy that can deliver for them. You know, as I wrote in the dual mandate, there’s 60-plus percent of American voters—you know, American citizens—who are struggling. They don’t want handouts. They want a country where hard work means success for them, and they have a path and they have a channel.
And they want leaders who are going to fight for their constituents, not start needless wars, not do all of this other kind of crap, not have corrupt federal agencies shooting Americans in cities. This is a very clear repudiation of the last two years. You know, part of the midterms—like, you know, Trump saying he’s not on the ballot. Of course he’s on the ballot. You know, what the midterms are is, what do the last two years look like? And the short answer was the last two years are horrific.
And, you know, we just see amazing—you know, something like Texas going. Not just Talarico, who obviously is the exact kind of leader we want as, you know, kind of as Americans—you know, not just Texans, but across the country—is, like, smart, principled, you know, kind of with a how-do-we-deliver-for-everyday-American-people, and not corrupt, not all of the, you know, bad stuff Paxton was. But Abbott going, you know, all of the kind of chicanery that he was trying to do. And of course, you see this in multiple places. You see this in, you know, Kansas. You see this in Maine.
ARIA:
And what do you think about the types of people who won throughout the South? Like, to your point, it’s not as if Talarico squeaked by. Talarico and Hinojosa both won by large margins. You had Ossoff and Keisha Lance Bottoms winning by large margins in Georgia. So we’re seeing younger people win. We’re seeing people who wear their faith, whether it’s Judaism or Christianity, on their sleeve. Like, what do you think it says that these voters in the South in particular are voting for these kinds of Democrats?
REID:
I think it’s exactly the kind of leaders that we want across the country, right? I think that the important thing is to say, if you look at the majority of the Democrats who delivered these startling upsets, they’re not the kind of, you know, far-left folks that the Republicans like to run against. They’re, like, everyday Americans who are just in it to try to make a difference for the American people. They’re not trying to do the red versus blue. They’re not trying to make demons. They’re not trying to incite hatred. They’re going, Americans are hurting, and we’re going to do something about it, and we’re going to work on this hard.
And I think that’s something that, whether you’re Democrat, Republican, or any other party, you should pay attention to, because it’s about the voters, and it’s about these kinds of people leading the change. And, you know, we’ve seen elements of it before, like Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill and other folks. It’s like, no, no, what we care about is people who are like, look, I of course care about business and prosperity for the overall American people. I also care about a society that’s better for the 60-plus percent of Americans who are struggling. We can work on both. And, you know, an election cannot just be bought when it’s so clearly a function of, we are suffering.
And what you are doing is causing, you know, gas prices to go up, beef prices to go up, you know, getting us involved in foreign wars—you know, your whole claim some number of years ago was that you’d get us out of wars as opposed to into them. And then, you know, your attempt to try to demonize the conflict within American society by saying, you know, we’re out hunting Democrats, as a function of what we’re doing with the Department of Justice and so forth—it’s like, that’s not what American people want. What American people want is, can you make a society by which we live to American values, which is we work hard and we get ahead, we provide for our family, we have, you know, an ability to get a good job and pay for things that matter to us?
And that’s the thing that’s important—not the narcissistic egos that have been kind of running rampant for the last two years. It’s about the American people themselves. And I think that’s what has been so amazing. And that’s what the broad swath of the Democrats—and it’s part of the reason why, like, nobody would have predicted 54-plus seats in the Senate. Nobody, right? We thought we’d get to 52. That’s what we thought, you know, when we were kind of working with all the different Democrats in different places and kind of saying, you know, hey, what is—we thought, you know, hey, it’ll be hard. 56 is—it’s an orange crush. In the Olympics rating of Trump, you know, zero to 10—zero. It’s a red undertow.
All of these, you know, clowns who have been posturing, whether they’re, like, you know, folks like Hegseth, you know, trying to televise an execution and make us look like North Korea or kind of other places versus a values society that we all, you know, believe in, to folks like, you know, Mike Johnson, who, you know, says, well, I don’t want to be a minority leader. It’s like, we don’t want you to be a leader at all, right? You know, you’ve been so bad that the American people have delivered a referendum on how bad you’ve been.
Because, you know, part of it is, hey, what have the last two years been? It’s been a Trump-MAGA-Republican trifecta. They’ve literally had the ability to do anything that they wanted to do. And as opposed to making things better for everyday Americans, they did things like, you know, dismantle USAID and cost hundreds of thousands of children their health and lives. It’s incredible. And so I think that the question is—no, focus on kind of how Americans are living their lives and deliver an economy that they can participate in and that’s good for them. And that’s what I think is like—it is literally like, I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this in many decades.
ARIA:
They voted at the ballot booth yesterday to show. And I mean, when you say this is about the American people, I have to admit, like, this restored my faith in humanity—that the American people have said no, like, we will not tolerate ICE terrorizing our communities. We will not tolerate this racist rhetoric. You know, this isn’t, to your point, even about red and blue. It’s about decency. And the candidates that won on the Democratic side made it about decency and made it about repudiating the awful narcissism of Trump. And you mentioned money in politics, and you have talked about this recently, and Elon Musk made an enormous bet in Texas and essentially tried to buy it. Yet on the other side, you also donated.
You were a big donor this cycle. And yet you have said that you want to get money out of politics. You think it would actually be better if wealthy donors couldn’t have as much of an influence. But you continue to donate partially because you say those with wealth and power have an obligation to stay involved—you know, with great power comes great responsibility. So how do you square that, saying, I want to get money out of politics, but I’m still going to keep donating?
REID:
I think we should collectively get big money out of politics. I’m a thorough believer in democracy. I think it’s, you know, one person, one vote. And how we have a society in which we’re living together is from that. Now, it is important that candidates’ messages are heard, and there’s a certain amount of money that has to go into that. And even with great tools like the internet and an ability to build a following and a bunch of other things, it’s still very important to be able to get the message in front of people
We supported a whole bunch of Democrats in both states. You know, Wisconsin was kind of an amazing sweep. And, you know, when I look at Wisconsin and Texas, I almost think, hey, we should prompt Elon to put heavy money into any particular state, because that will guarantee the loss on that side—as kind of a, you know, two-points-make-a-line kind of reasoning. But I think that the question is, we want to make it so that, you know, first, there’s transparency. You can see where the money is.
Second is we want to make sure that you can’t buy elections—that you can support candidates being heard, and you can support kind of a, you know, what is, you know, things that people go, okay, what are the things that matter to me when I go to voting? Now, to the point of your question, while there’s a huge flood of money, you can’t allow there to be only money on one side on this.
And if you have people who are thinking that, you know, the American people don’t recognize their own self-interest, and I can just buy it by sending out lots and lots of money, or saying, you know, we don’t need good education for our kids, we just need to give them all, you know, a share of SpaceX, you know, as an instance—it’s like, no, no, they need to hear the candidates, and they need to respond to them. And, you know, kind of pretty clearly Elon was like, well, my kind of candidate is Paxton. That’s who you should identify me with. And I’m going to spend literally an unprecedented amount of money trying to support that. It’s great for our democracy that that didn’t work. But we should also put some constraints on big money.
And I’ve been supporting ballot initiatives, legal fights, campaigns for years. In, you know, 2014, I backed Lessig’s Mayday PAC. I’ve helped Lessig on a number of different projects on this. You know. And so I think what’s most important for everybody—candidates, elected officials, you know, members of our government, business leaders—you know, power comes from the people. That’s part of what a democracy is, a society we live in. Now, part of a better democracy is we have a rule of law. We think the law applies to everybody.
You know, whether you’re poor or rich, whether you’re any particular ethnicity, any particular gender, the law applies to you, and we all live in the same society. And that’s part of what I mean by being in a democracy, right? It’s not like a historic democracy where only men had the vote, or, you know, kind of a democracy à la old South Africa, where only white people had the vote. It’s a question of, no, we are all here, we are all citizens, and we have votes together. And, you know, that’s part of the thing about, you know, limits on big money, which is a good thing to do. And I’ve already put money into trying to help that to happen.
I’d be delighted to continue to put money into that, because it’s getting the case to the voters and having th no e voters decide. And that’s what I think is really important here. So, for example, in Maine, you know, kind of more recently, I joined a legal brief supporting Maine’s voter-approved limits on the contributions to super PACs, and 75% of Maine voters backed that measure, because that’s what’s key. It’s to make sure that voters can make a decision about what kind of society, what kind of democracy, what kind of rules do they want to live in. And that’s the only thing that we should be enabling.
ARIA:
I mean, it’s so clear that money in politics distorts. And like you said, you want to get money out of politics. You’ve supported that with your money. You’ve supported that by joining amicus briefs. But we will not unilaterally disarm, especially because we know that the Democrats are more likely to get money out of politics than the Republicans. And so we want to elect leaders who agree with this and get this money out of politics. Speaking of money in politics, there certainly was a group that you and I know well that did spend big. We saw parts of the tech industry spend on races, you know, Senate and down-ballot. We saw the crypto industry spend big against Sherrod Brown in Ohio.
We saw folks who were pro-data center spend for Darline Graham in South Carolina. And a lot of people are talking now about big tech. They saw some of these tech leaders go to the White House, kiss the ring, try to sort of cozy up to MAGA, as some would say. And a lot of people felt abandoned. You know, Silicon Valley is all about innovation and technology and also being compassionate and being pro-immigrant and, you know, anyone can succeed. And yet a lot of people felt like they were let down. And so it’s very clear that we both need folks who are Trump supporters to come over into the Democrat coalition if the Democrats want to succeed.
It’s also very clear that we need technologists and technology companies talking to the government, talking to the president, talking to senators, if we want America to be vibrant and successful. And so as these tech companies try to build bridges with Democrats over the next few years—both because they’re in power in the House and the Senate, and because, you know, they see sort of something happening post-2028—what should they have to do to earn back trust? It’s clear that the American people are distrustful of these tech companies. And so what commitments do they need to make to the American people to sort of win back that trust?
REID:
There’s been a variety of different Silicon Valley and company responses since, you know, 2020 put them in a quandary. I mean, some thought—they said, look, there’s a mandate here. We’re companies in a country. We should respond to whoever the government is. We need to do the kinds of things that the government’s asking of us. Some thought that they had an economic opportunity here because, basically, with such massive grift on the part of the White House, it’s like, hey, this is the way that we’re being told we should play this economic game, and we should, you know, kind of buy our way into, you know, business favorability. Some people had ideological, you know, agreements, thinking that this was a—you know, finally, that their particular, you know, ideology was reinforced.
And I think all of them missed the really key thing, which is there’s more than 60% of Americans who are struggling to get by. And any of those things are not addressing what the concerns of those Americans are. And I think in these midterms, the American people made clear that they’re demanding accountability. You know, tech companies should understand that Democrats don’t operate like these Republicans. They can’t be cozied up to with donations. They can’t be the, oh, we’re going to buy influence. They have to make commitments to the American people. They have to be showing what they’re doing for American people. It isn’t buy a ballroom. It isn’t, you know, kind of do something that supports Freedom Coin.
It’s, what are you doing for all of the people in all 50 states, to say, hey, what are you doing for my economic opportunity? What are you doing for my costs? What are you doing for the way my life works? And, like, for example, I think one of the reasons why there’s such a referendum on the data centers—you know, as the tech companies, like, well, look, what is it? How are you doing this for me? Not—I get it—what you’re doing for you. And, you know, as Americans, we’re not opposed to you doing things for you. It’s just that if you want a data center in my community, in my state, what are you doing for me?
How does my life, how does my work evolve and change? How does my ability—where I’m, you know, struggling to get a raise and struggling to pay for beef, gas, et cetera—how are you helping me? And that’s what, you know, tech companies should be engaging in, in what they’re doing. And then, of course, there’s also the folks—you know, whether it’s Elon or others—who are like, hey, we just think that the only thing is to buy the administration, buy the election. And it’s like, don’t forget about the American people.
The American people are the folks who create this great society that we all live in, that we all work in, that we all can create prosperity for ourselves and for our communities and for everyone else. And that’s part of what the business of America is. And it’s not about corruption in government. It’s not about, you know, kind of merchandising hate. It’s about, you know, kind of how do we create a society that we want to live in together? And I think that’s the question. And, like, people say, well, it’s California. It’s like, no, pretty clearly Texas joined ranks on this.
And so I think it’s now a vast majority of states going, what we care about is what you’re doing for the prosperity of the American people, which does include the economy, but includes the lives and well-being of the majority of American citizens. And I think that’s the thing that everyone needs to orient towards.
ARIA:
Well, Reid, as someone who has constantly called out the excesses of the Trump administration over the last two years, and also someone who has been pro-AI but has been saying, if you’re going to put data centers in American communities, you have to deliver for the American people, I could not be prouder to be with you on this historic morning. Reid, thank you so much for joining this special edition of Reid Riffs this morning.
REID:
Pleasure and honor.
Possible is produced by Palette Media. It’s hosted by Aria Finger and me, Reid Hoffman. Our showrunner is Shaun Young. Possible is produced by Thanasi Dilos, Katie Sanders, Spencer Strasmore, Yimu Xiu, Aman Suri, Danny Garrison, Trent Barboza, and Tafadzwa Nemarundwe.
ARIA:
Special thanks to Surya Yalamanchili, Saida Sapieva, Ian Alas, Greg Beato, Parth Patil, and Ben Relles.