Pivot Post · Tour Edition · No. 01

New York and Toronto, you kicked this thing off with a bang! It's been a whirlwind two days to open up Pivot's 2026 tour, starting with Kara's appearance on The View on Monday, alongside the tour's first guest, Hillary Clinton. Later that day, Kara and Scott met up for a photoshoot, Kara sped off to a podcast interview and then went on Anderson Cooper's show with HRC before all three hit the stage at NYC's Beacon Theatre. 

Of course, on Election Day eve, audience members at the Beacon had politics front of mind, with questions for the hosts about addressing corruption, tech execs' accountability for their flip-flopping, and the Dems' post-midterms strategic outlook. But one exchange about politics near the end of the show was a crowd fave: a 23-year-old who seemed surprised to find himself there told the hosts, "I feel like I have no reason to vote, honestly, because it's just going to go the way that it is."

He set it off with that one! Starting with Kara reflecting on her own sons' past reluctance to vote. "Older people suck up all the fucking oxygen in the room," she offered. "We're giving you a less good world, and it's not fair. But, there's moments of change that are happening right now and young people across the world are leading…you're going to have to run this world someday, so you need to be part of it."

Scott was revved up, too. "You can do it for civic reasons, (or) do it for selfish reasons. We're going to spend more money on ICE than we're going to spend on children, because children don't vote. Seniors get 40 percent of entitlements. Our democracy right now is a bunch of old people voting older people into office. Every piece of legislation in the last 40 years has taken money out of your pocket and put it in ours. And if you want it to stop, for God's sakes, start voting. It's that simple."

Or more to the point, the exhortation he closed the show with: "B*tch slap corruption and depravity and go vote!"

 After a fun opening night party, a very tired Kara Swisher met me at 6 a.m. at LGA to fly a tiny prop plane to Toronto, where we visited the Heated Rivalry set. Don't get too excited, we signed a bunch of NDAs, so we can't reveal any spoilers or where it was shot. Some of the show's crew came to Toronto that night, and—breaking some news here—Scott was offered a role on the upcoming season. TBD whether that will actually happen, and how naked he will be. 

Later that evening, we went to the venue to set up, and he said, "Just a minute, are we gonna tell dad jokes or dick jokes tonight?" And proceeded to look up said jokes while I waited to discuss the Canadian American Trade Agreement.

Georgia had already won the house when we took the stage. It was a very positive audience. Canada was the first place we sold out, and they're always so kind to us. Kara did joke that if the election went badly, we would be staying in Toronto.

We're all exhausted tonight in Minneapolis. We are interviewing Governor-elect Klobuchar. We had a lot of debates last night about whether to call her "senator" or "governor" or "governor-elect." We had booked her preemptively and were not allowed to announce it because she's a little superstitious before a win is locked.

We got Scott a cupcake for his birthday, which he did not eat. But Kara then took it backstage and ate it herself, very quietly.   

That's it for now - more dispatches soon!

-Pivot editorial director Lara Naaman

Stay tuned for Kara's response in the next edition of Pivot Post!

One last thing before we go—a rec to check out New York Magazine's The Power Issue. From the engineers building the technology to the policy-makers shaping how we’ll use it to the deep pockets funding it all, meet the new elite who will determine our AI future. Plus, Charlotte Klein on CHARLES PORCH, the celebrity whisperer who’s trying to make OpenAI cool; David Freedlander on ALEX BORES, the congressional also-ran who’s teaching Democrats how to talk about the tech; and James D. Walsh on LEOPOLD ASCHENBRENNER, the hedge-funder the entire industry is watching.

Until next the one,