Molly Jong Fast (4:34)

So basically one of my friends who is also Jewish read it and she said to me and I feel like she said it's a Jewish beach read. Like it's very. You read it very fast. You know, it's fun to read, but it is very dark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in 2023 I thought that it was gonna be a normal year and actually one of my kids had wisdom teeth out and we had like made this whole thing to Be there. Because I had had my wisdom teeth out when I was young. And it had been just like a dis. For whatever reason, everything had gone wrong. So we planned everything. And then January came and my husband got. He was having some stomach pain. He went to the hospital. They found a mass on his pancreas in the emergency room.

Kara Swisher (5:25)

Which is a very troubling mass to have where it was.

Molly Jong Fast (5:29)

And then like in short order, who had been living alone, but in a very sort of untenable situation. But I had been like trying to let them live there. It just. The wheels fell off. He ended up back and forth in the hospital. Cause he had dementia and Parkinson's. And then she ended up. It just. Everything sort of went pear shaped. And that was like, sort of the highlight of the year. Because then after that happened, we moved them into a home. My stepfather died, my husband had all these surgeries on the pancre, which turned out to be okay. But there was a lot of like, is this the bad cancer? Is this the good cancer?

Kara Swisher (6:10)

Pancreatic cancer is usually very. It's usually a death sentence.

Molly Jong Fast (6:13)

Yeah. Turned out to be the good cancer. Yeah. And then he went back to have more surgery. And while he was having surgery, his father fell, broke his pelvis. And then, because he was 91, had a cascade of other stuff and then died. And then my aunt died. And then. And it just was like this craziness. There was this one moment where we were at this same funeral home in Connecticut. Cause we had been there for his father's funeral. And then we'd been there for the aunt's funeral. And the people who own the funeral home came out to us because it was like three weeks later. And we're like, are you okay?

Kara Swisher (6:52)

And I getting pity from funeral home people.

Molly Jong Fast (6:56)

And I thought, how bad does it have to be for these guys to come out?

Kara Swisher (7:00)

Cause it's good business, right? Yeah. You know. Oh my God.

Molly Jong Fast (7:03)

And also, like, those guys have seen some shit.

Kara Swisher (7:05)

Yeah. I would say that that is a lot. What do you think the universe was telling you at that moment?

Molly Jong Fast (7:12)

I actually think that the universe was telling me that you. And this is the message of that book. And it's funny cause this is the message of the book. There's a lot about my mom. And I think people are very interested in that relationship. And.

Kara Swisher (7:24)

Well, it's built around your relationship with your mom, which informs everything you do.

Molly Jong Fast (7:28)

Exactly. But I actually think the message of that book is you can get through anything. Because throughout it, like, Matt and I would look at each Other. And we'd be like, the only way through is through.

Kara Swisher (7:38)

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I was waiting for an asteroid at some level, but talk about it is built around your mom and your relationship with your mother, because it obviously informs a lot of your life, and either breaking away from it or embracing it, often breaking away from it. You had a lot of lines that I really like. Obviously, the one that got attention is, how could you lose your mother? But by the way, is still al. And one thing you note, which I think the line everyone's picking up on, is how could you lose her if you never had her? Right. That she was a non present parent and she was the most important relationship of your life at the time.

Molly Jong Fast (8:11)

Oh, my God. Yeah.

Kara Swisher (8:12)

Some of the lines that I thought were interesting was, you know, as she descended into dementia, you said she was an echo of herself, which is, you know, that you never. You didn't have a very clear relationship with her. And then she became an echo of her very loud personality most of her life, which is a beautiful line. So one of the things I thought were so relevant in the book, where your deliberation is about whether to refer to her in the past or the present, you write, she's both alive and dead. She's both my mom and not my mom. Talk a little bit about that.

Molly Jong Fast (8:41)

So this is actually a really common phenomenon that almost everyone describes when they have a loved one or a parent with dementia, which is they are both there and not there. Right. It's like you have a moment where you see that whatever makes a person themselves. And I think that is a real open question, starts to go, you know, it becomes a question of, like, who are you? What are the things that constitute a person? I mean, I remember when I was young, my father was a Buddhist, and actually my grandfather, Howard Faust, was also weirdly, a Buddhist. And I mean, I remember my father saying, you know, he's a vegetarian, so do with this information what you will. But I remember him saying, like, the person is just hamburger. Like, the body is not the person.

Kara Swisher (9:29)

Meet, meet.

Molly Jong Fast (9:30)

Right. And so the. So when she was slipping away, there was this feeling that it wasn't really like, I just had a moment where I was like, it's over. Like, I cannot ever make the peace. Like, all I wanted was to have the kind of relationship with my mother that I have with my daughter.

Kara Swisher (9:47)

Right.

Molly Jong Fast (9:48)

You know, where we. You can be mad at me, but the love. And I loved my mother, and she loved me. Like, I do believe she loved me as much as she could love anyone who was not or not a man. You know, men had a different kind of relationship to women in my mother's generation, I think.

Kara Swisher (10:09)

Right. It's interesting. Cause you also said I didn't ever have her. I don't.

Molly Jong Fast (10:13)

Yeah.

Kara Swisher (10:14)

How can you again lose someone that you didn't have that. I mean, wishing for a relationship is one thing. Making it real is another. Right. Having it real. And one of the things that really struck me is I have a very similar relation with my mom. You know, my mom does the same. Very dramatic. I love you so much. This and this. And it took me many, many, many years to say, I know you think you love me.

Molly Jong Fast (10:36)

Right.

Kara Swisher (10:36)

Which is. You know, I think that was as much as I could knowledge. But it was very much. You really don't like you.

Molly Jong Fast (10:42)

It's. Yeah.

Kara Swisher (10:44)

Well, you don't. In the traditional sense. Yes. Yeah. No. But I think they think it. Which is interesting in your case. You lost the ability to have that discussion with your mother intelligently. Although I don't think you ever would have had that discussion with your mother, even with her full faculties or relatively full faculties at the age she has reached.

Molly Jong Fast (11:03)

Yeah. I mean, don't you have that experience with your mom? I mean, sorry to ask.

Kara Swisher (11:07)

She's fully there. My mother's fully there.

Molly Jong Fast (11:10)

But don't you have that experience where, like with my mom, I would say, like, when she was still with it, we'd have conversations and I'd be like, you know, I know you say you.

Kara Swisher (11:19)

Love me so much, but evidence to the contrary.

Molly Jong Fast (11:22)

Right. I feel like this kind of thing, when you get really drunk and embarrass me in front of everyone. I know. I feel like that doesn't feel like you loving me. And, you know, like, very therapized. And she could not. And she'd be like, you hate me. Right. If you hate everything, you know, you never liked me.

Kara Swisher (11:42)

Yeah, I know. I've had that conversation. Yeah. And at one point I was like, really? You're right. I don't see you have the benefit. And I hate to say it this way. It was. Your mother has dementia and she used to drink. So I have neither of those things. I was like, can I have an excuse for this? But no, indeed. It is completely a chosen situation, which is hard. Let's talk a little bit about your mother first. We'll get back to having the same mother. We could trade them if you'd like a version. If you're wishing to give it a try, you can use one lechi.

Molly Jong Fast (12:14)

Seems Actually a little scarier than my mom. Cause she's very active, she's very sharp.

Kara Swisher (12:20)

She is.

Molly Jong Fast (12:21)

And didn't she break out of the nursing home?

Kara Swisher (12:23)

She did. I've got her in another one now. Yeah.

Molly Jong Fast (12:27)

Erika Jeong does not break out of nursing homes.

Kara Swisher (12:29)

Well, that's good thing. I wish that was the case.

Molly Jong Fast (12:32)

I know, I know. I think you have it a little worse with.

Kara Swisher (12:35)

She moves along. So your mom. Let's talk about who your mom is. For people who don't know your mom. Because it is part of the story. Because it forms her narcissism. Me too. And her quest for fame. That really, really fucked with her in a lot of ways, which I think, which was interesting. So you write very smartly about famous and becoming unfamous, actually. So your mom became very famous y as a so called second wave feminist after her 1973 autobiographical novel Fear of Flying. It's sexually explicit, sex positive, as most people say today. And also very funny. It was published before you were born. Talk a little bit about the fame and how it impacted you, especially the fear of flying, which I don't think as many younger people know these days or wouldn't find very shocking. But at the time it most certainly was shocking. I remember it as a 10 year old. I was like, whoa. And everyone was looking for the book to read. All the 10 to 12 year olds were looking for the book to read.

Molly Jong Fast (13:31)

So yes, it was very shocking. It published in 1973. I think the way to think of it is contextually the pill. Right? Game changer. But it takes a little while to sort of get into the culture. 1973, fear of flying and also Roe v. Wade the same year. And from what I understand from people coming over and telling me about it, which I think is sort of the most useful kind of thing, is that people. There were many women who read that book and were like, I've been doing it wrong. Like I can have sex, I can. I don't have to be married to the first person I sleep with, you know, it was just sort of a. It was a. Like you don't have to be what your parents told you you needed to be. And remember my mom was born in 1942. So I think what was hard for her was she really did wanna be an academic. My grandfather was very. He had three daughters and his whole thing was everyone needed to be an academic. They all needed to get graduate degrees. My mother went to Barnard. She was a good student. She was actually with Martha Stewart at Barnard.

Kara Swisher (14:39)

Oh wow. That Would have been something.

Molly Jong Fast (14:41)

And she did sleep with Andy Stewart.

Kara Swisher (14:43)

Oh, okay. All right, good.

Molly Jong Fast (14:45)

And I said, did you ruin Martha Stewart's marriage? First she said, this is very Erica Jones. She said, what happens in Frankfurt stays in Frankford.

Kara Swisher (14:53)

Okay.

Molly Jong Fast (14:54)

At the book fair, I was like, okay. And then she said, many people slept with Andy Stewart.

Kara Swisher (15:00)

Oh. So not my fault.

Molly Jong Fast (15:02)

Not my fault. I actually think that Martha was really mad at my mom because years later, my father got married, remarried a few years later, not that many years later, and Martha was really wanted to do the wedding, which I feel like was a sign that she was not pleased.

Kara Swisher (15:22)

Well, that's a nice side story.

Molly Jong Fast (15:23)

Yes.

Kara Swisher (15:24)

But anyway, she was very famous, your mother. Yes.

Molly Jong Fast (15:26)

Oh, sorry. She was very famous. Yes.

Kara Swisher (15:29)

There were several Betty Friedan. There was a bunch of, like, women writers that came up, and hers was the sort of the sexy one.

Molly Jong Fast (15:36)

Yes.

Kara Swisher (15:36)

I remember many of the appearances she had on a lot of the TV shows. She was often on television shows, and it was. They were more titillated by her. You could feel that. Right. How did that impact you? You know, here you are. She was famous when you were born, which you wouldn't have realized for quite a few years, but she was, say, 10 years into it.

Molly Jong Fast (15:54)

But, you know, she was glamorous and interesting and smart. You know, it's important to remember that the world in which I grew up in doesn't exist anymore. So there was Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe and there were these fancy male journalists who dominated everything they wrote for Vanity Fair and GQ and the New Yorker, and they had these outsized influences in the culture, and they don't really exist anymore. Like, that's not how we do it.

Kara Swisher (16:27)

No, we have Theo Vaughn now.

Molly Jong Fast (16:28)

Right, exactly. And, yeah, that's not so good. So they had these outsized influences in the culture, and she could never get in that group. And that was very hard for her.

Kara Swisher (16:39)

For her. How did it impact you?

Molly Jong Fast (16:41)

Oh, how did it impact me?

Kara Swisher (16:42)

It's easier to talk about her, isn't it? Right.

Molly Jong Fast (16:44)

Yes. So for me, I think I was uniquely poorly designed for that childhood because I was dyslexic. So that was a real problem. And I was also, you know, I got sober at 19 because I really was an alcoholic. Like, I really was. You know, I do believe that there are some people who are born alcoholics, and I really had that DNA where I just.

Kara Swisher (17:12)

Well, she was. And your grandmother was.

Molly Jong Fast (17:14)

Yeah, grandmother was, too. Yeah. But I had in my DNA just such the ism, if that makes sense. So I was extremely Ill prepared for that childhood. But I got through it.

Kara Swisher (17:27)

Yeah.

Molly Jong Fast (17:27)

And my mom, you know, she had people who sort of took care of her.

Kara Swisher (17:32)

Yeah, she left you alone a lot, which is what you write about when you say ill prepared. I think she was ill prepared for you. That's.

Molly Jong Fast (17:38)

Yeah. I mean, I also think she was not. There was just a lot of. I mean, you have to remember it is also the 70s and 80s and like people didn't parent the way they do now. I mean, we didn't have car seats, everybody smoked. You know what I mean? I mean, when I was three years old, I drank the bottoms of everyone glasses of champagne and a bat mitzvah and everyone thought it was adorable. Like it was just a very different way to grow up. And there were other kids I met who were the children of famous people who also were sort of dragged along and sort of treated like an afterthought.

Kara Swisher (18:15)

Yeah, it feels a little British. It feels a little rich people, fancy people.

Molly Jong Fast (18:20)

It's a trope.

Kara Swisher (18:20)

It's a trope. It's interesting because right now you're saying, oh, it wasn't so weird. It actually was so weird.

Molly Jong Fast (18:26)

Yeah, it's not a good way to grow up.

Kara Swisher (18:28)

When I talk about my mom, everyone's like, I used to say, oh, you know, a lot of people are like that. They weren't, they weren't right. And I have a really hard time with my wife, whose parents are so lovely. Like, wouldn't be better parents. And very similar to how I parent my kids. Like, you know, you can see it. The only real fight we have is I was like, you don't understand what it was like to be raised by wolves. Cause you worked. Like, you don't understand. Like, you know, it was like sort of the constant lack of attention. And I think one of the things you struggle with was feeling like you're being a bad daughter to a woman who doesn't seem like she was a very good mother.

Molly Jong Fast (19:05)

Right.

Kara Swisher (19:05)

I want to play one of the passages that really hit home. This is right after you moved your mom and stepdad and we what you call the world's most expensive nursing home, which is where I've been moving my mother to. But let's get, let's read. Let's listen to this.

Molly Jong Fast (19:18)

A couple of days later, I called my dad, my one remaining parent. I was in a taxi heading to CNN to do a late night panel. I told him that mom wasn't dead yet, but that she wasn't exactly in there anymore. I told him that all she did was sleep and drink. I told him how guilty I felt. I said that I shouldn't be at the CNN studios wherever I was. I felt I should have been somewhere else. I should have been spending more time with my kids, with my parents, with my dogs, with my cancerous husband. My dad tried to reassure me in his own peculiar, fucked up way. You know, he said, when you were a little girl, the nanny and I used to try to get your mom to spend time with you. We tried to get her to spend just an hour a day with you. This admission made me feel so great. She couldn't do it. My dad said she couldn't even spend one hour with you. The most she could do was half an hour.

Kara Swisher (20:25)

Hmm. You didn't know this? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Molly Jong Fast (20:28)

No, my dad was. I mean, you know, there's a fair amount of everyone settling the score behind the scenes, but. Yes.

Kara Swisher (20:36)

You write that you spent a lot of time wondering if you weren't taking care of them because they didn't take care of you. I think a lot of people in the sandwich generation can relate to that. But do you still feel guilt about not taking care of her? Cause it sounds like she hardly took care of you. And I do wanna ask about your father. Why isn't he as culpable in that.

Molly Jong Fast (20:53)

Oh, yeah. No way. Yeah, it's a good question. So do I still feel guilty? The answer is not really. But with my father, I think what happened was so the. I mean, if you want to get into the sort of nitty gritty of the divorce, they had this really just epic divorce. She. In the end, he kind of gave up and went away. Not the best answer, but people didn't have joint custody back then, right?

Kara Swisher (21:27)

Men certainly didn't.

Molly Jong Fast (21:28)

So. But he's, like, subsequently, like, apologized to me and said, I should have fought harder. I should have. I don't. I think it was very hard for him and for her to. You know, my grandfather had introduced them, and I think they thought in 1975, when they met her, 74, that they were gonna get together and they were both gonna become these famous writers, and they were gonna live in Malibu and have this life that was this sort of fantasy. And what happened instead was they got together and they were gonna kill each other. And he was an alcoholic and he had a lot of issues with his dad, and everything just imploded. And then they couldn't. It just was all of the sort of worst of everything. Oh, but my husband has this great shrink, and he is very brilliant and writes books called George Makari and George Makari said to Matt Greenfield about me he said sometimes the children of narcissists become stuck on trying to fix their relationships with their narcissistic parents, despite the fact that there's not any role for them to play and that they over sort of become overly guilty because of that. And that made so much sense that it made me think that that's what I did.

Kara Swisher (22:50)

We'll be back in a minute.

C (23:00)

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Kara Swisher (25:05)

Every episode, we have a question from an outside expert. Let's listen to yours. Hi, Molly Mushu. This is your friend Annie Lamott.

Molly Jong Fast (25:14)

And my question is, having also lost.

Kara Swisher (25:18)

My mother to Alzheimer's, what is your relationship to yours now, both physically and in your heart and mind? Love you, honey. Talk about your relationship now, because even though, despite the alcoholism, the narcissism, you did have a good relationship with her for a while. You did interviews together as recently as 2019, by the way.

Molly Jong Fast (25:41)

I love that you got. That was so cool. That's really cool, getting Annie in there. Yeah. Thank you. So my mother, you know, I visit her at the nursing home. We put her in a new nursing home that I think is much nicer. And we have this wonderful man who sits with her during the day called Johnny. And we went out for Mother's Day brunch. We have, you know. And I get the kids over there, so she gets to see the kids. It's okay. It's not. It's very sort of. It's not as much as it probably should be, but I see her, and it makes me really sad.

Kara Swisher (26:21)

She recognizes you, Correct?

Molly Jong Fast (26:23)

She recognizes me, but she doesn't recognize my kids anymore. Or she doesn't. She sort of knows they exist, but she can't remember who they are or what they are. I mean, what was genuinely weird about the Times thing was, you know, there's.

Kara Swisher (26:40)

An article in the New York Times, right?

Molly Jong Fast (26:42)

And in it, the author calls my mom and asks her how she thinks about the book.

Kara Swisher (26:47)

She gave a very cogent answer, actually.

Molly Jong Fast (26:49)

Yes. So it was very strange. I mean, I knew she would give a cogent answer because I knew she has always felt that way. You know, she's always said, you have a right to write anything you want, but it's sort of a misrepresentation because she's not like, I don't think she's capable of making decisions, per se. So it's like a very ethically cloudy moment, right?

Kara Swisher (27:13)

It is. It was interesting. Cause I thought. I actually thought the writer was a little aggressive at you, which was interesting, because the answer was quite cogent. It was, you should be able to write what you want. But this is not someone who seems to have read the book correct or is able to finish it.

Molly Jong Fast (27:27)

No, she can't read.

Kara Swisher (27:28)

She can't read. She's lost the ability to read.

Molly Jong Fast (27:30)

And I didn't want to. What I didn't want is for her to be upset.

Kara Swisher (27:35)

Do you feel like writing the book, delving into Your childhood gave you closure. Cause she can't read it, right? I always joke with my mom, and she's like, oh, you're gonna write a terrible book about me when I die. I go, abso fucking lutely. You're never gonna read it. Or maybe you'll read it from heaven. I don't know. I'm not sure that's the way you're headed. We joke about this, but it is ethically challenging. And someone's like, should you do that when she can read it or when she can't? And I was like, can't, obviously.

Molly Jong Fast (28:03)

Well, I mean, look, my mom wrote a book that had a lot of stuff that made a lot of people really unhappy, including, like, Alan Zhang, right. Who's dead now. But that guy was just a. He was like a private person. So if you were just apples to apples. Me writing about our experience together is absolutely not comparable. But I also think that she really. What Erika John cared about was her literary legacy more than anything. So she made me, you know, for years and years and years, she said, I made you my literary executor. I want to have a Didion. Like, I mean, she wasn't Didion then, but she knew that what she wanted was the thing that Norman Mailer doesn't have, but Joan Didion does have, right? That legacy of mattering. That's all she wanted. So in this way, that book does help with the legacy of Erika John.

Kara Swisher (28:59)

Interesting. Oh, good excuse.

Molly Jong Fast (29:01)

It's a good excuse. But it's also true. It happens to also be true.

Kara Swisher (29:05)

Yeah, maybe it'll get true. But the Times, of course, called it literary retribution and quotes you as saying that you sold out Erika John. Explain that.

Molly Jong Fast (29:12)

Right. Well, I think it's.

Kara Swisher (29:14)

I don't mind that you did it. I think she totally deserved it.

Molly Jong Fast (29:17)

But the me in this equation, the normal human who is not particularly. I don't like it. Like, I don't feel great about it, but I also feel.

Kara Swisher (29:29)

Talk about that. Why?

Molly Jong Fast (29:30)

Cause it's just not how I. You know, I don't. I'm like a normal person. So I certainly have desires of grandeur. Like, I would like the book to sell a lot of copies. And I think I do help people in the book. Like, I do think you read it and you think, like, oh, you can really sort of do this and do that and it be okay. And, like, I think the most useful stuff in the book is the stuff where I. Matt gets sick and I talk about how you deal with the kids when the husband is Sick. Cause that I think is actually really useful. Cause a lot of people get cancer. And I think one of the things I was able to do was sort of help them stay in their lives and not get too involved with ours so that they didn't get too involved with their dad being sick, which I thought was really a good thing I did. But you know, the salaciousness of it and the alcoholism and the, you know, who cares what happened in my childhood? Like it's. But I did have that realization which I think is worth talking about, which is that if you are an unhappy child, you're an unhappy childhood, you're just constantly trying to get in there and fix it. Whereas these people were happy children.

Kara Swisher (30:38)

These happy children people, right.

Molly Jong Fast (30:40)

But they are just. They spend all their time talking about like, how can it be over, right. Like, I just want it to be, you know, like. Whereas I really do feel delighted to not be 11.

Kara Swisher (30:52)

Right. That's fair. I do too. I mean, in a lot of ways it could be a self help book. Although I think it's a self help book for you. Honestly. I mean a lot of this, this genre is, you know, Jennette McCurdy, I'm glad my Mother's Dead. It really is hitting rather strongly with a lot of people. Why do you think that is? That's been on the bestseller list forever. You know, very different circumstances. But same story, same song, right? Same song.

Molly Jong Fast (31:17)

I think we all wanna fix our relationships with our parents and I think we all want to connect about them because I do think we're sort of told that we're supposed to have a certain kind of relationship with our parents, that we're supposed to, you know, love them and mourn them. But the reality is a lot of us don't feel like that. And I think that there is a real. There's something nice about knowing that you don't have to be the daughter in the movies, that you can just have very mixed feelings about your parents. And I think most people do, I mean are teenagers and one is 20 something and they are sometimes furious with me. And I say that's good. That's what you're supposed to. That's how it's supposed to go.

Kara Swisher (32:05)

Two more questions about this. Do you think it made you a better. I think I'm a much better parent because I didn't have. My dad died, so he gets an out on that one. But do you think you're a better parent because of that? I do. I think I. And same thing with my brothers. They're fantastic parents, I would say.

Molly Jong Fast (32:21)

Yeah. I mean, I definitely feel like I'm a better parent. I also get along. I love my brothers, my half brothers.

Kara Swisher (32:28)

I love my brothers.

Molly Jong Fast (32:29)

Part of it is that I know when I used to get mad at my mom, she would be like, kill me. I was the worst. And you're like, no, no. I just want to criticize you a little bit. And I just want to have, like, a real conversation about something when, you know, you can't.

Kara Swisher (32:43)

They're impermeus.

Molly Jong Fast (32:44)

And so I do think what's nice is with my kids, I can be like, you know, this wasn't the best moment for us, you know, and I'm sorry I gave you an eating disorder or, you know, those kind of things.

Kara Swisher (32:55)

I didn't do that.

Molly Jong Fast (32:56)

You know what I mean? But you like where they want to get mad at you about things. And so I do think I have. I can have that conversation with them.

Kara Swisher (33:05)

Being a better parent, like designing a better parent. It's interesting because you can always. I'm always like, you could change at any point. But no, they actually can't. The last moment, you can't. They can't. What advice, lastly, do you have for people with parents with dementia or Alzheimer's? There's so many parents that have this disease, and they're working on it and working for. But a lot of time, the health span lasts longer than the mind span, and so it creates a really difficult care situation. Even when you have means, it's hard. When you don't, it's even worse. But no matter what, it's very difficult. So give me two pieces of advice.

Molly Jong Fast (33:41)

Yeah, I mean, don't be hard on yourself, because everybody feels like they're not doing it the right way. I mean, I think that's uniformly true. You just do the best you can. I always think, like, put the oxygen mask on yourself first, worry about your kids, and then your parent last. I really do. Because the kids. You only have the kids for such a short time, and then they grow up. I think you prioritize the kids before the parents. Just. That's my take. And then I also think you just do the best you can. Like, you're not gonna. Especially if they're sort of in that netherworld. There's only so much you can do sometimes they'll be mad at you for. I mean, the biggest lesson I've ever learned in my life is not to take things prepar. Right. That people are doing what they're doing. And maybe it has to do with you. And often it doesn't.

Kara Swisher (34:31)

Yeah. No, often it doesn't. Yeah. It's zero to do with you. It's with their own journey.

Molly Jong Fast (34:36)

That's the great joy of middle age is knowing that it often doesn't have anything to do with it.

Kara Swisher (34:41)

Yeah, I often. I try not to feel bad and I actually don't. Yeah, I like the cat's in the Cradle. I often say that to myself when my mother says something like, oh, you hate me. I'm like, cat's in the fucking cradle. And she's like, what? I'm like, forget it. Don't worry. Which is the Harry Chapin song about parent who ignores a child and then later the child has no time for them.

Molly Jong Fast (35:04)

It's an anthem.

Kara Swisher (35:05)

It's an anthem. Yeah. We'll be back in a minute. Test, test, check, 1, 2. You know you need unique New York. You know you need unique New York. Does that sound all right? Ah, that's better. You can always tell something's missing when you get isolated results like AI that's only right for one of your systems. Get AI that can work across your data and applications. Learn more@IBM.com the AI built for business.

Molly Jong Fast (35:44)

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Kara Swisher (36:26)

Shop 4th of July Savings at the Home Depot right now and get up to 40% off plus up to an extra $600 off select appliances with free delivery like Samsung. From all in one washer dryers to smart refrigerators. Upgrade to tech you can trust with Samsung appliances. The Home Depot has what you need to simplify your routine. Don't miss 4th of July appliance savings at the Home Depot. Cheapo free delivery on appliance purchases of $396 or more. Offer valid June 18 through July 9, US only. See store or online for details. One of the things you've done is you've become a well known person too. You switched your career. I guess you self launched into journalism in 2015. I would say for people who don't know you're a multi hyphenate social correspondent for Vanity Fair, a political analyst for MSNBC. You have a podcast, Fast Politics on iHeart. The Times did a write up on you a few years ago and you attribute your success to a combination of prolific posting on social media, your kind of tell it like it is brand, your personal connections of being a neposaurus, as you've called yourself. I'm not so sure you're riding off the back of America, John.

Molly Jong Fast (37:29)

Not at this point.

Kara Swisher (37:30)

Not at this point. So talk a little bit about that shift for you.

Molly Jong Fast (37:34)

So I had all these kids. I wrote novels. I had all these kids. I went back into writing. I started writing columns in 2015. I went to the place where I had written when I was like a kid and just wrote every week and wrote these political columns. I just had a realization that I didn't have to write about myself anymore, that I could write about politics much more interesting and had nothing to do with me as a person in the world.

Kara Swisher (38:01)

Other things, Other things.

Molly Jong Fast (38:03)

I also think what happened to me was when Obama came into presidency, I thought, oh, okay, it's gonna be okay, right? Like, we're gonna fix all this stuff now where the really smart people are gonna get in government and they're gonna fix stuff. And then I thought, and then Hillary's gonna be president and this will all sort of work out. And then it was like, oh, no, none of this is gonna work out. And that got me involved in writing about politics.

Kara Swisher (38:32)

Right. And Trump was starting to be ascendant, correct?

Molly Jong Fast (38:35)

Yeah.

Kara Swisher (38:35)

Is that what inspired you, Trump, or.

Molly Jong Fast (38:38)

I think, I thought, I think the way it happened, where he sort of got in there and the party was. The Republican Party, was like, no. And then he was able to sort of defy gravity, was very much as a novelist. Cause I feel like originally I was a novelist. That really captured my imagination. Not in a good way, in a sort of, you know, as someone with both an anxiety disorder and an eye for drama, but also satire. It was a cataclysmic moment in American life, and I think it was for.

Kara Swisher (39:12)

A lot of people. You didn't come up as a journalist. You said you came up as a novelist. And a lot of. According to a Pew study, one in five Americans rarely get their news from news influencers on social media. It's a higher percentage among younger generations. What do you consider yourself? Because you didn't come up the journalistic route like I definitely did. How do you define what you're doing? Because you're also in traditional Media, you definitely check the box of traditional media. But how do you look at your as a writer?

Molly Jong Fast (39:41)

I think of myself as an opinion journalist. So it tends to be that you come through journalism, but there are opinion journalists who come through other activities. So I think of myself as an opinion journalist who is more interested in prose than perhaps a more traditional journalist. But I have spent enough time now in that world that I'm very careful.

Kara Swisher (40:07)

Which is good, right? You're careful about making mistakes and everything else. But do you consider yourself a news influencer? You use social media quite a bit. You really do. Compared to other people. You're on all of them. You're still on X even though you shouldn't be. You're on Blue Sky, TikTok. You're on YouTube with Fast Politics. How do you fashion your life and how do you do it?

Molly Jong Fast (40:28)

So what I would say is there are two things I aspire to do right, make sense of what's happening and also so make people feel better. Those are really the two jobs. And so I try to read everything. Everything comes from reporting or from sources. And there's really good reporting coming from the Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington post, and even ProPublica, the Economist. So I just read everything. I talk to as many people as I possibly can. I also. One of my favorite things I do, which you're not supposed to do, but I do do, is I complain to comms people about the many things that I think their bosses are doing wrong, which makes me profoundly disliked. But I do do that where I say, you know, I'm really disappointed. And I do this Jewish mother thing, which I do with my kids, where I say, I'm really disappointed that your boss can't speak. Like, my new thing is I feel that Democrats should be speaking like normal humans. That I feel like that would make them more effective.

Kara Swisher (41:31)

So in that way you're more an influencer.

Molly Jong Fast (41:33)

Correct.

Kara Swisher (41:33)

I mean, I'm trying to sort of how you describe yourself to people. A columnist. A columnist.

Molly Jong Fast (41:38)

I think of myself as a political columnist on the opinion side.

Kara Swisher (41:42)

On the opinion side. So it's interesting. Cause your grandfather Hard Fast is known for writing Spartacus. He was also a communist and spent time in prison for pleading the Fifth before the House on American Activities Committee on Apartheism and went to exile in Mexico for a while. And as we talked about, Fear of Flying was published in 1973, the same year that the Supreme Court determined Roe. And writing about women's sexuality was a political act. Even if you say your mother Wasn't political. It certainly was. She got a lot of pushback. But she also wrote about her time in Heidelberg in the 60s, how Germans were ignoring the recent Nazi past. Do you think about your job like that? Cause you certainly come from a legacy of that.

Molly Jong Fast (42:18)

Yeah. And actually, my grandfather was a political columnist too. So he wrote these novels that were very sort of the Hessians.

Kara Swisher (42:25)

I remember the Hessians heavily.

Molly Jong Fast (42:28)

And didactic novels about liberalism and communism. And he wrote political columns. So he had that similar thing where he was both things. And he was sort of a public intellectual, for lack of a better word. Though he was not a high level public. He wasn't Buckley or Gore Vidal. He was like this sort of Timu. Buckley. Well, not Buckley, but Timo. Gore Vidal, but not Gaydal.

Kara Swisher (42:57)

There you go, Grandpa.

Molly Jong Fast (42:58)

But he tried to be a public intellectual, so that was sort of an avenue that was available. I don't know that that's an avenue that is available. I don't know how intellectual I am. But I just want to say one other thing about my grandfather, which is he was jailed. He was definitely a communist. He did refuse to name names. He did win the Stalin Peace Prize the last year that Stalin was giving it out.

Kara Swisher (43:23)

Mm.

Molly Jong Fast (43:23)

Which is really a dubious honor, I would say, at best. Um, my father found the Stalin Feast Prize in the garage.

Kara Swisher (43:32)

Yeah.

Molly Jong Fast (43:32)

And was like, oh, my God. And he dropped it. And now he can't find it again.

Kara Swisher (43:37)

Oh, no.

Molly Jong Fast (43:38)

So the family has a very conflicted relationship.

Kara Swisher (43:42)

That would be a good prize to lose, I would say.

Molly Jong Fast (43:44)

Yeah.

Kara Swisher (43:45)

Turned out so well.

Molly Jong Fast (43:45)

It is a little bit curious to see it, but it's like a coin. I've seen it before. But I did have this amazing moment with my brother, and I said to him, you know, Trump could put me in jail.

Kara Swisher (43:56)

And he's like, I was gonna ask about that.

Molly Jong Fast (43:58)

Yeah.

Kara Swisher (43:58)

So you've obviously been very outspoken about President Trump. You said you were worried about what happened if he's reelected. A lot of people are, are you feeling that way? And when you think about these moments in history, Nazi Germany, McCarthyism, MAGA, America. How do you assess where we are right now? Are you personally worried still? A lot. Some people are.

Molly Jong Fast (44:14)

Well, the best moment is my brother goes like, you better hope that you get put in jail. Cause that was the best thing that ever happened to Grandpa.

Kara Swisher (44:21)

Oh.

Molly Jong Fast (44:23)

He was like, grandpa got next level when he was put in jail.

Kara Swisher (44:28)

Oh, no.

Molly Jong Fast (44:28)

You know, so he was like, you better pray that you get out.

Kara Swisher (44:32)

How do you feel about that?

Molly Jong Fast (44:34)

I feel okay. I mean, look, I think that it's the closest to McCarthyism, right. I think the straightest line is McCarthyism. I do think what's really amazing about Trumpism is two things. One, he's not so good at this. This, right? That is what's so striking. For example, these law firms that went along with Trump, a lot of them are now getting pushback from their clients. So I do actually think that I actually feel a little better. Cuz I think that even though a lot of billionaires have really caved to him in a disgusting way, that was shocking, but it turned out it wasn't necessary. Like they could have just pushed back and survived. And so I think, I feel like it's a really amazing cautionary tale for all of us, which is that you can be brave and you can do the right thing and there's no incentive in fact for caving.

Kara Swisher (45:32)

So you're feeling more hopeful that there is pushback is occurring. That said, I want to finish up talking about the Democrats. You wrote an article in Vanity Fair about President Joe Biden just after his cancer diagnosis was announced. This was personal because your husband's cancer treatment. You wrote, one of my few positivity of being a cancer family is that you really get connected to your many and the humanity of people around you. Cancer is nonpartisan, but still there's a lot of sturm and drang around how he hand wringing and blame gaming within the Democratic Party. In March he wrote a party's very existence relies on elevating a new suite of leaders. So talk a little bit about if there's been pushback. How do you think. Why do you think elected Democrats are having a hard time figuring out what to do to show they're relevant and that they're actually doing something to stop this slide away from from democracy.

Molly Jong Fast (46:17)

Look, Trump is Trump. Republicans caved to him. They set this in motion. Democrats had a hard time trying to push back on these authoritarian impulses. Part of it was because it's very hard to be sort of the one party that believes in norms and institutions. That's an impossible situation to be in. Part of it was that they really got in their own ways. They thought too much about themselves. You know, like a lot of times you'll hear people will say, well, it's the online left that is having too much power. But I actually think that it's not. I actually think that the problem isn't. I mean, maybe at one time it was, but I think really the problem now is the consultant class that gets in there and says, you can't say this, you can't say that. You have to be careful. You shouldn't do that interview. You shouldn't do this interview. Like, if we learn anything from Donald Trump, Donald Trump went everywhere. He said crazy stuff. It didn't matter, right? Because you have so little of people's attention and you just have to be everywhere. And I think one of the worst moments for me was those Google searches on election day where people didn't know that Joe Biden had dropped out of the race. This is a country of 300 plus million people. They are not reading the newspaper. They are not like, you just have to get in front of them any way you can. And it doesn't matter if your message is brilliantly tailored or not. And in fact, I think the worst thing Democrats do to themselves is talking points. There are some really, really smart Democrats who you can't hear what they have to say because they are like McKinsey talking point to McKinsey talking point. And I actually think just talking like a human to another human is the way to go.

Kara Swisher (48:02)

Who do you think that's gonna be? You interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris or Fanny Farren James 2022. You were a supporter through the presidential campaign, but who do you think should be the Democratic ticket? How are you looking at when you're starting to assess? Because people will be now focused on 2026 and 2028.

Molly Jong Fast (48:20)

First of all, I think that really they should have a really strong primary process where everybody gets out there and is on the stage and is taking. Is having the conversation as many people as possible. And those people. I don't know who the pick should be, but I think that the pick should. Who goes everywhere? Who goes on Theo Vaughn and the Milk Boys and who goes on Joe Rogan and who will literally go on everything? There is no path to the presidency that doesn't lead through every single news influencer, even the ones you don't like. The one thing I think the online left did really, really wrong, and I am guilty of this too, and I think it was a huge mistake, is the idea that you should only go on things that agree with you. You should go on everything. You should go on the Fox and Fox and Friends and everything you don't Newsmax, everything you don't like, whatever the most objectionable, even if you don't ideologically jive with it, even if you feel that they say bad things about vaccines, you should go on everything. That's my feeling.

Kara Swisher (49:31)

Yeah, it's interesting because you do reach people as opposed to your. My mom loves Fox News. You don't have that nightmare to deal with, thank God.

Molly Jong Fast (49:39)

But the one thing I would say also is like Newsom did a podcast and what he did, which was wrong, was he platformed those people. What he should have done is gone on Charlie Kirk's podcast, not brought Charlie Kirk to his people. So go on their podcast. Don't necessarily bring them to yours.

Kara Swisher (49:59)

Don't bring them to your house. Go to their house.

Molly Jong Fast (50:01)

Exactly.

Kara Swisher (50:02)

So are you feeling, you seem like you're feeling more confident. Where do you feel we are right now in this process? And then I have a final question about your mom.

Molly Jong Fast (50:11)

So here's what I would say. I would have been really, really incredibly worried had Democrats lost that judicial election in Wisconsin. Because that would have been, I think, game over. The fact that elon Musk poured 30 million plus plus plus into it and they lost, I think is a big deal. If Democrats can win back the House in the midter and the elections go off without a hitch, then I will feel pretty confident. That said, there needs to be a huge reckoning within the Democratic Party. The gerontocracy has to be dealt with. They need to elevate people who are good communicators and not just their friends. They have a real problem with connecting with voters. I think a lot of it has to do with just their reliance on traditional media and their inability to get out of their comfort zones. But I do think that's a real thing. I am worried still. I think there has to be new anti corruption laws that come into place. There has to be more focus on norms and institutions. There has. I mean, there certainly are things I'm quite worried about. But I do think that there, I mean, I'm sort of 60, 40, that it's gonna be okay. You know, I wrote these pieces about what I got wrong during the 2024 cycle. And one of the things I really did discover is that I'm a little overly optimistic. So, you know, but I, I, I'm, I, I still see a way through.

Kara Swisher (51:47)

Um, I have one final question. One of the things that's interesting is when we talk about politics, you become very confident and come alive in a lot of ways. And when you were talking about your mom, you were sort of regretful about what you might have done here. Why is that?

Molly Jong Fast (52:02)

I did this book cause I thought it was what I should be doing. I don't love talking about myself. I'm not so interested in it. I'm not so interesting And I also don't. I mean, look, I matter in the fact that there are interesting things to take from my experience, which I think can help people. But I don't love to talk about myself and I don't think that I am so universal. You know, I grew up in a very weird way. I'm largely an only child. I'm an alcoholic, sober alcoholic, but an alcoholic. I just think my experience is very sort of siloed and weird. But I think that story is interesting and people can relate to it. Whereas I'm quite interested in what's going to happen in American politics because it's going to affect all of us.

Kara Swisher (52:46)

All right, on that note, thank you, Molly. Thank you, thank you. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castor Roselle, Kateri Yocum, Dave Shaw, Megan Burney, Allison Rodgers and Kalyn Lynch. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Maura Fox and Catherine Barner. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get to stay at the world's most expensive nursing home. If not, you're a neposaurus. Go Wherever you listen to podcasts, search for on with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.

C (53:40)

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