I’m excited for 2028. I’m also curious about what we all think America needs in the A.T. era.

Rahm Emanuel frequently says a version of “tough times call for a tough leader.” As much as I have resisted the tough-guy routine from many politicians, I find myself buying it from Emanuel. He has drawers of receipts from battles that were hard-fought and hard-won. He’s been honest about the trade-offs involved in tackling hard questions (you’ll hear him talk in this episode about the difficult decision to close schools in Chicago). I’m leaning forward in my chair when he endorses an immigration bill that he acknowledges is imperfect. His particular combination of experience, pragmatism, and willingness to listen to regular people all across America is meeting the moment for me.

I’m thrilled that he joined us as a guest today and would truly be up for 40 more hours of conversation. And I am very curious to hear whether he meets the moment for you. - Beth

Topics Discussed

• The Education Crisis: Why We Know What to Do and Won’t Do It (science of reading, phonics, the Mississippi Marathon)

• High School Reform, Community Colleges, and the “Learn, Plan, Succeed” Framework

• Phones, Screens, and What We’ve Abdicated to the Algorithm

• School Closures, Political Will, and Owning Tough Decisions

• Outside of Politics: Swimming, Coffee in Bed, and Raising Boys

Episode Resources

Rahm Emanuel

• Rahm Emanuel Eyes 2028 Presidential Bid, Advocates for Education Reform (Axios)

• Draft Rahm Emanuel for President 2028

The Mississippi Miracle (Marathon)

• Inside the Mississippi Marathon (Progressive Policy Institute)

• Was there a “Mississippi miracle” behind its soaring reading scores? (Chalkbeat)

• Mississippi’s Reading Revolution (George W. Bush Presidential Center)

Immigration

• The DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2025 (Congress.gov)

• The Dignity Act of 2025: Bill Summary (National Immigration Forum)

Chicago School Reform

• Sean Reardon/Stanford study on Chicago public schools

Episode Transcript

Sarah 0:29

This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth 0:31

This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are joined by Rahm Emanuel, who has done everything. Rahm Emanuel has been a member of Congress. He’s been the White House Chief of Staff. He’s been our Ambassador to Japan and the mayor of Chicago, and we are really interested in him as a 2028, presidential contender, because he has all this experience, but doesn’t seem content to just rest in it. He feels like someone who is out there listening to people. He’s traveling the country, going to places that people don’t expect him to go, talking to people that he is not expected to talk to, and you can hear it in the policies he’s rolling out. So we wanted to have him on to talk about education and a whole lot more. You are not going to want to miss his Outside of Politics tips for empty nesters.

Sarah 1:15

We find Rham refreshing. If you do too, we hope that you’ll text this conversation to someone in your life and let them know what we do here at Pantsuit Politics. It is the best way to get normal people interested in politics, and we need more normal people participating in the American political scene.

Beth 1:34

Next up, our conversation with Rahm Emanuel. Rahm Emanuel, welcome to Pantsuit Politics.

Rahm Emanuel 1:49

How are you doing?

Beth 1:50

We’re so glad that you’re here. We have been excited about all the conversations you’re having right now, because you’re talking about education. And every presidential cycle, we sit together and say, why is no one talking about education? So how did this get on your front burner?

Rahm Emanuel 2:06

Well, a couple things. So, actually, when I was in college, I studied to be an early childhood teacher. Always was an interest of mine. I’ll even wind the clock back a little, I got accepted to the Joffrey Ballet School, did not take it. Much to my mother’s anger, still to this day. Convinced her I’ll go to Sarah Lawrence College and I’ll study dance, and if I miss it, I can always go down to New York City. It’s up in Westchester. Anyway, mom and dad drive off and I throw the ballet shoes against the wall. Stacker! Fool them. Anyway, so I go, and while I don’t dance, I get very interested in early childhood education and they have a school there for not only teaching, but for early childhood education and that is what interests me. Now, maybe you could relate it to the fact that my dad was a pediatrician. I used to go on rounds with him every other Saturday, etc. Probably, if you know, we were paying a therapist 100 bucks an hour, who took Blue Cross, Blue Shield, but that’s probably a piece of this. And then I go into interest in early childhood psychology. And then if you fast forward, it’s actually a primary interest of mine when I’m to run for mayor. And when I’m mayor, we not only create full day kindergarten for every child which did not exist, but also full day Pre-K for every four year old which did not exist. We added an hour and 15 minutes also to every day. Actually, we added four years of classroom time for every child more than they were prior to my tenure as mayor. And I think when you look at graduation rates, reading scores, math scores, Stanford says Chicago is the best of the top 100 school systems in America. So that’s been an interest of mine. And also, it’s not just an interest. I’m also a father of three. I firmly believe in education, you can’t get from here to there with 50% of your kids not reading at grade level. And what’s weird to me then, on a political level, I worked for Bill Clinton, who was on the vanguard of education, Governor Riley, Governor Hunt in North Carolina, Governor Chiles in Florida. I can’t name four governors today that are on the vanguard of education. And let me drill down just one level deeper. When President Clinton was in the vanguard, we didn’t know what to do, but we had people experimenting. What’s weird to me today is with 50% of our kids it’s not reading at grade level, the lowest in 30 years. Mississippi actually--

Sarah 5:05

I was going to say there’s some people on the vanguard.

Rahm Emanuel 5:07

Mississippi tells you what to do. So the problem isn’t what’s the combination to the lock. We actually have the combination lock. Nobody wants to move their fingers. It’s actually political will is the problem. Thirty years ago we didn’t know what we had, but we had political will. Today, we know what to do, unlike 30 years ago, but we lack the political will. So this is core to me. And look, if it’s not important to-- and I say this everywhere I go. If education is not important to you, don’t vote for me because you’re going to be disappointed. It’s really important to me because I know how I’m sitting in this chair. I know how my kids are sitting in their chair, and no child can get from here to there. I don’t care. And this was a big reform we did in Chicago. You could not get your high school diploma without showing a letter of acceptance from either a college, community college, a branch of the armed forces, or a vocational school. You had to know on graduation day not that you were walking, but where you were walking to. And 98% of the kids in Chicago met that expectation and requirement.

Sarah 6:15

As a parent, I tell people I feel like we live in Kentucky, we’re kind of in the normie situation here, and I feel like I’m Indiana Jones. I have a fifth grader, and I’m running with this fifth grader, and the road is crumbling behind me, and I’m just barely keeping up with the teacher hiring crisis, with the fact that we just keep piling on schools doing more and more and more and more. Social work, security, education, the testing. And so as you think about this, because you’ve worked in the federal government, you’ve worked in Chicago, I’m particularly interested in maybe anything you picked up in Japan [crosstalk].

Rahm Emanuel 7:00

I’ll talk to you about that.

Sarah 7:00

What’s the role the federal government in preventing this road from washing out underneath all of us?

Rahm Emanuel 7:03

We’re going to have to do three or four podcasts here. Okay, we can’t do it all day. So one is bracket the elementary years and return them to the fundamentals. What Mississippi did was phonics and the science of reading. It’s what you grew up on, I grew up on. About 20 years ago, some jerk at Columbia University went with the art of reading. If you like the letter A, use the letter A. If you don’t like the letter A, don’t. And we ruined a generation of kids. Get back to the science of reading. Get back to the science of math. And so I say in the elementary years and including early childhood, the fundamentals. High School fundamentally reformed. And we did, as I said, three things in the high school years in Chicago that drove our graduation from 56 to 84 and two thirds of our kids were going to college. One, learn, plan, succeed. Nobody graduates without a letter of acceptance from what’s next. Two, 50% of our kids graduated with college credit. I would make that a national paradigm 100% of our kids in high school must graduate with a minimum of 10 credits. Re-energize and re-engage kids when we lose them most- our high school years. Put the college there. One, kids get confidence. More importantly, or equally, mom and dad save a lot of money. They don’t have to pay for those 10 credits again. They get them free. And then third, some states are already doing this, but we did it first in Chicago as a city. Tennessee did it first as a state. If you earned a B average in Chicago, we made community college free: tuition, books and transportation. So the high school years went from diploma driven and focused to college and career focused. Big difference psychologically and then all the pieces. Fourth, which I played out a community college plan, which is you basically got to do four things, kind of similar to what we did in Chicago. But I saw it in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I saw it in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I also saw it up in Franklin, New Hampshire, but make it national. Which is of the 1200 community colleges, you must have a dual credit and dual enrollment program with your high schools in the area. High school or high schools. So kids are getting those college credits. Two, you must have a board made up of the corporations and business leadership so the curriculum at the community college is relevant to what you’re hiring and training for. So when a nurse wants to become a radiology nurse, he or she can plus up. When a somebody in a law firm wants to become office manager, he or she has the ability to bother working to skill up and move up the middle class ladder. We have 1200 community colleges. Nobody has invested in them in over 40 years, and they are the backbone of our economy. And to be honest, also the insurance against AI. Put that education system from the community colleges down to your elementary years on a race to the top model, I’m going to give you 400 million bucks if you do these reforms. If you don’t, you don’t have to have the money. Not a problem. But given the stress in Kentucky on money, you’re going to apply for that money. So there’s a carrot and stick. And the other thing is and drive these reforms. You’ll design them for Kentucky. Illinois would design them for Illinois, but we’re setting the goals. Everybody’s going to adopt, learn, plan, succeed. Nobody graduates high school without what’s next in life. A hundred percent of our kids are going to graduate high school with a minimum of 10 credits from college. Our elementary years are going to go back to the fundamentals. I’m also saying if you come out of the military, we’re going to give you $10,000 as a signing bonus to go into one of the trades. You want to be a carpenter, great. You want to be an electrician, great. You want to be a plumber, great.

Rahm Emanuel 11:13

Our problem in society is you want to hire a lawyer there’s a line of 40,000 people. You want to hire a plumber, you have to wait four weeks to hire somebody because there’s not enough. And so to me, it doesn’t take new money. As I said, like the community college plan $8 billion. What are we building? All these detention centers that nobody wants in their backyard? Yet, you in Kentucky have a lot of community colleges that could use that money to refurbish the curriculum and refurbish the facilities. So take 20% that we you were dedicating to something stupid that nobody wants in their backyard-- and they already have something in their neighborhood. It’s called a community college or a technical school. Modernize it for the 21st Century. So when a paralegal wants to become office manager, he or she can go get it while they’re working full time. Almost half, if not 60% of the people going to community colleges in America are working full time while they go. And I saw this in Spartanburg. Young man, unemployed, he’s working at the community college in Spartanburg. May 11, I think I’m remembering the day, right? He’s already got a job at GE at 33 an hour plus benefits, and he was unemployed. I saw it in La Crosse, Wisconsin. They got a robotics program so that the people in the high school, but also in the community college, can go work at a furniture company manufactured right there in their community. The community colleges and the people that go are not seen, not heard and not respected by Washington. So the federal government provide the resources, the goals, and then locally, the governors and the mayors of America who are closer to the ground implement. And again, you don’t want money for your community colleges? No sweat off my back, but I got $500 million here for you. You want to modernize; you want to get relevant? Here’s what you got to do with it.

Beth 13:22

I love all of that, and I like that you said the thing about re-engaging kids when they’re burned out in high school because I definitely see that in my own kids.

Rahm Emanuel 13:29

How old are your kids? If I may.

Beth 13:31

I have a 10-year-old and a 15-year-old, both girls, both really good students, both people who I think are capable of knowing what direction they want to go in at the end of high school, but they are really burned out because elementary school and middle school have become so much about the atomization of skills. It’s like we believe skill plus skill plus skill equals learning, and there are not ideas being embraced. They’re not talking about big things; they’re not connecting dots. They’re just trying to master things, mostly through software programs. I feel like we’ve tried to answer every question in education with software. So I’d love to hear how you feel about that.

Sarah 14:08

Don’t get us started on edtech or we’ll be here for another five hours. We’re both mad about it.

Rahm Emanuel 14:13

My kids are 29, 28 and 27 so I’m kind of past, but I would say three things. I’ll be quick. I’m 100% going to ban all telephones in classrooms. They should be focused on the teacher. It’s not the teacher’s job to police the students.

Sarah 14:26

Yes, that’s another thing we’re asking teachers to do.

Rahm Emanuel 14:29

Okay. Number two, which is I was the first on this, but I absolutely studied it for about a year and engaged with the professors that did the research on this. No social media apps for kids 16 or younger. It’s either the adult raises the adolescent or their algorithm, and that algorithm is an addictive drug, and Facebook told you they wanted to make it a drug. Third in this area of technology. I don’t know if you saw the story the other day, even with the technology, if you ban all the other the telephones from the classroom, when you ban the social media, kids are using the computers and tablets that schools gives them in the class to do YouTube videos. They’re watching them. So my view is kids are conversant with technology. You don’t have to teach them anymore. A generation ago, fair question. Today, forget about it.

Sarah 15:24

Do you know how many calls I get that it’s like, well, your son is distracted in class by the laptop. And you know what I say, I didn’t give it to him. I didn’t give him the laptop. What do you want me to do about it? I did not give him the laptop that, of course, he’s distracted by. It’s so frustrating.

Rahm Emanuel 15:39

In every school, I would just say to give you example from Franklin, New Hampshire, and you guys know this anecdote, etc., and data point, they banned the telephone in the classroom. The cafeteria came alive again. There was conversation again. Kids were engaging each other. You didn’t have social and isolation and sense of depression. Their attendance is now at 96 or 97%. where prior there’s a host of problems giving kids depression, sense of isolation that they didn’t show up at school. So these things have been obviously become ubiquitous in our life. That is a fact, but we have to manage it. This wild west is out of control. No telephones in classroom, no social media apps for kids under the age of 16. And I would also go as far as related to tablets and computers-- I’m making this up as we talk, so I want to be really clear. Hold on here. I mean, basically, kids can’t get more than an hour and a half of computer time.

Sarah 16:44

Well, I think they should go back computer go back to the computer lab. They don’t have to take them everywhere.

Rahm Emanuel 16:49

I’m with you, man. Look, we have a job as adults. We have a responsibility, and we’ve abdicated to this thing called the tablet. Like, screw it.

Beth 17:09

Every time I’m in a school, I have this overwhelming feeling that more adults are needed. Not just more teachers, but more people in the cafeteria, more custodians. You just can see the battle that these folks are fighting. And I look at the budgets and how much money we’re spending on technology, how much money we’re spending on Chromebook chargers, and it really bothers me. I really want us to value people in our schools.

Rahm Emanuel 17:37

I’m only smiling and laughing because our eldest, Zachariah, who’s now 29, we used to ban TV. So in our cottage there was no computer, no internet, no TV. And he use to whine that we were not a normal family because we didn’t have a TV show that was a Family TV show.

Sarah 18:01

And now if you have a family TV show, that’s like sweet.

Rahm Emanuel 18:05

Yeah. I said, there’s a whole host of reasons we’re not a normal family, that’s just [inaudible].

Sarah 18:08

Well, and here’s what drives me crazy. Like this is why I appreciate your focus on education and kids because we know where the federal budget goes. The federal budget goes to seniors. It’s like we spend 10 times the amount on seniors than children, and that’s why you have young people who are nihilistic and frustrated and checked out because you want to see the priorities of the federal government. Look where they spend money. It’s like a massive amount on Medicare and Social Security, and they’re like, well, what about us?

Rahm Emanuel 18:45

Well, I don’t want to get wonky on you for a second, but...

Sarah 18:49

Please do. It’s welcome here.

Rahm Emanuel 18:50

Okay. Well, 1960s early ‘60s, one out of three people that were in poverty were seniors. So everybody says the war on poverty didn’t succeed. It did. Today, one out of 10 seniors are poor. So Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid-- I’m sorry, breaking news-- really successful. So successful that-- and I’m not against, or would I advocate cutting Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, but we went from one out of three people in poverty to one out of 10 who are seniors. That’s a successful war on poverty. What has happened is what you exactly said, which is we haven’t made either equal-- and it’s not about taking money away-- equal investments in our kids. And also I would say one thing, and this is lost, California spends more than Mississippi on education, so it’s not more money alone, it’s how you spend that money. So when we created three community college, I noticed in the community college budget for Chicago we had a separate system, six schools campuses, that we were spending $40 million on remedial math and reading out of a call it $600 million budget. So basically about in that kind of 8, 9% of the budget, or 8 to 7% of the budget, was going to making up for what they should have been doing in the elementary and high school years. So I said, if you give me $5 million of that $40, and we say you get a B average, you get it free. Let’s reward success, not ensure failure. And it’s a self-propulsion fund. So the $5 million redirected, we still spent-- at that time, I don’t know what they’re doing today-- $35 million on the remedial. But we spent money of that within the budget. We didn’t raise taxes, etc. We spent it on if you’re getting a B average, pretty good bet you got the reading and math skills that we don’t have to spend on the remedial. In the same way, I would say you could spend more money in California. You ain’t getting a different result because you’re not doing phonics education. So redirect what you’re doing. Retrain the teachers around phonics, get coaches for every school so they stay disciplined on it. This was a 20-year journey in Mississippi. They call it the Mississippi marathon. Everybody outside calls it the miracle. It’s not a miracle. It took work. Miracle was like, whoa, look at that! I really admire Mr. Barksdale from Netscape who put the money sea capital. Because they said, okay, we started kindergarten all the way to third grade. Massive increase from 49th in the country to ninth. But they realized there was a tapering off for fifth and sixth grade. So they’re now doing reading campuses and redesigning to make sure that the momentum they have from third grade doesn’t fall off a cliff when you go to fourth and fifth. And so it’s a very-- but it’s a marathon. And again, to back to your core subject or point, to me, what you’re spending on is as important as how much you’re spending. So as I would say, and I would design it, what role does the federal government have? Here’s the money we’re going to give you if you do these three things. You don’t, it’s okay by me, I’ll just spend double in Tennessee. Or I’ll spend double in Illinois because they’re going to do it. So Kentucky, you ain’t got it yet. And I happen to think you got a great governor and your governor’s going your governor is going to figure it out, etc. But the one thing I worked with President Clinton when we did public school choice. I worked with President Obama when we did Race to the Top, and then as Mayor of the City of Chicago, I happen to think the incentive money is the right way to go based on you get the resources for these policies, but you implement them. But again, I want to be clear to the crux of this. Unlike 30 years ago, we didn’t know what to do when Mr. Bloom wrote the book or the report for President Reagan, which was a Nation at Risk. We now know what to do. Mississippi showed us. Chicago showed us. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Spartanburg, South Carolina showed us. Hattiesburg showed us. Where’s the political will?

Beth 23:38

Speaking of political will, we have a lot of teachers in our audience. When I read education publications right now, they say, we are so glad that Rahm Emanuel is talking about education, but he closed some schools in Chicago. So can you walk us through that experience? Because it’s hard to get things done around education for a lot of reasons, right? So can you just talk us through that?

Rahm Emanuel 23:58

Yeah, absolutely. So one, I joked that when I became mayor I was 6’2 and 250 pounds. I’m now 148 dripper wet, and I’m 5’8. So look, it was one of the hardest decisions I made as mayor. For years, they were talking about reducing the school buildings we had because we had a school system set up for 550,000 kids, and we were down to 410. But it’s a real tough thing. It’s tough on the kids, it’s tough on the neighborhood, it’s tough on the parents. My life would have been easier had I never touched it. Outside of my kids schools, teachers showed up with signs outside the window. Your dad’s an asshole. Your dad’s a jerk. And my kids grab the sign. We agree. We hate him too. So I say this, my life would have been so much easier if I just left those kids wallowing in a school that year after year was failing. Number two, parents were pulling their kids out of schools. Parents, those friends and classmates were leaving. We had a high school Chicago built for 800 kids, had 75 kids in it. Okay. So this was not like built for 800 and you had 670. You had shrinking populations and consecutive years of failure. So I thought, kids don’t get a do over, and that’s why I did it. Now, again, I want to be really clear. Education not your priority, I ain’t your candidate. You want somebody else to talk problem, vote for him or her. I made a tough decision. I’m not the one that’s accepted 50% of our kids can’t read at grade level. I feel like I’m Paul Revere around here. You got 50% of our kids can’t read at grade level, and you have a president united states that could tell you more about windmills and he’s never commented on the reading scores. So did I make a tough decision? Yeah, I did. If you want somebody that will [inaudible] their political capital and never spend it on kids. Vote for somebody else. I took on failure. If it was easy, somebody else would have done it. It was hard. It was very hard. It was hard on me. It was hard on my kids. It was hard on the kids I did it. It was hard on the community. End of the story.

We went from a 56% graduation rate to an 84%. We went from not tracking kids going to college to 67% of our kids go into college or community college. Not only that, we had reading scores and math scores that were growing to the point that Sean Reardon, the leading demographer of Education at Stanford, called Chicago the number one public school of the top 100 in America. And we have 83% of our kids came from poverty. Every one of those little Harvard snot nose little punks would tell you, oh, not those kids, not that background, not from that family, not that zip coded neighborhood. So I did a tough thing. I don’t back up from it, but I’ll tell you one thing. Everybody says, oh, Rob did this. I’m going to reverse the question. Go ask the people that kept schools closed during Covid longer than they needed to be and lacked the political will. Everybody ran around during Covid, follow the science. Follow the science. Within five months we knew kids did not have then anywhere the mortality rate of adults on covid. We knew that and nobody had the political will to say, open up the schools. Okay, so did I do what I did? I own it. I have the results to show it. Now, go ask the people that kept schools a year and a half closed longer than they should have been when the data told you not needed, and they left them there because they’re timid souls. Now, I will tell you, quoting Teddy Roosevelt, if you think you’re going to turn around education and get that 50% that can’t read a grade level down to zero, I ain’t your guy. Because it’s going to take a lot of work, and it’s going to take everything you got every five year in your body. I know that from Chicago, and tough things require tough leaders.

Sarah 28:30

Yeah, here’s the tough thing that also kind of keeps me up at night as a mother because I would like to gift my children a world better than we left it. And we’re talking about I’m not worried about education. I don’t think that’s a big piece of the federal budget, but I do think we have some problems here as far as the percentage of our GDP that’s going to... Interest rate payments and our deficit. I’m a Democrat. I’m not used to talking about like this. This is a new skill I have developed. But I’m worried. I’m really worried. I’m worried about that no one wants to say the tough, top, hard things to people that we’ve got a problem. We have to find either more income or spend less and or both probably. And I wonder how you think about that when you’re prioritizing and you’re thinking about the federal government because this problem is knocking at the door, and it is definitely going to require some tough choices.

Rahm Emanuel 29:18

Let me knock down one of your assumptions.

Sarah 29:20

Okay, please.

Rahm Emanuel 29:22

You’re not going to solve the fiscal piece. You’re going to have to raise taxes. You’re going to have to cap spending. But if you don’t have a growing economy, those first two things are going to be harder, and you’re not going to have a growing economy if people can’t do reading and math at grade level.

Sarah 29:39

Yeah, I’m not worried about making any hard choices around education. I’m definitely all about that investment. I just wonder about the other tough choices.

Rahm Emanuel 29:45

Let’s just go back through this, okay? President of United States wants to spend $35 billion on detention centers. Redirect the money to the community colleges and education. You’re going to get more bank for your buck than a big prison system. All right, so that’s an example, but there’s a larger thing. You’re not wrong about-- and I think both parties are wrong. I reject the crony capitalism under this president. That who you know and how you pay gets you what you want. And his he’s all about his kids, Witkoff’s kids and let Nick’s kids make the money. This president’s $40 billion richer than the day he walked into office. That ain’t public service. That’s private gain. Now, on the other hand, our party’s all about redistributing income. I want to have a growth strategy. I’m tired of a country that’s the only thing that it grows is pot. I want to grow jobs. I’m against that we have a national strategy for growing pot; we don’t have a national strategy for growing jobs. So there’s five components. Education, which we’ve taken about a half hour to talk about, and we got another 40 hours to go. Number two, immigration. I endorse a Dignity Act that has 23 Republicans, 23 Democrats. You don’t get that around any issue like that, and it stays true to two principles. We’re a nation of laws must be abided by, and we’re a nation of immigrants, and must be respectful of. Third which I laid out, we got to double the size of our research and technology investments.

So I’ve called for a 10% tax on all online sporting gaming and the Polymarket and Kalshi and all these predictive markets. And double up National Institute of Health so we win the cancer war. Double up the National Science Foundation so we win fusion war. We use the quantum computing war. We use the AI war. I’m not conceding this to China. They’re raising their budgets. Our president’s cutting. We’re not going to win by cutting, so double. The fourth component to this, and I’ll be laying it out soon, is around the energy and infrastructure and the capacity of the United States to have a 21st Century foundation for a 21st Century economy. And then the fifth, which is your right, which is both a sustainable fiscal picture with also the revenue to meet it. You’re not going to cut your way there. And our tax code today is built around preserving wealth, not about creating wealth. It is ridiculous. You have people this thing called step upward basis, literally, you pass from one generation to another. My kids got two things that Amy and I said, you’re going to get a loving home and a good education. The rest is up to you. But today, the tax code incentivize you to pass on a generation of wealth. I’m passing on an education and love. That’s all you’re getting. So all five of those are about growing the economy and growing jobs. The training, the immigration, the science and technology, the energy and infrastructure to have an economy prosper and then a sustainable fiscal picture that invests in America’s future. Now, I don’t agree with redistribution is somehow how you’re going to get from here to there. And I definitely don’t agree with crony capitalism over there, so that’s how you got to do it. And education, I’m sorry, is a core component to economic growth.

Beth 33:29

You have laid out a number of proposals that I would call like medium ideas. They sound like things that people talk about at barbecues. We should do this. We should just do this. We should put age limits on our elected officials.

Rahm Emanuel 33:41

Well, you must go to a different barbecue than I go.

Beth 33:41

I have really good barbecue and good friends here and there.

Rahm Emanuel 33:41

I like mine mild and spicy.

Beth 33:41

But you know what I mean?

Sarah 33:48

The age limits is a normie idea that all Americans are on, right?

Beth 33:52

Just like 90% kind of ideas. How’s that happening for you? Because we are accustomed to presidential campaigns from Democrats starting with a big, esoteric health plan and a lot of lofty proposals. This all feels pretty different to me.

Sarah 34:11

No, first it starts with a memoir, Beth. First it starts with a memoir and their their life story. Then maybe we get to the ideas at some point.

Rahm Emanuel 34:19

I’ve written two books, Nation City, one about cities, and the other one was a big plan, big ideas for Democrats in 2005. I’m not interested in my biography. My brother’s written too a book called Brothers Emmanuel. Never read it. I’ve never read a single book about President Clinton’s presidency or President Obama. I lived it. I’m not interested in it. I don’t want to read it. I’ve been in a manual. I’m self-aware. I don’t need to read about it. I’m not interested, nor are you. You shouldn’t be. I’m interested in the American people. I’m not interested in my story. I’m interested in your story. That’s the story I want to talk about. I’m not interested in mine. You got a lot of other people think about here, let me tell you about how I grew up or whatever. I’m not interested in my story.

Sarah 35:09

Are you going in these small rooms and you’re testing ideas like a stand up comic and then see what’s landing? That’s what it feels like to me.

Rahm Emanuel 35:19

I did a bunch of town halls and a bunch in Mississippi Water Valley. I went to a county Donald Trump won by 21%. I went in Des Moines, 400 people in a picnic outside on a front yard. I did it in New Hampshire. I did it in Milwaukee. I’ve done it in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I’ve done it in South Carolina, all over. I’d rather talk to people, or rather about your story. My story is I think I’ve won the lottery ticket of life. I’m an American. I do. I told my kids that. You’re an American. You won the lottery of life. Now give something back. Two of our three kids went into the armed forces. Zach after UCLA, went into the Navy Intel. He’s now a reservist after full time six years. Alana’s a Navy reservist. But I’m into we won the lottery of life, and you are to give something back to this great country. Your story is what I’m interested in. Writing your chapter. I’m not interested in my chapter. I’ve had the gift of love from my mom and dad and my family and an education. Now the other thing is, you say, normie. Look, the one thing, I think the biggest thing that we have to work on, we can stoke this anger or try to restore some calm. It’s not hard to stoke anger. I’m sorry we have a president United States doesn’t wake up a moment of his day that’s not trying to figure out how to pit one American against another. Now I’m going to flip into Japan. China is betting on us having a civil war over here, that’s their bet. So we can keep doing this and thinking our politics is a bunch of hunger game and I’m going to wear blue and red and we’re going to divide up, or we can get focused on working together. Now I happen to think I’ve never run into a parent anywhere I’ve been in the country that says, you know what my kid is missing, more screen time. They don’t want it. Get that Facebook and Tik Tok out of that kid’s hands and get them focused on the teacher. I’m also of the view I’m tired of people betting against America. Why don’t they bet on America?

Double up our science and technology. I want the entrepreneur to win. I don’t want the gambler. You have other people who want to figure out how much they can grow pot. I want to grow jobs. And the one thing I’ll tell you this funny story, it’s always stuck with me. Two anecdotes. So I’m done being mayor. The next morning, I got on a bike, and I’m riding around Lake Michigan, through Indiana, through Michigan, Wisconsin, back home here in Illinois. Two anecdotes. One, I say this jokingly, but somewhat true, the worst of cell phone server is, the nicer people are. There was a direct-- the worse the network system was, the better and nicer kind. I ran in a woman, I knocked on the door at a coffee shop that said open at 11:00, I said, it’s 10:00, she goes, come on in. I’ll throw a pot on. I’ll give you a cup of coffee. That’s America. Then the other thing is, we’re all the way at that-- Me and my buddy-- at the top, north of Traverse City, not Upper Peninsula, but right up there. And we’re at a bar. We had ridden 65 miles. I’m tired. I’m having a big ass burger, beer, fries, but I burnt 4000 calories. I deserve a hamburger, whatever I want. And this guy’s wearing an NRA hat, National Rifle Association. He’s looking over at me, looking over across the bar, and my stomach is just tightening up, and he starts to walk towards me, and I’m like, oh, boy. He pulls up a chair, and he goes, “You mind if I pull up a chair?” I said, “Hey, I got no problem here.” So I said, “Let me buy you a beer.” And we start talking because he knows that I passed for Clinton the assault weapon ban and the Brady bill five day waiting peri Now, after 45 minutes, I did not convince him of the merit of the assault weapon ban, and he did not convince me of the merit of letting anybody buy whatever gun they want, but we had an honest discussion, shared views. He paid the tip. I paid the two beers. That’s where we are. And I’ll also be honest with you, we all got to work on empathy. I got to do. We all do. That’s a skill. That’s something we as a country. Now I can disagree with you, and you can disagree with me, and we can be really passionate about this. It’s okay to be passionate if it’s about a principle etc. But you’re not my enemy. You’re not my opponent. You’re just a person with a different view. And I think about this, I remember being with President Clinton when Oklahoma City bombed.

Rahm Emanuel 40:13

I went back and looked at this because I’m like, because when I went to Mississippi areas, overall, I went to a red state. Here you have the worst bombing under American soil, domestic terrorism. Nobody reported that President Clinton was going to a red state. He’s going to Oklahoma City to help heal the city.

Sarah 40:35

We didn’t talk about states like that back in the 90s. That’s a new invention.

Rahm Emanuel 40:39

9/11 George Bush goes to New York City. Remember, this is not far from when we didn’t believe he was a legitimate president because of Florida and the time nobody said he’s going to a blue city. We have adopted a false paradigm about ourselves. We are doing China’s work for them. So I’m going to lay ideas out. They’re going to be hard. But the one thing I’ve always told my kids, what is leadership? Knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing, and then having the guts to get it done. And if you look at great presidents, you look at great governors, you look at great mayors, they had both of those. This is going to take a lot of work.

Sarah 41:20

Yeah, that tees up our next question perfectly. So we’re kind of having this own debate among ourselves, I think, and we want to hear what you think because the idea is we have no beef with. Like, every time you come up with a new one, we’re like, yeah, that sounds right. But here’s what I worry about.

Rahm Emanuel 41:35

Maybe you guys should go see a therapist or something. That’s a problem.

Sarah 41:38

Whoever is next, whoever’s president, 2028, there’s this kind of tension between, we all know there’s going to need to be an enormous amount of just triage, just straight up triage. Like, pragmatic day to day putting some pieces back. But then there’s also this tension of, like, well, when things are torn down, there’s an opportunity to build something new. So, like, how do you think about that? What are we doing here? Are we just trying to get everybody to do some small things so people build trust in the institutions and we start rowing in the right direction because this administration has torn so many things apart, or are we coming in FDR style? Because that’s the other thing I worry about. We’re at the end of this unitary executive road. Well, God save us. I hope we’re at the end of it. I kind of want to hear somebody say, like, we got to put some power back in Congress. Like it’s going to be tempting because everything’s going to be such a mess to come in and lean into this power that he has blown up. But I think the next president really should say, like, hey, we can’t. We don’t want a king, remember, so we’re going to have to put some of this back in the checks and balances. And that’s a hard thing to do when you finally get your hands on the reins.

Rahm Emanuel 42:48

There’s two things. One, the one thing you didn’t mention, you’re not wrong. So there’s what you do to govern, etc., and there’s also the kind of spiritual sense. And what I mean by spirit is there’s a palpable anxiety in America about the future, about kids, your kids future, and that we’re not taking care of business here. And you go back in 2015 I get reelected, and my second inaugural as mayor was only about the alienated men of our city who’ve internalized a sense of failure, and there’s a spiritual component to this, whereas what Teddy Roosevelt said, there’s a bully pulpit that comes. So there is our homework assignment in front of us called education, investing in science and technology. But there’s also not just healing the divisions, but finding our common purpose, which is why could be one policy on that last six months of high school, universal national service, go clean up a river, go do tutoring, learn something about the neighbor next to you that you never do. Find the thing that binds us rather than divides us. Now, I think being a former congressman at you because and being in the legislative branch, I’m going to challenge you. You guys can keep doing what you’re doing, and I got all these tools that President Trump left me. I’m going to give you a chance to show up and do your job because all you’re doing is spending time on redistricting, fundraising, scoring political points. I’m not against scoring political points. I’ve done that good part of my life, but I’m at a point in my life either we get our homework done around here, or you ain’t going to be around here much longer, which is why I also called 75 you’re done. Across the government, courts, Congress, executive branch, you’re not hitting your stride at 78. You haven’t done it by 75 go teach. Get on TSA. Be pre clear man. Get out of here. But I’m serious about this, which is, you have been debating immigration since Ronald Reagan. Every president with chewing gum, super glue and some rubber bands trying to figure this out, it’s broken. Every mayor and governor is trying to figure it out, it’s broken. The reason I endorse the Dignity Act has 23 hours, 23 Ds, isn’t the bill I would write. No, it’s not the bill I would write. Does it hit the goal? We’re a nation of laws and we’re a nation of immigrants. Yes, it’s true to that. Now get moving. Now, if you don’t fix this in four months, I’m going solo, so I’m going to give you four months to show up as a letter changer and earn your pay. You get subsidies for housing when you live in DC, you get subsidies for security when you’re in DC, you get subsidies for food when you live in DC, and all you do is fundraise. Now show up and earn your pay like everybody else does. If not, you will continue to be an institution where only 9% of Americans have confidence in and I want to meet that 9% because I want to know what they what they see you doing, because right now, all I see you doing is picking up a paycheck, free health care, you get housing subsidies, food subsidies, security subsidies.

Sarah 42:48

Hey, don’t forget about the death gratuity that I just learned about that we pay them to die in office.

Rahm Emanuel 43:32

All right.

Beth 42:48

We always try to end with something Outside of Politics. So we heard from your team that you’re a swimmer and that you get a lot of your best ideas in the pool. Tell us about that.

Rahm Emanuel 43:32

Two things I’m going to do. I’m going to tell you that one other thing that you got to tell your husband, okay? I’ll start with that one. So we become empty nesters and personally in the morning I get I get up early, I bring coffee in bed to Amy, I say, Happy Mother’s Day. We’re free. We done it without killing each other and them. Yeah, we got three out of here. So she liked it so much every day. So every morning for the last seven years, she gets coffee in bed.

Sarah 47:22

Yes, I’ve been on my husband to start this.

Rahm Emanuel 47:25

Okay. I get to her in a little cup, hot, whenever she wakes up, there’s a hot cup of coffee. You’re going to start the day on a good foot. The rest of the day, I’m an idiot. I know I’ve made a mistake and I’m stupid. Somehow, you marry me anyway, but you’re going to start first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee next to bed. Number two, so you don’t know this, but when I’m 17, I nearly die. Probably the most important thing that ever happened to me in my life about life was nearly dying. I spent seven weeks in a hospital. Had five blood infections, two bone infections, gangrene in the first 72-96 hours. I was in total ice packs with 105.4 fever. When I was in the hospital for those seven weeks, I lost three different roommates across the time, and they almost cut my arm off, and this nurse saved my life, saved my arm. Nurse Mona. Anyway, and the doctor said, if you weren’t in the physical condition, that’s when I was a dancer, you would have been a goner. And that just became a neurosis of mine. I mean it. So like this morning, I swam one mile, and I did an hour of weightlifting with my trainer. Tomorrow I will swim a mile, do an hour training with her, and later in the day, I’ll do an hour yoga. I do 10 exercises a week, an hour and a half every day. I’ve been doing this for 43 years. So rather than just 123, read something in the morning when I’m making the coffee and I’ll say, okay, this is what I want to think about.

Sarah 49:11

I love it. Well, here’s one more I got to ask you. It’d be it would be malpractice. I have three boys. I know you haven’t read your brother’s book, but we all know the brothers, very high achieving brothers. Anything I need to know to keep my boys close. And 16, 14, 11.

Rahm Emanuel 49:30

They’re going to be close anyway.

Sarah 49:32

Okay, good.

Rahm Emanuel 49:33

First of all, one or two things going to happen. Either they’re going to kill each other by the age of 18, or you’re going to kill them. I once said to Zach, I’m be 54 you’re going to be 15. One of us is going to make it one when I tell the judge why I’m getting off, okay? It’s going to be not one degree, not two degree, I’m getting off because the judge is going to agree with me. They’re going to be great. They got a loving home, a good education. The thing is my parents did one thing and this is really important. They did a lot of things. I wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal, parenting. We don’t talk about it. Single most important thing. So down in our family room, my mom and dad put the purse that carried my grandmother, my two great aunts, passports. It was in a frame, and above it was another frame with their passports, my grandmother and my two great aunts. Grandma Sophie, Aunt kitty, and Aunt Ida. And on either side of that, there were nine pictures here, nine pictures here was the relatives of my mother and father that never made it to America. And every day you had those eyeballs on you. And my parents told us there was nothing subtle in a Jewish home. They couldn’t make it to America. You are not to waste this opportunity. There’s other things that I think my parents did. We did similar things, Amy and I, we did some tweaks to it, but everything is about we won the lottery of life being an American. Do something with your life. Don’t waste it. Second is I’m not into quality time. I’m into being present in your child’s life. So Amy, like, I was coming home when I was a mayor on the phone, and the kids come to the door, and I said, “Hold on, I got to finish.” She goes, “Stay out on the porch, you idiot. Finish the phone call when you walk in be present in their life.” When one of them had a big homework assignment or something, I would do my work on their bed where they were after dinner just so they could say something to me if they wanted if they didn’t want to say it in front of the kids, their siblings.

Beth 51:50

Thank you so much to Rham and his team, to Nikki, who helped set up our conversation this morning. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. We do hope that you’ll share it with others in your lives. You probably heard Sarah’s mention of our unsustainable debt load in this conversation; our plan is to talk about that more in detail on Tuesday. So we’ll see you back here then, until then, have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Today, Sarah and I talk about it in public. I hope our conversation is valuable to you. - Beth

Topics Discussed

• Shots were fired at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, and the conspiracy theorizing was instantaneous

• Political violence is reshaping American public life

• Anti-authority sentiment in American Politics

• Moral Relativism, Shoplifting, and Models of Ethical Grounding and Civil Society

• Outside of Politics: Spotify’s 20th anniversary most-streamed list and our reactions

Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

We have just a few days left to submit your design for our Good Neighbor T-Shirt Contest!!! Designs due by April 30.

Episode Resources

• Cole Tomas Allen, Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting Suspect, Was Propelled by Outrage, Authorities Say (The New York Times)

• Opinion | ‘The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?’ (The New York Times)

• The New York Times has a culture problem (The Argument)

• Spotify 20 (Spotify)

Episode Transcript

Sarah 0:30

This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth 0:31

This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are discussing the shots fired at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday night and what it, plus just a whole run of anti-authority, vibes, sentiments, actions on display are telling us about the status of our American social contract. And then Outside of Politics, we’ll take a hard turn. Spotify dropped its 20th anniversary list of most streamed artist albums and songs, and it is a journey to go on, and we’ll take that journey together.

Sarah 1:05

If you, like us, found yourself in some very intense conversations over the weekend about political violence and maybe some conspiracy theories, we’d love for you to send this episode to your group text. It is the best, most impactful way to share our show with the people in your lives who you think would benefit from listening.

Beth 1:24

Next up, let’s talk about what happened Saturday night.

Sarah 1:34

Beth, I would love to talk about my son’s prom. Is that what you meant by Saturday night?

Beth 1:39

It was a beautiful spring weekend.

Sarah 1:41

It really was, and I resent that I opened my phone and it was tainted.

Beth 1:47

Chad and I had been standing outside in our backyard after some mulching and lots of yard work, and I said to him, “We should live here. It’s just perfect here. We should live here.” And then we came in and picked up our phones and the first text I saw before I had even seen a breaking news headline, the first text I saw was like, “This isn’t real, is it?”

Sarah 2:09

I was at a baby shower on Sunday. Somebody leaned across the table and said, like, do we believe it’s real? I was on Instagram that night posting about prom, really leaning in, and I’m telling you, within an hour, I saw a reel where a guy had said, “Did you hear what happened at that dinner?” And he was just wrapping his head in tin foil and making himself a tin foil hat. And then the comments were like, yeah, Trump’s polls go down, and this happens, and he’s just trying to distract. I mean, it was instantaneous- the conspiracy theories.

Beth 2:43

Everybody had a theory of what happened before we really had any facts about what happened, and those facts are still coming together, as we are recording on Monday morning. This morning, we have added to a picture of the shooter Cole Thomas Allen, a 31 year old man from California who took trains to the event. And the New York Times shared some writings attributed to him that show someone in real conflict. He talks a lot about his love of family and friends and how they’ve been so supportive of him, and also his anger about this White House. The New York Times says he alluded to allegations of sexual misconduct, saying that he is, quote, no longer willing to allow a traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. The writing does not mention the president by name. Authorities have said several times that he seemed to be targeting members of the administration. And that’s about what we know as we sit down today to talk about what this tells us about where we are as a country,

Sarah 3:45

well, we know a lot about the people who were in the room, including the entirety of this line of succession, except for 80 million year old Chuck Grassley, which is very concerning that this wasn’t given the security designation that it deserved, considering how many people in the line of succession were in the room. The Washington Hilton itself has a history of political violence. It’s where President Reagan was shot. It’s why they did all these renovations. That’s why they have the Washington’s Correspondence Dinner there, because they have a secure green room, and he has his own entrance and all these things. And also, just I was so struck by the people in the room who’ve been touched by political violence already. There’s a virality of Erica Kirk weeping as she’s leaving the ballroom. I mean, when I was reading about that and the story was like, well, her own husband was shot six months ago. And I thought six months? It feels like five years ago. I cannot believe it was that soon. So you have a very, very recent victim of political violence all the way back to Robert Kennedy Jr, whose father was assassinated. Steve Scalise was there. He was shot at a baseball game. And of course, this is the third assassination attempt against President Trump. It’s just the prevalence is overwhelming. It’s just overwhelming.

Beth 5:14

That prevalence is paradoxically something that makes it so believable that this happened, and that makes us want to believe that it was staged. Because it is unmooring to have a shooting in the news. I feel it in my body whenever a shooting is in the news, especially a shooting at a place like this, where you think, if that room wasn’t secure, what room is secure? I went on a whole mental train about this Friday night. I went to a baseball game with friends, and I was thinking about how normal it’s become to have your bag searched to get into a baseball game. We’ve been going to games at Great American ballpark for 20 years now, and this is relatively new, but it’s become normalized for us. And I hated that feeling as it occurred to me, and that was before the shooting was in the headlines. It just does something to us psychologically to be thinking about how this could happen anywhere, at any time, for any reason.

Sarah 6:20

I keep thinking about that terrible shooting in Louisiana where the man came and shot like eight of his own children and how I struggled thinking about it, and I ended up deciding not to cover on the News Brief because I thought, what can I add? What can I add to this, except for the reality of gun violence in America? And there is a similar sense in this face of this shooting; although, thank God it didn’t have anywhere near the loss of life the other shooting had, which at this point, the prevalence of guns and particularly the political violence which this president unapologetically stokes. I mean, Charlie Kirk doesn’t feel like six months ago, but it was just a couple weeks ago where he was delighted that Robert Mueller had died, and was like, I’m so glad he died. He didn’t die from political violence. But how long ago were we talking about RFK and the CDC and how Trump never even spoke to the fact that that building was attacked, that a federal building was attacked, and he had about two hot minutes where he said we were all together. It was like the whole country was there. I was going to attack them, and now I’m not going to. Or I feel differently about it now and then by Sunday night it’s the radical Democrats fault. And every other Republican Jim Jordan, Ron Johnson, are out there saying, see, this is why we need the ballroom. That’s why we need the secure ballroom. See, We’re at war with these people. It’s depressing. It’s just really, really depressing.

Beth 8:27

It took me a few beats to understand what the ballroom had to do with this at all. I couldn’t believe that that was the rushed talking point that emerged on the right about this. This is why we need the ballroom for real? Definitely, this president has not created a culture of respect for life. It was just Easter when he posted on truth social the threat to wipe out a civilization in Iran. Something has broken in us around any kind of floor past which we will not descend when we’re talking about the humanity of people who see the world differently than ourselves. And that has created conditions where I understand people thinking that this is a president capable of staging an assassination attempt, and I hate that feeling. I felt so gross this weekend because of how much I understand why this is a part of the discourse now that we’ve just lost so much shared context and faith in each other that we don’t have a person in the office who we would think what, Of course, he wouldn’t do that in danger. All these people? put the press in danger? All of this that should seem beyond the pale does not seem beyond the pale right now. And I feel really torn up about that internally because it’s bad for me. Not because I’m scolding anyone else, because I feel it in my own body how destructive it is to be in this headspace.

Sarah 10:10

I mean, beyond the pale is this entire brand. This is the pitch. It’s I’ll say, get them. Remember the crowds at his rallies in 2015/2016 that he would encourage to attack protesters. I just feel like the fork in the road was when he told us all, “I could shoot someone in the middle of Times Square, and people would still support me.” We bring that up all the time because it was just the truest thing he’s ever said. Not only can I espouse political violence, I could commit violence, and people would still stand by me. And we have seen his ability to espouse all kinds of immoral positions, policies, to stand at Charlie Kirk’s funeral and say, “I hate my enemies. I hope they die.” Beyond the pale is him. And so there is a part of me that’s like this is the cancer. This is the cancer he has wrought. That we have all decided that if I disagree with you politically, that changes how I treat you ethically and morally because we’re enemies. I mean, that’s the language he used. Even from the first assassination attempt. This fight language. Using a political violence against himself and others like Charlie Kirk to heighten scrutiny and attacks on his political enemies. I’m sitting here thinking like, oh, I’m attacking him when he’s just had an assassination attempt. I’m saying like, this is what you have wrought. But I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know what else to say. He exhibits no concern when there is political violence against other Americans who he deems as enemies or otherwise. And there’s always this glimmer of him wanting to bring the country together, but I don’t think he has the capacity to do that. I don’t think he has the capacity to approach political violence, political disagreement, political polarization, partisanship, with anything but an instinct to fight.

Beth 12:55

Listening to conversation about this at Mahjong yesterday, as I did, there was a moment when I felt this catch in my throat like I was going to start crying, and I just said, I have to talk about this in public, and I don’t know how. I respect his life. I don’t want the president to be murdered. I don’t want the country to go through the trauma of the President being murdered. I certainly don’t want the country to go through that trauma right now when we’ve seen so many high profile events of violence. And the way that we respond to them, it’s so ugly. I don’t want that for us. So I think it’s different to acknowledge the way that he fundamentally has changed the way we talk about each other, than to wish him dead. And I don’t wish him dead.

Sarah 13:51

To me, it’s the coarsening. And it’s not just his language or about how he approaches political debate or competition. It is the environment that his policies create. It is the rich getting richer. It’s the pardons. It’s the, well, my friends get a no bid million dollar contract through the National Park Service. Or my friends can call and get their ex-wives deported. Or my friends get protected and blacked out in the Epstein files. I think it is this sense of our chief executive officer, the person who is tasked with enforcing the rule of law that says the rules apply to everyone equally, is unabashedly tearing that apart. Now the rules don’t apply equally to me or to the rich or to the powerful or whoever has my cell phone number. They don’t follow the same rules that the rest of you follow. And that’s why you hear about somebody like this, that everybody’s like he was a nice, normal guy. We couldn’t believe it. And it feels disorienting but also not surprising at the same time because I think it’s in the water right now in America that the system is not fair. The rules do not apply fairly or equally at all.

Beth 15:38

I think part B of that that’s equally important is no one’s doing anything about it. There are a lot of people who couldn’t name some of those headlines that you did, who couldn’t talk about the contracts or the cryptocurrency schemes, but they definitely know about Epstein and can’t believe that no one’s doing anything about that. They definitely see this war in Iran as something that’s so destructive and senseless, and no one’s doing anything about that. The main thing I think that comes through about the midterm elections is, do you want more of the same or do you want to elect Democrats to make it harder for him to do whatever he wants to do? That’s not a very inspiring message, and that helplessness pushes people into spaces where they say, you know what, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if they hit him. Or, you know what, maybe he faked it. The whole conversation we had about the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO, I think is a manifestation of this sense that something is deeply wrong. Almost everyone has a story of personal suffering because of that deep wrong, and it feels like no one’s doing anything about it. And so authority has become only the negative, only the people who take advantage of these systems, not an outlet for the people who can actually help. I think that’s why you see an anti-authority posture almost everywhere right now, and we’re going to talk about that next.

Sarah 17:46

I think describing it as anti-authority is really helpful. I think that names the change I’ve seen from like a populist uprising. I think you see it in lots of places. It’s not necessarily populism, which is what Donald Trump wrote in on. This sort of outsider distrust of the elites that has become a distrust of everything- the facts, the people in charge, the systems, the institutions. And it’s not that we just want an outsider. We’ve talked about the nihilism before. It’s nothing changes, right? Like, who cares? Who cares really? it’s not who cares who’s in charge whether it’s an outsider or not. The outsiders got in charge and they became the worst of the elites. They used the swamp to their advantage. And I think that sort of anti-authoritarianism that you see is a reaction to, well, I don’t want change in my favor. Instead, it’s I don’t want change; I want revolution. I don’t want to fiddle with who’s in charge. I want to tear it all down.

Beth 19:20

I wonder if it’s anti authority more than anti authoritarianism. And what I mean is that it doesn’t feel particularly political to me. And I don’t know that most people want a particularly political answer. When you say people want revolution, it sounds like overthrow of existing government and creation of a new one. And I just don’t hear anyone who’s hungry for that because I think most people still want the things that work about American society. I think most people deeply desire a sense of order in their communities. They deeply desire a functioning school board. They would like to believe their member of Congress can be helpful. So revolution doesn’t feel exactly right to me either. I think there is just this unbelievable wariness that is translating to anger. And it’s political, yes, for all the reasons we’ve talked about. It’s also about AI and jobs and data centers. It’s also about getting 300 spam calls a day and emails from the school that are too long to understand and terms and conditions every time I try to open any website. I think that there’s just this smallness that is lived in every day right now because we’re in the midst of so much bigness. I’m having trouble describing exactly how I feel, but I want to figure out more precise words because I think you’re right that populism isn’t it right now. It’s something else. And I just wonder how much that something else lives within and without politics, or it straddles it.

Sarah 21:13

I just don’t think people can name what works. I mean, it’s not that they want it to work. They can’t name what works. There is a problem with every aspect of everyday American life. I just read a piece of New York Times. People can’t afford cars. There’s not like basic economic, affordable models of cars. There’s not enough housing. The housing we have is expensive. Healthcare costs are out of control. The public school system is struggling. People are worried about jobs because there’s not a lot of hiring because of AI. There’s data centers, there’s this tearing down of all these environmental regulations. The same time people are seemingly more concerned with toxicity in their food. We’ve got measles outbreaks, you name it. The health, safety, and law and order, the most basic functions of government of what they’re supposed to offer to their citizens, there’s no place to look right now and see functioning, just basic functioning, much less a vision for the future that’s encouraging or exciting or positive. I think that’s why, on the flip side, you do see positive examples. And the one I keep thinking about is Pope Leo. I think he is presenting what people want, an acknowledgement that things are hard, that there are standards that matter and rules that people should follow, and a clarity about what is required as we move into a tougher future. There’s no articulation of requirement. I think that’s why if you live an extremely online life and you saw this opinion piece in New York Times that particularly right wing figures are trotting out right now post the White House Correspondents shooting, where they were basically proposing the term micro looting. So, like, well, everything sucks, so who cares if you steal from Whole Foods. I am greatly reducing the overall argument of this piece. But the sense of, like, I’m getting scammed left, right and center. Who knows if I have social security and retirement? I’m going to pirate what I want to pirate. I’m going to steal from Walmart if I want to. The rich people don’t follow the rules. Why should I? This sort of just complete breakdown in what we understand as a society as acceptable behavior.

Beth 24:28

When you made the list of all the problems, I was hearing it thinking, yes, these are not really debatable propositions. And also it reminds me of the polling when people say they can’t stand Congress, but they like their member. Because I think in specific, a large number of people still do live very rewarding lives, and I think that’s part of why Pope Leo lands as well because he says, we can confront the injustices of the past and the present while still holding on to our joy and our connection to other people, and that’s what we must do. In fact, those two things have to go together. I would love to see political figures who can speak into that. And I think we have some emerging. It’s going to be really difficult to break through as a political leader because of this cancer that you named in the first segment, because of our skepticism about political figures and their motivations and their funding, just the sheer amount of money required to run a good campaign leaves everyone feeling very skeptical about the sincerity of what they’re hearing. When I read that micro looting piece, it just landed with such a thud to me because I thought, actually, no one wants this. I understand that personal feeling. I’m just going to return this to Walmart because it’s [inaudible] Walmart’s back. And we spent a lot of the last election talking about how upset people were that shampoo and conditioner and deodorant had to be locked up at Walgreens because the prevalence of theft. We don’t want to live in a society where people steal. I think most of us do want there to be grounded principles that we all agree on. We value the truth. We don’t steal from one another. We would like to be able to assume everyone has positive intention again. How do we get there?

Sarah 26:44

I would love new and robust polling, or maybe a focus group or two on that paradox of congressional support, if it’s still true, if it’s more complex, do I approve them just because I feel like what does it matter? Like, I can’t. They’re so set in stone. They’ve been there for 20 years. What am I going to do about it? I think that’d be kind of interesting to scratch at. I think we’ve gotten to this place where my politics defines my ethics. Who I define as my political enemy is inherently tied to what I will justify or condone when it comes to actions against them. This idea that you’re morally repugnant if you steal music from an indie band, but who cares if you steal it from Best Buy? That’s not sustainable. This is not the subjectivity of that approach to our individual actions. I just don’t think it’s going to work. I really appreciated the arguments critique of this particular “cultural” piece from the New York Times, which is politics is not where you want to find your ethics and morals. That’s not how you want to define what’s acceptable to you, and what is not is based on who it is. And if you had a political expert and a policy expert involved in this conversation called it politics analysis, it’d be very different. I think there is this sense of if everybody can have an opinion-- and not only can everybody be paid to have an opinion, but everybody can find a platform through social media to have an opinion. It creates fertile ground to not only ignore the very real expertise that’s needed inside particularly policy conversations, but also just to turn stuff that matters isn’t that as impactful and it’s just fodder for a funny haha conversation using Tik Tok reels as you’re jumping off point. And I think the reason that people are looking for places that offer guidelines, strict rules, moral codes-- it’s not just Pope Leo. The Catholic Church has seen a lot of surge in interest, which I think is fascinating. Of all the Christian denominations, Catholics have the most rules. Because I do think people don’t want that moral relativism of like, well, everybody can just decide based on how high their health insurance bill was or what trauma they’ve experienced in a hospital, if the murder of a man on the street is okay or not. That is its own type of instability. That is its own type of moral injury. And I know there’s not an easy answer to that, but the idea that you get a couple people in the room that say it’s not hard to get a couple people in the room that say, yeah, but they’re worse, so that makes us okay. Good content, to me, is not the answer to the moral relativism of Donald Trump.

Beth 31:01

The other thing that I think is helpful that we find in religious practices is the practice component, and I think that that’s what is so alarming to me about the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner. I can feel my brain reviewing what we practice politically. Was it deserved or not? Is it true or not? What motivations does everybody bring to the table when they roll their takes out? I’m living the result of what we practice politically. And so what I’m looking for, and what I think a lot of people are looking for right now, are places where we practice something else, but in a bigger context. Because when I talk about a vision for the world, and I think that’s so much of what faith is, what’s my vision for the world? What’s my vision of being a person here and my place in the order of things? It isn’t about relativism. It isn’t about anyone else’s hypocrisy. And it’s grounding to think these are things that are true. These are stories that have endured for reasons. These are rituals that plug me back in to those stories and truths that endure, and I need that because the practice of pointing out the hypocrisy is so well worn in my brain at this point.

Sarah 32:47

I’m not advocating everybody become Catholic. I just want to be abundantly clear on that. I think there are lots of spaces you can find what you just described, but I think we need more louder voices that say this is wrong. And it’s not wrong because we’re all supposed to feel sorry for Walmart or Whole Foods. That’s not it.

Beth 33:13

Or the president.

Sarah 33:14

This is wrong because of what it does to you. This is wrong because of what it does to us. One of the only parts of the micro leading conversation I found some agreement was the idea that even if you’re looking to express political discontent, that’s not the way to do it. That’s an individual hidden action that doesn’t help anything. It doesn’t change the policies of Whole Foods. It doesn’t lead to increased taxes on the rich. It doesn’t equalize our tax system or anything else. It’s just a pressure valve release. And now look, in the face of increased political violence, is there room for more pressure release? Sure, but if we cannot find some places of common agreement as a society over behaviors that we find harmful, not only to the person but to society as a whole, we’re in trouble. Then it’s just all politics. Politics in service of what? Politics should be in service of persuasion and civic participation and governmental efficiency and representative democracy, not just for rage bait and clicks, likes and shares. So I think the more voices we find that say I operate on a different value system. I’m not just trying to get your attention. I’m trying to share my approach to the world. Be it religiously grounded, be it strong, intellectual analysis, be it ethical complexity. I think there’s a lot of ways to approach this philosophically, spiritually, mentally, psychologically, but emotionally, seems to be like the only name of the game.

Beth 35:31

I had a conversation with someone who’s running for office right now last week, and I asked how this person’s doing, because it’s such a grueling campaign. And the person said however it turns out, I’ll be okay. I’ll get up the next day, keep doing my best. And I wish for more people like that in our public life because that, to me, is the path back to valuing authority figures as groups of people willing to take on responsibility, not people trying to impose their vision on everyone else, or people just trying to take as much from public office as they can. And I hope that the midterm elections give us a chance to think about how we walk back from anti authority, not to authoritarian but to that place where we can have a civil society bound by rules that we agree to follow because we willingly accept the presence of authority in our lives as necessary to our flourishing. We always end with something Outside of Politics because we really need to. And today we’re going to talk about Spotify, which has been really the dominant business model of recorded music for the last 20 years. And as I was looking at the list, Sarah, of the top artist and the top songs, it made me realize that my window of music is now like 30 years out, instead of 20 years out, because there was a lot here that I just thought, that’s not really my music. I’m too old for this.

Sarah 37:21

Well, I found the top 20 artist a real journey. Okay? Taylor Swift. Everybody goes, yep, sure, great. I listened to that. Fine. No surprises there, right? No Beyonce on the list. Zero Beyonce in the top 20. Definitely would have been probably who I would have guessed as number two. Beyonce has put out so many albums. Meanwhile, Rihanna, who hasn’t put out an album in years, is number 16. So particularly through the lens of like female artists, I was like, whoa! Billie Eilish, way up there. No Sabrina Carpenter-- now she’s pretty new. That makes a little bit more sense to me. Number two, Bad Bunny. Okay, cool. Sure got it. Number three, Drake. What? I thought he lost the feud? He’s three. Kendrick Lamar is 18. So I don’t know. Man, I don’t know if he lost that feud.

Beth 38:22

Well, and the Weekend pops up everywhere in these lists because of Blinding Lights and the way it’s had several different lives, but I think of the Weekend as almost a one hit wonder. That’s the only song I can name. I remember the SNL performance. I remember the Super Bowl, but that felt like just sort of a blip to me. And then when I put it in the context of the last 20 years, it was a pretty big blip, I guess.

Sarah 38:48

Yeah. So he’s number four. Ariana Grande five. Great. Got it. Okay. I wouldn’t have put her way ahead of Beyonce, but here she is. Ed Sheeran got it. No surprises there. Justin Bieber, okay, maybe, probably wouldn’t put him this high, but okay. Billy Eilish, then Eminem. I’m like, what? What do you mean?

Beth 39:12

The kids love Eminem. Eminem is having a whole new life with the youth of today.

Sarah 39:17

All right, I like that. I like Eminem. Kanye is out here at 10. He’s made a lot of music. Some of this, like, I wonder it’s-- the Weekend had one good song, but then a lot of people just put out a lot of albums. It’s like all over the place. Travis Scott, definitely not my music, not my jam. I know him, though, so I wasn’t too surprised by that; although, I would have never put him in the top 20. BTS is 12. If you told me the Spotify top 20 artist that Drake would have been three and BTS would have been 12, I’d have told you were crazy.

Beth 39:52

Is that a timing issue, though? If you scoot that window forward a little bit, I wonder what happens. Does BTS overtake?

Sarah 39:59

Well, they also disappeared for a long time. Maybe that’s part of it, too. Okay, then you have Post Malone, sure. Bruno Mars, okay. Jay Balvin, who the hell’s that?

Beth 40:09

I don’t know.

Sarah 40:11

I don’t either. They’re 15. What the hell? Okay. Then Rihanna. Then Coldplay, which also probably wouldn’t have put in the top 20.

Beth 40:22

Yellow is in the top 20 songs.

Sarah 40:25

Listen, you know what, I like Coldplay. I’m not sorry about it either. I don’t care if it makes me sound old. They make good music.

Beth 40:32

I like Coldplay too, but I don’t put Coldplay on repeat in my car. That’s why it’s surprising to me.

Sarah 40:37

Well, I used to, but probably not in the last 20 years. Okay, Kendrick Lamar is 18. Future is19; 20 Juice World. Who the hell’s that?

Beth 40:45

I don’t know.

Sarah 40:47

But they’re top 20, Beth. Are we that old?

Beth 40:53

Yes.

Sarah 40:55

I don’t like it, and I reject it, and I’m not that old. And stop calling me old.

Beth 41:03

Look, I listen to and enjoy and know a lot of new music, a lot of the Grammy, new artist of the year people I’m really into.

Sarah 41:14

I’m the biggest Olivia Dean fan on planet Earth.

Beth 41:16

And I noticed with the weather getting nice, I wanted to listen to 90s country music. I wanted to listen to Indigo Girls. Every single thing that I was craving musically over the weekend is 30 years old or more.

Sarah 41:34

Well, I’m working on this. I’m really trying to stay young at heart and not-- I was listening to Jen Sherman on my peloton ride this morning talking about how she stays young at heart. She stayed up to like 2:30 watching Justin Bieber at Coachella, which I will not be doing anytime soon. But I don’t know. I think it’s just the part of the Spotify discussion is how hard Spotify makes it to find new music and new artists because it will feed this sense of what you’re “craving”. Although, often when I’m really in the mood for something that I can’t quite name, I can never get there on Spotify. Like, I will follow the songs I love and I will listen to them, and it’s just never quite that itch that I’m looking to scratch, and I think it’s because I’m probably looking for something new.

Beth 42:29

I don’t ask Spotify for a lot of curation help because my Spotify is shared with my daughters, and therefore it does not know much about me. I don’t look at my Wrapped usually because it says way more about them than me. I think universally, if you took my whole family and said, over the last 20 years, what have you listened to the most on Spotify? It would be Hamilton, for sure, because we all enjoyed it and have listened to it on repeat for pretty much that window of time. It was popular then it wasn’t, then it was again and it was it stayed popular for us the whole way through. I don’t really use Spotify to discover new music as much as honestly now I discover new music through my kids. What they’re listening to becomes what I’m listening to, and then I enjoy it and leave it on and recommendations follow that. And so I guess I probably do get to a lot of new music through Spotify just because I share it with them.

Sarah 43:23

I am pretty aggressive about not sharing my Spotify with my children, so they have free accounts. They have to listen to ads. I’m not letting them into my paid world because I do like my Wrapped. I do share with my husband who has different tastes than me, so that will sometimes affect my Wrapped. But like Noah Khan was like a shared love between both of us that was like very-- and he was new to me. And I’m so glad that I found him because I love his music so much. He’s got a new album. I’m so excited about it. I think about who I love now like Brandy Carlile who was new to me five years ago. I really want to leave space for that. And I do think sometimes like Spotify makes it hard. It’s not even new artists. It’s like new types of music. It’ll just be like, well, I know what you like, so here’s more of it. I’m like, well, maybe I could learn something new. Maybe you could teach this old dog a new trick or two.

Beth 44:16

I do find a lot of new to me, though, in those genres of what I like. Spotify will introduce me to lots of new artists If I say, like, play a Patty Griffin song, and it does, then I’ll find all kinds of indie folk musicians Americana that I don’t know. And I appreciate that. I think that’s part of staying young at heart, too, just being open in general.

Sarah 44:39

Yeah, for sure. Well, we want to hear what your choices are, what you were surprised to see on this list, what you listen to on Spotify. People love to share their thoughts on the Outside of Politics.

Beth 44:55

We’re so glad that you do. Thank you for spending time with us today. We’re going to be back with you on Friday with a very special conversation. Rahm Emanuel will be here to talk about a number of policy proposals that he’s rolled out that do not sound like the same old politically. And I think that he might be finding a spot around authority that is useful and constructive and reflective of the public will that I could get behind. So we’ll see how that conversation goes. We’re excited to share it with you on Friday. Hope that between now and then you have the best week available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

“Cancel culture” is in the eye of the beholder in the private sector. There will always be speakers we find offensive, and there will always be people who find us offensive. As Sarah says plainly in the episode, mostly, there’s no winning. I hate that.

But I lose sleep over governmental cancel culture. When officials target people for indictment or deportation or denaturalization because of their ideas, we are in alarming territory, whether we agree with the speech at issue or not. I’m worried about the way the government prosecuted the Prairieland Nine. I’m horrified by Chip Roy’s proposed MAMDANI Act. I have a lot of questions about the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Outside of politics, a conversation about leisure: Derek Thompson recently asked on Substack what leisure time we end up regretting, and Kara asked what self-care we pay for without guilt. We can’t wait to hear how you answer those questions.

If there’s someone in your life who also likes to consider everything from free speech and Antifa to magazines and massages, we’d love for you to text them this episode.

-Beth

Topics Discussed

• Sharon McMahon and Utah Valley University

• The Antifa Executive Order

• The Prairieland Nine prosecution

• Chip Roy’s MAMDANI Act

• The Southern Poverty Law Center indictment

• Cancel culture and the criminalization of speech

• Outside of Politics: Leisure - what we regret and what we happily pay for

Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

Help us celebrate our community in Minneapolis! Submit your design for our Good Neighbor T-Shirt Contest by April 30.

Free Speech

• Sharon McMahon out as UVU commencement speaker following significant GOP opposition (KSL)

• Report of the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education (Yale)

• Yale Has Come Up With a Surefire Way to Make a Terrible Situation Worse (The New York Times)

• “Failures of Kindness” by George Saunders speech transcript

• ‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says (Stanford Report)

• We’re All Living in the ‘Mirror World’ Now (The Ezra Klein Show)

• Deplatforming and Defamation: Free Speech on Social Media (Pantsuit Politics - February 2021)

“Domestic Terrorism”

• Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization (The White House)

• Prairieland shooter convicted of attempted murder, others on lesser charges in ‘antifa’ trial (KERA News)

• DOJ indicts Southern Poverty Law Center on federal fraud charges (NPR)

• Federal Grand Jury Charges Southern Poverty Law Center for Wire Fraud, False Statements, and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering (Department of Justice)

The MAMDANI Act

• Roy unveils immigration bill dubbed ‘MAMDANI Act’ (The Hill)

• Rep. Roy Introduces MAMDANI Act to Denaturalize and Deport Marxists and Islamic Fundamentalists (Congress)

Leisure

• Derek Thompson note on leisure (Substack)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:29] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:31] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:32] You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. On today’s show, we’re talking about free speech. And we’re going to start with the story everyone has been talking about on the internet, Sharon McMahon getting dropped from a commencement speech by the exact people we thought were anti-cancel culture. Then we’re going to go somewhere more serious because underneath this cancel culture noise, there are terrorism convictions and a bill in Congress that would let the government deport citizens for their ideas. And that’s got us thinking about free speech in America. Everybody believes in it right up until someone says something they hate. Outside of politics, it is almost Maycember as we recently talked about. So we’re asking, in the face of all this stress and busyness, what leisure time do you actually regret? And what self-care is worth paying for? Is there a connection? That’s all ahead. Stick with us.

Beth [00:01:28] If you know someone who is frustrated by the free speech cancel culture debate sounding like just a shouting match, left cancels right, right cancels left. Everybody’s a hypocrite. Send them this episode. You don’t have to post it or share it. Just text it to one specific person, even better to your group chat. That is how our show grows. And most importantly, we think that’s how good conversations about these issues spreads.

Sarah [00:01:56] All right, next up, how did America’s government teacher end up as fodder for the right? Sharon McMahon was scheduled to be the commencement speaker at Utah Valley University. If Utah Valley university sounds familiar to you, that is the location of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. So she posted, as we all did, after Charlie Kirk assassination that it was horrific. Sharon also said that many marginalized Americans had not seen Charlie Kirkus engaging in good faith. She later deleted that post, but that was enough. And once certain GOP politicians and members of the far-right media ecosystem found out that she was going to be the commencement speaker, they went after her. Senator Mike Lee, Representative Burgess Owens, and they canceled her. She’s not going to be the Commencement Speaker.

Beth [00:03:04] On just a human level, I just hate this for Sharon. I know she’s going to be fine. She’s an adult. She knows what she’s about.

Sarah [00:03:11] She’s a tough cookie.

Beth [00:03:11] She has been through the internet’s vitriol meal before so I’m not worried about her, but I hate it. From the university perspective, I think it’s such a difficult time to be a college or university president. We’ve talked about this before. The best thing that all of us could do is maybe just give them some space. The level of ownership the public takes over universities and the speakers that they invite to campus is outrageous and completely unproductive. Knowing that that is the environment, I think if I were just sitting with friends who happen to run colleges or universities, I would say, recognize that any person you invite will be seen as political. There is no one in America, no one, who people believe is entirely nonpartisan and entirely unobjectionable. It doesn’t exist. And so my advice for commencement specifically would be to just not have an external speaker, to just let it be about your students, especially when the community is grieving this trauma. Like this was horrible for everybody who witnessed it in addition to the people who love Charlie Kirk. So I think that it is really, really, sad that Sharon was caught up in this or that anyone would have been in her situation. And I also think that you have to accept a status quo that I find unacceptable that people are going to take a shot at high profile speakers if there is any political entry point to do so.

Sarah [00:04:52] I don’t know. I think I maybe feel differently. Yale put out that study this week about what’s the path forward for higher education. It’s been sitting on my desk. I have not read it yet. I am anxious to read it. But a analysis of it crossed my screen, I believe it was on the New York Times, about like in the report they say colleges shouldn’t have this expansive purpose. Like Yale had articulated some purpose of like making the world a better place or something. And the argument was like, no, they shouldn’t. They should just stick to what they know. They should educate. And this person was like I don’t agree. I think this big purpose is how we articulate the value of education. And so I think that’s a little bit of what we’re scratching at. Should they just stick to the status quo or are institutions of higher education meant to make progress, expand our understanding of our place in the world, both individually and as a society. And I think that’s a tough question. I think outside commencement speakers are so important. I think some of them hit in a way that make everybody better, not just the people at the ceremony. They’re like George Saunders’ commencement about being kind. Steve Jobs’ commencement speech about finding your passion. They become these cultural touchstones where we get to have really great conversations about some of the most important questions in the kind of a college education I want for my son, which is how to live a good life, how to craft a better world. And if you don’t have room within that conversation to say, some people didn’t think Charlie Kirk was engaging in good faith, then we got a problem. That’s a pretty innocuous statement. But the only space they have is for hero worship. That’s it. That’s the only place that they have created around Charlie Kirk.

Beth [00:06:57] Agreed, and let me be abundantly clear that I think this is a dumb argument. I think Sharon is a perfectly acceptable person to have at commencement. I’m sure she would have done a fine job. I generally agree with you that higher education serves a lot of purposes, and those purposes are everything from helping you think about how to live a good life to the way that some University of Kentucky researchers were involved with the Artemis mission. Medicine. It’s incredible all the ways that higher education. Makes life better for everyone, not only people who actually go to college for a degree. I think if I were weighing all the factors here, I would lean in favor of commencement being about the students, but the academic year being about challenging everybody. And I would want to say to a Mike Lee, hey, if I’m not inviting people to campus who ruffle your feathers, and many of your Democratic colleagues’ feathers, I’m not doing my job. We are here to test ideas and to push our students and to be uncomfortable. That’s why we exist. I just think commencement in particular because of what you said, it is high profile. Often those speeches go viral. Maybe that’s a place to say, you know what, let’s just huddle up in our community because this is about our community. This is about our students.

Sarah [00:08:21] Well, I just think if this is what ruffles their feathers, it doesn’t matter what you do.

Beth [00:08:26] It absolutely doesn’t.

Sarah [00:08:27] It doesn’t matter if you keep it internal and try to make it about the students. If the bar is this low, there ain’t no clearing it. And I think that’s the important part here is. If sharing is not good enough, no one is good enough. There is no room for any sort of not just dissent, analysis, critical thinking. That’s what they’re arguing, is an end to critical thinking. And I think, look, that was true on the left and some of the cancelations on campuses. It was we don’t want any disagreement. What you’re doing is hate speech. So you can’t be here at all. And it doesn’t make it any better that now they’re doing it. But these were the people that were out there saying the woke liberals at the colleges have lost their minds and you can say anything. And they are without an ounce of hypocrisy or irony, saying, our turn.

Beth [00:09:27] Yeah, that’s what’s happening all across the government. All across the Government. I know you are, but what am I? It’s the animating theme.

Sarah [00:09:33] Yeah, I just think it’s so gross. And I think that there is a lot of room for colleges to exert some leadership. Take a lesson Utah Valley University. It did not work well for the liberal schools to kowtow. It didn’t. It hurt them. It hurt all of higher ed. And it’s going to be true on this side too.

Beth [00:09:57] People want leadership. You would hope that everyone understanding that we can’t clear each other’s bars. We can’t and that’s true no matter what your philosophy you are gravitating towards. We can’t clear each other’s bars. So find some freedom in that. Okay, well, that’s what I’m going to do then. I’m going to push everybody around. And again that is what higher education exists for. Not to espouse one particular kind of ideology. But to put all of them in front of you and shake you up inside the vortex of lots of competing thinkers text speeches that make you think, oh God, they have a point too. That’s the best of higher ed.

Sarah [00:10:40] I am worried because we do hear this so often. We’ve heard it from ministers, we’ve heard from fellow podcasters, we’ve heard it from teachers. Hell, we just did a spicy on the pit. We hear it from healthcare professionals. It doesn’t matter what I say. It doesn’t matter. There is no neutrality. There is not safe space on which to stand and not offend somebody. And so I think so much of this is the environment created by our president and his approach, but we don’t have to participate in it. And that is often our advice to people, is you will, and that’s okay. And that’s easy to say because that can manifest in all kinds of threats. I mean, Sharon got threats, not surprisingly. We’ll do to you what they did to Charlie. Just violent threats and all this stuff. Scary, scary, scary reactions. And we all have to reckon with that because the reason we all feel offended is because there’s a little bit of all of us that have participated in the journey that got us here. Now, not all equally, but at this point in America, you would be hard pressed to find someone that has not self-censored, who has not argued that someone else doesn’t deserve an op-ed, doesn’t deserve a Facebook post, doesn’t deserve a Twitter profile. The sense that they’re so offensive, they got to go. And I think that’s what we really have to examine in our free speech environment. Because we have an amorphous free speech cultural approach. And then we have government action, which is what the Constitution prohibits. And that’s what we’re going to talk about next. Beth, I have been following the story for a while. I’ve been wanting to talk about it on the show because this is very concerning to me. It should not surprise anyone that MAGA’s approach to free speech hypocrisy extends beyond Mike Lee’s comments on Fox News into actual governmental action. So in September of last year, President Trump signed an executive order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Couple of small problems. One, Antifa is not an organization. There is not some head of Antifa. When something happens, somebody doesn’t come out from Antifa and go, it was us. Because there’s no one doing press for Antifa. It is a loose term to describe a broad ideology, usually far left ideas, anarchism, communism, anti-capitalism. Some people that describe themselves as Antifa are violent, but many aren’t. And this overarching federal designation can be really dangerous.

Beth [00:14:25] Hearing that the president designated Antifa a terrorist organization can really make you just roll your eyes and think, well, there he goes again. What’s important to understand is that when the government designates something a terrorist’s organization, they do it because it lets them bring new tools. That’s how you have to think about Donald Trump and his executive orders. He issues those orders to turn a key that unlocks power he would not otherwise have. So, when he designates Antifa a terrorist organization, that says to law enforcement, you get to do new things. And one of the new things that law enforcement has been doing is studying Antifa-like movements outside the United States, where they have even stronger surveillance powers, and then tracing back groups outside of the United States to American citizens. As we’ve talked about with FISA before, you sweep up Americans when you start to look at organizations outside the United States, and then they come back in and selectively choose Americans to spend a lot of time looking at and maybe charge with a crime and maybe overcharge with a prime because this is a terrorist, not a regular suspected criminal.

Sarah [00:15:39] Because there’s no real federal authority to designate purely domestic groups as terrorist organizations. It reminds me of what they did with Anthropic. All of a sudden a domestic company we’re mad at is now a supply chain risk. That’s something that’s never happened with a domestic group before because they see anyone who disagrees with them as an enemy. And so they use the tools that we used to use against our actual foreign enemies and they’re bringing them to bear against American citizens because of their viewpoints. So it wasn’t just maybe they will charge people- they have. On March 13th of this year, nine activists in Texas were convicted on providing material support to terrorists and attempted murder. So what happened is these people came together to do a noise demonstration out of a Prairieland ICE detention facility on July 4th. They set off fireworks. Now, in the chaos and scrum created by the fireworks, one person discharged their weapon that I believe they had legally and an officer was shot and wounded in the exchange of fire. One person of the nine that they said all of you are domestic terrorist organization and you supported this and they convicted all of these people and they’re now facing serious time because they went and protested outside an ICE detention center. And the government is arguing that Antifa is a national security threat, but some FOIA requests have revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s own files do not support what they were arguing in court, and yet these people are still convicted.

Beth [00:17:26] I think the details of this are pretty interesting for two reasons. One, it demonstrates what leveling up, that calling them terrorists, does. So this is a group of people who probably would have been charged with something by a regular old administration because they weren’t setting off fireworks and going, ooh, pretty. They were throwing them in the direction of the facility. They did some property damage, not cool. If an officer gets shot, somebody’s going to get charged with something. Yes, Texas is open carry. Maybe the firearm was legal. My understanding is that Benjamin Song, who is the person whose weapon it was, is a former Marine Corps reservist. And he said that he was doing some kind of specific shot into the ground and that the bullet ricocheted and hit the officer. There was apparently some forensic evidence that tended to show that the bullet hit something. Any way around it though, a normal administration probably would have charged this group with something. That’s different than the FBI taking battering rams to their homes, setting off flashbangs in their living rooms, seizing their laptops and phones, and charging them with this web of crime related to basically being enemies of the entire United States because they went too far at a protest. The other thing that I think the details really illustrate is again the way that what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander with conservatives. Because so much of how the Department of Justice described these people could have been ripped from an indictment of January 6th protesters. The way they dressed, the way they communicated, the way they amassed weapons to prepare for this. It was like rereading charges against the January six folks. But now it’s not okay and it’s very scary because who’s in charge has changed and who’s being protested has changed.

Sarah [00:19:28] Well, and there’s just a lot of, well, how do you like it? You did it to us. But if you think this is the same as January 6th, guys, put it to the American people. Because January 6th was not about sorting people by their ideology and dialing up. Now, I think there are a lot of people who think it was. And, look, maybe we should talk about that. Maybe we should talk about were we overcharging people on January 6th? Now I would argue there’s still a nexus to me, even if you think they’re being overcharged, to the actions. I think the overcharging came because it happened at the Capitol, at that time, in that way. But again, the nexus with these people and how they’re been indicted is not to their actions but to their ideologies. And that’s what’s concerning for me. But the conservative approach, the MAGA approach is, well, you went after our violent extremists in a way that was not fair and so now we’re going to go after yours. I think we see that this week with the DOJ indicting the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering because they were paying informants to infiltrate extremist groups. I don’t understand. In what universe does a nonprofit have to describe in detail exactly what they’re doing with their money? But they’re like, well, they were giving them donations and they were propping up the organizations they were supposed to be fighting. No, they weren’t. To me, it is ridiculous on its face, but they are out here charging. And it’s clear because the Southern Poverty Law Center designated some groups they liked, like, oh, I don’t know, the Proud Boys as domestic terrorist organizations. So it’s like, well, we’re going to do it now to you.

Beth [00:21:20] The other parallel I see reading the description of these folks, you could also be reading about ICE. The nefarious details of being dressed head to toe in black being masked. It is just like are you with us? Then all of that’s very cool and actually quite manly and patriotic. And if you’re against us and it makes you a very scary terrorist, you probably shouldn’t have any rights at all. I think it’s worth noting the forum shopping happening here too. The Prairieland folks were-- this happened in Texas; they were indicted in Texas. They got a conservative jury pool to choose from. Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted in Alabama. These cases don’t go anywhere in D.C. And New York. Now that’s a problem for us as Americans. That’s a big problem. We have to see the strategy here too. Yeah.

Sarah [00:22:14] To me, if the Supreme Court was worth anything, which it doesn’t feel like it is right now, this is a problem because it’s not viewpoint neutral. You’re not going after the same groups for the same reasons. You are clearly targeting specific ideologies. Even Chip Roy-- who, look, I’m not looking to as an example on anything. And I don’t think this bill is going to go anywhere, but I still think what they introduce is indicative of the approach. And he introduced the Mamdani Act, obviously directed right at Zohran Mamdani. And basically what it does, it would allow the denaturalization or deportation of immigrants, including naturalized citizens who advocate for the restructuring of economic and social relations to reduce class distinctions. Dawg, I’ve advocated for some stuff like that. Like that’s a pretty broad definition. Like basically anybody who advocates at all for any level of economic socialism can get kicked out. Like this to me is just a continuation down the road of like we’re going to target these students for an editorial in the school newspaper advocating for the Palestinians and that’s it, you’re deported.

Beth [00:23:42] Can I tell you what Mamdani stands for? Measures Against Marxism’s Dangerous Adherence and Noxious Islamists Act of 2026. This is violative of the First Amendment along every single dimension. It names specifically Chinese communist, Marxist, Islamic fundamentalist doctrines. And I think it’s fascinating to go against anti-capitalism, socialism, and communism when this very week, as Chip Roy trots this out, we’re talking about a federal bailout of Spirit Airlines. We’re talking about this administration doing deals something like $20.9 billion that this administration has taken for the U.S. Government in equity and private sector companies. So I’m not seeing capitalism fully on display from our current president and the idea that you would pass this vague law that gives the DOJ enormous powers to decide what forms of anti-capitalism are acceptable and what aren’t, to decide what ideas about economic systems run afoul of loyalty to the United States or not. And then to name, the act names, the conduct of writing, distributing, circulating, printing, explicitly protected activities under our First Amendment is wild. Also wild to me that this is coming from Chip Roy, who is running for attorney general in Texas. That’s what makes this so relevant to me. I think Chip Roy knows there’s an audience for this. It gives him something to talk about on the campaign trail. And the fact that he still believes there’s an audience for this is really disturbing.

Sarah [00:25:43] Yeah, I mean, we’re supposed to trust the same DOJ who was like going after the reporter who wrote a story about Kash Patel’s girlfriend. That one, the same one? Okay. It’s scary. I don’t even know another word for it. It is a complete abandonment of our First Amendment principles. And look, I want to be clear. It is not only on the right. I think there are a lot of particularly European examples that we need to take seriously because I think if we’d gotten another term of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, there would be push for this on the left. Because what they do in UK, in Germany, they make explicit ideologies illegal. You can go to jail for Facebook posts and it’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable, but I do think there was a moment where everybody was like, no, we should. If it’s hate speech, you should go to jail for your Facebook posts. I think some people are comfortable with that. And we have got to talk about that. And we’ve got to be transparent about this is not acceptable. I’m sorry, if whatever is noxious to you, be it Nazism or Islamic ideas or socialism or fascism, whatever it is, if it is noxious, let it out into the sunlight, baby. Put it out there. Let it show its ugly face so everybody can decide. Because I am disturbed by these international trends in supposedly liberal democracies. I mean, this week in Australia, some drunk dude got up at Bondi Beach and mimicked like shooting people. He said some anti-Semitic things, even though they found that was not antisemitic intent because he was intoxicated. And they put him in jail for a year. What? No!

Beth [00:27:39] The draft of the Mamdani Act that I saw also tries to write courts out of the process. Basically the determinations here wouldn’t be subject to judicial review because it’s an immigration enforcement situation, not criminal law. And so what kind of parameters go around this? If you in college wrote an essay about how maybe the communist manifesto made a good point here or there. Can 25 years later that be used to denaturalize you? That’s why we don’t convict people for their ideas because ideas change and ideas require an awful lot of context. We convict people for their conduct. We deport people for their conduct. What did you or did you not do that you were required to do that a Republican legislator who is known for being part of the Freedom Caucus is introducing thought police legislation that if enacted would give rise to a brand new McCarthyism, is something that I think is worth taking seriously even though I agree with you that this bill is unlikely to pass.

Sarah [00:28:58] Yeah, I think all of this has to get-- again, fine, I’m glad he put it in a bill so we can talk about it. Let’s pressure test this. Is this what we want? I couldn’t help but think back because I do think this is a source of a lot of Republican ire. I think particularly Donald Trump are on a revenge tour from him being deplatformed. And I went back and I was thinking about our statements back in 2021 when he got deplatformed, I found this little moment. I do not want President Trump back on Twitter ever. Ever. I think he should remain deplatformed because his rhetoric and narcissism remains and will continue to remain a threat to our republic. And I think having a conversation about the power of social media companies to deplatform a sitting president and what that means, and the impact of that is important. Not because there’s some massive free speech violation, but because it does speak to the power of the platforms. I don’t know how I feel about that anymore. I don’t know if I think I don’t want him on Twitter. Looking back on it, it is in the short term, such a reasonable reaction to be like I just don’t want to see it. But I keep about that conversation Ezra Klein had with Naomi Klein about we thought if we just closed our eyes, it wasn’t there anymore. It’s like a toddler. If I close my eyes, you’re not there. If we remove you from X, then that means the idea goes away. But that’s not how it works. Often, silencing an idea gives it power. That’s why free speech is important. Let it breathe. Let it see if it has legs. Don’t shut it down and give it a power it does not deserve.

Beth [00:31:07] The only asterisk I would put on that is that I still do believe a private platform should be able to host who it does and does not want to host. Whether they make a good judgment, a wise one, a judgment that’s good for society is a different question. But this is why I don’t like the power of the government coming to bear in free speech matters when it’s not about government restrictions on speech. I will defend all day any of these platforms rights to say, no, I’m not going to have you here. I’m going to give the time of my organization to you and your statements. I am not going to deal with the fallout of your statements here. I think that’s their right. Those are private platforms. They can put restraint on speech if they want to. I don’t think it’s the best idea. I think Trump being kicked off of Twitter was excellent for Trump. I think it has only given him more power. I think it saved him from himself in a number of instances. This is how I feel about Robert Kennedy in the Democratic primary. I think there should have been debates in that primary, show people who he is and what he’s about instead of letting him acquire this mystique and us not really hearing his voice as a whole nation until he’s the Secretary of Health and Human Services and we’re listening to him in Congress going, whoa, this was maybe a mistake guys. So I’m with you on, in general, the answer to bad speech is just more speech. This is why I think the situation at UVU is bad, but it’s not what keeps me up at night. What keeps me up at night is when you send law enforcement into people’s homes to track down their communications because you’ve decided they’re terrorists because of what you think they think. And in this Prairieland case, one of the things the Department of Justice included in describing the criminality of these folks were that two of the women distribute zines about their radical left ideology. Imagine writing that as a law enforcement officer and not having a record scratch moment in your brain where you think, whoa, we’ve totally crossed a line here.

Sarah [00:33:25] I just wonder if the distinction, at least for the public, between private platforms, government action, I just think that that distinction is very blurry and always has been. Sure. And so I’m just trying to think about if that’s true, which I believe it is, I don’t think people make a big distinction. It’s why everybody says I’ve got rights to free speech. Maybe we should just take that seriously. And I don’t know what that means except for what we did for a long time, which is bring the power of the government to bear in defense of free speech, being a robust no. Any kind of restriction we’re going to show up and go, nope. Because I do think the private platforms and the public debate, has fueled this government action. Like this set them off. And I take seriously and I don’t think it’s all hypocrisy and bullshit that they did feel there was ideological specificity and government actions under both the Obama administration and the Biden administration. Do I think they’re to this level? No, but do I think were there? Yeah, I do. I think their critique of some of the IRS actions is fair. And I think there’s some other moments where those administrations, if not outright targeting them, it was there. There was an ideological focus. You know what I’m saying?

Beth [00:35:07] I do. I wish that almost every administration of my adult life would have turned the dial down a little bit. I wish the public would be content with a little less from our public officials. Not just in what they do once they’re in office, but what they say about everything. Who cares what Mike Lee thinks about a commencement speaker.

Sarah [00:35:37] Seriously.

Beth [00:35:38] And on the other side of the aisle, I get frustrated listening to conversations about whether Democrats have sufficiently called someone out for their behavior. Often calling someone out for their behavior makes it impossible for you to do your actual job because you burn all of your relationships. I would rather have a lot less calling out publicly, a lot more denouncement and more effective actions being taken by small bipartisan groups doing things that don’t hit the zeitgeist.

Sarah [00:36:10] Yeah. I mean, you see it. There’s still this thought policing going on with Graham Plattner and Hassan Piker and all these other different ways that people are still saying that’s a no-go. I was reading Matt Iglesias and he was talking specifically about Israel. He had kind of made a point and he’s talking about the reaction. And he was taking as a given that we’re in the persuasion business in politics. And I thought, oh, that’s the problem, right? It’s almost like every time you want to call somebody out, every time we’re debating something, I think the first question should be, do you think there’s anyone persuadable on this? Because if you don’t, then what does it matter about free speech? That’s how we get in the spot where we’re willing to constrict and restrict and prosecute. Because we think it’s a war between two sides and there’s nobody in the middle able to be persuaded through actual argument. And I think we’ve gotten in that space because of Trump and the way he dials the pressure up and because of the stakes, because there are real things on the line here. And so it just became everything is high stakes. So who gives a shit about persuasion? We don’t really need free speech. We need to fight. We don’t need to persuade, we don’t need to make arguments, we don’t need to have thoughts or ideologies or present an actual case. We need to fight harder. We just need to do the things that move the needle. You even see that right now with all the conversation around gerrymandering in Virginia, like we just had to fight back. And there’s a part of me that’s like, yeah, people are hungry for action. I agree with that. I feel that way about the Supreme Court. I want action. I want to see some of the energy around the gerrymandering with the Supreme Court. But that doesn’t mean we abandon ideas. It doesn’t mean that we have to stop persuading people. But you don’t hear that language. I don’t think people do assume that this is persuadable. Because of the way the internet frames the argument so often between the two loudest 20%, you just get this is a war, not a debate.

Beth [00:38:30] And look at the wars around us. No one wins. They just rage. I was going in the exact same place that you went, that this belief that no one is persuadable is the virus that has led to policy like let’s just carve up the state based on who controls our state legislature in a way that’s most favorable to our party. And at some point you have to say, for what? When I look at Mitch McConnell’s legacy, the way that he broke so much, changed so much, use every rule to such severe advantage for Republicans, I wonder if you could have an honest conversation with him today if he could answer for what? In service of what?

Sarah [00:39:18] Of where we are now with Donald Trump and the end of NATO. Is this what you wanted, buddy?

Beth [00:39:23] What has advanced? What have you done for the world through these actions? You went to war. What’d you get for it?

Sarah [00:39:30] Yeah. I mean because to me his ideologies the truest where I believe he’s a true believer his NATO, and as a polio survivor, childhood health and vaccines. How we doing on both those fronts, friend? Did it work? Was all this sacrifice and this war worth it? Did you persuade anybody? I don’t see evidence of that.

Beth [00:39:54] He might be happy with the Supreme Court.

Sarah [00:39:56] Yeah, right.

Beth [00:39:58] Is that worth the war?

Sarah [00:39:59] You’ve got unlimited spending. I hope that’s what you wanted. I hope it was worth the sacrifice in every other area. And look, I do believe people are persuadable. I do believe politics is still about persuasion. And the stakes are high, but I still want to live in a democracy and there’s no democracy without persuasion. There’s no path forward if it’s always just war of attrition. I’m so exhausted by this back and forth, changing parties. Send me back to wear one party controlled for a couple of years, couple of decades. Like this is exhausting.

Beth [00:40:38] You mentioned Graham Plattner and you see this in lots of primaries right now. Here’s the disqualifying view for me. Well, we used to just call that having a choice. A lot of these primaries that are being fought like wars are embarrassments of riches because they represent choice where voters of a state can show up and say, wow, this kind of looks like the breakdown of ideas and personalities and styles in our populace. That’s how it’s supposed to be. I’m concerned that the gerrymandering wars this year will be more fodder to try to legitimize our elections. That if we have a blue wave in November, the talking point becomes it’s only a blue wave because they cheated. As I’ve heard about Republicans before, they only won because they cheat. The more we do that, the less we will trust any result ever. And the less ability we have to get this train back on the tracks, which I think we can do if we can hear again, one another as saying this is my idea. And you go, oh, not for me. And then we’ll see who can persuade the most people and move forward, even if it is a truly unacceptable result to us. We accept it because we live in a democratic society, and we value that more than winning the specific issue of the day.

Sarah [00:42:15] I couldn’t agree more. I hope we value our democracy more than the battles that are raging on whatever platform. So last week we talked about Maycember and its creep and its approach and how stressful and busy this time of year is. So we thought maybe it would be also a good time to talk about stress management and leisure and self-care and how we manage these specific issues busy periods.

Beth [00:43:01] I really love Derek Thompson asking the question, what leisure activities do you regret? How often do you regret leisure activities? This is a very real thing for me. On the days when I am most rung out at the end of the workday, I do find myself watching a whole lot of Instagram reels. And while I enjoy some Instagram reels, 15 minutes is the point of diminishing returns for me. I do about 15 minutes, a cigarette break, essentially. I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve laughed a little bit. I’ve probably sent something to someone that it reminds me of, love that. After 15 minutes I’m going mentally and spiritually comatose in a way that I have strong regret for when I realize that a couple of hours have gone by and now it’s bedtime.

Sarah [00:43:55] Yeah, I would say 10% of the time I’m on reels, I find something that literally sends me into hysterics that I think about for a long time, that I’ll like rewatch. The problem is it’s so random. I’m like the mouse pressing the button to see how often I hit one of those periods. It’s addictive. But I’ve got it tight. I brick my phone from 8pm to 7am in those very sensitive periods particularly when I’m laying in bed either at night or in the morning so that I just can’t. Because the regret is often pretty strong. I know it’s addictive. Now I would say other leisure activities, reading I almost never regret. I find it very relaxing. TV or movies with my kids particularly watching them with someone else very rarely regret those. Leisure activities time with friends like almost never, except my friends who keep me up too late. But even then, the regret’s still not very high. So yeah, I would say like most of my leisure activities, baking, all of the, you know, chillaxing kind of stuff you do in your house, very low regret. Sometimes.

Beth [00:45:13] I shop and have shopping regret because I find shopping extremely relaxing. So I’m working on that

Sarah [00:45:22] See, I don’t find shopping relaxing because I want to get it right. I have a lot of like I will spin and you can just spend so much time looking at stuff and figuring stuff out and thinking about it. And also just in this economy, I find spending any money all very stressful, Beth.

Beth [00:45:36] I love to wander around a store. I mean, I love it. Love, love, love. I love online shopping too. Oh, you’re talking about in person, not online shopping. Yeah, in person too. I love walk around a story. And I never regret walking around a store as long as I remember that I do regret purchasing sometimes. So I have to keep that in mind.

Sarah [00:45:54] I very rarely regret purchasing clothes I buy in person. It’s very rare. And that’s why I don’t do almost any online shopping for clothes anymore. I want to try it on. And so the regret is very rare if I try it and buy it. Especially because I don’t do a lot of in-person shopping. Whereas, in my 20s I would shop a lot in person and so I would end up at sale racks and I would end up talking myself into things even after I tried them on. I don’t do that as much anymore. I shop rarely. If I find something and I try it on and it works, I will spend the money. It doesn’t need to be on sale.

Beth [00:46:28] I’m exactly the opposite because I know online there are brands. This fits me well. I’ve been happy with the quality if I need a thing. This is where I should go but in person I do talk myself into it. It’s like I’m here. It was fun. I’ve tried it on it’s okay and then I get it home later. I’m like why Beth? Why did you do that? So that’s where Derek Thompson’s percentages are helpful to me. I do not regret the walking around especially if I’m with Jane or a friend or Ellen, but I do regret the purchases often.

Sarah [00:46:58] Well, the spending of money takes us to our listener question that’s sort of in this theme. Kara asked us, what’s your favorite self-care service you actually pay for? So like we’re spending the money and we never regret it. What’s yours?

Beth [00:47:14] I have two, one that I am on the fence about whether it qualifies as self-care. I get regular massages. Definitely self- care. I honestly think of that as health care. Fair, yeah, no, I agree with that. I agree that, preventative care. There’s so many issues in my body that that has helped me stay off medication. Like it just, it has made my health and wellbeing infinitely better. And so I don’t know that that counts as self-care. So my self-care one, I love a magazine. I love to pay for magazine subscriptions. I never regret my magazine time. But they’re so bad. Which ones do you actually get that aren’t bad? I love Better Homes and Gardens. I love Southern Living. I love political magazines even. I just like to sit down with a magazine and touch the paper and look at the pictures and read the little notes. It doesn’t have to be super engaging to me. There’s something in my brain that clicks. It’s different than a book. It feels lighter, feels closer to being on Pinterest or something, but without the screen. And it just makes me so happy.

Sarah [00:48:20] I also get weekly massages. Don’t regret it, even though my husband kind of drops not so subtle hints that he thinks it’s a lot of money. And it is, and I don’t regret. I don’t know if you remember this or if you had this experience. When I was growing up, my mother, my grandmother, my uncle, my stepdad, their backs were going out all the time, which was like, oh, their back is out. They had to like lay on the floor or just take to the bed. I was always concerned about that. My back does not go out. And I believe it is because of Marina and her magic.

Beth [00:48:53] Well, I also feel that I have learned from Beth, confusingly, that’s my massage therapist name. Beth has taught me really how to pay attention to my body in a different way. And so there are things that have come up that we’ve spotted earlier than we might have otherwise. It is really hard for me to think of that in the same way that I would think of lighting a candle and having a chocolate chip cookie and a book. It’s really fundamental to my ability to live in the world as I do.

Sarah [00:49:23] Yeah. Marina, my massage therapist, is sort of like a witch. She’ll just be like, oh, were you scrambling over gravel? And I’ll be like, yes, weirdo, how’d you even know that?

Beth [00:49:36] Same with my person. Honestly, I do want to say because we’ll get emails about this and I understand. This is an unbelievable privilege to be able to put the budget out for this service. I wish everyone had this. I believe that healthcare in the United States would be cheaper for everyone if we made this kind of investment upfront.

Sarah [00:49:55] Yeah, that’s why I don’t regret. Listen, it’s a lot of money. I don’t do other things because I do this. I make sacrifices.

Beth [00:50:01] Same. Yes.

Sarah [00:50:01] And I don’t feel an ounce of guilt about it. Because again, you realize, especially as you get older, I think that’s what selfcare is. Really good selfcare is catching the tightness, be it in your fascia, muscles or spirit, before it turns into an injury, before it turn into a condition. That to me is like what selfcare should really be. And look, I just want to be clear too. These are not relaxing. This is not what’s happening. There is work going on. It hurts a lot of times. I get cupping, like it’s legit.

Beth [00:50:40] It’s like taking your car to this shop. That’s how I feel.

Sarah [00:50:42] Yeah. To me that’s kind of what good selfcare should be. It shouldn’t just be distraction and relaxing. That’s what Derek’s getting at. Like it’s not just, let me zone out. It should be engaging. And I think this is true for leisure. Like it should be engaging. And good leisure hobbies involve a lot of discomfort and frustration if you’re learning a new skill or you’re trying to complete a project or whatever. I think that’s a key component. You don’t just want free and easy distraction. You want something a little deeper.

Beth [00:51:22] I like party planning for this reason too. Because it isn’t zoning out, it’s zoning way in. I spent last night cutting letters out. I’m going to have a conspiracy theory party next month. And I wanted to put everyone’s names on their envelopes with their invitations like in block letters from newspapers and magazines. So I was cutting all the letters out last night. And it was just great because you do that with so much love in your heart for the people that you’re going to send them to. And it’s creative, but not taxing. And also, you know that it is going to push people out of their comfort zones a little bit, but in a good way that I think they won’t regret on the other side of it. And I think that’s part of why I will spend a lot of money on a theme party because I think it is a gift to the people I love.

Sarah [00:52:16] Well, I cannot wait to hear what y’all spend money on, what you regret. I think this is going to be a fun, robust conversation in the comments over on Substack. We hope that you have enjoyed this show and this conversation, and if you have, that you will share it via text, with friends, or a friend, or a family member, or whoever. We will be back in your ears on Tuesday with a new episode of Pantsuit Politics, and until then, have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

Our show is listener-supported. The community of paid subscribers here on Substack makes everything we do possible. Special thanks to our Executive Producers, some of whose names you hear at the end of each show. To join our community of supporters, become a paid subscriber here on Substack.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

I’m struck by a throughline in all of these stories: Who’s at the wheel, and who has given up?

Outside of politics: Sarah and I accidentally took very similar trips to Western national parks during our kids’ spring break. We talk about big skies, the visual record of time passing, and what the desert does for our patriotism.

If this episode is useful to you, we’d love for you to text it to someone in your life with a note about why they might enjoy it, too. -Beth

Topics Discussed

• The Roberts Court and the Shadow Docket

• Day 53 of the War in Iran: The Commander-in-Chief Question

• Section 702 and FISA

• Outside of Politics: Big Skies and Big Silence for Spring Break

Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

Help us celebrate our community in Minneapolis! Submit your design for our Good Neighbor T-Shirt Contest by April 30.

The Roberts Court and the Shadow Docket

• Inside the Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court (The New York Times)

• It Doesn’t Have to Be You (Pantsuit Politics and Jason Kander)

• Sarah Isgur (Scotusblog)

Day 53 of the War in Iran: The Commander-in-Chief Question

• Behind Trump’s Public Bravado on the War, He Grapples With His Own Fears (The Wall Street Journal)

• Trump’s fixation on White House ballroom is increasing, Post analysis finds (The Washington Post)

• Which Iran is America dealing with? (The Economist)

• For Iran, Flexing Control Over Waterway Is New Deterrent (The New York Times)

Section 702 and FISA

• Senate extends surveillance powers until April 30 after chaotic votes in House (The Associated Press)

Outside of Politics: Big Skies and Big Silence for Spring Break

• Sarah’s Travel Itineraries (By Plane or By Page)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:29] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:31] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:32] You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. We have a lot of ground to cover today. So we’re going to start in the Supreme Court where a bombshell New York Times investigation based on leaked internal memos traces the origins of the shadow docket directly to Chief Justice John Roberts. Then we’re going to talk about the war in Iran, the erratic statements coming out of the White House, and the power vacuum inside the leadership in Iran. And what all of this is costing the world. Outside of Politics, we both went out west for spring break and we have some things to say about big skies and big silences and what it can do for your spirit.

Beth [00:01:08] Before we get started, it has been a chaotic week. And if today’s episode helps you make sense of the world a little bit, we have a small request. Would you just text it to a friend? The best way to grow a show like ours for people who are going to love what we do and love the community around it is just one text at a time. Not like a vague, you should listen to Pantsuit Politics. But this episode, for this reason, it just makes a huge difference for us. And we truly appreciate your support.

Sarah [00:01:47] Next up, let’s talk about the shadow docket. Beth, you and I both started reading this report from the New York Times on Saturday morning and could get no further than the introduction for the sake of our mental health. We both just said rage is not how we want to start our Saturdays and we had to put it down.

Beth [00:02:06] No. And I had that initial reaction of rage and knew that it’s the Supreme Court. It’s complicated. I need to really think about this. This is a Monday issue, not a Saturday issue.

Sarah [00:02:18] Okay. We are recording on Monday and you have read the whole report. Do you still not feel rage? Because in disclosure, I definitely do.

Beth [00:02:28] I think I feel less about this story than I think about it. So I start with a question, where do these memos come from? And why are they out here right now?

Sarah [00:02:37] They are saying got these. We got them.

Beth [00:02:40] Yeah, why? Who gave them to you? And what’s that person want the world to know? And what exactly has Chief Justice Roberts done to that person? Because that’s what these memos do, right? I don’t think it’s accurate to say this is the birth of the shadow docket in any respect, but it certainly represents an acceleration of the shadow docket. And it very much, more than anything about procedure, tells you Chief Justice Roberts is not behind the curtain who he presents to the world. And I would just like to know why we know that right now.

Sarah [00:03:18] Okay, well let’s dive in. So yes, they talk about this in the investigation. The shadow docket traditionally was used for like death penalty cases, election cases, sometimes abortion cases, where time was very truly of the essence. If we let time pass, then it either becomes truly irrelevant or irreparable damage will be done because you’ll be dead. And so it really won’t matter if we hear your case about whether you deserve the death penalty or not. Okay. Then, in 2016, we get President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. This is towards the end of his second term. He has struggled to get any real environmental legislation through Congress, and so he puts the Clean Power Plan in motion through the EPA. Further background is that John Roberts was a little pissed at the EPA. He felt like through some mercury regulations and some statements that basically are like too bad they shut our mercury regulations down but they’ve already happened, that they were running an in-run around the court over at the EPA, okay? So, everybody’s off doing their Supreme Court summer plans, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Italy. People are out getting paid to be Supreme Court justices and living their best life.

[00:04:42] And he sends this memo that says, well, these red states have sued on behalf of the industry, saying this is going to be so expensive, this is going to be terrible, like it was a hail Mary. Even the red state attorney generals in this article say like, we thought when we sued to have them freeze this regulation immediately, that it was a pipe dream. They had never used the shadow docket in this way before. So they get before the Supreme Court and he sends this memo to his colleagues and that this was a 5-4 Supreme Court. We had to wait on Anthony Kennedy to decide anything in the good old days of 2016. And he’s like, well, they’re the using this to get around what we all know is going to happen, which is we’re going to strike this down. And it’s going to be so expensive for the oil and gas co-fired power plant industry and we just have to stop it. And there’s like a little bit of debate with the liberal justices who are like does anybody see the problem here that this is not how we operate? And Justice Roberts is, like, not really. And Scalia is like, yeah, they’re undermining our legitimacy. And I’m not. You guys, I’m prone to proximate knowledge and frivolity when summing things up, but I’m doing that here. These are like three sentence emails back and forth. And then Kennedy rolls in and is like, yeah, I’m good with it. And that’s it. That’s how we end up with this new approach to the shadow docket.

Beth [00:06:19] Well, I would like to point out that the first response to the Chief Justice’s initial memo came from Justice Breyer and he proposed a compromise path. Justice Breyer says, basically, Chief, I see what you’re saying. I see where you’re worried about. I also have done a little bit of reading and it looks like there’s a process where these companies could request an extension of time because we’re talking about something that was contemplated, the Clean Power Plan, to be a year’s long target. And Justice Breyer says, let’s tell people go seek that extension and if you’re denied, come back to us. And that’s a way for us to kind of balance all the interests at stake here. And Chief Justice Roberts then shows himself to be just totally impatient about this. I don’t want to do that. Justice Breyer also said like what’s a few months if they go through this process requesting an extension they don’t get it and then they’re back to us in a few month, that’s not going to move markets or mountains. The chief justice is just so insistent that this is a dud from the Obama administration. He thinks it’s just enormous overreach by the executive. And he wants to shut it down immediately. I think that’s what’s so telling in these memos because you often see a John Roberts in his jurisprudence who seems so reluctant, so hesitant, so reticent to have to ever issue an opinion, except in a very few cases where you can tell there’s some passion behind it. And here it’s all passion; it’s passion driving the bus. And it is political passion.

Sarah [00:08:01] He is not asserting any legal arguments. He just isn’t. He is making a political argument. When Nicholas and I were talking about this, he was like, well, how much more evidence do we need that this is a political body? Because they create the shadow docket for one reason, to slow the administration down when it’s an administration they disagree with. And what do they use the shadow docket now? To unleash the full speed of an administration they agree with. And then to worry about the legitimacy when I thought the-- first of all, hats off to Adam Liptak and Jodi Kantor. Just incredible reporting. This is why when people like, I don’t know, want to get mad at the New York Times for that bullshit Lauren Bezos article, I just want to be like, yeah, that’s annoying. But when they do shit like this, come on, like it’s hard to argue with the level of reporting and importance I think this has.

Beth [00:09:03] That annoying stuff sells newspapers so that this kind of reporting could be funded.

Sarah [00:09:09] Absolutely.

Beth [00:09:10] Play your Wordle, guys. It helps.

Sarah [00:09:15] Play your Wordle guys, it helps. That got me. Yeah, and I thought Adam Liptak did a good job of saying, like, they were worried about legitimacy, but the way they have accelerated this process and refuse to explain themselves to the American public has undermined their legitimacy. They’re sitting on bottoming out public approval rates. And so, to me, I’m just at the point where I’m like, you don’t find-- be a political institution, but you don’t get a set up there for life with absolutely no accountability except for through the New York Times? Come on.

Beth [00:09:51] Sarah Isgur, who does really good reporting around the Supreme Court, tweeted a couple of examples from 2013 and 2014 of the court using the shadow docket in this way, we just didn’t have that language at the time, to show that this isn’t the beginning of the Court operating in this way. It doesn’t help with the partisan look of it because those were instances related to abortion and marriage equality. So where does the court want to assert its power? In very political spaces and powerhouse economic spaces. I think that when you look at the arguments that are being advanced in these memos, it so clearly demonstrates that these justices don’t believe our processes are up for modern challenges. And I think that’s what we’re going to be talking about with every story today. People don’t believe that the process serves anything anymore. And so they just smash and grab and do whatever they damn well please because they think they are on the right side of the question and so the process doesn’t matter. And as I was telling Ellen, my 10-year-old daughter, this morning who said that learning about the three branches of government right now is so boring, it’s not so boring. Three branches of government means that we are constantly in a staring contest over power. There isn’t an ultimate authority. And even when you write a law, you stare at each other to say, who’s going to enforce this? Who’s going to hold me to it? And these memos show that these justices don’t think the process has a role to play in some kind of counterweight to what is just a staring contest. And that makes me incredibly sad. It’s been on display in their opinions and their lack of opinions for several years now and to see it this starkly is really something.

Sarah [00:11:45] I got in this conversation with Jamie Golden over the weekend about if we could wave a magic wand, like, what’s the one thing we’ll fix? I sent her this article, and I said, “I think this is the Holy Spirit is telling us to start with the Supreme Court.” The idea that the Supreme court is not political has always been a type of important civic fiction. They’re still human beings. And I just think it’s time to accept that. And to put procedural protections in place with the understanding that this is in part a political body and it needs accountability. Lifetime appointments have run the course. If we all need to move faster and acknowledge that the processes were built for a different time, then somebody make the case for me for lifetime appointments. I’m open, I’m here to listen, but I’m skeptical. If we can now see very clearly that whatever processes we put in place to protect against political decision-making at the Supreme Court have run their course, then it’s time to think through some new processes. A bigger court, a court that’s not based on lifetime appointments, like a rotating court of some kind? Enough!

Beth [00:13:07] I would argue that some processes don’t need to run faster, that the timing, the slowness, the deliberateness of what the Supreme Court does is really important. And what this court particularly has demonstrated over the past five years at least, probably longer than that, is that there’s a reason you go through the district court and then the court of appeals and then an oral argument and then you exchange memos like this ad infinitum to get to a place where you’ve considered the power that you’re wielding. I think that’s the reason that we would rather Congress make laws than executive orders get passed around like candy. I’m watching Survivor 50 right now and I’m really interested in the way that they articulated in the most recent episode-- this doesn’t spoil anything, it’s just like a thread running through the season-- that there’s frustration with the players in the middle. They believe the players in the middle have the most power. There are two clear alliances, line in the sand and then there are people who are obviously shuttling between those two. And the people in the two clear alliances don’t like it. They are worried that those are the folks with the best chance to win the game and I think they’re probably right. You see that thinking on display in these memos too. Justice Roberts feels very comfortable that he gets to five against the Clean Power Plan. That’s not how the Supreme Court should operate. And that was back when we still did have a floater in Justice Kennedy. We don’t have that anymore and it’s hurting the court badly. So I would say whatever kind of reforms we can initiate around the court, we need something that gives us the best chance of having floaters again.

Sarah [00:14:51] No, I totally agree. I mean, that persuadable middle is so important. And, look, that’s what introduces weakness in the other branches too. When you have gerrymandered districts where there’s no persuadable middle or no place for them to play any role, that’s where you get weak candidates, weaker representatives. There’s no accountability. And it’s like nobody wants to persuade the middle because it takes time. Everybody wants to move fast. But I think we’re seeing the repercussions of that move quickly, smash, grab approach. And it smashing. Yeah, it’s smashing up the legit of the Supreme Court.

Beth [00:15:36] I listened to the conversation you had with Jason Kander, which I really, really enjoyed. And it got me thinking because you all kept using the phrase big changes, big ideas, about what the public actually wants. And I would like to put in a vote for medium ideas. I think there are a number of things that the American people would coalesce around. Obviously, this needs to change. I think a problem in our politics-- and this is a bias that goes back to my foundational kind of Beth from the right when we began leanings-- when the Supreme Court acts, it wields a giant hammer to smash and grab. It wields really big power. When Congress does something, it’s huge. It can be the tiniest little thing. And you especially see that in environmental cases. A teeny tiny regulation buried in subsection C of clause four can completely upend how agriculture operates in the United States. These tools are so powerful that the time associated with them needs to be slower. And it’s frustrating because we do have big problems and we do want to be responsive to a world that moves a lot faster than it used to. But that pace of the world can have some counterpoint in a government that acts deliberately and with awareness of its power. And we’re so far removed from that right now. And when the court lets go of its deliberateness, it really changes the dynamic.

Sarah [00:17:13] Because, look, I’m not even loving how they’re using the hammer when they take a more deliberative process. I think it was wildly irresponsible how they just took the gates off gambling. And we’re like, yeah, let’s see, go for it and see what happens. I don’t think there’s any acknowledgement or care. Look, I can’t believe I’m about to say this because I don’t give a shit about these tariffs or the Trump administration’s problem refunding them. But even that, just to be like, no, give it back. It’s not that simple. Even with Roe v. Wade, they don’t care. I mean, there are doctors now like having their license under investigation because they didn’t intervene in the same way because they were afraid of going to jail in Texas. And it’s like I don’t know why doctors couldn’t have seen the writing on the wall. Like this is going to be paid first and foremost by women, but also the consequences of that decision are also being paid by a medical profession. And it’s like in a profession and a specialty that did not need more burden. So it’s just so irresponsible. And especially like coming from like Alito and the way he just is so confident of all his worst instincts and refuses to play out any real intellectual argument about how this could work or why this matters or if he’s right. It’s just infuriating.

Beth [00:18:39] He hit a sore spot for me 10 years later with these memos because Alito observes that, yes, the Clean Power Plan envisions a long timeline, but that means companies will have to change what they’re doing now because coal plants aren’t shuttered at the drop of a hat. And I thought, well, that’s funny because this administration sure acts like they can be switched on and off like a light. One of pet issues right now is the way the administration keeps telling coal plants that were supposed to shut down, stop, you have to stay in business. You have to spend thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay open when you had planned to close because we like coal. That’s how we’re covering. We don’t like this, we like this. And so we’re going to use this enormous power at our disposal to do whatever we want. All that said, it takes me right back to the question I began with in this segment. Everybody who pays attention to the Supreme Court knows that all of this is deeply wrong. These memos pin it to the individual justices, not just to it being 2026 and a brand new world. Who leaked this stuff, and what did they hope would come of it?

Sarah [00:19:53] I don’t know who leaked it, but I’m glad they did. I have been saying this about the liberal justices. Stop reading it from the bench. I don’t care. Do something. Once you hear read it from the bench about how the Supreme Court’s in trouble, do something. So somebody did something. And you know what, good for them. Beth, as this episode comes out on Tuesday, we are on day 53 of the war in Iran. We are, I guess sort of in a ceasefire.

Beth [00:20:35] That’s a really astonishing number because I’ve been hearing that we’re like two weeks from being finished.

Sarah [00:20:41] Forever.

Beth [00:20:43] For several weeks now.

Sarah [00:20:47] For several sections of two weeks. Okay, so the reason we are all a little discombobulated as to the timeline and where we are right now is because the president of the United States cannot get his facts straight. He says it is closed. The Strait is closed. No, wait. Iran has agreed to never close the straight again. But then immediately Iran’s like, no, it’s closed. Well, we’re back to the peace table. Iran says, no we’re not. We are not coming. Then we have the Wall Street Journal reporting that when an F-15 was shot down over Iran in early April, that aides kept Trump out of the room during the minute by minute rescue updates because, and this is a quote, “His impatience wouldn’t be helpful.” So, Winnie Speaks. It’s all over the map and he does not seem to be connected to the facts on the ground and perhaps that’s because they’re keeping him out of the room because when he’s there and the facts it’s still playing out, his impatience is unhelpful.

Beth [00:21:56] I had been thinking while you were talking, who is the reliable narrator around the Iran war? I guess it’s the Wall Street Journal because his impatience wouldn’t be helpful does sound like the most factual observation I’ve heard about this conflict in weeks. And then he comes out and takes credit for the rescue of those airmen. He’s not involved in the operation, it’s successful, and then he brags about how successful the operation was. I guess that’s the best case scenario with this president, though.

Sarah [00:22:27] Well, Pete Hegseth is not reliable either. He’s coming out and saying their weapons have been depleted. Trump backs them up. Oh yeah, they don’t have anything left to shoot into the air except for reports say they have 40% of their pre-war stock of drones and that they’re using this current ceasefire-- using that word loosely-- to dig out some missile launchers they’ve been hiding underground and that their missile supply could soon return to 70% of what it was pre-wars. So I don’t think that’s accurate either.

Beth [00:22:59] I feel like tracking what Hegseth and Trump say about this war is like listening to a graphic novel that’s being written in real time. You can see these points of emphasis that they want to hit hard. Like you can imagine like the boom from the page. But the story is not tracking. There are always more questions that are raised by what they say than answers offered. And I think that they both are pursuing I don’t know if it’s several timelines in a multiverse or if they just can’t decide how they want the plot to evolve here. But I can’t find anything to hook into where I am in their minds enough to understand what success looks like. And that to me seems to be the problem. If you want to have real negotiations, which you would think that our business man in chief knows rest on everyone’s trust for one another. How do you go in and take out all their leadership? They either intended to do that without thinking about what it would do to the capacity to negotiate, or they didn’t intend it, which raises its own questions about their competence.

Sarah [00:24:15] Well, I don’t think he does know trust is an important part of the negotiation. None of the negotiations he has run in his personal business life was built on trust. It was built upon bullying, maximum leverage, and then maybe just not fulfilling his end of the bargain because he didn’t want to. Sound familiar?

Beth [00:24:32] It does. I also was thinking this morning about how often we discussed in his first term that he wanted to run the economy so hot, no matter what, and it left him with no options. That sense that interest rates should always be zero means that when things fall apart, you don’t have any tools at your disposal. And that seems to be how he’s conducting this war. If I threaten the extinction of your civilization, if I go in and kill all your leaders at the very beginning, if I take out all of the targets that are reasonable targets within the country at the beginning, where do I go from here? And it feels to me like the answer to that question is that America is shedding power and leverage by the day.

Sarah [00:25:17] Absolutely. I do think one of their timeline goals, him and Hegseth, is just to like normalize war crimes. So he keeps saying it’s a blockade. Well, a blockade is a war crime. So everybody keeps coming out after and being like, no, we’re just blocking their ports, not the Strait itself, don’t worry. And this sort of we’re going to bomb civilian infrastructure, which is a work crime. It’s infrastructure day. So apparently we are still doing infrastructure day, we’re just doing it by just destroying other countries infrastructure. We’re going to bomb the water, we’re going to bomb the bridges, so that’s a war crime. And so it’s like, but I don’t think he cares. So I don’t know if the goal is to just ultimately normalize the idea of like we do what we want, we don’t care. That definitely seems to be one of Pete Hegseth’s goals. But I think you’re right. Putting together your pet project from the last section, what is happening here is the decimation of the global supply of oil. So Europe, South America, Asia in particular, are saying, okay, it’s not going to help us quickly, but we have got to get even better, even stronger, even faster when it comes to clean energy. Well, guess who stands to profit from that? China. Because they have been pouring enormous state resources into the clean energy sector while Trump is spending billions of dollars of our tax revenue to prop up the industry now that has the entire global economy by the nuts. Not to be crude.

Beth [00:27:01] So warfighter not bound by any kind of rules, goal number one. They did tell us early in the administration they wanted to weaken the dollar. They’re doing that. I guess you could say if they wanted make oil more valuable, they’re accomplishing that. At what price though and who benefits from all of that? Those are real open questions to me.

Sarah [00:27:29] I want to talk about Iran, and I want to talk about the global economy a little bit more. But before we turn from their perspective, I have to bring up this Washington Post analysis that found that his mentions of the ballroom are growing. He has publicly mentioned this project, roughly a third of all his days this year. And it just keeps getting more and more frequent. Above affordability. Above the oil and gas prices. And if he’s not talking about the ballroom, he’s saying things that don’t make sense like the Sharpie story that never happened. If you didn’t follow this, he was at a cabinet meeting and he told the story about how Sharpie made a special Sharpie for him, except they didn’t. It never happened. Beth, do we think he has dementia? We got to ask it. The question has to be asked.

Beth [00:28:26] I don’t know if he has dementia. I do know that the signs of age and strain are evident. That the erratic behavior is accelerating and I didn’t think we had room left on that. Silly me. I think you also see in Trump some of the sillier manifestations of issues that run all the way through this administration. Another pet project of mine is becoming the God Squad, which is this group of people who make environmental decisions. Will we continue to protect certain species? And they call themselves the God Squad. Now we all got very angry, understandably, about Trump posting an AI generated image of himself looking like Jesus. I’m madder about the God Squad. He is the silly cartoon version of sentiments that are circulating all around him all the time. This war fighter nonsense, the religious blasphemy, I think, that occurs daily in this group of people coupled with a sense of religious purpose, like they are all divine warriors for some version of Christianity.

Sarah [00:29:41] Wait, wait, wait. You forgot one.

Beth [00:29:44] Give it to me.

Sarah [00:29:45] Don’t forget that they’re also getting rich like insider trading on all this power and deals. You forgot that one which is also a pet project of yours.

Beth [00:29:53] Do you remember that country music song, It Matters to Me? That’s Trump. So he wants everything to be about what matters to him and the ballroom matters to him. He’s got enough money at this point and he’s printing it every day through a variety of meme coins and whatever else. But the ball room is like an undeniable testament to his power and that’s the currency that he cares about. Now the arches are the same way. So you have all these dynamics swirling. And then when you pair those with a process story like Iran shot one of our fighter jets down and we’re chasing after our pilots to try to hold them as prisoners of war and we had to leave him outside and occupy him with something else because his attention span can’t handle this kind of work; that’s when we have a problem in a story that it doesn’t matter how many psychiatrists on the socials weigh in on his capacity, members of Congress need to be holding hearings and asking questions about that.

Sarah [00:31:03] Well, and here’s the thing. With Biden I just don’t think I kind of respected the wisdom of the masses. And because it’s so easy in today’s day and age to confuse the loud 20% on social media with the masses and to get real cynical about the majority of views, those aren’t the majority of views. The anti-vaxxers who are so loud on Instagram are not the majority of people. The majority of people have very positive views about vaccines, which is why RFK had such a tough week last week before the House and Senate. And so with Biden, I think I thought this is just people saying this stuff is just the loud 20 percent getting clicks on the Internet. And I’m trying to take it more seriously when it starts to show up in the masses. And the polling on his age is making him more erratic is shifting pretty dramatically in real time where people are like, no, it’s clear. He’s getting more erratic and the age is making it worse. And he and all of the Republican party ignore that to their peril. Ask me how. I know.

Beth [00:32:20] It’s not just the wisdom of the masses either. The most sharp statements about his mental decline are coming from people who used to work for him, who used be very close to him. When you have people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, even Megan Kelly out there saying, something’s off here, you got to take that seriously. A number of people from the first term, people who were loyal to his administration and proud of a lot of the work they did are saying, this is a mess, he is chaotic. And all of that is being said when we were told that Susie Wiles runs this tight ship, we’re not going to have the palace intrigue this time. Even with all the structure built to contain his natural flair for drama, it can’t be contained.

Sarah [00:33:15] Yeah. Well, and maybe I have in theory, I’m developing in real time here. Maybe the insider trading coming from the White House is just a fire sale. People up close and personal going, you better get while the getting’s good. Get on your oil futures trading when you know he’s going to get on Truth Social at 3 a.m. And make sure you make a couple billion dollars while you can. But don’t worry, Beth. The White House sent a memo telling everyone to knock it off, so I’m sure that’ll fix it.

Beth [00:33:45] I’m sure it will fix it. And also how dare anyone suggest that anyone was doing it in the first place, the White House says.

Sarah [00:33:51] I know.

Beth [00:33:51] All this said, I agree with everything that you said about ignoring at your peril the signs of age and strain and the way the public is perceiving that. I think that’s all true. Sitting alongside that on the shelf for me is my incredible frustration when I hear Democrats who are elected officials talking about this or who are seeking to be elected officials. I don’t care if you think he’s crazy. I don’t care if you think he has dementia. I don’t care if you think he’s in cognitive decline. Do your job. You can subpoena cabinet officials and have them come to a hearing and talk to you about what is actually happening behind closed doors. Not his mental state. What people are doing. When they ask him a question, how he responds. What questions he’s not being asked, and who is the decision maker if he’s not the decision-maker. You have that ability. You have the ability to restrain his authority to go prosecute this war that doesn’t seem to have a real objective. Do it. I just feel like because this resonates with the public, there is an incentive for political actors to hop on the bandwagon and kind of walk around the world like what are you going to do? He’s a madman. Well, you still have a to-do list. Please get on it.

Sarah [00:35:13] Yeah. Well, I don’t want to be Debbie Downer here, but the wheels are not going back on Congress anytime soon. They could barely get that FISA extension passed for like, what, till April, 10 whole days? April 30th was the extension. Woo! And Trump and Mike Johnson both wanted this full extension and it did not get through. So, wait, maybe I’m wrong. Hold on. Maybe that’s a sign that the wheels are getting coming back on and they’re just not doing anything he tells them to do.

Beth [00:35:37] And FISA, to call back to our Supreme Court segment, is an issue that deserves deliberation and slowness and real negotiation. They’ve been trying since the last time they reauthorized FISA to negotiate some limits on this incredible power the government has to surveil people. If you don’t know what we’re talking about with FISA, that is about the ability of the United States government to listen in on conversations and intercept communications conducted outside the United State by people who are not U.S. Persons. But everybody knows, and the issue that Congress has been debating for literal years now, is that when you pick up that kind of discussion between people who are not US persons, you sweep up all kinds of conversations happening among people who are. And we have got to figure out some judicial oversight for that, some tighter controls. Trump himself, who is now demanding this clean authorization of FISA, has said that this law is terrible and it’s how they were able to spy on his campaign and we need to get rid of it. So which is it? Now that he holds the power to do this kind of surveillance, he wants all of it without any limitations. But candidate Trump sang a very different tune about this. And I’m kind of glad they kicked it for 10 days because I hope that means something real is being debated, not just central bank currency or whatever craziness they want to attach to it, but something that gets to the substance of this power and the potential for its abuse.

Sarah [00:37:17] Well, back to Iran and what comes next. JD Vance for some reason I do not understand, continues to attach his name to negotiations which are supposed to take place. The ceasefire expires tomorrow on Wednesday. Iran is saying they’re not coming. There does seem to be a true vacuum. The Supreme Leader is in critical condition and not exerting any power. The political leaders are, to my eye, in an ever decreasing influential space. And the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has increasing power in the space. There was some reporting from the economist that at the first round of negotiations, everybody was used to Iran coming with like two to three people, very tight team, knew exactly what they were doing. Well, some of those people have been killed and there’s a power vacuum. So they showed up with an 80 person faction. Where you have these Iranian Revolutionary Guard hardliners clashing. And, to me, that was what was so evident over the weekend with the Strait is open, the Strait is closed. Those were two different people talking. One was like a minister in the cabinet and one was a military official. So that’s why you got two different messages. It’s two different factions.

[00:38:40] It’s like everybody’s worst nightmare with Iran that it will collapse into this faction-driven situation. And Isaac Solover at the Tangle was saying he worries this will just become an ambient war. But to me, the ramifications on the global economy, what we’re seeing is a pricing of futures of oil. And that’s why the stock market responds on a dime because we’re talking about futures, but in Asia they have to pay for the oil now and it’s like $150 a gallon. There is not enough. And it’s not just not enough oil, it’s a not enough of all these other critical resources that make everything from like instant noodles to plastic bags, okay?

Beth [00:39:24] Fertilizer. The food.

Sarah [00:39:27] Like a real food crisis. Yeah, to me, that’s going to prevent this from becoming background noise, but they have taken an approach that has produced this quagmire. I don’t see any path. I truly don’t a see a path here. They’re not going to budge. Even if one faction decided to budge, I don’t see the hardliners and the military budging. They want $20 billion? And we’re going to be in a worse place than we were with the JCPOA? I don’t see it. I wouldn’t be signing up for this gig if I was JD Vance.

Beth [00:40:03] If I got the promise of one question to get an honest answer from the White House on in connection with this war, I think what I would ask is what were your assumptions about regime change? Because on the one hand, it feels like regime change was a baked-in assumption that the United States would start bombing, the people of Iran would take to the streets again, they would overthrow whatever’s left of the Ayatollah’s regime. And then what? Because that’s where it stops, right? It seems like there was no planning for the messy situation that always happens. I can’t point to any story where the leader is deposed and the next day the people have rallied around one person who can then come to the negotiating table with a foreign power and really get something done. The only example of that, and maybe this is the problem, is Venezuela. Because we went in and arrested Maduro, and then basically looked at Delcy Rodriguez and said, do what we want or you’re next and so she did.

Sarah [00:41:09] Well, and the people didn’t rally around her. She was just a part of the puzzle that suppressed the people to begin with so she had the keys to the jail and could keep them in there.

Beth [00:41:17] And look, that’s a difference too. They didn’t go in and take out everybody. They just took Maduro, but the rest of the structure stayed in place. If Trump wanted to do that kind of shakedown again, why’d they go in and kill everybody? Was that incompetence or strategy?

Sarah [00:41:33] Beth, is that a serious question?

Beth [00:41:35] I know. That the question that I would ask. If I could get one honest answer, that’s what I want to know about the conception of this operation.

Sarah [00:41:42] I know the answer to that. I don’t need their honesty around that. I want their honesty on what do you sincerely think is your next move here? What do you necessarily believe is the strategy moving forward? I don’t think there’s an answer, even an honest one.

Beth [00:42:00] Seems like a problem.

Sarah [00:42:01] It seems like a problem. Not just for us, for everyone, for Asia, for Europe. Things turn dark when there’s real scarcity. When there is not enough food, when people have to suppress their demand. Listen to this guy get interviewed with the New York Times where he said he stopped driving his diesel truck because the price of diesel was so high. And also he had taken up fasting. This is a Trump voter. He said he still trusts Trump. I’m like, wow, fasting? Fasting and you still trust the outcome here. That might hang for a little while. That is not a permanent solution. When people start having to change things dramatically and there’s not enough to go around, things are going to get real really fast.

Beth [00:42:50] And that has happened around a number of wars in our history, and I’m sure on Trump’s mind is the celebration of some of those wartime leaders, but those were people who were able to say here’s why we’re doing this. I am asking for your sacrifice, nation, in service of this higher ideal. Nothing about Donald Trump ever, one, foreshadowed that we’d be asked to sacrifice under his leadership. We were supposed to kick back and live large. And two, gives him the words, the focus, the communicative ability to say to us, here’s why and here’s what you’re being asked to sacrifice for, and I promise on the other side of this here’s what’s awaiting you. They just don’t have it.

Sarah [00:43:44] Next up, we’re going to take a hard turn and ground ourselves in the Mountain West. Beth, much by accident, we had very similar spring breaks.

Beth [00:44:04] By complete accident. We discussed none of this.

Sarah [00:44:06] No. We took a trip to New Mexico and Texas to see White Sands National Park, Carlsbad Cavern, Guadalupe Mountains, and Big Bend National Parks. Four national parks in one week. It was fabulous.

Beth [00:44:25] And I had to be in Santa Fe for a retreat with some of our listeners, which was wonderful at the end of that spring break week. So my family and I flew to Denver at the beginning of the week and rented a car. And we also did national parks. We went to Rocky Mountain National Park, to Arches, to Canyonlands, to Petrified Forest, to the Grand Canyon and to White Sands. We did a lot of driving.

Sarah [00:44:49] There’s just so much driving. Because people even in other national parks, people who are from that area of the country are like very rapidly doing some mileage calculations, looking at a map in their head and going, whoa, what?

Beth [00:45:02] Well, I can tell you because the rental car had four miles on it when we drove it out of the lot and we returned it over 2,600.

Sarah [00:45:08] Oh my god. That wasn’t even a full week because you got to be-- you didn’t have to be with our listeners. You’ve got to be with our listener, right?

Beth [00:45:15] That’s right. It was wonderful.

Sarah [00:45:16] In Santa Fe, like by Thursday. We did a lot of driving. We had two five-hour days because Texas is so big. But we didn’t do quite that much. Is this like y’all’s first like big national park trip?

Beth [00:45:27] Yes, it is. This is our girls first time really out West. We’ve taken them to California once, but they haven’t seen the West in any meaningful sense. And you know how we are. If we’re going to do something, we go very hard. We do not do relaxing vacations unless we are at the beach, totally tuned out. And so we thought we’re out here, let’s just do a little sampler platter. Let’s not spend a lot of time in any one place, but let’s show them a lot of what is out here.

Sarah [00:45:52] What part was your favorite and what part do you wish you’d had more time in?

Beth [00:45:56] My favorite was Petrified Forest, actually.

Sarah [00:46:00] I haven’t been there.

Beth [00:46:01] I love how you can look at rock and see the passage of time. And that the passage of time is somehow beautiful just really spoke to me. I felt it deep in my body being a petrified forest. So it was my favorite. I think everybody else in my family would say arches or white sands, but I really connected there. I probably wish that we had had more time at Grand Canyon.

Sarah [00:46:31] Yeah, it’s so big.

Beth [00:46:31] The girls didn’t love it because it felt very touristy compared to the others. You’re getting on busses to go from one section to another. There were lots and lots of people compared to everywhere else we’d been. I really loved going around on the south rim to the place where you can actually hear the Colorado River. And we were there at such a nice time of year. It’s not blazing hot yet. And I think it would have been nice to have a little bit more time to actually do like a a hike or two there and really just kind of feel it out more.

Sarah [00:47:04] Yeah, we’ve only done Grand Canyon in a very touristy way when the boys were very, very small. Like we literally just like went out to the top, looked across and we’re like, wow, look at the Grand Canyon and then went to a wedding. So I really want to go down into the canyon. I want to do the like whole situation down in the bottom. And so that’s definitely on our list to do. I can’t believe Arches isn’t on anybody’s list. I loved Arches when we did it with the Mighty Five Parks in Utah. And I liked Canyonlands too. Arches, I think you get that same sense of the passage. I didn’t understand how the formations were made, like, oh, well, it’s different rock and they were way at different passage rates or whatever. And I did feel like when I left Utah under the Mighty Five, I deserved like a geology degree. I just learned so much about that over the course of our time there.

Beth [00:47:51] Chad and the girls really loved Arches. I will disclose, one, I didn’t feel great the day we went to Arches in my body. And elevation does mess with me. So the higher we went, the worst I felt. The other thing is like you definitely do feel the passage of time. And I spent a lot of that day going, how did this happen? And Googling things and thinking about salt more than I ever thought I might. But the rock is pretty brownish orange. That’s just kind of where you are. And I loved Canyonlands and then even more in sort of the painted desert part of the Petrified Forest. The rock itself just tells the story. Like it is like looking at an infographic about the different ages Earth has been through. It’s so beautiful.

Sarah [00:48:34] Well, we loved White Sands as well. The sledding down the dunes was fun. And the sunset there was incredible. Carlsbad Cavern is fun because we live near Mammoth Cave. So like the difference between the two caves, like Mammoth Cave is mammoth. It’s a very, very big cave system, but it’s not very deep. Carlsbad Cavern, is like an L. Like you go straight down and then across into like a-- it’s not a little room, but it a little compared to Mammoth Cave. So understanding the difference between the two cave systems... It took us like an hour to get down to Carl’s Bad Cavern walking down. At Mammoth Cave you just walk down a little slant and then you’re there. But Big Bend is very special.

[00:49:12] Big Bend is a very special park. It’s one of the parks that’s so big, it has like multiple different ecosystems. There’s a basin in the middle. There’s the Rio Grande. There’s multiple different like the Chihuahuan Desert. And the desert kind of grows on me. I’m not prone to desert life because I’m so very pale. But the more you spend in the desert, I think the more you’re like, I get it. First of all, I saw so many roadrunners and they’re so cute and I love them so much and they are so fun to watch. And I really, really fell for the Rio Grande. We had such a good time down on the Rio Grand. We crossed over. Felix swam across [inaudible] and thought it was the coolest thing ever. And it was just beautiful, beautiful country down there. Look, I love Texas a little bit more every time I visit it.

Beth [00:50:00] I want to ask you about that sense of desert growing on you because something I noticed while we were out there is that in the moments when I felt sad, which I got a few text messages from people going through hard things, I felt sad in a way more intense way than I ever do at home. And I decided that it must be the trees. I think the trees at home just really take a lot of my energy and process it for me. And the starkness of the landscape, it felt like all of my emotions were just like bouncing around and echoing back at me. Not to be too woo-woo.

Sarah [00:50:33] Well, here’s the thing. What I have learned over multiple national park trips is there is something there that can carry it for you. It’s just often hidden. They were talking about in the Chihuahuan desert that there is this living crust that’s holding everything together, that’s keeping the plants alive, that like a small pool can instantaneously become full of toads and shrimp because the eggs are just waiting for water. And in the same way you feel that in the Biscayne Bay or in Arroyo even national parks that are basically water. The mangroves and what the role they play in the biology, in the ecosystem. Like I think I’ve developed like a much deeper appreciation of the complexity of every ecosystem and how they can hold what you ask them to hold. They’ll just going to hold it in a different way. And I think we can say art trees hold a lot, but until you stand at the base of a Sequoia it is a totally different vibe. And that’s why I love it so much.

[00:51:43] We recently had a conversation on another podcast where they wanted us to show up and shit all over America. And the national park system, especially in the context of our 250th anniversary and the geology, the geography, the ecology of the United States is just incredible. I’ve never even been to Alaska. It’s just insane. It’s such a gift. It’s such a powerful, incredible piece of our country. I cannot get enough of it. I love every park more. The rankings in the Holland family it’s like a stock ticker. It’s just constantly up and down, up and changing, up and up, up and changing. Now I will say, in full disclosure, Yosemite is my number one and it will be hard to beat. It has maintained its place. But they’re all so special and I’m just so grateful to live in a place where we can experience all that.

Beth [00:52:49] I will say this trip made me more patriotic too because it’s not just that we have all of this diversity in our ecosystem, but we have the opportunity to go see it. It’s pretty much available. I mean, it’s expensive to rent a car, the fuel is expensive. Compared to lots of other trips, this is a pretty cheap way to experience something really meaningful. I did a future problem solving exercise with our listeners who came to the Santa Fe retreat with me and I wrote a future scene where people had basically checked out on the federal government and were depending on their states for everything. And part of that future scene involves states negotiating with each other over tariffed products. You look around and see our opportunity to drive from one state to another without even stopping and letting the state know you’re there, to spend your money everywhere seamlessly, to show up at these national parks because you got the one pass that you need from the federal government to go to all of these different places.

[00:53:57] It’s amazing the way that we have opened up our part of the world to one another. And you can really see that that’s the source of America’s power. And that’s way bigger than anything happening at the White House. That for 250 years we’ve said, come explore this vast land. We’re not going to stop you, we’re not going to keep you out, we’re going to say, no, you’re not from Arizona, the Grand Canyon is for the Arizonans. It’s amazing that we’ve done that. And it is the source of our greatness not just because of the national parks, but because we have said we share this together. And we take pride in our individual places, but we share it all. It really touched me while I was out there.

Sarah [00:54:39] Well, and look, I was living through and watching this political story in Big Bend while I was there. It clearly works on everybody, especially the people that work there. This is West Texas. This is the border, okay? This is not San Francisco. And there were signs everywhere, stop the border wall. Do not put this border wall through Big Bend. And it worked. They’re not doing it. They backed off. Because I think that living there, experiencing these places, it is the time, it is this sense that we as a country have this incredible gift, resource. We didn’t make the Grand Canyon, but we do steward it. And I think that is perspective giving, if you allow it to. Look, it makes me sad when somebody goes, oh, we’re not national park people. It does. Because I do think even if you’re not an outdoorsy person, there’s something about visiting a national park. I think there is the sense that this country and its land is bigger than us. I think there’s a sense that you kind of have to respect it and take it seriously, that’s really powerful.

[00:56:07] You can’t just walk onto like a five mile hike in the middle of Big Bend on a whim, right? You have to take it seriously. You have to plan that we have all these incredible resources. My husband is an Eagle Scout in Enneagram 6 max prepper. Do you know the first thing he does at any national park we go to? We go right to the nature station and we talk to a ranger. So you have to interact and you hear this expertise and you see the federal government showing up in this incredibly impactful way in the everyday lives of Americans. I mean, I could truly wax poetic for hours about all these different threads that come together when you visit a national park and it changes you. It changes the way you think about our country. It changes the way you think about yourself. It changes the way you about God and life and love. It is truly something every American should find a little time and space in their life to do. I believe that.

Beth [00:57:15] The other piece that I want to call out from this time in the West that really moved me was spending some time with indigenous people and hearing about that negotiation of stewardship of the land. The struggle that dual sovereignty creates. The way that is so present and shows up in water and electricity. The hotel that we stayed in for our retreat in Santa Fe is 100% owned by Pueblo people. And one of them came to us, the very first thing we did was hear his story. Learned about the history of the hotel and the history his tribe. He talked to us about Chaco Canyon and their struggle with the federal government. And he offered us a blessing while we were there. And that combination of politics, the space for struggle, the space for all is not well, and we still love it here and we’re still happy to have you here as our guests, it was very, very moving. And I really want to spend more time in spaces like that, listening and learning and reflecting and problem solving and just trying to advance my own understanding of the people that we have taken a lot of this land from as a nation and still share it with and who still seek to live harmoniously. It’s a pretty mind blowing state of affairs that we have.

Sarah [00:58:53] Well, if you have been inspired to take on a trip, I have itineraries. If didn’t know this, my family and I basically just write up what we did. We write up our itinerary; we write up all the guides. If you’d like to hear more about the details around this trip or some other ones around the Mountain West or other national parks, we just went to two national parks in Minnesota over the summer. Those will be available. I’ll put a link in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. We hope you will take a moment and text a link to this show to a friend and say, hey, I know you love national parks, take a listen. Or, hey, are you filled with rage about the New York Times piece about the Supreme Court? Here’s a conversation just for you. We will be back in your ears on Friday. And until then, keep it nuanced y’all.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

That’s the situation today. Sarah and I look for moments of clarity in a cascade of news: the Pope’s grounded message of peace; an Iowa candidate breaking through with an anti-corruption message; the Hungarian public turning out in record numbers to say “enough.”

And Artemis II. Artemis II splashing back safely on earth, bringing home astronauts who’ve inspired us (see outside of politics) to remember the fragility and wonder of our piece of the universe. - Beth

Topics Discussed

• Less Eric Swalwell (California) and More Rob Sand (Iowa)

• Pakistan Negotiates Iran “Ceasefire” while Congress sits on its hands

• Melania Trump’s Press Conference

• JD Vance’s Losing Streak in Iran and Hungary

• Outside of Politics: Artemis II

Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

Help us celebrate our community in Minneapolis! Submit your design for our Good Neighbor T-Shirt Contest by April 30.

Eric Swalwell

• Ex-staffer says Eric Swalwell, candidate for California governor, sexually assaulted her (San Francisco Chronicle)

• Exclusive: Four women describe sexual misconduct by Rep. Eric Swalwell, including a former staffer who says he raped her | CNN

Trust and Corruption

• Lawsuit Accuses Writer of Using Classmate’s Story in Best-Selling Memoir (The New York Times)

• Someone Has to Be Happy. Why Not Lauren Sánchez Bezos? - The New York Times

• Sam Altman (blog)

• Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted? | The New Yorker

• The Good Friday Agreement (Pantsuit Politics)

New York Times Oral Histories

• Kash Patel’s FBI Is Making America Less Safe, Current and Former Employees Say (The New York Times)

• 60 Attorneys on the Year of Chaos Inside Trump’s Justice Department (The New York Times)

• Inside the Turmoil at RFK Jr.’s CDC, as Told by Current and Former Employees (The New York Times)

Polarization

• Opinion | Hasan Piker Is Not the Enemy (Ezra Klein | The New York Times)

• Hey, Democrats: Take Yes for an Answer (Tim Miller)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:30] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:31] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:32] You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. We’re back from Spring Break and catching up on all the things, wars, negotiations, Eric Swalwell, whatever the hell’s going on with Melania, and much more on today’s episode. Outside of politics, we’re going to wax poetic about the poetic waxing from our friends over on Artemis 2.

Beth [00:00:54] Most excited about that part. We are very excited that we’re doing our first t-shirt contest in many, many years. We had so much fun the last time we did it. This time around, we are asking for your designs for a Good Neighbors t-shirt to celebrate our live show in Minneapolis, the community there, the power of communities all over the country, America’s 250th anniversary, all the things. Designs are due April 30th. All the information for this contest is in our show notes and on our Substack. We can’t wait to see what you create.

Sarah [00:01:33] Up next. Let’s get to it. Beth, I think we should start with a positive and end with a positive. We’ve got a lot of shit in between.

Beth [00:01:38] I like it. Good plan.

Sarah [00:01:39] All right. Here’s the positive before we get to the more horrific stories from upcoming elections, is the governor’s race in Iowa has been moved from lean Republican to toss up because the Democratic state auditor Rob Sand is killin’ it apparently. They’ve got a five person Republican primary and they’re already campaigning against him. They don’t even know who’s going to win.

Beth [00:02:07] I like it. I like that I know the name Rob Sand. Like you can tell he’s just been out there because I am not from Iowa and he is on my radar. He seems like a person who’s willing to talk to anybody, go anywhere, do anything. And Iowa is a high touch state. You got to be a person who wants to connect with people if you want to win in Iowa. And he seems to really understand that.

Sarah [00:02:27] I just have a warm place in my heart for Iowa after our time there during the Democratic primary.

Beth [00:02:33] Same.

Sarah [00:02:33] And I do think it’s an interesting state and I don’t think it is easily classifiable. Like I know it went for Trump by 13 points in 2024, especially after that-- remember the pollster controversy. Remember when the pollsters came out and said Iowa was going to vote for Kamala?

Beth [00:02:50] Yes.

Sarah [00:02:50] That was the worst. But I do you think it was more complicated. And I think this is true for so many places in the country. You get the right candidate with the right campaign strategy and anything’s available. I truly believe that. I truly believed that.

Beth [00:03:06] Well, and Rob is running on the strategy that I think is the right strategy, which is anti-corruption. Good government. Let’s do things right. That’s what I think is the right answer.

Sarah [00:03:14] Can you put a pin in that? Because that is also a theme from our good stories opening and closing the show.

Beth [00:03:21] Okay.

Sarah [00:03:22] Let’s talk about a less positive campaign development. So I have not been paying attention to the California governor’s race because I found it very overwhelming. There were like eleventy people running. We had Katie Porter have a controversy when she was seen on sort of out clips berating staff and just generally acting out very nice.

Beth [00:03:51] Well, she kind of had a fit in the middle of an interview too that went viral. Just a lot of things.

Sarah [00:03:55] So then kind of falls apart. Although, she’s still in the race, still polling like 14%, I think. So then Eric Swalwell comes in. I don’t know if he was recruited. I don’t know if you just saw his moment, but I was actually thinking about this through the lens of Governor Newsom. Like the fact that it’s just like so wide open to me is a little bit problematic with regards to him. Like I’m not saying he should have like gifted the governorship to anybody. But there should have been some bench building and I don’t know, general strategy. This is always a critique of Barack Obama as well. All that to say, Eric Swalwell gets in. He’s a front runner, but still not like running away with it because there was all this discussion about the Republicans. Maybe the Republicans could win. One of the Republicans could actually win in this like jungle primary or whatever they’ve got going on over there. Then Trump gets involved, he endorses somebody, and the analysis I read was like, well, that fixes that because now people will either avoid the candidate like the plague or coalesce around him, taking voters from somebody who maybe could have risen to the top. Anyway, all I have to say, it was kind of wild all over the place. But Eric Swalwell, I think, was considered the front runner. He had a ton of endorsements: Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Alex Padilla. When over the weekend the San Francisco Chronicle published an account from a former staffer accusing Eric Swalwell of sexual assault. This came after weeks of chatter online. Then that is followed by a CNN story with more women coming forward. At first, he says, this is false, none of this is true, although I’ve made mistakes and I want to apologize to my wife for my mistakes. He loses basically every endorsement in a very short amount of time. And as of Sunday has suspended his campaign.

Beth [00:05:55] California does democracy in a very overwhelming way always. This is how they roll. It’s an enormous state, bigger than many countries in the world, massive economy. So it makes sense to me that they started with a huge pool of people. It is surprising to me how little coalescing there’s been within that pool. It’s also surprising to be that everybody lined up behind Representative Swalwell because even at his heyday of popularity, an allegation like this would not have been super surprising to me. I never thought about him as a really disciplined, serious legislator. I wonder if he got a little bit of the Gavin Newsom effect, that sense that we need social media stars, we need fighters, we need people who are willing to say anything. And I think he was following along that path. This news didn’t shock me. I had heard things like this floating around social media for some time. I do want to say, I think it’s important for a show like ours to be careful and wait until a newspaper goes forward, publishing those types of allegations. That’s a serious thing. And I want confirmation from organizations that have the resources to report that out and who have the stakes involved to be sued if they’re wrong.

[00:07:09] So I’m not surprised. I think it’s good that he got out of the race. I’m particularly interested in Ruben Gallego withdrawing his endorsement so quickly because I know those two are pals. And I also know that Gallego is somebody who’s being talked about as a potential 2028 candidate. So I think that’s kind of an interesting dimension of this story. To your point about there not being someone kind of clear from the beginning, I just wish Kamala Harris had run for governor in California. I think that that would have been the most effective way for her to prove out that she was a serious contender for president to oppose the Trump administration. I mean, obviously, this is a seat where you can do an incredible amount of good. The state has so many resources, just the legal apparatus in California opens so many doors. And she’s a person who would know how to work with the legal apparatus in California. So I was really disappointed that she passed on this. And I know that people are likely to coalesce maybe around Xavier Becerra right now. That makes a lot of sense to me, but I’m not a Californian and it is a complex state.

Sarah [00:08:18] Yeah, the listeners who I asked in the comment thread of the Monday’s news brief said Xavier Bracera is like where a lot of people are ending up. I had not heard any of these rumors about Eric Swalwell. I had always had like a red flag about him ever since that spy controversy, which never made sense to me. I’m not saying he was like in on spying with China, but it just, to me, indicated a level of sloppiness, bare minimum in the management of his staff and his offices and his general political career. Like it did seem like there was more ambition than much else. I think the point you were making about while we had not commented on, it is difficult because I think in most of the reporting, even from major news sources, it’s these content creators were putting pressure on mainstream media to pay attention to these women and their stories. And I think that’s a really hard line. Like where are you elevating a story ethically? Where are you using the power of a platform to bring attention to something that the mainstream media is ignoring?

[00:09:38] Now, I would say understanding how newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle operate-- I was also thinking about this while reading a write-up of the New York Times reporting on that blockbuster memoir that seems to have been a lie, The Tell, it just takes time. So it feels like content creators were the only ones thinking about these for weeks, but it probably took weeks for the San Francisco Chronicle to do the reporting necessary to actually confirm sources, confirm all the stuff. So I understand and agree sometimes that it does take outside independent media groups to bring attention to a story. I think with something this delicate, I do think we’re-- I don’t know if you think this is naive. I kind of think we’ve passed the point where like a news organization buries something like this, unless it was like the Washington Post about Jeff Bezos. You know what I mean? So they want to get the story, they want to get it right. And so I think it’s hard. I think it’s a tough one. I think it’s a tough one.

Beth [00:10:54] I do too. And no shade to anyone in the way they make those decisions. For me, it is important to wait. If people contact us with information that we can’t confirm, we tell them you should be in touch with this person. Here’s a person at an organization with the resources to do this right. We don’t have them. And without that apparatus behind us, I just don’t think it’s right for us to go forward. And I’m aware of all kinds of social media rumors about Eric Swalwell. Going back a number of years, there are some current ones right now that aren’t being talked about in connection with this story. So I want to just be transparent about the fact that sometimes we know what’s out there, but we’re not going to talk about it until that confirmation comes through in a way where we feel like we can responsibly talk about it. Other creators are going to make different decisions and that’s what this wild west of independent media looks like.

Sarah [00:11:49] Either way, I’m glad that these stories came out.

Beth [00:11:52] Absolutely.

Sarah [00:11:53] They’re horrific. His level of abuse of power, just sexual harassment, sexual assault, the trauma that many of these women experience it’s horrific. I’m glad that the Democratic establishment so quickly was like, uh-uh, no, absolutely not. It was a pretty rapid response. And now there is talk of a response in Congress. So Congress is back to work this week. They got a lot on their plate and so they decided to add expulsion dramas to the list. Representative Anna Paulina Luna has announced plans to force an expulsion vote for Eric Swalwell who is still a representative from California, possibly as soon as this week and then in a classic tit for tat, Democrats said they will counter with their own expulsion boat targeting Tony Gonzalez which we talked about on the spicy. Who admitted to a relationship with a former staffer who then self-emulated and killed herself. It’s a truly horrific story. There’s some other representatives, a Republican from Florida, a Democrat from Florida-- what’s the common denominator there-- who have been found guilty by the House of Ethics Committees on corruption related charges. Expulsion votes are pretty rare because it takes two thirds of Congress to make that happen. And so I can’t tell if this is just political theater, I mean, Anna Paulina Luna seems to love to take the reins of Congress in her own hands. The girl is really always really itching to reform a lot I think of the party processes when in the House of Representatives. So we’ll see. The majority-minority situation in the House of Representatives is so tight right now. This could really mix things up.

Beth [00:13:47] I think there are a couple of dynamics worth discussing here. One is that I do think in connection with the Epstein files, there is a contingent of people in the House who are aware that Congress itself is due for an examination of how they handle it when members are accused, especially by staff members of sexual assault or harassment. And I think there are some people in that contingency who I wouldn’t agree with on much else, but I think they’re sincere in their desire to reform Congress. I think expulsion is the worst way to do that. But I think that that’s where some of it comes from. I also know that people fundraise off trying to censure one another, off trying expel one another off the theatrics that come from this as the kind of story that the public can wrap its brain around. That piece of this sends me to the moon with anger. The important things on the desk of the House of Representatives right now, the fact that Congress is just laying down as the president wages this war in Iran. I do not want to hear about this. Also, we have elections. There’s a democratic way to get to these issues. Work with your party, run someone against these folks, put pressure on them and tell them you need to step out, cut off the fundraising spigots where you can and get the information out there. But the people can expel the representatives who don’t deserve to be in the House. We don’t need Congress spending its time this way.

Sarah [00:15:18] Well, and especially since they have work to do. I mean, they’re reconciling the two versions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The House and Senate Budget Committee chairs are beginning to draft instructions for the second reconciliation bill targeting particularly healthcare spending. They want to do this by July, but these Medicaid cuts that they’re talking about, the letting Republicans say they’re going to pay for this through cutting fraud, which is a sleight of hand-- not to mention they have the FISA reauthorization that they’re trying to attach to the Save American Act, which they cannot let go of even though nobody wants it and everybody hates it. Okay, not everybody, but most people. It’s just, to me, taking this razor thin majority and making these two big things y’all are trying to get accomplished, almost impossible by taking all these expulsion votes is just classic Mike Johnson. Lack of management.

Beth [00:16:22] And I would like to focus on the fact that that second reconciliation bill would be about funding ICE and Customs and Border Patrol for several years. Taking those two entities out of the normal process to get them funded so they won’t have to work with a Democratic majority Congress on the funding. And I think, again, if you believe your immigration agenda is popular, stand up and put your name on it. Don’t weasel through this reconciliation package. Defend these organizations or not, but this is the opposite of that. To continue to do things that are so unpopular in such an underhanded way as we approach elections, I think they’re just telling on themselves and they’re giving Democrats a lot to talk about as we head into November.

Sarah [00:17:10] I can’t tell if they care.

Beth [00:17:11] I can’t either. It’s bizarre.

Sarah [00:17:14] I can sincerely not tell if they care. Sometimes I wish I could do like a Freaky Friday and just change places with like a Jamie Comer or somebody just so I could like truly understand the motivations, the strategy, how you’re thinking through all this, seeing how unpopular the war in Iran is, seeing how people are just being squeezed and squeezed and squeezed by prices. Like I am dumbfounded. I know what’s going through some of their minds. Some of their minds are like 50+ of them are like, I’m out, I’m not doing this anymore. What do I care? But the rest who want to stay, I guess there’s just such a high proportion that are in incredibly safe seats and they didn’t get a primary challenge, so they’re just thinking they’re good. I don’t know.

Beth [00:18:08] We have a lot of short-term thinkers in Congress who feel like being in the minority sucks and so I want to get out of that. And then they are in the majority and they’re like, oh, this sucks too. And if you’re unhappy with the job, cool. Get out of the job. It’s a two-year gig. It’s pretty short. You can stand on your head for two years, as my grandmother would have said. I am disgusted though especially by the people who’ve decided they are getting out, that they aren’t doing more to focus on what really matters right now. Again, we have this whole war going on. And for Congress to be bickering over the details of things they know will not pass, for the People’s House to be so knotted up around funding and the Save America Act and these expulsion motions and censures, it just feels so unserious to me. But I would love a different perspective and I would watch that Freaky Friday episode. I would even be willing to make a podcast with Jamie Comer to facilitate that situation.

Sarah [00:19:13] Well, let’s talk about an update on the war in Iran up next. So while we were on spring break, Donald Trump threatened to annihilate the entire Iranian civilization. I don’t really know what else there is to say about that. He was just threatening, threatening, and threatening. Then right up next to his deadline, we got a two week ceasefire deal with Iran. Now, I’m not sure anybody told Israel, who continues to bomb the shit out of Lebanon, the conflict and interest between Israel and the United States has deepened. Israel has been clear that they want to annihilate Hezbollah due to Lebanon what they did to Gaza. I think it was like 40,000 homes have been destroyed. They’ve said you can’t come back. And so I don’t see any real ceasing of hostilities between those two groups anytime soon. And there’s just no light. There’s no daylight, particularly now between Hezbollah and Iran which seems to keep complicating the negotiations between the United States and Iran. Vice President JD Vance put his face and name and presence all over this latest round of negotiations that took place over the weekend. They were mediated by the Prime Minister of Pakistan. They went on for 21 hours, but they got nowhere. They want Iran to give up their enriched uranium. They want Iran to give up control of the Strait of Hormuz and open it back up. Now, Iran was like, no, thank you very much. We have now found this incredible tool in the global economy. So we’re not going to do that. And so now Trump is saying there’s going to be a blockade so that Iran cannot export any oil through the Strait of Hormuz if no one else can either. And it’s just a giant, giant mess.

Beth [00:21:15] I am also angered by the tone of the 21 hours discussion from the White House. Are we supposed to be impressed? You’re holding the whole world by the strings right now. Get back in there. 21 hours is not even a whole day. Get back in there. Take a nap and roll up your sleeves, guys.

Sarah [00:21:39] Well, the pulling up your sleeves is in direct contrast with the vibe of the president who was at a UFC fight as these negotiations fell apart.

Beth [00:21:47] With the Secretary of State.

Sarah [00:21:48] Yeah. And saying, like, I don’t care, we’ve already won, who cares what happens. Outrageous.

Beth [00:21:55] I suppose you can say we’ve already won when you seem to have no idea what winning means. That’s been the problem from the beginning. I have trouble talking about this war because I want to put myself in a space of really testing my biases. I want to ask myself if another administration did this, would I have been supportive? Would I have understood it differently? Would I be thinking about it differently? And when I have gotten to a place on that question, I want to ask myself, okay, well, even if the answer’s no, we shouldn’t have done this, which is where I am. We shouldn’t’ve done this. Okay, well we did. What does a reasonable resolution look like? And this administration just makes it impossible to even pose a serious question because the president shifts his messaging constantly because he says things like we’ve won anyway while at a UFC fight after posting on Truth Social a threat that had the entire universe holding its breath. And then he sends JD Vance over there.

[00:22:56] What possible experience in JD Vance’s life prepared him to conduct these negotiations? You look at this whole team and just think what is going on here? We know from the podcast, former ambassador Swanny Hunt, that women being involved in peace negotiations actually leads to more sustainable peace. There just seems to be no one at the table here who is anything other than a political actor and a political hack. And I think the Iranians have gained as much power as they’ve lost here. If I am part of the Iranian government now, and I don’t even know what the Iranian government is right now, and I don’t think administration knows either, I read reports that one person on background told a news organization, we don’t really know who we’re negotiating with, and we don’t really know what we’re negotiating about. So those seem like problems for any kind of discussion to be successful. But if I were part of whatever contingent in Iran is trying to negotiate something with the United States of America, I think I’d recognize that the Strait of Hormuz in 2026 and beyond might be as valuable to us or more so than having a nuclear weapon. So they’ve not only not articulated what the goal is here, they’ve also probably changed the calculus for Iran several times over by their actions.

Sarah [00:24:14] Yeah. Iran has learned they can treat it like a toll booth.

Beth [00:24:17] One hundred percent. The president told him that. He put it on Truth Social.

Sarah [00:24:21] Yeah, I mean, so that’s a pretty powerful thing. I think he does know what winning is. And it’s when he says it’s winning. He defines his own reality. And for a long time has successfully defined it for enough people that that worked for him. But war is not culture war. We put the word culture in front of it for a reason. And probably that’s not a fair description either. This is different. You can’t just bloviate or filibuster your way through this. It’s the same for the economy. You can’t just say it doesn’t matter. We’re winning. I decide. The way he is communicating is just getting so ridiculous and over the top. I mean, we wanted to talk about his fight with the Pope. I don’t know if you saw this, but did you see that? Amidst this fight with a Pope, he posted a photo of him like Jesus healing someone.

Beth [00:25:37] I did.

Sarah [00:25:37] And it’s a joke. Like everything he says is so over the top, I mean, the Pope’s stuff when he was like he’s soft on crime. The pope? What are you even talking about? My dawg, what are you talking about? I understand the frustration with the people in the House who are starting to talk about the 25th amendment. And also, I don’t know, I could be persuaded. It’s unhinged. And the long post he went after Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens because in the midst of this I’m going to eliminate a whole civilization they said, this is whack, this evil. This is not how somebody’s supposed to talk. So if in the course of a week you’ve pissed off everybody from Pope Leo to Tucker Carlsen and you’re spending your time in the mist of a war and an economic crisis going after them and posting photos of yourself looking like Jesus, maybe this is a 25th Amendment situation.

Beth [00:26:48] We clearly have a problem because even as the civilization ending threat, Truth Social posts came out, I’m also seeing on social media rumors that he’s back at the hospital or perhaps he’s dead or whatever. I mean, it’s wild everything that’s out there. And that is hard to keep your feet on the ground and be a serious person in such an unserious time. I’m not talking about the 25th Amendment because you would need to use smelling salts for me if this cabinet made a move like that. I just think this cabinet is not going to do that. I don’t see where impeachment gets anybody anywhere right now. So all I need to do as my whole body absorbed the true fear and grief and embarrassment and shame that I felt when I read that post was to pray for him. To pray for his mind and his heart and his soul to be moved to see the people and the stakes as real. I think Pope Leo breaks through all of this noise and slop and mess so clearly because everyone is real to him and because he is guided by something that is worth making sacrifices for. And I have never seen any indication that Donald Trump as a business person, as a father, as a human being, certainly as a president, is guided by something worth making sacrifices for. I’ve just never seen it from him. I don’t know what you do when that’s the truth about the president, but that’s the truth about the president as I understand him.

Sarah [00:28:37] I mean, look, I posted on social media myself, I shared Pope Leo carrying the cross through all 14 stations in the Coliseum. It was like the first Pope to do this in like decades. That if he keeps this up, I’m going to convert. He is such a powerful figure. He’s enormously popular. Him inevitably coming to conflict with Donald Trump should not be surprising to anyone based on who Donald Trump is and who Publio has shown himself to be. And I think something about him being American, something about being on the global stage, especially this week where he is heading for an 11 day tour of Africa, which is the future. It’s the future of the Catholic Church and in so many ways, it’s the feature of the globe. And so it’s like that future orientation, that acknowledgement, and just the way he will speak with such clarity and moral authority when he said, I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the gospel.

Pope Leo XIV [00:29:38] I don’t want to get into a debate with him. I don’t think that the message of the gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. And I will continue to speak out about this, against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialog and multilateral relationships among the states to look for just solutions to the problems. Too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed and I think someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way to do this. I have no fear of neither the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message in the gospel. And that’s what I believe.

Sarah [00:30:16] That’s it. And it is so heartening. It is so inspiring. The way Trump continues to pick a fight with him when you are so clearly losing it is just wild to me. It’s also that the Catholic Church is growing. It’s getting all these young converts right now. And you think going after the Pope is the right call? Over spring break on one of our very many long hikes, Nicholas and I were talking about we are in this space where you know it’s not just the war in Ukraine, it’s not just the war in Iran, it is the chaos in Cuba and Haiti and Venezuela and it’s this economic fallout which I think is going to get so much worse. I read this analysis that was saying we’re like moving from price shock to market breakdown. There’s not going to be enough. It’s not about like pricing the futures. The oil won’t be there. The fertilizer won’t be there. Like it’s going to be so bad because this is layering on stress on top of liberation day and all that bullshit. And it’s hard to remember that these were choices. He could have come in with this victory, which he did have in the 2024 election and just coasted and been probably enormously popular by now, even if prices hadn’t come down dramatically. Like you’re just causing all these problems for yourself. Like I told you before we started recording, sometimes it feels like he’s trying to destroy the country on purpose. It’s mind boggling. I hate to bring up the White House again when we talk about these serious things, but it’s like well now it’s a security risk. Well, you tore it down and we’re supposed to be worried about the security risk you created by tearing down the East Wing before asking anybody and not just not asking, but lying straight to everyone’s face and saying you were going to retain the structural integrity. Like it’s so ridiculous.

Beth [00:32:41] I won’t get this right word for word, but John Ossoff has a great line about how in Trump’s America the wealthy get tax breaks, the well-connected get stock tips, and the rest of us are left holding the bag. And that’s what everything that you just talked about looks like. If he were just coasting and preoccupying himself with the decorating and the statues and the arch and whatever...

Sarah [00:33:06] Oh God, don’t bring up the arch! I swear to God, my head will turn around backwards.

Beth [00:33:11] But, look, I could live with that. I wouldn’t like it, but I could live with that. That’s not what he’s doing. He is taking the highest stakes situations that were simmering on the stove and throwing them all over the world’s kitchen. And how could the Pope not address that when this administration tells us in a number of forms that they do it in the name of Christianity? I understand people don’t want to go to church and hear who to vote for. I don’t either. But when the Christian church is being used as justification, as deflection, as sword and shield by the president and so many actors within this government, I absolutely need religious leaders to say something about that. And I think the Pope is saying the best things that he can say on the other side of it.

Sarah [00:34:09] Well, and again, okay, let’s say he didn’t have all these completely unforced errors. I’m not saying there weren’t going to be challenges and difficulties. But he’s not paying attention to any of those either. Like the artificial intelligence, I am concerned about AI, obviously. I am growing more concerned about the tenor of AI resistance. So over the weekend a man was arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s San Francisco home. Since then, there has been another attack on his home. And what really freaked me out was there was an Indiana lawmaker whose house was attacked and there was a note that was like “No data centers.” Just like the vitriol and the violence. And when you have a system that seems so corrupt, when everybody’s getting powerful and more rich and more powerful. And I’m supposed to read this piece of the New York Times about how Lauren Sanchez Bezos deserves to be happy. There’s a part of me that’s like I’m really concerned about this, and also I think it’s completely predictable. People feel powerless. Concerning people on the thin edge between wellness and violence, this is not a good environment for them. Is he paying attention in all of this? No.

[00:35:36] I finally sat down and read the oral history of Health and Human Services under Robert Kennedy’s leadership. And the part I cannot stop thinking about, because I hadn’t even realized, is that you had that attack on a federal building where the man came and shot at the CDC and killed a police officer, and Trump has never acknowledged it. Never even acknowledged it. And who’s soft on crime and who doesn’t care about law and order? Not to mention, I read a whole list of all the crimes that the January 6th people who were released have committed since then. That about sent me over the edge. So it’s not just like he could have not created more problems. There still would have been problems. There still are other problems and it’s not just he’s ignoring them, he’s often making them actively worse.

Beth [00:36:22] To your point about this being predictable, I was on a panel years ago now with some business leaders locally. And one of them said after the panel, people like me who have made it well past the American dream, the American dream with an exponent, have got to recognize that we are in French Revolution territory right now. Something has to give. This is not going to work. And that was years ago before anyone was talking about artificial intelligence at anything close to the scale we are today. And so I don’t think this is technology resistance. I just think AI has taken the sentiment that was already existing and supercharged it and given it new tools and changed the way that we talk to each other about these issues and created new opportunities for people who wish us harm to come in and divide us at an even greater depth and scale. And here again we have a president untethered to any kind of guide post to help us through that. I don’t think a lot of Sam Altman, but I read his blog post about this. I don’t wish him harm, certainly. I don’t wish for his home to be attacked. And I was reading his post saying, we need a social conversation. We need social leadership. We need democratic leadership on what is supposed to happen with AI. Who is to guide us through that right now? There are a number of ideas about that, but even if we went hard at it, even if we said, you know what, AI is a utility. Data centers have to be approved by this federal agency. We’re creating a new federal agency to deal with all of this. Do you want this administration to be in charge of that? Do you think this administration stewards that more responsibly than private industry is stewarding it? I don’t know. I have no confidence whatsoever that putting more power in the federal government, which is where I think it would have to sit, would do much for us right now. It might make it worse.

Sarah [00:38:24] Well, after reading the oral histories of the takeover, the FBI, the Justice Department, and the Department of Health and Human Services, my answer is definitively no. It is a shit show. Every one of those, if you’ve not read those three from the New York Times, I don’t know. I don’t know what kind of mental health preparation you would need to do to read them all at once, but it would be something. And this was so frustrating. Like to the Sam Altman of it all, if we didn’t have to spend all our time talking about the horrific leadership from the Trump administration. Like you could spend a whole show on him because there’s a lot going on there. Yeah, he’s not your favorite because the New Yorker just did this human investigation and there’s some real problems. Two decades of deception, manipulation, this idea that he is a liar, no other word for it. He still has that lawsuit from his sister accusing him of sexual abuse. He said in one of his posts, “I’m not a normal person anymore.” What does that mean? I have some ideas. Meanwhile, OpenAI is valued at $852 billion. And also I am kind of interested in his policy proposal structured on the new deal. I respect that he at least put it out there. No one else was. And it’s like how do you hold all of that at the same time that he’s getting Molotov cocktails thrown at his house? I’m not really sure.

Beth [00:39:50] We have the same situation with Sam Altman, which he does at least acknowledge that we have with this president. One person’s whims, desires, baggage, motivations, cannot hold the world by a string. And we keep landing there. That that’s what is happening with Donald Trump, and that’s what is happening with a lot of these tech leaders. It’s just too much power and responsibility for one person.

Sarah [00:40:14] Well, and you have Sam Altman, Elon Musk, another person who’s like sort of in that scenario, they’re going to be going to trial about their ongoing feud. Jury selection begins April 27th. To me it’s been described all kinds of ways like predatory foreign policy coming from the United States or as Ezra called it, head on a pike foreign policy. Like, it feels like all these kings feuding: Musk, Altman, Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping, Netanyahu. It did not feel like that to me in my 20s or 30s. Like there were powerful people, but this was a table that everyone was sitting at and everybody had different motivations and there was an ability to keep them in check. And as people feel tossed around, and at the mercy of the whims of people who do not lead normal lives, they’re going to keep lashing out. They’re going to keep lashing out.

Beth [00:41:27] That is a global phenomenon for sure. In America, if I had to focus in on one problem to start chipping away at to deal with that, it is our Congress.

Sarah [00:41:40] I thought you were going to say Melania and Jeffrey Epstein.

Beth [00:41:44] No. I do want to talk about Melania and Jeffrey.

Sarah [00:41:49] You don’t think that’s the number one issue facing our nation requiring an important presidential address?

Beth [00:41:58] It isn’t. No, but standing at the same podium that he stands at to talk about war and peace, there she is. Before we talk about her, I want to say all of this used to be how the world was. We explicitly designed a system informing this nation to keep the world from being that again, to change how the world is, and we have degraded it so significantly. We also have an opportunity to change that. I don’t mean to be a broken record, but the way that this Congress is doing nothing-- and I put it on the Democrats too. I’m tired of reading pieces about how it’s unfair to be angry at the Democrats because what can they really do about the war? I don’t know, but it’s something more than the people they represent can do about the war. And I think it’s pretty clear what the American people want here. And I think that they ought to take some risks and stand up and be counted and do their darndest to reclaim their mantle as the first branch of government. And if they don’t, they are sentencing us to a world of capricious kings picking at each other and all of us being tossed around in the midst of those fights and people casually discussing ending civilizations because that’s what they feel like that day. But Melania...

Sarah [00:43:33] Well, I think there is a thread here because it’s not unrelated to Jeffrey Epstein in this story. A lot of what we’ve talked about today. But also that feeling of like the powerful play by a different set of rules. And also before we get to her at the same podium that he was at, I want to talk about him going to that podium and saying absolutely nothing really quick because I don’t want to pollute our discussion of Artemis with discussions of him, but it’s almost like he couldn’t stand that the attention was on the astronaut.

Beth [00:44:02] A hundred percent.

Sarah [00:44:03] So he stood up and said nothing, just so we were talking about him again. He didn’t even go to the launch. Even though this is part of his legacy, he was definitely pushing a revitalization of NASA, pushing back going to the moon. Couldn’t even take credit for it. I know nobody wants to hear me say this, never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. I stand by that analysis. I think it’s always true, still true. I don’t know if the same is true for Melania. I don’t know if it’s like missed an opportunity. I just am so often baffled by her. And there’s like moments where I’m like I totally get what makes her tick. This was not one of them.

Beth [00:44:44] I do think Melania fits into the thematic elements we’ve been discussing in that she behaves like a queen. She owes the public nothing, except exactly what she wants to give the public. Melania cares about Melania. I really wanted in Trump’s first term for there to be a redemption arc for Melania, for there be more going on than met the eye, for her to be telling us something, telegraphing things. There was so much analysis around her in the first term. After observing her through that first term, reading her book, watching how she’s behaved in this second term, I don’t think any of that. I just think that she is a queen in a world of kings. And that’s how she conducts and comports herself. I thought that this move was wild and that it tracks. Both things are true for me. I find few people as unrelatable as I find Melania Trump. I don’t understand anything about her worldview. I perceive her as someone who’s pretty shallow on the whole. The nice things I can say is I think she really loves her son. I think she really loves her parents. I think she does care about children generally. I know she’s doing foster care work with some legislators right now. I think there are some things that she tries to do that are good. And I think she wants us to know that she’s a benevolent queen. What specific piece of information prompted her to stand at the podium and defend only herself, not her husband, to do it in a way that seemed to be thrown together very, very quickly.

Sarah [00:46:19] Yeah, I mean the reporting is the aides had no idea.

Beth [00:46:22] Well, and a lot of people pointed out the blinds coming down behind her midway through the press conference. And then what struck me more than the blind, the one person I still open Instagram for is Queen City Lisa, who is a local influencer who tells us about Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky things to do. She also happens to be one of our academic team parents and like the nicest person you’ll ever meet. She pointed out that Melania was backlit and Melania would never choose to be backlit. That’s the kind of thing she pays attention to and has expertise in? So everything felt very thrown together to me about it. Again, on the socials, there is conversation about that New York Times piece where Trump had a woman deported on behalf of a friend. And that that specific story has tentacles to Melania that Melania does not like. I don’t know if that’s it or something else. I don’t know if we’re waiting on a big reported piece that she wanted to get in front of. Whatever it is, I’ve heard lots of theories. It is clear to me that it came together very quickly and that it is further evidence that she is the queen and it’s just about her and nothing else.

Sarah [00:47:32] Well, and it gave the Epstein story more oxygen, which is never what you’d want, even if there is some story coming out about her. To me, you saying she’s shallow is 100% correct. Like she’s the queen and she’s dumb about stuff like this. No one’s told her instincts are bad, but her instincts are bad. Clearly she only has yes men around her. Clearly she only has people who tell her how smart and wonderful and beautiful she is. I don’t really think he gets onto her, criticizes her about anything. So no one says to her like, hey, in the middle of all this AI backlash, maybe you don’t walk through the halls of the White House with a robot. How about that?

Beth [00:48:16] And present it as a teacher? All of that was as bad as it possibly could have been.

Sarah [00:48:21] As bad as it could get. Hey, let’s not give oxygen to this Epstein story. She clearly doesn’t ask for advice. Why would she? No one in this administration does. It’s just a smaller queenly manifestation of the mistakes they make, including with the Iran war. We know we’re the smartest. We know what’s going to happen. There’s no need to plan or take seriously the strategic long-term risks of any of our actions because if it doesn’t go our way we’ll just say it’s going our way and that should be good enough.

Beth [00:48:50] And again, you’d like to find some deeper meaning there. You’d like think maybe she really wants to elevate the voices of the victims. Maybe she really thinks that this should stay in the news. Maybe she wants to hurt him, but I just don’t believe any of that.

Sarah [00:48:59] No, I don’t.

Beth [00:49:00] I don’t believe any of it. I think there is something that got her goat. And on a moment’s notice, she said, “Summon the commoners to listen to me, and they will believe what I tell them.”

Sarah [00:49:12] There’s no there-there. You know what I’m saying?

Beth [00:49:15] I do.

Sarah [00:49:16] Okay, well, we’ve gone from the massively impactful to the merely befuddling. Now let’s wrap this up with something positive since so much of it was not, which is JD Vance. This is me being petty, and then we will move into the real human consequences of this. But JD Vans keeps losing. Before he went to the negotiations that he failed at. He went too Hungary to campaign for Viktor Orban, who has ruled Hungary for 16 years, slowly degrading their democracy in the process. I guess it didn’t work because after 16 years, Orban is out. He lost. Opposition leader Peter Magyar won. His party won 53.6% of the vote, 138 of the 199 parliamentary seats. Incredible. Incredible. In fact, they think his party might have two thirds majority enough to amend Hungary’s constitution and dismantle much of Orban’s grip on the judiciary, staying on enterprises, the media. One of my friends lives in Hungary and he was saying there was like a hot mic moment where one of the media outlets was like, we’ll be back with more. And then the hot mic, the person was like more what? Like, what are we going to say? We’re supposed to just say good stuff about Viktor Orban and he just lost? And they were kind of like ad-libbing about how crazy it was for their media situation. So. It’s a new day for Hungary for sure.

Beth [00:50:51] That has global ramifications that I do not want to brush past. But as an American, I also do not want to brush past the fact that our vice president went to Hungary to campaign in their presidential election full stop. You could end there and say, what? What? When we’re at war, when we have the issues that we have, when healthcare is so expensive, when any number of other things. What? The vice president went to hungry to do a campaign stop for their presidential elections. But also to campaign for someone who has governed as an authoritarian, who has made the media fearful of criticizing him for any number of other things. I got to be honest though, if JD Vance were out stumping for someone I really like, I wouldn’t be enthusiastic about that either. I understand that we have a lot of disputes in our country about America’s role in the world. I feel pretty confident that historic majorities of Americans would agree that our vice president’s role is not to get involved in other countries choosing their leaders.

Sarah [00:51:57] Yeah, there’s only one that’s like pro-Russia. And it makes sense through the lens of this administration that they love somebody who was anti-EU. But I mean the Hungarian people who turned out in massive numbers, the turnout was like 77% or something bananas. If you have not heard them all singing, we are the champion in this big rally, I highly recommend it. It’s uplifting. Magyar ran on a anti-corruption, pro-EU platform. He’s still center right. This is not some like super leftist, but like a real social movement. I mean, the crowds at his rallies are insane. And it’s just so interesting to me that you’re seeing how in other places in Europe too, like with Germany’s AFD, with Milani in Italy, with some of the far right candidates, these populist candidates in France, they’re just running out of room. They’re running out of room on this message. And they’re certainly running out of room and aligning themselves with Trump. Orban and Trump have been like peas in a pod. And it was concerning because of this sort of march of populist authoritarianism around the globe. And people don’t like it.

[00:53:11] And I totally agree about him coming to campaign for him. I just cannot. It is so difficult. I don’t know if I ever took Steve Bannon and his flood the zone strategy as seriously as I should have because there’s just so many times when I think we’ve just forgotten that this is abnormal. I guess because it’s gone on now for 10 years, this Trump era, I don’t know if you still call it abnormal. But I’ve lived for 44 and a president campaigning against a member of his own party, sharing pictures of himself looking like Jesus, posting crude curse word filled missives on Easter Sunday... Remember when they were all mad about Obama’s suit? I know that’s like always the example, but it is hard to just remember one of these things that barely gets an attention like this disaster with the labor secretary. The fallout at the CDC. Like the fact that we have a measles outbreak. Children are dying from measles and it barely gets a damn mention because you can’t swim through all the shit. The norms they shred, the offensive inhuman, from inhuman to ridiculous to stupid. It’s maddening.

Beth [00:54:45] I spent the weekend with a group of listeners at a retreat and we had a presentation party where everybody got to show up and give a presentation about anything they wanted to. And one of our listeners did this amazing presentation, Tina, about a species of bird that was introduced in a very incompetent way to manage a bug population and the bird was an invasive species. Okay? And the bird has been treated as an invasive species by the bird community for a very long time. And Tina, who is as best I can tell, the most fabulous homeschooling mom you’ve ever met, was pushing her kids on the question, how long do you think of something as an invasive species? If that bird has been here for 100 years now, is it still invasive? Or is it part of a constantly adapting, evolving, changing ecosystem? And she told that as a very beautiful and poignant allegory about immigration. But I was thinking about it in this context, too. There has been this global march around populism and there is something in that that persists. A lot of what we’ve talked about in this episode, things we’re mad about or worried about, could be characterized fairly as populist concerns. But the governance by the populists has been manipulative and selfish and demonstrably taking advantage of populist sentiment instead of trying to serve the people that elected them.

[00:56:38] And I don’t want to be ugly to the people that elected them in the course of figuring out, okay, here we are in this world where for a decade we have had an invasive species in our politics. It’s becoming part of our ecosystem. There are things about that that will endure. There are things that will fall away. And I think it’s just such a difficult moment to know that we’re in the midst of that adaptation. We’re seeing people say, “I voted for him three times. I’m so mad at him. I voted for him three times. I’m so embarrassed that he posted himself looking like Jesus.” I’m not going to say to any of those people, “Yeah, you’re the worst. You suck. You should never vote again.” I don’t feel that way. I feel the things shifting. I feel of the ecosystem sorting out what needs to fall away here and what is here to stay and what will remain. And I certainly hope that a lot of what we’ve talked about today is part of what has to go to make way for something new.

Sarah [00:57:41] Hungary’s central message of anti-corruption, that the government was no longer serving the people, was incredibly successful and hyper relevant here. I mean, Ezra Klein wrote a piece about the criticism of Hassan Piker. Tim Miller just wrote a peace saying like we’ve got to invite the America first people and he made it a lowercase first. Do you think Hungary got to this spot where 77% of people voted and they voted overwhelmingly for the new guy because they were shaming people who’d fell for it? Even if you voted for him three times, even if I feel that some corruption was predictable, this level even surprises me. So there’s plenty of room for forgiveness and an invitation to join us in fighting this level of grift and exploitation and power-hungry greed. Like even the person who wanted very different things than I do about abortion or crime, I don’t think they wanted this. Again, I hesitate to say it wasn’t predictable. But again, even I’m surprised. Did anybody think he was going to roll in there in the first year and tear down the East Wing of the White House? He still has the capacity to just blow through norms and expectations. And we have got to acknowledge that and find space for people who are just as surprised by it as we are. And even if you’re not surprised, even if you predicted all of this, there’s supposed to be a path forward. We all weren’t in the same place. Maybe we’re getting closer to the same place now. I mean, you see glimmers of it with Artemis, with these moments. And so it’s not impossible.

Beth [00:59:47] And you have to be careful. Now this opposition party in Hungary has to deliver. An anti-corruption message can also be a manipulative message that was part of Trump’s message. Remember, he was going to drain the swamp. He was going to clean this up. He told us this is how the world works and I’m going to come change it. And instead he said this how the word works and I going to come get even more of it. I’m going to get an even bigger piece of it. If I stick with the birds, I try to remember that the birds outlasted the dinosaurs because people who want to come and take the bigger chunk don’t make it through the evolutionary process. And I do hope that we figure out here in the United States. I hope the people of Hungary figure this out. Ukraine has been in this process for a number of years before Putin invaded it. What does it look like to truly reorient your government to one that serves the population instead of takes from the population?

Sarah [01:00:41] Well, hopefully Hungary is not the last to try to figure that out. Artemis II made it b ack safely.

Beth [01:00:57] I’m so relieved and happy.

Sarah [01:00:58] I knew they were going to. I just want to say that. I was not worried.

Beth [01:01:04] I was worried.

Sarah [01:01:05] I was not. I’ve felt nothing but peace and calm and competence. Like that was my inner gut vibe the whole time.

Beth [01:01:16] Not me. I have been infected by a lot of what we’ve been talking about. And I had read that there were some systems that people were worried about and they were afraid this launch was rushed and should have been delayed. And in my mind, there was no way it was going to be delayed because of X and the SpaceX IPO. And so I was concerned and I felt very, very, very relieved when they splashed down so successfully.

Sarah [01:01:41] Well, and I just thought the science and the technological achievement that they went so far was something. But I don’t know if these astronauts got media training. I’m assuming they did.

Beth [01:01:57] Who did they hire? I would like their business cars.

Sarah [01:02:00] Seriously. Because they just were up for it. They were here telling us philosophy, talking like poets, getting everybody on board, uniting people, sharing some of that incredible perspective that astronauts uniquely have. And it’s just really beautiful.

Beth [01:02:24] I would love to play the audio from one of those poet philosopher moments that really touched me.

Astronaut Victor Glover [01:02:31] You have this amazing place, this spaceship. You guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth, but you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos. Maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we’re doing is special but we’re the same distance from you and I’m trying to tell you, just trust me, you are special. In all of this emptiness, this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe. You have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together. I think as we go into Easter Sunday thinking about all the cultures all around the world, whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not, this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are and that we are the same thing and that we got to get through this together.

Beth [01:03:18] Thinking of Earth as a spaceship given to us in the midst of a universe that is so filled with nothingness, just going to be holding onto that for long. That’s a new Bible verse for me.

Sarah [01:03:31] We were in Big Bend for part of our spring break, which is like a dark sky certified place. You can see so many stars. And just the way it works on your head, just here sitting on top of a truck, looking up in Texas. I cannot fathom what it’s like being up there and understanding the expansiveness of space. And there’s this thing that happens to you. And I think some of this is like scientifically established. And it’s not even just looking up at space. It’s like when you look up at an expanse and you look far in the distance, it changes your brain. And I think that they give us a moment to do that. Everybody’s all on their little screens and Artemis II gave us an opportunity to look up and be awed and be inspired and remember that there is so much more to our shared identity as citizens than politics. And you just heard I think over and over again how hungry people were for that.

Beth [01:04:50] I think that’s right. This spaceship metaphor works for me in the sense that it is also precarious, that it’s precious, that it requires work and caretaking. I had so many moments, especially the Easter Sunday post from the president, I had some many moments when I thought, why do we do this to each other? Why are we not all working together to keep our spaceship in good condition, to keep it working? To see how amazing it is. We also went out west for spring break and drove and drove, and drove and drove and saw so many amazing things and work constantly in awe at the scale and the colors and the layers that are created over millions of years on this planet that we all share. And it just was such a reminder that it’s a gift to live here. It’s a responsibility to live here. And I don’t want to spend the precious time that I have to receive and to steward in a wasteful, selfish, short-term posture.

Sarah [01:06:09] That’s why I was so grateful to Artemis too, as I know we all were, for giving us another posture to adopt at least over the last week or so. We hope that you find another similar posture to adopt when you listen to us here at Pantsuit Politics. We thank you so much for listening today. We will be back in your ears on Friday with another episode. We’ll see you in the comments on Substack. Until then, keep it nuanced y’all.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Sarah is here talking with Aaron Barrett, a retired professional baseball player and current manager of the Clearwater Threshers. They talk about the culture of baseball, Aaron’s experience with Tommy John surgery, the impact of sports gambling on players, and the status of league negotiations. As a very dedicated baseball fan, I’m so excited about this one. And because I love baseball, I couldn’t stay out of it. So outside of politics, I share some thoughts on the new ABS system, aka “are the robots taking over baseball?” -Beth

Topics Discussed

• Aaron Barrett on Baseball, Resilience, and Protecting Players

• Outside of Politics: Who’s Calling Balls and Strikes?

Episode Resources

Help us celebrate our community in Minneapolis! Submit your design for our Good Neighbor T-Shirt Contest by April 30.

• Aaron Barrett (@aaronbarrett30) (Instagram)

• Nats call up Aaron Barrett in emotional announcement (ESPN)

• Clearwater Threshers Announce 2026 Coaching Staff

• MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement (MLB)

Episode Transcript

Beth [00:00:29] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. We’re on spring break this week, so I’m speaking to you from the past. I’m recording this little introduction on Wednesday, April 1st. Who even knows what has transpired between my time and yours right now? Sarah and I’ll be back in real time next Tuesday to break whatever it is down, but for today, we have a true treat for you. Sarah is here talking with Aaron Barrett, a retired professional baseball player and current manager of the Clearwater Threshers. They talk about the culture at baseball, Aaron’s experience with Tommy John surgery, the impact of sports gambling on players and the status of league negotiations. As a very dedicated baseball fan myself, I am so excited about this one. And because I love baseball, I couldn’t stay out of it. So Outside of Politics, I share some thoughts on the new ABS system, AKA are the robots taking over baseball? Before Sarah and Aaron talk about America’s favorite pastime, I want to remind you that our special edition T-shirt design contest is in full swing. We’re inviting you to submit designs for one special summer shirt that celebrates our community, America’s 250th birthday, and our live show in Minneapolis in August. We want this to be a shirt inspired by all that greatness, but that you’d also just be genuinely happy to wear in your life for many years to come. The theme is Good Neighbors. You can find all the details in our notes and on Substack. Submissions are open through April 30th. We cannot wait to see what Good Neighbors looks like to you. Next up, Sarah talks Baseball with Aaron Barrett.

Sarah [00:02:10] Aaron Barrett, welcome to Pantsuit Politics. I’m so excited you’re here.

Aaron Barrett [00:02:16] Me too!

Sarah [00:02:17] And not just because I’m related to Aaron-- although I am-- but also because, although, I am not a sports fanatic, let’s be clear, the people are not going to be fooled if I roll in and try to be some sports aficionado. Sports culture, sports management, especially around baseball, that stuff is endlessly fascinating to me. So when you got your new job as the manager of the Clearwater Threshers, I was like, hey, you want to come on Pantsuit Politics and talk about like the culture of baseball? And you were like, yeah, I do. So, first of all, people now just know your role and that we’re related, but tell people about your history inside baseball.

Aaron Barrett [00:02:59] Yeah. It’s kind of a long story.

Sarah [00:03:02] Yeah, I was going to say, how long have you been playing baseball, Aaron?

Aaron Barrett [00:03:05] I’ve been playing since I was five years old.

Sarah [00:03:07] Oh my gosh.

Aaron Barrett [00:03:08] But this is my 16th year in professional baseball.

Sarah [00:03:12] So you played for which teams and where are you now?

Aaron Barrett [00:03:16] Played, obviously, high school baseball, grew up in Evansville, Indiana, and then I went to Wabash Valley Junior College in Illinois and then transferred to University of Mississippi-- go Rebels-- and drafted by the Nationals and then made it to the big leagues in 2014. And then obviously we’ll probably unpack a lot of the other stuff. But basically, drafted in 2010, made it to the big leagues in 2014. Officially retired in 2022 and then went to the other side, the dark side, as they call it-- just kidding-- with the Philadelphia Phillies right after that.

Sarah [00:03:55] Okay. And is this your first official management role?

Aaron Barrett [00:03:58] This is my first ever time being a manager of a team in Pro-Ball, forever really.

Sarah [00:04:06] You’re explaining to me that this is what level-- I didn’t know there were so many. I knew you were in the minor leagues and then I knew were in major leagues. Those are the levels I know about. You just told me there were more than that.

Aaron Barrett [00:04:17] Yeah, so it can be a little complicated because in the other sports like NFL and NBA, well, the NBA has what’s called the G League and D League, I think, whatever they want to call it. But in baseball, it’s such a high skill sport. And because it’s based off, again, if you really think about it, a Hall of Fame player if they get three hits out of ten at bats, again, you’re failing seven times. You’re considered a Hall of Famer. So it takes a lot of patience and a lot of skill to be really good at this game. So we have what’s called the minor leagues. And so when you get drafted we have the rookie level which is at the complex, and then Low-A, which is where I’ll be this year. And then we have High-A, then we AA, and then we have AAA and the next step after AAA is the big leagues. So it’s a long process.

Sarah [00:05:20] Well, I remember when you were in the minor leagues, I remember going to dinner with you and you’re like, well, if you figure up all my time, it’s like $3.25 an hour. You were drafted four times before you signed a professional contract. So what kept you going? What advice are you going to give these guys who’ve now been drafted and are starting this process?

Aaron Barrett [00:05:40] I think the unique thing for me is everybody has their own story and I’ve, obviously, my whole journey from start to finish up until this point has covered a lot of different perspectives. So I’m excited to now be able to connect with these guys because I feel like every single player in that clubhouse I can actually connect with and I think that’s what makes my perspective unique. So I’m excited just to be able to, again, every single guy, whether you’re a first-rounder, or whether you are a guy that’s on the bubble, or whether you’re a Latin American guy, whatever, I feel like I have an opportunity to connect with them and share them like, hey, as long as you have a jersey on, you have an opportunity to be a major league player. And that’s the whole purpose of why these guys-- again, it’s the dreams, it’s the vision. So I’m excited just to be able to inspire these guys and hopefully help them the best that I can.

Sarah [00:06:42] Well, your journey inside the majors was kind of crazy because you played for the nationals, you went to the world series, like the dream that everybody envisions, but I think one of the things at the time you were most well-known for that got all this attention and is now to me a part of such a bigger story that’s happening inside baseball and specifically inside pitching is the Tommy John surgery. So tell the people about your Tommy John story.

Aaron Barrett [00:07:17] I was on the rise in the major leagues and ended up making an opening day roster in 2014 with the Nationals and was kind of on my way to having a lot of success in the major leagues, pushing the playoffs. And then in 2015 I was leading all the baseball and appearances, just doing my thing, trying to be the next back in closer, being the guy that was my dream, to be the next big thing. And unfortunately, I pitched a lot and arm couldn’t hold up and end up having to get Tommy John surgery. And so for those who don’t--

Sarah [00:07:59] Wait, for people who don’t know, we’re throwing that around, but for people who don’t what that is, tell them.

Aaron Barrett [00:08:05] I think I can’t remember is back in way back when I can remember exactly the day, but there actually was a picture named Tommy John in the major leagues and he’s the first person to ever have surgery successfully done. So what happens, there’s a ligament inside your elbow called the under collateral ligament. And due to either increased velocity or overuse, which that’s what happened in my case, the ligament will either stretch or it’ll just break. And so we’re right now in kind of an epidemic across all of baseball, not only in the major leagues, I think they just came out the statistic the other day that 39% of guys in the Major Leagues end up having Tommy John’s surgery, which is insane.

Sarah [00:08:54] That’s insane!

Aaron Barrett [00:08:56] But even worse is it’s the youth, the youth right now, the amount of kids from anywhere from 13 to 17 years old, it’s happening at an absolute rapid rate. And obviously it pulls on my heartstrings a lot. Well, anyway, so the surgery itself, you can do it a couple of different ways. So they get your palmaris tendon, there’s this little tendon and they take that tendon out and then they attach it to this bone on the inside and that’s how they replace it or you can also get it from your hamstring. So next thing you know, 12 to 16 months later of rehab you’re all brand new and go get them. So that’s kind of the short story of what Tommy John surgery is.

Sarah [00:09:47] So you got it in 2015 and then what happened?

Aaron Barrett [00:09:50] So in 2015, I absolutely dominate my rehab. I’m literally a week away from going back to the major leagues, crushing it. And on a backfield game on one pitch, I’ve been pitching just like I have my whole life. Actually, as I’m accelerating my arm forward, I snap my humerus bone in half, break it.

Sarah [00:10:12] You broke your bone. Y’all, this was very traumatic for Aaron and also the rest of our family. Witnesses said it sounded like a gunshot. That’s the part that I can never, will never forget.

Aaron Barrett [00:10:23] Yeah. I’ve gotten a lot better telling the story because I’ve told it a lot now, but every time that I do tell the story, it’s just such a traumatic event for me. We had a couple guys puking in the dugout when it happened. They said it sounded like take like two stacks of like two by fours and then like snap those in half.

Sarah [00:10:47] Oh my god.

Aaron Barrett [00:10:48] Yeah, it is not supposed to happen. There’s only been a handful, I think five or six guys in the history of major league baseball, that’s happened to. I know there have been some other kids at the youth level it’s happened to, but...

Sarah [00:11:02] Where they broke their bone doing it?

Aaron Barrett [00:11:05] Yeah, but it’s such a rare thing. It’s not supposed to happen. So next thing you know, I go up to Dr. Andrews who did my original surgery. And when he first saw the x-ray, he actually thought I got in a car accident because again, what I did is not supposed to happen.

Sarah [00:11:26] So then you get it again.

Aaron Barrett [00:11:28] So, that whole story is wild because, again, they didn’t understand how it happened. And so, my surgery is supposed to only be about two hours, and it ended up lasting six. And the reason why is because every time they went to drill a screw into my bone, the drill bit would break off in my bone. So, they had to replace the drill bit all 16 times. So it lasted six hours. So when I woke up, the pain was unlike anything I’ve ever imagined. So two plates, 16 screws. And basically they told me I would never throw a baseball ever again.

Sarah [00:12:13] But you did.

Aaron Barrett [00:12:14] But I did.

Sarah [00:12:18] How long were you in rehab the second time?

Aaron Barrett [00:12:20] The way that you count rehab is in order to be a successful rehab, you have to throw a pitch successfully at the same level you’re at. So for me, since I was in the major leagues in 2015, my total rehab process was a total of four years to make it back to my previous level.

Sarah [00:12:43] What was it like when you got back there?

Aaron Barrett [00:12:47] Unlike anything I could ever imagine. That whole process is really like very humbling. I felt like I had a pretty decent faith foundation and it broke me. To be honest with you. And so, I wanted nothing to do with God. I shut him out of my life and questioned everything, questioned why. Because I felt like I was a pretty good person and felt like I was on the-- again, I made mistakes just like everybody else, but it was such a traumatic event that I just... So, for me, the gift that he blessed me with he also broke me with it. So that was very, very, very hard to swallow. So I just wanted nothing to do with him and so I just thought that I could do everything on my own. And about a year into my rehab process I was on my hands and knees begging for everything that I can’t do it anymore on my own. And then slowly started getting back in word and my daily devotional. And sure enough I started healing a little bit more and start getting a little bit better. And the days turned into weeks, the weeks turned into months, and the months turned into years, obviously. And next thing you know three and a half, four years later, and I finally get the call, then there’s that viral video of me getting called back up where my teammates just mobbed me in September 7th in 2019.

[00:14:31] So that whole story is nuts because I’m living in Atlanta at that time. And for me, again, to have my first game back in Atlanta where all my family’s there, it’s where I’m living, that’s such a God thing. And I just remember it’s kind of a funny story. I get called like, hey, you’re going to the game. I’m a wreck. I’m a emotional mental wreck. And I’m on the mound. I’m just like it’s a bigger deal than it was my first in my major debut, you know? And so I go ball one, ball two, ball three, ball four, ball five, ball six. And I remember I step off the mound and I go, what are you doing? And it’s like you’ve been dreaming about this for four years and this is how you’re going to start? Like, let’s go. So I reset, get the guy out, next guy out. And then I strike out Ronald Cuney Jr. who’s arguably one of the best players in the game. And then get the next guy. And I just come off the mound and it just hits me. And it all is such a humbling feeling knowing that what God did in my life. I’m getting a little choked up thinking about it because it was incredible. I can’t even explain what that moment was for me.

Sarah [00:16:18] What I think is so interesting and what I really wanted to talk to you about today is that I think as you’re like going into this manager position, you have to put together your individual story with what’s happening in baseball broadly. And at the time I remember it was such a big deal. You were the only person to have had it twice. Now that’s no longer true. I’ve read something the other day that somebody might be getting it like three times or maybe they already have. My first question is like, were you just mad at yourself and God? Were you ever mad at baseball? Like where you ever felt like were you questioning like the overworking or the-- and now that you’ve seen this like play out broadly, how do you think about your own journey and how are you going to coach these guys? I know one thing you mentioned to me was like a different philosophy around pitching. Like how are putting your journey, this broader trend and all of this together as you’re responsible for other players?

Aaron Barrett [00:17:15] It’s a great question. Yeah, the state of the game is definitely much different than when I played, and the demands of the game are much different and the type of player. I think the average velocity right now-- again, I do like 95, 96. And I think the average philosophy right now is like 94, 95, which is crazy.

Sarah [00:17:40] It’s not like you were playing 20 years ago. It wasn’t that long ago.

Aaron Barrett [00:17:42] I know. I know it’s crazy. So I think the trend of what the athlete-- like the athlete today is on another level. They are so talented. Whether it’s the nutrition, it’s the way they train. It is just different. Not in a bad way. And I was the rehab coordinator before this position. So one of the things that I try to now preach is your best ability is your availability. Like, it doesn’t matter if you’re not on the field. So getting these guys to understand, okay, what is your routine? Now that’s really hard to find your routine when you’re 18 years old coming out of high school. Or some of these guys have been in college, so maybe they have a little bit better system. But I think it’s going to be unique for me to be able to help these guys understand what the day-to-day grind looks like to be able to come to the field every single day prepared to play because that’s the goal. The goal should be to play 10 years in the big leagues, at least.

Sarah [00:19:07] Interesting.

Aaron Barrett [00:19:09] With the demands of the game and everybody that’s especially on the pitching side, longevity is not really a thing anymore. So trying to find ways to get these guys to understand what these guys are doing to be able to stay on the field for a long, long time. Not just this year, but for the long haul.

Sarah [00:19:33] Yeah, and I feel like the strategy of just getting Tommy John multiple times is not a great one.

Aaron Barrett [00:19:37] No, it’s not.

Sarah [00:19:38] As far as longevity, you know?

Aaron Barrett [00:19:41] No, it’s not. And it’s hard. You have to balance it because the game is very hard. It’s very hard like I mentioned before. And so, obviously, seeing the trends of the game, where we’re at with velocity and pitch shapes and they call it stuff. They call it having good stuff.

Sarah [00:20:06] That’s a word doing a lot of work when it comes to pitching- calling it stuff.

Aaron Barrett [00:20:11] That’s always been a thing though. So the harder that you threw, it just affords you, allows you to make more mistakes. So someone that has a little bit more control of the baseball can obviously put it where you want. A guy that has like nastier stuff or harder velocity, you don’t have to be as accurate. But in the major leagues these guys are the best of the best. So balancing that, the demands of the game, while still trying to find ways to keep these guys on the field for the long haul, and that’s like the state of the game right now where we’re at.

Sarah [00:20:52] Yeah, and that’s a lot. Like what would you tell what would you tell a young pitcher in your clubhouse who had to go get Tommy John? What would you say to them?

Aaron Barrett [00:21:02] The message that I delivered now, because I’m a firm believer, again, based on my story is everything does happen for a reason. I’m a firm believer in that number one. So in the moment it stinks and now my message is you have to look at this as an opportunity. There’s clearly something. That was either the way you were throwing, your mechanics, or maybe it’s a situation like mine where it’s overuse. There’s clearly something that happened where there’s a link in the chain or multiple links in the chains. So now it’s like you now have an opportunity to... And we try to look at it from a very holistic view, not just it’s-- and again, we can talk about this a lot, but I just I genuinely believe that you have to develop a person first and then build the player. So I try to look at it like I can fix this guy’s mechanics. I can do all these things, but if the person is not being addressed and we’re not finding the root causes of some of these other things, then we’re not going to be able to build the players the best of our abilities. In my opinion, that’s how I [inaudible] in my community.

Sarah [00:22:22] I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me when you’re talking about a game that’s as complex as this, that is as demanding as this. To me what you’re seeing with these trends is like what you were talking about like there’s a lot of focus on velocity or there’s a lot of focus on mechanics but the overall philosophy of the longevity of the player or the strength of the team or however you want to put it like to me that makes lot of sense that it’s what you’ve heard for a long time around professional players. Like in all leagues they always talk about people get into this and really, yeah, they needed to become the best player, but they also needed to understand how to manage the demands of being a professional athlete like financially, spiritually, psychologically, like it’s like a very holistic integrated impact. And so your strategy to manage it has to be holistic and integrated.

Aaron Barrett [00:23:17] Yeah, it has to be, and that’s kind of the fun part. I think now being on the other side where I think as a player, again, you’re not supposed to think about it. You just have to do your job. But now being on the other side, seeing all the pieces that go into, again, like one of our mottos is like putting the player first. So, and I genuinely believe that like every decision that is made, it has to be down to like what is best for the player. So if you keep that as your North Star, you know that all the decisions that you make every single day, knowing that you’re not going to be perfect or right, but you are doing everything you can that serves the player. And when I was a player, I genuinely felt which coaches or whoever that was, that had my best interests, not only just as a baseball player, but as a person. And so players know. I mean, we just do. And I think people do. It’s authentic. And so that’s been my approach. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t. But the players know that I’m going to do everything I can to get the answers they’re looking for.

Sarah [00:24:37] Well, hopefully you’ll be there and so early in their journey that they’ll it’ll be definitional for what that relationship should feel like. I think that’s the power of being there when they’re just starting their career, is to say, like, this is the this is what you’re looking for. And it’s like having your first boss be a good boss. It makes all the difference.

Aaron Barrett [00:24:55] Yeah, I hope so. Again, I’m going to be me. I’m not perfect. Every day I’m trying to strive to be the best version of myself and that’s another message I try to get these guys to understand too. We’re on the process of excellence. What does that actually look like?

Sarah [00:25:17] I like calling it a process. It’s a process of excellence.

Aaron Barrett [00:25:21] Because it is.

Sarah [00:25:23] Yeah, that’s good. I like that. Okay. Here’s another question I have for you. Could be a little controversial, but when you said player first, I couldn’t help but think about this new $300 million deal that Major League Baseball has signed with Polymarket. Pantsuit Politics has some firm opinions about sports gambling and the pressure it puts on players. What did you think about when you heard that deal announced?

Aaron Barrett [00:25:47] Oh, man. I mean, everything’s driven by a dollar. The gambling thing is interesting. We had a couple of players, I think, last year that got in trouble for some gambling stuff. It’s tough. Again, I’m not playing, so I don’t know exactly how the players truly feel about this. But I just think when you’re looking at it from the fan perspective now where all I’m hearing like death threats and comments on social media where fans are coming in guys DMs like because you blew this game or because they lost money. Correct. And it’s just like that’s not the fan experience in my opinion.

Sarah [00:26:35] First of all, people are crazy enough when there is no money riding on the game. People will jerk a foul ball out of a child’s hands. You know what I’m saying? Like they’re wrapped up into it before the money even gets involved.

Aaron Barrett [00:26:49] Yeah. And that part’s sad to me a little bit because again being a player and I’ve been in many, many bull tons and one thing that I always like to do was I actually like to interact with the fans. There’s just something I-- it’s funny fans think that there’s like this invisible fence or wall and they’re like they can say whatever they want to you and then like the moment you like look at them and interact with them like kind of are like oh...

Sarah [00:27:20] Oh crap.

Aaron Barrett [00:27:22] Right. You want to go have a conversation after the game? Let’s go. You know what I mean? I have no issue with that. So I don’t know. It’s just one of those things there’s a part like, okay, yeah, this is our job, right? Like our job we get paid a lot of money to try to do our best on the field to have success. And it’s always one of the things that, like, let’s just say a guy walks the guy or a guy doesn’t get a hit. It’s like what do you think we’re trying to do out there? Do you think we’re trying to throw balls? Like we are human beings. Sorry, sometimes we’re going to fail.

Sarah [00:28:07] Well, and to me with baseball as opposed to like basketball, just like the physics of it and just like you said, like seven times out of 10, if you don’t get it and you’re still in Hall of Famer, like just like statistics and proportionality and all of that in baseball to me, it makes it way, way, way more like complicated, especially when you get into like prop bets and gambling as opposed the EMB. I’m not saying like one’s a better athlete or other. There’s just a lot more, like not chance, but like skill in the face of an enormous amount of factors. You know what I mean?

Aaron Barrett [00:28:40] I do. I do, yeah. So back to your question, I don’t know. It’s tough. I just wish we were continuing to try to grow the game through a different lens. And the gambling piece is I don t know. I understand you’re trying to generate revenue. And there’s a lot of revenue to be made. These guys are making a lot money. But I don’t know if that’s the best route.

Sarah [00:29:09] Is there anything else that kind of worries you about where the game is headed either through the fan perspective or the player perspective or anything like that?

Aaron Barrett [00:29:17] I mean, we have a big CBA coming up. I don’t know if you know about that.

Sarah [00:29:22] No!

Aaron Barrett [00:29:23] So we have what’s called a collective bargaining agreement. So it’s an agreement from the player association with MLB and that expires at the end of the season. So it’s kind of a big deal because there’s a lot of very interesting things going on. Again, I’m not in the circle as a player to know, but I know enough. We had a lockout in 2022 and I was in the Dominican Republic at the time when we got actively locked out. And that was pretty scary, pretty scary stuff, honestly.

Sarah [00:29:57] Yeah.

Aaron Barrett [00:29:58] So we haven’t had a true strike since 1995. And, again, the state of the game, how much money is being made. There’s an open, the owners have talked about they want a salary cap, which some of the other NFL and NBA have. We do not have. And there’s obviously reasons for that. The players obviously do not want that. All the players want is just competitively they want all 30 teams to be competitive and that’s the whole goal. If you own a team your goal should be to try to win. So that that dynamic has gotten interesting so we’ll see. There’s been a lot of talk about us not potentially having a season next year in Major League Baseball.

Sarah [00:30:46] Whoa. You heard it here first, Pantsuit Politics listeners. Well, assuming there is a season, what has you like the most excited thinking about this season and the next?

Aaron Barrett [00:30:58] This season, I’m excited. One, the Philadelphia Phillies, we’ve been to the postseason the last four years. So being a part of a winner is always a lot of fun. Being a part of an organization that is actively trying to win. And that’s, again, we were in the World Series in 2022, fell short. But we’ve been in the playoffs the last three seasons. So everybody’s trying to win the title. And that is, again, as a player and being a part of an organization that really wants to win, that’s exciting. That’s always exciting to be a part of. The players can feel that, too. So trying to be like, hey, with these guys that just got drafted and this kind of first step in pro ball, trying to like help these guys build their foundation of what does it mean to be a pro. Being a part of that and the goal of like, hey, at some point the goal is to win a whole series, being able to instill what that looks like. That’s what I’m excited about the most.

Sarah [00:32:05] Yeah, that’s really cool. Well, if you could go back, I’m sure you think about this a lot now in your new role. If you could back and tell your younger self one thing about this career in baseball, what would it be?

Aaron Barrett [00:32:16] I would say the one thing for me that I would probably do a little bit differently like earlier is what does ownership of career actually mean? And that took a long time and I think that’s multi-layered because one thing now that I feel like I’m able to do is have some really good conversations with players and like, okay, what does that mean? Because there’s so much information out there now, almost can be too much. And so if we’re telling the player who they are before they even know who they are based off again what the information is telling them, honestly, I think it could be paralysis by analysis at a lot of times, if that makes sense.

Sarah [00:33:15] I never really thought about this before, even though I do love like sort of sports history and the sports stories and that one of the things-- I’m sort of a student of fame. I find fame endlessly interesting. And the thing you hear so often, particularly from like entertainment celebrities, George Clooney talks about this a lot, is I’m so glad I was older when I got famous. Like the people who hit fame later in life, just like what you said, when they know who they are, they just handle it a lot better. But that’s baked out of the process of sports, right? Like you have to be young, you have to be like in certain physical capacity. I think that’s why Alyssa Liu from the Olympics like hit somebody so hard. But even her she’d gone through this process. She was like 16 and retired and then came back. And yeah she’s still young, but she’s kind of old for an Olympian. I never really thought about through the lens of sports you have this paradox. You have to be young, but it’s like you said, you’re sort of short-circuiting this process that helps you deal with that level of success. I never thought about that before.

Aaron Barrett [00:34:26] Yeah, it’s because whether it’s temptations or whether it’s-- there’s so many things they get through my personal story about the moment things clicked for me was the moment that I literally was like, yeah, I know who I am and I don’t really care. And that’s such a freeing feeling to be able to just let go and then again getting back to like I know who I am and now I’m on this relentless pursuit of excellence. And that’s the only thing that matters because at the end of the day, the only thing that does matter is controlling what I can control.

Sarah [00:35:11] Yeah.

Aaron Barrett [00:35:12] And in this sport, when the demands are so high because of, again, you’re constantly surrounded by failure, it’s tough.

Sarah [00:35:24] Well, and I think about you like you had such a good foundation. I mean, not to brag about our family, but it’s really great. Your parents are amazing. Like you had this incredible support system. I can’t imagine for some of these guys who don’t have that what this process must be like.

Aaron Barrett [00:35:38] My foundation and yeah I’m very, very lucky and blessed. And that’s the cool part. And that’s where I feel in a way called to again be in this position now and be obviously the way my story has been written and being able to again build on those blocks, because again, to your point you got to have the foundation. And the moment you don’t have the foundation you find out real quick and it just collapses.

Sarah [00:36:12] As a member of your family who’s been rooting for you this whole time, I was so excited to see you in the majors, but I’m even more excited about this next phase. I think that you’re going to be really good at this job and I’m very, very excited for you.

Aaron Barrett [00:36:28] Thank you. It’s fine. So traditional managers, right, especially in the major leagues are normally like former catchers. So me being again like a former relief pitcher is kind of outside the box, which again I’m very, very thankful for the opportunity that Phillies and Preston Manley and Luke Merton have given me. But it’s funny because like so every day I’m reminded of that of all the things that I don’t know. But it’s been awesome because it’s challenged me because I just have found out that I grow more the more uncomfortable that I am. And so I’m learning something new every single day and it’s just such a reminder every day that this the journey, my comeback and my injury and all that stuff, my paths of the big leagues, that wasn’t my plan. In my head, I wanted to be a Major Leaguer, absolutely. I wanted to win the World Series, but the way it was written was not the way that I had planned. So now, again, being in this position, I never once thought that that was something that was going to happen, but obviously God had a plan, and that’s where I’m excited to be able to kind of share all these guys have a journey that’s going to be written.

Sarah [00:37:57] And ways they might not be able to foresee. I heard somebody call it a process of success, Aaron. That’s what I heard somewhere a very wise person describe it as.

Aaron Barrett [00:38:06] It’s all it is.

Sarah [00:38:08] What is?

Aaron Barrett [00:38:10] It’s literally all it is.

Sarah [00:38:12] I love it. Well, thank you so much for coming and sharing that journey and your process here on Pantsuit Politics. What a delight.

Aaron Barrett [00:38:20] Thanks for having me. This is great.

Beth [00:38:31] I’m weighing in Outside of Politics today. Aaron talked about how the game is changing for everyone, and that is so true. And change is notoriously tough on baseball fans. Chad and I are, in many ways, very stereotypical baseball fans, and especially stereotypical Cincinnati Reds fans. We’ve been sitting in the same seats in Great American Ballpark since our first date in 2005. We raised our children at the park. They learned to walk in Scouts Alley. I have nursed babies in every imaginable nook and cranny there because my kids predated the very nice mother’s lounge. Their first games were when they were days and weeks old, not months. We love baseball. We are consistent about baseball. We are certain every year that this might be the Reds’ year. We are equally certain every year that it’s probably not. As baseball fans, we can be resistant to change and baseball keeps changing. Last season, we got used to new rules designed to speed the game up. And on the whole, it wasn’t so bad. As we watched games, I couldn’t even feel most of the changes. I just appreciated getting home a little bit earlier. This year’s big change is felt. We went to see our first game on Saturday, March 28th, and if you follow baseball closely, you have perhaps seen some clips of that game because the automated ball strike challenge system was as much a player as anyone on the field.

[00:39:54] So this year if an umpire calls a baller strike, and the pitcher, catcher, or hitter disagree with the call, the player can instantly tap his hat or helmet to challenge the call, and immediately the Jumbotron shows the pitch and the position of the ball relative to the strike zone as tracked by 12,8K cameras using software to create 3D renderings, and everyone at the game at the same time can see how accurate the umpire was or wasn’t. The system shows you where the ball was relative to the 17-inch strike zone, and if it’s outside, by how many inches. There’s strategy involved in deciding whether to challenge. A team gets two challenges each game, but if they’re right, they keep those challenges. During the game we attended, the Reds challenged five calls. They were successful every time. Their opponents, the Red Sox, were wrong on two challenges early in the game, so they didn’t get to challenge later when it might have mattered more. The stakes are real. Eugenio Suarez challenged two called strikes in a row with the bases loaded. My favorite Reds player-- now that Joey Votto has retired-- Will Benson, walked instead of striking out because of successful challenges. For the crowd, this system is pure drama. Baseball fans love to disagree with officials. To ritually humiliate them with multiple and indisputable displays of their wrongness, what could be more delicious than that? Except that it is genuinely uncomfortable.

[00:41:27] Chad and I looked at each other every single challenge, like, what are we doing here? The people in front of us talked about how much this had to suck for the empire. And I think deep down we all know that if some kind of AI system monitored all of us at our jobs constantly, we’d have our share of more than two inch misses all day, every day. Imagine thousands of people cheering and jeering those mistakes. I squirmed in my seat, thinking, there before the grace of Anthropic go I. Advocates for the new system say that in addition to increasing the drama and accuracy, it actually highlights how great umpires are. A 17-inch strike zone that moves based on the player’s height judged from behind the player as a pitcher is throwing a ball at 90, 94 miles an hour and a catcher is framing it to deliberately trick your eye. If you get that right more often than not, what a miracle. How amazing are these folks to even get close? But as in the rest of life, the few moments we’re wrong land harder than the many moments that we’re right. Baseball is a long game, that’s why I love it. So I’m going to wait a season before passing definitive judgment on the ABS system, but I am watching this evolution warily, even when it gets Will Benson on base. There’s a fantastic clip from an Orioles game where a pitcher successfully challenged a call and the twins manager lost his mind. And the announcer said, as only a baseball announcer could, “He’s arguing with the robots. You can’t defeat the robots!” And, honestly, that is what I’m worried about. Thank you so much to Aaron and Sarah for a terrific conversation. Thanks to all of you for listening. We will be delighted to join you right here again on Tuesday to catch up on whatever the universe has delivered during this week. In the meantime, have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

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Topics Discussed

• Will Missouri Voters Veto Partisan Redistricting?

• What Democrats need to win elections in 2026 and beyond

• Outside of Politics: Kansas City Stadiums Explained

Episode Resources

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Episode Resources

• Jason Kander

• Majority 54 with Jason Kander and Ravi Gupta

• People Not Politicians

• Missouri is next to answer Trump’s call for redrawn maps that boost GOP in 2026 (The Associated Press)

• The Scale of Billionaires’ Campaign Donations is Overwhelming U.S. Politics (The New York Times)

• Kellogg’s Six-Hour Day by Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt

• Leaders We Deserve

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:30] Jason Kander, welcome back to Pantsuit Politics.

Jason Kander [00:00:32] Good to be with you. Thanks for having me again.

Sarah [00:00:34] We love having you on the show.

Jason Kander [00:00:36] Thank you. Are you going to tell people that when we first came on the camera you said you have more gray hair than the last time I saw you. And then you tried to pretend that because it looks good.

Sarah [00:00:45] I’m not pretending and our audience will know that I’m glad we didn’t talk about this until on the air so I can get you on this. I am firmly on the record as in favor of silver foxes. Firm. Established on the internet. So there you go. How about that?

Jason Kander [00:00:59] Well, I appreciate it. I don’t have a choice. I’m going silver.

Sarah [00:01:03] You do. You see men out there trying, bless their hearts. It’s not a good look.

Jason Kander [00:01:07] Yeah, I’m going silver.

Sarah [00:01:09] Remember Rudy Giuliani and it was running down the side of his face?

Jason Kander [00:01:12] Yeah, that was so bad.

Sarah [00:01:13] Bless him.

Jason Kander [00:01:14] Yeah. You know what, it’s too much work.

Sarah [00:01:18] Word. Listen, mine’s starting to go gray up here in my bangs. I was telling my friends last night my mom got to where it was like she was dying it like every two to three weeks. Do you know how long that takes? Do you know how much money that takes? I’m not doing that, no. It’s just going to come in when it’s going to come in.

Jason Kander [00:01:31] My wife swears she found one gray hair like a year ago, and I haven’t seen it.

Sarah [00:01:37] Dang! Jealous. I mean, I’m 44, so I’m going pretty good. My red has faded, but I have more than one.

Jason Kander [00:01:45] I’m 44. She’s 44.

Sarah [00:01:46] She didn’t have but one?

Jason Kander [00:01:48] Well, she’s always looked much, much younger. When we were 21 and we’d go to the movies together, if it was an R movie it was always funny because they’d be like you can go in and they’d be like, well, I guess, actually you’re old enough, you can take her with you. And I always thought like what sort of scandalous thing do you, a, think is going on and, b, are doing nothing about?

Sarah [00:02:11] That’s funny. Good for her. Because also that is not something she has control over, but also super feminist because I feel like always men age better than women. So I love that she’s got the other going.

Jason Kander [00:02:27] Yeah, it ain’t going that way in this house

Sarah [00:02:31] Well, let’s talk about where you got some of those gray hairs from, which is this redistricting in your state.

Jason Kander [00:02:37] Sure.

Sarah [00:02:38] What’s going on? Give us an update.

Jason Kander [00:02:40] First thing you need to know is that Missouri has this really unique thing that is really great that everybody should have. It’s called the citizen veto. So we’re going to come back to that in a moment. But basically, the Missouri Republican controlled legislature decided that they were going to get rid of a Democratic seat. And the way they were going to do it was they were going to get rid of the Democratic seat here in Kansas City.

Sarah [00:03:03] They didn’t decide shit. He told them to do it and they did.

Jason Kander [00:03:06] Yeah, fair. Sorry. I forget. I sometimes inadvertently assign them free will and that is incorrect.

Sarah [00:03:12] They don’t have that. Correct.

Jason Kander [00:03:13] They were instructed to do it. And so they decided that the way they would do it is by getting rid of the seat in Kansas City. So they’ve literally taken Kansas City in this new map and they’ve split it into three separate districts, which is by the way just putting aside the partisan piece of this, just a crappy thing to do to this town that deserves to have a representative that will actually bring back federal resources. And we’re none too happy about it here in Kansas City, but that’s what they did. They passed a map that does that. Now, there was a lawsuit. So there’s two sort of branches to this fight. So there was a lawsuit to try and invalidate the map based on the Missouri Constitution, you cannot redistrict in the middle of a decade.

Sarah [00:03:57] Oh, okay.

Jason Kander [00:03:58] That, frustratingly, in the last couple of days, the State Supreme Court, which is actually not a particularly partisan Supreme Court, but it ruled four to three that there was nothing in the Constitution that explicitly disallowed them from doing that. So the State’s Supreme Court couldn’t stop them from doing it, which is disappointing but not entirely unexpected. Now, meanwhile, that is by no means the end of the story because we have this thing called the citizen veto. The way the citizen veto works, is that if the legislature passes a law, then within a certain period of days, I think it’s like 90 days from the legislative session, if the people turn in enough signatures, then what can happen is that law goes directly onto the ballot in the next major election.

Sarah [00:04:42] How many signatures are we talking here? Do you know?

Jason Kander [00:04:43] It’s in the hundreds of thousands.

Sarah [00:04:46] Okay, so a lot. Alright.

Jason Kander [00:04:47] It’s a lot. It’s a very difficult threshold to pass. It doesn’t happen very often. They are on track. They’re going to have enough signatures. So this is almost certainly going to go on the November ballot. The only things that would keep it off of the November ballot are stuff like if the Secretary of State makes some sort of successful case which is extremely unlikely that the signatures were not valid for some reason. He may attempt to do that because he’s a Republican and we’ll get to back to this in a moment. Has been trying to do some hanky-panky with the law the whole way, but that’s going to be unsuccessful. This is almost certainly going to be on the November ballot for the people of Missouri to vote on whether or not they want to veto this law that was passed by the legislature.

Sarah [00:05:27] So would the law be in place for this? Okay.

Jason Kander [00:05:32] Yeah. That’s so that’s where we’re getting into the people are starting to mess around with things deal. So the way that the citizen veto is supposed to work is that once you’re certified to have had enough signatures and it’s going on the ballot, then the people basically take the place of the governor. And if that’s the case, think about it this way; if the legislature passes a law and we’re waiting to find out whether the governor’s going to sign or veto it, it’s not like that new law takes effect. The old law is in effect and still until that’s the case. So the way it’s been done for a very long time, for the entirety of Missouri’s existence, the way it’s been done by president and constitutionally is the new law cannot take effect until the people have had an opportunity to weigh in if a citizen veto is going to happen. Now, the Missouri Attorney General, who is a Republican, and the Missouri Secretary of State, who is Republican, are arguing that that is not the case right here. They are arguing, and this is the new case that is in process. There’s going to be a decision at the trial court in not too long, no matter what that decision is, it’s going to get appealed and it’s going to end up in the Western District Court of Appeals and then potentially in the State Supreme Court, likely in the state Supreme Court. And what they’re arguing is, no, no, no, the new districts are the ones that we have to use to vote.

[00:06:49] And we have until sometime in May to get all this sorted out because that’s the time period at which ballots are going to be printed and start to be printed, that kind of thing. I am assuming that the courts follow the law here in Missouri, which they have a tendency to do. That’s the nice thing. Is that we don’t elect our state Supreme Court or our appellate court. We are actually the originator of the nonpartisan court plan that a lot of states have. It actually started here. So with some exceptions, we don’t have like a lot of political hacks on our courts. We have like good lawyers on our court. So I’m and cautiously optimistic that what’s going to happen is that the courts are going to rule that the 2022 map is what has to remain in place for this election, and therefore you’re not going to have a gerrymandered district in Missouri. That’s what I believe is going to happen. But there’s a lot of volunteers doing a lot of great work to get all these signatures and get it done. And then we’re going to have a vote in November as to whether the 2028 and 2030 elections happen on the new map or the old map. And I do not know how that’s going to go, but there will be a campaign to try and win that election.

Sarah [00:07:57] So if you’re in Missouri, there are lots of ways to get involved for sure.

Jason Kander [00:08:00] Lots of ways to get involved.

Sarah [00:08:01] Well, and let me just ask you this. I think 2028 is harder to say, but let’s just say something goes haywire and they get it through in 2026. I don’t know if all of these are going to work out the way they think they are.

Jason Kander [00:08:15] Yeah. I mean, they’ve gerrymandered this one pretty effectively, if I’m being honest. Is it possible that we could win in one of these new gerrymandered districts? It is possible. It would take a pretty serious wave year.

Sarah [00:08:30] Hey, Trump just got a state Senator Democrat at Mar-a-Lago. It’s not out of the question.

Jason Kander [00:08:36] It’s true. What we have working against us, and I’m not trying to downplay the possibility or discourage anybody, but what we have working against us is that unfortunately-- and you know this being in Kentucky-- it’s been a few years since the National Democratic Party invested resources in Missouri. Now we’re doing a lot of work to earn that status back and I think give us a few more years and we’re going to get there. There’s a lot of great work being done. I say we. Occasionally, I help raise some money for it or I give a little talk. I’m not among the group doing the hard work at all, but there’s a lot of people doing really good work. And I think in a few years we’re going to be back on that list as a potentially competitive state, but we’re not there right now. And that does make it harder to ambush them, so to speak, in a situation like that. But it is possible in a wave year.

Sarah [00:09:25] Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s good to know. Now that we’ve got the situation in Missouri, let’s move on in the next segment and talk about the bigger election environment.

Jason Kander [00:09:42] Sure.

Sarah [00:09:43] Jason, are you running for president in 2028?

Jason Kander [00:09:45] Nope.

Sarah [00:09:46] Well, are you sure? Because a lot of people are.

Jason Kander [00:09:49] I know a lot of people are.

Sarah [00:09:51] It’s a popular choice!

Jason Kander [00:09:52] Yeah, I pretty much did it in-- I was going to do it, as you know, in 2020. And then in 2018 I was like, no, I think I’ll get therapy at the VA instead. Which was also fun.

Sarah [00:10:04] In a different way.

Jason Kander [00:10:05] Yeah, but there were a lot of people doing it then. I made a lot friends, and a lot of those friends are going to run again, and that’ll be fun. I’ll give you this more serious, less flippant answer on this, which is that I last held office-- I left office at the beginning of 2017, and I last ran for an office in 2018. Ended up getting out before I was on the ballot. But last ran for an office then, was going to run for president in 2020. And in the period that has passed in the eight years since then, I have made a far greater impact certainly on my family and my loved ones, but on the world than I ever did running for or holding office. I’ve led a team that built villages of tiny houses for homeless vets across the country. I got involved in trying to get my translator’s family out of Afghanistan, which resulted in about 4,000 Afghan allies out of the country. And I never did anything on that scale when I was in office. So I say all this to say I’m not saying like you can do more out of office. I’m saying, what it would take for me to want to run for an office again, whether it be president or anything else is, I would have to look at that office and say the only way for me to change the thing that I want to change, what stands between me and doing that is being in this office. And furthermore, I’d have to decide that it has to be me, that nobody else can do it. And I think that’s one of the big things that’s changed in my life post going through therapy for post-traumatic stress, and now having two kids and all this new gray hair you pointed out is that--

Sarah [00:11:44] That hot wife you probably wouldn’t still have, let’s be honest.

Jason Kander [00:11:47] Well, yeah, or at least she’d be a lot less happy and that’d be no fun for me. And so I have reached a point I think I have a lot more wisdom and clarity about the idea of like it doesn’t have to be me.

Sarah [00:12:00] Yeah, but that’s a really good framework that maybe you should share with some of those friends.

Jason Kander [00:12:04] Yeah. Well, people call and they at least pretend they want advice. I think a lot of the time they want money or endorsement or other friends who have money. And that’s okay. I used to be in that business. But when they do at least pretend they want advice. That’s along the lines of the advice. Now, it doesn’t have to be you, but I tend to talk about quality of life while you run things like that.

Sarah [00:12:26] I’ve been thinking about you a lot with James Tallarico.

Jason Kander [00:12:30] Good guy. I like him.

Sarah [00:12:32] I like him too. And it’s giving so much of like your rise. Like he has a very distinctive sort of out of the ordinary democratic identity. He is also very gifted. I think about all the time that story of Barack Obama telling you like, you’ve got it. Like what it is, you’ve it. And he’s got it!

Jason Kander [00:12:48] He does. And I will admit to being old enough now that I look at him and I go, oh, he reminds me of me when I was younger and that makes me like him. And I had him on the show and I was texting with him the other day and trying to figure out little ways that I can be helpful to the campaign. I think he has enormous potential.

Sarah [00:13:07] I do too. I think if he wins the Senate campaign, if he doesn’t think it, somebody else is going to put it in his ear. Maybe you should think about 2028.

Jason Kander [00:13:14] Yeah. I think that the comparison to my situation those many years ago is accurate in the sense that I think the country looks at James and goes, well, this dude seems to know how to talk to these people. And I think that’s what happened with me. I always joked that I lost the election and I just barely lost that Senate election in 2016. And I thought, well, that’s probably that. And then I woke up and people were like, hey, maybe you. And I joked and it reminds me it’s like nuclear annihilation happened. And I came out of the bunker very depressed that like most of the people I’d known in my life had been obliterated, but the other survivors turned to me and were like we think maybe you’re in charge? And so that’s how 2016 felt after the election.

Sarah [00:14:02] You need to read Stephen King’s The Stand. That’s just a book with a very similar situation. I think there’s some characters in that book you would see yourself in for sure.

Jason Kander [00:14:11] Well, I’ll read it. And if it rings true, I will send it to James.

Sarah [00:14:14] There you go.

Jason Kander [00:14:16] I think he’s super talented. I mean, look, there’s a bunch a folks I really, really like. Ruben Gallego is a genuine friend, not just in the way that when you’re in politics you’re like, “He’s a friend of mine.” No, he’s a genuine friend. And I just think so highly of Ruben. I really like Wes Moore a lot.

Sarah [00:14:34] Yeah, we’ve had him on the show.

Jason Kander [00:14:35] Yeah. I know Wes a little bit, but I really like him. I mean, there’s a long list of people who would be great. Pete Buttigieg is another. I’d say he’s a good friend.

Sarah [00:14:44] But he’s in a tough spot though because he’s not in office right now and you can kind of feel it.

Jason Kander [00:14:49] You know what, I think that’s a great spot.

Sarah [00:14:51] You do? Tell me more.

Jason Kander [00:14:53] Yeah, well, for one thing, it’s great to not be in office because you don’t get to sit through stupid hearings all the time. For one thing, personally, he gets to live his life a little bit right now, which is so important for so many reasons. One, from a having the energy to run that gauntlet sort of thing, you need the time to charge up your battery before you do it. The other reason is Pete doesn’t have to go in and vote on every stupid little thing. It also gives him the freedom that if what he wants to do is run full-time, he can just run full-time. And it’d be one thing if he had never been secretary of transportation, and he were once again trying to do it as the former mayor of South Bend. But there’s nobody who doubts Pete’s leadership ability. There’s nobody who doubts his qualifications for it now. So he’s got the platform, he’s got the experience, and he’s got the time to really build something. And I say that because my situation was-- and I think we were on a good headright state in the race. I’m not saying I would have won, but we were on a good trajectory to really be in the mix. And I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I had left the measly little secretary of state of Missouri office, but I had this national and growing sort of buzz. And so we were building a real national network and it was pretty much what I was doing full time. And that was a huge advantage that I have over people who were better known and we’re in many respects better qualified because they had to be in DC all the time, or they had to be in the governor’s mansion somewhere all the times.

Sarah [00:16:37] Yeah, that’s true. I mean, a person we’ve been talking about a lot and we’re about to talk to is Rahm Emanuel, which I realize is a crazy name to throw out.

Jason Kander [00:16:47] Not at all. There’s no such thing anymore.

Sarah [00:16:50] That’s a good point. But there’s a lot of people who I think have it, have an authenticity, have a story, have some buzz that I think connects. I think Ruben Gallego is definitely one of them. James Tallerico is one of the. Wes Moore. I just think there’s a lot people who you’re like...

Jason Kander [00:17:11] Stacey Abrams is one of them.

Sarah [00:17:14] Yeah. I think they just seem like normal. You know what I mean? I think no way to discount normal, but...

Jason Kander [00:17:20] Once you can fake that, you’ve made it.

Sarah [00:17:22] Would you fake it? [Inaudible].

Jason Kander [00:17:25] I’m Kidding.

Sarah [00:17:28] But Beth and I are just hungry. I want to hear some actual ideas. I don’t want to hear we’re going to love our neighbors. With love, I love my neighbors and I think neighborism and I could talk about it for hours coming out of Minneapolis, but I want to hear your ideas about AI and I want to your ideas about public education and I want to hear like actual, like a vision for how we get out of so many messes. And I don’t hear a lot of people giving me those ideas except for Rahm Emanuel.

Jason Kander [00:18:01] I have not followed what Rahm Emanuel has been saying at all, but to what you were saying broadly, I think this election particularly the nominating period on the Democratic side, is going to be more focused on big visionary ideas than anything we’ve done in a long time. Because if you think about it, for a really long time, I don’t know, since probably 2008, that was probably the last time we had a Democratic nominating contest that was really about vision, now certainly 2016 with Bernie, but he didn’t prevail. So it wasn’t fully about it, right? His campaign was about it. But really ever since 2008, what we’ve had for the most part, with the exception of I’d say Bernie’s campaign, we have had a series of people saying, look, we all know what the agenda is. Pick which one of us you think is best to win the election and put this agenda in place. Whereas, Obama, was very much like I have a different vision. And it worked really well because the vision, the message, and the man all were perfectly interwoven. I mean, the slogan of the campaign was change and the candidate was a black man named Barack Hussein Obama who had opposed the war in Iraq. So it all perfectly melded together. And I actually think that this next election is going to be one where people will reward the person with the broadest and clearest vision. And the reason I think that is because I think really young millennials and Generation Z are going to play a huge part in this. And I’m monologuing here for a moment, I apologize, but this is a big thought I’ve been having lately, which is that folks like senior millennials like yourself and me, and then everybody in the--.

Sarah [00:19:47] How dare you?

Jason Kander [00:19:49] Well, you know, me.

Sarah [00:19:51] No, we’re the same age or something.

Jason Kander [00:19:53] When’s your birthday?

Sarah [00:19:55] July 28th, 1981.

Jason Kander [00:19:57] Okay. Well, I got you by two months. Like I said, I’m older. To be clear. The generations above us and our tippy top part of the millennial generation, we look at things and we think about everything going back to the way it was. That’s always the conversation we’re having. It’s when are we going to go back to normal? And our politicians of our age talk about things in terms of like getting back to these American ideals. And what we have to remember is that everybody younger than you and me doesn’t remember it ever being like that. And so I’ve become friends a bit with David Hogg and have gotten a little bit involved with Leaders We Deserve, his group, and people see that group as super extreme and super liberal. I don’t see it that way. I see that groups and I see what David Hogg is saying and others as a really well-earned impatience of that generation, because they’re going, look, we don’t really hardly remember 9/11, which means we don’t remember the pre-9/11 era and we also don’t remember the two years or year really post 9/11 where we were all getting along.

[00:21:00] We don’t remember the pre-9/11 era where we didn’t fight about every single little thing. We didn’t live through that. We were born into basically a recession followed by graduating college if we went to college and finding it way harder to find good jobs than our parents did. So all of this American dream, we all have these values that unite us. We kind of want to take your word for it, but we’ve never seen it. From their perspective, when they look at a Mamdani or somebody like that, whereas our generation might see somebody who’s really strident and really super liberal and out on the outer edge of progressivism, they don’t see it that way. They see it as here’s a person who’s making some sense because they’re not talking about tiny little changes that have never been made. They’re talking about things the way we see them, which is this is bananas. Why are we doing it this way? I’m coming around to that.

Sarah [00:21:52] I mean, that was Bernie’s appeal, too.

Jason Kander [00:21:53] That was Bernie’s appeal. And I don’t know if that makes me more liberal. I’m like, hey, none of this has been working. And so I think that’s what people are going to want.

Sarah [00:22:02] I just think it’s an acknowledgement that things are different.

Jason Kander [00:22:05] Things are different.

Sarah [00:22:05] We’re not going back. It took me a long time to realize like all these lessons that I had internalized about American politics even presidential politics, they don’t apply anymore. Forget about whether you were around during the 2008 election. Like you’re going to have voters like last election, this election who don’t know remember anything, but Trumpism. They don’t remember anything but MAGA. And Biden was a blip, but not that big of one. Trump announced two minutes after that one was over he was running in 2024. So he’s been there. And this understanding is hard as you get older to really think like these things I thought I knew, if X then Y, they don’t apply anymore. That’s just not our politics. That’s not how people think about partisanship. Our media environment is completely upside down and inside out. And I don’t think Rohm Emanuel is some alignment of a new way. But speaking of David Hogg’s The Leaders We Deserve, like he’s the first one that’s come out and said we need an age limit, period. We need an age limit on running for office.

Jason Kander [00:23:15] People want big ideas.

Sarah [00:23:17] Americans agree on that. Like they’ve wanted that for a long time. I remember. I’m old enough to remember when Donald Trump’s first thing was term limits. He promised term limits in 2016. It was on his platform. We’re going to do term limits the second I get in there. Where’d those go? And I just think this idea of like people are terrified of artificial intelligence. I’m glad AOC and Bernie are like no more data centers until we get a framework in place. And, look, the Trump administration put out a framework. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but they’re trying at least. I think we’ve got to have some ideas about what people care about, especially as Democrats. I am worried about I have a 16-year-old, a 14-year-old and 11-year-old. I often feel like I am Indiana Jones running as the road collapses behind me when it comes to our public school system. Like we have huge problems. I’m not saying get rid of the Department of Education. Isn’t a big idea, but I really don’t think that’s going to fix it. Here’s where I really wonder how you feel about this. I think part of the struggle is-- and you saw this with the housing bill, right? The biggest problems Americans are concerned about, affordability, public education, college education, the job market-- well, maybe not the job market. But public education, housing, they’re so local. Like they need to be local solutions. And we’ve been on this run where we just consolidate power into the federal government and not just the federal government, but the presidency. We’re in a sprint on that right now.

Jason Kander [00:25:05] Yeah, we are.

Sarah [00:25:06] You know what I mean? And so it’s like I kind of want some ideas about like there’s going to have to be procedure, like even to this gerrymandering fight, tell me how we’re not going to be in this death spiral. I want to hear some ideas about that. Listen, the first presidential candidate that stands up and says uncap the House has got my vote. I’m like, okay, sold. I’ve been saying that for like six years.

Jason Kander [00:25:29] Uncap the House. What do you mean?

Sarah [00:25:30] Oh, this is my favorite. So we only have 435 members of Congress because they basically thought it fit better in the room. It’s just a freaking piece of legislation. It’s not in the fucking constitution.

Jason Kander [00:25:43] That’s a good point.

Sarah [00:25:43] And also it’s insane. It’s insane to expect 435 people to represent 330 million people. Like people don’t feel represented because they’re not. You can’t represent that many people at once. Like it’s really, really hard. And it infuriates me. Like build a bigger House, this is not working.

Jason Kander [00:26:02] That’s really interesting. I’ve literally never heard anybody talk about that, but that’s such a good point.

Sarah [00:26:06] Listen, I’m obsessed with it.

Jason Kander [00:26:08] I think I am too now.

Sarah [00:26:09] Again, I have the receipt. You should be.

Jason Kander [00:26:11] It’s not like they get to know each other now anyway.

Sarah [00:26:13] No!

Jason Kander [00:26:13] They used to. It used to work because they would get to know each other.

Sarah [00:26:16] Yeah. And I think they would build smaller coalitions. Like I think you’d have some really fascinating coalitions.

Jason Kander [00:26:24] That’s such an interesting idea.

Sarah [00:26:25] There’s like a whole campaign now. I started talking about it when we did our tour, our Nuanced Nation tour. Beth and I each came with these ideas and that was mine.

Jason Kander [00:26:33] I’m literally writing a note to myself.

Sarah [00:26:35] Do it. You should have the organizer on and everything. I’m obsessed with it, but that’s what I’m saying. If you don’t tell me something like that that’s like we’re in a new place, we need new ideas, then I don’t want to hear.

Jason Kander [00:26:45] Have you ever done politics in New Hampshire?

Sarah [00:26:47] No.

Jason Kander [00:26:48] It relates to this. New Hampshire is one of the smallest states by population and probably by geographic. But it has I think the largest house of representatives at state level.

Sarah [00:27:00] Love it.

Jason Kander [00:27:00] And what’s funny, when I was getting ready to run for president and I was camping out in New Hampshire all the time getting to know everybody, and every third person you meet is either a state representative or a former state representative. And it’s hilarious.

Sarah [00:27:14] Beautiful.

Jason Kander [00:27:15] And I never went inside the chamber. My understanding is they don’t even have desks on the floor, I don’t think. They definitely don’t have offices in the building. Now, they have a more traditional State Senate. But that’s kind of what you’re describing. And what I like about this is I’m thinking out loud.

Sarah [00:27:32] We need those desks so bad because they all sit in there and listen to each other as they give speeches. Give me a break.

Jason Kander [00:27:37] Nobody does that, even at the state level. By the way, hey, you know I’m not running for president. You just threw out a thing I’d never heard about and I’m like I think I’m for it. Which if I were fixing to run for president there’d be somebody over here being like, stop. But there’s not, there’s my dog sitting two feet from everywhere.

Sarah [00:27:54] Sounds like a good idea to me. Mine’s snoring right now.

Jason Kander [00:27:57] Anyway, when I think about the quandary we’ve gotten ourselves in, in our system, you can’t help but wonder, like, how much better would things potentially be if you could go back in time and say we’re going to have in America a semi-parliamentary system. And what you’re describing without any major constitutional amendment or anything could get you closer to there because you’re right, it would open itself up to a lot of different coalitions. But, yeah, in New Hampshire, people basically represent their neighborhood at the state level.

Sarah [00:28:26] Listen, and you can keep your dumb Senate, which basically represents land masses, fine, whatever. I hate it, but it’s fine.

Jason Kander [00:28:35] Well, you might get back to having real fights between the House and the Senate if you do that because right now that’s not what happens.

Sarah [00:28:41] Yeah, and I just think like there’s not really one Republican party, there’s not really one Democratic party. Ruben Gallego and AOC are far apart. Fine, I don’t care. They represent different groups.

Jason Kander [00:28:55] They could stand to benefit from some regionalism again.

Sarah [00:28:58] Yes, 100% and we can test ideas off each other. We’ve just gotten in this place. And I think this is true for democratic states and Republican states. There’s no testing of ideas because there’s one party control and this doesn’t work. People have bad ideas that way.

Jason Kander [00:29:13] You know what I like, so if I were running and I were running on this uncap the House thing, I would basically be like we need you in government. That’d be my message to people. It’s like you want to have fewer career politicians? Let’s have more, and why not you?

Sarah [00:29:29] Why not you? Listen, they don’t want the job anyway. They’re all quitting hand over fist. Like you can’t keep them in those jobs because it’s a shitty job.

Jason Kander [00:29:37] What does some member represent now, 500,000 people or something like that?

Sarah [00:29:39] Yeah, it’s in a massive amount of people. Like, how are you going to understand what they want? That’s why I think we’ve funneled everything through the lens of partisanship because how else do you wrap your hands around representing that many people?

Jason Kander [00:29:54] We have the worst elements of a parliamentary system. We have just the partisan elements and none of the coalition building elements of a parliament system.

Sarah [00:30:01] Well, and what I’m really worried about to the big ideas, it’s not that I don’t think housing and all these issues are huge- I do. I’m a little worried about a wave in 2026 that I do believe is coming. And I think I’m afraid the lesson that’s going to be learned is like, affordability, that’s the answer. And I’m like, yes, I want you to talk about affordability but we need ideas. Like if we went on affordability in 2028 and then we don’t fix it, which we won’t because that’s not how it works. And then we’re just swinging, I mean, that’s what we’ve done. We just swing, we swing, we swing and we swing.

Jason Kander [00:30:39] Well, and then if you don’t get it done even though you may only control one house people are like well they didn’t do it. They said they would. To your point about AI, I could not possibly agree more that the Democratic Party needs to as fast as possible establish itself as the party that is at a minimum wary or leery About AI and at a maximum even opposed to the massive growth of it. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this publicly but--

Sarah [00:31:07] I’m getting so much out of you today, this is great.

Jason Kander [00:31:10] Let’s see. It would have been I was still getting ready to run for president, so it would’ve been early in 2018. I sat down with Sam Altman and I know Sam a little bit. He’s from St. Louis. I made it my business for a long time to know everybody everywhere who was either in or from Missouri. And on a personal level, he and I to the limited degree we’ve had interactions get along fine, I have some real concerns about Open AI and everything now, but I can remember sitting there and it was myself and my wife, Diana. And we were in his office out there in California, and he was explaining what was coming. And he said to us, he said, “In about 10 years, Americans are going to look around and feel like there’s been an alien invasion, and they won’t know what hit them.”

Sarah [00:31:55] Whoa!

Jason Kander [00:31:56] And I think about that a lot because that was eight years ago. And he was talking about robots. And I think about every time we have these really hot debates about immigration and I think aliens are coming- Sam’s aliens are coming. And people are going to want to know was anybody anticipating this? Was anybody trying to do anything about it? And the truth is right now what we have is we have a Trump administration that is so focused on trying to win some sort of war with China. And I mean literally trying to employ AI in a military context. May have actually done it to great tragedy already in Iran. They’re trying to clear the way as fast as possible and they’re trying to keep the states from having any of their own AI restrictions. And I think right now, at a minimum, we should be the party of state-level-- to your point earlier about local stuff. State level AI restrictions so that, yeah, we’re not going to lose progress on it, but we’re going to have the states as that laboratory figuring out what does and does not make sense. And I also completely agree with you about data centers. We’re about to have one in a town outside of Kansas City here and it’s just going to be great monuments to nothingness after five years.

Sarah [00:33:18] I would like to hear a different platform from a Democratic candidate. If I was running for president, here’s what I would say.

Jason Kander [00:33:25] Maybe you should be.

Sarah [00:33:26] I mean, listen, somebody wants to give me a billion dollars because the billionaires are funding everything in case you didn’t read that New York Times piece.

Jason Kander [00:33:34] I don’t need to, I assume that’s the case.

Sarah [00:33:36] Well, here’s the thing, I think you could get to the affordability crisis, the AI anxiety and the big vision with all of this. What I would say is, look, this technology is going to be incredible, but I think, you could, to the Trump of it all, be like, Trump did what Biden did. He allowed an invasion. He allowed and invasion, because Biden did do that. That’s a good analogy. Like he let in too many people, it taxed the system, it created some really toxic politics. He’s letting in too much of this technology. He’s allowing too much wealth to accrue at the top through both legal and illegal means. Hell, I would probably even sweep up the gambling and all this too while I was at it just for funsies. That’s not his job. His job is not to make the rich richer. His job is to make the American people more successful. And so this technology is coming. And what it’s going to do is going to work for us, not three AI CEOs in Silicon Valley. This is a public utility that’s going to change everything. And we’re going to make it a public utility. We’re going to take it.

Jason Kander [00:34:46] It’s a great approach that probably should have been employed at the beginning of the internet.

Sarah [00:34:51] Yeah, because now it’s like we can’t let this go too far. They’re not going to hand it over to us voluntarily, guys. You want to use the power of the federal government in a way with massive impact, here’s your way. Let’s do it.

Jason Kander [00:35:02] I agree and I think if you’re going to step further, people are going to need to have a really clear idea about the future of work and of what labor means in this new world, which is hard to do because we don’t know what the new world looks like. One answer there, I think, is going to be something along the lines of understanding that the point of work is not 40 hours of activity a week. The point of the work is to achieve the ability to take care of yourself, your family-- and my little Zoom just did a thumbs up when I didn’t even do it. So clearly...

Sarah [00:35:33] That’s the Holy Spirit. It likes your idea.

Jason Kander [00:35:35] That or it’s, you know, Sam.

Sarah [00:35:37] They’re listening.

Jason Kander [00:35:38] They’re listening. And be able to say like, hey, the point of work is not to stay busy for 40 hours a week, but the point work is to be able to provide for yourself and your family. And (this is where it gets quasi-European and maybe controversial) to provide leisure time. And if we look at it that way, this is not an argument for AI, but it’s more of an argument for how we should think about employing AI in the future. If there are things that AI is going to do and it is going displace workers, well then we have a choice. We can freak out and say what are we going to do to keep these people busy for 40 to 60 hours a week so that they can get paid if there’s nothing we really need them to do? Or we can begin to tackle the question what are we going to do to make sure that people can still provide for their families now that there is a lot more leisure time but there’s not the opportunity to earn money to put food on the table. My point is like what if the point or what if the object of all of this human evolution to the point of creating this artificial intelligence was actually to achieve more time with each other? And if that’s the case, we’re going to need policies that allow people to sustain their livelihood while they do that.

Sarah [00:36:59] Well, listen, I read this piece. I can’t hunt it down again. Maybe somebody out there can. And I think it was Kellogg’s. I hope I’ve got the company right. When industrialization came, the same thing happened. It made everything much more efficient. And so I think it was Kellogg who was like, well, everybody didn’t need to work as much. Great.

Jason Kander [00:37:25] The cut engine.

Sarah [00:37:27] Yeah, we don’t have to work as much. So we’ll just pay people the same and they won’t work as many. And there was like a panic. And basically the corporate robber baron overlords were like, well, no, that’s not going to work. And they shut it down and pulled it back. Basically it was like, no, our vision is this. And to me, look, there’s no way to stay on this road we’re on of consolidation, of private equity, of growth for growth sake, this scalability in which we have to extract, extract, extract, especially like the Disney model where we have to extract the luxury items because everybody else at the bottom we’re just going to treat like the peons. That’s not our business model. Our business model is the people making like 500,000 plus a year because there’s more of those, and you know we’ll just keep putting the experience towards those people and everybody else at the bottom is just going to kind of get left behind as we extract more and more money and make more and more billionaires. I mean, what’s that piece in New York Times it was like 2016, we had or like, I don’t remember, 2009 we had like eight billionaires, now we have like 500. But it’s still a small number of the majority of Americans, right?

Jason Kander [00:38:43] Yeah, it is.

Sarah [00:38:43] And so we’re going to have to get off that. To me it’s like we stop pushing the wealth up and we take it and we spread it out. It is a regionalism. Listen, AI is an incredible tool as a small business owner.

Jason Kander [00:38:57] Absolutely.

Sarah [00:38:57] Incredible.

Jason Kander [00:38:59] As a scientist. Hell, as a parent.

Sarah [00:39:00] Yes. It doesn’t even have to be leisure because I do think people need purpose. Like some of these universal basic income experiments, they ain’t going so great.

Jason Kander [00:39:09] Sure. Purpose is important.

Sarah [00:39:09] People need purpose. This is a utility that you have access to, to go back to your town or the town you’re already in and build it out and have businesses and have ability to follow your dream and it doesn’t have to be an hourly wage. It could look very, very different and we will pour money into building more smaller to mid-range companies than just allowing the Ellison family to own everything.

Jason Kander [00:39:39] Well, what’s interesting about the debate right now is if you watch, particularly Republicans in the Senate, as they start to realize that if they’re going to have working class voters in their coalition, they have to also say some working class things. Now we’re not all the way at the point where they do working class thing.

Sarah [00:39:56] You wouldn’t be speaking of your own senator, would you?

Jason Kander [00:39:59] He would be one of the ones I’m talking about. Is you’re starting to hear things that now it’s a very corporate version of socialism, but you’re starting to hear more and more of it. But then when you go to Silicon Valley and you talk to these folks who are doing all the innovating and who are creating all these products, if they’re honest with you, what they say is that the end game here where this obviously goes is UBI. It goes to a place where you have all of this innovation, and you have all this capitalism at this upper level. But for it to work, ultimately you’re going to have to have some degree of socialism. Yeah, they understand that. And the other thing that’s kind of interesting about talking to those folks is so many of them are they’re just such quants. Like in some ways, so many of them-- and I don’t even mean this as like a criticism. It’s just a personality type that works out there. They’re like these unemotional quants. I remember when I was raising money out there, you could have the most emotionally compelling story, but you better have numbers. So they were not moved. And that’s how they kind of look at it from that perspective, this analytical, well, it’s not about we have to care for our human man. It’s just the human man will rise up if you don’t do this. So you’re going to have to do it.

[00:41:14] And going back to the idea of large vision, it doesn’t mean like you have to be for UBI or you have to be for socialism at some level, but you better damn well have an answer to those questions. And now because Trump has been so wholly awful, you’ve seen the growth he had among generations he really erodes. But I think that part of the explanation for why he was able to win over the chunk that he was in the last election is because liberals have made the mistake of thinking that if you continue to stand for the same liberal things, the same democratic things, that you were seen as progressive and forward thinking. But if you are the younger generation who’s only seen a certain slice of American politics and you have one side talking about big ideas, now they may be bad ideas but they’re big ideas, then you start to think, well, one side is thinking about the future and changing things and the other side isn’t. And you know what happens? Young people are predisposed to be more liberal. But one side, no matter whether you call them conservative or liberal or not, one side looks like the liberals. Because what does liberal mean? It means open to change. And so if you have a whole bunch of holy bad, super bad ideas, but they’re big changes, and things aren’t working for you, and the other side is just coming up with the same changes that they’ve been talking about forever, well then the Republicans end up looking like the forward thinking liberals. And that’s the trap we walked into and we just can’t be there again.

Sarah [00:42:55] Going back to what you said about leisure, I think it’s a deeper question that I think that America, both parties, during those good old days we all think we want to get back to, really solidified around one value, and that was money, and that the economy. And all ideas had to revolve around money and the economy, and everything was framed that way. It’s the economy stupid. We still say it.

Jason Kander [00:43:22] We’re fighting a whole war explicitly over oil right now.

Sarah [00:43:25] Right, it’s just money, money, money.

Jason Kander [00:43:27] Nobody is even pretending anymore.

Sarah [00:43:27] Which is why we’re in this Polymarket gambling fucking hellscape. It’s sickening and I think people are sickened. And when you have someone like James Tallarico who stands up and says, “I have ideas about what it means to live a good life and I don’t think it’s being rich,” it hits, man. It hits. Because we’ve had 10 years of somebody saying it only matters if you’re rich. Rich makes you smarter, rich makes you successful, rich makes you better, rich makes you have a bigger life. And by the way, I work for my rich friends, not the rest of you dumb dumbs who voted for me.

Jason Kander [00:44:02] Well, that’s correct. I agree with everything you’re saying. When I was 100 years ago, which is to say, I don’t know, eight years ago when I was getting ready to run for president and I was going around, I was sitting down with these donors and kingmakers in the party, what I would say to them is that I’m not trying to say that I am the most moral or ethical or pure person, but what I do recognize is that Americans are looking for more than simply economic leadership. They’re looking for moral leadership because they haven’t had it frankly since Obama. Because what Obama did is Obama talked about things in terms of what was right and what was wrong and he also modeled the way to behave. And I don’t mean this means like you got to be a teetotaler or you got to... But they’re looking for more than just a decent person, okay? Because like you can be a decent person but not inspire people to be decent. They’re looking for somebody who’s going to say like we can be decent and we can be successful and it’s worth being decent to each other, but you can’t do it in a soft way. It has to be done in a muscular way. I think about it just makes me so sad that my kids have really, to your point earlier, only experienced Trumpism. And I’ll give two examples of my two kids. One, I’ll be in the car and we’re listening to NPR or something and there’ll be some news story and my son’s half paying attention, he’s 12. And then I’ll say, did you hear that? And I’ll just say, Trump just did X and X, and it’ll be something horrendous. And my son who very much thinks Donald Trump is terrible and is at least somewhat not super politically, he is 12, but aware and he’s somewhat invested in outcomes. He’ll be like, yeah. Like nothing surprises him at all.

[00:45:54] And then my daughter is five. And we were in the truck the other day and she’s sitting in her car seat in the back and she had asked about Donald Trump and we had said, well, we don’t really think he’s a very good person. And she asked, she said, “Why is he not a good person?” And her entire reference point, by the way, for good people and bad people is the Taliban because my translator’s family lives down the street and we’re with them all the time. And she basically has all these Afghan cousins and she understands that they escaped the Taliban. So she talks to me about she’s fascinated by Afghanistan and the Taliban and wants to talk about it all the time. Particularly they don’t let girls go to school, like that’s wild and wrong. And so she understands good and evil. She’s like so is he like bad like the Taliban? I’m like, well, no. And I’m trying to explain it. And then she says, “I think I know why he’s not good.” And I said, why? And she said, “Because he says things like shut your mouth.” And I was like, what do you mean? And she couldn’t explain it. I asked my wife later, she’s like Bella was taking a nap on the couch the other day and the TV came on, like somebody sat on the remote or something. And it was just a live Trump press conference. There wasn’t even a clip. And it was Trump talking, and it on for like 20 seconds. It was the only time Bella’s ever heard Donald Trump’s voice, and she woke up from the nap and was like, “Turn that off. I don’t like that person.” Found out it was Donald Trump. And my point is she’s grown up in an era where she’s heard the President of the United States talk for a random 20 seconds, and it solidified her view that he is not a good person.

Sarah [00:47:26] He’s hateful. He’s mean.

Jason Kander [00:47:28] And I think people have weirdly accepted that, but also instinctually like deeply understand that we deserve to be led by somebody decent who urges us to be decent. And I think that that has to be part of the big vision for the next person who runs.

Sarah [00:47:47] I have a politician in my life who I’m always like, listen to me, just get on like a vice platform. Like we’ve abandoned the idea of vices and it’s not working. Like just letting kids watch as much porn as they want on the internet and letting people smoke as much weed as they want to everywhere and letting them people gamble on anything all the time, everywhere, these were vices for all of human history. For a reason, they’re corrosive. They are corrosive to the human spirit. It’s okay to say that. It doesn’t mean we want to throw you in jail. But it’s okay to say, you know what, it wasn’t so bad when there were barriers to some of this behavior. That’s really bad for most people. Like, that’s okay. It is okay to say that. I feel like Democrats are allergic to it. Fine, just start with kids. Like let us protect kids from some of these vices.

Jason Kander [00:48:43] Let me agree with an amendment, which is to say, one, I totally agree, starting with kids. Like what other countries have done with regard to social media and kids, that kind of thing. And, obviously, look, Democrats and all politicians are going to be a lot more courageous about that because kids can’t vote. Let’s be real. It’s a lot easier for them to do that, right?

Sarah [00:49:03] Yeah, that’s right.

Jason Kander [00:49:03] But what I would say is I think what we have to be very careful to do as a party when we talk about that is we have to find a way to do it without judgment. Because we just went through a period where, as Marc Maron likes to say, we may have annoyed people into choosing fascism. So, for instance, on gambling, I think you’re right, that there need particularly on the prediction markets, that’s rife with potential corruption and real corruption now. And prop bets and all that kind of thing. And I think the way to do that, for instances, to come at it from the perspective of a sports fan and to basically pull the same bogus move that they pulled on the trans, and making it seem like everybody in the country is competing against transgender athletes. But to go at it as like, hey, look, we deserve to be able to watch sports and know that it’s not been corrupted. And so we need guardrails on things like prop bets. We deserve to know that we’re not going to go to war because somebody placed a bet on us going to war on a certain day. That has to be... And then you can also take the next step of what you’re talking about and say, and hey, we need leadership that asks us to appeal to our better angels and to try not to do these things. But at the same time, what we don’t want to do is say like, hey, look, the good people are the ones who don’t have this. You talked about Josh Hawley earlier. Josh Hawley has been really big on the like no porn thing and all that. And there’s no question in my mind that I don’t even need to see the science. Porn is not good for your mind. It’s not good for your mind particularly if somebody gets addicted to it and particularly for young men and the way that they’re going to treat women. There’s no question about that. And I’m all for there being some reasonable guardrails about that, but I also think that it is really dangerous to sound like you are judging people for their vices. And I know that’s not what you’re doing, but I think that’s a real trap we can walk into.

Sarah [00:51:03] I think the way you do that is you are clear from the beginning. The villains in this are the owners, not the users.

Jason Kander [00:51:12] That’s right. That’s a great point.

Sarah [00:51:14] They’re extractive. Every single person right now, living in the world in 2026, knows what it’s like through the experience of the last 10 years of being extracted through the experiences of social media. We all know. We’ve all been through it. We know like, oh wait, we got turned into the product. And they just wrung out as much money from us and our behavior as they possibly could. Like we know, we all feel it. We know it, we’re probably still participating in it when we’re revenge scrolling on TikTok at 10 o’clock at night. So know what that feels like. So to say we’re tired of being treated like the product to be sold... Like all these weed, alcohol still like this, the gambling, like so many of these industries are built on making money off of the addicts. Like they don’t make money off the moderate users. They make money off the people who never ever stop using. Like they know the business model. They’re very clear. Like even the gambling, the house always wins, man. The house is the villain not the person at the roulette table.

Jason Kander [00:52:19] You’re exactly right. That is exactly the right answer. And it’s even beyond that category of issues because it’s true when it comes to guns. Because on guns the villain is not the gun owner. The villain is the firearm manufacturers who want to do everything possible to make the maximum amount of money and that’s why they don’t want restrictions. It’s true when it come to agricultural policy that the villain is... I get so upset every time I listened to some urban coastal democratic politician complain about farmers being paid not to farm because that is such crap. But if you do it right, you talk about it the way you talk about unions and management and you make clear that the problem is corporate agriculture buying up everything and making it impossible for family farmers to continue to be family farmers and forcing them to consolidate. And it’s true with environmental policy, it’s true with oil companies. It’s true with healthcare with regard to insurance companies. Instead of it being about doctors, it’s about insurance companies. And you’re absolutely right. And you know what it all sounds like. And I say this as a person who is friends with Hillary Clinton, voted for Hillary Clinton but looks back and goes, Bernie was right. He’s 100% right.

Sarah [00:53:41] Bernie used to go on the dining room show way back in the day before he was capital B Bernie. And every time he went I was like these motherfuckers got everything right. Like everything he said I was like-- I’m a member in my early 20s. He would come on and I would be like why isn’t there more Bernie? And then there’s more Bernie and I was like less Bernie. It wasn’t Bernie, it was the Bernie bros that wore me out.

Jason Kander [00:54:02] Well, and the problem was is that we didn’t understand that Bernie also had the politics right. Because everybody’s talking about how do we get our own Joe Rogan? Well, we had our own, Joe Rogan. He was a Bernie voter.

Sarah [00:54:13] Yeah, and then you got mad at Bernie for going on Joe Rogan. Okay, do you have a few more minutes to talk one more sports thing with us?

Jason Kander [00:54:30] I do. Sure.

Sarah [00:54:31] Okay, I just want to say before we started, I said, remind me what Kansas City you are. I know what Kansas City you are. I know you’re from Missouri. I think what I meant was remind me which one the football team is on. I’m not great at sports because I know there’s a controversy between the Kansas cities and I couldn’t remember which direction it flowed.

Jason Kander [00:54:48] Sure. Okay. So you got Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. To do this right, I’ve got to give you a little history.

Sarah [00:54:55] Okay.

Jason Kander [00:54:55] Missouri was a state first and then there was the territory of Kansas, which is why the city that is on the Missouri side, the big city, it’s got a half a million people in it. And then the metro area has got like one and a half. It’s why it was called Kansas City. Now it was originally for a minute called Possum Trot, but we didn’t stick with that.

Sarah [00:55:13] We have a Possum Trot near my-- Paducah’s between Monkey’s Eyebrow and Possum Trot.

Jason Kander [00:55:17] I didn’t know there was a Monkey’s Eyebrow, but that’s outstanding.

Sarah [00:55:19] Yeah.

Jason Kander [00:55:20] That’s so cool. That’d be a great address.

Sarah [00:55:24] Listen, there’s so many t-shirts with that on it.

Jason Kander [00:55:26] I bet. Well, I need one. But, anyway, so that’s how you had Kansas City. And then on the Kansas side, what you really have for the most part are suburbs of Kansas City. So we have the state line. But here the state line is literally just a road called state line. I mean, up in the northern most northern part of Kansas City, it’s a river. But it’s really for the most part it’s just a road and you cross it and you really can’t tell you switch from one state to the other. It’s one big metro area. It’s why like when the mayor of Kansas City, the current mayor Quinton Lucas, when he talks about Kansas City he refers to Kansas City and surrounds because he feels like the mayor for...

Sarah [00:56:05] Everybody.

Jason Kander [00:56:05] And he taught at the University of Kansas and he’s an open KU fan despite the fact that he’s in Missouri. So it’s a normal thing here. So 50 years ago they built the new stadiums for the Royals and for the Chiefs and they built it at what they called the Truman Sports Complex and it’s on the east side of Kansas City so you got the state line. And then you go east and so it’s like from state line to the stadiums where they are now. Probably it’s true in Kentucky too. We don’t think of things in miles. We think of things in minutes. And it’s probably 20 minutes, okay? A 20 minute drive.

Sarah [00:56:41] Deeper into Missouri.

Jason Kander [00:56:42] Yeah, 20 minutes east into Missouri. Now, and it’s on the big 435, the big circle, big loop highway around us. It’s basically if it’s a big circle like a clock, they basically sit at about three o’clock on the Missouri side; whereas, 12 and six up and down the middle, that’s your state line.

Sarah [00:57:03] Okay, got it.

Jason Kander [00:57:04] What’s happening is because of this battle over incentives and stuff, the chiefs are going to move from three o’clock on that clock face to basically nine o’ clock.

Sarah [00:57:16] Okay, got it.

Jason Kander [00:57:18] And so they’re going to move across the state line to the other side of the loop, 435 loop basically. And so like me, I live down at about six o’clock just on the Missouri side. It’s 20 minutes from me either way. So what is the difference? And so the reason I say all this is to say I noticed the way it was covered nationally, people covered it like the team was moving. Like the team leaving Kansas City. And you’ve got Kansas City, Kansas, which is they wouldn’t like it if I say this, but is a suburb of Kansas City and Missouri, right? And then they’re going to Kansas City, Kansas. But Kansas City, Kansas, isn’t even really the largest population town anymore on that western side of the state line.

Sarah [00:58:00] Oh, interesting.

Jason Kander [00:58:01] So they’re going over there and they got a huge financial incentive to go over there. Now the Royals are going to go somewhere. They’re looking at downtown Kansas City as in Missouri side. They’re looking at north of the river, still Missouri side. They were looking for a long time and they’re still kind of I think it’s in play on the Kansas side and we’ll see where they land. But my point here is to say, yes, there are definite tax and municipal results, but for the average Kansas Citian, and by the way, like people who live in Overland Park, Kansas or Shawnee, Kansas, where I was born, when they go on vacation you ask them where are you from, they say I’m from Kansas City. They all see themselves as from Kansas City.

Sarah [00:58:39] So it’s not like people are going to get like new jerseys. You know what I mean?

Jason Kander [00:58:43] No, nothing is going to change.

Sarah [00:58:43] Interesting. Okay.

Jason Kander [00:58:44] It’s going to be a new stadium. There are going to some people who are real mad about it. Politically, it’s not great if you’re a Missouri side politician because you’re supposed to try to keep them. Ultimately, at the end of the day, they’re still the Kansas City Chiefs. They’re going to move the stadium 20 minutes.

Sarah [00:59:04] Right. Well, can I just say this too. They’re doing this in Nashville too. Like, why does everybody need a new, bigger, ridiculous stadium every like five years? It just feels like it’s a little out of control.

Jason Kander [00:59:16] Well, that’s a whole other conversation.

Sarah [00:59:20] They’re building a giant Titan stadium right next to the already giant currently used Titan stadium.

Jason Kander [00:59:25] It’s sort of case by case. What I will say here is that they’ve had these stadiums for really long time in Kansas City. And the other piece of it is that they were built because originally the city planners thought the city was going to grow East and it didn’t. The population growth grew west across the state line. It grew South in both directions on both sides of the state line, and it grew North on the Missouri side. And the one direction the population growth did not go-- now, there’s a lot of reasons for this and not all of them are good. Some of them have a lot to do with like urban renewal and the way the black community was treated. So it’s not like I’m not describing something that just happened naturally. I’m describing a thing that happened is that population growth didn’t go in the direction of the stadiums. So there is this huge sports complex out there that there’s very little around. Which is cool for a tailgate culture, but for instance if you’re the city planners at Kansas City and you want to take this thing, for instance, with the Royals, that’s going to get at least 81 venue event nights a year, you’d like to have it near more of your stuff that is going to get run off business. And so in that case, I think it’s a good reason to have a new location. But I think it depends on where you’re talking about and what team you’re talking about and all that.

Sarah [01:00:48] And your stance. Are you a Chiefs fan?

Jason Kander [01:00:50] Yeah, I’m a huge Royals fan and I’m also a big Chiefs fan.

Sarah [01:00:53] Okay. And your stance on Taylor Swift.

Jason Kander [01:00:56] We’re all Swifties in Kansas City. It’s funny I think people think--

Sarah [01:01:00] I thought so. I just wanted to make sure.

Jason Kander [01:01:03] I mean, when they announced their engagement, there were businesses in this town that just sent people home for the rest of the day. I’m not kidding.

Sarah [01:01:09] Listen, again, back to the theme of me having receipts. I think they’ve been dating about two weeks or we’d known they were dating.

Jason Kander [01:01:18] Oh, are you a hater?

Sarah [01:01:19] No, no, baby. I said they’re getting married and everyone’s like you’re crazy. I was like, no. Those two are going to get married. And I said it consistently for so long that when they got engaged it was like I got engaged. The amount of text messages I got they were like congratulations. I thought of you first. I was like thanks. It was great. I highly recommend like staking out your place so that when it happens, it’s like you’ve won a prize. Like it was amazing.

Jason Kander [01:01:46] Who doesn’t love a love story, first of all? Also, the Kelsey brothers are great dudes. They’re clearly you talk about good, decent role models for young boys. And then you cannot get a better role model for young girls. And as somebody who now I’m a girl dad, which I generally can’t stand the people who discover that women have value when they have daughters. So I try to shut that. I’ve found women to have equal value to men long before I had a daughter. But if having a daughter does give you the opportunity to see certain things that you can’t see without having a daughter. And so, for instance, to see my five-year-old daughter the way she reacts when a Taylor Swift song comes on-- and now she doesn’t understand all the lyrics and everything, so it’s a little different from like..

Sarah [01:02:37] I hope not, with some of the songs on the new album.

Jason Kander [01:02:39] Right. But it’s more of she understands that culturally being a girl who likes Taylor Swift, it connects her to other girls in her school and everything. And I think an element of it is that she understands that Travis and Taylor’s house is like three quarters of a mile from here. It feels very personal to her.

Sarah [01:03:00] Are you going to send him a present? Are you going to send him a wedding present?

Jason Kander [01:03:04] I don’t think they’ll get one from me.

Sarah [01:03:06] I think that you should. Maybe a card from your daughter. You’re neighbors.

Jason Kander [01:03:10] I mean, just call us neighbors. It’s three quarters of a mile. It’s not the same neighborhood.

Sarah [01:03:16] I was going to say, are you doing better podcasting than I am?

Jason Kander [01:03:20] No. To call back to what we were talking about a minute ago, it’s across the state line. It’s on that. And where we live down here-- to give you a little Kansas City geography you don’t need, but to really fill this out, we live down here in South Kansas City, but we’re in Kansas City and Missouri proper. When you cross the state line, which is not too far from where we live at all, you go into Leewood, Kansas, and Leewood, Kansas, is very fancy. It’s still Kansas. Nobody’s driving a Rolls or anything. But that’s where the med spas are in this town. They’re not on this side of the state line.

Sarah [01:04:00] Got you. Okay. I like that you live so close though.

Jason Kander [01:04:03] Yeah, it is a neat thing. My kids think that’s neat. And actually a buddy of mine they ended up buying his house. He’s an older, very accomplished lawyer. And the reason I knew is because he spent a weekend scrambling to try to get rid of furniture and clothing because they basically were like we need a place to stay that has more like--Travis’s house...

Sarah [01:04:25] Security.

Jason Kander [01:04:25] Yeah. And so they were like and we need it immediately. And we will buy it. I think what happened is they were like we will close immediately, but you got to...

Sarah [01:04:33] You got to get it out!

Jason Kander [01:04:34] Yeah, he was like, “I ended up leaving a lot of furniture in there. So I don’t know how much of my old man furniture they still have.”

Sarah [01:04:40] That’s amazing. I love that. Jason Kander. I love it when you come on Pantsuit Politics.

Jason Kander [01:04:44] I have a lot of fun. Thank you for having me.

Sarah [01:04:46] I think you need to send this episode to some of your pals. I think we filled out a pretty good platform for them to be honest.

Jason Kander [01:04:50] I actually think we solved many problems.

Sarah [01:04:53] I do, too. More people should listen to us. All right. Well, thank you. I hope that you have a great rest of your day.

Jason Kander [01:05:00] You too.

Sarah [01:05:00] And we will share this episode. We’ll put all the links so that people can go find your show and just thanks so much.

Jason Kander [01:05:05] Thank you!

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

Our show is listener-supported. The community of paid subscribers here on Substack makes everything we do possible. Special thanks to our Executive Producers, some of whose names you hear at the end of each show. To join our community of supporters, become a paid subscriber here on Substack.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

We start with the DHS shutdown — 45 days of hell for TSA agents and travelers, only to land right back where Democrats offered to start. Then we turn to the president’s prime-time address on Iran, an 18-minute scripted speech in which he used some version of “never before” or “nobody’s ever seen” twelve times and offered zero concrete objectives for a war that is now 32 days old. He told us earlier in the day that the speech would be about how great he is. He was right.

From there, we talk about what’s hitting people at home — gas over $4 nationally, raspberries as the canary in the coal mine for grocery prices, and a Forbes breakdown showing the president added $1.4 billion to his personal fortune this year by leveraging the office while his actual business lost $1.3 billion. We walk through the truly staggering list of things he’s named after himself and land on the East Wing case, where a federal judge — the Honorable Richard J. Leon — delivered an opinion so exasperated it included exclamation points.

Outside of politics, we settle a critical question: is a long weekend better when it starts on Friday or ends on Monday? (It’s Friday. Obviously.)

We’ll miss you in real time next week as we’re out with our families for Spring Break, but there will be brand new episodes for you on Tuesday and Friday and on Substack. Have the best weekend available to you. - Beth

Topics Discussed

• The DHS Funding Standoff: Right Back Where We Started

• Donald Trump’s Primetime Speech on Iran

• The Corruption Is the Point: Coins, Pardons, and a $1.4B Year

• Outside of Politics: The Best Long Weekend Setup

Episode Resources

• Join us in Minneapolis for our live show this August! Tickets are on sale now!

• Trump’s White House ballroom project halted by judge (Axios)

• CBS News price tracker shows how much food, gas, utility and housing costs are rising (CBS News)

• Raspberries Are the Canary in the Coal Mine on Prices (CBS News Boston)

• The Definitive Net Worth Of Donald Trump (Forbes)

• Judge Blocks White House Ballroom Construction (NPR)

• DOJ Dropped 23,000 Criminal Investigations to Prioritize Immigration (ProPublica)

• Artemis II Launches — First Crewed Lunar Mission in 50 Years (NASA)

Actual Clips from Donald Trump

• We can’t do daycare, we’re fighting wars (X)

• I’m gonna make a little speech telling everyone how great I am (X)

• I don’t believe in building libraries or museums (X)

• I’ve Been to Dover; it’s been something (X)

• They call me king now, “no king” (X)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:29] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:32] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today is catharsis day, okay? The way the presidency has just collapsed into one man has been piling up on us. And today we’re just going to get some of the bees out of our mouths. We’ll talk about the prime time address on Iran. We’ll talk about the prices and the coin and the East wing and the $1.4 billion increase in Donald Trump’s net worth over this last year. And then we will take a big exhale together Outside of Politics as we prepare for our spring break with an important listener submitted question. Is a long weekend better when it starts on a Friday or ends on a Monday.

Sarah [00:01:13] Before we get started, let’s talk about Minneapolis. We are having our one and only live event there on August 29th. And you should come to see the show, to hang out with listeners, but you should also just go to Minneapolis because it’s great. I was just working on our itinerary from our summer trip to Minnesota last year when I stumbled upon this truly adorable Minneapolis tradition that I think reflects the character of this great city you should come hang out with us in. Every year, hundreds of people in Minneapolis walk silently through the streets, looking at the windows of the houses because it is called the cat tour. The residents put their cats in the window and the crowds stop to admire the cats. This is the kind of place Minneapolis is. Do you understand what I’m saying? Like, we should all go hang out there. We should have us some Jucy Lucys. We should go eat ice cream. We’re going to play some Mahjong along with everything else in the middle of the Spice Conference. And then we’re going to have a really fun live show in a really great city. So you should join us on August 29th. Tickets are on sale now, including virtual tickets. Grab them through the link in the show notes.

Beth [00:02:30] Everything is Trump everywhere all the time.

Sarah [00:02:41] You know what perpetuates the sense that he’s everywhere all the time, Beth? The fact that he keeps naming all the shit after himself. New York Times had a great little Instagram carousel of everything he’s named after himself, and it made me want to commit violence.

Beth [00:02:58] It’s an extremely long list. And it is even more frustrating to see that list when you realize it’s not like he’s just occupied by naming things after himself. There’s still like a whole world happening around him where he is actively making life harder. So let’s start there with the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which has just been ridiculously difficult to get through because of the way that Donald Trump inserts himself, but not in a helpful way, only in a way that makes an obstacle to progress. So a while ago, for a long time, Democrats have been saying, we’re happy to fund everything in this department except ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. And Trump has said, that’s ridiculous. Mike Johnson has said what a joke. Except that now that’s basically what they’re going to end up doing. They’re just going to fund everything except ICE, and Custom, and Border patrol.

Sarah [00:03:55] Yeah, the Democrats were like this is what we’re up for like 45 days ago before we were all waiting in five-hour lines at TSA. And then they said, absolutely not, that’s ridiculous. We’re not going to do anything. He said that. We’re not going to do anything until y’all pass the Save America Act. Then the Senate was like, okay, we’ll do everything but DHS. This was not even that long ago. This was like five days ago. And the House was like absolutely not. This is outrageous. This is a joke. We’re not going to do this. And now they’re doing it. You guys, I don’t know if they are perhaps correctly assessing that all of our attention is so obliterated that people can’t put together a basic timeline of events, but I think they’re overplaying their hand here. I think people can put together that we’re right back where we started after 45 days of hell. Particularly for TSA agents and anybody else flying through an American airport, only for you to agree to the same things. Now, the bad news is the Democrats have not extracted any agreements as far as reforming the ICE agent behavior as not wearing the masks, getting warrants, all this stuff. But they’re still in a better negotiating position, especially as a minority party in both houses than they have been. They’re going to have to try to get this through in reconciliation and get the Senate parliamentarian to agree that procedures around ICE relate to the budget. Good luck, boys. Good luck.

Beth [00:05:31] It’s so silly for anybody to describe this as some great victory or defeat. Like this has just been a loss to the American public and the American economy. That’s all it’s been. We are right back where we started 45 days ago. And now we have to figure out where to go. They’re probably going to try to do some reconciliation bill. But in the vein of good luck, boys, right now they’re saying that bill is somewhere between 45 billion and 75 billion dollars. Well, that’s the range. That’s quite a range. And some of them want it to just be about funding ICE and CBP for the next three years so that Democrats can never touch those agencies, which also, that’s silly. Congress can always go back and look at its work and change something from the past. It’s all so silly. It’s so depressing. Every statement that I have read about this, I’m just like, you are not serious people. Where are the serious people?

Sarah [00:06:30] And I just feel like this is the consistent theme with his approach to Congress, his approach to the tariffs, his approach to this war. I was attempting to listen to his remarks to the American public last night about the war in Iran. And it’s just the same. Everything bad in the world is everyone else’s fault. And I am the genius who has come and fixed everything and been completely consistent the whole time, even though I’m telling you that it’s about to wrap up. Oh, and also we’re going to bomb them into the stone ages. It just happens over and over and over again, and I have to believe in my heart and as reflected in public polling that people just speak Trump at this point. The part of your brain that can go, oh, he’s just bloviating about Democrats are the cause of all problems. I’m the source of all solutions. Ignore what you see right in front of your face. All that matters is that I whip up this reality right in front of you, even if that reality is different tomorrow. And I tell you to believe something completely different tomorrow-- or forget tomorrow. How about just like six to eight hours from now?

Beth [00:08:02] Well, he told us that the speech was going to be how great he is. I mean, he literally said that earlier in the day. Tonight, I’m making a little speech at nine o’clock and basically I’m going to tell everybody how great I am. That’s a direct quote from him before he gave the speech.

Sarah [00:08:16] Oh my God!

Clip: Donald Trump [00:08:19] And tonight I’m making a little speech at nine o’clock and basically I’m going to tell everybody how great I am. What a great job I’ve done. What a phenomenal job. What a phenomena job I have done.

Beth [00:08:34] And then he gave the speech and that is what it was. He 12 times said that something had never been done before. Nobody’s ever seen it before. Everything is unprecedented. We have heard that for 10 years now. I don’t know if he walks through the world just doe-eyed, like he genuinely believes everything is new and exciting, or if that’s just his advertising speak coming through. But it hits differently when you’re putting gas in your car and you can see that gas is over $4, over $5 a gallon in parts of the United States. And it hits different when your loved one is being deployed. The reality of this war has settled in fast and it hasn’t even settled all the way in. And for him to come out and address the nation-- interrupting Survivor, by the way, to do it-- and to tell us nothing. To continue to speak in three to four week timeframes and the new regime of unnamed people are less radical, but if they happen to not be, then we’re just going to erase their whole country. I mean, it’s disgraceful.

Sarah [00:09:50] It’s disgraceful. And he brought up Venezuela, which I hope is a moment everybody remembers the Monroe Doctrine. Remember that, Beth? Remember the Monroe doctrine? We’re going to focus on the Western hemisphere, the national security strategy from last November. Not that long ago mentions the Middle East, only to say that former administration’s focus on the region was no longer necessary because America had a net energy exporter. So it’s all whim. There’s no plan. And there’s lots of things he’s doing for the first time, but they are all in service of his ego. None of them have anything to do with any sort of big strategy or plan to improve the lived existences of the American people.

Beth [00:10:34] In an 18-minute scripted speech, he could not stick to one rationale for the war. He told us we’re just there to help. We don’t really need anything from Iran. Iran’s not really a threat to us, but also they’re a grave threat to use and we’ve stamped it out and this will make your children and their grandchildren safer in the future. I mean, it’s just all over the place. All over place in one 18-minutes scripted speech.

Sarah [00:11:00] Well, and it’s even bubbling up like Axios has all this reporting from anonymous Trump officials that they don’t really know what he wants. And because there was that great Yuval Levin interview with Ezra Klein where he talked about most administrations, the work of the federal bureaucracy through the executive branch is to gather information, to gather research and then present options to the President of the United States. You can’t do that with this one. It’s the opposite. Everybody follows his whims. We are all at his whim. That’s it. And so, of course, they’re frustrated. Of course, they don’t know what to do next because he’s changing his mind. He’s saying something different, particularly with this war every five minutes. He wants to create reality and he has not accepted the reality of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz or the gas prices, much less the rising inflation. Much less the deficit. I’m so glad he’s getting richer by the day and they’re asking for more and more money as our country grows broke. And I’m a Democrat. This is not a thing I usually bitch about, but it’s out of control. You have the head of the Federal Reserve going like this is not sustainable. Our level of spending is not sustainable. This is not going to work. And he’s just sending us all beautiful drawings of his presidential library (using that word very loosely) and his gold coin and his ballroom, and it is just getting truly absurd.

Beth [00:12:48] To your point that he hasn’t accepted reality. I think the most fundamental reality that he doesn’t accept related to this war is the reality of the Iranian people. I don’t think he accepts as every military expert who talks about the war says, Iran gets a vote. And I just don’t thing he accepts that. And when he talks about bombing them back to the stone ages, as he’s talked about bombing their oil fields, bombing their infrastructure, bombing desalination plants where people get their drinking water. I just don’t think he has accepted that this is happening in a real space. I think it looks and feels to him like a video game on his screen. And that’s been the White House communication strategy. I think all of that comes, as you said, straight from the top, straight from his whims. I don’t think he can process a world as real and visceral and concrete and lasting as a war zone.

Sarah [00:13:45] Well, it’s not just the communication strategy, it is the briefing strategy. They give him, according to multiple reports, cute little reels of all the bombings. That’s how they’re briefing the President of the United States on a war that is entering its second month. Showing him videos of all of the stuff we’re blowing up. It’s outrageous. And then when a journalist confronts him with the reality that some of the stuff we’re blowing up mistakenly is school children, he’s like, I don’t know anything about that. As if that’s an excuse from the most powerful person on planet earth. I don’t know? Well, that’s your problem, not ours.

Beth [00:14:23] And I don’t think he can know because to know would be to accept that there are real kids who are dead because of his decision making. In this speech, he talked about being at Dover as dead soldiers have been brought home from the Middle East. And he said...

Clip: Donald Trump [00:14:40] Twice this past month, I’ve traveled to Dover Air Force Base, and it’s been something. I wanted to be with those heroes as they return to American soil, and I was with them and their families, their parents, their wives, their husbands. We salute them, and now we must honor them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives and every single one of the people. Their loved ones said, please, sir, please finish the job. Every one of them.

Beth [00:15:12] And my heart sank when I heard him say that. I just was trying to imagine how that lands, if you’re the families of those soldiers. That’s really been something. And then he just uses them as props. Every single person has said, finish the job, sir. I don’t believe that, one. And two, I don’t understand what he thinks the job is. The whole speech was supposed to communicate to us what the job and I still don’t know.

Sarah [00:15:39] I do think that with regards to the war because it is framed to him through a lens of pure military objectives, we wanted to obliterate their Navy. We wanted obliterated their air capacity. And I think that many of the military objectives have been met. They have bombed a lot of things. They have done a lot damage. And so you can hear him go back to that over and over again. You can hear that they are clearly presenting this part of the military strategy as successful, which I think it’s mostly has been. They have done a lot of damage to Iran’s military capacity. No doubt about that. And because that’s what’s presented to him, you can hear him instinctually like reactively go back to that and ignore the complicating factor of the Strait of Hormuz. Well, Europe’s going to help us open it. Well, you’re on your own to get your own ships through there. We don’t really need that oil, even though has no one said, like, you’re right. We don’t, but the price is set globally. So if other people are suffering, then we are too. Forget the fact that the Houthis are now threatening additional 20% of the global energy supply that flows through that particular area of the world, through the Red Sea. You can tell no one’s giving him any of the hard complications here. They’re just telling him what he wants to hear. They’re presenting the successes, and it’s maddening. I think one of the most interesting and what I can describe as ahistorical is the way the American people have not like gone on this, okay, we’ll wrap ourselves in the flag and we’ll support these military objectives while they’re happening. Like, that has never been true in my lifetime. In my lifetime, no matter how problematic the military campaign was, the American People got on board. Not this time. Not this time.

Beth [00:17:40] And I think we’ve done a mature advancement here because what I hear people saying is I don’t support this because I care about the troops. I support the individuals who go make these sacrifices, but I don’t want them to have to sacrifice for this. And that’s, I think, a really healthy place for us to be as a populace. If we can express that through our legislators as we’re supposed to be able to do and effect change, how great. If I were briefing the president today I would take him a piece from CBS News that explains that raspberries are the canary in the coal mine on prices. The price of raspberries is increasing and grocery stores are trying to absorb some of that right now. They’re not even passing the full cost along to consumers. But this piece is a great job from people who have worked in groceries for a long time saying if the price of oil is high, the price if everything is high. And you first see it in the perimeter of the grocery store, foods that have to be shipped quickly, refrigerated and sold quickly, those prices are going to go up first and raspberries are doing it right now. And we can’t keep fruits and vegetables at the low prices that they are for us much longer. If the price of oil stays high, these are going to get really, really high. The interior of the grocery store, those prices will escalate more slowly, but they’ll escalate too. And for this president who ran on explicitly lowering your grocery prices, I think somebody needs to give him this message.

Sarah [00:19:12] To me, again, the macro of all of this is the biggest, loudest narratives combined. And I know you don’t love the shorthand, but I really think it’s good, which is there is chaos that everybody is witnessing all the time around the world that is now really coming home in a way and not just through prices, but you have this chaos. You have the cost that people increasingly cannot avoid. Gas prices, exactly what you’re talking about, like grocery store prices. And then you have the other biggest stories, which is the corruption. You have the ballroom. You have the gold coin. You have fact that he’s going to sign the currency for the first-- all these like the first American president... It’s like over and over again. The first American president to prioritize his ego by showing up at the Supreme Court, by putting his name on the currency, by making an actual coin that’s all about him putting his face on the National Park Pass next to George Washington while building a big old ballroom and putting out visions of this literal gold statue of himself at his presidential library. Like, what? I think the reason that the bees are coming out of my mouth is I’ve just always been a president person. Who doesn’t love the presidency and the stories and the history and the humanness and the humanity of it all and of all of them. And his first term, for better or for worse, we thought he was strutting norms, but when it came to the most, in my mind, some of the most important ones around the office held. And this time he is just breaking through all of them in this way. I think that’s why the No Kings protest hits. It’s just he cannot stop himself from telling us in every way possible, I’m the king of America. This is the United States of Trump.

Clip: Donald Trump [00:21:32] On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem as crowds welcomed him with praise, honoring him as king. They call me king now. Do you believe it? No king. I’m such a king, I can’t get a ballroom approved. Pretty amazing, man. I’m a king. If I was a king, we’d be doing a lot more. I’m doing a lot, but I could be doing a lot more if I was the king.

Beth [00:21:58] I think there have been three statements from him this week that really reveal where his thinking is right now. One of them is saying that speech he was going to go out and tell everybody how great he is because that’s exactly what the speech was. Another one from that same set of remarks about childcare and he said...

Clip: Donald Trump [00:22:21] Don’t send any money for daycare because the United States can’t take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state. We can’t take care of a daycare; we’re a big country. We have 50 states, we have all these other people, we are fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare. You got to let a state take care of daycare and they should pay for it too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up for... But it’s not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things, they can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it in a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have the guard the country. But all these little things, all these little scams that have taken place, you have to let states take care of them, Russell, and you have to do it.

Beth [00:23:12] I think that clip shows that he has reconceptualized his role as being mostly as commander in chief, which is very different than what he told America he was going to do. And the third one relates to this library because it’s a library, right? They’re trying to take advantage of all of the financial things attached to a presidential library. But he said...

Clip: Donald Trump [00:23:39] I don’t believe in building libraries or museums. It’s really like the Barack Hussein Obama one in Chicago in not a good location. And it’s a very unattractive building that’s seriously late and seriously over budget. I think you’re going to see a great one here. And it’ll go up on time, on budget. Best location in Miami. They say it’s the best block in Miami and the state work with us there. It’s going to be most likely a hotel you know this concept could be office but it’s most likely going to be a hotel with a beautiful building underneath and a 747 air force one in the lobby which is going to be a trick.

Beth [00:24:20] And I think those three quotes together tell us exactly what this is.

Sarah [00:24:26] It’s this weird amalgamation of his life experience. We’re getting to the point now where he is stacking up more of his live around politics than business. So you’re getting this sense that like-- It’s like I think of Maggie Haberman saying it all the time, his most successful business venture was taking over the Republican Party. Because he could never stack up enough successes. His businesses would go bankrupt, the stakes, the university, even the licensing and the like the building, he was kind of a mess at that from the very beginning, like all of this. And so you can almost like see this new neural pathway forming in real time. And just the overwhelming corruption. He is fleecing all of us. Like the part of the library, let’s ignore the fact that how convenient that they’re all coming out saying, I think I’m going to ignore the federal law requiring presidential records to be turned over. I think it’s unconstitutional.

[00:25:47] So it’s definitely not going to be some sort of place of study of the Trump years. They don’t want that because God knows what we would find. God knows what Jared Kushner’s saying in these negotiations about the business opportunities on the other end of these ceasefires. God, I cannot imagine. And even this, again, the little bit we can see now, the little we can see now. For example, they formed a non-profit called the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund Inc. It was created on December 20th, 2024, and was the recipient of the legal settlements, AKA shakedowns from like ABC, Metta, Paramount, X, to the tune of $63 million, okay? So basically a legalized bribery, he put it all in the library fund. But then in May of last year, they created a second non-profit, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation Inc. And the first entity was dissolved. I wonder what happened to the $63 million that went into the first one. It’s just a shakedown. It’s shell companies using the traditional federally protected nonprofit structure given to ex-president to take as much money as possible. I mean, how else do we explain his personal wealth increasing by almost $2 billion in one year?

Beth [00:27:23] Well, the wealth increase of $1.4 billion over this past year absolutely illustrates the point that he is not a successful business person because the business component, Trump media and technology group, lost $1,300,000,000 last year. The money has been made on leveraging the presidency for profit, as Forbes put it very succinctly. The money has been made on the cryptocurrency, on the meme coins, on all of these places where people can just hand over money to him expecting him to use his power to benefit them.

Sarah [00:28:08] Which has worked. People get pardons. People get regulations relaxed. The nursing home guy made a big old donation and then what do you know? All the nursing home regulations about staffing requirements disappeared. Wow, that’s incredible. Not to mention there’s like a whole cottage industry of paying for pardons now. Lobbyists and lawyers and the fees that they extract in order to get it in front of the president so that you can get your pardon. It is just, mmm. And don’t forget, did you see the ProPublica piece about how the Justice Department has basically let like 23,000 criminal investigations lapse because of the redirection of resources to immigration? Like, how convenient? Beth, even if that was it, even if it was just the corruption, but he can’t stop himself, he then has to like rub it in everybody’s faces by building a big old ballroom and putting his face on a gold coin and putting his face and name on everything. Again, putting out a picture of a 40-foot gold statue, like he doesn’t even have the good sense to hide it.

Beth [00:29:18] We are all suffering from his mortality crisis. That to me is what the naming is about, the buildings, the statues. He has come to terms with the fact that he’s not going to live forever and is trying to live forever in every way that he possibly can. The most cathartic thing that I did this week was read the opinion of the judge in the East Wing case.

Sarah [00:29:39] I need to read it.

Beth [00:29:41] The honorable Richard J. Leon speaks for us all in this case. I have never in my life seen so many exclamation points in an opinion. This judge has had it. And this judge has had this case for a while. There have been motions before this one. This isn’t brand new. But he opens his first sentence as “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of first families. He is not, however, the owner!” That’s not how judges write. You can tell that this judge has heard enough. He writes, “No statute comes close to giving the president the authority he claims to have.” That’s a good summary for this entire first year of his second term. He thinks he owns everything. Everything is his. He can do whatever he wants with it. And so he’s selling all of it.

Sarah [00:30:28] Well, the reason this whole episode came from the ballroom because I was about to lose it. First of all, the White House part, literally I’m going to cry. This is how I feel about this. Like the White house part was bad enough to tear down this building that does not belong to you that belongs to all of us was such an ego-driven heinous act. That was bad enough. The way the plans ignored the way the building communicated a balance of power. This stuff is important. I know esthetics are easy to roll our eyes at, but to our conversation yesterday on Spicy Live about embodiment and about the connection between the way we move around spaces and cities and our bodies and the fact that that matters to our consciousness and our thoughts, like it matters. When the New York Times put out the piece talking about the truly dumb stuff like the staircase that goes to nowhere, the faux windows that hide bathrooms, the columns that are going to block the view, that’s all bad enough. It’s insulting. It’s insulting to everybody who’s like poured their life into architecture and design. It’s consulting to the history of this building and the carefulness, which with people brought to like the fence. The fence took three years to decide on because this stuff is important. So that’s all bad enough.

[00:32:11] But what really just pushed me over the edge and I understand why this judge had so many damn exclamation points, was the idea that this city, a city I love, that I lived in, that’s designed so that you look from Congress down Pennsylvania Avenue and you see the White House and you that these places are connected and in conversation with each other. That matters, the design, the balance of the circle in front of the White house that mirrors the circle in front the ellipse and the Washington Monument, and the mall, these places that we share, the places that belong to all of us, and you’re going to stick a ballroom in the middle of it, funded privately, it is disgusting. It is just a like psychic pylon of all of this happening during our 250th birthday. All these beautiful things that have stood the test of time, that are a testament to the history and the people who made sacrifices and poured their hearts and minds and creativity into creating a city and a structure of government. And you’re going to stick a ballroom and have a UFC fight on the lawn? God, it just makes me want to come out of my skin. It makes me so mad. Even though this judge has stopped it, and thank God, I’m just so insulted. I’m just so angry that he-- it’s one thing to like put your name up on something that we can just tear it down when you’re gone. But the idea that he would permanently change the flow of this city, our city like it’s just... God, it’s infuriating.

Beth [00:34:05] I’m curious to see how many people have to be this insulted for things to start to matter. I was so angry that he went to the Supreme Court to intimidate the justices with his presence, and then so buoyed by the fact that they were not intimidated by his presence. And I thought, you know what, this might have been one power move too many for them. The way that John Roberts did not acknowledge his presence in the courtroom, I think was really healthy. Probably the first dose of co-equal branches that he’s actually had to sit with. And then in front of the president for the justices to push on the arguments about birthright citizenship to say we may have some new circumstances but it’s the same constitution in front of this president, I think all of that was really healthy. I just think that the East Wing is so symbolic of the way he functions everywhere, sloppy, disrespectful, mine, mine, mine. I’ll do what I want. I slap it together quickly because all I’m really concerned about is the esthetic of it and it matching my personal esthetic, not having any larger symbolic meaning. I just think we might be hitting one too many. I think if nothing else comes of it, I believe the Supreme Court’s opinion on birthright citizenship will be sharper in tone because he walked himself over there to sit in the courtroom and stare at them during the argument. I think this judge stopping the East Wing construction is sharper in tone because he is sick of this way of operating. I hope that moment arrives for Congress, sooner rather than later.

Sarah [00:35:55] The polling supports our instinct that a shift is happening. I know it’s national polling. I know that there are people who truly, as he told us from the beginning, could watch him murder somebody in Times Square and would not cease supporting him. I get it. But the latest polling shows that his net approval has fallen to -23 percentage points. Worse than his previous low of -21 in 2017, and basically about the same as Joe Biden’s after his debate performance. And this was in a quote from The Economist, “When many Americans concluded he was unfit for office.” I think we’re going to see a lot more TikToks and YouTube shorts with him seeming old and erratic and out of touch. I am seeing and hearing more of that bubble up as I do this job, which I think is really interesting. The Sharpie moment really hit when he basically recited a whole negotiation with Sharpie and Sharpie said that never happened. I really think people are looking around and going, uh-uh. And some of that softening has to come from Republicans. Like the numbers don’t add up otherwise. He can’t lose support among Democrats. There’s nothing left to lose. And, yes, a lot of the coalition he built of independents, particularly young people, particularly people of color, that’s gone. So, yeah, a lot of that movement came from independents. But it’s not all coming there. It’s not coming from there. And I think that matters. And I think the midterms and how they shake out is going to matter. And I just think the show is getting old, man. There’s no more plot twists. Like we all get the shtick. You know what is important to remember always? Part of the reason he ran is because they canceled The Apprentice and he was hoping to get a better negotiation deal. Like people were even running out of road with his reality show. That’s how we ended up here. The shtick gets old after a while and I really hope we’re getting there.

Beth [00:38:13] It’s not entertaining and it’s hitting people personally. That’s a recipe for big change. And I think that we’re going to see a big change this year. Well, let’s talk about something positive for a quick second. A little palette cleanser.

Sarah [00:38:29] A little pallet cleanser, that’s right.

Beth [00:38:32] We sent people back to the moon for the first time in 50 years.

Sarah [00:38:36] It’s exciting. Not all the way to the moon. They’re not going to step on the moon; they’re just going to fly around the moon. I watched it with a bunch of kiddos at church while we were waiting to start dinner, just watched the blast off from our phones. It was so special and so fun to watch Artemis 2 take off to space. And so they’ll be up there for 10 days. They are also going on a spring break trip, Beth, just like us. Only they’re going to the moon.

Beth [00:39:05] They are. And I wish them so much safety and fulfillment on their journey. And as the rest of us make our way into spring break, you’re going to tackle a very important question Outside of Politics. Is a long weekend better if it starts on the Friday or ends on a Monday? Sarah, what’s your preference? You want Friday off or Monday off in a long weekend?

Sarah [00:39:37] The question is, what day of the week do I want my children home from school pretty much? That feels like the question before us when you scratch at it.

Beth [00:39:50] I didn’t think about it that way at all. I thought about myself. I didn’t even have to think about this. I was like I want Friday off. Immediate response. I would much rather have Friday off. I like to start on a Monday. I like the energy of a Monday.

Sarah [00:40:03] I do too.

Beth [00:40:04] I definitely don’t want my kids home on a Monday. Absolutely do not want kids here on a Monday. I just think all the way around cleanly, no matter how you look at this, Friday off is superior.

Sarah [00:40:16] I hear you. I agree with everything you just said. But Fridays are my favorite workday because we usually keep a very clean schedule and so it’s my most open day to have the house to myself and really think deeply and work deeply. So I’m loathe to give that up to have children here for a long weekend. Do you see what I’m saying?

Beth [00:40:46] I do. I also find though that if I plan well, it is much easier for me to dig out of the hole created if I’ve missed a Friday than a Monday. If we are not working on Monday and then we get back and look at the rest of our schedule, I am behind all week.

Sarah [00:41:03] That’s true. I love a Monday. It’s like probably my favorite day of the week. I love a Monday morning. So I’m definitely probably on the Friday. And I even think for travel purposes, it’s more fun to kick off the trip earlier on a Friday, get out of town, come back on a Sunday and start your week as opposed to going into Monday. And then it’s like you said, like you’re kind of starting your week at a deficit. Okay. So Friday. The answer is Friday.

Beth [00:41:32] I think you lose something either way if Monday is off, because then you really have two abnormal weeks, because your Friday energy is long weekend, can’t wait for it. So you’re less productive on Friday anyway, or less focused at school, or the whole energy of your house is like, well, we’ve got a long weekend coming up. And then the next week is a short week at work, right? Or a short weekend at school. And so that energy is disrupted. I just think it’s a lot cleaner to have that Friday off, enjoy your long weekend. Get back to it on Monday.

Sarah [00:42:03] Well, we’ve gone back and forth on spring break. We’re like sometimes on spring break, they’ll give us the Friday off and sometimes they won’t. But I have found that even when they don’t, we take it.

Beth [00:42:12] I think that’s true for the whole world.

Sarah [00:42:15] Yeah, it just makes it easier to travel for sure. It helps kind of spread it out. It’s hard to start a trip on a Saturday.

Beth [00:42:21] It is very hard. You just need the Friday off. That’s just the long and short of it. So Friday is fine.

Sarah [00:42:26] I mean, my bigger case here is maybe we just all stop working on Fridays. Maybe that’s the answer.

Beth [00:42:32] Just always four day weeks.

Sarah [00:42:33] Yeah, I think so. I think we’re going to end up there eventually. That’s my prediction. I think we’re heading that way. You know what I’m saying?

Beth [00:42:41] I’m not going to argue about that.

Sarah [00:42:41] Okay.

Beth [00:42:44] Thank you all so much for joining us today. We will be out next week for spring break, but there will be two new episodes in your podcast feed, including Sarah’s conversation with now three time Pantsuit Politics guest, Jason Kander. We should probably send him some kind of jacket.

Sarah [00:42:58] I call him the Steve Martin to our SNL, you know, like the people who host over and over. Isn’t Steve Martin the most like common or like most frequent host of Saturday Night Live? I feel like he is.

Beth [00:43:07] Sarah and Jason Kander will be here with you on Tuesday. We’ll have things going on Substack. We won’t miss a beat and then we’ll all come back together the next week in real time. So until then, have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Then we turn to a societal truth that’s bigger than this administration.

Two recent cases have sparked public outrage. One involves a traffic accident in San Francisco that killed a family of four. The second involves two 14-year-olds in Pennsylvania who created hundreds of fake nude images of their classmates.

Long-time listeners know that I think our criminal legal system is still a long way from just. Most of the time in these conversations, I’m talking about the rights of the accused perpetrator. Today, we talk about how our systems are not set up for victims at all. We know on some visceral level that doesn’t work, but we can’t seem to imagine a new way.

Outside of politics, but not unrelated…we take up listener Kevin’s question: do we believe in karma? Come for a parsing of karma, holding a grudge, schadenfreude, and grace. Stay for a Survivor detour and a Taylor Swift sing-along. - Beth

Topics Discussed

• Iran and the Energy Crisis

• Punishment and Accountability

• Outside of Politics: Karma is a Vibe

Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

• Join us in Minneapolis for our live show this August! Tickets are on sale now!

Iran and Energy

• Trump weighs ground operations in Iran.(Tangle News)

• Trump Officials Weigh New $1 Billion Deal to Stop Offshore Wind Farms (The New York Times)

• More to Say About the Pro-Inflation President (Pantsuit Politics Premium)

Punishment and Accountability

• Something Else Was Born: On War, Grief, and the Chaos Lottery (Pantsuit Politics)

• Good News for Fresh Starts (Pantsuit Politics Premium)

• Elderly driver sentenced to probation in West Portal crash that killed family of 4 (KTVU)

• Probation sentence sparks outrage in fatal SF crash case (CBS)

• ‘It could have been us’: West Portal struggles with the sentence (The San Francisco Standard)

• PA teens get probation after using AI to create fake nudes of classmates (WHYY)

• Teens who made deepfake porn of classmates were just sentenced. Will it make a difference? (News+ Membership)

• Teens sentenced to just 60 hours of community service (The Cool Down)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:30] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:32] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:33] You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we’re going to catch up on the headlines before moving to a discussion on punishment and accountability based on two recent cases, one involving the killing of a family of four in San Francisco, and one involving teenagers and AI porn. Outside of politics, we are going to continue with the theme and we’re going to talk about whether or not we believe in karma.

Beth [00:00:53] Before we get started, we want to remind you that tickets are on sale for our one and only live show of 2026. We are so excited to be coming to Minneapolis at the end of August, and we hope to see you there. You can get tickets to the live show, our after party, and the Spice Conference. All the information is in the show notes.

Sarah [00:01:09] Next up, let’s tackle some headlines. Beth, I hate doing the News Brief right now because I have to show up and say, another day, another day of headlines full of war and global energy crisis. And it’s just frustrating. You can’t depend on anything he says about the length of this war which they’ve been promising would be two to four weeks for approximately two to four weeks. And he continues to sort of lie about wrapping it up while clearly preparing to escalate. Ten thousand troops being sent to the area is an escalation in my book, anyway, slice it.

Beth [00:02:00] When I saw the church prayer list include requests for prayers for someone’s relative being deployed, I thought, “That’s how we know this is a war.” They can call it whatever they want to, but this is a war and it is breaking through into our lives, not just at the gas pump, but with people sending their loved ones off. I really appreciated Isaac Saul’s reporting in Tangle today where he said that he had spoken with a service member who was deploying and the person said, “I don’t know what my mission is.” And that is how this continues to feel to me. And I agree with you that in our jobs it’s hard for me to know how to talk about this because it feels so intense and like there should be a lot to say every day. But I’m just overall at a loss for how this administration is handling it. I’m at a lost on how to speak about this with respect for the people who are being deployed and their families. It makes me just feel pretty despondent.

Sarah [00:03:09] What is becoming increasingly clear to me is that he is only giving lip service to wrapping this up. That he is planning on, in some way, shape or form, occupying the Karg Islands where Iranians crude oil is processed. I was pretty surprised that he’s been talking about this for so long. There’s been lots of reporting quoting him from like the eighties and the nineties, like, we should just take these islands. I wouldn’t have known he knew where those were, could place them on a map in the eights or nineties. So that sort of surprised me. But he’s clearly planning on doing that, if not also using ground troops to go ahead and take the uranium, which seems completely out of the realm of achievability to me. I’m not a military expert, but it seems like the walking definition of a quagmire. Like we’re just going to keep throwing American bodies into a war with no clearly articulated goal, despite the last, oh, I don’t know, 100 years of learning in American history, that this is a bad idea.

Beth [00:04:32] It feel like the clearest illustration of his presidency that pride goes before the fall. He just thought this was going to be so easy. And we’ve been saying for the last couple of years here, every time we talk about war, it’s not easy. You don’t win a war anymore. That’s not how modern war works. And so if you aren’t really clear about what you’re trying to do, and you aren’t really transparent with your people about what the costs are going to be, and why those costs are worth incurring. I don’t know why you start something like this.

Sarah [00:05:05] Well, and I think what makes it all the harder is if we were going down this road and everything else was great, it would be one thing. But we’re not. The war he was supposed to end between Russia and Ukraine on election day in 2024 is still very much going on. Even the conflict between Israel and Gaza. Not all the way over and certainly not into any sort of phase two rebuilding of this area. And now you have this entire regional conflict. And then on top of all of that, you have the strain you put on the global economy through the tariffs, which is now being worsened through this energy crisis. Everything I read, everything I read from experts in this area is this is only going to get worse. Like, what we’re experiencing now. With regards to gas prices and concerns from, you know, the airline industry and farmers around fertilizer and all these other, you now, choke points or disruptions, they’re only going to get worse. They’re only going to get worse

Beth [00:06:20] The two finer points of that that I keep reading that I can’t stop thinking about are, one, probably today things are responding with a sense of optimism that Trump will back off soon. That Trump always chickens out idea is baked in to prices today. So that’s one piece that it should already be worse, but people believe that maybe he’ll stop. And then two, that even if he stops today, it’s going to get worse and worse and worse before it gets better. That the damage is already so acute that it will last even if today he says, great news everybody, the war’s over.

Sarah [00:07:08] And again, this is just through the lens of global disruption, foreign conflicts. Then we have all the chaos being created domestically through the lack of funding for TSA and Homeland Security. The Republican party is fighting amongst itself between the Senate and the House. The Senate sent a compromise to the House. They rejected it. Everybody went on vacation. Trump says he’s going to pay them through other funds, has not explained how. And again, just on top of all this, the chaos at the airports. So we’re coming on spring break, I’m doing both, I’m flying and driving, so I’m screwed either way. And all I can ever think about when trying to cover these problems and crises he creates is that we have actual problems we should be addressing. We have artificial intelligence. We have a crisis in public education and higher education. We have real problems. Healthcare costs are still completely out of control, not in the headlines anymore, but still completely out of control. We still have all this government debt that even the Freedom Caucus who used to be that’s like their primary thing, is not concerned with anymore. So it’s maddening. It is maddened to watch him go around and break things while stepping over the wreckage of the things that have been broken for a long time.

Beth [00:08:56] And there are so many bullet points underneath everything you just listed, right? Just this morning on the subject of artificial intelligence, I was reading about how the Pentagon is holding up wind energy projects that are capable of producing enough electricity for cities, for data centers. To the tech bros that Trump is best friends with tries to green light all of their stuff, they want these wind projects to go forward and the administration is just stalling on it, dragging its feet. When you talk about education, firing people, bringing them back, having paid them for months and months while their work wasn’t being done, creates uncertainty there. And then today in the headlines about healthcare are Republicans floating a plan to cut more under the Affordable Care Act in order to pay for the war in Iran. And so every landscape where there’s already tons of uncertainty, this administration chooses to inject more uncertainty. And they do it at every level. It’s hard to even pay attention to all the levels at which it’s operating.

Sarah [00:10:07] Yes, I would like someone to poll Americans if they would like their healthcare costs to go up to pay for this war that nobody wants. That would be a fun poll question I would like to see the results on. I mean, look, Beth, I have this morning routine where I listen to your More to Say as I get ready. And I pulled up your latest one on how he is killing green energy projects and propping up coal fired plants that either no longer run or pollute the air and use all this money And I just couldn’t do it Beth. I couldn’t press play. I was too mad already I was like I can’t. I cannot listen to one more way in which he is doing this. I looked at it and I was like I can’t. I can’t do one more thing where he’s just sending us backwards as China’s and I was reading reporting about how China’s Capacity is like twice ours already. They know, we all know, we’re going to need more electric capacity. And it’s like he is trying to not only stop renewables but push us back like less electricity, more polluting electricity. Again, it’s maddening. It’s madding.

Beth [00:11:21] Well, I don’t mean to force you to come into this world with me, but the TLDR of that episode is even worse than that because the administration is preventing coal plants that were going to be retired from retiring. So like two days before a plant is scheduled to officially sunset, they’re coming in and saying there’s an energy emergency, you have to keep this plant operational. The problem is it takes years of planning to retire a coal plant. And so contracts expire and staff gets reallocated and they start planning for that to maybe become a natural gas plant or something else. And problems that arise don’t get fixed because they know they’re going to be sunsetting. So there’s a plant in Michigan that I talk about in this episode where they’re spending upwards of $600,000 a day to just keep it online because the Department of Energy has said that they have to. So the Department of Energy says we have an energy emergency, we cannot possibly close these coal plants that everyone has said need to close because coal is the most expensive form of energy to produce at this point. But they also say that we have energy surplus and so we’re able to sell energy to Canada and Mexico whenever the needs of our grid are met. So there is no logic to any of the orders of this administration. It’s all vibes. It’s all partisanship and ideology. When a regulator says this coal plant needs to go offline, it’s because they’ve run the numbers. That’s not about climate change as a religion or anything that you want to say runs as a thread through advocacy and partisanship. That’s just money. And they won’t even let the people looking at the dollars and sense of it do what they think is right.

Sarah [00:13:16] Oh, God, it’s infuriating, and that’s what just makes it hard. Like, what else do we say except for it’s absurd? I do like Chuck Schumer’s chaos, corruption, cost, the three C’s of what this administration is wreaking havoc across the nation. But it’s like what else do you say? That’s the best part, I think, about the No King’s protests and the stuff that happened over the weekend. First of all, people are very creative in the ways they say it on the signs. That’s great. That’s entertaining. Love that. But I think it gives this outlet of like, well, I’m not just staring at my computer screen and going, ugh! I’m standing with other people saying, we don’t want this. This is not what we want.

Beth [00:14:03] Well, and you have to either stare at your screen and go, ugh, or make your sign and go out with people because the minority leader of the Senate, the best he’s got right now is describing the problem. That’s frustrating. Like good for you, I guess, on the three Cs, but do something about it, man. Like get creative, figure this out. Especially on the war front. I understand that Congress has been trying and failing. Keep trying and make the case to the American public. And again, when I am seeing in my community people being sent off to this thing, there is an opportunity to gather support and tell the president he is way out over his skis, way in front of where public opinion is here. I want some kind of meaningful congressional action here and get TSA back.

Sarah [00:14:52] I mean, bare minimum, they could have not gone on vacation.

Beth [00:14:55] Yes, that’s what I’m saying. The Senate unanimously says, we figure this out. We have a deal. And then they head out and leave the House to go, boo, the Senate. This is a joke. We don’t like what they did. So we’re going to go home too. We’re going to pass our thing and then go home, too. What are we doing?

Sarah [00:15:15] It’s outrageous. It’s outrageous. Good for everybody who joined in their outrage this weekend. I don’t want to wrap up this very frustrating section of the show without saying eight million Americans took to the streets this weekend to express their dissatisfaction, their frustration, their rage, their righteous anger with everything we just talked about and more. We didn’t even talk about ICE. Like, I just think that that is encouraging. They’re saying it’s the biggest protest since Earth Day in 1970. It’s incredible. I mean, clearly, clearly something is happening here.

Beth [00:15:53] Something is happening and I hope that the momentum of what’s happening can be sustained. Even as I desperately hope that some of these problems will get better, that cooler heads in the administration will prevail, that somebody in Congress will step up and seize their power too.

Sarah [00:16:10] Well, we’re are going to pivot and we’re going to talk about some individual court cases that caught our attention around a conversation that in some ways is a continuation of the conversation we had a few weeks ago about accidental killers and accountability and punishment. So the first case that caught my attention, Beth, was a case out of Northern California. March, 2024, Mary Fong Lau, who was then 79 years old and who was going at quite high speeds, went the wrong way down the street as I understand it, crested the curve and hit a bus stop. Showed people afterwards that she had confused the brake and the gas. She killed a family of four. Diego, the father who was 40, Matilda, 38, the mother, and their sons, Joaquin and Kao, who was only three months old. They were on their way to the zoo. She pleaded no contest and this month was sentenced to two years probation, a suspended license, 200 hours of community service. The prosecutors had pushed for more, but the judge did not give her any prison time. She did speak at the hearing and she said she was sorry, but there has been outrage on the behalf of the victim’s family who were devastated and felt like there was not acknowledgement really in this sentence for what they had lost. There has been backlash in the community as well. And I just thought it was a really interesting application. We talked about accidental killers. We talked about the victim’s family in Georgia with the teacher saying like do not sentence these teenagers. This was very different though. This was the victim family saying, this is not enough. We lost our entire family, this entire family unit. And I think it’s a really, really difficult case.

Beth [00:18:26] I don’t have words for how sad I am for this family and for this driver and the driver’s family. One of the hardest realities to discuss when you’re talking about the criminal justice system is that it is not built for victims. It’s built for society. You don’t commit a crime against a person or a family. You commit a crime against society and that’s why a society through its representatives prosecutes the crime.

Sarah [00:19:02] It’s not like the family versus so-and-so. It’s like the state of California versus so.

Beth [00:19:07] Right. And they say the people, right? When they represent the state, they say it’s the people. And so the punishment for the crime, what we decide constitutes justice in any individual case, is about a judge weighing within parameters set by legislatures, factors that are again about society and about the cost to society of incarcerating someone. About the risk to society of someone repeating their offense. None of those factors are about the victims. We have in fact written in the opportunity for victims to address courts and created victims rights bills along the path because it feels like that should be. It feels right, but I think it confuses the issue in a lot of ways because of course this family came away thinking, what the hell? Of course, they feel if our only answer for them is the punishment of the driver, then of course this feels inadequate. And that’s just a design flaw in our system. And when I say that, I don’t mean that I think victims should have more of an imprint on the sentence for a criminal. I think we very deliberately have to divide those issues because someone’s liberty being taken from them is a serious thing. When someone’s liberties being taken by the state, that is a series thing. And it can easily get tied up in what the victims want. And that’s too much pressure on the victims too. That’s not fair, right? There’s no good will come of the family here being able to say this is what we want, and then they have to live with that too. Society holds that responsibility for reasons, but we do need something that facilitates some kind of hearing out for the victims’ family, some kind of meaningful process where the victims family gets some relief. Mostly what we do to victims right now is re-traumatize them because they have to be witnesses in the criminal process. And so it is a heartbreaking failure all around. I don’t think the answer is going to be, let’s put more stock in what the victims want as punishment. But I think we do need something that helps people feel that they have another door when something horrible like this happens.

Sarah [00:21:44] Yeah, I’m just trying to really like press on my own thinking because in some ways I completely agree with you. I think some of the victims’ rights legislation has really polluted people’s understanding of the process. And I think that it’s problematic to empower the victims in some way because I think it confuses what we’re trying to do. But at the same time, I was like, well, this teacher’s family doesn’t want them to be punished and that should be enough. Or even though I’m in the opposite when a victim’s family is pushing for the death penalty, I’m like, well, that’s not really the point. You know what I mean? So I’m trying to really stress test my thinking. Am I just really using the victim’s families and the way we all do to try to get the outcome that we think is the most fair? And especially in this situation, it’s not just the victim family, it’s the whole entire community who felt like this is not appropriate. And we all feel very differently when we were talking about like Chanel Miller and the rape case where the judge was like he’s young and let him go. And people were like, no! You know what I mean? So it’s like I think that we all do this, right? Like we all use the prism of the victim’s families either to support what we want or to say, well, that’s not really the point.

Beth [00:23:04] I mean, look in the Georgia case where the teacher’s family has said we don’t want these young men or these young people to be prosecuted. We talked about that as a remarkable example of grace. And I think that’s so meaningful just to know that’s relational, right? That is a message, not just to the state, that will ultimately make the decision and ultimately did make the decisions not to prosecute. That’s a message not just the state, but that’s a message to those young people of forgiveness and grace. We don’t want your life to be over because of what happened here. That’s the depth of connection that I think everyone’s looking for. When I was reading about this case and the community’s outrage, it seemed to me that a lot of that outrage is kind of connected to the fact that there wasn’t an apology forthcoming earlier. That there wasn’t an expression of remorse that this person could possibly drive again under the terms of the sentence. I think accountability and punishment are so different from each other and the criminal justice system lumps it all together. Mostly I think what we want is accountability and on what we have is punishment. And to me, that’s the distinction between the Georgia case and this one. I wonder what this case would have been like if this family had since from the get Just an unbelievable amount of remorse. A clear indication that this person would not drive again. A sense that like this matters to me and this has changed my life and I do feel accountable for what’s happened. And I don’t want to pretend I know what’s going on with this driver, I don’t. From the news accounts, what jumps out at me is that distinction between accountability and punishment.

Sarah [00:25:08] Yeah. Most people pursue I guess what you could call accountability through the civil process after the system of punishment has concluded. That’s what we saw with O.J. Simpson. He was held civilly liable, even though he was acquitted in the criminal court. And there was reporting that immediately after the accident, this woman moved assets into a trust to protect them from civil litigation, which I think perpetuated this idea of like not only do you not care, you’re trying to protect yourself. Now she moved them back, from my understanding. But I think that that was a real miss on the judge’s part. I understand the hesitation to put an 80-year-old woman in prison. Truly I do. But why? Why would you allow her to get a license again? She said she wasn’t going to drive. Like, put it in there. That’s an easy win, dawg. Like, just put it there and say she can’t ever drive again. Because she shouldn’t be driving probably at that age anyway. I know everybody’s different. Hell, my 90-year-old grandmother’s still driving. But I think for me the unstated issue here is her age. The judge expressly spoke to this with the prison term, but it’s hard not to play the alternate timeline, where if this person had been 30, what do we think would have happened? I’m not really sure how I feel about criminal charges in the case of negligence. Involuntary manslaughter, involuntary vehicular manslaughter. I think those are really messy areas.

[00:26:54] I remember when we had little kids before a lot of the safety features had been put in place, there was a lot of people who would leave their kids accidentally in the car and the kids would die in the heat of the car, and they would criminally charge them for negligence and I’m like what is this? Like, if you are so negligent and somebody dies, you’re not a risk. You know what I mean? Like, are we putting them in prison because they’re afraid they’re going to do it to their other kid? Come on, man. So, to me, my view as a citizen that I’ve come to over time is I’m not trying to punish people, but I am trying to put people in places where they cannot harm someone else. And I do think, for better or for worse, there are a lot of people... I think about all the time Brene Browns, yes, they’re doing the best they can, but their best is dangerous. And I think there are people who their best is dangerous and they have to go to prison to prevent them from doing this crime again, from harming the same person again. That’s definitely been my experience in my work as a CASA. And so if that’s not the issue, then you are just talking about punishment. I just want to make you feel bad for what you did. I don’t think that brings any manner of justice to the state. I think then you’re getting into justice for the victims. And I’m not really even sure that’s what I would describe as justice. I think it’s something different.

Beth [00:28:27] We saw Chicago over the weekend, the Broadway show, and there is a joke that the defense attorney makes a couple of times in it about how he always has to remind the jury that a conviction of a killer doesn’t bring the victim back to life. And there’s a moment when he says it and the juror goes, oh my gosh, and it lands the joke really nicely. Like we don’t realize that. And I think that’s right. I think in the extreme stress created by crime-- and stress is too light of a word, right? The horror visited on people during a crime. It is not the victim’s responsibility to figure out how the state should punish the defendant because that is also cruel. It is cruel to say to the victim, you be responsible for the sentence. That’s not how this should work. Even civil trials are mostly about punishment. The punishment is just money. Because we can’t make people take accountability. That’s what we want. We want to force people to feel sorry enough. And sometimes there just isn’t sorry enough. Because what has been done, I mean, in this case with the driver, what has done cannot be undone and it’s awful. And you know how personal that feels to me. I live with the accountability. I didn’t even do anything wrong.

[00:29:55] But what happened when I was driving to another person cannot be undone no matter how sorry I am about it. And living with that is awful. And it’s something that our government doesn’t have an answer to. I think there are some answers out there. There are processes that governments facilitate to sit victims down with perpetrators or sit them down with someone who will listen as many times as they need to tell the story, as much as they needed to talk it through, to try to knit something back together when you feel like your relationship to the world has been destroyed because of crime. But we’re just not going to get at it with a harsher sentence. That doesn’t mean that I think judges should just let everyone go all the time. And judges are bound by state law. I don’t know what the judge’s opportunity under state law was to take her license. The judge might’ve been restricted in what the judge was able to do in this case. That is the thing with this system though, when you have laws which are blunt instruments, you’re always going to walk away from a criminal proceeding dissatisfied. There isn’t a good answer because harm is usually irreparable.

Sarah [00:31:07] Yeah, and I think that’s what we’re getting at. I think we are advancing in our understanding and our frustration with the criminal justice system, because I think are truly evolving, and I mean that in a positive way, in our understand of what causes someone to commit a crime or what factors-- not maybe what causes, but what factors are at play here. So in this case, you have one end of the age spectrum. And I think age is one place where we really have started to crack some of this apart. The other end of the spectrum you have this case in Pennsylvania, where you have two boys who are 14 at the time at a private school who created 350 AI-generated fake nude images of at least 59 girls, some as young as 12. They used school photos, yearbooks, Instagram, TikTok, all kinds of stuff. And they were also sentenced this month. They got six months juvenile probation, 60 hours community service, and $12,000 in restitution. They had 59 plus victim statements, girls who talked about how traumatized they were, how they didn’t go to school. They were depressed. And the judge acknowledged, like, if you were adults, you’d be going to state prison. But because you were 14 at the time, this is going to play out differently. And I think juvenile justice is a place where we really have started to emphasize rehabilitation over punishment.

[00:32:40] I did the reporting on this for the Good News Brief. Like the juvenile justice system has gone under a massive transformation in the last decade, two decades. And it’s played out in the federal prison population, which is about to fall off a cliff because we don’t scoop up young boys in particular when they are most likely to commit crimes and throw them in prison until they’re in their 60s. I think that’s an advancement in society. But I think as we’ve gotten better and better, I read a piece about some of the laws they’ve passed to help get women who were defending themselves and killed their abusive partners to set up different laws and punishment and probation. Now, most of them are not working, or at least in this particular case I was reported on that I read about, but there are some of these that are getting better. So we’re talking about how old are you? What’s your circumstances? Like we’re trying to make it a less blunt instrument. I think we really are trying. But I think when you get to a situation like this, I think, well, that’s what’s hard, right? We’re trying make it less blunt instrument at the same time we’re empowering victims. Which also feels like an evolution on the surface. But I these two things are kind of in conflict. This idea that we’re trying to get closer and closer to justice for the victims, while we’re also trying to get closer and closer to a more human, humane application of these laws, of these sentences. And they, I don’t know, seem like they’re inevitably going to come to heads, like in this case. I mean, people are furious. Even though these kids were 14, they’re furious that this is all that they’re getting thrown at them.

Beth [00:34:28] And I understand that fury. I have two daughters, get it. What in our justice system is designed to deal with the scale of a 14-year-old able to create so many images that are seen by so many people? I mean, the opportunity for crime has changed with the advent of AI and the internet and has been changing for a while, but this is just going to get worse and worse. And so as a judge, I don’t envy having to make a call like this, where you’re trying to analyze the intent, the awareness of the harm, the possibility for future harms. We don’t make fewer sexual predators by incarcerating people. We don’t incarcerate in a way that really produces better humans on the other side of it. So this is a really tough one and I don’t know how to accomplish what you look at a situation like this and wish for. I think if you’re on the outside, you are not immediately attached to this event. On the outside you would say, okay, we need a deterrent effect. We need to let kids know this is serious. Do not mess with this. This will ruin your life. And so we say, go ahead and have some sacrificial lambs, ruin some lives so that we can show everybody this is not what we do. I don’t think that’s very just either. I understand the societal impulse. This again gets back to like what is best for society in this instance? That’s what we’re supposed to be doing through the criminal justice system.

Sarah [00:36:13] I think that’s really, really hard. I mean, we went through this in my own community. The shooter at my high school was 14 years old. And before that, we decided as a society that we didn’t care how young you were as a school shooter, that we were going to charge you as an adult, which is really sort of the path we’ve adopted. He came up for probation in the last couple years. And one of the victims, one of those shooting victims said I have a son now, and I think that he should he should be cared for in a halfway house and be able to contribute in some way, shape, or form. And others were like, no, I have to live with this the rest of my life and so should he. I think the assumption there is that even on the outside, he wouldn’t be living with this, which I disagree with. But what was I going to do, argue with them? You know what I mean? I think we’re really at an impasse with the way we have really emphasize the voices of the victims, which I think, again, so well motivated. We can see why like we all want to do that. But I think we’ve lost this idea of like, but this is supposed to be for everybody. So what does it mean? What are the costs and the benefits for everybody? This is the debate I used to always get when I went to college and my freshman year and Sister Helen Prejean came and I was like, I am anti capital punishment and I still am. I am still against the death penalty vehemently.

[00:37:58] I’ll never forget relatives would say like, well, if they raped and murdered you or they raped or murdered your kids, how would you feel about it? Wouldn’t it be like, I mean, I hope the same way. But that was sort of like the Trump card, right? Well, if it happened to you, this is what you would want. I think that that is a limiting at best and dangerous at worst perspective. But I will say, I think, on the other end of that conversation it’s become this sort of like false dichotomy because I think what happened societally is, well, if you’re not articulating the desires of the victim, if you are not advocating for the victim then that means automatically what you really want to do is empower the perpetrator. That to me felt like where the conversation went. Like you have to pick a side. You have to a pick a side. Do you feel sorry for the perpetrators and you care about them or do you feel for the victims and you carry about them? And that’s a false dichotomy. I think that’s what we’re pushing at is like accountability and punishment and transparency or trying our level best to take this blunt instrument and make it more complex isn’t really just about one or the other. It’s about all of us and what this does to all of us and how this matters to all us and how the system serves or doesn’t, every member of society, not just the perpetrators and the victims. And not for nothing I don’t think true crime probably helps this conversation at all because it’s not like every true crime podcast or true crime episode of Dateline goes, well, really, what does this mean for society?

Beth [00:39:45] And honestly, unfortunately, that’s what we need. It takes imagination to think through what could accountability mean in these circumstances. It’s challenging. Just these two instances that we’ve talked about, we haven’t even gotten to the meta verdict and what kind of accountability and punishment we’re talking about when a social media platform is harming children through its use. It takes a lot to sit down and think, what would ideally happen under these circumstances? What is the message from society to these boys who created these images? What is that message from to these girls that is not about the boys? That’s what’s been so frustrating every time there’s been a high profile trial about sexual assault or rape. We sit around and we’re just talking about the perpetrator over and over and again because we haven’t imagined something that is really for the victim. Even with the girls and these AI images, what we’ve asked them to be in court is a victim. Do tell your story. Tell it and tell us how devastated you are. Publicize your injury here because that’s the only way that some justice comes out of that. Well, that’s not just. What sexual assault survivors have to go through in an examination following their assault is not just. It’s what we have right now, but we got to imagine something better. And we cannot ask people to imagine something better when they’ve been victimized. That is the work of media and storytellers and advocacy organizations. There are some phenomenal organizations that connect with victims now and try to help them go through their own process that has nothing to do with the perpetrator. We need a lot more of that. We need we need a a lot of that showcased so that the public has a vision beyond what we’re stuck in today.

Sarah [00:41:49] Yeah. I do think we’re really stuck from both angles. And I think there can be creativity, not just only through the lens of the victims, but from the perpetrators and a more integrated, holistic understanding of how people end up committing these crimes. Look, I don’t think we are going to get to some place where we eliminate poverty and bad parents and drug addiction and nobody commits a crime again. And I think some people commit crimes that have nothing to do with any of those factors. I think some people, for a lot of reasons, end up in a place where they are cruel and want to hurt people. And we have to be protected against from those people. And often that means putting them in prison and incarcerating them. And so I just think that we get so stuck. I think that some of the best work that comes from these situations and it’s not always good. A lot of this like the victim’s rights bill come from this, too. But I think when families of either perpetrators or victims or anywhere in between, when you go to the legislator I think that’s what’s hard, right? We’re pushing everything into the court system.

[00:43:08] To me, some of the most positive application is when people stop seeing it through the lens of their own individual experience and say, okay, but wait, something went wrong here that we can fix for everybody. Let’s do that. I want to do that. If I was the family member, if I was just an outraged community member about the loss of this family in San Francisco, I might start pushing for age limits on driver’s license and say like, okay, can we be done with this? Can we put an age limit on the driver’s license? Or you have to retake your test at a certain point. To me, the most positive application is when we stop using the courts, which we do in so many areas in American life. Instead of doing the hard, messy advocacy of changing laws, we go to the courts. And I think we’re running out of road with that. And I don’t just mean in the criminal justice system, I mean in lots of ways. Like I think saying, okay, but the law is a blunt instrument. Maybe we need a more precise law in this situation. And that’s where I’m going to put my hard work.

Beth [00:44:16] Well, I love what you offered up there, Sarah, because going to the legislature to advocate for-- and I like that solution-- at a certain age you start retesting every year or every two years for your license. That is a blunt instrument with a fine application, with an individualized application, right? If you pass the test, fantastic, keep driving, wonderful. No one’s rights are impeded. We’re just recognizing as a society that we want to be careful and we don’t want this to happen to you. You don’t want to kill four people in your car. No one wants to do that. It’s unfortunate that many times when we take our advocacy efforts to the legislature, the legislature still goes to the courts. The message that’s heard is write a harsher sentence into the laws when this happens, instead of asking how do we create conditions where this is less likely to happen? So we have a lot of people advocating right now for harsher punishments when there is revenge porn, when somebody creates an AI image. We need to think about, in addition to whatever punishment as a society we think is fair for people who do this, what are the conditions that create this and how can we improve those conditions? How can we change the way this happens in the first place instead of always pushing it to the back end?

Sarah [00:45:39] Well, think about what we’re doing with school shootings. We’re just starting to put the parents in prison. Like, instead of any measurable gun reform or gun control, we’ve just decided we’re going to punish the parents. If the kid is still alive, we’ll charge them as an adult, and if they’re not, we’ll just throw the parents in jail for being negligent of the way they store their weapons. Instead of saying, oh, I don’t know, to the legislator, we want actual gun safety laws around the storage. I mean, that’s wild to me. You’re talking about you’re going to throw him in prison for not storing his weapon properly, but fight laws that require everyone to store their weapon properly? Like, what is happening? What is happening? We are trying to do one-offs instead of saying what’s here. And that’s why everybody’s so jacked up about the AI porn is because we’re all freaked out about it. We all know there needs to be more regulation, not just about AI porn, but AI everything. And so, we’re taking it out on these circumstances, which are heinous, but are still like throw the book at these two 14 year olds. It’s not going to protect your daughter. Like what are we doing?

Beth [00:46:46] I wish that we could think early and often together about how you create that sense of relational accountability. And I don’t mean that in a woo-woo way. You can tell though when a person has a sense of accountability without being punished. We just had a conversation in my house about prank calling. One of my kids tells me gleefully about doing some prank calling. It was so fun. And I said, excuse me, what did you do? And she describes it and I said I’m not mad at you and you’re not in trouble, do not ever do that again. Let’s talk about why. Let’s talk about how prank calling is stealing someone’s time while they’re at work and harassment and how you don’t do anything anonymous anymore. And we had a conversation about it. I did not need to punish because there was accountability. She understood what I was saying. She handled it with maturity and I believe she won’t do it again. There are years and years of conversations like that beneath that ability to have accountability without punishment. I don’t know how you replicate that in every family and I don’t know how you replicate it at the societal level but that’s the question that I want to be asking. Especially when I think about a situation like this driver in California. How do you have some kind of societal level of accountability that assures a victim’s family that punishment is not our only tool here? Punishment is not the only way that we say this loss mattered to us and was unacceptable to all of us and we all grieve it with you, and we want to do our best to support you as you process this horror. I think that if we can turn our attention toward that, we’ve put an awful lot of energy into figuring out how to punish people as harshly as possible. If we turn a fraction of that energy toward that question, I think we can make progress.

Sarah [00:48:48] We look forward to hearing all of your insights on this, having a conversation in the comments over on Substack. We are going to turn to a more woo-woo question in the theme of accountability and punishment and transparency and pick up Kevin’s question Outside of Politics. Do we believe in karma? Beth, we are legally required to at least sing a few bars of Taylor Swift’s. Karma is my boyfriend. I mean, you got to. How are you going to talk about karma and not talk about that song? So Beth, do you believe in karma?

Beth [00:49:28] I don’t think so. I want to say that I do.

Sarah [00:49:29] How could you after 10 years of Donald Trump.

Beth [00:49:32] Something in me badly wants to say I believe in karma strongly. Maybe it is because I like that song. Maybe because it feels right and more just. Maybe there’s a piece of me that religiously feels like I should say yes, like not karma in in the-- maybe there’s a piece of me that feels religiously like I should say, yes, like if there is a God, there has to be that kind of justice where the ledger is balanced by the end of a life. But I don’t think so. I think we have really different capacities within us for accountability. I think there are people who’ve done very little harm in this life who punish themselves relentlessly. And people who have done a tremendous amount of harm who can’t even comprehend that. And so it just makes me feel like, no, I don’t think it evens out as neatly as we’d like it to.

Sarah [00:50:27] Well, I will say I’ve experienced what I would describe as karma. Actually, somewhat recently I had a person who was supremely shitty to me during my time as a commissioner have some karma come their way. I had another set of people who were shitty to my family at one point and they had some shitty stuff happen to them. And I’m not even going to lie to you that I didn’t walk around singing that song for a couple of days. But I don’t know if I feel like that’s like some grand scale balancing out. I just think that it’s not surprising. The shitty ways they treated me, they kept doing to other people until it finally caught up with them. Like I do feel like in most circumstances, when you act like a dick, it catches up with you eventually. Not always in the way I would hope. This was the pep talk I gave myself when Donald Trump came on the political scene and particularly when he won in 2016. I want Donald Trump to sit in a jail cell and grieve the selfish ways he’s acted and what it has cost the American people. I’m going to give myself a little pep-talk, like that’s never happening. What I want as the grand karmic payoff for him in particular ain’t ever coming. And I just had to let that go. I wanted him to feel bad, he ain’t never going to feel bad. Okay.

Beth [00:51:49] You want accountability.

Sarah [00:51:51] Yeah, I want accountability. But I won’t lie and say like sometimes I won’t take some karma. And I think there is good karma too. I think sometimes people who act right get rewarded not near as often as I’d like as an Enneagram one. I think I like karma as an addition to this conversation because I think it opens up the idea that it’ll come and maybe not in the way that you wanted it to, but it’ll come some way. It doesn’t have to be with a prison sentence. It doesn’t have to be through the court system. The universe is big and the consequences of your actions can play out in all manner of ways.

Beth [00:52:45] I agree with that. I definitely think that there are both positive and negative consequences and externalities to what we do. I definitely thing Schadenfreude is real, where you see something happen to the person who was shitty to you and it feels good. That’s very, very real. Can I tell you a quick story from the season of Survivor, though, about how I think that holding onto karma can hurt us?

Sarah [00:53:13] Well, are you talking about karma or are you just calling a grudge?

Beth [00:53:15] Well, I think you’ll see what you think. I’ll tell you the story and you see what you think.

Sarah [00:53:20] Okay.

Beth [00:53:20] So one of my favorite Survivor players of all time, Charlie, comes back for season 50. Charlie loves Taylor Swift. He’d be delighted, I think, that we’re connecting these pieces together. I love Charlie as a player. He decided to play the game as a pretty young man with an older woman named Maria, and they were a great duo. And they get to the end of the game, and Maria voted for Charlie’s opponent at the last tribal council to win the game. And that was the vote that cost him the game. So his number one ally, from his perspective, stabs him in the back at the very end, robs him of a million dollars.. And I’m sure it was just humiliating. I can’t imagine how awful that would have felt. So he comes back to play again on season 50, and he is carrying that with such heaviness that he meets another player who he hasn’t seen yet. So season 49 wrapped and they immediately started filming 50. So this player from 49, Rizzo, is telling Charlie about his game and how he didn’t ultimately vote for his number one ally to win the million dollars. And Charlie is just like enraged. And I’m sure some of this is the edit, but I felt watching this like Charlie is a person who is waiting for karma to happen. And he is inflicting this sadness and anger that he’s holding on himself more than anyone else. I just hate for him when he watches this back. I hate how this is going to feel to him. And so I guess there’s a part of me that tries to let the idea of karma go and maybe this is just a slightly different way of saying the same thing that you said. If I am waiting to see it, it will consume me. If I can just say I don’t know how it evens out, and it may not, and life just isn’t fair, and I just let it all go, that’s better for my heart.

Sarah [00:55:35] Yeah, no, I definitely think that’s just holding a grudge and being petty. I think that that’s bad for you. And I think karma the implication is like that you do trust that it’ll come back around. You’re not depending on it. You’re not like staking on your claims on it. There’s a little bit trust in the universe that like it’ll back eventually. Like that’s how things work. And I don’t have to worry about it and I don’t have to make it happen.

Beth [00:55:56] In this life or another.

Sarah [00:55:57] In this life or another, like the consequences will pay off. And I’m not a grudge holder, despite what you might have concluded from my previous recitation of the people who wronged me and the wrongs they had coming to them. You know I hadn’t thought about that guy in years. And then he had a coming around, I was like, see, I trusted the universe that he would be a dick and it would come back to him and it did. And so like, to me, I think that sort of karma is different. Like trusting karma and being petty to me are very, very different. Because I do think you can get wrapped up into it. And I think to me that’s like an obstacle to the flow of karma. Like you’re disrupting it. You’re trying to insert yourself in the process instead of just trusting the universe and trusting like that things play out the way they’re supposed to play out. And sometimes it’s fair in the moment and doesn’t feel that way. And sometimes you look back 20 years and you thank God for unanswered prayers and you’re like, man, karma knew what it was doing. You know what I mean? So I think to me it’s like a trust of the energetic flow of bad energy and good energy and not trying to insert yourself in the process too much.

Beth [00:57:00] Hmm, I like that. I think my other obstacle with karma is how much I try to wire myself for grace and that it’s not that I want people to get what they deserve, it’s that I them to get better than they deserve. And I personally hope I get better than I deserve and I hope I give better than people deserve around me. And so that is like a little bit of a record scratch in my brain when I think about karma too. How do I reconcile the notion of karma with the notion of grace?

Sarah [00:57:27] Some people deserve, oh-so-very-little, Beth. And even if they get some grace, it’s still pretty bad.

Beth [00:57:35] Still pretty bad? Okay, all right, you solved it. Fine, that works.

Sarah [00:57:39] Some people deserve oh-so-very-little. Some people are indebted. You know what I’m saying? Like, they got a big debt to pay off. You know I’m saying? Like they’re starting from negative 200 million is what I am saying. Well, we can’t wait to hear all of your takes on Karma and Grace. Thank you so much for being here with us today. We will be back in your ears again on Friday with another episode. And until then, keep it nuanced y’all.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Plus: please clap for my favorite segue in the history of Pantsuit Politics. From: “perhaps we aren’t sleepwalking into a dystopian nightmare” to “are we in a smut renaissance?” facilitated by the shelving of an erotic chatbot. If this doesn’t end your Friday with joy, I don’t know what will. -Beth

Topics Discussed

• Nihilism is Having A Moment

• Signs of Hope

• Outside of Politics: Smut Renaissance

Episode Resources

• In Praise of Stove-Touching - by Jonathan V. Last (The Bulwark)

• OpenAI puts erotic chatbot plans on hold ‘indefinitely’ (Financial Times)

• Are We in a ‘Smut Renaissance’? (The New York Times)

• Watch Heated Rivalry (HBO Max)

• Red, White & Royal Blue (MacMillan Publishers)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. We are taking in the news. The news from Iran, the news from airports, the corruption, the measles. There is so much and it feels so big that it’s really tempting to check out. And we’re battling that in ourselves. This sense that like maybe I just can’t do anything about any of this and I just maybe should hang out until the next election and hope for the best. Today we’re going to work through that feeling. We’re also going to talk about places where political power is shifting, public pressure is finding real outlets where people are figuring things out when old systems aren’t working. And then we’re going to take a big exhale and send you into the weekend thinking about what’s being called the smut renaissance.

Sarah [00:00:53] Yeah, because I think we’re going to take an exhale and then we’re going to be, oh, then we’ll take like a gasp. You know what I mean? Because it’s a smut Renaissance. So you got to do a little, oh, like that’s, you got to deal with that thing. Just saying. I was so excited.

Beth [00:01:06] There’s going to be a lot of breathing involves. One way or another.

Sarah [00:01:09] Okay. If thinking about the state of the world makes you really want to be in a room full of people who care as much as you do, then please join us in Minneapolis for our one and only live show this year, Saturday, August 29th. Even better, you can spend that weekend with us at the Spice Conference.

Beth [00:01:33] Sarah, this week I had Zoom calls with three different people who were telling me how nervous they were to come to our live show in Cincinnati by themselves. And then they had the best time and they met people who they’re still friends with and they can’t wait to see at other events that we’re having.

Sarah [00:01:46] Amazing

Beth [00:01:47] So I just want to reassure you.

Sarah [00:01:49] Some of them are coming with the friends they met to Minneapolis.

Beth [00:01:52] It’s so exciting. It is a refreshing crowd. That’s what I want you to know. It’s a refreshing crowd. It’s going to be a really good time. All the information to get your tickets will be in the show notes. Up next, is the news making us nihilists?

Sarah [00:02:16] I mean, I do think nihilism is having a moment.

Beth [00:02:19] Yeah. And you can understand why. Because I think nihilism is the answer to impossible questions. When you look across the world and you think, I’m not in charge of the strategic objectives in Iran. I cannot do anything about our government blowing up boats in the ocean. I can’t even help the TSA officers at my airport who are showing up and working and not getting paid and finding that many of their colleagues cannot do that anymore or will not do that any more. So here we are. Just up against it. That’s what I feel like when I read the headlines every day. That I’m up against it.

Sarah [00:02:54] And I feel like there are so many stories that have been building. Like I really feel like treating our entire country like a casino is breaking through right now. And it doesn’t make me feel any better that we’ve been ringing this bell for over a year, maybe more. Like I’m not like, ooh, see, I was right. It doesn’t mean you feel any better. We could sit here and list Iran, Cuba, Ukraine, the airports, the global energy crisis, the betting markets, the people betting on bombs. We didn’t even get to, oh, I don’t know, Epstein, that’s still out there. We didn’t get to the just incredible growth and solidifying of wealth through both corporate and corrupt ways that just keeps marching on. And it just feels like, I mean, you can understand the sort of what does it matter? Griffin has this thing he keeps saying, nothing ever changes. Nothing ever changes. Doesn’t really matter. Nothing’s going to change. Like, you can just kind of feel like this path we’re on is just the path we are on. And it feels overwhelming, it feels hopeless, it feels enraging, and it makes you feel small.

Beth [00:04:14] There’s an accumulative effect happening. When you said we didn’t even get to Epstein, I thought, well, that’s because Epstein hasn’t been the headlines for a couple of weeks, but it’s not even close to finished. Congress is still investigating. At least there’s that. That’s happening in a lot of places. We thought about this for a minute. It was hard and it was terrible. It’s ongoing. We moved on. I think our listeners in Minneapolis feel that. We’re not in the headlines anymore. It’s also not all the way done. We don’t feel like our city is back to normal. Maybe there won’t be a back to normally. Maybe there’s just a new normal for us. In this administration, which did inherit a number of problems, seems intent on compounding those problems and adding to them and going out into the world looking for new problems. And that is what I find myself so despondent about most days. That we have an administration that I feel is working to create more problems than to solve problems. Because even if they were working in ways that I don’t approve of, if they we’re trying to address real situations, trying to get things done for the American people, I could respect that. I could engage with it in good faith. Hell, we tried to do that all year last year. This go forth and conquer in the world, leave our airports at a total standstill because you can’t allow members of Congress to reach a compromise...

Sarah [00:05:41] Because you want to end vote by mail, which you used to vote in our election this week. Don’t forget that one.

Beth [00:05:47] That’s what I was just searching for words for. Cast up all over our elections just because you feel like it, because you’re worried you might not come out on top, it is discouraging.

Sarah [00:05:59] I think for so long, mid to late 20th century, we created a narrative that feeds so much of the nihilism, particularly on the right, that there’s this media and they’re in control. But, man, who’s mad at Walter Cronkite now? You know what I mean? Like we all have to act as our own news editors. We don’t get like the 30 minutes where somebody says, okay, this is what’s important and I’m going to rank it in type of priority. I’m going to tell you what you need to know and you can go, okay. Like we all have to basically be editors every day taking in the complete deluge of stories and try to what? Sort it out in between running our kids to school? Like there’s a reason people just go, nope. They don’t have that skill. Why should they? That’s not their job. And so the drowning in information without voices, powerful voices that can tell, not just us telling our audience, it’s not like there aren’t good faithful actors that are trying, but who can create that narrative nationally and even I think is the media was falling apart in sort of slow motion over these years. You had presidents who felt obligated. And a responsibility to create that narrative, to say everything’s okay, we’re on the right track, this is what we’re working towards. And now we don’t even have that. Now we have somebody that’s like, well, I don’t know what the deal is, but I think I’ll hate it. Or I’m glad he died. Like, we’ve got nowhere and no one to turn to make sense of this nationally.

Beth [00:07:49] Even people like Senator Tom Tillis are on TV saying things like, well, I support the mission in Iran as long as we know what it is by the 60-day mark. I’m struggling and sometimes I keep pressing people that we talk to on this question. Okay, American service members have died in Iran and more will and we’re about to send a lot more there. What did they die for? And I know that people who work in national security probably roll their eyes at a question like that. That sounds like a level of earnestness or naivete that they don’t have the luxury of holding onto. And we need people who look at the world and see strategy. It’s hard for me to say that, but we do. We need people who look the world at a much higher level than I do, who are willing to make some sacrifices. I worry that we have gone way too far in that direction though. And we have too few people in decision-making positions who are willing to say that question needs an answer. The American people deserve an answer to that question. I’m hearing it from some members of Congress, members of congress who I usually do not have a lot of respect for. I have appreciated what Nancy Mace has been saying about the Iranian operation. She has been seeing we owe the American people an answer to why we’re sending their sons and daughters there, why we are sending their husbands and wives there. What are we doing? We have Republicans like Mike Rounds coming out of briefings right now, being willing to say to media, “I’m a Republican, but they’re not answering our questions. There’s not enough information.” On the one hand, that’s encouraging. On the other, that feeds the nihilism a little bit. Because if you’re a member of Congress and you can’t get that information, then what are the rest of us supposed to do?

Sarah [00:09:45] Beth, I know that you love the movie, A Few Good Men. Do you find yourself more sympathetic to Jack Nicholson as you get older saying, you can’t handle the truth, you need me on that wall.

Beth [00:09:59] That’s why it’s such a good movie. It speaks to a real tension.

Sarah [00:10:03] I just keep hearing him say that and going like, yeah, you know what? I do. Like, I think that we have this paradox that feeds the nihilism. Which is a political consolidation, an economic consolidation, with power going to fewer and fewer people. Simultaneously, you have this democratization of most information, this sense that we all can and should know everything. And this sort of pure democracy. That’s why we talk about polls. It’s why Polymarket is actually a good thing because we just want to know how people feel about it at any certain minute, and that’s the information we really need. And I just feel like I want to call bullshit. Like, that’s not the solution to what we all feel, which is the game being rigged against us. The solution is not to invite us all to witness the rigging.

Beth [00:11:12] And to participate in it.

Sarah [00:11:14] Yeah, the solution is to change the rules of the game. And I think the nihilism is fed by that sense of like it’s rigged, it’s getting worse, we can all see it, but we can’t do shit about it.

Beth [00:11:32] Think about that. The Polymarket theory of the case is that it is equalizing for us to get our arms around what people feel. And the best expression of what people feel is what they spend money on. As though you go make a bet on Polymarket, expressing how you wish the world to be. But that’s not what’s happening on Polymarket. People are making bets on Polymarket because they know what the world’s about to be, or they think they know what the world’s about to be. It’s a bet on what seems most possible instead of what seems the most desirable. And the consequences of that are widespread and we’re allowing them to become more widespread every day. It is depressing. This is feeding the nihilism in me to see websites that I really enjoy integrating Polymarket. We have our whole business on Substack and I really love and appreciate Substack. And they have a Polymarket integration now. And it makes me sad every time I see it because this is not the world that I want to see.

Sarah [00:12:37] And you’re a baseball fan and they’re doing it too right here on opening day.

Beth [00:12:41] Yes. Right here on opening day.

Sarah [00:12:44] I think there is something there that we’ve talked about this before. The only value is money. The only values system is the economy. The only way in which you should be or should desire to be is rich. And it’s making some people richer, but it’s making everything that should give value to life. Like everything’s getting more expensive. So then we’re all even more consumed with the role money plays in our lives. And we all feel extracted from and stretched. And that puts people in a scarcity mindset then become even more obsessed with that resource, with the money itself. And you see people making all this money, betting and engaging in things that we all know are corrosive to the human spirit and have known that for all of human history. And there’s just, again, no leadership. I think this is why James Tallarico is hitting. Nobody’s saying there’s more to life than this. If the primary objective of the state is to keep it citizens safe for what? Safe for what? To do what? To live so that they can kill themselves? To rack up a little bit of savings they can lose in the next crypto scam? Like, yeah, that’s a pretty nihilistic vision. Is that the reality or is that just the only vision we’ve been sold?

Beth [00:14:35] Backing next to what I meant when I said this administration just creates new problems too, everything that you just said has been true for a few years now and is accelerating in its truth. We’re adding on top of that measles outbreaks. We’re adding up on top that the fact that this administration’s immigration policy is preventing doctors from working. There are doctors here whose work authorization renewals have been put on hold by the State Department because the State Department loves to say that the Biden administration didn’t vet anyone. And so doctors are having to go back to their home countries or go to other countries or try to stay here without work. And we cannot handle physician loss in our healthcare system. We can’t handle it. We have a very tough job market right now that’s predicted to get a lot harder. And the White House’s response to that this week is to have a robot come out with Melania and introduce itself as a teacher? None of this was okay with me.

Sarah [00:15:39] I mean, nihilism has always been the vision from them. I think they dressed it up as strength. They dressed it as a return to a vision of America that most people are entranced by or convinced by. Donald Trump’s value system is only motivated by greed and strength for himself, not for everybody. So the transactionalism, like what’s more nihilistic than the only thing that matters right now is the transaction between you and I. To me, that is like the most nihilistic. Nothing else matters except for what I can get from you right now in this moment. That is a bleak vision of life and humanity and relationships and love. I was listening to your More to Say about our new Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullins, and about Trump calling him the whole time his son was ill. And so I can see glimmers of like he can care for people, he can show up for people but I just don’t think it carries out in any way, shape or form into the country. I just don’t see it showing up in any way, shaped or form in his leadership or his actions as president.

Beth [00:17:16] As I was thinking about nihilism in this episode. I thought there is a kernel from nihilism that I try to hold onto in my own life instead of just rejecting. Because humility is a piece of this, right? If our emotions are always cocktails, I think you want just a splash of nihilism in the respect that I can’t control everything. That’s healthy. It is healthy to look at all of this and know this isn’t my responsibility. I am not in charge. There are things happening here that truly all I can do is wish for the best. What is encouraging to me and what we’ll talk about next is that I think that we’re getting that cocktail closer to right in this moment where everything is so challenging, because you can see that our collective dissatisfaction with things is making a difference. Even if we don’t personally have solutions to every problem that we enumerated. The collective unhappiness with it is breaking through in very real ways.

Sarah [00:18:18] Well, you know what I’ve been spending my whole year on is this like study of vices and virtues. And the vice you always start with is pride because it is a self-obsession. And what I see so much with this sort of like nihilistic in the Polymarket and so many aspects of this story, including the invasion of Iran, is this pride in believing you know how it’s going to end. And I think even if you don’t feel that what you would describe as pride, as this confidence, there is a type of that that shows up as despair and you believe you know how it’s going to end. You can be confident and excited about how you think this is going to end and you can be despairing. I cannot stop thinking about this articulation of fallacies I read. And they talked about what happens a lot is this sleepwalker bias. You think everybody’s just going to sleepwalk into this dystopia, right? You’re seeing how it is now and how you feel now, and you’re projecting that as staying the same into the future in perpetuity. But shit never stays the same. There is no stasis. And I have to remind myself of that. Like I look around at all these scary stories and I think there’s an easy way to look at the corruption and think it’s lost. We’ve backslid. We’re in authoritarianism. They’re going to keep making the most money for themselves as long as they can. And this is where we are. And then I think also the corruption we can see is not representative of all the corruption that there is. And there is also a vision in which somebody picks this up-- and it ain’t going to be Pam Bondi, I’m not going to lie to you-- and says, oh, we have enough evidence to start clicking through this list and holding people to account. That’s a vision too. Like there are other realities and it’s just so hard when it’s this overwhelming and you can get locked in despair to remember like, shit changes all the time. Like things shift. Somebody gets in charge. You get the right leader at the right moment. It’s really hard to hold onto that and to hold on to like. It feels really overwhelming and bad right now, but do not believe that you can tell the future and that you know how this ends.

Beth [00:20:53] Seemingly unchangeable things change all the time. I think we should stop talking about red and blue states and red and black counties. The map is changing. The parties are changing. We have special election after special election telling us that seemingly safe seats are no longer. Just this week, Democrat Emily Gregory won a special election in Florida in Mar-a-Lago’s district.

Sarah [00:21:18] In Mar-a-Lago. I love how surprised this was.

Beth [00:21:20] Well done, Emily.

Sarah [00:21:21] This one was like, I can’t believe I won. Talk about how things can shift and all of a sudden you’re like, oh shit. Like this woman sincerely did not believe she was going to win.

Beth [00:21:34] She ran anyway. That’s the celebration to me. She ran any way. She wouldn’t have bet on herself on Polymarket, but she ran anyway and she won. And now she’s going to have to run again in November and she’s got between now and then to figure it out. And I bet she will. Since 2024, Democrats have flipped more than two dozen seats in Republican or battleground states. Republicans have not flipped any Democratic seats in those special elections. Political power is shifting. Also, the Trump administration is having to pump the brakes before they put nominees in front of the Senate, especially for the Department of Health and Human Services. They seem frozen in time about Casey Means right now as the Surgeon General, because she wouldn’t say anything definitive about vaccines, and that made Republican senators unhappy. They’re delaying trying to get a new CDC director confirmed because they don’t have anybody who seems normal and also who can work with Bobby Kennedy. And Republicans are saying, hey, there are midterm elections coming. We got to get some people in here who seem normal. And that’s good. That is responsiveness to public pressure that a year ago felt like it wouldn’t happen. A year ago when he was parading his nominees through, it seemed like public pressure didn’t matter. And here it does, here and now it does.

Sarah [00:22:59] I mean, this moment that we have all been talking about, waiting for where social media companies are held to account has arrived. A California jury found Meta and YouTube liable on all counts in a case accusing them of intentionally addicting a young woman. A New Mexico jury found meta violated state law by misleading users about the safety of its products and enabling child sexual exploitation and are ordered to pay $375 million in civil penalties. We’re going to talk about this more on Tuesday, but if you think this is the last one that some individual is going to bring against these companies, I got another vision of the future to share with you.

Beth [00:23:40] We also have legislation coming from Bernie Sanders and AOC about pausing all data center construction nationwide until there are safeguards in place about artificial intelligence. And that, again, is probably not legislation that’s just going to go past tomorrow. You could say Trump’s never going to sign that into law, Republicans will never go for it. There are problems with the legislation, whatever, but that is an act of hope. That is a conversation starting act. Most of Bernie Sanders’ career has been about starting a new conversation, changing the terms of the debate. You have this out there, it’s going to be discussed. And you can see an appetite across the political spectrum for some kind of guardrails around artificial intelligence. I think the consensus position in the United States right now is we want this for some things, not for all things. And we’re not ready for this to become the sum total of what America is. And that makes me excited.

Sarah [00:24:37] Yeah. Again, it doesn’t make me feel good that I’ve been ringing this alarm bell about gambling and now it’s hitting the mass understanding, but it doesn’t make me bad either. I’m happy that everybody’s like, you know what, I don’t think this is a great idea. Like, this seems bad. This seems like it’s playing out badly across so many avenues of life. Like, that’s encouraging. And I think it’s so easy to get into a place where you’re like we still have two and a half more years of him. He’s going to veto everything. He’s going to get probably more dangerous. And that’s all true. And I don’t want to downplay that. And also, I’m 44 years old. Two years is like five minutes. Two years goes so quickly. We all know that. And I just try to remind myself we’re not stuck with him forever. There will be a day. There will a Congress that doesn’t have Nancy Pelosi in it next year or Mitch McConnell. How about that? Like, that’s crazy. I just think like, again, there’s never a permanent place. And I think things could get worse before they get better. Let me be clear. I have been wanting to ask you what you think about the editorial in The Bulwark from JVL where he was like, it needs to be. America needs to fully burn its hand on the stove if things don’t go back to enough of a equilibrium like where we don’t learn. I can’t get the sentence out of my mind where he said, “Maybe if some lawmakers have lost their lives on January 6th, we wouldn’t have ended up back in this situation.” I do think we’re in a place now, like, it’s not going to just feel like we’re iterating constantly, but just enough to keep homeostasis so that nothing really ever changes. I think we are coming to some real changes because of artificial intelligence, because of this global energy crisis, because of the strain on the global order due to Ukraine and Gaza and now Iran. Like a change is going to come and it’s going to be painful. But anybody who tells you what that’s going to look like is a liar.

Beth [00:26:52] With love and respect to your son Griffin, things do change all the time. That’s what we’re talking about. And they have in our lifetimes. And so I know they will continue to. I don’t wish bad things for America ever for any reason. And I struggle because I think to myself daily right now that time is not on the president’s side. That is a comforting thought to me politically. It is a scary thought to be as an American. In Iran right now, time is not on America’s side. The longer this goes on, the worse it gets for us. The more lives are put in danger, the more opportunities for terrorism and recruitment of extremists flourish. Time is not on our side. And I try to remember that because he is the president, there are places where Donald Trump’s interests and America’s interests align. And where that’s true, I hope for the best. The clock is ticking on him as the central figure of the Republican party. He has so scrambled what MAGA might’ve ever meant. That means there are going to be a lot of arguments about what it should mean next.

Sarah [00:28:03] They gave him an award and they called it the America First Award. So I think it’s fine. Don’t worry.

Beth [00:28:09] I saw that.

Sarah [00:28:10] It was gold.

Beth [00:28:12] I have such secondhand embarrassment. It’s so miserable for me to watch Mike Johnson do anything.

Sarah [00:28:19] That is the vision of the future, I just... Okay, I will say this. Tell me if you agree with me. When you talk about Mike Johnson, what’s the right word for what he does? I don’t want to be crude even though we are going into a smut section. Belittling, humiliating, bowing down? You know what I’m saying? Like I’m trying to put some words around what’s happening here.

Beth [00:28:46] I guess the only phrase that feels right to me about Mike Johnson is a deal with the devil.

Sarah [00:28:52] Okay. And they’ve all made it. So many of them have made it.

Beth [00:28:54] Because you look at him and you think, how is this worth it?

Sarah [00:29:00] Yeah. Again, tell me if you agree with me. I do think that based on human psychology and American history, there will be a moment where the dam will break. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I am not internalizing the lessons of Trump’s control of the Republican Party. But I do think there will be a moment. I think it would have happened on January 6th if not for Mitch McConnell and that is his historical legacy. That was a freaking sliding door moment and they took the wrong path and they have suffered for it and I don’t feel sorry for them. But I think there will be another moment where it’ll be like do you have no decency sir? Where everybody’s like okay. Enough. Could it come after the midterms if the Democrats dig up enough, like if we find out he’s the freaking Polymarket better or one of his sons. Will there be a big enough moment? And my instinct says yes. What is it like the famous phrase about from Ernest Hemingway, how to go bankrupt suddenly and then all at once? I think that will happen with MAGA. I do. I think it’ll be suddenly and the all at ones.

Beth [00:30:15] I think that’s right. I don’t think that it will happen the way any of us would script it. And that is part of why I’m so insistent on keeping all the doors open and saying that good things in the world are games of edition. You want more people and you want to give people room to change their minds. I want to have room to changed my mind. I got to afford that opportunity to everyone around me. I think it will come. I also see it accumulating. I see the preparation for all at once. That happens with somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene. It happens with someone like Joe Kent. Neither of those people are people that I want to follow anywhere. But I see the value. I see the chips, the cracks, the value in what’s happening with those two speaking out against this administration. I see the value in what Thomas Massey is doing. It is not being done the way that I want it to be done. It is not perfect. It is another person I would choose for it. Doesn’t matter. This is where we are. This is what we have.

Sarah [00:31:19] Here’s the thing. We have to remember that there is an equivalent to what I said about we don’t know all of the corruption. Like if it’s bubbling up, all the bad things are bubbling up in a way that we can barely wrap our arms around. And I think that’s true. I’m horrified by this Polymarket thing and I think we will learn so much more and it will be so much worse, the corruption with this administration. But also that’s true with the good things too. There’s things happening, there’s movements being built, there’s people organizing, there’s people deciding to run for office, there’s people developing ideas and businesses and technologies right now. This is the practice I’ve learned at the Good News Brief. Like, it’s so easy to miss that stuff. And even if you were following, like some of it’s just not going to make the news. I’m still not wholly unconvinced that whoever will be our nominee in 2028, we’re still not talking about yet.

Beth [00:32:17] I think that’s right.

Sarah [00:32:18] I just think that it’s easy because we have a negativity bias to think it could be so much worse. And also remember we don’t have all the information on the other side either.

Beth [00:32:34] I also think about things like Ukraine, which always makes me feel that pull to nihilism. I’m so sad that it’s still happening. I’m sad that the world hasn’t figured out a conclusion. I’m just sad about the loss of life and the impact this is going to have for generations. And I read this story about an underground railroad that’s been built to bring children back from Russia and Belarus, children who have been just kidnapped, taken from their homes. There’s an organization called Save Ukraine that said the official channels are not working here. We’re not getting people fast enough. We’re re-uniting families through diplomatic efforts. And so they figured it out and they said it’s like a secret special operation for every child. It’s different every time. There is a network of people who are figuring it out. They’ve brought back more than 1000 kids. About 100 kids have come back through official negotiations. So is that story a story of institutional failure? Sure, it is. But it is also a story of maybe new institutions being built. And I have to have room in my heart for that.

Sarah [00:33:47] Look, two things I want to say. One pretty dark one. One’s lighter. I read a thing in Ukraine I can’t stop thinking about that there seems to be basically the Jack Nicholson equivalent of a commander in Ukraine in charge of drone warfare. And the strategy is simple. It is to kill individual Russian soldiers faster than they can recruit them. That’s dark. That’s some like you want me on the wall and you don’t want to know the whole truth. And you know what? That’s right. I read that and I’m like, I am interested in that I want Ukraine to win. But also, do I need that information? Myself as a mom in Kentucky, like, what’s the value in me being able to find that information on the internet? And still I’m not mad at that dude. I want him to win and the strategy is working. It’s working. That’s the harsh reality. And so I come holding that and then I see Kate Bowler speak in my town last weekend and she says this thing. She says, we criticize institutions. She was talking about the church, but she pointed out all these institutions. It’s something we’ve been talking about since we started Pantsuit Politics 10 years ago. Institutional collapse, institutional distrust.

[00:35:17] But she named so elegantly. We have institutions to provide shelter to those who need it. The institution is to provide cover and shelter for a big group of people, many of which who would not be able to do that on their own. And I thought, right, we name what’s wrong with them, but we forget to name the purpose. And the institution of the military in Ukraine has an objective and that’s how they’re obtaining it. And maybe this group is creating a new institution that’s achieving the objective, which is to bring the kids home. We get so wrapped up in the distrust we forget what the purpose is. And I think that even this goes to my conversation with Isaac Saul. Like what is the purpose of an institution of the news? It’s for us to be informed voters. And if the information flow comes so quick and is rewarding conflict in a way that it causes people to be nihilistic and disengaged, we’re not reaching the purpose. Like, what are we trying to do? And our answer has always been to make more money. And I think we need to find out some bigger purposes for our institutions and remind ourselves like they’re to provide shelter, they’re here to do something, not just make everybody more money all the time.

Beth [00:36:29] Every story that gives me hope right now is a story of collaboration. Collaboration often among people who would not otherwise be aligned. I think about how we are all feeling the frustration of consolidation, that our markets are no longer competitive, that everything is in the hands of so few companies. And then we have an administration that doesn’t care about that at all unless they’re mad at the individual players involved with those companies. So I got excited about this story where DirecTV is collaborating with state attorneys general to try to block a big merger in the media space and how people are seeing that as a possible new model for antitrust enforcement. That state attorneys general, who don’t always have all the resources they need to go after big actors, can partner with other people who have a lot of cash and a motivation and maybe the motivation is different than the states, but who cares? We can align for a specific objective and get something done. And I just think anywhere that that’s happening is cause for celebration, is cause to splash more optimism in our cocktail and dilute that nihilism and know that what we’re feeling is not being felt alone. And we’re not being silver linings optimists here. We have a lot of different mechanisms right now firing up to counter the things that are not working. And that’s exciting.

Sarah [00:37:56] Well, listen, collaboration that fuels creativity, that’s what you’re naming. It’s a creativity. It’s an innovation that fuels because people are coming together and looking at problems. Look, crisis present opportunity. Come on, I didn’t coin that phrase. Like that’s not new. We are experiencing an enormous amount of change. Some of it will come at high cost. And also those moments in human history present enormous opportunity for those who are willing to step up, take the risk, take the chance, work with someone they haven’t worked with before, see a problem through new eyes, try a different solution, understand that we’re not going back, we’re only going forward. There’s a lot of that opportunity here, and we’re going to know how it’s going to play out. We’re not going to know how it is going to look. And that’s what’s so scary about it. But it can also be exciting. I think it really can. Even some of the scariest things like artificial intelligence, like I can see applications of that technology that are exciting and that really change people’s lives. And even in my darkest moments, I’m never-- here’s been a lot of moments in human history where people felt outgunned, where they were at the mercy of powerful people with anywhere from psychopathic to straight up crazy like King George personalities, right? And I’m not trading places with any of those. I don’t like where we’re at, but I’m going to go back and trade places with the cleaves in England or the serfs in Russia, or even moments in America. I don’t want to go back and trade place with the suffragettes when they didn’t even have a vote. It’s like I told Griffin. Like, yeah, man, it sucks to be at the whims of powerful people, but if you got to pick, this is not a bad time in history. We have a lot of tools at our disposal. We can connect with each other and organize with each in ways that are infinitely easier than other people have faced at moments in history, so I think it’s important to keep that perspective.

Beth [00:40:10] Once in a very great while, the universe delivers a podcast host the perfect segue between topics. And I have that here. Since we’re talking about how public opinion matters, public sentiment matters, I personally don’t have a solution to everything going wrong, but I’m not alone in what I’m feeling and it makes a difference in the universe. Here’s what happened. OpenAI says, remember Sora that was going to be the most exciting invention in human history. Sora that made that video that looked like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise fighting on a roof, but it was just AI. They’re not going to do that anymore. They’re letting Sora go. They are also letting go of the idea of an erotic chatbot.

Sarah [00:40:52] Thank God.

Beth [00:40:52] They have shelved that erotic chatbot indefinitely. Here is a quote from the Financial Times. “The sexual chatbot faced growing pushback over how it could encourage unhealthy attachments to AI systems and expose minors to problematic sexual content.” Maybe we are waking up from our sleepwalking. I’m really excited about this. And so now we must go to our important Outside of Politics question. Are we or are we not in a Smut renaissance?

Sarah [00:41:31] I mean, we’re not talking about A.I. smut, we’re talking about real smut. Heated rivalry is real smut. Are you comfortable classifying heated rivalry as smut?

Beth [00:41:40] Here are the questions that I have. I want to differentiate amongst some things because I read the New York Times piece about the Smut Renaissance that begins with heated rivalry but sweeps up a bunch of things.

Sarah [00:41:52] Sabrina carpenter.

Beth [00:41:54] Sabrina Carpenter, Wuthering Heights.

Sarah [00:41:58] The New Movie.

Beth [00:41:58] A.I. OnlyFans. It was a big tent. And I thought to myself, I don’t know that all of this qualifies as smut. So I’m wondering where you think there’s a line between smut and erotica, romance, porn. Like, how do we delineate here?

Sarah [00:42:19] Okay, so I just read Patti Smith’s Just Kids, where she talks about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. Do you know who Robert Mapplethorpe was? Does the name ring a bell.

Beth [00:42:28] No.

Sarah [00:42:29] Really famous 70s, early 80s photographer had a very infamous indecency trial based on his photos. My most sort of top of mind understanding of him is that he had taken pictures of young children and there was a picture of a little girl where her genitalia exposed. And there’s another little picture. And so that’s what I associated with him. Like Robert Mapplethorpe took pictures of the kids people didn’t like. Robert Mapplethorpe took pornography. And I don’t understand, this was always my confusion in law school. And they’d be like I know it when I see it. And I’m like, yeah, I do too. They’re really having sex. Why is this so complicated? In pornography, they’re actually having sex. I don’t understand why there’s some great confusion. Like Robert Mapplethorpe was like, they’re artistic photos. I’m not going to lie to you. They don’t look like what you see in their run-of-mill penthouse, but they are engaging in sex acts and he took pictures of them, okay? Now, I guess if you get into like Playboy and then your nudes, that’s when you start getting into like erotica, the erotica smut spectrum. But to me, like, there’s always a hard line, like, is there actually sex happening? If there’s not, then we got something different going on, okay? So, all that to say, I think erotica to me is something like Dipsy, which we used to advertise on the show. It’s not actual sex, but it is an emphasis on fictionalized sex acts. Like the emphasis is on the sex. And maybe there’s more of a, I know it when I see it, versus like a Emily Henry where the story is the story, the sex is like it’s a feature, not a bug. It’s a bonus. But it’s not the selling point. Like there is a romance, there’s a story. And even I think on that angle there’s like smutty or like you have the open door scenes, you have closed door scenes. Like I think Sabrina Carpenter is actively pushing on purpose into like more smut. I don’t even know she’d be insulted if you called her a little smut, I think she’d like, yeah, what’s your point? So I think that that’s different. I mean, but I think Heated Rivalry is pretty smutty. Like the sex is the thing.

Beth [00:44:47] I haven’t watched it. Everyone I know loves it. I will watch it someday. I just haven’t had a lot of time with kids not in the house and I know enough about it to know that I’m going to watch it without kids in the House. I have no problem with smut.

Sarah [00:45:00] No, me neither.

Beth [00:45:02] I don’t think this is necessarily bad.

Sarah [00:45:04] I’m happy. I want people to have more sex. People aren’t having no sex. If the smut gets y’all to have more sex, freaking great.

Beth [00:45:09] It doesn’t surprise me at all that in a time when we’re constantly talking about slop and nothing is real and everything’s digital and let’s get together on Zoom, doesn’t surprised me at that we are longing for visceral, raw, connective experiences. That’s where the article lost me a little bit because I think if you watch Heated Rivalry and then you go have sex, that’s one thing. If you watch Heated Rivalry as part of a lot of things that you do alone on your phone, that’s a different thing. That’s a different thing. And I just am not comfortable classifying all that under the same umbrella. A renaissance of like Danielle Steele novels makes total sense to me in this era. It doesn’t make sense to be that anybody is looking for more straight up digitally generated porn.

Sarah [00:46:06] I mean, listen, we read Daniel Steel last year with my First Book Book Club. Shockingly, a little sex in a Daniel Steel novel. I was like there is more sex in Emily Henry book than this book. A lot of self-discovery going on in a Daniel Steel book. That’s some of the side sell of so much romance, I think, is the love story, there’s the smut, and then there’s like the self- discovery, and that shifted over decades, which is a whole other Outside Politics and super, super interesting. Listen, even if you’re just using Heated Rivalry to get yourself to know yourself better. The idea that it’s an embodied experience-- and I’m not saying that’s always positive. Obviously, pornography leads to all sorts of addictions that derail people’s lives. We’ve talked about the one with the gooners. Jesus, that’s really bad. It’s really bad. I’m not saying that we want that. But I just think the danger-- and I don’t even know if it’s a danger. It’s just anytime you talk about sex and smut and lust and-- because you know I love to throw in another vice when we get the chance-- is that it is embodied, but it’s disconnected. It can often be disconnected. It can be embodied, but disconnected from your fellow human beings. And you know for better or for worse, I think that a connected relationship creates a more integrated and fulfilling sex life.

[00:47:36] I don’t think that’s shocking, probably, hearing anybody of me say that, but that’s how I feel. That’s what I want for my kids, that’s what I want for everybody. I know that’s not achievable for everybody, but I think we’ve gotten into a place with so many issues where if we articulate a goal-- it’s sort of back to the institutions. If we articulate a purpose or a goal or a standard, we’ve decided that that is immediately exclusionary. And I think what we’ve actually done is like the paradox of that. By removing any standards or any goal or any mission and removing any boundaries and making everything okay or everybody not welcome, but present, it’s sort of like the tensionless existence that we’ve talked about like people don’t want that either. And I’m not saying finding the happy medium in a multicultural country as big as ours is hard. I believe that it is, but I still think it’s worth pursuing. And I think with the smut, that’s what we’re trying to scratch and itch. And I think the itch is like, what do we want? What’s the goal? And it’s going to be a little bit different for everybody, obviously. But just because it’s a little different from everybody and because there’s not a universal solution, I don’t think means that a desire to strive or articulate maybe not a goal but like a direction is worthwhile.

Beth [00:49:18] I read a critique of Wuthering Heights when it came out, I can’t remember where, that said, this feels like a movie someone wants to be hot who doesn’t know what is hot. No, I haven’t seen it, but that critique stuck with me because I think that’s true of a lot under this umbrella. People make things because sex sells or because they think we’re having a smut renaissance or because it will get conversation going about what they made, that’s different than it actually being hot. That’s different then having something where there is that weird combination of factors where there’s some mystery and there’s subtlety and there is tension and you don’t know exactly where it’s going and maybe you don’t see it all. But you know enough to be excited about it. And maybe this is as simple as like that’s the difference between a well-written romance novel and a poorly written one. A well-made film and a poorly made one. But I think it’s worth, as we think about that direction that you were just naming, remembering that it doesn’t have to be so try-hard to produce that excitement and that vulnerability and that rawness of experience that we’re searching for.

Sarah [00:50:38] Yeah, I learned this from a friend of mine. This is my favorite game. When you ask if a couple has heat, because people can be hot, but not have any heat. And, look, Heated Rivalry is a sensation because there is heat, okay? Not just cause there’s smut, it’s because there’s heat. And I feel like the classic, classic example is like Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. They got heat. We can all see it. And I think that that’s what I’m trying to articulate. Like that’s what you want. It’s okay to say that’s we want. We don’t want to just be hot. We don’t want to just look smuts and Mar-a-Lago face ourselves into oblivion. The hot is not the point. The heat is the point. The heat is what we want and it’s okay say that because I think if you don’t, then it gets all turned inside out and backwards. And, look, I think there’s some responsibility with the feminist movement and the sex positivity movement. And this idea that we all just wanted freedom to pursue whatever sexual predilection we wanted. And then we all got there and everybody goes, I don’t know if this is what I want. I think you can hear people, especially young people, either being totally like melted into this Andrew Tate vision of gender, or just expressing like a dissatisfaction or like that sort of nihilism from the first thing, like they’re just opting out. Like people are having less sex, they’re dating less, they’re getting married less. And this sense of like, what’s the point? What’s the point? But the heat is the point. The love is the point. The companionship is the point. I want that for my kids. I want that for everybody. Like, we didn’t make that up in modern America, you know? Like, there’s thousands and thousands of years of history of people finding that together. And that’s really beautiful.

Beth [00:52:44] Now, heat, I think, is I know it when I see it, but it’s hard to describe. Jane and Ellen got in the car yesterday and were making fun of me because I had gone down a Spotify trail of songs I liked and it just kept feeding me new songs and I was saying good job Spotify, well done. And Jane picked up my phone and it had become categorized as 90s pop lesbian music or something like that, 90s, pop lesbian rock or something. And she was like, what is happening, mom? And I said, Jane, those are the best love songs. 90s lesbian music is incredible because it has heat, because it that tension, it has struggle, it has mystery, it’s all right there. It’s so good. And I felt that way when I read that book, Red, White, and Royal Blue, about a prince from the UK and an American son of the president having a relationship. I feel like that has to be part of the draw of Heated Rivalry. Those relationships where there’s some obstacle and some tension and self-discovery, all of those ingredients are there for heat. I think that’s just really different than OnlyFans. So I’m still quibbling with the New York Times piece that kicked off this discussion.

Sarah [00:53:59] Listen, first of all, small correction. It’s not just the 90s. Brandy Carlile is still out there writing the best love songs. A Party of One is the most beautiful song about long-term committed relationship ever written. That’s my take right here, right now, okay? Up on the rock, like don’t get me started. Okay. So that’s the first thing. I do like the way they named those playlists and it is hilarious, I agree. Because here’s the thing, like, you can talk about a smut renaissance, you go down this dark path about looks maxing. And also don’t miss the power of Heated Rivalry that this gay story was being gobbled up by a bunch of straight women. I think that that wouldn’t have happened when we were growing up. Like, that’s just a huge breakthrough. And I know it’s really, really scary out there if you are gay, if you love someone who’s gay. But you don’t put that back in the box. You don’t roll that back. That’s done and dusted, baby. And that’s really, really powerful. And I think it’s really beautiful. I think all the time about Tracy Clayton saying, you can watch things made for black people. We’ve been enjoying your media made for white people, and the same is true with sexual orientation. How great that we all learned it’s hot, it doesn’t matter. That’s really beautiful because that, to me, that’s the fine line, right? That’s how we get to a multicultural where instead of coordinating each other off and saying, what makes me different is what makes special. No, what makes different is we share, actually. It’s not that different, really. Heat is heat, baby.

Beth [00:55:46] I was thinking the same thing.

Sarah [00:55:48] Yep, heat is heat. Baby, it don’t matter.

Beth [00:55:50] Well, I’m wishing everyone the exact right amount of heat for the rest of the week and maybe 10% more. That’s what I’m looking for all of us.

Sarah [00:55:59] Let’s do 20. Live large, y’all.

Beth [00:56:01] You only live once. Okay, we are so appreciative that you spent this time with us. We’ll be back with you on Tuesday. We are going to spend a lot more time talking about those trials with Big Tech and mental health and children’s safety, all wrapped in a discussion of accountability and punishment. So we’re excited for that. We’ll see you then. Until then, have the best weekend available to you. Lots of heat in it.

Sarah [00:56:25] I was going to say have the hottest weekend available.

Beth [00:56:27] Have the hottest week available to y’all. I’m here for that.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Isaac Saul is the founder of Tangle News, a non-partisan politics newsletter that in their own words “gives you a 360-degree view on the news. No spin. No clickbait. Opinions from the left, right, and center so you can decide.” We talk about the blurring line between journalism and content creation, the Nick Shirley problem, why decency might actually be having a moment, and what gives Isaac genuine hope about where we’re headed.

Plus, he has a 13-month-old and I had some thoughts in outside of politics. -Sarah

Topics Discussed

• News, Journalism, Influencers, and Commentary in the Age of Trump

• Outside of Politics: Navigating Early Parenthood

Episode Resources

• Tangle News

• Isaac Saul (X)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:03] I listen to Sarah and Beth because I can count on them to bring multiple perspectives to an issue or current event.

Speaker 2 [00:00:09] From people with actual moral virtues who might feel comfortable being around my kids. Sarah and Beth do such a tremendous job of listening to each other and to opinions that don’t immediately align with their own. They’ve done their homework. They ask good questions, and they aren’t afraid to change their lives.

[00:00:26] Minds.

Sarah [00:00:29] This is Sarah Stewart Holland and you’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. If you have ever scrolled past all the actual coverage of a news event just to get to someone’s take on it, first of all, no judgment. Same. And second of all that tension is exactly what we’re talking about on today’s episode. I’m joined by Isaac Saul, the founder of Tangle News, which is an incredible newsletter that presents perspectives from the left and the right. Before giving you Isaac’s analysis, or maybe somebody else’s from the Tangle staff, we talk about the line between journalism and content creation, what the Minnesota fraud story gets right and wrong about decentralized media, why Isaac thinks decency might actually be making a comeback. And Outside of Politics, I give him unsolicited toddler parenting advice. So you’re not going to want to miss that. Before we get started, we are selling tickets to our live show in Minneapolis this summer, and they are going fast. We only have a few tickets left to the Spice Conference. Let me give you an idea of what that’s going to look like if you are a member of our premium community and are on the fence. I’ve been following the substacker who asked a simple question. What are you doing alone that you can do together? So if you’ve been listening to Pantsuit Politics alone for years, we’re inviting you to come do it together in community. We’re going to have three tracks that follow the segments of the show. If you are into news and politics, maybe you can sit down with a listener who will tell you the logistical pragmatic reality of getting involved with a political campaign. If you are civically minded, maybe you can sit and learn about neighborism from listeners in Minneapolis. Or maybe you want to go on the Outside of Politics conference track and talk about parenting or reading or travel. We’re going to take off our AirPods and move beyond the comment thread together in person and share our time together. I cannot wait. So get your tickets to the Spice Conference and the live show in Minneapolis last weekend of August, this summer. All right, up next, Isaac Saul. Isaac Saul welcome to Paintsuit Politics.

Isaac Saul [00:02:31] Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Sarah [00:02:33] You are the founder of Tangle News. Please tell our people what you do at Tangle news, a service that I find highly valuable and check every single day.

Isaac Saul [00:02:41] I very much appreciate it. I like to say that Tangle is a product I went looking for that I could not find or certainly couldn’t find anybody doing well and so I tried to build it myself. The general premise is really straightforward. We tackle one big political issue every day in US politics. So whatever the big main story is that is percolating in the country that day. Oftentimes not the easiest thing to distinguish but sometimes pretty easy to do. And then we give you a really neutral breakdown of the story in the most down the middle, centrist language we can. We just explain the events, the facts that we have, maybe share some quotes from some relevant parties who are involved in the story. And then we tell you what the left and the right are saying about it in their own words. We share excerpts of the most compelling and I think most representative arguments we can find from across the political spectrum. So we’ll share three arguments from the left and three arguments from the right, typically everywhere from the center left and center right out to the fringes. And then we kind of cap all of that coverage off with our own analysis, what’s called the My Take section, which is written often by me, but sometimes by different members of my staff. And that’s sort of our opportunity to share our own opinions in a really forthright manner or our own original reporting if we have it, call some balls and strikes on the arguments and offer an analysis that’s independent from the other stuff that’s out there. So the goal really is if you are trying to understand a story from multiple perspectives, you read our newsletter and you will see seven different opinions in one place, spanning the political spectrum from the far left to the middle, all the way to the far right. And you’ll have a really good understanding of how people are framing the story and what kinds of arguments are out there, which I think in this moment is a pretty unique thing in the political space.

Sarah [00:04:37] Well, I think your origin story sounds so much like ours that we always say we wanted to have conversations we weren’t hearing anywhere else. We wanted to bring nuance and perspective and processing in a way that cable news certainly didn’t allow, which was the primary political content when we started in 2015. If you wanted to see somebody process the news, you had to go to cable news. There were some podcasts, not a ton. But what I’m interested in talking with you about today is that I feel myself as a user of Tangle News, as a reader of your newsletter, doing what we struggle with here at Pantsuit Politics. I love all of that, and sometimes I read all of it. But Isaac, I’m just going to be honest with you, sometimes I just scroll down to your take. I just go right on down. I scroll down all the editorials and all the neutral language, and I just want to go, okay, I just want to hear what Isaac thinks about this. And I think that happens with us here at Pansuit Politics. We say, like, we don’t want you to agree with us or we didn’t want to convince you, we just want to spark your own thinking. But when you build trust with people in this media environment-- both of us are independent media companies-- it becomes so driven by trust and personality. I was really intrigued recently when someone asked you, like, do you ever worry about cult of personality where people just do exactly what I just admitted I do, which is just scroll down to hear your take. How are you thinking about that as Tangle grows and changes?

Isaac Saul [00:06:09] It’s a great question. And we know from serving our audience that you’re not alone in that. I think there’s a good question.

Sarah [00:06:16] I feel bad about it every time. Does that make you feel better?

Isaac Saul [00:06:19] Yeah. I would say there’s probably 20 or 30% of our audience is doing that. And, look, I think it’s different for different people. I’d say you are immersed in this stuff for a living and there’s a decent chance that a lot of the stuff you would read, given your work, is probably a little bit redundant for you. I think there are a lot people who use our newsletter and consume our content because they have 15 or 20 minutes a day to dedicate to understanding the world and understanding US politics in this moment. And so for them it makes a lot of sense to read top to bottom. And there are political junkies out there who maybe it’s not their job, but they just spend all day reading about politics. And they read it top to the bottom because they want to see all the stuff they miss and make sure they have a really good understanding. I’m okay with people doing what you do so long as they understand that coming to Tangle, the point is not to view me or a staff member of mine’s take as being the sort of arbiter of truth. I think we offer unique analysis and I think approach politics with a really important lens which is one that’s pretty human first, politics is personal, it’s often really moderate. I think one of the things that is just true about me and has made the newsletter successful is my politics do tend to circle the middle and so I’m an independent in many ways.

[00:07:51] And I think our audience picks up on the fact that I’m often on different sides of different issues depending on what the specific topic is and how things have happened and so they sort of trust if they’re a conservative reader and they see me hammering Trump one day that maybe in a week they’re going to read something where I think what he did is really good and I’m going to compliment them. And that’s not something they’re going to get in a lot of other places. So generally speaking, the way I think about it is I don’t want people doing that. I want them consuming the whole newsletter. I want them understanding that the point is to expose themselves to viewpoint diversity. But at the same time, I publish what I publish because I think it’s a quality piece of analysis. And I’m taking into account oftentimes in my writing in that section that people might be skimming the other parts or skipping down there. So you’ll see me sometimes sort of restating or summarizing arguments the left and the right are making just to be sure that people are kind of being exposed to that. Because my goal really it’s not just to deliver that unique analysis. It’s also to make sure people are exposing themselves to a wide range of viewpoints and arguments and kind of getting out of the bubble that so many of us live in thanks to our algorithms and our habits and our media diets of choice right now.

Sarah [00:09:11] Well, I just think it’s so hard because what you named is something we struggle with here all the time. There’s two audiences, right? There’s the audience that only listens to Pantsuit Politics. That’s where they get their news. There’s a people that aren’t like highly engaged with the political and news environment. I mean, really you have several layers of audience because you have people who maybe are engaged with the news. I don’t know how many people there are that are engaged with the new but not politics because it’s so interwoven at this point. But you have what I call like low information news consumers that I do think we have some of at Pantsuit Politics and I know you have a ton probably at Tangle and then you have the political junkies. So you have these like two different audiences and you have a media environment that rewards or I think is structured around the political junkies to a certain extent. Like the algorithm is going to reward someone who’s like clicking and engaging with highly political content. So how do you think about those two audiences? I mean, it’s something we think about all the time; like how do we serve both masters? But it feels sort of tricky.

Isaac Saul [00:10:24] Yeah, it’s another great question. First of all, we are primarily positioning ourselves towards the people who are not political junkies. I mean a good chunk of what our newsletter does is explain the foundational story and the way government works or the way a piece of legislation might work or the background behind a certain conflict. Like if we’re covering the war in Iran, we will spare a paragraph to rehash the history of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear agreement. We will go into some detail for our audience, assuming that maybe they don’t have baked in knowledge that a reader of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times who’s on their homepage every single day might have. And I think that’s one thing a lot of sort of more institutional “corporate mainstream” media groups and outfits are honestly not doing very well is just explaining the news. A, because even the people who read their stuff all the time, I think don’t understand it nearly as well as maybe they think they do. And B, because there’s just a lot of people who are consuming that content because they’re activated for some reason by that issue and they’re becoming a news consumer for the first time or for a period of time because they really care about the specific thing that’s going on. So I think we serve both audiences by honestly constructing our content with the audience that isn’t the super political junkie in mind because a lot of people need refreshers on how a bill makes its way through Congress or what the big, beautiful bill did specifically or how high housing policy works at the federal state and local level, or how somebody’s deported even. I mean, this is stuff that’s complicated.

[00:12:08] So I tend to put those people in the foreground and make sure that we’re really giving enough background and detail that anybody reading the piece can kind of understand it. And another thing I think we do that is specific to the newsletter. And the podcast space that maybe more traditional media outlets don’t necessarily have the luxury of doing is we do have a sort of more personal, informal tone and kind of conversation style in our writing that we approach people with. So we want it to be a space where people feel not entertained, I don’t think news should be entertainment, but they feel engaged. It’s not academic to read it. It’s not a chore to get through a newsletter or a podcast. We want it to be kind of conversational and accessible. And I hear that from our audience a lot. That there is this sort of specific nebulous thing about our writing they can’t quite put their finger on that just makes it easier to digest and get through. And it is really intentional. We’re not dumbing it down. We’re not making stuff like a fifth grade reading level but we’re also not trying to bury our audience in legalese and academic sounding words for the sake of sounding smart. And I think that’s a good approach to the news right now because people are tired and they want to just like understand and hear some different perspectives and be able to go make out their on mind.

Sarah [00:13:33] Well, here’s the thing, though. You and I and our audiences are, I think, fair to say, responsible, pragmatic, care deeply about the impact of their products. What I am increasingly concerned about, and as someone who can be fairly described as a political content creator, that’s a fair description of what we do at Pantsuit Politics, is the growth-- I was thinking about this in preparation for this conversation. For so long this analysis or critique really centered on Fox News. Like that was the boogeyman that not just reported, didn’t just analyze, but changed the reality that we lived in. Like Fox News was making people afraid. They were really playing up certain political narratives in order to push an outcome, right? And I think particularly people of our generation are stuck in that understanding of political content and like what the problem is when really because of our decentralized environment-- Fox News, I think is still problematic. But because of our decentralized media environment and news environment, you have so many political content creators on both the left and the right, whose incentive is to do what we were all so mad at Fox News for doing forever, not to find a solution, to keep people afraid, to keep people angry, to keep people engaged. They don’t care about pragmatic politicians. I’m not sure some of them really care about winning elections.

[00:15:22] So how are you thinking about this as this particular approach to political content creation. I think you see the place I’ve been thinking about it a lot where you’ve seen it play out is the Texas Senate primary on both the Republican and Democratic side. You saw content creators who were not motivated by anyone’s best interest except theirs. They wanted clicks, they wanted conflict, they wanted either MAGA faithful, hardcore, rhino, get everybody out. You still see so much of that in MAGA all the way to the left. I think like a very sort of throwback to woke politics, sort of if you’re with us or you’re against us, even though everybody was like that didn’t work. It works for them. So they’re going to keep doing it.

Isaac Saul [00:16:15] Yeah, it’s interesting. I sort of try and hold two thoughts at the same time, which definitely come in tension. And the first one is I think the democratization of news is a good thing. It’s helpful when the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post parachute into some place or some story that they’ve never really covered before. And a reporter spends three days there, which is a great way to report a story and maybe just like misses something. And then there’s somebody on TikTok or Instagram who grew up in that small town and reads the coverage or sees how the mainstream press is doing it and comes out and is like this is bullshit. Like they totally flood this story. Here’s what actually happened. Here’s what it’s actually like to live here. And they can upload a video that gets millions of views and forces the New York Times to correct something or issue a clarification. I mean, that is something we take it for granted now, but 10 or 15 years ago that did not exist. And I think it’s good that that kind of thing exists. I think its made the mainstream media more careful and better. I think the corporate press has to consider those kinds of outcomes now in a way they didn’t before and reporters have to be sharper and the margin for error or for squishy language or for misleading headlines, any of that stuff is just way less because you’re going to get called out if you do it. And on the whole, I think that’s probably a good thing. At the same time, it is true that a lot of these “content creators “or influencers or whatever you want to call them, they’re functioning in an entirely different standard and under entirely different standards than journalists are. And that’s a huge advantage. I’ll give you a quick example. I consider myself a journalist. I got my start as a politics reporter. I was editing my college newspaper before I became a professional reporter. I was an English non-fiction writing major with a journalism focus. Like that is my background. And now I’m sort of teetering on this line where I have my own independent media company and I have a YouTube channel and a podcast. And I do opinion and analysis. So there is this weird I am also a “content creator” or opinion columnist, but I try and bring journalistic ethics to things. So when we’re talking about the Jeffrey Epstein story, for example, there have been a lot of my audience and readers and listeners who really want me to say things on the air that are very speculative about President Trump or Bill Clinton or what the files actually show or what a redacted email might imply but isn’t clear to me like the hard evidence is actually there.

[00:19:04] And so I’ve been very restrained on that story, which has upset a lot of people who read my stuff. And I have to be like, guys, this isn’t an Instagram account where I’m just uploading videos, bloviating about whatever I want. A, I have a business that has liability where if I publish something that’s untrue, somebody could sue me. B, I’ve standards because I’m a journalist, so I’m not going to say things on the air. Even speculative, I will speculate if I have things I can back that speculation up with. But when I can’t, there are certain branches and limbs I’m not going to walk out on that other people are happy to walk out on because they don’t have those consequences lurking around the corner. So you just have to go into the space with that understanding. And I would say the very most basic deep difference between some people in that space who I think you should take with a grain of salt and maybe folks at the New York Times, journalists, whatever, or now in Tangle’s case I have six editors on my staff, is there isn’t a team surrounding some of these influencers that have editorial standards that are fact checking the things they’re posting that are pushing back on what they’re doing because like, oh, that’s kind of a misleading use of language, maybe we should reframe this. Or quote somebody who opposes the perspective that you’re putting out. Like, no, they’re not doing any of that stuff. They are like I’ve got 30 seconds to capture people’s attention. How do I get 5 million views on this TikTok reel? And when that’s the motivation, the reality gets distorted very quickly. And I think as consumers, we just have to understand that and it’s a balance. I think there are elements of it again that are really good, but there are things like that that really scare me because in some ways for some consumers, they’re supplanting actual journalists, doing actual due diligence and editing and work and careful reporting. And I don’t like the way that makes me feel. I mean, that part of it does scare me a bit.

Sarah [00:21:07] I mean, gosh, there’s just so much to untangle here, if you will. I think that, okay, so the first example, you know, when I was growing up I was the victim of a school shooting and we hated some of the choices that the mass media was making. People in my town still hate Matt Lauer. And there was like no way to push back. I think what I often see with these on the ground journalists, it’s not a personal thing with the story. I feel like the best example right now is that dude with the Somali fraud case who like frauded...

Isaac Saul [00:21:53] Nick Shirley. Yeah.

Sarah [00:21:53] And now you have all these offshoot journalists who are going and digging up fraud or staying outside daycare centers and California and all these other places. And they’re not motivated to tell the truth about their place. They’re motivated to get to continue to get clicks and views because now they’re seeing like, oh, I could I can make money being a fraud like my own little personal... What was that guy on 2020 John Stossel, whatever the hell his name was. You know what I mean? So they’re now out there doing that. That it’s not a personal motivation. It’s a business enterprise. They don’t have any journalistic ethics. Then you have the actual like political content creators. They’re not doing any reporting. They are only taking other pieces of reporting and then like you said, bloviating. But again because they don’t see themselves as political reporters, they just see themselves as political influencers. And they don’t understand like you actually can move the needle. Even though I think that’s why they started a lot of them. Like they wanted to move the need and now they can, but they don’t want to move the needle in any productive way. They want to keep people pissed off because that’s what people come to them to read and watch and interact with. So you have these like two kind of different universes. And what I think is so interesting about what you said is, how do you think about that as a place that does both? Because that’s always my beef with CNN. It’s like you never really know am I watching opinion or am I a reporter? Sometimes it’s hard to delineate. Even the New York Times, I read the print New York times, so I know when I pick up the opinion section and when I pick up the news section, but it blurs and it certainly blurs online to when am I reading opinion and when am I reading reporting? And i’m just not sure people know

Isaac Saul [00:23:57] Well, news analysis is like it’s such a euphemism. It’s like, okay, this is opinion then you’re analyzing. I mean, I do news analysis, but it’s like called my take. Like it’s recognized as being opinion. Yeah, I hate that. I genuinely do loathe that kind of the blurring of the lines because it’s really important. It’s already hard enough for news consumers to understand, for instance, that The Wall Street Journal editorial board is very conservative, sort of traditional Republican conservative, but the Wall Street journal reporting team, their newsroom is super down the middle. Like in my opinion it’s like the most unbiased central, if you just read their news reporting, I think they do the best job of not tilting their reader in any direction. Fox News is another good example where Fox News digital is right of center, clearly. Like you can see the conservative kind of undertones injected in the reporting, but it is light years away from Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham prime time Fox News television lineup. It’s just a different piece. Like I know a lot of Fox News reporters who are really honest brokers and they have their worldview, but they’re trying to do their work in a fair way. And it just makes it so hard for the consumer to understand.

Sarah [00:25:20] Well, think about it this way, too. Even with the news analysis, like I love Ezra Klein, okay? He is doing opinion, but also he will say, I’ve talked to sources in the Trump administration. I’ve done this. And I’m like, well, I make a show where I talk about my analysis, but I don’t have sources inside the Trump administration, so how do you even delineate that level of interplay? You know what I’m saying? It’s getting very, very gray out there.

Isaac Saul [00:25:44] Yeah, it is. And I agree. I think Ezra does awesome work and especially for perspective and to kind of where the center left is. Or he used to be I think a progressive, but he’s sort of been more critical of the progressive left. Like he to me is like an incredibly important voice. I like listen to his show to keep tabs on that. And to your point, he’s often interviewing people and creating this kind of original content that is not just opinion. It’s like he’s tangling up with people who matter and have really important roles in government or the news stories we’re consuming or whatever it is. I think one interesting element of this is the Nick Shirley thing is a great example where the corporate traditional press, its role is almost switching now where a few years ago it was like Nick Shirley would be going out and undermining a New York Times report. And now the New York Times is sending reporters out to cover the thing Nick Shirley did and kind of undermine his report. I mean, we saw that with the Minnesota fraud stuff where CBS sent a bunch of reporters out to these places that he showed this YouTube video and it turned out he’s going to these daycare centers that were closed for spring holiday or winter holiday and he’s claiming that they’re taking all this money but they don’t even have a daycare center open. And then it’s like there are hours on the website are listed as closed or something.

Speaker 5 [00:27:12] Yeah, but it’s too late. Anybody who watched his TikTok ain’t going to go check CBS News.

Isaac Saul [00:27:17] Right, exactly. So it’s like he gets tens of millions of views and then these people kind of come in after the fact and are doing this reporting that’s undermining it. But yeah, it’s the old saying that the truth hasn’t got its pants on before the lie makes it around the world a couple of times. And I just think that ground is shifting under us in a way that’s really important. But I will say I do think it’s important not to overstate it to some degree. I mean, Mike Allen at Axios just had a really-- or maybe it was Jim Vanaheim, one of the co-founders at Axio just had really excellent column about this, that our reality as avid news consumers is distorted. Like one in six Americans log onto Twitter once a week. You know what I mean? Like... most people are not nearly as partisan and polarized and divided as a lot of the Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube channels might make us believe. And the easy test for it, which I think it was maybe Jim VandeHei, what he wrote about in this column is like just think about the people you interact with on a daily basis in your life. Like that is America. That is the actual country that we have. Those are real people in real life and those experiences you have are genuine.

[00:28:40] And most of them are pretty decent, kind, smart people. They’re not like super crazy, far left radicals pointing in your face, demanding you put a mask on. And they’re not some like pizza gate conspiracy theorist Trumper. Like those people are the minority to a large, large, larger degree. And they don’t get featured in the news and we don’t interact with them at time, but to the degree that they’re doing this influencer content creator people are doing something important, I think it is probably distorting our reality about the tenor and belief system of the country right now and making us feel like things are way, way, way more extreme and radicalized than I honestly think they are. And I have a really, really-- I mean that test to me just like consult your personal experience, I think is a really, really important one for a lot of people to take into account when they consider just like the state of the country and where we are politically.

Sarah [00:29:40] Yeah, I live in a purple-ish place. I live in a red state, but my city is purple, blue, depending on where you are. I totally agree with that. I think what gets really difficult is there are still moments, and these are the moments that I’m really trying to dial into and pay attention to and see how these different parts of the media landscape influence them, because there are moments that bubble up that hit everybody, right? And what’s so difficult as a person who creates political content and consumes a lot of news is it’s very unpredictable. It’s not like we can just go check in with Walter Cronkite to see what story everybody’s going to be paying attention to. Because I do think the Minnesota fraud, the Nick Shirley thing, I think it got high enough it reached people who do not engage with this stuff all the time. I think it was important and influential in Renee Good and Alex Prettie, another moment that bubbled up and hit everybody that kind of everybody knew what was going on. But I’m not sure they connected the two because they don’t engage enough with even the news analysis I would love for them to read at the New York Times. So it’s like you’re having to navigate these unpredictable moments when will America kind of pay attention. And when they are paying attention, and I’m sure this has always been true, I’m not like in some sort of like all is lost moment. I think this has historically been true. Like they’re engaging from such different levels of news engagement. I totally agree that most people are engaging not from a hyper-partisan lens. The problem is that like lens still is very influential. Like, it’s almost like everybody doesn’t know. And I think that’s why Axios is pushing this narrative of like don’t feel like these are the only two perspectives. There’s this middle that you probably sit in. And so it’s like it’s just hard to, I think, figure out how to navigate these unpredictable moments when you have all these different audiences from somebody who maybe like just caught a couple of TikToks. All the way to the people who are not only highly engaged, but maybe creating contents that could influence the story overall.

Isaac Saul [00:32:11] Yeah, no, I think that’s a really good point. And to be clear, I’m not saying that these people aren’t moving the country in meaningful ways or changing the way that people are consuming stories or the lenses that they’re looking at stories through.

Sarah [00:32:27] Well, some of them have the cell phone number of the president of the United States. So they’re clearly moving the needle.

Isaac Saul [00:32:33] Yeah, definitely. And to be clear, there is even underlying good in some of the stories that I’m criticizing. I think actually the Minnesota fraud story was a really important story that in a different era would not have penetrated the media landscape in the way that it should have. And I think it’s good that somebody like Nick Shirley is “raising awareness” about that story. Well, maybe not somebody like Nick Shirley. I think it’s good that awareness was raised about the story. It’s probably not good that it was somebody like Nick Surely doing it. The frustrating part about it is that was a fraud story that was being prosecuted two years ago under president Joe Biden. It’s something that’s been a local story that a lot of people in Minnesota, like I have friends who grew up in Minneapolis. We have a writer on staff who grew up in Minnesota like this was something that was known and talked about, and it’s a story that sort of percolated there. It shouldn’t take some YouTube guy making the story a national news story. So you kind of have to, again, hold these two thoughts where you’re like this story is arguably way more important than a lot of other stories that get tons of purchase in the mainstream media. It’s a huge fraud story that goes back to COVID. It’s about how we responded to the pandemic. It’s About federal funding. It’s, about billions of dollars. And it’s an immigration story too. And like all of those things are really important. And I think they’re things that matter to a lot of people. And maybe they get drowned out by like a bad bunny halftime show. And that’s not good. I think that’s a problem. So you have to accept like it’s a good thing that this story became a national news story because this is an actual story we should be debating as a country. It just sucks that the lens through which a lot of people saw it was what I think was a pretty dishonest and disingenuous and clearly motivated report by somebody who wasn’t a journalist and didn’t really know anything about the area and hadn’t really-- which again, parachuting in to just kind of tell this story with like zero humility about what he did or didn’t know, and then made a lot of obvious mistakes that a typical journalist or a media organization would have caught before publication. So I think that part of it’s really challenging to hold both those things at the same time.

Sarah [00:35:07] Well, and I think the paradox of what you’re saying is, yes, it brings awareness, and that is positive on the consumer side. It creates a set of motivation on the creator side that is intoxicating, but ultimately toxic. Like, first of all, I just want to pull some of these people aside that think they’ve got lightning in a bottle and be like you have no idea how difficult what you are about to go into is. Like, this industry is tough. If you think this is some sort of like easy gig... And you can see, I think right now in the way that the far right is just eating each other alive, like the sort of Candice Owen, Erica Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly drama, do you see that this is not some sort of easy thing? You have to constantly feed the beast in a way that is hard on you, hard on your relationships, hard on-- I don’t think any of them are having a good time right now. Do you know what I’m saying? Like, it’s brutal. And I just want to be like don’t thing that because you’ve hit some sort of like viral moment-- and I think there are people on the left who do this too-- that you think this is going to be easy. Like especially if you are building some sort of content creation on a platform, on an Instagram, on a TikTok, where you do have to feed the algorithmic beast all the time, you can see where now I think they’re like, again, post Charlie Kirk, like, something that was a political asset to the right is now a political liability to not only the the movement, but these individual people.

Isaac Saul [00:36:49] First of all, it does seem to me like we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point. Megan Kelly tweeting about Mark Levin having like a micro penis or something. I don’t know how much further we can go.

Speaker 5 [00:37:03] I didn’t even see that, Isaac! I missed that all together!

Isaac Saul [00:37:07] I mean, it’s just like we can’t go much further in my opinion. And if I were to offer an optimistic take about this, actually, to building on the point that you just laid out, my sort of hot take, I suppose, about the future that is optimistic is I think decency is about to make a pretty big comeback. And I think we have some canaries in the coal mine already that people are either choosing to ignore or that just haven’t really gotten enough attention. You mentioned the Texas Senate race. I think that’s one. Like whatever you think of James Tallarico, he intentionally chose to run a campaign that was decidedly different from Jasmine Crockett, who’s a flame thrower and is calling Abbott Governor Hot Wheels and doing a lot of race conflict stuff and drumming just that overall tension. And he really stayed above the fray. And did this kind of decent, quiet Christian guy schtick. I mean, I think it’s genuine, so I shouldn’t diminish it as schtick. But that was the approach he took and it worked and it won. Marjorie Taylor Greene leaving the MAGA movement or leaving the Trump party and really coming out and saying like I think I went too far.

Sarah [00:38:32] Yeah, I got scammed.

Isaac Saul [00:38:34] Her central critique is not just that Trump isn’t doing America first, which is part of it. She’s also like, I’m sorry. Like I look back at things that I was doing and I realized like I did not help anybody. Vivek Ramaswamy is running for governor in Ohio. And he said explicitly, I am not in the business of owning the libs anymore. He like came out and said like, this is not... And look, maybe with him I’d be curious to see how that holds. And I want to know is this a genuine evolution he’s had, or is it because he’s running in a state where a Republican doesn’t always win the governor’s ship slam dunk, and he knows he has to win some independent and democratic voters. But he’s at least talking the talk. And I think he seems to have had a real genuine revelation from what I’ve read of just like my style of communication wasn’t working and I wasn’t winning over anybody outside MAGA and I realized like, this is bad. The progressive movement, like the George Floyd era progressive movement on the left has been completely bulldozed. I mean, it’s basically dead now. That approach of just like post your black box, silence is violence or you’re out, it didn’t work and there was huge blowback to it. And I think the left has really recalibrated in a lot of important ways. I just think there’s a decency of like don’t assume the worst. Don’t say the nastiest thing about somebody who disagrees with you politically possible. That just approach I think is on the downward trend.

[00:40:13] And I know it’s hard to believe with everything going on with like the conservative inviting you’re talking about and like Candice Owens being on Erika Kirk killed Charlie Kirk thing for months on end. It’s like, oh my God, how can it get much worse? And I kind of think it can, honestly. I know we always find new bottoms, but I do really feel like there is this rising tide of people who are just like, just stop. I just don’t want anything to do with this. I’m exhausted. And I’m looking for people who are being decent. David French, who I interviewed on my show, he put it in really interesting terms because it was an idea I’ve been scratching at, and I asked him about the Telerico stuff, And he said, look, we’re a thermostatic country. And we always talk about being thermostactic in the context of policy. Like the country goes left on policy, then there’s going to be this right wing. But he said I think we’re thermostratic on the decency, indecency thing too. In the last 10 years, like we have gone indecent. Like we have become as indecent as you can. And I just think there’s going to be a thermostat backlash to that of people who want something a little bit better. And we’ve done it before. We had it with McCarthyism and Nixon and the different eras of the Obama administration. And I think that’s right. So I’m hopeful. That’s my fingers crossed, given where I am politically optimistic take about where we’re headed. But I think there’s a lot of reason to believe that we might be sort of bottoming out right now. And I certainly hope that’s the case.

Sarah [00:41:43] Well, from your lips to God’s ears, I think that’s a hopeful note. I do want to keep you for a few more minutes to do Outside of Politics up next. So on our show, we always have an exhale. That’s what we call it. Where we talk about what’s on our mind Outside of Politics. So what’s your mind Outside of Politics in news and media, all of it.

Isaac Saul [00:42:10] I mean, for me personally, I have a 14-month-old son who is my first kid who’s becoming kind of like a toddler all of a sudden. He can walk, he’s ambulatory, he’s like, ba,ba,ba, all day babbling, like demanding things, crying when he’s not getting what he wants. And I’m just thinking a lot about, like, the example I want to set for him. Like I’m in full dad mode on just the world I want him to operate in and see and be curious about. And I think, for me, it has been very rewarding to have somebody at this age who like lives with you and you’re responsible for, and we wake up in the morning before the sun comes up and he sees like a half crescent moon out the window and is gobsmacked by it. And like reaching for it and looking at, and I’m like, oh, wow, that is incredible. Like, there’s just like these little things, a bloomed flower, that’s like the first flower of spring popping up in our garden, and he’s like standing over it, trying to pick it and is obsessed with it for five minutes. And it’s all this little stuff that I just take for granted. When you have a kid and you’re seeing them experience things for the first time, it sort of blows your mind. I feel like I’m being very grounded by this experience and also he’s teaching me a lot about this stuff that I kind of like walk past blinders on because I’m on my phone reading the latest about the Iran war or whatever.

Sarah [00:43:46] Well, listen, a few weeks ago on Pantsuit Politics, we talked about parenting, and particularly we shouted out Supernanny, and I offered up my services. I have a 16 year old, a 14 year old and 11 year old. Do you need any parenting advice, or would you like me to share some unsolicited parenting advice for you? Is there anything you’re struggling with?

Isaac Saul [00:44:03] I always take parenting advice. I would say like a big thing that I’m struggling with is when like I shut the fridge door and he starts crying like somebody just put a nail through his foot. I’m like do I pick him up and open the fridge door and let him, or do I just like walk away from the scene and wait till he’s distracted by the next thing? Like, I don’t know. I don’t want to like reinforce the crime. You know what I mean?

Sarah [00:44:32] I got you. First of all, have you read Happiest Toddler on the Block?

Isaac Saul [00:44:37] I haven’t, no.

Sarah [00:44:39] By Dr. Cart. Okay, I’m a big believer in both happiest baby on the block and happiest toddler on the block. Toddlers are not my favorite phase, okay? Just don’t love them because they’re real unreasonable. But what I thought was always so helpful in that book is he said a lot of what we do to toddlers is it’s like, if you came to me and you said, “I want to go see Rocky.” And I would be like, “Don’t you want to see Steel Magnolias?” And you’re like, “I want to See Rocky.” “Isn’t Steel Magnolia the greatest movie of all time? Let’s go see it.” And we do it to them. Like we’re trying to convince them. And he would always say like, say back to them so they understand you’ve heard them. Their language is not great. Like they’re little and they barely understand everything that’s happening, much less everything you’re saying. And we assume a knowledge gap. And so we want to explain it with a lot of language. When really what he wants to hear is, you wanted something in the fridge? You can’t have it right now, but you wanted in the fridge. You have to like say back what they’re experiencing. So they go, okay, they heard me, or else they just escalate because they think they’re not conveying what they wanted. So I would not give into it because my mother’s excellent advice is you have until they’re three to call their bluff. And if you don’t, your life is going to get exponentially worse. So like they have to understand like I’m at your beck and calls of your emotion. I understand what you’re upset about. We can’t do anything about it right now, but I hear you. I know why you’re mad. I get it. I can’t fix it, but I get. And then I had varying success with the distraction. Like my youngest, listen, he would just shred all the advice. I’d be like, do you want to put on your blue shoes or your red shoes? You’re supposed to like give him a choice. And he’d be, like, I don’t want to put all my shoes. You ding dong. Like I don’t care what color they are. I see the game you’re playing here, I don’t care. But I think with toddlers it’s just a real confidence game. Like they’re scared, they’re little, they can’t talk. They want to know someone’s in charge. And so as long as they feel like you’re leading and like somebody knows what’s going on and I don’t need to panic because nobody knows what’s going on, I think that’s a lot of it too. It’s like understanding with confidence what’s kind of going on in their head and being able to help them through it.

Isaac Saul [00:46:54] I love that. All right. I didn’t know I was going to learn to be a better dad on this show today. This is great. I got to come back more often.

Sarah [00:47:01] Look at that. Yeah. Listen, I love giving unsolicited parenting advice, even though that was vaguely solicited. I did have a couple listeners be like, no, I will take you up if you want to show up in my house and be Supernanny. Also, not for nothing, watch some Supernanny on YouTube. That show is wildly helpful. Very, very helpful.

Isaac Saul [00:47:17] I’ll tell you, I’ve had a few like parenting books here and there that I’m using as my like Bible right now for dadding, but I haven’t entered the YouTube space yet. So maybe I’ll check out very specific, only recommended from you YouTube channels.

Sarah [00:47:31] Beth and I are devoted Jo Frost fans. I am a better parent because I watched Supernanny before my kids came along. You probably could like, I wonder if you could filter like by age and be like I just want to watch Supernany with like really young toddlers. What has she got for them? You maybe like just grow up along the way.

Isaac Saul [00:47:48] Yeah, I like that.

Sarah [00:47:50] Well, thank you so much for coming on Pantsuit Politics.

Isaac Saul [00:47:53] Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure being here.

Sarah [00:47:55] Tell all our listeners how they can get that Tangle newsletter with your take that they will not scroll right down to. I promise.

Isaac Saul [00:48:07] Go to readtangle.com and subscribe to the newsletter. It’s totally free. We have a paid membership offering too to unlock some additional content, but subscribe to newsletter, sign up, see if you like it. And if you’re a strictly podcast listener, we have a podcast too that you can find by just looking up Tangle News. And we welcome all the Pantsuit Politics fans. I know they’re like-minded folks.

Sarah [00:48:33] You will like it, guys.

Isaac Saul [00:48:34] And we would be thrilled if they came and joined us.

Sarah [00:48:37] You don’t even have to see if you like it. I promise you’ll like it and we’ll put the link in the show notes. So it’ll be easy for you to check it out. Thanks again, Isaac. Thank you so much.

Isaac Saul [00:48:44] Thanks for having me.

Sarah [00:48:46] Thank you to Isaac for joining me. We will be back in your ears on Friday. And until then, keep it nuanced, y’all.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

Our show is listener-supported. The community of paid subscribers here on Substack makes everything we do possible. Special thanks to our Executive Producers, some of whose names you hear at the end of each show. To join our community of supporters, become a paid subscriber here on Substack.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Believe me, when I say that I understand the desire to make a home that is safe, stable, and comfortable for your family. We have set an incredibly high expectation around home ownership in America and have failed at every junction to make it achievable for the majority of Americans. I’m glad that Congress is finally paying attention to this episode but I hope what you hear in our conversation is that it’s going to take a lot more than that to find a way for every American to have a home.

Not a house, a home. Some homes will be rented. Some homes will be made in a factory. Some homes will be built behind houses that hold single families.

Everyone deserves a home no matter what it looks like. George Bailey be damned. -Sarah

Topics Discussed

• DHS Nominee Markwayne Mullin Confirmation Hearing

• Housing in America

• Outside of Politics: Colorectal Cancer Awareness with Jessica Lotz

Episode Resources

• Rand Paul confronts Markwayne Mullin over ‘snake’ remarks: ‘Tell it to my face’ (YouTube)

• WATCH: Sen. Paul asks DHS nominee Mullin if he believes violence can resolve political differences (PBS News)

• Abundance | Book by Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster

• The Abundance Agenda (People’s Policy Project)

• Lighting a Candle (Our tribute to Rebekah Hardwick Massmann)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are going to talk about the Department of Homeland Security, which has been mostly shut down for over a month and its likely new leader, Senator Markwayne Mullin. Then we’re going to talk about affordability and housing. Why is it so hard to buy a house in America? Why is so hard insure that house? And will a new bipartisan Senate bill help those problems? Then Outside of Politics, We’re going to do something pretty different today. March is colorectal cancer awareness month. A beloved longtime Pantsuit Politics listener, Rebecca Hardwick-Massman passed away in February from colon cancer. Another listener, Brooke, asked us to share more about screening. And a college friend, Jessica Lotz, just went through diagnosis and treatment. So Jessica is joining us today to very generously share her story and encourage all of us who are in our mid-40s to go get that colonoscopy.

Sarah [00:01:06] If you haven’t already, make sure you get your ticket to our Minneapolis live show and after party in August. We are so excited to be in the city and to be supporting some local businesses, hearing from local leaders about what the city has been through this year. We’re also going to have a lot of fun. We’re going to play Mahjong. We’re going to do all kinds of special things. You do not want to miss this live event and the incredible weekend that surrounds it. You can learn more and get tickets through the link in the show notes.

Beth [00:01:33] Next up, let’s talk about Markwayne Mullin.

Sarah [00:01:34] I don’t want to.

Beth [00:01:45] You don’t want to talk about Markwayne?

Sarah [00:01:46] I don’t like him.

Beth [00:01:48] Okay.

Sarah [00:01:49] We can start there. He’s a hothead.

Beth [00:01:54] He’s a hothead.

Sarah [00:01:55] I mean, that’s the takeaway from these confirmation hearings. He’s a hothead.

Beth [00:01:59] He was consistently described as both a hothead and a good hang. Like people really like him or they really, really don’t, as our Senator Rand Paul really, really doesn’t.

Sarah [00:02:08] Yeah, Senator Paul don’t like him because he mouthed off about-- listen, Senator Paul is still carrying so much trauma from this attack from his neighbor. It comes up a lot. I think he needs some therapy. I think he is right to be angry that Senator Mullen was basically like didn’t have kind things to say about this attack, hasn’t had really forceful, ethical, moral things to stay about political violence generally. And so to put him in charge of this paramilitary force, listen, it raises some concerns.

Beth [00:02:41] If you haven’t seen it, let’s just give you a taste of how Senator Paul who chairs the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate, opened his hearing with Senator Mullin.

Clip: Sen. Rand Paul [00:02:51] You told the media that I was a freaking snake and that you completely understood why I had been assaulted. I was shocked that you would justify and celebrate this violent assault that caused me so much pain and my family so much painful. I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force.

Beth [00:03:16] It might be helpful to know too, that Senator Mullin was late for this hearing. So Rand Paul gavels it in and is like I guess we’ll start when he comes. I think he’s doing media in the hallway.

Sarah [00:03:29] Oh no. But you know what else? They voted it through their committee.

Beth [00:03:34] So, which Senator Paul knew the whole time. He was like I’m going to be courteous to the White House. I’m going to schedule this quickly. I’m going to schedule the vote fast. We’re going to do it. I accept the outcome here, but I’m not voting for him. And I’m going to let everybody know why.

Sarah [00:03:46] Okay, well, I respect that.

Beth [00:03:49] I do too. And I respect that Senator Paul has connected this very personal beef he has to a broader issue with the department that Mullin is going to go run. I mean, DHS is in crisis in a lot of ways, right?

Sarah [00:04:02] So many ways.

Beth [00:04:04] You have 280,000 people working without pay right now. The reporting on TSA lines, airport saying you need to come four hours in advance. People missing a full paycheck, it’s bad.

Sarah [00:04:17] I don’t need the reporting. I’ve encountered some of these TSA lines. Pre-check lines- bad.

Beth [00:04:24] It’s a mess out there. And we’re not making any progress in Congress because Democrats have said, we’re not going to take your word for it. Democrats I think are kind of like Markwayne Mullin is not our issue here. Markwayne Mullin is a person, he’s fine. Most of us like him. He’s probably as good as it’s going to get as a nominee from this president.

Sarah [00:04:46] That’s probably fair.

Beth [00:04:48] And also, we need laws to restrain what we just saw happen with ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. And I think that they’re right about that.

Sarah [00:04:57] Yeah, well and it’s still happening. What happened? What past tense? Still happening. They’re still out there snatching people. They’re still out there wearing masks. They are still out there disrespecting just like the most basic boundaries around unlawful search and seizure. They’re harassing American citizens and protesters. It’s all still happening. I’m so glad what’s his head with the crazy coat that looks like a Nazi is retiring, but that doesn’t really fix it. I’m glad Kristi Noem is gone. Also, doesn’t fix it!

Beth [00:05:29] Crazy coat is I think Gregory Bovino.

Sarah [00:05:31] Yeah, that’s him. He’s retiring, right?

Beth [00:05:33] He’s retiring and he should still be investigated. His retirement should not preclude any investigation of his individual conduct or what he did on behalf and at the instruction of others. All of this is worthy of intense review. This is the first government shutdown where I have felt like Democrats are squarely in the right, both in substance and tactics. I don’t want this shutdown, but I appreciate that Democrats have said, look, we’re happy to fund everything except ICE and CBP until we get these laws. Let’s go ahead, let’s fund FEMA. Let’s fund TSA. Let’s not hold TSA agents hostage in the middle of this. But if you all stand behind your immigration agenda, let’s isolate the issue. Let’s deal on this issue only. And I think that’s the right thing to do. And I think they are absolutely correct that any assurance from anyone, future official or current official means nothing with this administration.

Sarah [00:06:30] No, you can’t depend on anything they say. I even like some of the things Markwayne Mullin is saying. I like that he’s going to improve the grant process that she held hostage and that definitely prevented some of the disaster relief funds getting through. I like it that he said, “My goal at six months is that we’re not the lead story every single day.” I would also like that, Senator Mullin. I would like that so very much. I don’t know if I can trust you. Senator Paul doesn’t trust you. And the fact that you had some weird time in war zones that you never disclosed in all this time that you’re running for office also does not engender trust with me. So every day is different. Every day is new. Every day’s a new level of corruption and lies. And I’m glad that his Senate colleagues like him and seem to trust him to a certain extent, at least some of them, but only time will tell.

Beth [00:07:23] Well, I think part of what you saw in this hearing is that he’s still going to work for Donald Trump. So he put some space between himself and Kristi Noem, not explicitly, but in terms of policy. He definitely did not put space between himself and the president, and he can’t, right? I heard people analyzing, why didn’t he just say, Rand Paul, I’m sorry. Oops, my bad, shouldn’t have said this. Because Donald Trump would hate that, that’s why. He can’t roll over on anything. He wouldn’t even say he was sorry about what he said about Alex Preti. He said he regretted it. He shouldn’t have come out so fast. He called Alex Pretti though, a deranged person. He was towing the line from DHS, but he can’t say I figured that what this administration was saying was true and that I could rely on their talking points and it wasn’t. He can’t say that. And he can’t say I’m really sorry because that will get clipped and the president will see that clip and hate it. And so even if you have personal confidence in him, even if you think this is a good guy who I like and enjoy, and even if you confirm him, which they will, and I guess that’s fine, I’m not opposed to him personally, he seems like an improvement on much of the existing cabinet, you do need these laws. You need something tighter than a gentleman’s agreement here.

Sarah [00:08:39] Because they’re not gentlemen. I mean, I’m going to say that as plainly as I can. Well, and here’s the thing. I was just reading this piece in the Wall Street Journal about the truly historic level of retirements happening this year in Congress. The largest number of retirement since they’ve measured them. They’re not all Republicans, but so many of them are. And it’s because of that. There’s just no room to be an independent person. You have no free will. Your will is beholden to Donald Trump. And they’re going to follow him right off this cliff. Doesn’t matter how unpopular he gets, doesn’t matter how high gas prices get. Like there just can be no daylight. I am so interested to see what happens with Thomas Massie, people who are like, no, I’m going to stay and fight to see what happens. But even Thomas Massie sometimes twists himself in knots to say, well, I don’t like this part of Donald Trump, the fact that he’s coming after me, but other parts of his agenda I like.

Beth [00:09:34] I just had the fourth visit to my house on behalf of Thomas Massie, this election cycle. And again, I’ve lived here 20 years in August. This is the first time someone from the Massie campaign has come to our door and we’ve had four visits. So you can tell he’s worried. Like they think it’s going to be tight. And a lot of his mailers are like look at how consistently I have voted with this president’s agenda. The only time I deviate from him is when he’s trying to do something that is corrupt or that puts us in another terrible war. Look, I’m going to vote for him. I think he’s right about those issues. I am going to vote in that Republican primary and support him. I have no qualms about it. And also, what a mess this is. I think it’s a convergence of factors for members of Congress. Because again, Donald Trump by himself couldn’t create this. It is the convergence of Donald Trump with donors, with a media echo chamber that turns the base, the local base, the local parties, into henchmen of Trump. If you look at some of what’s happening in Kentucky’s local Republican parties, it’s bananas. It’s bananas. And everybody had agency, but they’ve given it away. And I think all those factors have become a stranglehold on these members where it’s a job that just sucks now.

Sarah [00:10:53] Which is why Markwayne Mullin is trying to get himself a new one. And it looks like he’ll be successful.

Beth [00:10:59] Converging factors leading to a difficult predicament is maybe the best segue we could have to our next topic. We’re going to talk next about housing in the United States. Sarah, I was taking a look at some numbers and realizing that I have no handle whatsoever on the state of housing right now because all the numbers are shocking to me. The numbers that houses in my neighborhood are selling for now is shocking to be. I’ve lived here 20 years. I can’t believe what houses on my street costs now. The typical home in the United States cost about $400,000 and that is laughably low to people who live in metropolitan areas, states on the coast, and it is still so much money and so much more than most people can afford, especially at the beginning of their careers.

Sarah [00:12:01] Well, you can tell it’s a crisis because Congress is paying attention. A big housing bill passed through the Senate has to be reconciled with one in the House. And it goes after all kinds of things that I think sound good. And really to me signal that the federal government, and even Donald Trump has tried to sign some executive orders around this, are picking up on the fact that this isn’t working. Something is really broken within the housing situation in America. And it’s not just the cost of housing. It’s not just the price of rent. It’s homelessness. It’s the fact that people are sleeping in their cars, sleeping on the streets. There’s almost nowhere in America, especially large metropolitan areas, that you don’t encounter some sort of small to medium encampment. It just continues to be a massive problem.

Beth [00:12:58] And so this bipartisan agreement around this problem has become partly the abundance agenda. So the ideas that Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson wrote about in their book last year, that we need to relax some of our regulations. We need to make it easier and faster for people to build things because we are not building enough right now. And I think the other big piece that has made it into this federal legislation that there’s some consensus around is that we want people to own houses not giant companies. And so this institutional investor restriction is a big part of the bill, and it’s something that even made it into Trump’s State of the Union, that he was saying we want to prevent Wall Street from owning all of Main Street. And again, that sounds really good. And it is a very small part of a much larger story.

Sarah [00:13:48] I think to the relaxing regulations, there’s some things in here that are good, but it still ignores the reality that so many zoning regulations are local. So it is a massive lift to address all these zoning regulations at the local level that really put all our chips, we have put all of our chips on single-family homes. And I don’t just mean as the housing solution, I mean as the wealth building solution. And it has failed us. And I think so much of this orientation still wants to push everything in that direction. Look, I know it sounds good. I hate private equity. There are so many parts of the financialization of America and the bigness of corporate agglomerations and mergers that I really hate. And so it’s easy to read this and be like, yeah, people should own their homes. But that’s not true. We don’t get out of where we are, which we just don’t have enough units and we don’t have dense enough housing without institutional investors building. It could be a path to affordability. It could a path more units and not necessarily units that people own. I mean, I think we’re so obsessed with home ownership in America. I think about it every year at Christmas time when I watch It’s a Wonderful Life, which is basically just home ownership propaganda that we’ve made this the path to like retirement and wealth building.

[00:15:28] But there are European countries where Germany has like a massive long-term rental market. A huge percentage of their housing is built on really stable leases and rental agreements. And you build retirement other ways because it’s just this sort of self-fulfilling, self-feeding cycle. So I know I’m so locked in, I love my house, I don’t want to leave. But like I’m still locked in because I got this crazy low interest rate over the pandemic. Or you have generationally the statistics around like how much the baby boomers own in housing wealth. This was like a report from Redfin I found when I was researching for the show. Older homeowners hold more real estate wealth than ever. Homeowner’s age 70 plus possessed 26% of the real estate wealth in the country. And 20 years ago, that was 16%. So in even 55 to 69, they hold 35%. So you’re talking about 55+ holds half of the real estate wealth in this country. Because we’ve built this system that rewards grabbing it, keeping it against all sort of desire to move, desire to upgrade, whatever. It’s a mess. And I don’t think the institutional investor ban is going to get to that.

Beth [00:16:50] No, institutional investors own about 3% of single family homes nationwide. That is not where the problem is. It is so interesting to me that that has become the answer in Washington DC to this problem.

Sarah [00:17:03] Was it an easy boogie man?

Beth [00:17:06] Yes. It is an easy, easy target, but that is not the problem. And the baby boomers aren’t the problem either. Where are they supposed to go? We haven’t built anywhere for them to move to. The retirement communities popping up where I live are so unbelievably expensive. It’s buying a home plus. It’s buying a home several times over for your later years in life. We don’t have the configuration to support the supply. There are a bunch of apartments going in very close to my house right now, which I’m happy to see. And we’re building schools so slowly and our schools are bursting at the seams. When you add a bunch of apartments or any kind of, duplex, triplex, fourplex, you’re just bringing in a lot more people who need services from the community too. And so all of that has to go together. It’s not a simple problem. And it’s definitely not a problem that I think gets fixed out of Washington, DC. I am concerned now that we’ve done something we’re checking this off the list instead of pursuing all of the layers at which this is operating.

Sarah [00:18:11] I don’t want to shit all over this bill that passed with such bipartisan support. There is a part of this that fits with the abundance agenda, fits with a supply problem, gets the federal government out of the way. And that’s the ending of the permanent chassis requirement. I hope I’m saying that right. Which is basically like used too with manufactured homes, the old rule was like, well, they’re on wheels. So it required this permanent chassis, like this steel undergird that you could put this house on wheel. And that’s what allowed you to get all these federal subsidies and things that you can get for manufacturing homes. Well, now manufacturing homes, the future is more like factory built. I covered the house. Yeah, it’s just a house. And, listen, I covered this in the Good News brief in February. There’s this really cool company called the American Housing Corporation. And they have these modular homes that look like brownstones. And, listen, I know this is shallow, but they’re just nice to look at. Like esthetically they are pleasing. I think that’s important. And like they go up fast and the American Housing Corporation is owning every piece of the-- like vertically they’re owning all of it. They’re putting the homes together. They’re owning the land. They’re selling to the people. They’re just trying to keep all the process within. I think it’s a really, really good inventive model that I hope you know easing this requirement will get out of the way. I think that’s the best thing the federal government can do is offer incentives and get out the way. But if there was an institutional investor who wanted to scale up what the American Housing Corporation is doing, I want them to be able to do that

Beth [00:19:46] Well, this requirement to me illustrates the things the federal government could do to get out of the way that they won’t do. Eliminating that permanent chassis requirement saves like five to $10,000 per home to build it. And that’s in part because it’s made of steel. And steel is so expensive in part because of tariffs. And manufacturing, building new homes is so expensive because the labor supply is so diminished because of our immigration policy. There are many, many places where this administration specifically is contributing to the high cost of housing. And so that I think is why this bill has bipartisan support. They know that. And now they can say we did something on housing affordability when actually the major policies of this president are causing a problem that was already bad. He didn’t invent it, but it’s taking a problem that was already bad and making the main pain points worse.

Sarah [00:20:43] And another huge part of the housing problem is home insurance, which they don’t touch on at all. We’re about to put old Markwayne Mullin in charge of FEMA because this extreme weather has become a huge, huge piece of the home insurance like crisis. Like there are people in California who cannot insure their homes, people in Florida not offering any insurance for a home. So we got to figure something else out because I don’t think there is a fix for this. I think we’re going to have to completely whiteboard home insurance.

Beth [00:21:20] Some of what has happened to whiteboard home insurance is just excluding risk. So if you look at the stats on where homeowner’s insurance is most affordable, one of the most affordable states is Hawaii, because Hawaii excludes hurricane risk. You have to buy a separate policy for that. And so we’re not really discussing the total affordability picture for a person, we’re just refusing to price certain risks in. That is the kind of thing that federal policy could probably start to speak to, but it’s a hard problem that they have not tried to tackle at all in this bill.

Sarah [00:21:58] No, and I think that’s even those of us who don’t live in these like most expensive states, like California or Oklahoma or Florida, I mean, they’re not always states you expect. I mean the Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, the high risk of tornado drives up their homeowner’s insurance, even though tornado alley is more, has moved to the east. Like that’s not even really tornado alley anymore, it’s over here.

Beth [00:22:22] And closer to where I live. Well, a lot of it is hail in those Midwestern states now. The damage that a hail storm that never makes national news can do is so incredibly expensive. And people who study climate think we’re going to get a lot more hail as the planet warms. And so, you know, there are all these like granular localized pieces to what’s going on here that when you start to look at it, you think it makes sense. And what do we do about this?

Sarah [00:22:51] Well, and it’s like even in my own life, we paid for our roof. We’re like the only person we know who paid for a roof because everybody else gets hail damage reports it to their insurance and gets their roof covered. Well, that drives up the cost of insurance. I bet if every single one of us literally needed to rebuild our house from scratch, almost all of us would be underinsured because I increased it when the tornado hit Mayfield. But because of labor costs, because of the tariffs, I’m sure it’s even more expensive than it was just a few years ago. And it’s like people are already crunched so hard with the cost of everything. Car insurance is going up for the same reason, like the expense. I was just reading about how people can’t afford cars, just generally, like they cannot afford to have a car anymore. This is squeezing people so tightly and I just think-- again, I appreciate them getting to this, but this is the sort of big picture problem solving we need instead of a president who just piles the problems on.

Beth [00:23:56] There is one provision in this bill that I think will actually make the problem worse instead of better. And Democratic Senator Brian Schatz tried to raise this. In going after that institutional investor piece, the way this bill is drafted will really limit billed to rent housing, which has been a bright spot in a tough landscape. So if you have a contract with a builder where you get to move into your home and you rent it, over time until eventually the builder makes their money back, it takes more than seven years. But this bill says that if you’re an institutional investor and you build a house, you got to sell it before seven years expire. And he’s like, we should just fix this. This is just bad drafting. We can fix it. And because this bill had momentum, everyone just kept marching forward and didn’t stop to fix this and I do think we can’t do that with federal policy. It’s too powerful. If the Senate is going to pass a bill they need to do it slowly enough to figure this stuff out. Now, I’m not worried that this stays in. This might get resolved in that conference between the House and Senate versions. And, look, Trump may never take this up because he says he’s not signing anything until the Save America Act is passed. I don’t know if that means he would veto it or if he would just not sign it and let it become effective after some period without his signature. So who knows how long it takes to actually get this done. But that’s a problem. That shows you that there is a sense that we just need to check this off our list instead of doing it thoughtfully.

Sarah [00:25:29] Well, back to the retirements in Congress from the first segment, to me, that’s just the dysfunction. The fact that people are like, oh, don’t spook it because we get so little done, is really jacked up. Not to mention, did you catch that they threw in this central bank digital currency provision that has nothing to do with housing? They want to ban the central bank from issuing any digital currency through 2030, and the house is threatening to kill it because they want that as a permanent ban. Which leaves all these stable coins to guess who? The Trump family, who’s not going to be regulated because they gutted the Consumer Protection Bureau. So it’s like, come on, can you do one small thing without it reeking of corruption?

Beth [00:26:10] No, we have this with FISA reauthorization right now too, people wanting to attach all kinds of things to it. It’s a mess. I do not envy the job that they have to do. I don’t envy people working on housing, but I am grateful for the people who are doing a good job on housing. And we do have some examples of that.

Sarah [00:26:25] Yeah, locally all kinds of things are happening.

Beth [00:26:28] You sent a great article this morning to me about Portland and how Portland has really gone after that zoning piece. But what’s interesting to me is that Portland not only recognized that zoning restrictions were part of the problem, they realized that has to be paired with a way for housing to continue to be financially beneficial to builders and developers. So they said, hey, if you want to build something that houses more than a single family, you can have more space than if you were just building a single-family home. And being willing to incentivize that kind of construction has taken this proposal farther than Minneapolis, which also said we’re not going to have single-families owning anymore, exclusively. But they didn’t give them a financial stake in going to the next piece, and so they haven’t seen as much housing develop as Portland has.

Sarah [00:27:20] Yeah, it’s like there’s so many components of this sort of floor area ratio. The lot line was limiting how much floor size basically square foot you could put on the lot. And yeah, you got rid of single family zoning, but you forgot to update this square footage limitation. And so I think it’s so smart. And, look, here’s my call for everyone. I think those of us who are well situated with regards to housing wealth have to remember that we have children who have to live in this world. And so we need to advocate for these changes even if they don’t directly affect us. We need be YIMBY. We need say, yes, in my backyard. Fine, fill your lot line. You don’t have to have a front door on the street. There was some of this in my town. They built a new development and the front doors are facing in instead of back. And everybody’s like, oh, it’s going to disrupt the esthetics of Jefferson, this historical neighborhood. Okay, but guys, are we preserving the buildings or are we preserving society?

Beth [00:28:21] Encampments upset the esthetic of a neighborhood too. Like, come on. They’re just a million pieces here.

Sarah [00:28:26] Yeah, come on. We have to move out of this post-World War II. Maybe we should all just stop watching It’s a Wonderful Life. I’m not even playing it. The American dream cannot be so hyper-focused on this very tight post-World War II version of home ownership. The world is bigger. We are bigger. We should be bigger, more expansive thinkers. And we have to bring that to housing, particularly locally. I’m glad the federal government’s doing something, but they ain’t going to save us. We have to change our zoning locally in order to get somewhere new.

Beth [00:29:03] And part of the reason that’s been so hard is because it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s not just our vision of housing as how you build wealth. It’s our vision if single family housing is how you built good neighborhoods with safe streets and excellent schools. And so the rest of a community’s investment has to follow this. You do need to build more schools. You cannot keep introducing housing without introducing the services that accompany it. If people’s electricity, water, snow removal, public schools get disrupted along the way, that is a big impediment. So all of it has to flow together.

Sarah [00:29:41] And that is a hopeful note too because it is easy to worry about dropping real estate values because that is everyone’s retirement plan, which is part of the problem. But when you have denser housing, when you have people in triplexes and fourplexes, you get more services. You might get a grocery store you could actually freaking walk to. If you had more people nearby to visit the shops, it’s not just maybe you will get a new school. You could get all kinds of new things. And the school is harder because that’s the tax base. But businesses know when there’s more people around and there’s all kinds of exciting things that could come if, God forbid, your home value, even if it doesn’t drop, doesn’t continue to accelerate at such a crazy pace.

Beth [00:30:30] And all that has to be done carefully because even new business coming in means the roads need to be updated to accommodate those businesses. People worry they want green spaces too, I get it. I don’t want to preach it to anybody about this because there isn’t a single aspect of it that is just a total win all around that doesn’t require sacrifice somewhere or change somewhere that feels uncomfortable for a while and that requires a lot of adjustment. So kudos to the cities that are having these conversations. Doing the hard work of bringing people along with them. Kudos to the people who will listen to everybody in the process as decisions are being made about zoning and roads and schools and allowing people to live in duplexes and triplexes and fourplexes and having more apartment buildings. We need to get to the root causes here. And I would love for the Senate to get to the federal root causes that they can help with labor and the cost of goods and incentivize cities to keep trying innovative approaches that help us get here.

Sarah [00:31:34] Because not to sound like Sam Cooke, but a change is going to come either way. So we can try to keep doubling down on this vision that is excluding people and creates angry young people who cannot access a comfortable middle-class existence that might include some of our very own children or we can continue to ignore it and just swallow the externalization cost. Because again a change it’s going to come, either way

Beth [00:32:04] And this is part of everything. If you are for this administration’s approach to immigration because you’re worried about crime, housing policy would be a much more effective place to put that energy. Having people in stable homes affects crime, it affects education, it affects public health. Whatever your pet issue is, you want people in stable housing that they can afford. All of society benefits, that’s the good. That’s the unabashed good, right? How we get there is really tough, but I think all of us putting our focus there is really important. And maybe that is the most hopeful part of the Senate bill. At least we’re talking about it. Next up, we are going to talk about colorectal cancer.

Sarah [00:33:17] So, today, in Outside of Politics, we’re going to take Brooke’s request that we discuss Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. And in truly a Holy Spirit at work kind of moment, Beth and I had decided to talk about this because I did have a colonoscopy, I think, two years ago this summer. I just so happened to reach out to our sorority sister, Jessica Lotz, about something different. Of asking her advice about supplements and hormones, which I do semi-regularly.

Jessica Lotz [00:33:49] And is welcomed.

Sarah [00:33:51] And it’s welcome. She’s the best guide. No, you can’t have her cell phone number. She said to me, well, I’m glad you reached out. I have something to tell you. Do you want the good news or the bad news first? And I said bad news, which Beth told me was always the right choice.

Beth [00:34:06] Always start with the bad new.

Sarah [00:34:07] And you told me what, Jessica?

Jessica Lotz [00:34:10] I’ve been diagnosed colon cancer. .

Sarah [00:34:12] And then I said tell me the good news fast and it better be related.

Jessica Lotz [00:34:17] And it absolutely was. So the good news is after several procedures, a CAT scan pathology has shown that they got it all out.

Sarah [00:34:26] Well, and then she starts waxing poetic about colorectal screenings and colonoscopy. And I was like, oh wait, I have just the venue for you to express this newfound passion of yours because we literally had decided to talk about this the day before you and I started texting.

Jessica Lotz [00:34:41] And bless you for that because it’s not something people are willing to usually talk about and it needs to be taught. It’s like politics. You need to talk about it, not everybody’s willing or wants to, and it’s going to get literally and figuratively messy, but it is super important.

Beth [00:34:55] I was just thinking there’s probably a very extended metaphor about that, Jessica, but I’m really happy to hear that you are doing well. I’m sorry. I haven’t had a chance to tell you that I’m so sorry that you had to go through this at all.

Jessica Lotz [00:35:08] Thank you.

Beth [00:35:09] Will you just take us through the experience from diagnosis to where you are today?

Jessica Lotz [00:35:16] So I’m 46 years old and in December I saw my primary care provider and she was like, hey, you’re 46, that means you’re due for a colonoscopy. And I was like, no, that starts at 50. And she said, no, most recently the recommendations from two separate professional organizations dropped that screening age to 45. And I was like, well, okay, I’m a real follower so I’ll get my screening colonoscopy. Got it booked, went in, the process of prep was much easier than I thought it would be. Everybody says that’s the worst part, but then you get a great 30-minute nap that makes up for that.

Sarah [00:35:51] It actually is the worst part as compared to the nap that is the actual colonoscopy

Jessica Lotz [00:35:57] Correct. But even the prep’s not bad, it’s kind of like one of my takeaways. It’s been like made up to be this thing and it’s really not. It’s like you feel really healthy after it, I’ll tell you that. So I had the procedure done, the doctor comes right in after it and says you had one polyp, it looked good, so we’ll see you in three years because the polyps are generally very slow growing. Usually if you go in and don’t have any polyps, you’re usually on a 10-year plan. they’ll see you again at age 55 and that’s because the polyps tend to be slow growing and so he said I’ll see you again in three years and we’ll take out any more that you have and if it’s clean then then I won’t see you again for like five or ten years. I forget. I’m like perfect. Well four days later my phone rings and it’s the physician himself. Which I worked in health care for 15 years, so if the doctor is calling you, you know that something’s up. And he said Ms. Lotz I’m very surprised to tell you that the pathology came back and that polyp we removed was cancer. And I was like getting out of my car to go into this huge community luncheon with a thousand of my closest friends and I was, like, I’m sorry, what? And he said, I am very surprised. He said, well, I remember you. I remember taking it out. He remembers me because of my nose ring and I had to sign a waiver because I wasn’t going to take my nose ringing out. Anyway, so he said I was very surprised it didn’t look like it normally looks. And I thought, okay. So that was one of seven phone calls in the first 24 hours.

[00:37:28] It moved so quickly. And that’s for someone, like I said, I grew up in healthcare. My dad’s a retired physician. I was the director of a family practice clinic. I know the healthcare side of things. And so for that to move so quickly, thank goodness. You don’t want to be sitting waiting for the next appointment and the next results. So I was very thankful, but man it’s scary in the sense that it moved quickly and you just don’t know. So I just kept telling myself I’m just going to think about whatever the next thing is. Whatever that is, if it’s an appointment, if it a CAT scan, if its a blood test, if it’s genetic testing, I’m going to just think about the next things. So I had two more procedures to make sure that they had gotten what they thought was all the cancer out and they took out some more the second time and then the third one by a surgeon it was in a really weird spot where if it was down here, they would have treated it one way. If it was up here, they would’ve treated it a different way. So she just wanted to get in there to see where it was. But it was like a week later before I actually said the words, like, I’ve been diagnosed with cancer. Like I just kept telling everybody, oh, well, this pathology came back, we’re going to see what it is. And then it’s like the second I said it out loud, it rewires your brain. Literally from the second I said that out loud, I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to do the rest of the day, what I had on my schedule for the week, like it does this weird thing to your brain and for someone like me, I rely on that next thing and the stability and the discipline of my routine. And that was not there for a while, so.

Sarah [00:39:00] So where is your brain right now? Like now that you’ve gone through the procedure or the multiple procedures, like you told me you’ll have to get a colonoscopy every six months, where are you at feeling like, okay, I have a handle on this. I am super thankful for the screening procedure, but this is what it means for my life now.

Jessica Lotz [00:39:21] I’m mentally in a really good place. If you would have asked me a month ago, I would have like, I don’t know. I don’t know who I am. And I want to say I am blessed in the sense that they found it incredibly early. Three quarters of people who are diagnosed with colon cancer before the age of 50, it’s found in an advanced stage. And that’s what’s really scary. By the time it’s advanced, it gets harder and more intervention is required. So I was in the minority of that. So I’m thankful for.

Sarah [00:39:51] Which is why they moved up the screening age.

Jessica Lotz [00:39:54] That is exactly why. So the incidence of colon cancer has more than doubled in the last 30 years. So a lot of other cancers-- not to minimize them, but a lot other cancers are sort of on a stable or even declining, thank God, trajectory. Colon cancer, the number of people under age 50 being diagnosed with it has doubled since the late 90s.

Sarah [00:40:16] What is going on? What is happening?

Jessica Lotz [00:40:17] They’re trying to figure it out. A recent paper came out indicating that the processed foods probably has something to do. It ultimately goes back to the gut microbe. And I think that traditional healthcare has acknowledged this much that the gut might play in our overall health, but it has disregarded the larger extent that it probably plays. I mean, for our neurology, our mental health. There’s a lot of connections that mainstream health care is now starting to say, okay, there’s probably something.

Sarah [00:40:50] Well, don’t you think GLP-1s have really accelerated that, that they’re saying like, oh, we are treating this aspect of what we thought was happening in your stomach, but we’re realizing it’s like decreasing desire and all these other different areas. Maybe there is more of a connection than we thought there was.

Jessica Lotz [00:41:05] Absolutely. What’s interesting about the GLP-1s is usually the way that health care goes is they study something in the lab and then they come up with recommendations for how to push it out like population-wide in actual practice. And so they did that for the weight loss side, but the unintended benefits of the GLP-1, that process has reversed. They’re seeing so many unexpected things in clinical practice that now that’s driving what they are going to be researching. So I think that’s a great call-out to make, is that there’s going to be a lot more to come stand by for that because they’re starting to see that heavily. So I’m in a much better place now that I was even just a month ago because at this point we know that it hasn’t spread. We know that I’m incredibly lucky that I got screened so early. And, Sarah, you and I, when we were talking, you asked about the Cologuard and I’ve got some thoughts on that.

Sarah [00:41:55] That’s poop in the box for those of you who don’t know.

Jessica Lotz [00:41:58] It’s a good way to put it.

Sarah [00:41:59] You can just poop in a box and send it off and they screen for abnormal cells of all different types. Now, I asked Nicholas about it. He looked it up after we had our conversation and he said there are some cells that will detect, that show the presence of a polyp. So they can detect for some of these, but obviously it’s not a colonoscopy.

Jessica Lotz [00:42:20] Yeah, so in general, if you want to know if you have cancer already, the Cologuard is very good at detecting that. And it can detect some precancerous cells too. If you want to prevent cancer, the colonoscopy is the way to go because every cancer starts as a polyp, but not every polyp becomes cancerous. So only 99. I think Dr. Tori Jaeger, she’s a GI doctor that I follow on Instagram. You know how you research something and the algorithms pick up on it. So my Instagram has unintentionally become fiber, bean salads, and GI doctors. But I had followed her even before. She’s one of the reasons I went ahead and did it because she recorded her own colonoscopy and kind of demystified it, which is super helpful. Like you have all these worries about what it’s going to be like, but then you see someone like her go through it and you’re like, okay, so it’s not really that bad.

Sarah [00:43:15] Man, I still remember Katie Couric getting hers back in the day.

Jessica Lotz [00:43:19] See, she was on it before most people were. So shout out to Katie. But Dr. Jaeger says that 99% of polyps never turn into cancer. It’s just that 1% that does. But if you have polyps, they go in and take them out. So then 0% of them turn into cancer, and that’s kind of what you want. So if a patient’s not going to do anything but they will at least agree to do the Cologuard, perfect. Like that’s the bare minimum, that’s great. But if your goal is to prevent cancer, you definitely want to get the colonoscopy because they remove the polyps that would eventually turn into cancer.

Beth [00:43:54] Jessica, can you help me with the timeline? How far out are we from your diagnosis? How quickly did all those procedures happen? I know you said the first 24 hours, a lot of calls, but how long was this process from there?

Jessica Lotz [00:44:07] That’s a great question. So I was diagnosed on February 17th and within four days of that, I had the pathology back and that was the first-- well, the procedure itself was February 9th. And then February 17 was the diagnosis when I got the phone call. And then from there, everything happened and was wrapped up. Like I said, I’m blessed. I met with an oncologist. I met a colorectal surgeon. They did the whole workup on both sides to figure out based on the type of cancer I had what would be some potential next steps, either surgically or radiology chemo. Fortunately, because they got it out the two times they went in, I didn’t have to pursue either of those. But in my case, things were wrapped up in about a month. Like I said, super lucky. And I’m telling you, it is only because I got screened at 46. If the original recommendations were still 50, my mind won’t even let me go to what that could have looked like. Because the reason that if you don’t have any polyps, they put you on a 10-year path, it’s because polyps take a long time to grow. So that’s the good part. But once it becomes cancer, it doesn’t necessarily take a lot time to spread.

Sarah [00:45:20] So I had a colonoscopy before even the recommended age of 45 because once they moved it up, I was like, I know how cautious they are, and I want it even sooner. I’m not playing. And so I just happened to get this eye exam where my eye doctor mentioned, oh, you have this bear tracking in your retinas. And I’m like what the hell is that? And he’s like, oh, it doesn’t mean anything. And just like as a throwaway line, he says, “Now, genetically, I think it maybe means you have like a higher likelihood of colorectal cancers.” And I was like, I’m sorry, what? And I just hooked right into that. I took it to my primary care doctor and was like does this mean I can get a colonoscopy? And she was like yeah, probably. So I did it and my colon was beautiful. Thank you for asking everybody. This is so pretty. I’ve almost sent pictures to Jessica because I know she would actually be interested in it.

Jessica Lotz [00:46:11] Yeah, I would welcome it in a weird, weird way.

Beth [00:46:14] Don’t send me those pictures, Sarah. Thank you, I trust you. I will stipulate to the beauty of your colon. I do not need evidence.

Sarah [00:46:21] So I got the 10-year plan. But I just thought like, no, all these increased rates of diagnosis, I was like, I’m not playing around. Like if I can get this earlier... Now I do not have as nice of things to say about the prep. I really struggled because y’all I eat about every hour and a half. Like I don’t play. Low blood sugar really messes me up and so it was a hard process for me. I ate the clear gummies. I drank the bone broth. There’s all kind of recommendations for how to make it easier. But because of that, what you were saying about the connection, the mind gut connect, my gut no likey, my gut no likey being empty. My gut biodome was in a good place and it did not like being empty.

Jessica Lotz [00:47:04] You had a great information highway going between the two.

Sarah [00:47:10] I really did. Now what were you going to say?

Jessica Lotz [00:47:12] It’s gone.

Sarah [00:47:15] That’s not colorectal, that’s perimenopause.

Jessica Lotz [00:47:19] That’s perimenopause. What was really a hard part about having a procedure every week for three weeks was they don’t let you take your pills unless they are essential. And I’m like we need to revisit the medical definition of essential because these are essential to me. I do not sleep if I do not take my progesterone, but I survived. What I was going to say was if you would have asked me about the prep in the two or three days after it, I would have been like, ugh! Because I fasted for like 37 hours and so that felt tough. Once I got the diagnosis, my whole perspective changed. And guess what, that prep was nothing. It’s like, boy, that was worth it to me. So I have a different perspective only because I had a different diagnosis.

Beth [00:48:01] Do you feel recovered now? Like are there physical ways that you are still dealing with this or do you feel pretty normal?

Jessica Lotz [00:48:09] Physically, I feel pretty normal for sure. I have increased my fiber intake a lot because you should increase that over weeks. You shouldn’t Jessica this and just up at the next day.

Sarah [00:48:22] I love that as a verb, because that’s about what I was going to say. I said, y’all who don’t know Jessica, I know Jessica. Beth knows Jessica. I know that she’s all this like, oh, increase my fiber. That is that is one percent of what she has spent her mental capacity on. I bet she has a list of 10 very specific things she would like all of us to do. And I would like her to share those with us now because I know she has some in her brain. I know it.

Jessica Lotz [00:48:44] I do. So another thing I learned aside from that colonoscopies actually prevent cancer because they can take the polyps out is I thought in my mind fiber was like a multivitamin. It was good. It was recommended. And is it going to hurt me? No. Is it going to change my life? Also, no. That’s wrong. Jessica was wrong on that. Fiber, as it turns out, can quite literally prevent cancer. It has this amazing ability within your gut to ferment, and you’ve got the soluble and the insoluble, but the diversity of fiber creates an environment in your intestines and in your colon that make it very difficult for cancer to live. And so I track my food, and I did this before with the cancer diagnosis on my fitness pal, I was maybe getting 10 grams a day. And I need about 35. And in my mind, 10 and 35 are very similar. I don’t know why, but when I think about it as a percent, I was like, I need 235% more fiber than what I was getting. That was an aha moment for me. So physically I feel the same. I’m mentally telling myself like we’re past it. It’s no big deal. We’ve done everything we can. I approach things very logically, so I’ve logicized my way to I’m fine. We caught it early, they got it out. I have a follow up with the surgeon tomorrow. So after that, the next thing isn’t for six months. So I tell myself, I’m okay for six months.

Sarah [00:50:15] So I always heard that the five-- I have this big old jar of, what is it called? Like psyllium husk or whatever. I read a thing that was like this is the supplement with the most evidence behind it.

Jessica Lotz [00:50:27] That’s the best kind.

Sarah [00:50:29] And I struggle to get it. It’s like it makes your water so goopy. Are you taking in it?

Jessica Lotz [00:50:35] I’m not taking that. I have decided to eat my fiber. And so I’m eating a lot of beans, which I didn’t used to eat before. So we literally on Sunday’s meal prep bean stuff for the whole week. So we had like a French soup bean. So instead of pasta or anything like that, it was the white Navy beans. I have a fresh salad, which what’s funny is before all of this, like a year ag, I asked AI, how do I get more fiber? Because fiber’s also super important for women in perimenopause because we lose our ability to directly impact our blood sugar like we used to because of the loss of estrogen. So in perimenopause one of the better ways to control that is through increasing your fiber. That slows the impact on your blood sugar. So I had AI’d like, how can I get more fiber? And it came up with like the super complicated, like five different recipes that involve buying all new things. I mean, I Jessica’d it. I made it way more complicated than it needed to be. But after it, I was like, I’m not going to do that. I need more fiber. I like beans. So I’ll just find two or three ways to increase the amount of beans. And that’s where I landed.

Sarah [00:51:46] Listen, I went on a pilgrimage last year and one of the pilgrims said, I just feel that I need to share this habit with you. I feel like it will speak to you. And I was like, tell me. Danielle changed my life. She said, I just eat a breakfast salad. I just need a little salad for breakfast. And like just a little field green with dressing, nothing fancy. They do it in Europe all the time. Changed my life with breakfast salad. When you’ve had a salad by 8 a.m. what can you not do?

Jessica Lotz [00:52:12] Exactly. Yes, like your day’s done.

Sarah [00:52:16] I have a breakfast salad and I have my little egg and I put kimchi on my egg for like extra, extra credit because it’s a little fermented and the fiber. And I’m telling you, when you just sneak a little salad in here and there like you’re getting to your 30 grams.

Jessica Lotz [00:52:33] Exactly. That is exactly right. And that’s what I do now. Apparently, I’m not on TikTok, but apparently there’s a whole bean talk. So people that are on TikTok want to jump down the bean talk rabbit hole, be our guest. I was on the Instagram side and there was a gal that was like two cups of beans a day. And I’m like that sounds like a lot for someone who’s currently eating negative beans. It’s not that hard. It’s not hard. But I’m a creature of habit if you can’t tell. So I’ll make the same recipe every week until I don’t like it anymore, which will be never. So I’m pretty good with this. I’m pretty good with getting my fiber now.

Sarah [00:53:13] I love it.

Jessica Lotz [00:53:14] But I didn’t know, I just thought it was going to be something nice that helped your gut health and it turns out it can in many cases quite literally prevent cancer. So that’s an easy thing to do.

Sarah [00:53:24] Yeah, I remember somebody saying it’s like a broom sweeping out your colon. I was like, well, I want that. I definitely want that.

Beth [00:53:32] Well, I’m so glad that you caught it early and that you’re doing so well. And I appreciate you talking about it. I did not realize how recent this is. I have a friend who had breast cancer and we talked a lot about just sitting with the word cancer in your brain. And so to be able to speak about this publicly this soon is a real gift. And I appreciate you doing it.

Jessica Lotz [00:53:49] Thank you for that. I credit a lot of it to my husband who’s a clinical psychologist.

Sarah [00:53:54] Craig is wonderful, but we have known you before Craig and you have always been such a delight. You’ve been Jessicaing stuff for a long time.

Jessica Lotz [00:54:01] Thank you. I appreciate that.

Sarah [00:54:03] Jessica’s why I joined FAMU for what it’s worth.

Jessica Lotz [00:54:06] I don’t know that I deserve that much credit, but no, I appreciate that you all are talking about it. I feel like we are on the edge of it becoming just like-- we didn’t use to talk about mammograms and boobies and all the things, and now it’s like everyday conversation. And my hope is that based on what we know right now, and that is that the incidence for people under 50 is double what it used to be. Like, we’ve got to figure out this process. My hope is that people hear it and go, okay, if I’m a big baby when it comes to healthcare, if I can do it, I have confident other people can and should. That makes it worth it.

Sarah [00:54:41] Thank you for coming and sharing with Pantsuit Politics. We love you.

Jessica Lotz [00:54:44] Thanks for having me.

Sarah [00:54:45] We’re glad you’ve got your diagnosis and treatment and are feeling like yourself again.

Jessica Lotz [00:54:50] We’re getting there.

Sarah [00:54:51] We’re getting there.

Beth [00:54:53] Thank you so much to Jessica for sharing her story. Thank you to Brooke for prompting us to talk about colorectal cancer. Thanks to all of you for listening and for writing to us and contributing to our shows the way you do. Sarah, you’re going to be back with everybody on Tuesday with a special guest. Do you want to tell them about that?

Sarah [00:55:09] Yeah. I will be joined by Isaac Saul from Tangle News, another independent media company that I have been reading and engaging with for months. I’m so excited to have him on the show.

Beth [00:55:19] And I appreciate him being a guest host while I am out with Chad coaching our middle school academic team at their state competition. Good luck to the Ballyshannon Shamrocks this weekend. Don’t forget to grab your ticket to spend time with us in Minneapolis. We’ll see you back here next week. Until then, have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

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Sarah walks us through the staggering personnel losses in the Department of Health and Human Services, and we try to make sense of what’s driving this. Is RFK a true believer? A grifter? Both? What does it mean that the least popular part of MAHA is the part they’ve gone all in on?

I keep coming back to trust. We made a mistake as a public after COVID in attributing malice to what was really inexperience with a new kind of threat, which prevented the reflection and improvement that were already starting to happen. Now the challenge next time will be so much greater.

We end with the story of Grandparents for Vaccines, a new organization of people who remember what life was like before these diseases were conquered. It’s the kind of thing that reminds me we’re not powerless, even when the government is being reckless with things that matter this much.

Outside of politics, Sarah gives her Oscars rundown while I sit here having watched almost nothing, which is our annual tradition at this point.

-Beth

Topics Discussed

• RFK Jr Remakes HHS

• Outside of Politics: The Oscars

Episode Resources

• MAHAspital (SNL)

• ‘Science is still emerging’: Dr. Casey Means defends psilocybin therapy to Susan Collins in Senate (The Economic Times | YouTube)

• Lessons from the Covid War with Dr. Charity Dean (Pantsuit Politics)

• Meet the Horrified Grandparents Fighting for Vaccines (The Bulwark)

• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:08] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:10] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:11] You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today we’re talking about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has now been the head of the Department of Health and Human Services for over a year. In the chaos created by the president, the chaos created by RFK Jr. is hard to keep up with, but with the growing measles outbreak, we felt we couldn’t put off talking about his tenure any longer. We’re going to talk about what he’s done, how the maha movement feels about it, and the consequences for the rest of us. And what comes next? Outside of Politics, we’re going to talk about the Oscars.

Beth [00:00:42] We’re excited to be coming to Minneapolis in August for our one and only live show of the year. Tickets for the show and the after party, which will both be at the Minneapolis Hyatt Centric are on sale now. You can find that link in our show notes. Not only are we having the show and after party at the Hyatt Centric downtown, we have also blocked off the entire hotel for our community for the weekend. So if you’re coming from out of town, or even if you aren’t, join the fun. You can get a room through our reservation block link. It’s going to be so nice to be all together and to know that you’re going to run to people in the hallway who love Pantsuit Politics and who are there to make friends, to get to know you, to learn, to have fun together. So we hope to see you in Minneapolis.

Sarah [00:01:20] Next up, let’s talk about MAHA and its leader. Beth, you know how we really knew it was time to talk about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the MAHA Movement?

Beth [00:01:36] It hit Saturday Night Live.

Sarah [00:01:38] It hit Saturday Night live.

Clip: SNL [00:01:40] MAHAspital

Sarah [00:02:04] Did you see the sketch, Beth?

Beth [00:02:07] I thought it was so well done. I was a big fan of like “Two more liters of raw milk.”

Sarah [00:02:15] Oh my gosh. Because it is weird the way this is so impactful but also not getting talked about a ton. I think part of it is just Trump soaks up so much oxygen in the room. But there’s a lot going on with Robert Kennedy and his-- I hate to use the word leadership, but I don’t really know what else to say about it.

Beth [00:02:44] Yeah, I read a newsletter every week focused on just medical topics. And I find it really overwhelming, even though it is a short bullet point form of information because there is so much happening. It feels so chaotic. And so much of it you can read it and know how consequential it’s going to be. But also you know that that consequence is going to roll out over a very long period of time and people are going to feel it really disparately. And I think that’s part of why it’s difficult to report on in a way that attracts a lot of attention against the backdrop of something like the war in Iran or the Epstein files.

Sarah [00:03:23] Well, let’s talk about what he has done in the short term, and then we’ll kind of start unpacking what we think that’s going to affect in the long term. So one of the first things he did that I think allowed him to move really quickly is he rescinded this 50-year-old policy requiring any changes to HHS rules to be open for public comment before implementation. So that’s why everything’s moving so fast. He kind of set up his own little executive order process. It’s how it feels to me. He kind of wanted that same power. I’m just going to sign my name to something that has to happen immediately.

Beth [00:03:58] If you think about that in the context of the types of decisions being made at HHS, that is insanity.

Sarah [00:04:05] Yes, no expertise required, don’t worry.

Beth [00:04:08] Public notice and comment is an essential part of keeping our government democratic in a system where we legitimately need agencies to make decisions that Congress can’t move fast enough to make or that are too granular. But notice and comment is fascinating. I’ve been enjoying Sarah reading some of the notice and comments. Some of the comments submitted about the East Wing of the White House.

Sarah [00:04:31] Yep, I knew what you were going to say.

Beth [00:04:31] It’s real fun to hear people with legitimate architectural expertise, historic expertise on buildings, weigh in on what the president has proposed. Now consider how in the medical context, it’s just mandatory that people from universities and medical organizations and people running practices and patients and families of patients have the opportunity to say to the government, before you make a big change, here’s something you maybe haven’t thought about. I can’t believe that he’s been able to do this.

Sarah [00:05:04] Well, here’s the thing, if he just, oh, I don’t know, kept all the expertise in the FDA, in the CDC, in the NIH in place and made this change, perhaps that would have been one thing. But that is not what he has chosen to do. He has chosen to accelerate this policy process, eliminate public comment, and also do a massive personnel purge. So let’s just walk through this quickly.

Beth [00:05:31] Okay.

Sarah [00:05:32] In March of 2025. Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator and director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research was forced to resign. He is the person who approved all vaccines and blood products. He is widely respected across party lines. Then in June, RFK fires all 17 members of the ACIP, which is the independent expert panel that advises the CDC on vaccine policy. He wanted a clean sweep. He replaced 17 members with eight people, almost all of which are skeptical of vaccines, including one who claimed without evidence that COVID vaccine causes miscarriage. Okay, he wasn’t done. August, Dr. Susan Monerez, the newly confirmed CDC director, was fired after she refused to rubber stamp Kennedy’s vaccine directors. Four top CDC scientists resigned in solidarity. In September, Dr. Jean Marazzo, who succeeded Fauci as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, filed a lawsuit and a whistleblower complaint claiming that Kennedy fired her for defending vaccines. We have gone so far, Beth, into March of this year, you have Dr. Vinay Prasad whose Kennedy’s own pick to replace Marx at the FDA, he’s departing. Even the allies are leaving. This dude’s like pretty vaccine skeptic and he left. There’s nobody left. And it was so crazy. It’s really concerning none of the NIH places have leadership. And it’s not just the top dogs. More than half of the NIH’s 27 institutes are without permanent leadership right now. So it’s the CDC, it’s FDA, it the NIH, it’s all these vaccine panels. It’s hard to keep up with because the purge is widespread. There’s like no part of this institutes that’s untouched.

Beth [00:07:29] And those are just the top level positions. I understand that the Trump administration came in saying, personnel’s policy, we are going to have political appointees at the top of everything to reflect the will of the people as expressed through the presidential election. But when you can’t hold onto the career people, when you choose not to hold onto the career of people, when you decide that the career people are a threat to your political appointee’s success. You’re not doing good leadership in any direction. There is no universe in which you actually don’t need anyone with any form of experience in the federal bureaucracy to continue in these positions, especially in a place like HHS.

Sarah [00:08:10] I mean, I think what I see most clearly, not just from the purges, but from I think one of the biggest impacts of all these purges which is the reduced recommended childhood vaccines, they took it from 17 to 11, and really set the states free to start changing their vaccine mandates. I mean the anti-vaccine aspect of MAHA, he’s a true believer. That’s for sure. Like this is a part in the midst of a massive measles outbreak, one of the biggest in like 30 years. And the fact that they continue to fight vaccines, even though it’s not popular politically and not something I think Donald Trump gives two shits about. To me, that’s like this is not a Trojan horse. This is what he came to do.

Beth [00:09:00] I think that’s right. And it is emblematic of how the second Trump term has been. We knew from the first Trump term that the Republican party was willing to go beyond what you might legitimately call a big tent to putting together disparate, sometimes contradictory interest in order to have electoral viability. And MAHA supercharged that because you have people who got excited about Robert F. Kennedy Jr who are totally supportive of vaccines, but are worried about healthy diet and exercise and water quality and air quality. This enormous coalition of people who are coming from different places. And like you said, the least popular part of that was vaccines. And that’s what they’ve done. That’s what we’ve leaned all the way into. In the second Trump administration, you see that it is the intensity of feeling more than the breadth of its popularity that drives the bus. So in MAHA, the people who feel maybe the most hardcore are the anti-vaxxers. And that’s where the energy is in this movement. Not for the people who care about bigger picture issues around MAHA.

Sarah [00:10:13] Yeah, I mean, you have one of Trump’s own pollsters saying the vaccine skepticism is politically risky with potential electoral downsides heading into the midterms because 84% of Americans, including 81% of Republicans believe childhood vaccines are safe. So the White House might be trying to pivot, but I don’t think RFK is. I think he is a true believer. I think Casey Means, as she stands up there and avoids all questions about vaccines in the midst of her confirmation hearing to become surgeon general, like they don’t like vaccines. You saw that with the moment where they tried to turn away the mRNA vaccine was in an application. Like they said, no, and then clearly Trump picked up the phone or somebody at the White House picked up the phone and said, fix it. But I think the damage to this industry, at least in the short term, if not long term, is already done. Like it’s going to play out in these private corporations. Like they cannot pour millions of dollars into vaccine research knowing that they have somebody at the top that’s so incredibly hostile. These companies are curtailing research; they’re cutting jobs because he has sent such a chill through the entire industry.

Beth [00:11:39] In addition to those ramifications for what future vaccines will be developed, you see that it does matter that the government is promoting a disfavored view of vaccines and the number of people allowing their children to get them. And that’s going to last for generations too because people who don’t follow politics closely, who rely on guidance from the government, their behavior is changing under RFK in this role.

Sarah [00:12:06] Yeah, I feel so bad. All these medical associations and pediatricians like they’re trying because this new guidance is like with the recommendation of your doctor. And yeah, most doctors are still recommending these vaccines, but to put all this pressure on them to navigate this and to persuade people and to basically be the what? Frontline of public health because the government’s saying, well, I don’t know, who knows? Could hurt you. Could not. We really just have to keep all lines of examination open is just so deeply damaging. And I cannot tell with MAHA-- I mean, I think you’re right. I think the anti-vaccine people are the most passionate, but they got really mad with this pesticide order. So I think do they care about pesticides the most? Do they care about vaccines the most? Are the vaccine people, the anti-vaccine just the loudest part of this coalition? Are they the most powerful? Because they have changed the nutritional guidelines, but I don’t see a lot of real dramatic changes when it comes to food safety. I mean, they’ve persuaded the industry some with the food dyes, but anything they’ve done as far as changing the nutritional guidance up to and including the food dyes, is not going to be outweighed. It seems to me either an impact or through the perception of MAHA with regards to like that he’s not going after the pesticides and the chemicals in the way that they thought he would.

Beth [00:13:45] It’s all a little bit more complicated when you have actual power than when you’re standing outside the system, yelling about the system. Because the pesticides aren’t just about nutrition and health, they are about having enough food in general. The agriculture lobby has problems. I’ll be the first to say so. And having enough food in the United States and across the world is complicated, especially when you go start wars of choice and compromise what we can import and how we can impart it and the cost of all of that food. I hope what they care about most in the Maha movement is being lied to, because that’s what’s happened over and over under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He has lied to the people who put him in this position at almost every turn about what’s really important to him and who he’ll really be listening to. And how he will implement policy in this role.

Sarah [00:14:36] Well, and he overreached when it came to the medical research. And the Trump administration too, particularly to the NIH at the beginning of his term, there was like 40% cut to NIH. They were trying to really, really dial back. I feel like we read stories for months about research that was halted or ended or they cut off the funds, but Congress has really rejected almost all of this. So even his Republican allies in Congress, I don’t think are full MAHA. I don’t think that’s fixed it. I still think you have these NIH institutes that don’t have leadership, even if Congress is funding them. But you see, I think, something really interesting when it comes to this particular piece of the Trump coalition, that despite the fact that the Republicans in Congress have been willing to rubber stamp almost everything pushed back hard on this aspect.

Beth [00:15:38] I can’t find words to express how cynically I think Congress has behaved around this topic. They seized on what they felt was good branding and what they thought they were required to do.

Sarah [00:15:50] They approved his ass, for one thing.

Beth [00:15:53] That’s right. In order to stay in Trump’s good graces. You can tell that the members of the committee vetting Casey Means know. They know. They don’t suspect, they know. She’s wholly unqualified to be the Surgeon General.

Sarah [00:16:07] Yeah.

Beth [00:16:09] And still, she might be the Surgeon General.

Sarah [00:16:14] It is infuriating. I’m so mad at Bill Casteel, like the one doctor. And the way he like pulled a full Susan Collins and is like I can’t believe he did exactly what everybody told me he was going to do. Like they seemed shocked. Are they sincerely shocked? Is this an act? Tough to say. Because anybody who’d ever followed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or paid even a modicum of attention to the warnings that came about him from his own family-- not for nothing-- should not be surprised by the way he has decimated this agency. I mean, how far into this administration we’re when somebody came with a gun to the CDC fueled by all this rhetoric and bullshit that he spouts constantly.

Beth [00:17:08] I don’t know how many times we have to learn that having a political constituency does not qualify you to run a government agency. How does the lesson over and over-- you have to have some expertise both in the subject matter and in organizational leadership to handle the budgets of these agencies, the scope of the work that they oversee and the enormous workforces that they involved. And even though they came in, I guess the theory was that DOGE would cut them down to something easier for people who do not have the requisite experience to lead. There’s still enormous agencies that do things that are hugely consequential every single day. There’s no way for someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr to learn on the job. And that’s what he’s been trying to do and it shows everywhere.

Sarah [00:18:00] Well, and here’s the thing, and this is what I really wanted to sort of unpack with you too. I think what’s so difficult about this, especially coming off COVID, is this agency and the institutions under its umbrella, CDC, the FDA. The NIH. They were not perfect, right? They did have issues where they were deeply reluctant to admit mistakes, particularly around COVID, to communicate openly and honestly that their authority was precarious. And there were real theories of the case of our failings around public health. I mean, not that it wasn’t a resounding success. I don’t want to undercut the success of public health in the United States in the last 50 years. We’re seeing what happens. We’re seeing how successful it was because of this measles outbreak. Like people are going to be really dealing with the fallout when it’s crippled, but it wasn’t perfect. There was room for improvement around everything. I’ve read so many critiques of the FDA’s process for drug approval. Of the CDC’s communication, and even just the structure of health departments and how health departments were the front line in COVID, but nobody goes to the damn health department anymore. There’s so much that is real that was really a problem around the structure of these agencies and the leadership and the way they run. But we’re never going to get to that because we’re going to be too busy like building back the foundation. Now, I mean, maybe the hopeful take here is that in building back the foundation which we will inevitably have to do, we can address some of these changes. It’s just so frustrating to know there were real problems here and what you did was come in and create new ones.

Beth [00:20:11] I think as a public, we made a big mistake ourselves in looking at any mistakes and failure in the COVID situation and believing that they were intentional mistakes and failures. Had we not done that and had the leadership of these agencies been able to stay in place, these folks are scientists. They would have reflected on that. They would’ve studied it. It would’ve taken a long time, but we would’ve gotten, I think, real self-reflection. It was already starting to happen. We had on one of the authors of Lessons from the COVID Wars, this group of people who said, well, the government’s not studying this, so let’s do it ourselves. Where they were saying here’s what went wrong. Here’s what we can learn from this. Here’s what’s needed on a large scale for us to do better the next time this comes around. And by the way, we’re pretty sure this is going to come around again sooner than anyone would wish it to. Because we attributed malice to a situation that was struggling from inexperience with this exact kind of threat, we prevented the reflection and improvement that could have followed it and have set ourselves back and have made the challenge much greater the next time it comes around because we aren’t doing some of those things they already knew we needed to do to be better prepared next time.

Sarah [00:21:42] Well, that’s my beef with MAHA all together. That M should be for malice. Because there’s so many critiques that come from this movement that I’m like, I agree with you. I just don’t think it’s a conspiracy. Like everything, the chronic disease, the industrial process diet, the vaccines, all of it is just like there’s some mass evil man in the sky controlling all this. And, look, it makes sense to a certain extent that this should come from a man like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who I think sees the world in a very specific way because of the deaths of his father and uncle. I do. I think that is a fundamental part of who he is and I think it has informed a lot of his worldview. Although, some of it has taken formation more recently. If you talk to somebody who only knew Robert Kennedy, I don’t know, 20 years ago when he was just starting out as an environmental attorney, they’re real confused when you try to say, “No, now he’s getting in a clodepunge in his jeans with Kid Rock because he had legitimacy.” He had real a real argument. He had a real case to be made around environmental policy. I mean, hell, Obama was thinking about appointing him to like the EPA or something at some point, and then it just went off the rails. It just became everybody’s a villain, they’re out to get us, they’re out to either make our kids sick or kill them depending on what day you talk to him. And I think some of it is because, look, he was making money off selling solutions to these problems, this villainy. Casey Means is sure as hell making a lot of money off selling solutions to this conspiracy. Like you just can’t, it’s hard to untangle the profit motivation from this theory of the case of our health and the world and vaccines and drug approval and all of it.

Beth [00:23:46] I think all the time about this conversation I had with my doctor about the growth in perimenopause and menopause treatment.

Sarah [00:23:53] Oh Lord, talk about a growth industry.

Beth [00:23:55] Woo! Yes, and that’s what we were discussing, that there are treatments out there that help some people sometimes. And my doctor was saying, “I’m glad those exist. And also if I do a treatment that helps some people sometimes, I’m not a doctor anymore, because medicine is about consistency in results and about doing things that we know work, not that we think might work.” And there’s this tough balance. You and I get criticized every time we have a healthcare conversation. First of all, someone always says how dare you discuss this without a doctor. Secondly, any sympathy we show for people who are looking for alternatives to standardized medicine is offensive to medical professionals. And I understand that more and more as we see the result of policy being made through that lens. You and I have never advocated, I don’t think, for policy being made though that lens. But now that it is being made through that lense, I do understand that sense of give an inch, people take 10 miles. And do an enormous amount of damage to our profession. And that to me is what’s happened here.

[00:25:05] I can’t speak to Robert F. Kennedy individually, but if you look at that movement as a whole, they came in riding the public sense that if something went wrong, someone must have intended for it to go wrong. Because it’s easier to believe that than to believe some problems are just hard. And it’s also easy to find someone who made a lot of money somewhere they shouldn’t have. Any action at this scale will have bad actors involved, and you can find them. And so it seems like the leadership of this movement, instead of thinking let’s root out those people who have bad motives, let’s focus on the people with good motives who’ve made mistakes or who have not solved problems yet or who had more opportunities to do better; instead of focusing on them, let’s just cash into, let’s get ours. And that’s how all of this looks to me. Like they have capitalized on people’s conspiracy oriented beliefs about the world and realized those beliefs at the same time.

Sarah [00:26:13] Yeah. And it makes sense that it would find such fertile ground inside an administration that’s all about transactionalism. Again, I do think there’s, particularly when it comes to vaccines, some true believer. But I think it’s there. And also, if tomorrow ProPublica had a big old piece on how his tearing down of this vaccine schedule was actually about the growth of some alternative vaccine research or approach or drug, I wouldn’t be surprised either. You know what I mean? Like if this was all in service of propping up some alternative industry, I would not be surprised. I think he’s a true believer, but I also think he is a scammer. And I definitely think Casey Means is a scammer. So it’s hard. It’s hard and also this entire department contains so much, you need to be an expert to understand this vaccine panel. You need to an expert to understand the FDA drug approval process. So it’s like that’s why it’s so hard to see clearly with regards to him and his leadership of this department because it is all so complex, but it has real-world impact. I can’t tell if it’s a true believer because everything in this administration is so corrupt, and some mix of true believer in Charlton that it’s like trying to see through a fog while you know that you’re going to trip over something that’s going to cause bodily harm to you or your children any moment.

Beth [00:28:02] One of the exchanges that Casey Means had in that Senate hearing with Susan Collins was about her book. And Casey Means talks about using psychedelics for her own healing. And Susan Collins is like is that something you’d recommend as such in general?

Clip: Susan Collins [00:28:20] According to your book, in 2021, you began using illicit psychedelic mushrooms. So my questions to you are twofold. One, do you stand by what you said in your book encouraging people to try psychedelics? And second, as Surgeon General, should you be confirmed, how would you speak to the American people about the use of illicit drugs?

Clip: Casey Means [00:28:58] Thank you so much, Senator Collins, and I also thank you sincerely for engaging so deeply with my work and learning about me. This is a very important question, and I would start by just saying that I believe what I would say as a private citizen is, in many cases, different than what I would say is a public health official, joining a team where the purpose of this role is to communicate absolutely the best evidence-based science to the American people to keep them safe, thriving and healthy. And when it comes to psychedelic therapy for mental health issues, I think the science is still emerging. And so it would certainly not be a recommendation to the America people to do that under no circumstances. I do believe that there is exciting work being done in this area that needs to continue on psychedelic therapies for PTSD and veterans, for mental health issues. And some of the researchers who are doing this work have said it’s some of the most promising and exciting of their entire careers. So I look forward to following that, but to be very clear under no circumstances would I recommend that to the American people in this role.

Sarah [00:30:12] Too late, baby. It’s on the internet.

Beth [00:30:14] I listened to that and I thought, there’s a version of that that I have a lot of sympathy for. I can imagine a surgeon general nominee who used cannabis to manage pain and said I took this risk on myself because I was able to analyze the risk and understand it. We’re not there yet for the entirety of the population and I have responsibility in this role to think about the entirety of the population. There’s a portion of that that I grace for. In every possible way, this Department of Health and Human Services and this administration as a whole has closed all my grace stores. Where there were opportunities for us to try a different approach that thinks more expansively, that does have room for experimentation, they have proven to not be responsible enough to have that room with this much power at their disposal.

Sarah [00:31:09] Well, while we live through the consequences of their irresponsibility, we did want to close with a hopeful story, which is there is a new organization called Grandparents for Vaccines. The Bulwark did a big report on this. Where basically a particular generation of Americans are worried about societal amnesia. They remember what it was like when people didn’t all get vaccines and children were exposed in vast numbers to dangerous infectious diseases. The organization says we represent the 67 million American grandparents who want the best for their grandchildren, united by how vaccines changed our lives for the better. And they tell the story, this poor woman’s sister who got encephalitis from measles and really never fully recovered and was so limited in her choices and abilities and the sister was brokenhearted her whole life that the sibling missed out on what she was able to pursue because of this disease and so they’re trying to share like we remember, let us remind you that children were exposed to measles and whooping cough and all these infectious diseases. It was terrible. They died. They had impacts that were felt for the rest of their lives. And I just so respect the idea that, yes, this is a huge government agency. Yes, this man is irresponsible at best, and villainous at worst. Yes, it can feel like if you don’t have the right letters after your name, this process is intimidating, it’s overwhelming, they eliminated the place that we actually could insert public comment, but we’re still not just going to sit on the sidelines, even though our government clearly is, as measles runs rampant across our country, and we’re going to try to do something about it. And I just think that is so incredibly encouraging.

Beth [00:33:23] I don’t think we can underestimate the impact that it has for this generation to speak on a topic like this because our fundamental issue is trust. And if you look at vaccines, yes, there are businesses and people who’ve made a lot of money from the development of vaccines. That fact does not change how many lives have been saved by vaccines. It doesn’t change how good for our overall economy it’s been to have vaccines. It doesn’t change how much suffering has been avoided because of vaccines. We have to find a way to trust each other. I am concerned that as we make medical advancements beyond our wildest dreams by using tools like artificial intelligence to speed up what humans would have accomplished anyway. That’s my real insight about AI over the past couple of weeks. I feel like AI just speeds up what we could have done anyway, because it takes everything that we’ve done already and helps us get access to it in new ways. And that is going to lead to unbelievable opportunity medically. And we really need previous generations to say, yeah, people made money off of us too. And thank God they did because the results of it were incredible. And how we rebuild trust around that I don’t know, but it seems to start with personal stories like this and I’m really grateful for this initiative.

Sarah [00:34:50] Well, we will continue to try desperately to keep up with this piece of an administration that feels like drinking out of a fire hose. We look forward to all your comments and insights. I know a lot of you have the expertise we are missing with regards to this particular department. So we’ll keep the conversation going on Substack. Up next, we’re going to talk about the Oscars. Beth, it’s our yearly exercise. Did you watch the Oscars or any of the movies nominated?

Beth [00:35:27] Of course, I did not. I am here to listen with interest to you talk about the Oscars, and ask questions where they occur to me.

Sarah [00:35:34] Well, that’s not true because you watched K-Pop Demon Hunter.

Beth [00:35:37] I did. I did not like it, I’m sorry.

Sarah [00:35:39] You didn’t like it?

Beth [00:35:40] No, I think the music’s really fun, but I did not enjoy the movie and would never sit down to watch it again, no.

Sarah [00:35:45] Well, it won best song.

Beth [00:35:47] Yeah, which it seems deserved. Like that was a great song.

Sarah [00:35:51] Did you watch all the celebrities have to participate in the light show in the crowd? Because that was my favorite part.

Beth [00:35:56] My friend Hannah posted that it was hilarious to see some of the most famous people in the world dancing to this song that her four-year-olds at Head Start loved to sing every day. And I like that, that’s great for us.

Sarah [00:36:10] I feel like some of them opted out, was like, no, we’ll not be waving your light up orb for the performance of Golden. I don’t think Michael B. Jordan did it.

Beth [00:36:19] Come on.

Sarah [00:36:20] I was looking close. Maybe he didn’t have one. Maybe he gave it to his mama, who he brought us his date.

Beth [00:36:25] I’m going to hope that that’s the answer. Take the fun when you can find it. That’s all I can say.

Sarah [00:36:29] He won.

Beth [00:36:30] Yes, he did.

Sarah [00:36:31] I’m assuming you saw that. Have you seen Sinners?

Beth [00:36:33] No.

Sarah [00:36:34] Okay, you should see it though. It’s not that scary.

Beth [00:36:37] You told me this and I hear you, and I’m not going to. I’m so sorry. I respect you and love you, but no.

Sarah [00:36:41] But it’s about music, you love music.

Beth [00:36:42] I do, and do not want to see something that’s even on the edge of scary.

Sarah [00:36:47] I mean, it’s definitely on the edge, there’s vampires. You don’t watch vampire movies? I feel like vampires are like an exception for most people.

Beth [00:36:52] I don’t. I don’t make that exception.

Sarah [00:36:55] Okay. Did you watch Hamnet?

Beth [00:36:59] No.

Sarah [00:37:00] Are you going to watch Hamnet?

Beth [00:37:01] Maybe. But right now, can I tell you the truth? Oscar season starts to feel like homework because of this conversation for me. And I just got enough homework. I love homework. So tell me what you liked about Hamnet. Because I’ve heard you say that you liked it several times and I don’t really know much about it.

Sarah [00:37:20] Have you read the book?

Beth [00:37:20] No

Sarah [00:37:21] We should read the book by Maggie O’Farrill. It’s beautiful.

Beth [00:37:24] More homework, thanks.

Sarah [00:37:25] It’s historical fiction, but Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet who died of-- oh how relevant-- an infectious disease. He got the plague and died at like, gosh, eight, nine, 10, 11, somewhere, they’re really young. And this is like a fictionalization of Shakespeare’s wife journey through grief. Agnes I think is her name in the movie. And then his journey and how it comes together in the performance of him. It’s a beautiful book. I actually liked the movie better than the book, which doesn’t happen very often for me.

Beth [00:38:06] Unusual, yeah.

Sarah [00:38:07] Mainly because Jessie Buckley, who won best actress, is so good. The final scene of that film in Shakespeare’s Globe Theater with this performance of Hamnet is so incredible, so affecting. It will rip your heart right out of your chest in the best possible way. I watched it with Griffin and Amos. So I watched with my sons who I was clinging to and weeping. It’s just a really beautiful reflection on grief. And I just really, really, really, really, really loved it. I would have been happy for Hamnet to win best picture, but it did not. One Battle After Another won best picture. Which I know you have also not seen.

Beth [00:38:43] I have not seen it. I will watch that one. I promise. You told me several times I need to.

Sarah [00:38:46] I really feel you got to watch it. I did not know that the director, Paul Thomas Anderson, was married to Maya Rudolph. Learned that last night when he stood up and accepted an award and gave her a big old kiss on the mouth.

Beth [00:38:57] Good for her. I love Maya Rudolph.

Sarah [00:38:59] Also, Amy Madigan, who you know as the wife in Field of Dreams; remember her?

Beth [00:39:05] Yes.

Sarah [00:39:05] So she won her first Oscar and I did not know that she was married Ed Harris. Been married for like 40 years to Ed Harris

Beth [00:39:10] I did see like an adorable picture of him looking at her when she won the Oscar.

Sarah [00:39:14] Very sweet. Loved it. Loved her win.

Beth [00:39:17] Well, hang on. How did you feel about One Battle After Another winning over Hamnet? Did you think that was deserved? Was it a close call to you or would you have given it to Hamnet.

Sarah [00:39:27] I would have been happy if Hamnet won. It’s like more my style of film, but One Battle After Another is very good. I went to the theater to see it by myself because it was like such chatter when it came out. Like this movie’s a big deal and I thought it was really great. I don’t even like Leonardo DiCaprio and I liked him in this. I found Benicio Del Toro an absolute damn delight in that film. Would have loved for him to win best supporting actor. It was just really good and different and new and interesting, especially around a topic like politics and activism and yeah, you got to see it. It’s really good. I really liked it.

Beth [00:40:07] Were there any awards that you were like, this just totally missed the mark? No.

Sarah [00:40:11] No, it was very predictable Oscars. Like even if it’s maybe who I wouldn’t have voted for, it just was a very, very predictable roundup. They did have a tie in I think short film or something. That was kind of exciting. The end memorial section was really good and really well done. Barbra Streisand sang. She doesn’t do that much anymore in public.

Beth [00:40:31] She doesn’t.

Sarah [00:40:32] It was very exciting. In her tribute to Robert Redford, Rachel McAdams got a little proclaimed in her tribute to Diane Keaton, which was so sweet. They did a beautiful tribute to Rob Ryan where all the stars of all his many films came out. I thought it was a good show. That was well produced. I thought It moved quickly. I kind of got a disjointed overall view because it kept getting interrupted for weather alerts where I live, but I thought the set was really beautiful. It was like an interesting set and the way they put the nominees up behind the presenters was really, really good. I wanted to know if you saw the controversy around Timothée Chalamet.

Beth [00:41:06] The only controversy I’m aware of with him is that he said that ballet and opera are boring and no one wants to watch them.

Sarah [00:41:12] Yes. Now, if Griffin was here, he would start screaming. He says that’s not what he was saying. He was just saying that he doesn’t want movies to go the way of Oscar and ballet, which is sort of like an elite experience. But I told Griffin the issue is that he said all this during a town hall with Matthew McConaughey. Who the hell sat around and said, you know what we need? A town hall between Timothy Chalamet and Matthew McConnaughey. Nobody needs that.

Beth [00:41:37] I’ve got to be honest with you, when I heard about you tell Griffin that when I heard about this I immediately thought, I doubt that’s the full story. I don’t think Timothy disrespects either of those art forms. This has to be just a clip and cut and repackage and now we have a viral controversy on our hands. So I was with Timothy the whole time. I knew he didn’t mean that.

Sarah [00:41:59] Well, and I was reading Tom and Lorenzo, who I love. I love their takes on the red carpet looks, but they were saying that that came out after voting was closed. It didn’t affect his loss under best actor. That really he’s been nominated a lot for a 30 year old and he didn’t campaign in the traditional ways. He did things that seemed like he was above the campaigning. And because he’s so young and so talented, that was not going to hit for him if he doesn’t want to get stuck in like poor Diane Warren territory. Do you know Diane Warren?

Beth [00:42:30] No.

Sarah [00:42:30] She is a songwriter, Beth. She has written some of the greatest love songs, particularly in movies. But she’s an incredible songwriter. She has been nominated 17 times and never won. It’s like real Susan Lucci territory here.

Beth [00:42:47] Yeah, I know Susan Luccci.

Sarah [00:42:49] Yeah, Susan Luccy, All My Children, who eventually won on her 21st nomination. I just need Dianne Warren to win, man. Or I need him to stop nominating her. Just the one or the other. Damn, give the woman a break.

Beth [00:43:02] These Whitewell situations with awards like Beyonce with the Grammys with album of the year. And then when they do win, it cast a pall over the wind because people are like is this a makeup win or did you really win for this? I hate that.

Sarah [00:43:15] Well, and it happens a lot. It happens where they look back and think like, well, they didn’t really deserve that award. Or maybe they deserve it for this other role that they really won for. I don’t really think Leonardo DiCaprio ultimately deserved-- his best performance ever is for that weird ass movie where he fought the bear. Like they just felt like they had to give it to him which is a bummer. I thought one of the best moments is when Paul Thomas Anderson said if you look at the 1975 best picture nominees, it was like Dog Day Afternoon, The Godfather, Jaws, like it was an incredible roundup. They had to pick somebody, but it doesn’t really mean that it’s the best. Like it’s very complicated when ultimately it’s winner take all, especially in some years that are thick with very deserving nominees, which I would say this year was. I think it was a really powerful, it was pretty strong year, which is maybe why it was so predictable. I don’t know.

Beth [00:44:09] When you said it was predictable if you think that’s indicative of them doing a good job or a bad job, right? There’s a universe where I could see that meaning. Yeah, there were clear winners and they picked them, but maybe it means the Oscars have a clear perspective that always comes through, that always wins out.

Sarah [00:44:23] Well, what was interesting is they changed the way the Academy voted and it was like they used tech, like if you couldn’t vote unless you’d actually watch the films, which was super interesting.

Beth [00:44:38] Well, that’s good.

Sarah [00:44:38] Yeah, I think that’s really good. I think it prevents some of what you get where it’s like, well, I’m just rewarding this person because I know their reputation. So I thought that was kind of interesting, and maybe that made it a little more predictable as far as the politics of who would win or like lessening the politics. Although I think Amy Madigan was much like we’re going to reward you because you’ve been at this for so long and this was an incredible performance. I don’t know. The other interesting thing this year is they had a new category, which was casting. This has been a critique that this is like a fundamental piece of film that isn’t rewarded. What I thought was interesting is they put all the nominees up there and all but one were women. Clearly a real gender component about who’s doing the casting.

Beth [00:45:26] I’m so glad you brought this up because it gives me a chance to talk about The Pit again, which I know you love talking about. I was just watching this video about how many of the people on the pit are really stage actors and that they cast it that way intentionally because that experience of moving through real time on stage translates really well to the way that they’re making The Pit. But I was watching that with so much interest thinking, wow, what a hard job to figure out, especially in a show like that with so many people. Who has chemistry with the other actors and who can handle this kind of dialog, which is so complicated. And yeah, what an important part of making any production actually work. So I’m glad they’re recognizing it at the Oscars.

Sarah [00:46:09] Yeah, for sure. I think that that’s true. And the New York Times had this great write-up where you could vote on whether this was good casting or not. Not just this year, but past ones. Because there are some performances where you’re like that was not the right person. Or you’ll hear they thought about this actress, but ultimately it went with Julia Roberts, and you’re like, oh my God, I cannot imagine Michelle Pfeiffer in the lead role of Pretty Woman. Or whatever it is, you know what I mean? I think those are such interesting thought experiments. And I do think it is key. I mean, a bad casting is going to ruin it. Like, that’s going to break the film if something’s not quite right. So I think it’s cool that they’re making this new award. I would like a long read on why most casting agents are women. If somebody could write that for me, I think that would be fascinating. Thank you so much.

Beth [00:46:58] I would read that and it wouldn’t feel like homework. That interests me greatly.

Sarah [00:47:02] Did you see any of the red carpet looks that stood out to you?

Beth [00:47:05] I haven’t seen the red-carpet looks this year.

Sarah [00:47:08] Beth, I mean, what are you doing with your life?

Beth [00:47:09] I know. I’m so disappointing, I am sorry.

Sarah [00:47:11] Well, Jessie Buckley was my favorite, the best actress winner. Was like Grace Kelly send up, but modern, really beautiful. There were lots of beautiful gowns and all that, but I really enjoy that the men have diversified so much you don’t just get one tux after another. Michael B. Jordan had like a diamond brooch on the back of his neck. That was really interesting. A lot of the men were wearing like diamond brooches on their lapels, like a lot of heavy jewelry that I thought was really interested. I like that the men have a lot more freedom to pursue fashion over the last several years, probably decade. I think that makes the award show ceremonies that much more interesting. Not to you who’s never going to watch them anyway, but to me.

Beth [00:47:57] No, well, I’m happy to hear you talk about them. I had a big full weekend, or I would have tried to prepare a little bit more for this segment than I clearly did. But I wanted to ask about the fashion. Was there a perspective in what the women were wearing? Sometimes it’s very classic Hollywood or throwback or futuristic. Did you see any clear through line?

Sarah [00:48:14] There was a lot of like princess dresses. I thought Elle Fanning looked like she was going to a wedding. It was beautiful, but that’s not my favorite look for an award show. It can get like sort of bridal; you know what I mean? So there were a lot like big gowns. There was also a lot feathers and fur in a way that I didn’t quite enjoy. Demi Moore had on this very like black feathery thing. Tiana Taylor had on like a fur ball gown. They’re big, all of them are big. There was lot of trains. There were a lot like bustles and they were big dresses. So when somebody like Zoe Saldana walked out in this like really sleek minimal thing, it had a lot of impact. I actually thought Zendaya looked incredible. Hers was very sleek and brown, which was the color you didn’t see a lot of. She just so pretty. She’s so pretty.

Beth [00:49:01] She is beautiful. And she is beautiful in brown tones. Honestly, putting her in the Dune movies, she couldn’t look any better in the esthetic of that landscape.

Sarah [00:49:13] So there was a lot of that. It’s interesting to see sort of like the themes that pop up over and over again, but there was a lot of beautiful dresses. A couple of big misses. Misty Copeland, who was the prima ballerina, she was retired, and she was in the performance of Sinners, which was kind of fun considering Timothy’s comment, but she had a red carpet look that was like big miss for me. Just, it was bad. It was bad from top to bottom, and she’s a beautiful woman. But overall, I mean, it was a strong showing, I’d say for sure.

Beth [00:49:41] Good. Well, I am going to see an early screening of Project Hail Mary tonight, which sounds like it’s going to be both a commercial and critical success. So I’ll report back on that sometime.

Sarah [00:49:50] All right, that’s good. Well, we look forward to hearing your takes on RFK and vaccines and red carpet looks because whatever strikes your fancy, we want to hear from you on Substack. Thank you so much for listening today. We will be back in your ears with another new episode on Friday. Don’t forget to check out our show notes to get your tickets to Minneapolis and reserve one of the hotel rooms right there at the Hyatt. We can’t wait to see you there. Until Friday, keep it nuanced y’all.

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Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

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Sarah and I have spent the last week or so gathering information about the war in Iran — talking with Kerry Anderson, talking with Congressman Landsman, reading everything we can get our hands on. Today we stopped gathering and started processing. We talk about how we’re feeling, what the Strait of Hormuz means for global commerce and daily life, why the long-term consequences feel so staggering.

Then we come closer to home. The story out of Gainesville, Georgia — a group of kids TPing their teacher’s house, a terrible accident, and a family showing breathtaking grace — leads us to the Hyacinth Fellowship, the first national organization helping people who have unintentionally killed or seriously injured someone. This story is personal for me, and I’m so grateful for the grace of the Hughes family and the work of the Hyacinth Fellowship.

Outside of politics, we discussed authoritative parenting — the sweet spot between authoritarian and permissive — inspired by an excellent Substack essay from .

Tickets for our live show and Spice Conference in Minneapolis are on sale now. We’d love to spend time with you in person in August for more wide-ranging conversations about the global, the political, and the very, very personal.

A Note from Sarah

I’ve been hard on The West Wing over the years. Make no mistake, I watched all 156 episodes over the course of the show’s history. I adored Josiah Bartlett and his entire team. The show felt both real and aspirational in a way that spoke to my young, politically obsessed heart.

When I rewatched it several years later, it seemed silly and naive, and I sneered at those who found comfort in its vision of American governance. Now, I find myself wondering if all along I was just angry at myself for being duped, for believing in that vision, for being young and thinking change was possible.

And yet, here I am, another ten years on, thinking I was too hard on young, idealistic Sarah. Of course, something dies over the course of your life as a citizen, much like something dies when we encounter tragedy and loss in our personal lives. We lose elections. We lose hope. We grieve lost opportunities and failed leaders. We witness war and tragedy and fear what will come next. And we share that with every other citizen today and everyone who has come before us over the past 250 years.

It is impossibly hard to be an American citizen right now. And yet, the lessons we’ve learned as human beings navigating life are as applicable as they have ever been to our existence as citizens. The chaos lottery will pull our ticket eventually as a person, as a parent, as a nation. We must face it as best we can, grieve it together, and integrate it into who we are.

I’m grateful to be able to do that work with Beth and with all of you…and even the occasional episode of The West Wing.

Topics Discussed

• Iran: The Costs We Can’t Undo

• Fatal Car Accidents: The Trauma Nobody Talks About

• Outside of Politics: Why Your Kids Need Rules, Not Just Love

Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

• Join us in Minneapolis this August! Tickets are on sale now!

Intro Block Resources (Title Section)

• This War’s Economic Crisis Could Get Much Worse – For the U.S. and the Whole World (Derek Thompson)

• EuroIntelligence (Briefing)

• I Asked a Former Trump Official to Justify This War (The Ezra Klein Show | The New York Times)

• Each year, Tens of Thousands of Americans Accidentally Kill (The Economist)

• The Hyacinth Fellowship

• Not everyone can pull off authoritative parenting (Parenting Through)

• Opinion | There’s a Reason American Kids Are Such Picky Eaters (The New York Times)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit of Politics. Today, we’ve gathered a lot of information. We’ve gotten our facts straight. We’re going to now process the war in Iran and just talk about how we’re seeing it, why we’re doing it, how we get out of it, what the consequences look like, how we are feeling about all of it. And then we’re going come much closer to home, especially for me, and talk about car accidents. Why we have so many in the United States and this fantastic organization called the Hyacinth Fellowship, who’s out there helping people who like me have accidentally killed another person on the road. And then Outside of Politics, we’re talking about permissive, authoritarian and authoritative parenting and how we can get to that Goldilocks authoritative posture. And there’s just a lot of supernanny love in this segment. So if you also think Jo Frost is like the model, you’re probably going to be here for this conversation.

Sarah [00:01:06] I would just like to say a couple of things. One, there should be a trigger warning because Beth cries in this episode. And I just feel like people need a heads up about that, that it’s going to be.

Beth [00:01:16] You’ll see why I don’t do it regularly, because guys I don’t bounce back. It happens and I’m stuck. And it’s not great.

Sarah [00:01:23] Another trigger warning It’s the parenting discussion. I am unleashed and finally saying how I really feel about gentle parenting, which is not great, guys. So just heads up about that too. If you’re really locked in on gentle parenting maybe skip that Outside of Politics.

Beth [00:01:39] This is a roller coaster, this thing today. For you I hope that it feels like classic Pantsuit Politics in that way, that you get a lot out of it, but it is a journey.

Sarah [00:01:48] Okay, before we get started, tickets are now available for everyone to our live show in Minneapolis at the end of August. That show will also be a roller coaster. I predict there will be crying. There will be singing. It’s going to be really, really fun and intense. So don’t miss your chance to get a ticket to the live show, the after party, the Spice Conference, all of it. Now we talked a little bit yesterday on our Spicy Bonus episode about the Spice Conference. We’ve never done anything like this before and we’re really excited. If you join us for the Spice Conference, you don’t just get access to the live show and the after party on Saturday night, you get a full day of activities and community. Friday night, we’ll kick things off with a welcome party. Saturday morning, we are lining up these amazing sessions with tracks. So there will be a civic track, a politics track, and an outside of politics track. If for example you want to just play Mahjong with my Mahjong group, which is coming up from Paducah. Saturday afternoon, there will be a mix of local activities. So you’ll get to go out into the Twin Cities and explore them with other listeners. And then to top it off, Saturday before the live show, Spice Conference members only will be able to organize and coordinate with other listeners to go to dinner before the live show. It’s going to be really, really fun. So if you get a ticket to the Spice conference, your ticket to the live show and the after party are included. So if any of that sounds fun, you want to hang out with other listeners, make some friends. We talked about on the Spicy Live that you can definitely come alone, lots and lots of people do. Tickets for the Spice Conference and for the live show and after party are on sale now. Head to the show notes for links to buy and we can’t wait to see all of you in Minneapolis.

Beth [00:03:23] Up next, let’s talk about the war in Iran. Sarah, we have been gathering information about this war. Today, I was hoping we could actually process it. I just wondered how are you thinking about the administration’s actions in Iran?

Sarah [00:03:49] I’m furious. I was listening to a discussion of wrath because I’m on this journey with the seven deadly sins and an understanding of anger was this great question of what is your anger protecting? And I think my rage with this administration is just protecting the devastation I feel. I don’t want to be the citizen of a country that bombs a school full of little girls because they were too lazy to update their intelligence and too driven by some sort of macho bullshit to say we don’t really care about killing civilians. That’s not our priority. Our priority is to get the job done. And now we have killed more civilians and not just civilians, little girls, then what? In 35 years because the military was making progress around a careful process that prevented the loss of innocent lives. I am devastated at the environmental fallout from these massive strikes on oil facilities. I am so heartbroken at the loss of life. Both Iranian and American, and the way this has swept up by some counts, 20 countries, it has made us less safe. It has made our economy that was already showing signs of strain less stable. So I am so sad and heartbroken and frustrated, but also my anger is not just protecting the devastation I feel, but I think I just feel righteous anger. This is wrong. This is just wrong. I don’t know how to say it anymore plainly.

Beth [00:05:55] I think I’ve been in a really desperate place all week. This is what I have always feared from a Trump administration. This is what I feared in the first administration that he would get us into a war that he’d be in way over his head. That’s obviously what’s going on here. These folks are in way over their heads. They fired all the people who knew what they were doing. There’s reporting that Kash Patel in February, this February, fired people who were Iranian specialists because they had ties to an investigation into Donald Trump. We have let go of the competence and gotten into this war that is killing people and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. This administration that says they want people to stop moving around the world is causing hundreds of thousands of people to have to move around the word. So they will make the problem that they claim that they were elected to solve even worse. They will feel no sense of responsibility about what they’ve done here. The casual way that Trump talks about this war is almost unbelievable to me. I find myself replaying videos now and staring at photos for a long time because it all seems so surreal. It was so predictable that it coming to pass almost seems like it has to be fake. And so I have just felt really desperate and I tried to do what I do to cope, which is collect information. I wanted to talk to Kerry Anderson, give me all of the facts, help me understand. I wanted talk to Greg Landsman. Give me your rationale, help me understand, help me see a strategy underlying this because it all feels so senseless and overwhelming to me. And it is so obviously leading to generational consequences. And collecting that information has only made me feel worse.

Sarah [00:07:59] It feels to me like COVID, but worse because COVID he actually couldn’t have completely prevented. But that sense during COVID that like, oh, there’s no one competent in charge to help us or protect us. Like, I feel that very profoundly. There’s sort of two modes inside a Trump presidency. And this does have like the overlap of both, but there’s modes where he’s like creating the chaos. And then there’s the mode where chaos comes to his doorstep and you realize he has no plan, capacity to shepherd us through it. And so, he created this chaos. I think he thought despite mountains of evidence that we have collected over many presidencies since the Iranian revolution in the 70s, that he was just going to come in with airstrikes just like Venezuela and it was going to be easy peasy. And the fact that no one said to him, as far as I can tell, based on the reporting, the Iranians have one really good Trump card and it’s the Strait of Hormuz. And they have to do very little and would have the capacity to do this for as long as they wanted to, to cause a shutdown that would have global consequences. We have to protect it. Because that’s what’s frustrating to me right now. I read a summary of a Euro intelligence briefing because I think there’s so much conversation around like a lot of aspects of this war.

[00:09:41] There’s the nuclear component, there’s the ballistic missile component, there’s a regime change component, the confusion wrought by his just scatter shot articulations of the justifications for this war. And so then people are trying to read from the justification of the action, what that means as far as an end. How do we get out of this. And I think all of that muddies the water. I think that, sure, he can say that we’re running out of things to strike. Yeah, from the air. From the air there’s limited impact. No one’s really ever won a conflict like this using just air power. Someone should have said that to him, but I don’t think that they did. Or maybe they did because he is sort of walking a line between boots on the ground and using a freaking sports metaphor like the yips to talk about sending American soldiers into dangerous territory. I mean, it’s galling. But I think all of this discussion around well have we eliminated their capacity to take nuclear weapons? Would that be a victory? I mean, they’re just trying to grasp at straws here so they can say we’ve done it, but it won’t matter if the Strait of Hormuz is not secure. That is the thing. That is what matters. And the Iranians need to do very little to disrupt that shipping channel. And we have to do so much to secure it.

Beth [00:11:16] The Strait of Hormuz, if you are not tracking this discussion, is a really narrow waterway through which an unbelievable amount of global commerce moves. It’s not just oil, it’s fertilizer, it’s goods, it is just regular goods. This is a connection to COVID, right? When we all had to get right with remembering how much stuff gets put in shipping containers and routed around the world all day, every day for us to be able to go to Walmart, or order something on Amazon. And so with Iran saying, hey, we are going to place bombs effectively in the Strait of Hormuz, we are going to threaten ships, we’re not talking about navies moving through the Strait of Hormuz. The president muddied these waters, too, when he said that oil tankers should show some guts and just go through anyway. They’re not soldiers. These are just people working their jobs in shipping logistics and transit, moving stuff around the world for ordinary people to use every day. They should not be threatened by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in the middle of their day. And this was entirely foreseeable. And the fact that according to Senator Chris Murphy, the administration has no plan whatsoever to make it safe for commercial goods and oil to move through the Strait of Hormuz again is shocking. It is shocking on a level almost that this school bombing is shocking. There is emotionally no equivalent to that many children being killed in a mistake. And yet a lot of people throughout the world will suffer if fuel prices skyrocket and become unaffordable, if food cannot be grown. I mean, we’re talking about extremely serious long-term consequences, even if this goes on for just a few weeks.

Sarah [00:13:27] I mean, the thing is, when you hear them talk about crude oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz, that’s crude oil, not gas. It gets turned into so many things. Derek Thompson did a really great write-up of this. He’s like it’s fertilizer. The oil is a component of so many essential pieces of our economy. And to the gas of it all, I was reading that even if let’s say he ends it tomorrow, it’s going to be 2027 before they can get all this back to where it was. This is not something that turns on a dime like his whims. My husband has a former coworker who works for a big aluminum factory. And they warned him, like, you got to shut it down. It takes weeks to shut it down and months to get it back online. These are not switches we flip because Donald Trump changed his mind. I just think that there is no one telling him the truth. I just don’t think there’s any conversation in these rooms where there’s actual debate. Pete Hegseth seems...

Beth [00:14:32] Unhinged.

Sarah [00:14:33] Unhinge. Mentally ill? Like, where is his soul? Like, what is this? This macho bullshit pursuit. It’s not a Fox News briefing, dude. And you’re kicking reporters out because you don’t like the way you look in pictures and we’re talking about dead children? What is wrong with you? What’s wrong with you?

Beth [00:14:56] Well, look, it’s annoying to even have to talk about no one told the president these things. He should have learned these lessons from COVID. We are just starting to feel normal again in global commerce after the disruptions that COVID created. So he knows, he should know better than anybody what shipping disruption does to an economy, but he refuses to learn anything. And honestly, I worry that as a nation, we refuse to learn anything. This endeavor, even if it had been done under a more careful and competent administration, surely we can look at the past 25 years and realize even if we were doing it 100% because we want the people of Iran to be free of their repressive regime, we have 25 years of history telling us that when we get involved, we make it worse and we lose a lot on our end in the process.

Sarah [00:15:54] It’s a bright spot for me, actually. I do feel like the American people have learned because the draw, once this stuff starts to wrap yourself in the flag, has in the past been pretty strong, but it doesn’t seem to be working now. Like there does not seem to this desire to be the good guys and justify the force. And the fact that the story around this school bombing just keeps growing is very encouraging to me. People don’t care. People have learned like we don’t want to do this. And that to me is very encouraging.

Beth [00:16:29] I mean the people making the decisions.

Sarah [00:16:32] You mean our democratically elected leaders completely disconnected from the democratic will of the American people. Is that what you’re talking about?

Beth [00:16:37] Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.

Sarah [00:16:39] Cool. Yeah, I think that the complete disconnect from the will of the populace and the complete-- I was so annoyed by the former deputy national security advisor to the Trump administration on the Ezra Klein show and the fact that she was like, well, they’re talking, they are doing press conferences. And I’m like you cannot be serious with me and think that that’s enough. Americans have died and there are, according to reports, hundreds that were injured really badly that are not getting the attention of the seven service members that have died. So it’s like, this is worse and I think they’re actively trying to cover it up because that’s all they know how to do. There’s no long-term planning. We act, we make mistakes, we cover it up. We take big ol’ donations from whoever wants to give them to us and do what they want. We don’t really care how that affects the populace. We don’t really care about the long- term policy or strategy. It’s what he wants at the moment, we’ll make it happen. And if he talks to somebody on the phone that just gave him a big donation and they want this to happen, and maybe they’re a military contractor (I’m sure we’ll find that out later) then that sounds great, we’ll just do that. Like there’s just the complete disregard for public service. You serve the American people. It’s just absent. It does not exist. He doesn’t serve anybody but himself.

Beth [00:18:09] The people don’t want this and the people bear all the consequences of it. The people send their loved ones and go to the Middle East to serve. The people are on those ships that have to navigate the Strait of Hormuz. The people in California, which today the FBI is telling their police to prepare because Iran is talking about counter-strikes off the West Coast of the United States. The people have to pay the higher prices that result from this. The people will be the ones dealing with it at the grocery store if crops cannot be grown and harvested in the normal order of things. Like it’s just really sad to me that this is where we are and I don’t see a path for stopping it. This can’t be undone. Even if they pulled everything today, I’m fearful that we have undone a lot of the work that was done in the war on terror, that there will be new efforts at recruitment to do terrorism against the United States because of this.

Sarah [00:19:07] We’ve already seen the shooting in Austin and the bomb thrower at Gracie Mansion in New York City.

Beth [00:19:12] That’s right, and we’ll see more of that. That the efforts to rebuild Gaza are going to be where if the whole Middle East is torn up. It’s just, I don’t know. I just feel pretty desperate about it.

Sarah [00:19:26] Even to the economic costs, he is bankrupting us. He is running us into the ground like he has every other company he’s ever been in charge of. The cost of this war the first week was $11.3 billion. They are spending and spending and spending. We’re going to have to pay back the freaking tariffs that already put enormous strain on the global economy. So we have to pay those back. We have this incredibly expensive war that is not only costing us money, but running down the weapon reserves we need to actually defend our national security. We can’t just make more missile defenders in a day. And it’s so much money and they just spend and spend and spend and it seems no desire to actually pay attention. This is going to cause interest rates to go up, which means our interest rates are going to go up as a nation, which means we’re going to spend even more of our GDP on paying back debt. I just feel like he’s destroying the future for my children. That’s why I’m so angry. Like, there is no building, there’s no care, there no strategy to make this country better. And I have a kid that’s about to go to college. Like, he’s going to be out there in this world, And it’s just so heartbreaking and I’m not in Iran. God, what if I had children in Iran or Ukraine or Sudan. Mr. President of Peace, the world is worse. It is worse. The country is worse off, and the world is worse off because you’ve been president since last year.

Beth [00:21:13] And he hasn’t done anything to secure alliances around this action. It’s the opposite. We’re just offending the countries that typically work with us when something really difficult is happening in the world. To the tariffs, he is continuing to look for ways to impose tariffs. They’ve just announced a wave of investigations this week of countries that are our friends, looking for unfair trade practices that would justify slapping tariffs back on them. We have access to run up all this debt because we’ve had friends in the world, because we’d been a reliable partner on the world stage. There was testimony in Congress that’s been clipped all over social media in the past couple of days of an expert explaining to Congress that America is not guaranteed to forever be able to borrow in the word. And she put it in great terms. She said,

Clip: Martha Gimbel [00:22:11] We are currently the boyfriend at the beginning of the Hallmark movie in the big city where the girlfriend is still going out with him even though she knows that it’s wrong. But at some point, she’s going to go home to the small town and find the nice firefighter and realize that there’s another option.

Beth [00:22:30] And so, again, just the long-term widespread hitting every sector and hitting people extremely personally, all of those consequences of this action that the administration seems to not have given a moment of consideration to really troubles me. The complete ineptitude in Congress to be able to get their arms around something. And the longer this goes on, the harder and more dangerous it will be to try to unwind things. One of the reasons I was interested in talking with Representative Landsman, who I think is a very thoughtful person, is that I know part of what’s on his mind is our responsibility to troops in the region. That once you strike, the whole landscape has changed because we already have people there just doing jobs that they’ve been there doing for years, and they are suddenly at risk. And so every move has to be really carefully calibrated to all of those risks that have just been created. And I just feel like who in the White House cares about that right now?

Sarah [00:23:35] I appreciate your conversation with Representative Landsman. I felt like he was trying to thread a needle that existed only in his own mind. But I heard glimmers of it in the conversation on Ezra Klein’s show with the former Deputy National Security Advisor. And here’s the thing, I am sympathetic to the argument. I was sympathetic to the call out in Mark Carney’s speech about the global order. The idea of like it wasn’t perfect, there was a lot of hypocrisy. No, the United Nations, even with the backing of the United States, didn’t fix Iran. It was still an authoritative, repressive regime that was a threat to the region and the world. But I thought Ezra’s answer was really good. Yeah, but we don’t know what could have been otherwise. It wasn’t fixed, but it wasn’t this. You know what I mean? I think that it’s so hard to see what you’ve prevented. And it’s hard in the face of Afghanistan, in Iraq and the war in Ukraine, to say like, well, we didn’t prevent these and this was a quagmire and all this. We don’t know how much worse it could be with global instability, but we’re about to find out. We’re about find out how much worst it could, how much shock we can absorb both the American economy and the global order because however hypocritical, problematic, imperfect, what we had before was it’s gone. And now there’s nothing to prevent exactly what Iran is doing. Fine, let’s just all put our cards on the table. And our card is the Strait of Hormuz. And if we are going to secure the Strait of Hormuz forever, I don’t know. Like, perhaps we can bring on some partners in the Gulf. I sure hope so. But this is not an easy in and out. This is something that is going to require an enormous amount of money, military power, weaponry that has to come from somewhere. It’s not an infinite supply. And I don’t think they have a plan. I think we’re stuck now. The only thing that I cling to is that this is obvious for everyone to see. And that even if we’re not leading, maybe even if we are not a partner, there will be nations in the world, organizations in the world that say, like, this cannot continue and we will find a path forward to securing order, even if the United States is not a part of that.

Beth [00:26:39] Sarah, we’re going to come much closer to home now, even though I’m fearful that the war in Iran is going to be very close to home in a huge variety of ways soon, and talk about something that is ongoing in society. It’s in the headlines in part because of this really tragic situation in Georgia that we’ll talk about. But we’re going to discuss car accidents and the number of people who are involved in car accidents every year. And as we get into that, long time listeners know this about me, but if you’re new, this is very personal to me. When I was a junior in high school, I was in an accident. I was driving on a two lane highway and a car pulled out to turn left in front of me and I hit it broadside and a passenger in that car was killed in that accident. And it changed everything about my life forever. A part of me died there, too. And we decided to talk about this because there is an organization that’s trying to help people who live with having been accidental killers as I am. And because sadly a lot of families in Gainesville, Georgia are contending with this too common but really undiscussed reality of knowing that you were a part of another person’s death.

Sarah [00:28:10] I think it is easy for people to say, well, it wasn’t your fault. Harder in this situation in Georgia, I think, because they initiated behavior that led to this terrible accident. And if you haven’t been following this, I don’t know how it’s been everywhere every time I opened the internet. But there was a high school teacher, Jason Hughes, who knew that students were coming to his house to participate in TP. They were going to TP his trees about as all-American basic teenager behavior as you can get. Five kids went to his house at about 11:30. He came outside to like run them off.

Beth [00:28:50] Like in good fun. Like he was excited about it.

Sarah [00:28:53] Yes, but he fell and tripped and one of the kids ran over him. From the reporting I’ve read, the kids immediately figured out what’s going on, tried to administer aid, but he died from his injuries. The family knew these kids and law enforcement has charged all five of them with a range of from criminal trespassing to vehicular homicide. And I think the really beautiful part of this story is that the family of Jason Hughes has come out and said, we don’t want this, please drop the criminal charges. That he loved them and that he didn’t want this, he wouldn’t want their lives ruined. Like, enough has happened. That is terrible, we don’t need to extend this. Now, I haven’t seen that they’ve dropped the charges yet, but the statement from the family has been everywhere.

Beth [00:29:48] I read that the district attorney said he’s reviewing the case and that he will give a lot of deference to the family’s wishes and I hope he does because what I know is that they will be punished by this for the rest of their lives. They will live with this forever. I was 17, these kids were 18. A part of me was gone and has never come back. And I just hate this for them. And I hate this for the family. And I hate this for all of the people who go through it. And it’s so, so many people because we drive a lot in the United States. If you look at our data, the number of accidents that take place, 40,000 people a year die in the United States in car crashes. And that’s a whole lot of people who were involved in those deaths and have to live with those deaths. And for this family to come out and say like there is enough tragedy here, don’t compound it, really touches me.

Sarah [00:30:53] I got into it about this with my husband this morning because he was like, well, you have to discourage risky behavior. And I’m like TPing is not risky behavior! And he’s like, well, they drove away fast. And I was like that’s just fight or flight, man. Like nobody’s going to not do this if this kid goes to college. First of all, I was so sad. Before we get to the driving of it because, obviously, I have lots of thoughts on roads and cars and the size of American’s cars and all kinds of aspects of this. Because I hold a lot of anxiety about driving and my children driving. Anyway, the TPing of it all just made me so sad because I thought this is exactly what kids should be doing. This is what I want my kids doing. Teenagers need risk. It is very, very important. They have to engage in risky boundary pushing behavior to differentiate, to individualize, like it has to happen. I don’t love it, but it has to happen. And they’re not doing it. They’re not doing anything. They’re not having sex. They’re not drinking. Like godspeed, I wish they were out there TPing instead of sitting in their rooms on their screens. This is exactly what they should be in a group. And they should be going out and doing silly things. And look, there is inherent risk in life. Accidents happen. They just do they happen all the time. I wish it wasn’t true. I wish it wasn’t true. Laura Tremaine and I just had a long conversation about death that’s going to be on slow read. I mean, this exact conversation, because I was like you don’t want to face the reality that we all think we are good people and we deserve something, right?

[00:32:38] But that’s not... You’re living. It’s risky. You could fall down the stairs. You could choke on a chicken bone. You could slip and fall. Like it is what it is. It sucks. I hate it too. The risk of death is ever present all the time for all of us. Now, to the driving of it all, there is so much we could do to reduce that risk and prevent not only the tragedy of lost life, but the tragedy of another human being crossing paths in a way that they have to carry for the rest of their lives that we don’t do. First of all, we drive too big of cars. Our cars are stupid, stupid big. I hate all of them. I hate the giant cars, just so you know. If you drive some big stupid pickup truck and you don’t haul hay, then I don’t think you should have it. I hate all those cars. Our cars are so much bigger than everybody, everywhere else. And that’s a huge component of this. Because if you hit somebody like my sweet baby in his Mini Cooper, in some giant ass suburban, well, what do you think is going to happen? Our car culture is so fucked up. And I think the way we just tell people it wasn’t your fault move on is our refusal to reckon with the cost of this car culture.

Beth [00:33:53] Fault is a very unhelpful word when you talk about something like this. We drive big cars. Our roads are designed in this patchwork system. Sometimes the states own them, sometimes the federal government. The sunbelt states are especially dangerous in the way the roads are constructed. There have just been studies showing that a lot of state governments are responsible for those roads and they’ve been designed for efficiency, not for safety.

Sarah [00:34:23] That’s what makes me so mad. In the United States, you can see like we don’t have to guess at what works. Some states do things and drop the road desk. And so everybody else should do that too. This is not hard.

Beth [00:34:34] And I drive really frequently where I live on an interstate system that is fantastic for semis. And it’s really tough to think about my new driver in our house getting out on that interstate. And she will have to, almost immediately. We also drink a lot and drive. 37 people a day still die in drunk driving crashes. There is one alcohol impaired driving fatality every 39 minutes in the United States. So moving into something a little bit more hopeful, like understanding that so many people are affected, I really appreciated The Economist summing this up by saying the result of this culture around driving is a high share of Americans nursing trauma, typically in silence. Because so many people are involved in these accidents and there’s nowhere to go. And the results of that are really bad. People have nightmares. They have post-traumatic stress disorder. People kill themselves. People have relationships that are just totally destroyed by these wrecks. A lot of people are sued over it because sometimes the only way that the family of someone who’s lost can get closure is by suing the other person involved in the accident. So you sent me this article Sarah about the Hyacinth Fellowship, which is the first and really only national global organization that tries to help people who lived through a fatal car crash. And I am so touched by this focus on people who have unintentionally killed or seriously harmed other people because I can’t think of a more pervasive problem that goes almost entirely unaddressed.

Sarah [00:36:22] Yeah, it’s named after the Greek myth, Apollo, accidentally killed the Spartan princess, Hyacinthus, with a discus as Apollo mourned a flower bloom from the drops of the princess’ blood. And so that’s what it’s named after, which I think is really beautiful. And they do calls and spiritual counseling and writing workshops and legal seminars and all kinds of stuff for people. And I just think it’s so beautiful because, look, it is the chaos lottery. If we had the safest roads, like Europe, people would still cross paths with one another. Accidents will continue to happen as long as there are human beings on planet Earth. And what I’ve learned from my own trips through the chaos lottery, the most powerful thing that can happen is someone walking alongside of you and saying, this is who you are now. I would say that, yes, perhaps something died that day, but something else was born. Something else was born for you when that accident happened. A new Beth was born. That’s how I feel about the school shooting that I lived through. That’s I feel like about Felix’s diagnosis. I wouldn’t go back. To integrate something terrible that happens to you into who you are is one of the most beautiful pursuits I think humanity undertakes. And when you don’t, just as a little callback, you get a Pete Hegseth. You get someone who just cannot see the reality that everything is fragile and beautiful and we are not owed an easy path. And we can’t earn one either. You didn’t do anything wrong when your ticket gets pulled. And so to see people putting some process and framework around that... There’s like so many pieces of Felix’s diabetes management that reminds me of this. I think that’s why everyone we talked to when he was diagnosed was like send him to camp, send him the camp, send him to camp. Like to have a place to go where people understand so you don’t feel so alone. So you’re given tools to put some understanding and grace and forgiveness around this thing that’s happened to you. I just think it is so beautiful.

Beth [00:38:52] It’s really needed. I feel very, very lucky that I have such a wonderful life on the other side of this. There were definitely times when I did not think that could be so. Maybe I’m just not at peace with it enough yet, but like would you run it back and choose a different path if you could? Is a very difficult question to answer when someone else died. And so I’m really grateful that this exists and that it’s available for people. Would have been very, very valuable to me in 1997 for many years after. And if you are a first responder, part of what the Hyacinth Fellowship wants is for people to know that they’re doing this work for people on scene. They want to be known the way that organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous are known. That you’re not alone, that help is right there, that people have walked this path before and you don’t have to do it by yourself and you have to put it away the way that we with good intentions ask each other to put it away. Their information in the show notes and hope that you all will help spread the word about this good and important work. And I do think that the grace that the Hughes family in Georgia is showing is also a contribution to this massive pain that exists in our country.

Sarah [00:40:26] I love America, I do. I love America. I love Americans, but man, do we try to get away from pain. Do we try get away from just the inevitable journey we all walk. That this is unavoidable. Maybe it won’t look like this. Maybe yours won’t show up in People magazine and have all of America discussing it-- or maybe it will. I think it’s the individuality, I think it’s the Capitalism, this siren song of you can go through life and avoid tragedy or accidents or pain or loss or grief it’s so powerful that you feel like you’ve done something wrong if you can’t and it catches up with you. And I think that hearing someone say, you didn’t do anything wrong. You stepped out the door you lived. It’s inevitable that that journey is filled with risk. And maybe saying like would I change at all is not what I mean. I was just acknowledging like, you can’t. Maybe you could go back and change it different, but you wouldn’t avoid pain or heartbreak. I think that when I look back on my own life and all the things that have caused enormous grief, maybe I could have stopped those. Maybe I could’ve done something different, but something else would have knocked at my door. I think that’s what’s so hard about being a human, but when people can look that openly in the face and transform it into something beautiful, that’s what I was thinking about that incredible storyline on The Pit with the rape victim and the way that the people showed up in support. And even in those moments, it’s so hard to hear it. And just to hold onto it and remember and maybe months from now you’ll remember what the first responder told you.

Beth [00:42:30] Yeah, I hope these kids in Georgia are surrounded by people who tell them you can still have a wonderful life. Your life is still meaningful. You can still love and be loved. This will always be with you, but it will be okay. I hope that their community really says that clearly. And I’m so blown away by the grace of the Hughes family to be the first people telling them that.

Sarah [00:42:58] I think back to the school shooting and I think what I internalized was not be afraid because something terrible can happen. See, look, something terrible happened. Be really afraid. What I centralized was instead of survivor’s guilt, what I described as like survivor responsibility or duty. Like I just felt like what I learned was everything can change in a second, so don’t take a second for granted. And I don’t know where that came from. I can’t really tell you one moment where I like internalized that and took that away as opposed to be afraid something terrible can happen to you when you’re young and you can die. But I did and I’m really glad I did because I think about my classmates and I take my beautiful life seriously. Not because they didn’t have a beautiful life, but just because I feel an enormous sense of grace and gratitude. I was reading this really incredible thing, I don’t know where, Substack somewhere, that talked about like what an incredible, lucky accident you are just to be born. Like all the sperm that go and the one that makes it and then you make it through the pregnancy and like it’s the paradox of what we’re talking about. The second you take a breath and engage in this life; you are inevitably in the path of suffering. And also the stars that had to align to set you on that path, to experience joy and gratitude and have this beautiful life. Like, I have this little slip of paper that my friend Laura gave me, and on one side it says to ashes you will return. And on the other side it says, for you the world was created. Both things are true. Like that incredible intersection of luck and love and fate that got you here, but that is inextricably tied up with suffering and pain and choices and accidents and tragedy. It’s a lot.

Beth [00:45:17] What I learned is that we are so bound up together that I will never have road rage because I didn’t know the person who died in this accident. I didn’t know the family of the person who died this accident, they were from another community visiting where I lived and it didn’t matter. I grieve him every single day and I grieved for his family every single day. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it. And there’s just nothing worth being so pissed off about out there that you create the opportunity for something like this to happen. And you’re not a terrible person if you do, like that happens too, we’re all human. But what I learned is that there’s nothing worth this, nothing. I can be late, I can be offended, I could be cut off, someone can flip me off, there’s is nothing, nothing worth being reckless on the road if you can help it. And in every aspect of my life, I just constantly feel that sense that I am one thread in the tapestry, and when another thread is pulled or cut, it affects me and when I am pulled or cut it affects other people. And here we all are together and that’s what we’ve got.

Sarah [00:46:41] Yeah, and to our previous conversation, I think that’s what’s so hard about a moment like this in the world. It’s not a video game. I don’t want to see your stupid social media posts set to music, hard rock music. These are real lives. Those little girls, they’re gone. They’re gone! And I think that affects all of us. And not just because our gas prices are going to go up.

Beth [00:47:06] That’s right.

Sarah [00:47:07] I thought when Turkey had that terrible earthquake, you might just read one headline around about 30,000 people dying in a day, but trust me, it affects you.

Beth [00:47:18] You might not read it and it affects you. The things we never even know about, I deeply believe are still working on us all the time.

Sarah [00:47:31] And so I think that’s what’s so heavy about this particular moment. And I do think it is worth clinging to those moments of light from the Hughes family, from the Hyacinth Fellowship, from people out in the world doing what they can in the face of all that darkness.

Beth [00:47:58] Well, do we ever need Outside of Politics? I read this piece by Dorada Tleile (I hope I’m saying that correctly) on Substack, about authoritative parenting.

Sarah [00:48:10] So we picked a real light one for Outside of Politics. We picked a light one. We should have done nail polish color like somebody asked us.

Beth [00:48:18] No, this was really helpful to me though. I read all the parenting stuff, okay? I read of the gentle parenting and then the critiques of the general parenting and the critiques of the critique and all of that stuff. And I feel like this one nailed it because she talked about how authoritative parenting is really what we all want. We want to be highly responsive to our kids. We want to warm and we want to have clear boundaries and consistent enforcement of those boundaries and predictable consequences. That is how we get the kinds of people that we want to be raising.

Sarah [00:48:50] Well, let me just put on the internet in the year of our Lord, 2026, that I hate gentle parenting. I think it’s an epic failure and only works when kids are little and you can pick them up and move them to another room. Now, I do have that with dogs for what it’s worth. That’s why I get small dogs because I’m too lazy to fully train them and so I got to be able to pick them up when they’re being bad. But with kids, they don’t stay small. And the idea that you can just lovingly support their decision making is bananas because they don’t have any decision making. They don’t know how to make decisions That’s your job to teach them. My mother Lisa famously says that you have until about three to call their bluff and if you don’t your life gets exponentially harder from that point on. So I do want to own that my mom was a great parent. My mom, my stepdad, my dad, all the people in my family for sure I’ve never heard this word put around it, were authoritative parents. There was authoritative parenting happening to me, from the people I love, and my community broadly. I read something on Substack they talked about like the rough point right now as parenting is we don’t correct other people’s kids. And there’s just only so much two people can give you.

[00:50:01] They’re limited in their scope and impact. That’s why it takes a village, but it can’t just take a village of everybody praising your child. The village also needs to correct your child. I think that’s a huge reason I probably couldn’t have articulated to you, but that I moved back to Paducah. Because I was raised in a community that corrected you. Like, anybody would tell you, cut it out, we don’t do that. And I do that. I correct other people’s children all the time. And I hope they’re correcting mine because I do think that that’s very, very valuable. So I think the hardest thing in parenting, before your child is even born, is if you are correcting your own parenting. That is a really hard thing. So like if you had an authoritarian parent and you don’t have a good example of authoritative parenting, or you had permissive parenting and you’re starting from scratch, I do not envy that journey. So I have strong feelings about parenting because I had a really, really good upbringing. My parents were and continue to be really good. I had unconditional love. I had very strict boundaries. I had consequences. It’s about as good as you can get. So I’m not having to undo anything. I think that’s what’s so hard.

Beth [00:51:15] I have great parents too. If you are new to this framework, which I was when I read this piece, because gentle parenting is out there everywhere, but this piece says, look, what we’re really talking about is authoritarian, where you are not very responsive to your kids, you are just very demanding of them. Or permissive parenting, where you’re like wholly responsive to you kids. And your goal is to just be warm and loving and not expect much from them. And the quote that really captured this for me was the parent is there to lovingly support from the sidelines while the child freely explores and develops on the pitch of life. So that’s the permissive side, which I would just argue is an overcorrection from authoritarian parenting. But that just right place is authoritative where you are high in both responsiveness and demandingness that you say I expect a lot of you and I give a lot to you as well. And what this piece says is that we have a hard time doing that because you need the conditions around it to be right. You need rest. You need energy. You need to have seen other people do it and to be willing to learn from them and to ask them questions and draw on their experiences, you need a predictable family rhythm. She’s like you need to be outside a lot as a family. Like you just need an active, busy, fun family life. And because those things are in pretty short supply in our modern family structures, a lot of people end up thinking that their kids are just unmanageable. That they have kids who for whatever reason cannot be parented authoritatively. And she says that the challenge is not that your kid can’t be managed this way and that you can’t build your family this way. It’s that getting those conditions in our society is really hard and we got to help each other with it.

Sarah [00:53:09] Well, this is a perfect example. Did you read the piece in the New York Times about picky eaters?

Beth [00:53:14] No.

Sarah [00:53:14] Okay, it’s so good. And the woman was basically like, look, what we’ve decided is that this is about the kids. Exactly what you’re just describing. That there’s something wrong with the kids and that kids really have unexplored palates and that they have a lower tolerance for risk in food. But she was like, but that’s not true. And we have lots of historical documents to prove, that a hundred years ago kids ate oysters and strongly flavored vinegar stuff and sauerkraut. I don’t even like sauerkraut. Like they ate all kinds of stuff. There is no indication in the historical record that kids have different palates. There just isn’t. But this is the narrative we’ve created around children and eating to say, well, because my child won’t try these strong flavors, it just must be how kids are. But this one was like it’s not how kids are. It’s certainly not how kids were 100 years ago or less. And I think that’s like a really good application and definitely the authoritative conditions that like my family applied. Now, one of those which is huge and I think a big piece of this puzzle, just because I think the picky eating is a really excellent application, is like we sat down as a family and my husband cooks. So the taste on display or like that they were trying were wide and varied. Because once you get into it-- I’ve just been eating restaurant food for like five days since I was traveling, and it’s just a different universe, man. Like it’s a different university of taste. Everything is so salty or so sweet and that’s your choices. And so I think it was that we expected them to eat. That was the expectation. And that’s how I was raised.

[00:55:07] My mom was like if you don’t eat what I put on the table, you can make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich after a certain age. But like that’s it. I’m not making you a different meal. My mom and stepdad and grandmother joke about like all the Sunday dinners we had where it was like you have to have one bite. You can’t have dessert. It took a long time. Like it was a lot of application and effort, but it worked. I never had picky eaters, I have three. I feel pretty confident that it was something I did and not just luck of the draw because all three of them eat everything. And that’s where I see a lot of what you’re saying like about the boundaries and the consequences and also how freaking hard it is. It’s just monotonous application where you want to just be like, fine, eat bag of cheese. I maybe would have caged, but Nicholas was not going to. No, absolutely not.

Beth [00:56:02] Yeah, it is very hard. It is exhausting. And I constantly try to tell people like it is harder when they’re little. This will wear you out and parenting littles is so physically exhausting. I have done a tremendous amount of emotional work with one of my daughters this week. And it’s tiring. Like it leaves me really wiped out, it hurts my heart sometimes. There’s nothing easy about it. But I will take it over when they were two and three, I was changing diapers. It is a different thing as they get older, but this piece where you’re trying to establish how we operate in our house and who’s in charge, you are asked to do it at the moment that you have the least rest in your body. And that’s a design flaw I wish that we could fix it. And I think what’s helpful when I read a piece like this is it reminds me, hey, I’m in a stage where I can help people now. I’ve been through this. I am on the other side of a lot of the most difficult moments in it. I’m at a different place in terms of my girl’s comprehension of what I’m saying. Now, I still need the advice of like when you ask them to do something, believe that they both should do it and that they will do it. That’s still really useful advice to me, to tell myself don’t get in your own head. Like you got to be confident as you say, I need you to unload the dishwasher or whatever it is. And you need to give them more and more and more ownership of chores. They need to feel useful. They need learn to be cooperative. They need to have that sense of like I’m responsible to the people around me. So I still need a lot of this advice, but some of the other stuff I can be the person who helps. And even in that sense of like correcting other people’s kids and helping them hold those boundaries and standards, I want to do that because this is all very hard.

Sarah [00:58:02] Well, I have many things to say. To the believing they can do it, this wears me out. This is what I get a lot when I would travel with the boys and I would post all these family pictures from all the national parks we went to. And I would get, “How do you get them to take a picture?” Excuse me? The three freeloaders I flew across the country and feed and take to all these fabulous places? What do you mean how do I get them do it? I tell them to do it. I say, stand there and smile. Do it now. Like I’m just so confused by that framework. And, look, I think we have had to, as they’ve gotten older, realize we can’t just demand. Like we are proud. Listen, we’re definitely on the more authoritarian, authoritative end of the spectrum. Especially my husband, he grew up in a house of five, four boys and a girl. His mother had tight control, okay? Godspeed to her with four boys. So I think that he is very much still, and I’m like, okay, but now they’re teenagers and we have to like do more gardening than controlling. And it’s hard, but I think that this idea of like you’re not going to do what I asked you to do, no, that’s not an option. Like you live here, there are expectations placed on you. I think people’s expectations of their kids are so low. I remember when we had the conversation about laundry and I was like you just give them a Tide cold pod and a mesh laundry thing, they can do it at like second grade, man. They can do their own laundry. Like, I just think people... But it’s not because something’s wrong. It’s just like where would you see that? Where would you learn that? Now, you and I have called out a source where we learned a lot of this and I’m internally great before, which is Jo Frost, the Supernanny, which I watched a shit ton of before I had kids. And I learned an enormous amount. Listen, they’re all on YouTube. If you’re like, oh my God, where do I start? How do I started thinking about this? Go watch you some Supernannies, guys. It is like the, I would argue-- except for maybe 16 and Pregnant, which did actually drop teen pregnancy rates, backed up by science-- one of the most valuable reality shows ever created. It’s so good. She’s so good, guys. She’s so good.

Beth [01:00:16] Well, and like you, I had great parents. My parents are still great parents to me. They’re wonderful parents. It’s helpful to see somebody else do it. It’s helpful to see it happening in a bunch of different contexts. It’s helpful to see her confront issues that maybe weren’t issues when we were kids. I wish that she were still on my TV every single week. I could use Supernanny on TikTok, you know what I mean? I just think she nails this balance of I’m warm and loving and fun and silly and we have a great time together. And also we have rules here that you are expected to follow because it’s good for you because you’re unhappy when there aren’t rules here.

Sarah [01:00:59] Yeah, that’s what I tell people. I’m like, the kids are miserable. I see the children of the gentle parents. They do not seem like happy children. That’s all I’m saying. I see them out in the world. They are crying. They are dysregulated. They are freaking out. Like, that’s what I always tell people, listen, my stance on toddlers is clear. I don’t like them, okay? They’re not my favorite. But what I would always tell you about toddlers is like, first of all, you’re a third of everyone’s size. So everyone’s towering over you. You understand what maybe let’s say 30 to 40% of what’s happening, that’s probably aggressive. So you’re confused, you’re small, and someone’s telling you you’re in control? How the hell are you going to be in control, you don’t understand anything. You have no basic knowledge.

Beth [01:01:41] And your basic needs are overwhelming. You’re hungry, it’s overwhelming. If you’re sleepy, it’s overwhelming. If you have to go to the bathroom, that’s all you can think about. It is a hard way to be a person.

Sarah [01:01:52] Yeah. And so it’s an unkindness to put them in control because they’re not in control. They don’t have the regulation. They don’t know. It’s like all the valuable things Supernanny teaches. Like you have to teach them how to sleep. That’s not something people instinctually know how to do. You have to teach him how to eat. That’s something we instinctively know how do either. I think there’s this narrative that I can hear. I can hear the chorus of 10,000 voices. Well, how will they ever learn to trust themselves? That’s the authoritarian, right? You don’t trust yourself; you trust me. But what you’re doing when you teach them the skills is giving them a path to trust themselves, not just their feelings, where the feeling is the subjective feeling is that’s the only tool they have? Oh Lord, no. I’m a better person when I stopped trusting my feelings as the only data I had to decide if something I was doing was right or wrong.

Beth [01:02:45] Well, I also think that you do give them a lot of ownership. It’s just a different kind of ownership. I don’t make their homework my business.

Sarah [01:02:55] No.

Beth [01:02:56] I very much take the approach that I have done fifth grade before. So it’s Ellen’s turn to do fifth grade, and it’s her responsibility. And I’m okay if there’s some failure in that. My best friend is really great at articulating that you want the failure early, not later. So if your kid is making bad decisions in middle school, let them get caught, let them suffer the consequences of it, let them learn from it and be happy that it happened in middle-school before the stakes got even higher and the consequences more devastating. And so I think that they learn to trust themselves because they learn that you trust them in certain context and with a framework around them.

Sarah [01:03:37] Yeah, my meemaw told me a long time ago that the people who teach their children they’re a center of the earth are doing such a disservice because they’re not. I mean, can we all agree that a little bit of a problem in America is everybody’s walking around thinking that they’re the center of universe, including the president of the United States? And so she’s like it’s an unkindness. And the kindest thing you can do as a person who loves them is teach them that. You want to teach them that. You don’t want their first boss to teach them that. You don’t want to their professors to teach them that. You want to teach them the world doesn’t revolve around you. This household doesn’t revolve around you, there are other people here. And I’m sorry you don’t want to unload the dishwasher, but we used a lot of dishes and it has to be unloaded. So that’s just the reality of the situation of a functioning household is that everyone has to contribute including your precious little butt. So I learned that from Supernanny. I loved how she’d always come into the house and write the rules up on the board. Like, let’s talk about what’s important in this family. And I never really wrote them on the board. Maybe I should have at certain points. I probably did and I just don’t remember it. But there’s always things like my kids don ‘t attack each other. Like even though I have three boys, we don’t have wrestling. We don’t have fights. We don’t have punching. Because I’ve been really clear from the beginning, you don’t put your hands on your brother, period. We’re not going to do that. That’s not something we do.

[01:04:55] And I think people sort of like just expect that as a baseline with boys in a way that it doesn’t have to be. And that we don’t talk about each other’s bodies. We don’t talk about anybody else’s bodies. We are kind. There’s other things I should have worked harder on. I should’ve put something on the board of like we don’t cuss. Really should’ve worked harder on my kid’s language from the beginning. That was a mistake I made as a parent. I wish Supernanny had articulated some more cussing boundaries. But I just think like-- and we go to bed and sleep is important and nutritious meals are important. And I just tried to put down the basics for them and teach them how to navigate all that. The jury’s still out. My kids still live in my house. Who knows if they’ll be actual productive members of society. But I like who they are now. I like to be around them. I like to live in a house with them. I don’t find them like constantly angering or frustrating. And I see the impact when I say Griffin will just make dinner because we’re busy and he’ll do it. And I’ll say Amos will do any chore I ask him to. And Felix is bare minimum learning. But I see people’s face like, oh my God, he cooks dinner. And I’m like, yeah, he’s very helpful. He’s very contributive to our household. Griffin makes my life easier, not harder.

Beth [01:06:11] Well, I love this piece so much that we’ll link again Dorada Tleile on Substack because it named a bunch of things that I think we’ve done well. It contained a bunch of reminders to me that are still extremely useful. And it said, this is hard. I think Supernanny was great at that too. She would always sit the parents down and say, this is hard. It requires a lot of you. You write the rules on the wall in part because you need to see them and remember that you set them and hold yourself to these standards. And I really appreciate this author saying we get a lot of messages that it shouldn’t be this way. And we get very little help along the path. And so go easy on yourself and help each other and also know what you’re aiming for.

Sarah [01:06:59] I also want to say it is hard, but I’m kind of fired up because I read a thing about parenting regret. And I do want to say with the loudest voice possible, I don’t regret having kids. Like this is hard but it’s the best, most rewarding work I’ve done. And we have a really good job that is deeply rewarding and contributive. Like I love Pantsuit Politics. What a gift it is to do this work. And also these children I’m raising are just miracles. I’m obsessed with them. The older they get, the more I’m like, God, this is the coolest thing I have ever done in my life. And I think what’s so powerful as they get older is you get to be less obsessed with your role, like how you are as a parent. Because if you do this work, it’s short-term pain for long-term gain. Like, it’s tough when they’re little but it’s over so quick. And then you just get to watch them start to turn into people that are interesting and funny and kind and empathetic because you sucked it up and put them back in bed 15 times in a row. I love being a parent. I tell anyone who’s on the fence, do it. I think it’s the freaking best. And it is hard, but man, it’s so rewarding. God, I’m just in a phase right now where I am so incredibly obsessed with all three of them. They are funny, they are smart, they say things that I’m like, oh shit, I haven’t thought about that. I’m so, so obsessed with my kids. And not enough that I make the whole world revolve around them, but just that I think they’re the freaking coolest. I love hanging out with them.

Beth [01:08:50] When you get to see a new and improved version of yourself, it’s really amazing. When I watch these girls and I see the connective thread between Chad and me and them, and then see the ways in which they’re taking it to the next level. They are a little smarter, a little funnier, a little more creative. They understand things a little bit better. It’s really awesome. And I love it too. And I never thought that I would have kids. I did not envision my life as a mom as a kid. And it’s great. They are wonderful and it is wonderful. And we should help each other with it. We should help other along and give each other more access to that wonder and greatness.

Sarah [01:09:36] I am happy to play Supernanny in everybody’s lives. I watched enough of it I really think I could do it, Beth. I think I can roll in and help them put the rules on the board and set some little kids happy, but back in time out 15 times like she always does. I could do it. Like I’m up for it. I could be a Supernanny. I really think so.

Beth [01:09:51] All right, we’ll get you a purple suit.

Sarah [01:09:53] God, I love her so much.

Beth [01:09:54] Send you on your way.

Sarah [01:09:55] And also if anybody knows Jo Frost, we would love to have her on Pantsuit Politics. Just going to put that out in the universe. It might just be us fawning over her, but I still think it would be good content.

Beth [01:10:05] I was thinking, I’d just like to be her personal friend. That’d be fine, too. It’s like the opportunity to say thank you so much for your help. Supernanny did it. She did the work.

Sarah [01:10:13] God, she’s the best.

Beth [01:10:14] Well, thank you. Thank you, Jo Frost, for your influence in our lives. Thank you all for being here today. Thank you for spending time with us on a wide range of subjects. Thank you for all of you who have already gotten your tickets to come to hang out with us in Minneapolis. We can’t wait for it.

Sarah [01:10:30] They’re going fast.

Beth [01:10:30] If you haven’t yet, check the show notes, click the link, get your tickets for our fantastic weekend in Minneapolis in August. We’ll be back with you on Tuesday with another new episode. Until then, have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

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Congressman Landsman is one of four Democrats who has expressed broad but not unlimited support for the military operations in Iran. I wanted to talk with him because I find that position genuinely difficult and genuinely interesting. I knew he’d be willing to work through the hard parts with me rather than retreating to talking points, and he was.

This is a conversation that asks some patience of you. I came away understanding Rep. Landsman’s position better and respecting his thinking about it. I also am clearer about my own discomfort with and opposition to the strikes in Iran. - Beth

Topics Discussed

• What “being done” looks like and whether that’s realistic with this president

• The difference between Iran and what’s happening in Venezuela and Cuba

• Congress’s role in military action and Landsman’s 30-day War Powers Resolution

• Whether the 2026 midterms can actually constrain this administration

• The Anthropic/Department of Defense standoff and why Landsman wants a Department of AI

• New Year’s resolution check-ins (gluten-free life, no-shopping challenges, and sleep studies)

Episode Resources

• Greg Landsman (Congress)

• Greg Landsman (@greglandsman) (Instagram)

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Episode Transcript

Beth Silvers [00:00:08] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Sarah is out today, she’ll be back here on Friday. I am joined by a very special co-host, Congressman Greg Landsman of Ohio’s first district is here to talk with me. Congressman Landsman is one of four Democrats who has expressed broad but not unlimited support for the administration’s military operations in Iran. So I was both excited and nervous to talk with him today. I knew that we would have some disagreements. I was interested in learning about where he’s coming from because I know he’s a thoughtful member, and so I wanted to really slow down and understand how he’s thinking about this and express how I’m thinking about it and see where we landed. So this conversation will take some time and patience and I really appreciate you giving that to us and I hope that you’ll find it worthwhile, I certainly did. So we talk about the war in Iran. We talk about the administration’s relationship with Congress. We talk a little bit about AI. And Outside of Politics, we talk about where we are on New Year’s resolutions one quarter into 2026. Sarah and I are very excited to be coming to Minneapolis at the end of August. Tickets for our one and only live show this year and all the surrounding events-- which are going to be so much fun, we’ve been working on planning them and I’m so excited. All those tickets go on sale this week. They are open to premium members today, Tuesday, March 10th. They will be open to everyone on Thursday, March 12th. There are limited seats, so please check out our show notes for more information, and we hope that you’ll join us in Minneapolis in August. And now without further ado, here is Congressman Greg Landsman of Ohio. Representative Landsman, welcome back to Pantsuit Politics.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:01:53] I’m so glad to be here, how are you doing?

Beth Silvers [00:01:55] I’m good. I was thinking about our last conversation, which was on January 31st of last year. You had this very memorable way of talking about the Trump administration when we last talked. You said that Trump was on a bender.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:02:08] Oh, yeah.

Beth Silvers [00:02:09] And I was thinking about how that was before Liberation Day and the tariffs and before bombing boats at random in the ocean and before demolishing the East Wing and before Minneapolis, before the Epstein files became such a scandal for him. So I just kind of wondered how that metaphor is holding up for you and if it implied to you that maybe the bender would end someday and has it. Like how are you thinking about that now?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:02:35] Yeah, it’s really interesting. I mean, the bender hasn’t ended. So is it a bender or is this guy just addicted to the chaos and the constant turmoil? I mean, he seems like he needs there to be not just attention on him, but the kind of attention that is full of drama and chaos. So he’s always been for me a chaos agent. I’ve always thought of him as somebody who just does chaos. That’s his superpower is that he does chaos and he’s obviously pushing the power of the office to the limits, and not in a good way. We’ll get to Iran even though I would have said yes to the operation. The way in which he’s handled it, it’s he’s all over the place. He just creates so much uncertainty. So going back to the sort of language of bender, bender suggests like this is a person who’s out there just on a couple day, just a wild ride. I think this guy this is who he is. And I don’t think it’s going to ease up ever until we’re done, until we have a new president.

Beth Silvers [00:04:04] And that’s tough because we have such a long time left. And I was thinking about this watching the State of the Union and how his words were just dripping with disdain for the Congress. How does that strike you? Like, it seems much more pronounced to me. I felt in the first term that he at least paid some lip service to the role of Congress, but this time it just seems profoundly uninteresting to him.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:04:30] Yeah, he doesn’t really come clearly. He’s a guy who thinks he’s the best. He’s the most important, no one else matters but him. There’s no real respect for anything or anyone. I mean, he just outside of his adoration for himself. I mean, he just loves himself so much and that’s been a constant throughout his entire career life. Like he is first. And so, I think he feels the same way about the United States Congress as he probably feels about the Supreme Court, as he feels about courts in general, as he feel about world leaders. I think unless you’re serving him, he just doesn’t have a lot of respect for folks. And I think this is where he is obsessed with the money folks, like the big money, the billionaire class. He loves those folks because they can give him stuff, in particular money. But Congress, no, I think it’s Republicans, too. I just don’t think he cares. I think he thinks this is a nuisance. So, look, there’s going to have to be a group of leaders of us that help the country get back to not just the politics that we had because I think we can do a lot better, but something infinitely better where Congress gets back to regular order and we’re passing stuff and it’s meaningful and it’s bipartisan and people are digging into actual policy, and it’s informed by leaders and constituents. And you have a president who’s showing up working alongside of the United States Congress to get something done, that to me is we’ve had it, I’ve seen it in my lifetime. In the early 90s you had the president and Congress working together.

[00:06:20] And it started to fall apart when Clinton lost the Congress in 1994 to Newt Gingrich, and Gingrige really stopped regular order in terms of the committees doing their work. And it’s gotten us to this place where Congress is weak, and the president just shits all over it all the time. And yes, on the Iran stuff, to me, targeted strikes are different. And I have a different line. Constitutionally, I think the president can and should preemptively deal with threats when it’s going to be a longer situation where you really do need the United States Congress to say, yes, we’re going to support this. He’s got to come. And as long as the strikes are limited, I think he probably was fine, but it would have been better for him to come to the United State Congress, make his case. And I have a war powers resolution that we’ll vote on next, next week, that says, look, you usually have 60 days. The president has 60 days to get a vote. My resolution says considering this guy and the way he’s handled himself and this particular situation, he gets half of that. He gets 30 days, which means he only has a couple of days when we vote on it left to get to vote before they need to stop.

Beth Silvers [00:07:47] I want to take that apart a little bit and ask you about the position that it puts Congress in that Trump just does things first, and then you’re in this reactive posture. I was thinking about the Massey and Conner resolution that you voted against and how difficult that resolution is to think through in terms of if Congress had passed it, what would its effect have been since he was already doing it? So can you talk a little about how you analyze that in terms the timing of things?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:08:15] I’ve been thinking about Massey resolution because I think it’s really more him than anyone else. Massey hates us getting involved anywhere. The big issue was, for me, an immediate end to the strike. So it would have pulled the rug out from underneath the military. The military has, I think, a very specific set of objectives, which is, look, we’re not going to do regime change. We’re not going put troops on the ground. but we got to get rid of this missile shield that they were building up around their enrichment work, otherwise it may be too late. So get rid of the missiles, get rid of the launchers, get rid of the rockets, and really set them back even further. I mean, big time in terms of their military capabilities and then be done. That’s how I understand it. And the resolution would have required them to immediately stop that. However, to your point, I just don’t know what this-- unless it’s a big bipartisan effort, I’m not sure what this president does, even if it had passed, and of course it had already failed the Senate.

Beth Silvers [00:09:20] That was a more coherent explanation of the military objective than I’ve heard. How did you come to understand what the military objective is here? And do you think that everyone’s on the same page about what the military objective is?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:09:33] I think the generals are, the Joint Chiefs, General Cain, he’s been very clear about it, Rubio’s been clear about it, where this White House and this administration loses the narrative or the argument is you have Trump talking, Hegseth, and then, is it Levitt, the press secretary? And those are massive spokespeople, right? Like they should have their shit together and they should be following the lead of the generals. When general Caine talks, he’s very, very clear about the objectives, same with Rubio. But the Hegseth has to add the bravado and the bullshit and the, well, this is possible and that’s possible. And we may do this. And, of course, Trump has to say everything in these hyperbolic terms: it’s going to be massive and we’re going to do whatever. And all that other nonsense because they’re bros and they’re playing some other game, which is absurd and not the way presidents or secretaries of defense should behave. I mean, they have absolutely blown the communications around this, like blown it. But if you talk to Caine and you listen to just the Pentagon briefings, the objective is very clear. Look, they were building up. The regime has been a pain and a huge problem for the region for decades. We spend billions of dollars, not just with Israel, but we spend billions in Jordan and Egypt and with our bases in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. All of that’s because of Iran, all of it. And so if we can defang the regime, destroy what they were building up, which was this weapon system that would allow them to go back to enriching uranium underground, if we can destroy that before they get it up and running, then we halt their nuclear program. So that’s our objective. Now our allies have other objectives, and so that also confuses the situation because they took out the Ayatollah, they’re taking out people in the regime, that’s separate from the objectives as laid out by the military leadership.

Beth Silvers [00:11:50] So I always want to talk about foreign policy with humility because I don’t have access to the military leadership and I want to understand. Help me put together the pieces of the previous strike. When we did the previous strike on the nuclear facilities, I said on the show, this seems to me like something that any of the previous administrations in my lifetime would have done. This seems like a normal use of the military to try to get in front of something at a time when Iran was particularly vulnerable to that strike. I am having trouble connecting the dots from there to here. Can you help me with that?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:12:32] Yeah, the best way to do it or at least the best explanation was what they were building up, the intelligence and then this has been reported, although they just have not stuck to it or Trump takes your attention in all different directions, but they were building up their missile capabilities, their ballistic missile capabilities in a way that would have created a shield around the enrichment work. So the strikes on the enrichment facilities did enormous damage. He obviously was misleading when he said we obliterated those facilities. Of course, we did not. We set them back. We just destroyed big pieces of the facilities that would make it very difficult for them to continue with the momentum they had. So it was a big setback for them. However, they were going to start back up. In order to do that, they needed to create essentially a shield around their enrichment activities, which is what they were building. And the question became, do you wait until the shield is fully operational? Not to use some Star Wars language, but or do you go in now? And the call, as I understand it, was go in now. And I would have made the same call, so that’s part of why I approached it the way I did. It would have been dishonest and disingenuous for me to say, like, well, I would have made that call, which is I’m not waiting. I’m not going to wait until they build up a missile shield around their enrichment activities. I’m going to try to destroy this now. And no regime change. Again, no boots on the ground, but take out the launchers, the missiles, the drones. And because of their ability to cut off energy sources, the Navy too. And that will hopefully create the kind of not instability in the region, but instability in their regime that should lead to, or could lead to some big changes in terms of their disposition towards the world where they’re like this is so dumb that we continue to try to build this enrichment work, that we continued to fund terror. Like, can we just enter the global community and be done with all the chaos, all the mayhem.

Beth Silvers [00:14:51] Okay, I want to see if I can say that back to you because I feel like for people going to work and doing laundry and getting the kids to all their activities, what is the threat to America is a hard thing to put your arms around here. So if I’m hearing you correctly, I hear Iran has nuclear ambition, has for decades. The regime in Iran is brutal to its own people to the region and certainly has no love for the United States; explicitly says, death to America, that kind of thing. Okay, so they’ve been working on building nuclear weapons, which is a years long process. We did a strike, we set them back to some extent, but not fully. They were trying to regroup. Step one maybe of regrouping was building this defense shield around the facility so we could not do a similar strike in the future. And we decide let’s take out that defense of their ability to regroup on their nuclear program so that we hopefully get to stop worrying about their nuclear ambitions, which someday might pose a threat to the United States. Is that it?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:16:00] Yeah, I think the someday piece is the big, very dangerous, terrifying question mark, which is like, when is someday and what does that look like? And there are reports that they have some enriched uranium and it’s sitting in those underground facilities. It’s not attached to a weapon yet, but the question becomes if they have the shield, can they attach it to a weapons, what kind of weapon, does it have to be ballistic missile? Can it be something that they just hand to their terror proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas, and they move it closer to or send it to an American base, to an American city? This is the challenge with this regime because the Supreme Leader was an apocalyptic theocrat who really believed that he was an instrument of God. And the goal was to just get rid of the infidels, right? The non-believers. And them having that kind of weapon could be catastrophic. So that to me is about as serious of a threat as you get. We have three big adversaries, threats to global stability and our national security: China, Russia, and Iran. Russia has been weakened because of the Ukrainian war, but still an enormously powerful country. China, very powerful. Iran, this is about as weak as Iran’s ever been. And so the question is, could we end this and get to a place where we only have two big adversaries and we’ve conquered one.

Beth Silvers [00:17:47] North Korea’s off your list?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:17:48] North Korea has got the bomb, which makes them pretty terrifying, but they say put. I think of these three as being more problematic because they’re empire building. They’re trying to take over spaces, other people’s countries. So Russia’s obviously invaded Ukraine. I don’t think they’re done there. They want to keep going. They’ve had huge problems. Otherwise, I think they would have taken Ukraine and then gone to Poland or whatever. They want to rebuild the Russian empire as they see it. China’s empire building, and Iran was. I mean, Iran’s been meddling in Lebanon, in the Palestinian territories, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Syria, in Iraq, and Yemen. And this would conceivably pull them or end that kind of mayhem and allow those countries to rebuild and have their countries back.

Beth Silvers [00:18:50] The way that I hear you describing this sounds to me like the kind of operation that we’ve been doing for 25 years, sort of counter-terrorism, a surgical approach to a limited problem. And if I think about that kind of compartmentalized, it makes a lot of sense to me. The timing, to me, makes it hard to understand how it could stay compartmentalized. How are you thinking about that? Israel’s mood seems to be we want to once and for all end all of our problems in this region. Post-October 7th, that’s been my read, that Israel’s done. All of the things that have been precarious for years, they’re done and Netanyahu specifically wants to just end it. And this morning I was reading reports that our military is already like, whoa, we didn’t mean all this infrastructure gets taken out, the civilian infrastructure gets taken out. So how do you think about the fact that we can’t compartmentalize these strikes the way maybe we would at another time?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:19:58] Yeah, you’re an ally in the same military engagement in Israel. So that creates both opportunities and problems. Opportunities is that collectively they’ve destroyed or we’ve destroyed a ton of the missiles and the launchers and the rockets and the drones. And that’s a good thing. On the negative side, they do have their own objectives that go beyond the surgical strikes that my understanding is that we’re pursuing and that’s it for us. And I think it causes some tension, some real tension. And this is where you really do need a commander in chief that has his act together. I don’t want to say his because we’ve only had male, his or her. We need a leader who’s locked in. Part of the challenge with Trump is not only that he seems to like the drama and the chaos, is that he does not lock in these moments. This is one moment where you really need complete total leadership from all of the folks engaged here to not only be clear on our objectives, but to make sure that our allies are all rowing in the right direction. You can’t tell everybody exactly what to do, but we’re big enough to say don’t do that. And so, yeah, I think the key is for us to stay focused on the very specific set of objectives around the strikes and then be done. As it relates to Israel, they’ve got to make their own decision, their sovereign nation. But again, we have an enormous amount of power here, not just in our military capabilities, but our ability to convene European and Gulf leaders. And that would make a big difference in charting a course that’s ours, as opposed to one that is Bibi’s. Does that make sense? This is where I wish he would lock in.

Beth Silvers [00:22:08] It does. It just seems impossible to me in the current circumstances. I really appreciate the honest position that you’ve taken to say, like, if I were the commander in chief, I would have taken this shot. I think that’s brave and important.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:22:25] Thanks.

Beth Silvers [00:22:27] Also, when you say, let’s do our limited thing and be done, I think, how do we get to be done? I don’t know how we get be done here. What responsibility do we have to this country now, especially if we’re making mistakes? And the reporting seems to me like we’re making mistakes. The school, that’s terrifying to me. What is our responsibility?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:22:49] Yeah, there’s going to have to be an investigation. And you’re right, depending on that investigation, I would say we should be in to help fix or whatever it is that can be done at this point to make something so tragic, something good come from it. I think we have to lean in on that. I mean, the investigation has to be done thorough and it has to be ultimately public. So what it looks like is you go through, you get control of the airspace, which I think we have, and then you make sure that all of the targets that you understand to be there have been eliminated. Again, the launchers, the missiles, the missile factories, the drones, so on and so forth. Being done then means the strikes end, you go back, you retreat to a defensive posture. You don’t need all of that heavy equipment in the region, so we have a ton of destroyers, two aircraft carrier groups like it’s a lot. Some of those then get repositioned elsewhere. Some of it should stay so that if things pop up, military things pop up, you take care of it. And then in terms of our responsibility, the civic infrastructure, with the exception, I believe, of the oil strike-- that’s what you were referring to yesterday, which was alarming to me, too. The civic infrastructure has not been messed with the way it does during a war. You’re not seeing transportation and water, sewer, comms being destroyed.

[00:24:37] But the oil piece is a problem. And hopefully that was a way of getting the regime to say, look, we’re going to be done and we’re going to change our disposition. We’re not going to become a democracy or anything. That’s not in the cards, certainly not right now. Though I believe that every country, every group of people deserves that, but that they would at least participate in actual negotiations to be done, enriching uranium, they can work with the world to have a nuclear facility that creates energy, but it’s civil. It’s a civil program as opposed to an enrichment one where they’re creating weapons grade stuff. And I think we work with our allies to try to rebuild them. And this is the again where if you had somebody who was I’m thinking of an Obama or Clinton and hopefully the next president, they really are pulling together what to me seems like a very doable coalition of Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, they’re all in it now. They’ve been wanting to have a new Middle East for a long time. And they all come together in an organized way to create some new regional infrastructure that is a balance to Iran so that Israel does not have to take up arms all the time. That they can be done and they can just go back to focusing on Israel and its own borders, but not having to do anything as it relates to other territories.

Beth Silvers [00:26:32] Hypothetically, that sounds great. It’s just what we have is Bibi and Trump.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:26:37] It requires leadership. Yeah, who knows what’s going to happen to Bibi? This is an election year in Israel, so they’ll have an election either this spring, this summer, or this fall, no later than the fall. And no one knows what is going to happen. It’s unlikely that the existing coalition survives. So, you’re going to see change. I believe you’ll see change in Israel. Their democracy is pretty vibrant in the sense I bet you they’ll have 80% turnout. We haven’t had 80% in a long time.

Beth Silvers [00:27:17] There’s certainly a lot to discuss within Israel and they seem to have such an active civic life there that I’m interested to see what happens with that election. I’m worried because I do feel like we have for 25 years been sending American troops and the troops of our allies to the Middle East to do this kind of targeted approach to achieve some kind of stability. And instead of continuing that effort in this operation, I think if I were a mom in Iran trying to go to work and do my laundry and take care of my kids, it looks to me like America lit a match that exploded all over this region, that Iran’s proxies throughout the region will take advantage of to do whatever they wanted to do anyway, that Israel will take of that I’m not going to differentiate between the US military objectives and what the president says out loud and what I see all around me. And that we’re creating the conditions for terrorism to thrive and intensify again. Is that unfair?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:28:24] No, it’s not unfair at all. I think we’re in the middle of it. So anyone who can tell you that it’s going to end one way or the other is full of shit. We don’t know. The reason I would have said yes is because the terrorism has been going on for decades. Hezbollah in Lebanon has really undermined that country in a way that we just don’t about. There was just a period of time where all of this was before the revolution. It was not the way it was. Beirut was a place where everyone went. I want to get back to a place I’d love to, in my lifetime, see that Beirut and Lebanon be free from Hezbollah, which only exists because of Iran. But for Iran, it doesn’t have the money. It doesn’t’ have the influence. It does not exist. I mean, Iran put it there. And arguably it’s the same as Iran, right? It’s not like Hamas, which is some different organization that Iran funds, but for Iran probably wouldn’t have much funding. Hezbollah is Iran. And so, they’ve been dealing with terrorism and these terror armies for decades. And there does seem to be a weakening. I mean, Hezbollah is at its weakest point. Iran’s at its weakest point.

Beth Silvers [00:30:00] The Houthis in Yemen.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:30:02] Yeah. So it’s like this could have lit a match and things could get worse. I believe that-- and I’m very hopeful that the opposite is true-- that this puts out the fire that has been this regime and the chaos it’s caused all over. But we won’t know that for a couple of weeks. I think the strikes will be pretty intense this week, and then I think next week my hope is that that’s really the end. But they’re not going to say that until they’ve achieved their objectives. That’s what I’m getting from the generals and the secretary of state is that, yeah, they could put a time, a day on it, but they don’t do this in the sense that they’re like, oh, well, this is going to be two weeks, then we’re done. They have a set of objectives. And they believe those objectives will be accomplished in a couple of weeks, at which point it’s going to be very uncertain in terms of what happens with the regime. And do they continue to fund terror? Do they continue cause issues? Or do we start to see cracks? My understanding is that we’re already seeing cracks and that there’s a real possibility for change. And, to me, that’s pretty great. If there isn’t change, at least the regime has been defanged. They will emerge from this having very little to hurt people with, and they don’t have the ongoing support that they had from Russia. Russia was funding a lot of this, supporting a lot, and it’s just not there anymore.

Beth Silvers [00:31:49] Is that why you think the timing was important? I’ve heard people talk about this window closing and is it because Russia is preoccupied with Ukraine?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:31:57] Yes, because Russia was preoccupied with Ukraine. And you saw this with Syria. It was the reason why Syria finally, after, I mean, the civil war in Syria because of Iran and Russia was so deadly and awful. And I don’t know what’s going to happen, but at least they have the chance of putting their country back together because Russia wasn’t there to keep propping up Assad. And the same is true now in Iran. Plus the weapons system was being rebuilt and so that window was closed.

Beth Silvers [00:32:30] Okay, tell me more about your War Powers Resolution. So you said the military has objectives, they’re not putting a timetable on it, but your resolution is a 30 day timetable. No boots on the ground as I understand it. What else should we know about what you want to vote on?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:32:45] The reason I voted against the other one wasn’t because I don’t think Congress has a role. The Congress absolutely has a roll. If it’s more than targeted strikes, if it becomes an entanglement of sorts, then you’ve got to get approval from the United States Congress. Usually of 60 days, mine says 30 just because it’s this president and he should, if they’re going to need more than 30 days, come to the United State Congress and ask for it. And he will have several days at that point to come to the United States Congress with a plan. And so my hope is that on the 24th, I’ll go to the floor, I’ll make the case and I’ll have hopefully a bunch of people joining me saying, look, if you’re going to keep doing this, if you still have time, if still have targets, then come to United States of Congress, lay it out, and get a vote. Because I think if it’s just, oh, we have these silos and these factories and that’s it, you’ll get a yes vote and then you’re done. And, to me, that’s smarter than saying we’re just going to pull the plug. Whatever you started, you can’t finish even if it was going to be something good. One thing I’ll say, my colleagues-- I don’t want to pick on anyone. I don’t want to start a fight because this is hard, this is very hard. I get a little frustrated with people who are like, oh, no, I voted to stop the strikes, but I really like that we’re doing it. I’m really glad that they’re taking care of this stuff and the regime is no longer the same regime and the Supreme Leader’s gone and I’m glad we’re taking out the missiles, but no, I would have pulled the plug. And I think that’s really the issue. It’s like if you support limited targeted strikes and you’re worried, as I am, that he’s not capable of being that disciplined, then vote on something that allows the military to finish its job. And if that job takes more than 30 days, he’s got to get a vote.

Beth Silvers [00:34:54] I just think it’s tricky for your colleagues to make this case, right? I mean, it takes a long time to justify any military action in Iran. I think what’s breaking through, what I hear from people who don’t pay attention to news and politics and definitely aren’t going to sit down and think about Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas and like the, you know what I mean? Like there’s a lot here. And I don’t blame people. We have enough on our plates in life. But to think about the images that we see in the news, and then the kind of things that do break through your normal day, chatter about holy war within the US military, conversations about a draft, the lived experiences people have on the other side of Afghanistan, it’s tough to take a vote where you say yes to anything militarily.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:35:46] Yeah, I know. I have a really close friend. I consider him a close friend. He’s a member, I won’t say who he is, but he served-- and this is very deeply personal for him. He was a yes vote. He does not want this to continue. And I not only respect that, but I totally understand. I totally understood. Look, I get why people, and I’m similar, just focus on me, focus on the economy, make life better for me and my kids and my neighbors and my community. And that means investing all these dollars in our schools and our healthcare. And I am right there with everybody. And for the most part, that’s where I spend all my day, all my time, is on those issues. I’m a little more hawkish than others in my party in the sense that I know that there are bullies out there in the world, and they pick on people and they hurt them, and it’s hard to watch. And I can turn my attention to other things and I could turn it off, but I know what’s happening in the Sudan and I know what this regime has done, and I’m watching what’s happened in Ukraine, and it like these are bullies, these are bad, bad people. Every once in a while, it does make sense to throw a punch and punch the boy in the face. And if you have the ability to do it and it’s a smart punch, right? I box for a while, an amateur, like I’m not good, but I do learn you don’t throw a big punch unless it makes sense. Otherwise, you’re going to get knocked out. And I think with this regime they were wobbling and it was like, yeah, I’m going to throw a punch because they are bullies. They have caused so much destruction and they have undermined our national security for so long. And we don’t know because they limit and they stop a bunch of information flow about the protest, but most groups believe they killed tens of thousands of their own people in just a couple of days. They slaughtered their own people. That’s a bully. I mean, it’s an evil, awful thing.

Beth Silvers [00:38:22] I feel like a lot of the people around me who have served have that same perspective you articulated. This is an awful regime. They deserve this. Under almost any other president, I would be for it. I don’t trust this administration.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:38:37] I think that’s fair. And for better or for worse, I separated him from the decision. And I can make the argument that I was right or I could be right. I can make the argument that I was wrong because you can’t separate it from him. But I chose to believe in Caine and the Joint Chiefs and the folks on the ground and the mission and appreciate the fact that if it were me, I’d have said yes. But you’re right, it’s Trump. And I’ve heard that more than anything else. There are some people who just hate war and I get it. I love those people. And I hate war, but I also just know that sometimes you will have way worse war if you don’t do anything. In part, that’s the lesson of World War II was. We let Hitler do his thing and it got so bad that it ended up being 70 million people when it was all said and done, as opposed to stopping them in Poland or stopping them in Austria.

Beth Silvers [00:39:44] This is the hardest part of the job to me. Where is that line? Like, when do you take the punch? Because the world will always be like this. I think that’s part of what makes this moment so incendiary. I was listening to Lindsey Graham’s comments, which I’m sure you’re aware of over the weekend. And I have been watching, thinking that what we’re doing in Cuba is deeply immoral. I’m really, really struggling with the stranglehold on Cuba that we have right now. I thought what we did in Venezuela was deeply immoral, even though I think Maduro is a terrible guy, like terrible, no question. These boats in the ocean that are accused of running drugs, deeply immoral.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:40:24] Terrible. I mean, it is deeply immoral.

Beth Silvers [00:40:27] How do you think about this as a member of Congress, knowing that we’re just a year into this administration and Lindsey Graham says they’re on the march to rid the world of bad guys.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:40:36] I don’t know.

Beth Silvers [00:40:38] And I would like to write him off as Lindsey Graham as wackadoo, but I don’t know that we can.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:40:44] Yeah, I mean, look, the Iran situation has been a real situation, a real threat, a real concern for decades. Every administration has been trying to deal with this. So it’s unlike Venezuela, which came out of nowhere and obviously is led by a narco-terrorist or a bad guy or was. And same with Cuba. They’re not huge national security. I mean, Cuba was once when they were working with Russia on potentially moving a bomb over here. Remember that? During the Cuban Missile Crisis. But from that moment, after that moment these aren’t national security threats. The regime in Iran and everything happening, that is a national security issue. So I did separate it as being a real serious issue as opposed to what was going on in Venezuela, which was, I think you’re right, immoral. I mean, they were just shooting boats. Part of why I think they went after Maduro was pieces of boats were to wash up on the shores in the Caribbean. And the reporting I saw was it was charred boat parts, charred bodies, and marijuana residue, nothing else, which suggests a real awfulness to what they did. And I agree with you on Cuba. I just think Iran’s different, but you have the same players, so yeah, it’s complicated. I wish they would all lock in on the with the generals. They should follow the generals. I mean, that’s all I can say is that a commander in chief gives orders, but they follow the generals too. They don’t make their lives harder. And this guy’s making the lives harder of the people on the ground.

Beth Silvers [00:42:45] Do you think that the midterm elections will present an opportunity to reset with this administration or do you think to kind of go back to where we started that this is just what it’s going to be for the term?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:42:58] I mean, it’s going to be an opportunity for the American people to say, we don’t like this. We’re going to go in a different direction and we’re going put in place a Congress that has the ability to fundamentally hold you accountable. Whether it’s my war resolution or Massey’s, I still agree that Congress has to say yes to anything that is more than just some strikes. In terms of what he will do, I think he will always be like this until the last day of his presidency, until we have a new president. I think the question becomes how far can he go because he no longer has a Congress enabling him. I mean, this Congress has enabled him. They’re giving him everything he wants in terms of tariffs. When we take over the House, we will end the tarriffs. They spent trillions on tax cuts for the super wealthy and cut people’s healthcare. We’ll work to restore people’s health care. And it will look much different when you have a Congress with us at the helm issuing subpoenas and saying, what the fuck happened with the school? We want to know.

Beth Silvers [00:44:10] Yeah.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:44:10] And what’s going on with your DOJ and what’s going on with the Epstein files and why is Kristi Noem flying around in this jet and why is Kash Patel’s girlfriend using secret service or whatever protection in order to go to Starbucks? Like it’s all insane and you have to come now and be held accountable. That yes, Kash Patel goes to the United States Senate and comes over to the house and so does Bondi. But we don’t have the gavels. So we’re not subpoenaing. We don’t control the meetings. We get five minutes. Now, if we manage the oversight, you’re talking about holding people accountable, like genuinely holding people responsible. And that makes life much more difficult for him.

Beth Silvers [00:44:55] And do you think it can do more than that? Can it make life more than difficult for him? Can it meaningfully limit his actions?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:45:02] Yeah, I think so. The litigation has obviously helped to limit the damage he’s done. And a democratic controlled Congress will 100% be able to limit the damage he has done. Will we be able to pass things that he’ll sign into law? Maybe. But part of that means getting to a point where the American people have clearly abandoned him and you’re starting to see that. I mean, once he drops below 35 and he’s close, you’re going to see more and more Republicans joining us.

Beth Silvers [00:45:38] Well, in 2028 hanging out there, I think changes the game for everyone. Do you think that a Democratic Congress can lock in and be strategic about the power of Congress when there’s a 2028 primary hanging out there?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:45:49] I don’t know. I hope so. I mean, what I would like to see, and I say this to our leadership all the time, is be super focused on the economy and public safety and make sure that people walk away and say, oh, okay, yeah, they’re holding Trump accountable, I like that, but what they’re really doing is they’re passing things that would lower my utility bill and it would make health insurance more affordable for me. And they’re really taking on big tech and dealing with all the social media crap that I’m working on with my kids and struggling with. And they seem to have really solid plans to handle AI, to protect us. And it’s just one thing after another where we’re solving actual problems and keeping people safe and making the economy better.

Beth Silvers [00:46:41] That would be super. I would love to see anybody with a real vision about AI. That would make me very excited.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:46:46] Yeah, this is big for me. It’s saying to them, by the way, this quest they-- it comes up in our committee in energy and commerce. So we had some of these guys in last week and they’re like, well, the race to win AI is the most important thing. So let’s build all these data centers and just no regulation. It’s like, no, no. The race is not to have more data centers or to have some sort of next-gen algorithm, the race is whatever country figures out how to harness it for good and protect us from the harm, that’s the winner of the race.

Beth Silvers [00:47:26] I would love to talk about that for a second because I am curious, given that you are paying attention to this issue, and I’m glad, what you think about the situation with Anthropic and the Department of Defense? For listeners who aren’t following this, Anthropic makes Claude, which is one of the large language models that has really taken off. Anthropic has said to the Department of Defense, and correct me if I’m getting any of the details wrong here, that they’re already fully baked into lots of military operating systems. We used Claude apparently in Venezuela, using it in Iran, but Anthropic wants to have some say over the conditions under which it’s used when it relates to mass surveillance of American citizens and the deployment of certain weapons without a human involved. And the Department of War is extremely offended by that and has said we are now thinking about calling you a threat to the supply chain. Do I have those details right? And what do you think about this situation?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:48:23] You have the details right. It is a very serious situation. And one of what will be many examples of AI and whether or not we have a government that can handle regulating this technology in a way that produces the good. I was reading an article the other day about how some doctors were using it, used it to deal with a rare disease issue and they’re saving this girl’s life because they were able to sort out this rare disease in a way that means that she’s going to be okay. And they say without AI they would not have been able to break the case or crack the case. So that’s wonderful. We need a government, a department of technology, a department of AI that focuses entirely on managing this technology so that it’s used only for good and not for bad. And so, because we don’t have that leadership or that infrastructure, you got Hegseth saying we want this technology to be used in a way where it kills people without a single person involved. That’s insane. That is insane. And or that it is collecting all kinds of information on us, also insane. And so, yeah, to me, it’s like, one, the Department of Defense should not be pursuing AI this way, it is incredibly dangerous.

[00:49:55] And two, we need something that oversees the whole thing with credible folks, actual experts and citizens who are working to say yes or no on these things. And it would create a very powerful new regulatory entity within the federal government, a cabinet position that also answers to the United States Congress because we don’t have that right now. And you’re seeing the absence of that. It’s causing huge challenges. The Defense Department in AI being able to just go and make a decision about bombing something without a human being there, which is absolutely wrong. And then on the other side of the fence, also in our committee you got AI being used to deny seniors medical care through Medicaid, which is something I’m fighting, these AI death panels. I got a bill banning the use of AI to deny people their care. But they want to use AI to speed up the process of saying no. And if they got it wrong, which they do all the time, it’s doctors who are on the hook to pay the bill. That’s outrageous. Like we are not set up to handle AI. And Congress can pass some bills, for sure. I’m all in and I have several AI bills, but we have a Department of Commerce, we have a Department of Transportation, we need a Department of AI.

Beth Silvers [00:51:22] I think that makes a lot of sense because, yeah, Congress is not built to move at this speed and to tackle the economic side, which is a whole other can of worms. It makes a lot of sense to me that we need an administrative agency. I know that you are running short on time and I appreciate how generous you’ve been with your time. We always end with something Outside of Politics and I feel like we really need to do that when we’ve asked people to spend an hour with us talking about war and AI. So tell me about quarter into the new year, how your new year’s resolutions are going.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:51:59] They’re good. I set mine out like my resolutions are things that I really want to do. And I think that’s a different kind of approach than like, gosh, I feel like I have to get this right or--

Beth Silvers [00:52:10] I really should drink more water this year.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:52:12] Yeah, gluten is not great for me. So I was like I really need to just lock in and like be done. So I really I’ve been gluten-free. I’m crushing that and I feel so much better.

Beth Silvers [00:52:22] That’s a hard one.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:52:24] It’s a hard one. And every once in a while I’ll grab like a power bar or whatever, a protein bar, because I haven’t had a chance to get a real meal. But for the most part, I’ve been gluten-free and I’m going to keep going because I feel better. I’m exercising three, four days a week, which has been great. And the one that I screwed up with this week because of the Iran stuff, I just needed to like-- I’ve been trying to go live on social media once a week to get into a rhythm because I really want to have that relationship with folks because I know that’s the next sort of opportunity to build community. And I just got to get in the habit. So I thought, well, I’m not going to go live all the time but I’ll do once a week. And I’ve done it once a week with the exception of this week, which I just needed to just get home and not think for a couple of days.

Beth Silvers [00:53:24] What platform are you going live on?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:53:26] TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Substack.

Beth Silvers [00:53:33] That’s a lot.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:53:33] I know, I’m just trying to figure it out. But I think it’s important, I don’t know. It feels like a really important way to talk to people. Obviously, the real in real life opportunities are still the way to go, in my opinion, and my town halls and my community conversations are the best, but I want to make sure that I’m getting onto these platforms and doing it in a way where people are like, oh, this is real.

Beth Silvers [00:53:58] Well, I set out to curb my bad shopping habit. And so I decided that I would only once a month buy something that I don’t need. So I can just that one time. And I am really proud to report that I have not purchased a single item of clothing this calendar year. I know it’s only March, but that’s big for me. I am a shopper. I have a problem. So it’s been really good. I bought myself a puzzle in January and a plant stand in February and that’s it so far.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:54:26] The only other one I had is like sleep, really protecting my like... I don’t know if it’s maybe it’s just because I’m almost 50, but if I do not get a decent amount of sleep, I can be a punk and I hate that.

Beth Silvers [00:54:43] Do you wear an Oura ring?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:54:44] No. No.

Beth Silvers [00:54:48] It’s very helpful on sleep.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:54:49] The key for me is to go to bed at a decent time.

Beth Silvers [00:54:54] Yeah, and the same time they say, every night, right? Same time out of bed, same time in bed.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:54:59] Correct, yeah. So I’m trying. I’m not sure that was a resolution. I just knew it was one of the things I needed to get better at and I feel like I’m doing better. I did a sleep study too, by the way, which if anyone out there who has sleeping issues, which I do and did, or like really did, the sleep study was super helpful. It’s a commitment, but it’s good.

Beth Silvers [00:55:20] I’m not trying to be a commercial, I’m just going to tell you the Oura Ring is kind of like a mini sleep study every day. It really has made a difference for me on my sleep. For what it’s worth.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:55:31] Alright.

Beth Silvers [00:55:31] It was great to talk with you. Thank you for spending time with us.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:55:34] Always.

Beth Silvers [00:55:35] Good luck with your live communications on social media and in Congress.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:55:39] All right, thanks.

Beth Silvers [00:55:40] Thank you so much to Congressman Landsman and his staff for joining us today. Thank you to all of you. Please don’t forget to check out our show notes to get your tickets to join Sarah and me in Minneapolis. We’ll be back here together on Friday for a brand new episode. Lots of things happening on Substack between now and then. We hope you’ll join us everywhere. Until then, have the best week available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

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Sarah, Kerry, and I try to work our way through what Israel, the US, and Iran are doing. What are the objectives? What do we know? What don’t we know?

We talk about the Kurds, the risks of regional spillover into Turkey and Europe and as far east as Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the pattern of American military interventions that intend to help but don’t.

There is real fear in this episode — mine, specifically. There’s also a real effort to find a plausible best-case scenario. This conversation helped me, and I hope it helped you, too. -Beth

Topics Discussed

• What are the objectives in Iran?

• Is regime change likely?

• What might happen throughout the Middle East because of this war?

• Will this war make the people of Iran better off?

Episode Resources

• Kerry’s writing at War on the Rocks

• Kerry on X/Twitter

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are joined by Kerry Boyd Anderson to help us understand what’s happening in Iran. Kerry is a longtime friend of the show. She’s been with us many times over the years. We trust her experience and her deep understanding of the Middle East and specifically of Iran. She’s currently the membership editor for War on the Rocks. And I feel just a tremendous sense of relief that she was available to talk with us on short notice and really help us try to make sense of what’s happening across the world.

Sarah [00:00:42] We wanted this conversation to be standalone and easily shareable so there won’t be an Outside of Politics conversation this week. If you are hungry for a lighter take on the weekend news, go check out our Spicy Live where we gossiped about both Hillary Clinton’s deposition and Kristi Noem’s hearings before the Senate and the House. Lots there.

Beth [00:01:03] You can find that on Substack. We’ll put all the information in the show notes. Next up, Kerry helps us think about Iran. Kerry Anderson, welcome back to Pantsuit Politics. I am so happy that you’re here. I was thinking about how I am desperate for some kind of analytical framework through which to understand the strikes in Iran. And I tried to explore that a little bit because I knew I would want to rush into it with you. And probably what I should name for everyone is that I think I’m feeling that desperation because I feel kind of afraid. I think I feel more fear about this than I have felt about other actions that I thought were ill-advised or rash or maybe necessary, but scary. This one feels really scary to me. I’m wondering, Sarah and Kerry how you’re feeling just as we get started.

Kerry Anderson [00:02:02] I think that’s valid. I think if we look at, say, the strikes on Iran in June, or we look at the capture of President Maduro from Venezuela, while those were risky foreign policy approaches, the risks were within certain limits. This is actually, as an analyst, is even difficult to put a framework around what are the risks on this. So I think that the uncertainty here is massive.

Sarah [00:02:39] I think there’s this narrative that like, okay, we’re now at war with Iran, but haven’t we been at war with Iran for a long time just under different guises? I was listening to Ben Rhodes, and he was just talking about between the assassination of the general and his first term and the sanctions and the bombing of the nuclear program that we supposedly annihilated, but now maybe not, like, put us in a timeline here before we get to the fallout. Like really what was the realistic relationship between the United States and Iran? And particularly, I think you also have to talk about the orientation of Iran and Israel because clearly this is a joint mission. So how are you thinking about that leading up into the strikes, the most recent strike?

Kerry Anderson [00:03:32] That’s a great question because of course this has been a significant part of the administration’s explanation for why we’ve gone to war. I would say in terms of your question of have we been at war with Iran for a long time, it’s kind of yes and no. Certainly, nothing of this scale. This is an entirely new scale. And we can certainly, of course, had very negative relations with Iran back to 1979 when you had the Iranian Revolution and you had to take over the U.S. Embassy. And we had a failed military attempt under President Carter to pull the hostages out. Yeah, I mean, this goes back quite a long time. We supported Iraq with weapons during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. There was the tanker wars. Certainly during the Iraq war, after the United States invaded Iraq, Iran was supporting a number of the Iraqi Shia militias that were fighting. U.S. Soldiers and certainly help provide some of the materials. Then of course, as you mentioned, the killing in Trump’s first administration of Qasem Soleimani. So on the one hand, yes. On the other hand, the strikes in June was significant because that was the first time the United States has done direct strikes on the Iranian homeland. And now this is really huge because in coordination with Israel-- so I’m going to talk about we, meaning the United States and Israel, because I’m not sure the exact breakdown of who’s hit what. But we’ve killed the Supreme Leader, we’ve killed a number of the senior officials, we’re bombing huge parts of the country, and we’re talking about regime change. So this is an entirely different level than we’ve seen before.

Beth [00:05:21] So if you create a strategy by beginning with the end in mind, we’ve heard a lot of different versions of what the end might look like from administration officials. As we’re recording here today, what’s your best understanding of the end and mind that they have?

Kerry Anderson [00:05:39] That’s a great question. Wish I knew the answer. I think one of the real challenges has been the goals here are not clear and right before the war started on Saturday, February 28th, I was I think posted on X that how-- because people are asking what do you think they’re going to hit and I was like I don’t know what we’re going hit because I don t know what the goal is. Like how do you match your means to your ends when you don’t know what the ends are. So I can hope that that is clearer to people in the administration than it is to the rest of us. But the administration has given multiple, sometimes conflicting and confusing answers for what the end goal is. We’ve had, for example, a total regime change, which we can get into what does that mean? Trump has also a few times said that he wants to do something more along the lines of what we had in Venezuela, where you remove a few officials, but you leave the regime generally intact. And, of course, Israel has its own goals here too, which play a crucial role. We’re really kind of in this together and those are also kind of unclear.

Sarah [00:06:51] Well, I think there’s just so many layers of this that are both complicated, but to my mind, simple. With regards to Donald Trump, he is transactional and relationship oriented. So it’s not about regime change. It’s not about protecting the people of Iran. He doesn’t give a shit about democracy. I think in Venezuela, it was just, well, I can’t work with this guy. So let’s take him out and scare the hell out of whoever comes next so maybe they’ll work with me. That seems to be his sort of modus operandi. If I can’t work with this person, I’ll take them out. He’s clearly not afraid to use force. He has put more military strikes than any other president in recent memory. Nigeria, Venezuela, boats in the Caribbean, like he’s unleashed to use the power of our military however he feels in that moment is appropriate. And I think his feeling of how can I get to a place where I have a relationship with someone in Iran is also in the context of his relationship with Netanyahu. And Netanyah who was very hesitant for many, many, many years to get into these military strikes and squirmishes. I mean, it’s kind of weird I’ve heard like Netanyahu was hesitant, but Netanyahu who’s also been trying to convince a president to strike Iran several presidents back and everybody was like, no, there’s no upside for us; we’re not going to do that. But he’s also in a very tough spot. He has this election probably coming his way. He’s still on trial. He’s also promised to eliminate Hamas, but he’s blown Gaza into oblivion and has not eliminated Hamas. But he has weakened Iran and Hezbollah for sure. So his motivation, I don’t know, is to just keep the war going? Because I feel like we have to know his motivation so we can understand how that played into his relationship with Trump, so that when he finally called Trump and said, okay, now or never, Trump was like, yeah, sure, this looks like it gets good a time. And I don’t know if it was like the personal insults of blowing off the negotiations and slow rolling those, I don’t know.

Kerry Anderson [00:09:15] Yeah, I definitely think Netanyahu has been talking about going after Iran for many, many, many years, at a minimum back to the Obama administration. So I think in some ways, this is something he’s been wanting for a really long time. I also think that he made the argument that Iran has never been this weak, which is true, and we can talk through that more if you want. And he is facing these elections and this within Israel, this move against Iran is very, very popular. So I think for him, there’s not really much of a downside. This is definitely something most-- I mean, and obviously Israelis are dealers in the consequences of this. There’ve been a few deaths and there will be huge consequences in long term. And now we also have effectively a reignited war, I guess, in Hezbollah and Lebanon. So there’s some negative consequences for Israelis, but they are generally very much behind us. And so I don’t think there’s a downside for Netanyahu. It is interesting that Israel faces multiple friends now. There’s still Israeli soldiers in half of the Gaza Strip. There’s extensive military operations in the West Bank and now extensive operations again in Lebanon. So this is a country facing multiple friends and it’s a small country in terms of numbers, it’s relatively small military. So it’s going to be a lot for them to deal with, but right now it looks like Netanyahu’s got a lot of support for this war.

Sarah [00:10:44] A weakened regime is dangerous in its own way. I agree that they’re weakened, but what we’ve seen is when you got less to lose, you got less to lose.

Beth [00:10:53] I want to know more about the regime as it existed. If we could maybe go back to the first strike that Trump authorized on Iran, the one he told us completely decimated their nuclear program, except that maybe no, it didn’t. So can you tell us about the power of the Supreme Leader and the overall standing of the regime after that attack up until this most recent one?

Kerry Anderson [00:11:18] Yeah, I think it’s really important to understand the Iranian regime up to this current war. So, obviously, and its current state it came into power after the 1979 revolution and eventually the creation of the Islamic Republic. And it’s really interesting because it’s kind of a mix of democracy and authoritarianism. So it’s not a straight up authoritarian country in the way like North Korea or Russia or China even. So there is the Supreme Leader, or was the Supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who really was in charge of things, and then there are institutions like the Guardian Council that were unelected and would decide who is allowed to run for office. So there are all these limitations, but then there is an elected parliament. There is an elected president. We could get into whether those are always free and fair, but they have been actual real elections. And so it was a system where you had a certain level of democracy on one level and at the local level as well. There’s a lot of local elections, but then sitting on top of that, you had this more authoritarian structure. And so that’s basically how it had been working. And then also in recent years, a lot more power has gone to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And so that’s also very important is that IRGC is going to be playing a key role in how the surviving parts of the regime try to go forward.

Beth [00:12:55] The administration has really touted the benefit of eliminating Khamenei. Given his age and everything that you just said, what’s the reality of that? And where might we go from here?

Kerry Anderson [00:13:08] Yeah, he definitely was a really important guy, but he also was, well, I believe he was 86. And I have some people have said, oh, it’s incredible that he wasn’t hiding. He was so arrogant. I was like, I don’t know that it’s arrogance. I think he was just kind of like bring it. I think, he was like if you’re going to kill me, you’re going to kill me. Whatever. And they had clear succession plans in place through several layers of officials. So currently the assembly of experts, such as the body that’s set up to determine who would be the next supreme leader, they are in discussions. I don’t know how that works at wartime.

Sarah [00:13:45] But they got bombed, right? I read that the assembly of experts where they meet was bombed.

Kerry Anderson [00:13:50] The building was bombed. It doesn’t appear that it actually took out the members of the assembly. So they’re choosing who’s going to be next. There are several potential candidates including Khamenei’s son. I think what’s going be really interesting going forward is whether the regime will survive in a way that there is still a supreme leader who matters or not. So that gets into different scenarios for regime survival, regime collapse, transformation of power. So at this moment there is still a regime kind of in charge is trying to come up with his successor, but we’ll kind of have to see where all of that goes at this point.

Sarah [00:14:31] Explain, though, why even in the face of incredible uprisings because their economy has been decimated through these sanctions, you had a lot of young people, hopeless young people, truly willing to risk their lives. This regime took out thousands and thousands of protesters recently. But can you explain the functions in the way this regime works that it’s not so simple as like, okay, here’s your chance, your once in a generation chance, just rise up and take it back.

Kerry Anderson [00:15:03] I think the protests were important to leading to this moment because you had these huge protests in late December, mostly in January. And then you had this very brutal response, which was unprecedented in scale. And the regime obviously is a repressive one that has used repression to put down previous protests. But they were just opening fire on people. We don’t know the exact numbers, but thousands of protesters were killed. And I think that was very much seen as a sign of weakness, so this is a regime that’s actually afraid that it could be overthrown. I mean, Iran had a revolution before. It is a possible thing to happen. So I think that added to the sense that this regime is under all this external pressure and under all these internal pressure, this is the time to take them out. However, we’re going to have to kind of see what happens about whether there will be an uprising. Part of it, it’s hard to come out in the streets and protest when you’re being bombed. And President Trump did say in his first speech about this, that people should stay inside until we’re finished. I don’t know exactly what that means. And then you should go out in the street and overthrow the regime. But they were still going to be facing armed people who have nothing to lose who are going to be shooting. So I think, definitely, whether there’s an uprising or something, a lot of analysts are really watching. But it’s complicated, and it would take extraordinary courage on the part of the Iranian people to do it. I think we will probably see some of that, but where that goes is going to be a huge question. I also think we should be very careful about the promises we make to people who might be risking their lives to protest. So that’s, I think, another thing. It’s a whole big question.

Sarah [00:16:44] I just look at Venezuela and Syria. So Venezuela you take out the guy on top, but there’s all these administrative structures and bureaucracies. It’s not like it was just him. He had set up this whole system to repress people so that he wasn’t the only one kind of protecting everything like repressing the press and emboldening these different law enforcement, bureaucracies and repressive arms. And so like even in Syria, you had that as well. First of all, you have I think the reporting that’s come out since Syria about Al-Assad and he just didn’t have his hands on the wheels, man. Like the warnings were there and he just-- there’s this crazy piece in the New York Times about really what he just sat around and did all day was play video games. And you had a leader in Syria. You had a organizations that were like this is what we want. We’re prepared to fight and take it. Where you don’t have that in Venezuela, you don’t have that in Iran. So to me it’s like where should these people exactly start? You took out the Supreme Leader. You didn’t take out the entire armed forces. You didn’t take out these people who torture and imprison people. Like, it’s not clear to me that we have actually opened up an avenue for regime change. We just changed the guy, eliminated the guy at the top. You know what I’m saying?

Kerry Anderson [00:18:18] Yeah, it’s really tricky because you’re absolutely right that this is a regime that’s far more than one person. And we also know that the Iranian government had planned succession for multiple senior officials down to at least four layers. So they knew this could happen. So there are certain preparations in place. And I think another factor that is important to think about too, Iran is a really big country and we have more than 90 million people there. It’s much bigger than Syria. It’s much bigger than Iraq. It is much bigger than Venezuela. So the potential scale of consequences is just a lot bigger. And it’s also a country that’s geostrategically in such an important place. If there’s spillover effects, it can go into the Middle East, it can go into Central Asia. It’s surrounded by all these very fragile countries. So this is a really huge thing. And I think to your question about uprisings, it really feels that there’s not really a plan. The plan was just kind of like we’ll bomb stuff and then the Iranian people will rise up. It’ll be cool. And I think this is going to be a lot more complicated than that.

Beth [00:19:41] So if I’m trying to make this analytical framework that I really want, I have US objectives, question mark. Israeli objectives, maybe more of like ellipses. Like we understand that it’s popular, we understand Netanyahu personally has some objectives, we understand that Iran has legitimately posed a threat to Israel, but where that goes, don’t know. Potential for protests to actually take their government back, question Mark. Okay, regime change, question mark. Iran is doing counter-offensives right now. And some of the reporting that I’ve seen is that to Sarah’s point, as much as we like to talk about cutting off the head, there are some pretty decentralized Iranian forces throughout the Middle East. And I’ve seen that maybe they’re kind of winging it right now, they’re just kind of doing what they think makes sense. So if you had to say like here’s probably what the objectives driving Iran now are in a military sense, what could we say about that?

Kerry Anderson [00:20:46] That’s a great question. If you come up with a really good analytical framework, let me know, because I feel like everybody else.

Beth [00:20:53] I really want to, Kerry. It would help me so much.

Kerry Anderson [00:20:57] Me too. I mean, I’m a Middle East analyst and I’m struggling to figure out what the framework is. But I like your question because I think while it’s very difficult to understand what the US and Israeli goals are, I think we do know what the regime’s goals are and what their strategy is. So in terms of the Iranian regime, which I certainly distinguish from the broader Iranian population, but in terms of the regime, they want survival. First and foremost, they went to survive as a regime. They want to survive as a country. So they don’t want portions of Iranian territory to be taken away or to secede. And they want to survive as a regime. There’s also a personal level for a lot of officials, there was a lot of economic incentives involved in all of this too. And my understanding from military analysts that I’ve read or talked to is that the IRGC in preparation for this did kind of devolve some authority so that you would have IRGC and other armed groups on the ground who would be able to function and carry out certain plans even without necessarily a lot of direct structure from the top. So I don’t have that personal information, but that’s my understanding from some of the military analysts I’ve talked with. Also, it’s really interesting and very clear that the regime is responding with the understanding that this is an effort to destroy the regime.

[00:22:26] And so in the past, they’ve always responded with a certain level of restraint. For example, in the June, when the United States and Israel conduct these strikes against Iran in June, Iran retaliated but they were very careful. It was kind of very specific how they retaliated against Israel. It was a retaliation against the Al Udeid air base in Qatar, but it was limited and they gave an advance warning. There’s always been a kind of a careful game of chess where they’re being a little restrained and now it’s just all out. I think one of the surprising things for a lot of people has been the way that Iran has really gone after the Gulf Arab states because they had been working on developing better relations there, and they’ve just been whacking them. And then obviously we could talk about other parts of the region as well. But I think their strategy has been ensure survival. We understand a bunch of our top people are going to get killed; we’re going to be prepared for that. And we’re going to spread the pain around as much as possible. Like you’re not going to take us down that fight kind of approach.

Sarah [00:23:36] I heard it described as asymmetric endurance. So we’re going to make it as painful for you. We’re using multimillion dollar, anti-ballistic missiles to shoot down like $20,000 drones. There’s like real concerns about our stockpiles. They’re trying to take out some of the foundational military hardware that shoots out those drones. And I think they’ve been moderately successful, but the Iranians have certainly been successful at exacting that pain. It’s going to be a long time, I would imagine, before Dubai’s tourism completely recovers. They’ve been working so hard in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and all these countries in Saudi Arabia to say come visit, enjoy, we’ve built this tourist paradise. And now the airspaces are shut down, people can’t get in and out. We won’t even talk about the fact that the American government has just abandoned like 1,500 American citizens with no way to get back. That’s going to be painful as far as the oil shipments and all that. I mean, they are exacting a cost for sure. And I agree with you, I’d watch with such interest with the way that they were so careful and would broadcast what they were going to do. And now it does seem like all bets are off. I’m wondering what you see the role as the Kurds. I was reading some reporting that Netanyahu was like, The Kurds will save us. The Kurd’s will rise up. They’re ready. They’re going to take over. They’re our magic solution to this problem.

Beth [00:25:08] And if you would, Kerry, as you answer that, a little background on who the Kurds are because it’s so hard to keep all of the groups in the Middle East straight for everyone.

Kerry Anderson [00:25:18] Yeah, absolutely. I have so much sympathy for the Kurds.

Sarah [00:25:23] Yeah, especially after Syria.

Kerry Anderson [00:25:26] Yeah, and yet I have some concerns about some of the current plans with that. So the Kurds are an ethnic group that is historically primarily based in the mountainous parts of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. And if we were really going back into history and then the creation of the states in the Middle East, the Kurds very much wanted their own state. So there is Kurdish nationalism, they want their own state. There were a lot of proposals for them to get their own state, but they didn’t. And so they were divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. And that has always created certain instabilities. [crosstalk]. It’s pretty a lot of insurgencies, especially in Turkey, but also other places. And then when you had the Syrian civil war, the Kurds in Syria were able to kind of create sort of an autonomous area that they controlled in Syria. Also with the war in Iraq that led to a semi-autonomous Kurdish area, the Kyrgyzstan regional government in northern Iraq. So Iraq kind of went with a federal approach and so the Kurds kind of have like their version of not a nation state, but like us Americans type state in the north of Iraq. So for a while, for the Kurds, it was like there’s kind of some autonomy in northern Iraq, and there’s some kind of autonomy in Syria. The Kurds in both Iraq and Syria were crucial allies in fighting ISIS. They were the boots on the ground in fighting ISIS.

[00:27:07] However, since the Assad regime about a year ago in Syria, just in the last few months, the new government in Damascus wants to have a centralized government and they’ve actually captured a lot of land from the Syrian Kurds who have been pushing a much smaller area. Turkey is working on actually a ceasefire with its main Kurdish group, the BKK. That’s all very complicated and kind of on hold right now. Now we have a situation with Iran, which is an opportunity for Iranian Kurds who have long had a kind of low-level insurgency. This is sort of their big opportunity. And there are quite a few Iranian Kurds who had fled into Iraq and into the Iraqi Kurdish area. And so the news reports that we’re hearing, and I do not know how much to rely on these, but there are reports that Israel and the United States might be providing some small arms and encouragement to the Iranian Kurd’s who are in Iraq to go back into Iran and fight the regime. While I have deep sympathy for Kurdish nationalism and for the Kurds, this also raises all sorts of risks. The Kurds are usually the ones who suffer the most from that. We can go back into the first Gulf War and the George H.W. Bush administration encouraged the Kurds to rise up against Saddam Hussein and they did and they got gassed by the Iraqi government. Also, then we have the Syrian Kurds who are our main allies in fighting ISIS. And we pretty much kind of thrown them under the bus there as well. So I guess I worry a little bit that every time we kind of turn to the Kurds and they step up, it doesn’t always go well for them, but I guess that’s their decision to make.

Sarah [00:29:00] To the ISIS of it all, we’ve been talking a lot about nation states and the fallout in nation states, but what do you see and what is the analysis as far as not only striking Iran, but destabilization in the wider region? How do you see that playing out with the Islamic State?

Kerry Anderson [00:29:21] I think right now, in the short term, this doesn’t necessarily have direct impacts on the Islamic State. The Islamic State was an enemy of the Iranian regime. So in the short term I think that’s not something I’m specifically watching. However, any time you have chaos in the Middle East, you get resurgence of some form of terrorism. And whether that’s Sunni terrorism or Shia terrorism or something else we haven’t about before. If this is not contained fairly quickly, if we see a collapse in Iran or any of the more negative scenarios, then I’m just sure we’ll see some sort of a resurgence of terrorism just because that’s what happens. So I think that’s something we need to be ready for here.

Beth [00:30:10] Well, and it seems like the ground for that is fertile anyway because of Israel and Gaza, because of the situation that’s been persistent for years in Yemen, because, because, because. Thinking about the Kurds a little bit more in Turkey, I read this morning that NATO is watching all of this very carefully. I wonder what the risks are, you think, if it’s not contained very carefully, what the risk are for Turkey and what the risks are for the NATO alliance.

Kerry Anderson [00:30:40] Yeah. I mean, there’s several. In the short term we could talk about, for example, I believe there was a report that an Iranian missile was headed toward Turkish airspace and NATO shot it down. It’s not clear that that was an intentional thing on Iran’s part. So there’s some risk there and Iran clearly is willing to spread the pain out. And so if it feels like European countries or NATO are supporting this operation. There was also a report of a potential effort to attack a British base in Cyprus. That could be a real issue. My biggest concern for Europe and Turkey is that we’re already seeing some refugee flows, of course. If Iran really falls apart, we’re going to see refugee flows on a level that makes the Syrian refugee crisis look tiny. And many of those refugees will go through Turkey and will attempt to go into Europe. And there’s other places as well. But given both the geography and given the existence of trafficking networks already and given the existence of diaspora networks, that’s going to be a huge thing. And the Syrian refugee crisis already had huge impacts on European politics. And globally, we’ve had since World War II a global system for managing refugee flows. And it’s imperfect, but it has worked. It’s so close to breaking. And I think in a large scale, refugee flows from Iran would just completely break that system.

Sarah [00:32:17] Can you help me understand, Iran shares a huge border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. I’ve been so focused on Pakistan and India, but there seems to be a lot of conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan that I can’t imagine this is going to improve. What is going on?

Kerry Anderson [00:32:36] Yeah, well, I’m actually recording a podcast later today specifically on that with an expert, so I’ll know a little bit more later. Afghanistan and Pakistan have, a few months ago, tensions between the two. Tensions have always been there, but there’s also been a lot of cooperation. And tension started increasing mostly because, of course, Afghanistan is now run by the Taliban, but there’s also the Pakistani Taliban. They’re an offshoot, but they seek to overthrow the Pakistani government and they are responsible for a number of terrorist attacks within Pakistan. And so since we left Afghanistan and the Taliban took over, there’ve been a lot of positive relationships in the past between the Pakistani Government and the Taliban in Afghanistan. But now the Pakistani government is annoyed with the Taliban in Afghanistan because they’ve been providing shelter across the border for the Pakistani Taliban. And that started a few months ago some cross-border fighting, which has intensified in the days right before this.

Sarah [00:33:45] And they started sending people back, right? People who’ve lived in Pakistan for years and years and years.

Kerry Anderson [00:33:51] Yeah. So they forced a lot of the Afghan refugees who had been in Pakistan to get back into Afghanistan. This is another thing, right? There also used to be a lot of Afghan refugees in Iran, which Iran has been kind of before this been pushing back to Afghanistan. So we’re talking about potential refugee flows out of Iran. Where are they going to go? Some of them are going to going to Afghanistan and Pakistan, which already have these issues. On top of that, there’s also in Eastern Iran and the territories along the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, there is a minority group called the Baloch and they also have had a low level insurgency against the Iranian regime for years. So that’s another thing to be watching because the border there also cuts across the ballot community. So there’s a community in Iran and Pakistan, Afghanistan, and that creates a lot of potential issues too. So the potential spillover here is yes, it could go west, two parts, the Middle East and the Europe. It can also easily go east to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Beth [00:35:08] So I’m surrounding my whole analytical framework in caution tape because there are so many places that this could erupt in such a disastrous way. I would love to know how you think about the foreign policy portfolio right now and what risks and I guess opportunities that might create for the U.S. Military in this engagement, the fact that we did the Venezuelan strike, that we are providing military support in Ecuador, that we seem to be trying to starve out the Cuban regime. I’m really trying to get my arms around the objectives there. That we are still trying to negotiate some kind of end in Ukraine. That we know that there’s a threat to Taiwan. It just feels like there’s a lot running across the crawl for the White House as it thinks about this effort. So how would you put that in some kind of framework? Like these are the risks of that and these are benefits if there are any of that.

Kerry Anderson [00:36:11] Yeah. I think in some ways our foreign policy right now could be like go big or go home. It’s kind of just doing it all. And if we look at the opportunities, I’ve been focusing on the worst case stuff, but if we’re looking at potential opportunities, clearly the United States has demonstrated to the world that we have extraordinarily effective and powerful military and we’re willing to use it. We’re willing to use it to remove your leader like we did in Venezuela. We’re willing use it to extensively bomb your country and kill your leaders as we are in Iran. We’re willing to us it to blow up boats. Like we’re going to just use it. And I think the argument from Trump administration would be that, that’s what you want to do. You want to show you’re big, you’re tough, you’re bigger and tougher than everybody else. And I you could argue that so fa they did get what they wanted out of Venezuela, and they have convinced Europe that it needs to spend a lot more on its own defense spending. So I think you can certainly argue that we’re demonstrating our strength and our willingness to use it and people are going to think twice before messing with us, and that when it comes to other negotiations with other countries that we are demonstrating our leverage. So I think you could take that perspective.

[00:37:37] I think on the other hand, from a broader foreign policy perspective, one concern I certainly have and I know a lot of other foreign policy analysts have, is that this is going to massively distract from our abilities to counter China in the Pacific and may also lead Japan and South Korea to feel like, okay, the U.S. is busy over in this place, so we need to do more for our own defense, which might be okay, but there’s certainly concern that they might look into nuclear weapons. So I think this all raises huge risks. There are questions about the extent to which we have munitions to continue these types of wars. I am not an expert on that, but that’s an issue. For those who feel like the best foreign policy is that a good defense is a good offense and it’s good to show that we’re big and strong and we’re willing to use it, yeah, they’re doing that. But it creates so, so many risks and it seems there’s very little plan for thinking through those risks.

Sarah [00:38:41] I thought Ezra Klein describing it as head on a pike foreign policy, like we just come in and you just need to be afraid because whatever might happen to your country, if you’re in charge, we won’t hesitate to take you out, it’s a probably pretty apt description. It doesn’t seem to have any long-term strategy. Now, since I don’t think any of us want to end on quite that hopeful of a note, I do think I see a positive outcome to all of this. Well, maybe not an outcome, but a positive impact. Which is I think the narrative for so many countries and for the globe was that there was this other axis of China and Russia who would not hesitate to prop up and support these regimes. But they were not there for Syria. They were not there for Venezuela, and they are not there for Iran. So, yes, I think the United States use of power in this way has been sloppy and dangerous. But I do think, and I don’t think this was their purpose, but I do you think inadvertently they have exposed. So yeah, I think there are countries around the world that are looking at us and going, oh my God, there’s no this global order, they’ll do whatever they want. But they’re also looking at China and Russia and thinking, well, they’re not going to come to our defense. I think there’s this theory that China and Russia are presenting an alternative to the U.S. but I don’t see that coming. I don’t see that happening at all.

Beth [00:40:12] Is every man for himself? Is that where we are.

Sarah [00:40:14] Every man for himself.

Kerry Anderson [00:40:16] Yes, I’m not sure we are. I think you’re right. This could, in some way, the fact that China and Russia clearly are not interested in defending other countries against the United States in any truly effective way, does potentially undermine their power. I think you could also take a perspective that the “liberal international order” that was set up after World War II was always imperfect. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a speech about this at the Munich Security Conference. It was kind of calling out many of us, and I would include myself earlier in my career, would have been like big, big defenders of liberal international order. And I think there’s very, very good reasons for that. However, it was never perfect. It was always a certain amount of papering over and sweeping certain things under the rug. You’re big.

Sarah [00:41:07] If you’re big enough, you don’t have to do it. If you’re the United States, it’s all just a mere suggestion.

Kerry Anderson [00:41:15] Right. And so one could argue tearing the veil away is a good thing. Like, let’s see it. Let see it for what it is. Let’s be honest about what it. I don’t know how I feel about that, but I think that is in discussion that’s worth having. I also I’m really curious about what you guys have been hearing from your audience about the war in Iran and that issue of the global order more broadly.

Sarah [00:41:41] I think that people have a certain wisdom about this. I think that no one thinks Iran was a good guy. No one thought Venezuela was running well. But I think after decades of intractable conflict and that sort of asymmetrical endurance we’ve seen play out over and over and over again all the way from Vietnam to Afghanistan into Iraq, I think people understand it doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter how powerful our military is. We can go in and we can have enormous short-term impact, but there’s no way to militarily solve a problem like the Kurds. There’s no way to militarily solve... Even when there is uprisings, there were sincere, impactful uprising during the Arab Spring. Egypt now has a more repressive government after that. It’s not that easy. It’s not that simple. We all want democracy and freedom for the world, but it’s complicated. And I think there is some like inherent wisdom in the American people who recognize that and say we just need to stay out of it. Not because we’re not struck by the suffering of our fellow global citizens, but we’ve just seen this happen so often where we just make it worse. We just make it worse.

Beth [00:43:05] We intend to help and our help is not helpful. And I would say the other piece that I would add to Sarah’s reflection, we have people very tangibly personally impacted. People with sons, daughters, friends, cousins, uncles in the service, in the region, very concerned for their safety. We have people who got stranded and got that message from the State Department that you’re on your own. The United States government can’t get you home. I think there’s a loss of faith in our own government on two fronts. That we can’t be helpful in the world militarily, even we intend to be, and we’ve seen that over years and years, but also we can’t be helpful to our citizens. The direct responsibility we have to get people home when we have made them less safe where they are, we’ve not met that responsibility. People are so frustrated that they’ve had to go to Truth Social to learn about this, that the president hasn’t tried to make a case to the American people. That if we see these pictures as we do of Americans who are dying because of this, we can’t say what they died for. We want to be so respectful and supportive of people in service, but we also want to be able to say what died for. So it’s a really frustrating time. We have a smart audience and smart enough to know how complex this is, even if we couldn’t all sit down and diagram those complexities. And I think that overall, there’s a feeling that we are trying to be more careful about this than the Secretary of Defense, than the secretary of state. We’re trying to speak about this with more precision than the people who are supposed to lead the effort, and it’s maddening.

Kerry Anderson [00:44:52] Yeah, that so make sense. And I’ve been thinking a lot about the run up to the Iraq war because I was early in my career and there’s a lot of important differences and there’s some significant similarities. But it was interesting in the run up to the Iraq war, there was a lot effort on behalf of the Bush administration to persuade Congress, to persuade the American people. Now, I think there was some lying and a lot of cherry picking of information involved in that. But it’s interesting in this case, there just wasn’t any of that. So I certainly sympathize and understand with people who are trying to grasp what is the purpose of this and why are we doing it.

Sarah [00:45:39] It just seems like he thought he had his window with this meeting and he didn’t care that people would get trapped or nobody told him in a way that had impact. I’m not really 100% sure ever that Donald Trump is getting the whole truth about the impact of his actions. It seems like General Cain tried to say like this is not necessarily an easy in and out, which is what he wants from all these military strikes he’s perpetuating with no checks and no balances for a year. And I just think that there’s no desire that’s not in his framework. How do I justify it to Congress? How do I justify it to the American people? That’s not how he thinks about his role in power at all. He thinks I’m limited only by my own moral guidelines. And so if 170 little girls get murdered in the process, got to break through eggs, I guess. It is so transparently a one-man show. And so a one man who doesn’t do a lot of in-depth strategic thinking. It’s just ruled completely by his gut.

Beth [00:46:53] Well, Kerry, I really liked Sarah’s instinct to try to take us somewhere more positive. So pulling back that fear that China and Russia are going to support all these countries that they’ve tried to convince that they will support is one good outcome. If you thought about what is the absolute best case scenario here, here is a way that we could say this is what they died for; this mattered, this accomplished something that did real good in the world, what would that best case scenario look like?

Kerry Anderson [00:47:25] Have been thinking a lot about that. When we do scenarios, try to think about something that’s plausible. So I think there is a plausible best case scenario here, where I think you would have the collapse of the regime, but not the internal collapse of the country that would probably involve a group of different actors coming together. So some of those might be kind of like protest leaders with some of the reformist politicians, with some parts of the previous regime. I think they would have to come together and develop compromises. But I think it is possible that together they could have a functioning government that would put the country at least on a path toward democracy. And if that happened, that would be an enormously positive thing for more than 90 million people. Also, if you talk to Iranian Americans, they’ll hear this all the time, this is a country of all this culture and all these resources and all this human capital, and it should be doing much better economically. And that’s partly because of sanctions, but partly because of the regime. And you potentially could see a situation, maybe like 10, 15 years, Iran is democratic and is prosperous and is a source for stability. It’s right there between the Middle East and between Central Asia. It’s really important. And if it’s a source of stability rather than instability, that could have really great spillover effects. So I definitely think there is a potential plausible outcome here where things go well and things go better. I would like to have more faith in that, but it is possible, and that is what I’m very much hoping for right now.

Sarah [00:49:18] I mean, look, I was opposed to the Iraq war, but Iraq is better. I think better is a fair word to describe where Iraq is right now. It’s not a democratic paradise, but it is better. It is a more stable country than it was before. I don’t know if I’ve necessarily seen spillover effects into other areas, but maybe with more time there that could happen as well. So I’m incredibly encouraged by despite the betrayal of the Kurds, of some of the developments in Syria, like it’s not-- I don’t know if democracy is achievable within the next 10 years, but I think stability could be.

Kerry Anderson [00:50:04] Yeah, and I do see Syria as a bright spot in all of this. I am sorry. I wish there had been a better arrangement with the Kurds in Syria, that they could have maintained a degree of autonomy. However, there is no doubt that Syria is better off right now than it was under the Assad regime or under the civil war. So it is a point for hope and not for some sort of foolish hope that everything’s just going to be great and it’s all going to be fine, but an actual like with the right steps and with the resources, a better future is possible.

Beth [00:50:34] Well, let us hope for that peace and stability and better for the people who are most directly affected and the safety of those who are trying to bring about that outcome. And Kerry, thank you so much for sharing your deep well of knowledge and expertise with us today.

Kerry Anderson [00:50:51] Well, thank you so much. Always a pleasure to talk with both of you. I love your audience. And it’ll be really interesting to see how they feel about all of this.

Beth [00:51:01] Thank you so much to Kerry for joining us today. Thank you to all of you. We’ll be back with you next Tuesday. I’ll be here with Greg Landsman, the Congressman from Ohio as Sarah will be out. And then we’ll be together again on Friday. We appreciate you very much. Have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

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Topics Discussed

• Four Years into Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

• The Changing Nature of War

• Outside of Politics: Listener Question: High Heels?

Episode Resources

• Opinion | Overmatched: Why the U.S. Military Must Reinvent Itself (The New York Times)

• The Looming Taiwan Chip Disaster That Silicon Valley Has Long Ignored (The New York Times)

• The New Rules of War by Sean McFate

• The Militarization of Silicon Valley (The New York Times)

Episode Transcript

Beth [00:00:00] Hi, it’s Beth. It’s Saturday night, February 28th. Sarah is on a plane heading to Texas where we’ll be speaking to faith leaders and communities on Sunday and Monday. I fly out tomorrow morning. I don’t know what the world will look like by the time this episode reaches you. I know it looks really different right now than it did when we recorded this episode just a few days ago. Today, the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. President Trump announced that the attacks killed Iran’s supreme leader. Both President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said that regime change is an explicit goal of this operation. Iran has already begun a campaign of retaliatory attacks. Today’s episode is about war. We knew, as you’ll hear when we recorded, that the U.S. going to war with Iran was possible, maybe even likely. We felt and feel that this episode, reflecting on four years of war in Ukraine, is important. War is changing. The contours of what it can and can’t create are different all the time. We need to be aware of that as we process these strikes and what follows them. I spent the day today reading questions for elementary school academic team students. A few times during the day, I felt a little guilty. This news is so big. Shouldn’t I be doing something else? But what is that something else? Scrolling X, posting on Instagram? The more I considered it, the more I realized I was right where I can and should be, connected to my community. Helping kids see the world in as big a context as possible, watching families work hard for their goals and celebrating their accomplishments. I know many of you feel intense emotions and are compelled to do something to help. I promise that in your ways, you are already helping. Sarah and I will be back with you here on Friday. We’ll know much more then than we do right now. And until then we wish for peace in and around you and throughout the world.

Sarah [00:01:52] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:01:54] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:01:56] You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are marking the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by talking about where the war is, what’s going on with Russia, what is going on with Ukraine, and the ways in which that war has changed war. We’re going to pivot into a conversation about whether or not America is prepared to meet any type of real military challenge. And then we’re going to take a really, really hard turn Outside of Politics and answer Norma’s question, what is our philosophy on high heels?

Beth [00:02:33] We are recording this episode on Tuesday, February 24th because we are currently in Houston as you’re listening. And we are very aware as we’re recording that we sit on a little bit of a knife’s edge with Iran and that situation could have changed dramatically by the time you hear this. If it has, we will be back with you on Friday to talk about it. We are excited though to be together in person and with listeners in person in Texas. And we’re excited about coming to Minneapolis to do that again at the end of August. Tickets for our one and only live show this year and all the surrounding events go on sale next week. They’ll open to premium members on Tuesday, March 10th, everyone else on Thursday, March 12th. So check out our show notes for more information on that. And we really hope that you’ll come spend time with us in a truly great city with lots of truly great other listeners. Up next, let’s talk about Russia and Ukraine.

Sarah [00:03:33] As of last week, the war in Ukraine has officially entered its fifth year. Beth, I don’t remember what I was reading but I was sitting with my family and I said how many people do you think have died from Russia alone in this war? I think Nicholas guessed 80,000, I think one of the boys guessed like 120,000. And I said 1.2. Million people. And it caught me because I did not realize it was that high. That’s why I read it out loud to them. I had no idea the casualties on the Russian side were that high. And, listen, the Ukrainian casualties are anywhere from like 500,000 to 600,000. It’s just an enormous amount of death.

Beth [00:04:34] And I wonder how they factor in deaths of people who are fighting for those sides, but are not of those nationalities. It’s one thing that’s really been striking to me lately. And I feel like I’m seeing more and more coverage of this. That there are North Korean soldiers there. There are Kenyan soldiers there.

Sarah [00:04:53] And some of them are tricked.

Beth [00:04:54] Right. Some of them were tricked. There are prisoners there from all over the world. There are Americans who’ve gone to fight with Ukraine. There are a lot of people. We haven’t talked about it as a world war, but at some point it’s a different version of that, isn’t it? Because there’s so much interest in so many people involved in sacrificing their lives for this.

Sarah [00:05:16] Well, and it’s just grinding, especially on the Russian side. They’re thinking they’re losing about 40,000 casualties a month since November. 40,00 people a month, and they’re only recruiting-- and I the word recruiting is doing a lot of work there-- up to 35,000. Did you see the statistic that it was like 125 people for over 1.6 kilometers? I mean, they’re just grinding it out. They’re not even making really any big advances. It’s 15 to 70 meters per day in key sectors that Russia’s trying to gain. So I do feel like for a while people were like, oh, well Russia’s got Trump and Russia survived and they’re exacting such a cost on Ukraine and they were definitely weaponizing the seasons and winter in particular. And I’m not saying they haven’t expanded the territory they’ve claimed, and definitely exacted a lot of civilian loss recently, but there’s no universe in which you would describe what they’re doing as winning.

Beth [00:06:27] It’s hard to think about this going into its fifth year because as you were saying that for a while this is our mentality. I was trying to go through that whole journey preparing for this episode. That Russia began with the mentality that this was going to be over fast. They were going to swoop in and take Kiev. The rest of the world had that attitude too, that Ukraine was dramatically outmatched here. And then for both sides there have been moments of what feels like momentum as you’re observing war. But when you put these numbers to it, that seems like a horrible way to analyze it. And five years later, I think answering for what in Russia feels really complicated, and answering for Ukraine feels really complicated and like a true indictment of the United States in the West to me. I was reading some reflections from reporters and diplomats, people who have been with this conflict the whole time, and almost every one of them said something like, at this point, Europe needs Ukraine as much as Ukraine needs Europe.

Sarah [00:07:30] Yeah, with regards to Russia, it’s it’s so interesting to me that I think militarily they were seen as so strong and economically the sanctions would weaken them and really it turned out to be the opposite. Militarily, they got their ass handed to them in the invasion and economically they soared for a bit, despite all these sanctions. That’s not even true anymore. I can’t really look at a place of strength. I don’t even think Trump has turned out the way that Vladimir Putin thought he would. They have not given them what they wanted. They have not basically just pushed Ukraine to give in to all the territorial demands of Russia. They’ve talked about security guarantees. Would I have done it this way? No, but has the cessation of American support forced Europe to step up? Yeah. A lot of what’s coming to Ukraine now is European. And so I think that that is a success as well. And economically, Russia’s in a terrible position. They have just poured and restructured their entire economy (and by ‘they’ I mean Putin) into the war. Nearly 40% of Russia’s federal budget is now devoted to the military and security, 9% goes to interest payments on the debt to finance the war. Their wealth fund is down from 113 billion to 55 billion. Oil and gas profits are down. Foreign direct investment has cratered. Divestment investment is crippled by high interest rates aimed at taming inflation, which is high because they poured such money into the war. Their economy is dangerous. They’ve lost all these people. They were already looking at demographic struggles population-wise. Whatever happens, Russia has lost. He has decimated their economy and their population. They’ve had a brain drain where people flee. Like it’s really, really terrible. It’s really terrible

Beth [00:09:31] And it’s hard to say that Ukraine has won, even though Ukraine has certainly on the world stage attracted so much admiration, inconsistent support, but support. I would imagine that the national spirit there has been altered significantly several times over since this began. But still, so many dead Ukrainians, so much infrastructure hobbled. You’ve got people right now in the winter struggling because Russia has been so effective at taking out infrastructure electricity heat. I look at this situation constantly and think, there is no winning a war. Maybe there never was, but there definitely isn’t now.

Sarah [00:10:13] At the end of the day they know what they’re fighting for, and that’s just a very different position to be in. They are fighting for literal territory and sovereignty. I think what’s so exhausting, I can only imagine, is it’s a multi-front war. They can’t just fight Russia with the support of the U.S. And Europe. Zelensky spends so much of his time trying to prop up his allies. That’s what’s exhausting, I can’t only imagine like. I feel like if we’d all poured in from the beginning what they needed, this would be over. Now I think the way they have innovated with drones, I mean, they’ve crippled Russia’s refining capacity. They have taken drones and they’ve assassinated people inside Russia. Like they’ve done everything they possibly could with what they have been given. It’s just the stop and start of the giving that has to be so exhausting. And I think that after so much time, it starts to cripple-- not even cripple, there’s nothing left to give to your civic infrastructure. So you see these corruption trials and they need an election. And it’s just like all of that is on the back burner. And as we enter the fifth year, it’s hard not to ask for how long.

Beth [00:11:34] I remember us talking to Sean McFaith years ago now about his book, The New Rules of War. And when we talked with him and read that book, we talked so much about how public opinion is necessary to war. I read a great piece by a military analyst this morning that talked about legitimacy and how difficult it is to sustain legitimacy in war because no one is immune from committing war crimes. War is so violent and that violence will spread to everyone. You cannot isolate the violence in the theater of war. And so everybody, all sides, will commit atrocities that chip away at their legitimacy. And this analyst was saying it’s critical for joint forces to really stress ethics, to monitor ethics, to have a process to deal with it when people breach those ethics. But I was thinking about that with exactly what you were saying, that Zelensky has had to mount the PR campaign of our lifetimes to establish and maintain Ukraine’s legitimacy in the minds of people like you and me so that we pressure our government to continue to support this effort. And to do that in this media landscape with social media, the technology, I don’t know how you game that out as a military analyst if you’re thinking about the future. But it certainly seems like he has had to fight on more fronts than anyone ever has.

Sarah [00:13:10] I think that so much of this happened certainly during other wars like World War II, and it’s just this private. And there’s still a lot private diplomatically that’s going on that we don’t know about. It’s just so crazy to see with this conflict in particular how much of it has happened publicly. And that if it seems exhausting by what we can see publicly, I can only imagine what it feels like privately with whatever he’s constantly navigating and dealing with. There is no doubt, and that’s what we’re going to get into next, that the way Ukraine has fought back has permanently changed war. I have read so many reports from the front line and what they are doing with unmanned drones, with basically like kamikaze drones and just the way that how cheaply they can put together something that can inflict an enormous amount of damage. Even Russia has started to adapt to the changing use of weapons and technology. And I think we’re just beginning to understand how that will spread and change the way any future conflict is fought. The conversation around Ukraine and Russia has forced to the forefront a long-running critique of our military that we are overmatched. Beth, I know this came up a great deal when you were doing your comprehensive review of Project 2025.

Beth [00:15:03] As I’ve said many times, the defense section of Project 2025 was to me, the most thoughtful, interesting, useful starting point for conversation in the whole document. And I know there are people who hear Project 2025 and turn their brains off, but the defense session is worth discussing. And I heard that from people who work in military procurement, who are in the service, who are married to service members, that there is stuff here worth paying attention to. We’re not going to agree on every point of it, but there is a lot in Project 2025 that I think somewhat courageously and surprisingly, given all of the sort of America first, American greatness ethos of the movement that produced Project 2025, there is a real critique of what we have allowed to harden and fortify around the defense complex. And it says the world has moved on. We have doubled down on old things while the world had been moving on. And what we do here is too expensive. It’s too slow. We are not prepared for a world in which we need to fight on multiple fronts at one time.

Sarah [00:16:17] And this was recently confirmed by a classified Pentagon assessment, the overmatch brief, which was reported on by the New York Times late last year. And war games are not always right and war analysts are not right, but the conclusion of these people whose job it is to be as right as humanly possible because it’s a very high stakes prediction they’re making. Is that for example, if there was some sort of US-China war over Taiwan, as we’re recording the New York Times, there’s a big piece on how if the Chinese blockaded Taiwan and the chips that the entire technology sector relies on, it would cause like 11% loss in our economy. Like, it would just be massive. And when you play out that scenario, we lose. We lose every time. The Chinese have an enormous trade surplus that they have been pouring in to military modernization. They have a larger Navy than we do. Our fleet is down 45% since the 90s, theirs is much larger. They have spent enormous manpower, money, technological prowess into understanding how to cripple our communications networks. And I think what’s frustrating as we get into the reasons we’re overmatched is that not just because of Project 2025, but because of some of their statements and seeming policy priorities, Trump and Pete has seemed to understand this. They have said pretty clearly that they have problems, that we have problems. Now, I don’t know why they’re going after the Boy Scouts as a way to answer this problem. I feel like the problem is so big you would have to just keep your head down, stay off Fox News and focus on it for your entire four years if you were just going to even get close. He’s too busy making people take lie detector tests and purging the top ranks of the Pentagon, but they do seem to accept on the premise that we are overmatched.

Beth [00:18:23] I think they find it useful, but they don’t understand it. I think understanding implies a depth and a level of experience that they do not have and are not interested in having. I think that Pete Hegseth is a good match for Trump because they both care a lot about branding. And most of what Hegseth has done, at least publicly at the Pentagon, has just been a lot about a very surface level brand. And I worry that while there are people within the conservative movement who actually understand this and care about it and are willing to put work in, that those are not the people steering the ship right now.

Sarah [00:19:05] Well, let’s break down why people conclude we’re overmatched. One of the issues is exactly what we were just talking about with Ukraine. Ukraine has survived and even broken out ahead during different moments of this conflict because of the use of drones. Meanwhile, we just spent 13 billion on the Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier. We tried to build a constellation class of warships that cost $3.5 billion and produced zero ships. So we’re still doubling down on the most expensive, technologically complex, hard to build pieces of weaponry while what Ukraine has shown is that the future, at least a big part of the future, of modern warcraft is going to be drones. And we’re out here talking about the Golden Fleet. And I don’t understand. I think it’s so frustrating. It’s not surprising this happens over and over again. People fight the last war. There’s a reason we have that phrase at the ready. And the last war has been so long ago. That’s the other thing. Technology has accelerated so quickly that I think this emphasis-- I was reading in the New York Times about this new plane and the pilot’s helmet alone cost $400,000. Do you know how many drones Ukraine could make for $400,000? Probably quite a few.

Beth [00:20:38] I think there is something in the American mindset because of advancements that we made after World War I and World War II that we’re going to always be great at war and we’re going to always prosper on the other side of war. And I just don’t think that’s true anymore. And I think that the multi-billion dollar shipbuilding mindset is still in that mode of like somebody’s going to get rich because of this and isn’t that wonderful? I think a lot about my friend, Eric, who talks to me about guns sometimes. It’s been a while since we’ve had a chat about guns, but Eric really believes in protecting yourself. And he really liked for me to purchase a gun to have for self-protection. And what he always says is that guns are an equalizer. So if I’m being attacked, it doesn’t matter if someone’s a lot stronger than I am if I have a gun, right? It equalizes the field with us. And I do not find that persuasive enough to arm myself. But if I think about it, that’s really true of technology now. It’s a great equalizer. The advantages that a country like ours used to have because we were able to spend $13 billion on an aircraft carrier are eroded when there is a lot of cheap, easily available technology that anyone can Google how to turn into something that is deadly, that is smart, that collects an incredible amount of data. We used to watch movies about people sneaking in little microphones to listen to conversations. And we live in a world now where every single person carries the capacity to record on them and would look weird if they were trying to hide it. You’d look more suspicious if you don’t pull a phone out in a social circumstance than if you do. And so everything about that landscape has changed. I recognize I’m out of my depth when we start talking about weaponry. But I think what I do understand is that might is a different concept today than even what I hear Trump and Hegseth talking about.

Sarah [00:22:43] We are not even fighting the last war well. We’re not even building the big aircraft carriers. And we tried to build the constellation class and it failed. Our industrial decline is real. We don’t have the capacity to even build the last wars weapons the way that we used to. It’s a massive amount of wasteful spending. The procurement process, which I know project 2025 spends a lot of time on is just out of control. We’ve gone from like 51-- what they call primes, these military industrial corporations that provide a lot of the parts, supplies, weapons for the United States military. We’ve gotten from 51 in the 90s to five. So the same consolidation that’s enshitified everything else in our lives has happened within the United States’ military. And we just keep throwing money at it. There’s this crazy moment where I was reading an article and they were like, well, the military doesn’t have any way to inventory parts. So they just buy more and more parts because they don’t know where the parts they bought are. And I’m like is this a joke? Like, are your kidding me? Like, that’s not worth it? It’s mind blowing. Congress doesn’t help because Congress is out there pouring pork into the military budget that they didn’t ask for. Last year’s budget had $52 billion the Pentagon did not ask for, weapons, buildings, stuff they didn’t even want. These budgetary lapses make it incredibly hard on the military. We have bases we should have closed decades ago, but congressmen protect them. Like, it’s a mess. Again, if we were fighting the old war efficiently, maybe this wouldn’t be the absolute worst case scenario. But not only are we fighting the old war, we’re fighting it badly.

Beth [00:24:27] And it’s impossible to just say, okay, we’re going to stop for a big team meeting now. We’re going to put everything on hold while we have a strategy session because we have service members all over the world, bases everywhere that depend on things continuing to happen. You can see why the status quo gets baked in because we have spread ourselves really thin. And I’m not saying that those people aren’t out doing good and that some of that hasn’t protected us and had real benefits for countries other than ours too. I believe that it has, but it has come at a cost of real stagnation.

Sarah [00:25:03] I think my frustration with Trump and Hegseth is at the beginning of this term, they did have a moment to dramatically disrupt the status quo and the Department of Defense. They had a Congress that was representing anything they wanted. I think they could have closed bases. They did go after the procurement process. They did make some changes and they have put these military contractors on alert to say if you don’t produce what you’re supposed to by your deadline. But again, it’s just swagger. Are there any processes backing this up. And I do want to give them credit where credit is due. I think procurement is some of the stuff that’s bubbled up the most that they seem to be paying attention to. And that’s definitely something I know you talked a lot about with Project 2025, that this process is such a mess. And I just think that they could have instead of just swagger and what was in their control within the Department of Defense, they could’ve pressured Congress to do actual legislative changes that would have stuck around long after Pete Hegseth is gone.

Beth [00:26:02] And what we don’t know in terms of those procurement changes are the effect yet. That they’ve made efforts, but were they good efforts? Were they efforts directed in a productive way? Are they efforts that will outlast this administration? I just don’t know that yet. It takes a long time to see the effects of changes in the military. I mean, recruitment is an example of that. Trump and Hegseth love to take credit for recruitment increasing in 2025, but the truth is those numbers started going up before the election, even before the presidential election in 2024, because of efforts that were in the works for a very long time to spend a lot more money on marketing. It costs a lot to convince people that they want to sign up for the military. It costs more to convince someone to sign-up for the military than it costs to take someone who fails some qualifications and get them to qualified. So it took a long time to see some of the fruits of those efforts. And Trump gets to come in and say, well, it’s because we’ve decided everybody’s a manly man now and they want to be part of this force. And that’s not it. It’s a lot of careful changes that created the conditions for success there. And so I’m just skeptical when talking about procurement that what they’ve done is going to work in the long term. Maybe it will, but I think you got to have a couple years to see evidence of those changes.

Sarah [00:27:25] I’m willing to give them some of the credit for the recruitment. I’m willing to say they were so vocal. It really was a PR push. I think there were people who joined because Hegseth was out there doing pull-ups. Like I do, I hate it, but I think it’s probably right. What I think is so annoying and undercuts any perhaps credit they deserve is that this whole warrior mentality, like we need warriors, I guess but also what we just talked about is war is going to be fought behind a desk. Like you’re going to be out there sending out unmanned drones and deciding like what sort of protections to put in place with regards to the ethics of AI. And there’s been some effort to start recruiting because people are interested in this new technology. In Palantir’s role there was a great piece about recruitment in Silicon Valley and how more and more the tech industry is not a sexy recruiter like it used to be. And so people are looking around to use their skills and education in a different way to serve their country, but they’re not articulating any of that. They’re going after these research institutions that in theory should be a place we would be recruiting for the United States military, like Stanford, like MIT, and instead they’re like going after them because of some woke ideological bullshit.

Beth [00:28:53] Those recruiting numbers as they started to come up again were built around women. And I think that Trump and Hegseth are really setting us back in that regard. You need women, you need immigrants. You need people who are willing to serve their country and be part of a difficult institution for trans people. Like they have made the tent smaller as they’ve said that it needs to get a lot bigger. They’ve been very successful in recruiting for ICE except how do you measure success in recruitment. Is it just bodies or is it competency, capacity, credibility, ethics? So, again, I just don’t know. I think that a lot more study is needed to understand what they’ve done and what the impact of it has been. I am worried and probably the darkest space I get into is when I think about organizations like Palantir and the relationship between technology and war. I don’t quite know how to think about this because it’s hard for me to imagine a war that doesn’t at some point still become mud and violence and blood. The idea that war will be fought from behind a desk I think is right and still incomplete in some ways. And I worry about how sanitized those images are. I saw that video of the Palantir CEO on an investment call talking gleefully about how they help kill people. And I thought, “I don’t feel better about this than what’s going on in Ukraine.” So when you talk about how much this is evolving, I feel like I’m still behind that too.

Sarah [00:30:29] Well, the dramatic difference is that in the past this acceleration came from the public sector, not the private sector. We’re in a new wilderness here where the acceleration is coming from the private sector and the public sector’s trying to catch up. That’s very different from the past. What I have tried to accept-- and maybe it’s just the inevitable march of age that makes you more conservative and security-oriented. I’m willing to accept that as well. But in the same way I try to take seriously people’s concerns about crime and law and order. I think the purpose of a state is the security of its citizens That is one of the primary purposes of the state from both domestic crime and foreign intervention. If we can’t get this right, we already have such distrust in our institutions. You get to a place where people start to ask, what is the point of government if you can’t do the most basic things? I am not looking for conflict, but I am looking for a United States military that can not only end conflict that comes knocking at our door, but prevent it. I was reading a piece preparing for this episode and they were saying like we say Cold War mentality and it’s taken on such like a cynical tone. You think about McCarthyism and all these negative aspects of the Cold War. But the Cold War was won pretty bloodlessly.

[00:32:03] We won the Cold War by out researching, by using technology, by accelerating and innovating and getting the upper hand. And I think that that’s what we have to do with regards to AI, with regards to China. That we have to acknowledge, like, this might be a Cold War, but we have win it just like we won the last one. We’re not perfect, but the world entered an era of unheard of prosperity and safety. And it would have looked very, very different if Russia, the USSR, had won the Cold War. I think it’s hard to just take if you’re not a person who grew up in a military household or just have that sort of competitive orientation to the world. But an authoritarian government like China winning this race and having command of the most powerful weapons in the world would be very bad. It would be, very, very bad. I don’t like Palantir either, but I like it a hell of a lot better than Bite Dance. And I think it feels like a deal with the devil as so many things in war do. But I think putting us on a platform or foundation in which we can succeed, in which we-- I don’t think it’ll be all on our own. We’re not going to be able to reach the manufacturing capacity we need just here in the United States, ever. It’s going to have to be with regards to allies, which is another place that the Trump administration has failed tremendously. But I don’t want to waste billions of dollars in military procurement. I do want the most technologically advanced weapons. And I think that that should be the priority of the administration, of Congress and it just doesn’t feel like it is.

Beth [00:33:59] I understood the direction when we had this bipartisan consensus in DC that we had to win against China. I feel like we were adopting that Cold War mentality for a while and I understood it. I didn’t feel enthusiastic about it. I had a lot of questions, but I understood. I don’t understand where we are today because if we still accept the premise that America must invest in AI and must be ahead of China and must the most technologically advanced nation on earth, it is confusing to me that we have simultaneously allowed some of our most sophisticated chips to be sold in China, that we’ve walked back from that positioning of Cold War into just how can everybody make the most money possible? I don’t understand that. I’m not trying to be critical of it because I do believe there’s an aspect of tying everyone’s fortunes together that can also lead to peace. You see that in a lot of different contexts and I do think trade is part of this. I understand a little bit of the motivation with the tariffs even. It’s just the way that it’s all deployed ends up feeling really random to me in a way that makes me cynical about the motivation. It doesn’t feel like we’re trying to do what you’re articulating. It feels like we say some of what you are articulating when it helps people that we want to get rich, get richer. And we walk away from it when it’s an impediment to that.

Sarah [00:35:31] Yeah. I’m not I’m not encouraged that the Trump administration is going to pick up this mantle anytime soon, but I do think that I want to hear some articulation of this around anybody’s asking for my vote 2028.

Beth [00:35:45] Agreed. For sure.

Sarah [00:35:46] And I want to see consistent articulation of this with some depth, with some acknowledgement that like if you elect me, I’ll fix it all. I’m not looking for that. I’m looking for like we got a long journey and I think it will, unfortunately, most likely require some sort of outside force to motivate people to build the things we need to build, stop building things we don’t need to build anymore. And that’s hard to think about. It’s hard think about the outside forces when you’re talking about security and conflict that could force our hands. But I think that that’s probably the reality. That’s a dark note. I don’t want to end on that because I do think the fact that so much of this analysis and critique is out in the public square being written about, being talked about. It’s important, I think, that the people in the military understand the stakes, even if they feel hamstrung by the processes. And I think the positive note to me too is that we have so many more Congress people with military experience who have been on the inside, who aren’t just going into the military industrial complex to be lobbyists for Boeing, but are running for Congress. Are saying like, no, I have experience that is relevant to these congressional negotiations and decisions. And I think that’s really, really encouraging too. And, listen, I’m even encouraged by the recruitment numbers rising. I am. I think that’s important. I think people wanting to serve their country is encouraging and important. And I think there’s a lot of ways to serve.

[00:37:34] And, hopefully, this Pete Hegseth warrior mentality will be a blip and not a long-term strategy. And hopefully some of the procurement changes they’ve made will have impact and will continue down this road. And we will learn and improve either because people find some sort of source of internal motivation or because the time has come. I read something the other day that made me feel a lot better about this entire conversation. It was called the sleepwalk bias. And it’s predictions that humanity is doomed usually assume future generations will be less aware and less active in fighting for their survival. But historical prophecies of doom, such as the Malthusian trap, ozone layer depletion, and Y2K show this is false. Posterity are not idle passengers headed off cliffs, but problem solvers building bridges across them. And I think that’s 100% true of this conversation we have. No one’s sleepwalking. Or some people might be, but some people aren’t in military and in military leadership and in Congress and that gives me a lot of hope. All right, we’re making a really hard turn here. We’re going from guns to heels.

Beth [00:38:51] We need to.

Sarah [00:38:52] We need too. We have to. Norma asked us, what is our philosophy on high heels? Beth, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you in a pair of high heels. Have I ever seen you in a pair of high heels

Beth [00:39:01] You have. Because my philosophy on high heels has changed in the past couple of years. I went through a long period of no high heels, flats only. I wore Rothy’s for everything, always, for several years. And I got older and I realized that I was going to need some more support than that. And I found like a new place in my heart for heels. Now, not high, high heels. And not think heels

Sarah [00:39:31] I was going to say, we need to define high heels.

Beth [00:39:33] Right, but like a nice responsible one or two inch sturdy naturalizer, that kind of situation. That’s where I am now.

Sarah [00:39:43] Yeah. I mean, this is really hard. I totally agree I wore flats a lot, including tennis shoes with no support. And when we were in Paris recently I brought my Vejas, which are just flat sneakers. And it hurt my back so bad, I moved to these old lady boots I bought with a little bit of a heel and some support, and it made such a difference. I find boots the most comfortable shoes to wear when I’m walking an enormous amount, even some with like a little bit more of a heel. Because, to me, sometimes the thing to remember about heels, high heels in particular, is what hurts your foot is the grasping you don’t realize you’re doing when your foot is not covered. Do you see what I’m saying? Like you’re gripping. I also went on a no high heel tangent. I was never wearing three to four inch heels.

Beth [00:40:42] Me either. I’m too tall for that.

Sarah [00:40:43] Well, I have a a couple pairs that I have worn, but I was not wearing them regularly. Even when I worked in the Senate and you wore heels, I had a couple of really comfortable mid-range, one to two inch-- not one inch, that’s a kitten heel and I don’t do those, but two inches. Then I had a pair of Manolo Blahniks that I bought when I was in law school and they were insanely comfortable. But I pulled them out, got them re-dyed and they hurt my feet so bad. They were not high and they were so light. But still it hurts the ball of my foot to wear them. I did buy a pair just recently of red patent leather, like three inch heels to go with my red tights.

Beth [00:41:30] Nice.

Sarah [00:41:31] And that’s super cute. But I have to strategize. You know what I mean? Like I have worn them the bare minimal amount necessary. Yeah. This is not a walking situation.

Beth [00:41:42] I’m going to a place. I’m sitting down in the place. I’m getting up. I’m going to my car.

Sarah [00:41:46] Yeah, correct

Sarah [00:41:47] Now, I do have a pair of like black patent leather, they might be neutralizers, they’re block heels. I do like a block heel.

Beth [00:41:54] That’s where I’m living. I’m living in the block heel space now.

Sarah [00:41:56] I like a two inch, two and a half inch block heel. I can go pretty high on a block hill. Look, sometimes they’re just pretty. They make an outfit. That’s the long and short of it. I don’t want it to be true, but it is. But I agree, I just think we also overlook that flats are also not the best for your feet and can also wear your back out. Maybe not as quickly.

Beth [00:42:19] I don’t want to wear my back out for high heels. Like for the prettiness, I was a hard no on that. That’s why I got so devoted to flats. But now I just realized that the flats aren’t doing me any biological favors either.

Sarah [00:42:30] They hurt my lower back after a while. I have really high arches. Like if you get my foot scanned, there’s like the bottom of my foot and the heel. They are two separate land masses. There is no connective tissue, you know what I’m saying? But really, really high arches. And so wearing like Rothy’s and the stuff that-- listen, I still like Rothy’s. I still wear Rothy’s. If Rothy’s wanted to do another ad campaign for us, I would love that. I would like to get another free pair of Rothy’s. Also because they don’t just have flats anymore either for what it’s worth. But I agree, you need a little support and sometimes a little heel will do that. So, I’m open. Also like a platform heel.

Beth [00:43:07] I like a platform heel.

Sarah [00:43:08] Big fan of that.

Beth [00:43:10] In the summer, especially. That feels like summer to me

Sarah [00:43:13] So, my philosophy has evolved. I just think you’re 30s, you’re like, I’m done with all these things. And then by the time... I thought that about makeup. I was like I’m not going to wear makeup. What a hoot. And then you just come back around. I think heels is probably another example of that.

Beth [00:43:32] It’s good to go in and out of trends for yourself. It keeps you on your toes. No pun intended. I loved kitten heels. Like when I was in college, I wore a lot of kitten heels, but then I started working downtown and getting caught in grates all the time. And that’s when I really made my turn away from any form of heel. I decided I need to be comfortable. I need a walk a long way. I need a very practical shoe and I need to not get stuck. It’s the most embarrassing thing in the world to be like in the middle of a business conversation with a client and then your heel gets stuck in a grate. It’s awful.

Sarah [00:44:09] I’ve never loved a kitten heel. It feels noncommittal to me. You know what I mean? Like just pick one or the other. But I remember the very first-- do you remember the first time you ever wore a pair of heels?

Beth [00:44:20] No, I don’t think so.

Sarah [00:44:22] I do, because they were a little mule. They’re probably a little bit taller than a kitten. They had a thicker heel. God, I wish I still had them. I bought them in Italy, my summer after my freshman year of college. I mean, I guess I wore-- that’s not true. I probably wore heels to prom. I’m sure I did. I think I kept those for a long time. But this memory is so visceral and vivid because I put these on and I’d worn like strapped heels that strapped to my ankle and these were like mule, like heels, like you just slide into them, they were open-toed, they were so cute, they were so soft and I could not walk in them. I bet I looked like a baby deer. I love to see a young girl who’s like clearly wearing them for the first time and they’re walking on their toes basically, which is absolutely what I was doing because it takes some confidence. I mean, you have to trust the heel, you have to trust your hips, you have the trust your ankles. And the older you get, the trust is just not there, man.

Beth [00:45:21] No, you need less trust and more form. I had a real desire around the kitten heels for a while to kind of cultivate like a vintage esthetic for myself. I’ve never been very good at cultivating a strong esthetic for myself. I think my hair is a big part of that, but I really wanted that.

Sarah [00:45:38] The hair is an esthetic. Built in.

Beth [00:45:39] Yeah, and that’s just the one I’ve got. So I really wanted the kitten heels to kind of set me down that path. But, man, they embarrassed me so many times on downtown grates.

Sarah [00:45:51] Well, I want to hear everybody else’s thoughts on heels. And I absolutely want to hear if you found heels that are very comfortable.

Beth [00:45:59] Yes, please.

Sarah [00:46:00] For sure. And thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics, where we went through a tough topic. Forward your comments on that as well. We will be back in your ears on Friday. And until then, keep it nuanced y’all.

Show Credits

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And yet, when I watch the State of the Union, the emotion that is stronger than anything is hate. I am running out of road on how to engage with this man and how he treats people, how he runs the country I love, how he speaks without feeling visceral rage directed squarely at him.

The only thing that keeps me from burning myself up from the inside out is trying to channel that rage into what comes next. That’s what we do on today’s show. We catalogue everything we hated about the State of the Union and everything we love coming from the race for 2028.

Then, we have a conversation outside of politics that I have a hunch might provoke a visceral reaction in many of you…I welcome it all. -Sarah

Topics Discussed

• Trump’s State of the Union

• Looking Ahead to 2028

• Outside of Politics: Brutal Truths from AI

Episode Resources

• Join us at Memorial Drive UMC in Houston on Sunday!

• More to Say About Special Education (Part 1) (More to Say)

• State of Disunion (Puck)

• How Mississippi Transformed Its Schools From Worst to Best (The New York Times)

• More to Say About the Labor Secretary (More to Say)

• Questions to help you think deeper, see clearer, and grow faster (Dan Pink)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are going to respond to the State of the Union and really workshop some feelings about the president and the cabinet and the Congress, which will lead us to talking about 2028. I love reminding myself that elections come. It’s just that grounding force. We’re not stuck here forever. There will be something new. We get to decide what that something new is. So I think you’re going to love that conversation about 2028. I think there’s a lot to discuss around it and we love it when you discuss the episode with us. And then Outside of Politics, we just both did Dan Pink’s self-reflection exercise using AI Which was a fascinating and mind-bending experience, and so we process that just a little bit

Sarah [00:00:54] Reminder, we will be a Memorial Drive United Methodist Church in Houston Sunday. This Sunday, March 1st at 5 p.m. We’ll be discussing how to move forward and build connection through conflict. So for those of you in the Houston area, we would love to see you there.

Beth [00:01:11] Next up, let’s talk about the State of the Union.

Sarah [00:01:23] I have taken Nancy Pelosi’s admonition that we don’t hate seriously. I really have tried. The more unleashed he is, the more completely obvious it is that what motivates the people he’s put in power like Stephen Miller is just bare, naked racism. The more we have to wake up every day and acknowledge that we’re learning, more that he might actually be incredibly accused of abusing women in the Epstein files, but also that we’ve just accepted that he was like best friends with this prolific child sex trafficker and have to just kind of accept that. And he’s like so bad at his job. And everything he does is in pursuit of his own interests. And it’s just like I can’t breach the wall, man. It’s too tall. It’s so hard to find anything at all to cling to. And so I’m just left with like, well, if you are going to nakedly show me who you are, how you feel about America, then what am I supposed to do with that? There’s nothing but a laundry list of things to hate that feels like what am I supposed to do?

Beth [00:02:55] I think that on an individual level, if Donald Trump were suffering, I would try to get him help. I can still see him as a human being worthy of dignity, and I work on that all the time. Where I can feel myself hardening and I am trying to figure out what to do about it, it is about all the people who spend all their time telling him he’s the king. The State of the Union was so hard to watch because he’s really angry at Democrats in a very visceral way. And I felt that you could just see, particularly this year, that he’s not in rooms anymore with people who don’t make him feel like the king. And when he is, he didn’t even get a lot of democratic resistance. It was a very subdued vibe compared to past years, but he seemed angrier. And I think it’s because he just doesn’t have to be in a space anymore with people who don’t treat him like he is the most special person on the face of this planet who can do no wrong. That is what I am so mad about, that so many people do that, that so people were standing and applauding at every pause for him last night who you know don’t like him, who you know are worried they’re going to lose their seat because of him, who you give quotes to reporters anonymously about how much he sucks and they still perform this. That is where I am really, really struggling.

Sarah [00:04:39] Yeah, just the standing ovations every three and a half seconds are so obnoxious. I know Democrats do it too, and I would like everyone to stop. If we elect a Democrat, please don’t do that. Can we all just dial back the hero worship and the we’re right all the time and they’re wrong all the times? One of my favorite moments is when he asked him to pass the ban on stock trades and Elizabeth Warren stood up and her face was like, yeah, I’ll clap for things that I think are worthwhile.

Beth [00:05:09] Did you see Sarah McBride in that moment? Sarah McBride kept holding out her hands and going, how about you? How about you, too? Do you not profit from your office as well?

Sarah [00:05:18] Yes, good idea. I mean, the hypocrisy. And I know people in the Republican caucus understand the hypocrisy of this administration standing up and putting JD Vans in charge of fraud. What is this? Why are you mocking? I feel like I’m being punked constantly.

Beth [00:05:40] There are so many things that I wonder in 10 years, how are we going to think about this? Beginning with the photographs of the Al Green protest. This is a tradition now for Al Green. He’s a representative who always ends up getting kicked out of the State of the Union. He’s been censured about it before.

Sarah [00:06:01] He also got a tough primary coming his way, not for nothing.

Beth [00:06:02] He does have a tough primary coming up. He comes into this one with a sign that says, black people aren’t apes. Seems like a very non-controversial sentiment, right? And he’s just holding it. And there’s a picture of Steve Scalise pushing against the sign. And I thought, I wonder in 10 years what Steve Scalise is going to see when he looks at a picture of himself pushing down a sign that says black people aren’t apes. What are we doing here? What kind of time capsule is that?

Sarah [00:06:40] So much of him warps people’s perception. And I think that’s why I’m just like, I hate this. I hate all of this. We spent a lot of time on the Spicy Bonus episode yesterday talking about the men’s hockey team and their reaction to Donald Trump saying I guess I’ll invite the women too. And I’m like we don’t even get mad at him because we’ve just accepted that he’s the misogynist in chief. Like our reality is so warped that we can’t see how jacked up all of this is. I was listening to your special education series and just getting so mad like this gaping wound at the heart of our education system, and he’s up there telling us how the economy is roaring. And it’s just crazy making. It is crazy making

Beth [00:07:36] So I think he had a couple of revealing moments during this speech in terms of how he’s assessing himself and the world. He was telling us how great everything is because he knows it isn’t. And so he decided I’m just going to do exactly what Joe Biden did on affordability and deny that there’s a problem and talk people out of their experience.

Sarah [00:08:01] I’m going to piss on your leg and call it rain. My favorite Southern expression.

Beth [00:08:04] And he talked about the violence of crimes committed by people who are here illegally, but he did not say the word ICE in the whole speech. He did not talk about Minneapolis. He did not talk about renovating the White House, which is something he’s clearly spending a lot of time on.

Sarah [00:08:27] He loves it too. And I thought it was so interesting how often he brought up I didn’t name it. Well, bitch, then tell them to name it something else. Do you not have the power to change the name? That’s intriguing to me.

Beth [00:08:39] And he says it because he knows on some level it’s a problem. But he can’t refuse it.

Sarah [00:08:44] He can’t not do it.

Beth [00:08:45] He didn’t use the word infrastructure one time.

Sarah [00:08:50] Well, maybe we’re done with infrastructure.

Beth [00:08:52] I guess we are. And he did not talk about the Epstein files at all. I was curious about whether he would try to tell us that’s a hoax, like talk us out of our experience on that one too, but he just left it out entirely.

Sarah [00:09:05] Puck had this great like clocking of the time he spent on everything and you could tell Particularly with affordability it was like two minutes and 17 seconds. It was way about the same time he spent on the men’s hockey team, less than he spent on Venezuela. Venezuela was like four minutes and 37 seconds. So he sort of stuck to the script but you could tell like he doesn’t want to talk about affordability. He didn’t give a shit and he thinks everybody’s wrong and that tariffs are going to make up for the income tax. Again, I don’t even know how to react to that. That’s ludicrous. The top thing they think if you just maxed out tariffs, which in some ways this makes sense because you know what Republicans like to do? They like to regressively tax. So you would get rid of this income tax and you put sales tax in places that are a burden on the poor and middle class. So in some way this makes perfect sense because that’s all the tariffs are is a sales tax, basically. But even if you tapped it out, it’s not going to get close to the like I think it’s like $2 trillion we take in with income tax. Like, are you dumb? Does anybody tell you the truth?

Beth [00:10:10] Even with how ludicrously sycophantic that room was, he did not get roaring applause in that whole tariff section. There were multiple times that you could tell he was stopping for applause that did not come even from the Republicans. Laying into the Supreme Court is a bad move, even for the Republicans. Like it was silly. I watched the speech this time yesterday. Can I just feel real sorry for myself? I had dental work and then I watched the State of the Union. I sat down and I watched it though with the transcript in front of me so that I could like mark it up as I was going. And so seeing paragraphs unfold, the page I have in front of me now just in the margin all the way down the side I just wrote long illegal immigration section where he’s talking about crime in these extremely visceral gross terms. I felt so sorry for the family members who were there to be recognized because I thought this is a horrific way to describe what happened to your loved one. And I felt like he just had to do that because of the violence perpetuated by his administration. The only way you can accept a joke about blowing people up on fishing boats, which he made, is if he has convinced you that the people that he’s against are so dangerous to you and are coming for you in the most graphically violent terms possible.

Sarah [00:11:37] I don’t think people are going to buy it. I do think the fear mongering has worked in the past, but I think the way that ICE has rolled out across the country and the impact down into the smallest farming communities, I just don’t think the hits are going to work this time. I’m sure it will tighten up some of the base. But as far as the persuadable people, they know that this is not ever-- I mean, not everybody, but I do think it has penetrated that so many people getting swept up in these ICE raids are not violent criminals. If you are on social media at all, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, there are so many stories, videos that you’re going to see some of it. I just think it’s pretty much unavoidable. I guess there’s probably some far right wing media silos that it’s not getting through to, but that’s not who the State of the Union’s for. You know what I mean? The State of the Union is for the people you’re trying to persuade. I was like I see you trying to pull out your hits, my dawg, I just don’t think they’re going to work.

Beth [00:12:45] I truly don’t know who the State of the Union is for anymore. I’ve always felt this way. I hate how this debases Congress. And I have for every president, Democrats and Republicans, I do not think that the Constitution in saying that the president is supposed to report to the Congress about the State of the Union means the Congress is supposed to bow down and kiss the president’s feet in their own chamber. He openly mocked the role of the Congress throughout this speech. There were multiple times he said, I don’t even need this. I don’t need Congress to do this. He said it about the terrorists. We don’t need Congress. I can just do it. When he asked Congress to pass things, you could tell his heart isn’t in it because he doesn’t care about asking anybody to do anything. All of that said, I tried to give this an analytical read-- if not a generous one, an analytical reading. And so I went back through the transcripts of all of his State of the Union addresses from his first term, last year, this year, looking for what’s new here. He plays his greatest hits. Is there anything new? And where he has new things that are good, or at least down a good path, they’re kind of complicated. They’re not things that I think the public can really sink their teeth into.

[00:13:58] Like most favored nation on prescription drugs has not been a great sell for Democrats who’ve tried to do that forever because it’s complicated. You have to explain that for a while for people to get it. And he said it’s done now and people aren’t feeling the effects of it in large enough numbers. Some people are; it makes a real difference for some people. I’m not trying to diminish that. Those Trump accounts for kids will make a real difference for some people. I’m not trying to diminish it. I like that he’s talking about home ownership and trying to make that available to more people without diminishing the equity people have built up in their houses. I don’t hear a lot of specifics about how he’s going to avoid that very difficult tension, but I like that he’s taking about it. I want to give credit where it’s due. Politically, I think what’s tough for him is that none of this has the mass appeal and the easy bumper sticker slogan kind of understanding that has made him politically salient despite all of his downsides. I think his downs sides are very clear this time. They’re much easier to understand than these limited upsides.

Sarah [00:15:04] What I heard is somebody who has now been in American politics for over 10 years and on some level, either through like the speech writers themselves or like the political reality, is facing that outsider don’t work no more. So he kept saying it’s all the Democrats fault, but we’ve done such a good job. We’re doing such a job at fixing it. It’s always the incumbents challenge to say, I feel your pain, but also I’m responsible for your pain. And you can feel him struggling with that, especially because he wants to promise the moon. And eventually people are like America is not great again. We’re all freaked out about AI, prices are so high, people cannot afford the American dream. You said you were going to make America great again. It’s not great again. And all you do is slap your name on everything and code it in gold. So what’s going on? Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but I just think like people have gotten pretty good at speaking Trump and they just know he’s just going to lie. He lied so many times. And again that’s another thing that we’ve just absorbed as a reality.

Beth [00:16:22] Yeah, I don’t try to fact check it anymore. What’s the point?

Sarah [00:16:25] Right. The president of the United States stands up at the State of the Union and lies to all of us. Like, it is so heartbreaking. And we’ve just absorbed it for survival. And it’s just so frustrating. I’m just running out of emotions besides like I hate this. I love this country. And to have him wrap himself in the flag-- it’s like even the medals, the medals really bug me. Because if you want to honor someone with a presidential medal of freedom, then they should get their moment. This never happened before. If you got that honor, you got invited to the White House. You weren’t a prop in a room where you had to sit on the fucking stairs. You got to invite the people that were important to you into the room for this honor. And he has just made it like a bachelorette rose. Everybody gets a rose. It’s just so debasing and infuriating. Some of these people deserve these awards, but you know what they deserve? They deserve a ceremony. They deserve it to be about them, not you wrapping yourself in stolen valor.

Beth [00:17:46] Yeah, I was thinking about this as I was watching it because we talked about this with the men’s hockey team in our Spicy onus conversation. I don’t blame anybody who goes and accepts that medal. I don’t expect people to come out and denounce their State of the Union invitations. I don’t expect someone whose daughter was killed in the line of duty to say, “Pass. I don ‘t like this president’s policies.” I don’t assume anything about those folks for the most part. At the same time, I do think it is gross. And I’ve thought this in every presidency too, doesn’t matter if it’s a Democrat or a Republican. I don’t like using people as props. If we want to have every year some kind of feel good, introduce America to real heroes out there doing interesting things, there’s a beautiful way to do that. And that’s something that Congress could decide it wants to do instead of hosting the president. Congress could say we’re here because of you. We’re here for you. And we want to highlight you. We want to lift up people across this nation in all different kinds of work who are doing amazing things and tell their stories. I think that would be a wonderful State of the Union replacement. And the president could send a written report to Congress where honestly the Congress ought to be able to send the president questions they’d like answered. I did an episode of More to Say this week about the Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer. And in part of my research, she is plagued with scandal right now, but I was trying to look at policy issues too. And six senators have sent her a letter with lots of very specific policy questions about things happening in the Department of Labor. And I thought, this is what the State of the Union should be. We have questions, answer them, because you are accountable to us as the people’s representatives. And this display where he can’t even hand out a medal without saying, “Wish I could give this to myself. They tell me I can’t,” it’s hilarious.

Sarah [00:19:46] That’s the thing. I assume one thing only about these people they deserve better. Again, if your child has died in the line of duty, then you deserve a real moment not 30 seconds of quick applause before we move on to talking about how crazy the Democrats are. Like they deserve better than that. And look, the State of the Union as a vehicle to communicate with the American people, I appreciate. It’s really not just communicating with Congress. I think it is a moment outside of a campaign or a crisis that is like a report to the American people that I do think serves a certain purpose. And I’m not really opposed. I thought it was I don’t agree with this policy. I seriously doubt Americans are going to, again, see this dramatic drop in their pharmaceutical prices. But I don’t mind putting a face on it. I think that’s valuable to say, we talk in big numbers, but here’s a woman who had a drug that she needs for her IVF and it’s bottomed out and now she can afford it. Fine. I think it’s worthwhile to invite people into the gallery and say, let me tell you their story because everything we do here matters to real Americans. Here’s one that matters in the room with us. I don’t really mind that. I think it’s valuable that people are consenting like as long as they show up and say you can use my story to illustrate this problem or the solution, fine. But all the awards, they gave a medal to that man who saved all those children from the floods. And then he sat on the steps. What is this? Stop. They deserve their own ceremonies. Heroes deserve their own ceremonies not 15 seconds of standing ovation. Like, and to use them as like a gotcha. Like, see, they don’t even stand up for this. Blah, blah, blah. Like, it’s just ugh!

Beth [00:21:33] I think the reason I still disagree about the individual stories is because what the president does for them is very brittle. For that to be a lasting policy change that those families can rely on, it has to come through Congress. That would be appropriate in a congressional hearing.

Sarah [00:21:51] I’m thinking like you’re George H.W. Bush, you’re trying to push the Disabilities Act across the line in Congress. Then you say, look, this matters. You have to pass this. Like, this is the person it matters to.

Beth [00:22:01] And I get that stories are how we all grasp policy. And it is the most important way to communicate to the American people about it. There is a real rub for me in Donald Trump who is turning the White House gold and spending a lot of his attention on building a ballroom there. Touting an extra $5,000 coming into a household because of no tax on tips. And again, $5,000 is significant. I’m happy for those families. Looking at who this administration benefits, it just felt so Marie Antoinette to me. The caricature of Marie Antoinette, I think she gets a bad rep in history too, but the caricature of that it just really grates me. Especially when I think about things that he has in the past at least given some lip service to that are just gone now. He used to talk about paid family leave. He talked about it in every State of the Union in his first term. Gone. He used talk about criminal justice reform and did some actual work on that in his term. Gone. He used to talk about ending the HIV epidemic. Gone. Again, not even the word infrastructure was used. And despite like a throwaway line as he talked about how we shouldn’t have political violence, which I agree with, I’m glad he said it, despite that, there was not even a surface level appeal of bipartisanship here. Not a single moment of real outreach to Democrats in the room or watching at home.

Sarah [00:23:40] Again, we’re not having a policy debate. And there’s a part of me that’s like, well, this is what he wants. He wants us to hate each other. Like that’s what fuels him. But I just hate him. I just think he’s such a cancer. And every time I’m like forced to listen and witness what motivates him, which is just pure transactionalism and it is so Heartbreaking. It is. I do love this country and the way you’re exploiting America 250 to say only people who love me and want to worship the king that I am and live in my court and obey my rules get to celebrate this country. It’s just God. It’s so infuriating. I’m running out of reactions. I really am. I’m just left with like trying to survive it.

Beth [00:24:42] I think that that’s where we are, just trying to survive it. And that’s why my deepest ire is for all the people who are writing it for their own purposes. Watching the members of the cabinet, every time Pam Bondi stood up, something inside me almost exploded. He, to me, just is-- and I can accept that there will always be people like him in the world-- the enablers that I can’t get over. The number of enabler and the depravity of the enabling that I just can’t. I can get over

Sarah [00:25:23] Enabling is not even a strong enough word to me. It’s like accomplice. A criminal accomplice is what we’re talking about.

Beth [00:25:29] Yeah. Let’s take a quick break and come back and talk about the response from Governor Spanberger and many other people as 2028 really kind of fires up. Sarah, I have a confession. I got up this morning to make our outline for this conversation and then I got in the shower. And while I was getting ready, I realized that I had not put anything about the response in the outline. And I mean that as a compliment, I think, because the responses to the State of the Union that I remember, I remember only because they were horrifying. I remember Katie Britt. I remember Marco Rubio. Like if it is SNL-able, that’s when I remember it. And I think hers was just very competent and fine. And that’s about the best you can do with this assignment.

Sarah [00:26:24] I thought it was better than fine. I don’t know who said, okay, we’re just going to put you in front of a podium with an audience.

Beth [00:26:30] Much better.

Sarah [00:26:31] But that person deserves a raise. Like, that was much better instead of asking a politician to work with the camera. That’s hard, guys. That’s really hard. That’s a skill you have to practice. And so I thought like that orientation with she gets applause too was so much better. But I thought more than just do no harm, she just laid out a roadmap. You want to know how to do this? You want to how to talk about what people care about while also sticking it to Donald Trump? Here you go. And do it real tight too. Just like real tight.

Beth [00:27:05] I liked that it was short. I did like the questions she posed. I thought it got repetitive in a way that was not very inspiring. I liked the end of her speech very much. He sucks is just a bad message. And I thought at the end she found the thing that is other than an additive to he sucks and here’s why we want to work for you, not just he’s not working for you. Thinking about how tough this gig is though, I have developed, I think, a new Roman Empire because I am obsessed with this fact. The last five responses to the State of the Union have all been from women.

Sarah [00:27:43] Wow.

Beth [00:27:44] Before Spanberger, it was Elissa Slotkin. Before her, it with Katie Britt, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and then Kim Reynolds. You have to go back to Tim Scott in 2021 before you hit a man. 10 of the last 14 responses have come from women. 14 years and 10 women have done this. And this is supposed to be a slot that’s rising star in the party, who we want to highlight in contrast to the sitting president. And I just think this is fascinating.

Sarah [00:28:17] If you look at the list, they’ve eaten these women alive.

Beth [00:28:21] Yes.

Sarah [00:28:22] Who the hell is Cathy McMorris Rodgers? I don’t even know who that is.

Beth [00:28:25] She was a very powerful Republican in Congress. Paul Ryan was putting her in charge of committees. She was big deal in the pre-Trump Republican Party. She served for 20 years in Congress.

Sarah [00:28:42] It’s her Joni Ernst who said she’s not seeking reelection. The Senator from Iowa, Nikki Haley, even Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kim Reynolds. To me, particularly on the Republican party side, although I think you can make the same case for Stacey Abrams, but I think that harm was self-inflicted, not for nothing.

Beth [00:29:01] It’s a more complicated case, for sure.

Sarah [00:29:02] But like Marco Rubio did in 2013; he’s doing just fine.

Beth [00:29:05] And his was a disaster.

Sarah [00:29:07] And it was a disaster. I think there’s a real glass cliff thing. Do you know the glass cliff?

Beth [00:29:12] Yes.

Sarah [00:29:13] Where they bring in female CEOs when it’s really, really bad. But usually it’s often too bad to rescue.

Beth [00:29:20] That’s why this fascinates me. This assignment sucks and it’s being given to women.

Sarah [00:29:26] But I think Spanberger did exactly what you should do. To the point where it’s like now I’m like why are we not talking about her for 2028? We should be talking about Abigail Spanberger for 2028. She’s a moderate. People love her. She swings seats. She’s also fighting the gerrymandering fight. Like I would imagine after that pitch perfect performance we probably will be.

Beth [00:29:48] I don’t know. I don’t think she has any kind of magic about her. I admire her. I respect her. I think she’s competent and smart and will probably be a very good governor and doesn’t have the thing that you watch a speech and go, oh, okay. This makes my heart go pitter-patter the way that it seems like we want from presidential candidates. I would love for us to be like, you know what, a competent, smart president who doesn’t razzle-dazzle me is good enough. And I don’t really want to see her do a State of the Union. I just want her doing her dang job and reporting to Congress for Congress to reassert its power as the first branch of government. I would love to live in that world. I’m not quite sure that we’re there yet, but maybe we’re moving in that direction. We can hope.

Sarah [00:30:30] I feel like sometimes though like it’s hard to name a woman who does the razzle dazzle because I just think that’s like a standard set by men. Can you name one you feel like when she does a speech?

Beth [00:30:40] I think people feel that about Gretchen Whitmer. They certainly feel about AOC.

Sarah [00:30:43] Yeah. I’ll give you AOC for sure.

Beth [00:30:46] So I think it’s possible.

Sarah [00:30:48] I think it’s harder though.

Beth [00:30:49] It’s hard.

Sarah [00:30:49] So I think for women to do it, the standard is so, so high. Because I think the charisma factor coming from a woman, it’s just such a double-edged sword, man. Like, it’s a such a tight rope.

Beth [00:31:04] That’s Stacey Abrams. That tight rope is Stacey Abram’s. People felt that from her. And the lights got so, so bright that it became a lot to carry.

Sarah [00:31:16] Yeah. And I just want competency. Like the hatred that I felt during the State of the Union when Abigail Spanberger stepped out there and I was like this is what we could have. We could just have somebody who does the job, who just cares, who’s whip smart, who knows what the hell they’re talking about, who doesn’t need you to bow down to their ego. I was texting a friend, I was, like, what about Spanberger-Talarico 2028? I feel like that’d be a little bit unbeatable. You know what I mean? Like I’m into that lineup. I am really trying to think about a different type of appeal. I don’t want to see somebody sort of like-- I know people like the fight. You sent me that Senate candidate in Illinois commercial that’s just everybody saying f*** Trump over and over again. And I’m like, guys, no, I don’t want this. I want to go back to where it’s like, oh, I don’t know, people figuring out that your friends with Jeffrey Epstein would ruin your career permanently. I want that again, please, please, please. I want like if you had a staffer who self-emulated after an affair, that’s career ending. Like I want a really high standard, not for the fight, but for the ethics of the person running for office.

Beth [00:32:35] I agree. That is my number one issue going into 2028. I want someone who is willing to limit their own power and is committed to clean government. In addition to that, if I’m just looking at policy today and not trying to be razzle dazzled by a person and not trying to fall in love, Rahm Emanuel is working on me. I feel like he is demonstrating what it looks like to take a career filled with experience and apply that experience to this moment. And to say, here’s what government can contribute. His policy proposals seem possible to me and on the mark, like things that would just hit, that would do something.

Sarah [00:33:21] They feel responsive to the actual problems Americans are concerned about. I don’t want to be so laser focused on affordability that we miss things like the role of tech in our lives, which everybody is like fully freaked out about. So it’s like I want to hear... And I think that’s why all of a sudden you have democratic governors like Pritzker and Shapiro being like, whoops, I was pushing too far for AI, I better back up on this because people don’t like it. Democrats have traditionally been so strong on public education. And it is crumbling. And I want to hear someone talk about it, which he’s doing. He’s talking about scaling up the Mississippi miracle. Which if you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s like this incredible situation coming out of Mississippi, where they have not only met their pre-COVID literacy rates, but like blown past them by guess what? Getting out paper and pencil and putting the computers away.

Beth [00:34:11] And focusing on phonics. Just Basics, just the real basics.

Sarah [00:34:15] So the first presidential candidate that stands up and says we have a special education crisis that is affecting general education, they might just have my vote. You know what I mean? I need to hear you talk about what people are actually struggling with and policy proposals to fix it.

Beth [00:34:36] And I like the specificity and narrowness of the policies he’s talking about. They would affect big change, but they do sound manageable. This idea that he has to give a $10,000 tax-free bonus for military members to get in an apprenticeship, to go into the skilled trades, electricians, carpenters, plumbers, construction workers, that is an affordability idea. That is a workforce idea. That is an idea that grapples with our aging population. That is an idea about mental health and purpose and community. But it’s a targeted idea. It’s one program, right? The government’s good at giving out money. The government could do that. The federal government could that. And I feel like that’s the kind of thing that an independent would hear and say, great idea. That a Republican would hear and say great idea, who’s not for this? I love that. That’s what I want more of. That feels like a breath of fresh air to me.

Sarah [00:35:35] I mean, his national service requirement, which we’ve talked about on the show a lot. And I think I’m like getting these net price calculators from college and they want me to mortgage my home and extract money from my retirement to pay upwards of $130,000 a year to send my child to college. What is this? What are we doing? That’s insane. I don’t even know what to say because that’s insanity. And until someone starts speaking to these things that we’re all encountering, the crisis of care with older generations. And that’s the other thing. Somebody needs to say, look, voter skew older. Our population is going to skew elder. These situations and problems are going to compound unless we name that and put up procedures and policies and processes to weight younger generation’s concerns. Because it’s just going to get worse sending your kid to elementary school or college or trying to buy a house because we’re just going to to get a higher and higher percentage of the older generations and elderly population, which already have a lot of support in our social safety net. And even that’s not enough because we are exporting all the immigrants who take care of people.

Beth [00:37:00] Well, here’s another thing I really like about Rahm Emanuel, which listen, I am as shocked as anyone that I’m becoming a Rahm Emmanuel cheerleader. I really am.

Sarah [00:37:07] I’m not. I think Rahm Emanuel’s really freaking smart.

Beth [00:37:11] Super smart. But like not someone I would be friends with. I’m never going to love Rahm Emmanuel the way that I love Pete Buttigieg, but this is smart politics, it’s smart policy, it’s targeted, it makes sense. I have struggled in myself with how frustrated I’m getting about the very, very top of the income ladder and the control, especially tech CEOs have in our society, because I don’t want to do class warfare. I don’t want to say that being rich is bad. A lot of people want to be rich and good for them. I want to live a comfortable life as much as the next person does. I think the way he is speaking to that issue is so good. He talks about that national service requirement and says, everybody should do six months of service before they’re 30. If you do more than that for every six months, the government should cover a semester of college for you at a public university because our public universities are great. And that’s where community gets built, right? I love that he is talking about how with Mississippi, the answer to our core educational challenge is in Hattiesburg, not Harvard. That’s a way to not do class warfare, but to say we have too few people controlling the narrative in this country. We value too few peoples’ opinions. We’re not looking broadly enough for solutions and ideas. I love it. I think he’s about pitch perfect right now.

Sarah [00:38:38] Well, here’s the thing about Rahm Emanuel, okay? And maybe this gets to the policy that we were talking about, but also like the fight that people want. Make no mistake, Rahm Emmanuel is a shark. This is not a warm and fuzzy man. He was the mayor of Chicago, okay?

Beth [00:38:58] And the White House chief of staff.

Sarah [00:39:00] The place where they made that [inaudible] Trump. And some of the parts with the Chicago accents, I did enjoy. So he is a shark. He is a street fighter. And I think what’s so smart about him is he’s like I’m not going to be James Talarico. And honestly, there is a part of me that’s like I really want that. I really want someone who is a good person and kind and empathetic. Clearly that’s the path Andy Beshear is trying to walk for himself. I get the appeal. And also we have some really, really big problems. And, to me, he is like a really good crossover of the shark, the street fighter who knows what to do, who knows how tough the situation in front of us is. And I think it’s brilliant that instead of like trying to dress up and do this sort of heartfelt dance that is appealing, he’s like, no, you know what I’m going to do? I’m just going to put some ideas on the table that people can listen to and decide for themselves. Because at the end of the day we need someone who knows how to get shit done. And like Andy Beshear is thoughtful and caring and all those things, but he is not a very powerful governor. I don’t mean him personally. I mean, constitutionally within the state of Kentucky. Like they have taken more and more powers away from the governor. So he doesn’t have to think about how am I going to street fight this through the halls of Congress because they have a veto proof majority in Kentucky. To get things accomplished here, he’s learned a lot into economic development. He’s done the things he can, but street fighting to convince somebody to pass is just not within his wheelhouse because there was just no path forward with some of these things. And so I want somebody who’s like had to-- I mean, Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Education, not a problem I’d want on my desk. Let me tell you what, not a problem I’d want one on my desks. But he did some of the hard things like closing some schools that need to be closed. And that was hard because Chicago’s population was decreasing. I just think we have to really like check in. Do they make me feel good or can they get it done? And I do think Spanberger is a good melding of that. I believe that she is a good person, that she can speak to what it means to be a good person. I believe her. I don’t think she’s necessarily like a shark, but I think, I mean, considering her--

Beth [00:41:31] She worked for the CIA. She’s a shark. And good for her.

Sarah [00:41:34] Exactly. Considering her previous career in the CIA. I do believe that. Right, but I also believe like she will come up with some like actual idea. But I’m going to need to hear some policy from some of these people.

Beth [00:41:50] I have so much to say about this. I love a good person, obviously. I hope that’s obvious. My faith is incredibly important to me. And exploring my faith and cultivating more depth in my faith is important to be more and more as I get older. I also have less and less interest in hearing that from politicians as I get older because that’s not what this is. Seeing the power that Trump has had over our population has informed me in a lot of ways. And one of those ways is that I care less about having a president who makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I want someone who can comfort the nation after tragedy. I want somebody who likes people and cares about people. I mostly want someone who’s smart and can do the job well. And I don’t want someone who decides that they are going to try to make us all into images of themselves. That’s what Trump wants. He wants a lot of people running around America, acting the way he acts. And I think when we are tempted to fall in love with the opposite of that, there is a horseshoe effect, right? There is still that effect of I’m trying to create a lot different versions of myself.

[00:43:03] And while I think that that is in ways, promising and good for us, I think could be incredibly damaging to faith too. There does need to be some separation. And I don’t like the way that Andy Beshear is positioning himself right now. I don’t like the title of his book. I don’t like the invocation of faith in all the spaces. I think if you look at his record, he’s been a good governor and I appreciate him. There’s damage to the state of Kentucky that the legislature has rolled back the governor’s power so significantly on his watch. In response to him, he has not forged relationships across the aisle to prevent what the super majority in the Republican Party has done. He has not chipped away at that super majority in the Republic Party in our state. He has not built an enormous bench of Democrats who can win across the state. And I’m not trying to put down a person who I respect and like quite a bit. I think he’s a good person and I do think he has been a good governor and I’m grateful that he’s been our governor. But this savior thing I think is bad. And I think it’s bad for faith as well as politics. And so I would rather have somebody like Emanuel who will put something specific on the table and not try to convince me that he’s amazing, but say, this is a good idea. I want it to be about the idea.

Sarah [00:44:24] Well, here’s the thing. I don’t need you to tell me I need you to show me. So even Talarico, when I heard like he’s in seminary I was like well okay that changes my perception of him. So he’s not just trotting it out. Like he was actually putting some time and his own personal energy behind it. Same with Raphael Warnock. It doesn’t read as like thou does protest too much or like let me make sure you understand me through this lens. You don’t have to know shit about Raphael Warnock when he stands up to talk. That you’re like, oh, okay. It hits different, man, when you’re not trying to like put it on as a branding exercise versus when it’s the fiber of who you are. And I think Rahm Emanuel, the fiber of who he is, is a street fighter. And he’s going to fight for it not about him, it’s about tell me what works and what we can get done. That’s all I care about. Put something in front of me that will have impact and tell me how we can get it done and what I can do to get it across the finish line. Everything else is bullshit and I don’t care. And like doesn’t that sounds so sexy? Sounds so sexy to me.

Beth [00:45:37] Well, the other side of it that is so sexy is that it is also about these ideas, not about Trump. He’s not doing the Gavin Newsom street fighter. Gavin Newsome’s a street fighter too. And he’s been effective in talking about Trump, but I don’t want the next president to talk about Trump ever for a day.

Sarah [00:45:53] But the thing about the most successful moment Gavin Newsom had is when he put that street fighting to effect in the gerrymander fight. When he was like I will not sit here and do nothing. I have the power to do something, so I’m going to do it. And that’s what I want to see. I don’t want to see another Vogue profile, my friends. Show me what you’ve done. I think Pritzker is a fighter. I really do. I think he is. I think he has some limitations because of his own personal-- to be real honest, I’m not looking to elect a billionaire at the end of the day. It’s a little disqualifying for me. I hate to be that way, not trying to perpetuate class warfare, just how I feel. And I think Buttigieg is in a tough spot because he can’t show the fight. He’s very limited because he’s not in a... But you know what, so is Rahm Emanuel and somehow he’s getting it. Like he’s showing like I can’t just do podcasts. I can do something else. He’s not just saying about Mississippi. He’s showing up at these small democratic party candidate meetings in deep, deep red America.

Beth [00:46:55] And, look, I don’t know what Emanuel’s ultimate goal is here. If he doesn’t get anywhere in the Democratic primary, he will make a Buttigieg better. Steve Buttigiege is now putting out some policy proposals. Like he has this new social contract about AI. I don’t think he would have felt the pressure to do that without Emanuel. I think that putting ideas on the table and trying to generate some excitement about ideas, even simple ones. Like if you’re the president or a member of Congress or a federal judge, 75 is it?

Sarah [00:47:30] Hallelujah.

Beth [00:47:31] Simple.

Sarah [00:47:32] Hallelujah, my dawg.

Beth [00:47:33] Understandable. Doesn’t take a policy paper to explain that to anybody. Has bipartisan appeal. Just him throwing that stuff out there and getting us back to ideas. God, that is a public service that I’m grateful for.

Sarah [00:47:45] Also want to say, Rahm Emanuel, you are welcome on Pantsuit Politics.

Beth [00:47:49] You could have three hours of my day, friend. I would love to go deep with you on these ideas.

Sarah [00:47:54] I believe he would do it. I don’t think for a second he’s somebody’s just presenting this and he’s like sounds like a good idea. I bet you he knows it inside and out.

Beth [00:48:02] That’s right. He would have no problem in that format, none. And that’s important too.

Sarah [00:48:08] Yeah. Well, I hope he listens to this.

Beth [00:48:10] Well, on the Republican side, I just wanted to mention the reporting that President Trump’s new favorite game is to ask people if they like JD or Marco better.

Sarah [00:48:18] I love it so much. I want JD Vance to get screwed so hard in this. And I think he could. I think Marco Rubio is gaining allies and JD Vance is not. JD Vance has some good ones like Donald Trump Jr. But it’s a tough gig being the vice president. Not a lot of opportunity. When he was like I’ll do the war on fraud; I wanted to be like then why don’t you call up Kamala and ask her how that works? When it’s fundamental weakness of the administration and you’re put in charge of fixing it. That’s not a great guess. It’s just not, I wouldn’t have done that.

Beth [00:48:47] There was overt praise for Marco Rubio in the State of the Union and not for JD Vance, I noticed. So really interesting. I also like this because it reminds me that President Trump knows he can’t be the president a third time.

Sarah [00:49:01] It does. I like that too.

Beth [00:49:02] And he loves pitting people against each other. It feels to me like another symptom of his boredom with the office. His heart’s not in. He’s not having fun anymore.

Sarah [00:49:10] No.

Beth [00:49:11] And once he gets everything built and decorated, he’s really not going to have fun anymore?

Sarah [00:49:14] Well, he’s going to try to build that arch and I swear to God I’m going to chain myself to something.

Beth [00:49:18] And you know we’ll see even more of that if the midterms don’t go his way.

Sarah [00:49:22] Well, he is really on the party. I think he’s pretty focused on the America 250 party. I do think he is having fun with that. I think we will have a prize fight at the White House on his birthday, which is just embarrassing. I’m embarrassed. But I think Marco Rubio if he ended up being the nominee, I would not be surprised.

Beth [00:49:45] But you know what, if he can get more excited about a prize fight at the White House on his birthday than bombing Iran, I’ll take it.

Sarah [00:49:52] Word.

Beth [00:49:52] I’ll take it. I’m not trying to be greedy here. Well, I’m sure you all will have many, many thoughts about the State of the Union and the state of the 2028 race, and we cannot wait to hear them. We are going to take a hard turn up next and talk about self-reflection. Sarah, you sent me Dan Pink’s self-reflection questions that are built to be used as AI prompts. And I would like to hear how that came across your desk first?

Sarah [00:50:35] I just like Dan Pink, so the algorithm knows that. I guess I still get his emails. Maybe I saw it on YouTube. I don’t know. I like Dan Pink. I watch a lot of his stuff. I think he’s smart. And so when I saw this, I was like, oh, wowzers. Like you prompt the AI to say like I want you to be a consultant. I want you to be brutally honest with me, taking in what you know about me from my-- now it’s a lot easier if you’re Dan Pink or you’re us and there’s just a lot of public information about you on the internet. But to say like, okay, I want you to brutally self-assess my blind spots and what am I pretending to care about that I don’t actually care about? My favorite, what advice do I give others that I’m terrible at following? I mean, that’s just a good journal prompt whether you’re doing this with AI or not.

Beth [00:51:25] How long did it take you to work through this?

Sarah [00:51:29] Probably an hour or so. My husband was horrified. Nobody tell Griffin I did this, please. He might not speak to me for a month. I’m concerned it would be harmful to our relationship because it is weird. It’s a weird thing to do. And that’s the thing. It’s not like I was doing it because I’m like going to change my life based on what... I just wanted to see like what is this like? What does this feel like? Because the hard reality is people are asking real personal questions and forging like personal relationships with AI. And so I was just trying to see what is this like?

Beth [00:52:05] That’s what interested me about it when you sent it to me too. I thought, I don’t want to take this very seriously, but I do want to go through it. And I didn’t even like some of the questions. Like, I hate the question, what nasty things do people say about me behind my back? Really hard for me to imagine a scenario in which that information would do me much good. That does not feel like self-reflection to me, that feels like ego. So I had a problem with a lot of these questions. I don’t want to maximize anything in my life. There’s a question about what am I playing small in? Listen, I’ve done a lot of therapy to learn to play small. You know what I’m saying? This really didn’t speak to me in terms of the questions themselves, but I was interested in seeing what would happen just interacting this way with Claude, which is the large language model that I use the most. And it was a pretty fascinating experience.

Sarah [00:52:58] I actually like the what nasty things are people saying about me behind my back because they were about what I expected. And so there is like a kind of relief of anxiety or fear or paranoia when you’re like, oh yeah, I know people think I think I’m better than everyone else. I know. I don’t believe that. And so, there’s just very little I can do about that. Some of them I was like, okay, well I knew this already. That’s fine. I felt a certain amount of relief with that one In a way, but Claude also told me that I had a savior complex dressed up in more reasonable clothes, which I thought was so rude and perhaps somewhat accurate. And just hearing I think it’s the older you get-- and I think that’s why this exercise appealed to me, the older you get the easier it is to navigate, manipulate your way out of honest feedback. Your tools get better and your brain’s capacity to be like, yeah, but just gets better and better.

[00:54:09] Especially if it’s coming from a friend or it’s coming from a therapist you always kind of say-- and look, you can say it with Claude too. Like Claude doesn’t know me; it’s a robot. But if it hits, it hits and some of this stuff hit. And it’s not hitting because I can tell myself Claude doesn’t me and it’s robot, but I knew some of it was true in my soul. And I just think it gets harder. It’s hard to find a therapist who will do this sort of judgment of how you behave in the world. Because I feel like they’re not really trained to do that. And a life coach at the end of the day, you’re paying. There’s just a lot. And people who love you, friends and family, don’t want to hurt you. They don’t want to be brutally honest. And so I think it’s sort of protective in a way coming from a robot. So you can hear it and take it in, but it doesn’t hurt your feelings in a way because it’s a damn robot. So, I don’t know, I found it really interesting and it helped me really be honest with myself about some stuff that I’ve talked myself out of. Let’s just put it that way.

Beth [00:55:21] I’m stuck on what you said about how it’s easier to get out of honest feedback as you get older because I think that’s true. And simultaneously, I think it’s easy to accept really hard feedback as we get older.

Sarah [00:55:36] Yeah. It’s a real paradox.

Beth [00:55:37] This exercise probably would have really gotten me in my head 10 years ago. And instead I find some of the brutal honesty pretty refreshing. I feel an enormous sense of peace about the things identified as problems for me. Like, yep, that’s how I am. And it’s true, and I’m at peace with it. And I understand that I can work on it all day, but that’s probably something that’s always going to be true about me.

Sarah [00:56:08] But would you have felt the same way if you and I worked through this together and I was the one telling you this stuff?

Beth [00:56:13] No. Because I think that what’s really valuable-- and I felt this in therapy too-- is working with someone who just doesn’t have a stake. Especially when you first start a new therapeutic relationship, it’s so clear that that person they don’t know you, they aren’t invested in you, they don’t care about you beyond their professional obligations. And so you can poke at things without believing there’s an agenda behind those. And it was nice to do this to something that doesn’t care. Period. That it doesn’t have the capacity to care and to know that. Now, I did continue to feel that sense of dread that I feel about a lot of AI through this exercise because it was so sophisticated in responding to me. And I think it would have been very easy, especially if I were younger to treat this as a human who is in relationship with me and be really drawn in to the authoritative tone that it uses to respond. Like, I just thought, man, this is something where keeping this in its frame is so valuable. And I’m probably like just old enough and mature enough to keep it in its frame and just the right place like technologically to be able to do this well and keep it in its frame. Like it’s dangerous, man. This is dangerous stuff.

Sarah [00:57:34] It’s a set of skills that you have to be a lot older to take in and navigate for sure. And, look, I’m just coming around that all the kinds of places. Like with fame is the thing I’ve been fascinated with for so long. And I’m just coming around to like, well, I don’t think it’s fame. I think it how old you are when you get famous. George Clooney is fine. You know what I mean? It’s fine. Dude’s fine because he spent 15 years trudging through and didn’t get famous until he was older. And he’ll tell you I am so glad I did not get famous when I was younger. It would have ruined me. And I think back to Rahm Emanuel, finally getting to a place where we’re saying like we can’t just roll this out on kids. They do not have the capacity to navigate. I feel that way about social media. I feel that way about AI. I feel that way about sports gambling or prediction markets. So many things. I feel that. Fame. Like I just feel like the intensity of the human experience and the way it gets more intense because of technology, that’s why you have this generation that’s becoming so nihilistic. These babies cannot handle it. Like there’s no character flaw there. It’s just you can’t handle it, man.

Beth [00:58:47] I think it’s age and it’s connection. So you look at like a Taylor Swift who got famous pretty young, but she’s very grounded in family. Yeah. And I noticed that going through this exercise too, Claude was really hard on me for trying to clean up for everyone. I try to manage everyone’s feelings. I try buffer where someone else has been harsh. I am constantly out there trying to take care of everybody. And Claude was like, who are you really honest with than just yourself? And now I have a list. Like I’m at a place in my life where I have a list and Claude was like, okay, that’s a good list. And I think this is fine.

Sarah [00:59:22] That same exact moment where it was like, you’re a public figure and this can be really damaging and you want to see a perception of competency and capability. And it’s just like, who are you really yourself with? And I’m, like, dude, I have so many close friends. It’s fine.

Beth [00:59:37] Plenty of people.

Sarah [00:59:38] I have so many close friends and family. And he was like, oh, well, that changes things. Like, that’s interesting that we both had the same experience.

Beth [00:59:44] Yeah, there were a lot of moments like that where Claude would be like... Claude kept saying to me like, you’re a pastor, I don’t know why you’re avoiding it. And I said, for lots of reasons, here they are. And Claude was like, okay. Those are good reasons. And I do want to say I think it would be interesting to do this with different models. Like, I don’t know what chat GPT would have done here. I saw some of the ethical constraints built into Claude in this experience. One of them was at the very beginning when Claude was like, hey, there’s a lot I don’t know about you. So I’m really limited in what I can tell you. And I thought that was good. At the end, because of some of Claude’s harsh feedback for me, I fed in some transcripts of our episodes and said tell me what you see in here. And that was very, very valuable because this feedback was so specific. And so then I asked, how often should I run a transcript like this to check in on this tendency that I have? And Claude was like, not very often. You’ll try to grade yourself if you do it. And you don’t need to be in your head about this. You should just trust that you’ve asked the question, you absorb what you needed to absorb from the exercise and you’re going to go do it.

Sarah [01:00:57] And I thought, well, this is the first time that technology has ever told me not to use it. And I felt really good about that. Again, I didn’t feel so good about it that I’d be like, hey, Ellen, you should come do this. But I did see the choices that I’ve made in using Claude and the information that has compelled me to use Claude versus other models, I did see reflected in this exercise. I’m really curious if anyone else has done this. I’m curious what people think about these questions. We’ll link the questions just for fun and see if you have any feedback on those. We really appreciate you listening today and spending time with us as we workshop how we feel about everything from Donald Trump to ourselves, and that’s a broad spectrum. If you’re in Houston, we would really prefer to spend time with you in person because that is the best way to be together. We’ll be Sunday night at Memorial UMC. For everyone else, we’ll be back with you on Tuesday. Have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Since then, I’ve come to better understand that the tariffs are not an economic tool to Trump. They are just an instrument of power and control.

The Supreme Court said on Friday that the President doesn’t have this particular kind of power. Today, we talk about what that might mean practically. We also talk about who does have power in this economy and what worries us. There are no immediate action items here except looking for candidates with a current vision about the economy and a willingness to serve the public without enriching themselves simultaneously.

Outside of politics, we talk about The Pitt (which is honestly the only thing I want to talk about right now).

Thank you for listening, always.

We can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the tariffs, the economy, and, of course, The Pitt. -Sarah

Topics Discussed

• The Supreme Court says Trump’s Tariffs are Illegal

• Economic Indicators are Changing

• Outside of Politics: The Pitt

Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

• More to Say from the Supreme Court about Tariffs (More to Say | Pantsuit Politics)

• Emily Ley v. the President of the United States (Pantsuit Politics)

• Opinion | The Finance Industry Is a Grift. Let’s Start Treating It That Way. (The New York Times)

• 'Canary in the coal mine': Blue Owl liquidity curbs fuel fears about private credit bubble (CNBC)

• Jim Chanos: ‘We are in the golden age of fraud’ (Financial Times)

• Repair Cafe

• ‘The Pitt’ Season 2: Behind the Scenes with Noah Wyle (The New York Times Magazine)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:10] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:11] You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we’re going to talk about the economy. First, we are going to be talk about the Supreme Court decision, ending Trump’s tariffs and what his view of the trade deficit means for the economy. And then we’re going to transition into a broader conversation about an increasing number of warning signs and the dollar in the bond market with regards to private credit. Don’t worry if any of those terms confuse you, we’re going to walk through them really carefully and try to put some puzzle pieces together about not only the Trump administration’s approach to our economy, but the overall approach of our economy that’s been in place since the financial crisis and how that’s playing out. And if that all sounds tough, don’t worry. Beth has finally watched The Pit, hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Dylan, please insert some sort Choral praise music. And we’re going to talk about it. We’re going to talk about Dr. Robbie, who I love. We’ll talk about Dana. Beth has a prompt she wants all y’all to think about through the lens of this show. It’s going to be good.

Beth [00:01:24] I’m obsessed. Chad keeps saying, don’t you want to save some? I’m like, what? No, I don’t.

Sarah [00:01:31] Listen, it got so bad, I was staying up so late on my pilgrimage to England, because I was like, oh, I know, I’ll watch The Pit when I go to England because I like to have like a little something at night in my room by myself. That was a bad idea. I see that now. Because this show and they’re freaking cliffhangers. They’re so rude.

Beth [00:01:47] Every time.

Sarah [00:01:48] So I got smart about three, four days in when I’d already incurred like a five hour sleep debt. I would watch it to like mid episode when it just lagged just a little bit. I’d be like, okay, episode over. And then I would pick it up from the middle to the next middle so that I wasn’t tempted to watch like three or four episodes in a row.

Beth [00:02:04] I see and honor the discipline of that. I just want to sit on my couch and watch The Pit. There’s really nothing else that I’d like to do right now. And I’ll tell you, this is not quite as much fun as watching The Pit, but if you want to understand more about the Supreme Court’s tariff case, I did break it down using Broadway music, okay? Because when the justices are joining in part, but not this part or that part, we need a little hook to help us understand what’s going on. And I think I did an interesting job with that on More to Say. So that’s on Substack, if you’d like to join us there. Also, want you to know that we’re coming to Texas Sunday. It’s here, came so fast. We will be at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church in Houston on March 1st at 5 p.m. If you are in the Houston area, it’s free to come hang out with us and we would love to see you there.

Sarah [00:02:54] Up next, let’s talk about tariffs. Or as the Supreme Court really wants you to understand, taxes.

Beth [00:03:08] As happens, breaking news on Friday, last week, the Supreme Court issued an anticipated decision about the tariffs. So the case is called Learning Resources Inc versus Trump. I mentioned that name because the president has said that evil foreign forces were working against him in the Supreme court. And I think what everyone should know is those evil anti-American forces are small businesses. It’s a bunch of small businesses that sued the Trump administration about the tariffs that they were having to pay. Now, these are not all of the tariffs that Trump has issued during his presidency. It’s lot of them, but not all them. But if you really think about Liberation Day, those kind of sweeping some percentage on every country, that’s what we’re talking about here. Those tariffs were issued based on two emergencies. Sarah, do you notice how many emergencies we’re living right now, according to this administration?

Sarah [00:04:04] I mean, it’s hard to make fun of them because I actually do feel the chaos of an emergency. I do not agree with them what emergency we are currently living under. So I want to be like, haha, they call everything an emergency except for the act of calling everything an emergency in the way they exercise power. As a result, does in fact create an emergency.

Beth [00:04:31] And look, presidents name things emergencies to unlock new powers for themselves. That’s the point. It’s not about really speaking to complexity or challenges that the American public is feeling. It’s about opening a door to new power. And that’s the case here. So the two emergencies that the president wants to use to unlock tariff powers are a public health emergency based on drugs flowing into the United States. And a supply chain emergency because of our trade deficits, which Trump has long believed, and we’ve talked about this many times, hurt the American economy. Based on those two emergencies, the president went to a statute called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. It’s a law passed in the 1970s to say because of these two emergencies I get to impose tariffs on the whole world. And the Supreme Court said in a 6-3 decision, no, you don’t. That statute does unlock new powers for you, but they are very specific ones that Congress described in a lot of detail. And nowhere do we see the word tariff in that statute.

Sarah [00:05:45] I heard this described as a 3-3-3 decision, that you have the three liberal justices saying, no, just under a plain reading of this legislation, he does not have this power. Then you have Roberts, Coney Barrett, and Gorsuch saying no under the major questions doctrine that I don’t like just for the record, I think it’s a bad doctrine. Happy that the outcome came this way. Then you have Kavanaugh, Alito, and Thomas dissenting, saying, no, he can still do what he wants because this is foreign policy and the major questions doctrine only applies for domestic policy. I said on the News Brief, man, when the decisions break out like this like joining in part A, section sub two, I’m like, bleh. That’s not my favorite Supreme Court decisions. But I think the high level is that they finally said no to something, which is encouraging.

Beth [00:06:46] Well, and just to give a little bit of context about the major questions doctrine, it is an idea that when Congress is delegating one of its most fundamental powers, Congress needs to say so very specifically. The court is not going to squint and read into a statute that kind of delegation of powers. And what I think is interesting politically from this case, I spent a lot of time breaking out all of those opinions on more to say. Today I want to talk about the politics of it because politically the Supreme Court says so plainly, tariffs are taxes. Now we’ve been saying that plainly. Lots of people have, but the administration does not want to talk about tariffs as taxes. The administration wants to say tariffs are magic wands that are going to make all Americans very rich and cost other people in the world money, but not us. And the Supreme court says, no, tariffs are taxes paid by American businesses. And Congress under Article I of the Constitution has the power to tax. And when we were writing the Constitution after a revolutionary war all about taxes, giving that power to Congress was really important and intentional. And so what Roberts and Gorsuch and to a lesser extent Barrett say is that we are never for any president of any political party about any policy going to squint and read a decision of Congress to delegate power more broadly than we think the text itself says. Barrett softens that a little bit. The three liberal justices say, we don’t need to discuss that here. We don’t need to relitigate our COVID cases. We don’t need to relegate the student loan forgiveness case because that’s kind of what that piece is about. We just need to know that here, in this case, the statute itself is clear and it does not include that power to impose a tax. So it doesn’t include the power to impose tariffs on any country and any product for any reason, for any length of time, at any rate, subject to the president waking up and feeling different tomorrow.

Sarah [00:08:54] Yeah. Because we were stuck in this doom loop where it wasn’t even based on emergency powers. It was based on somebody hurt his feelings. Somebody didn’t respect him the way that he wanted to be respected. And then all of a sudden there was a tariff. So it was truly out of the bounds of believability, his argument for these tariffs under an emergency power. My beef with the major questions doctrine, is it feels to me like they are saying we are protecting congressional authority, but what they’re really doing is telling Congress how to do its job. Which feels to me like not an exercise in checks and balances. It feels to be like you are expanding your own authority by saying you get to decide if Congress has never done its job adequately to your satisfaction. You get to define whether it’s a major question, you get define whether they’ve spoken to it clearly enough, and to me, do I think the IEEPA was sloppily written? Sure, but that happens a lot in Congress. And if the Supreme Court just keeps raising the bar on what is required in order for them to enforce congressional action, then again, they get to decide what history means, they get to decide if it’s a big enough major question, they get just decide if Congress spoke clearly enough and what this always feels like to me. I know the headline is always their expansion of presidential power, but it also feels to me like they’re just expanding their own power. They thought that the administrative state had gotten too large, and so they think they’re better arbiters. And I’m just not really sure that’s true. I’m happy with this outcome. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want him to be able to just impose tariffs on a whim because somebody hurt his feelings. But I still quibble with the Supreme Court; although, I think they made the right call here. I am not sure I’m going to change things. They didn’t force, they’re not requiring him through the words of this decision to pay back the billions of dollars people paid in taxes. He came out immediately and said under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, he’s going to do a new 10% global tariff. Well, that’s good news for some countries that have had much higher tariffs imposed on them like Brazil and China, bad news for others like Britain. Then he came out the next day and said I’m going to raise it to 15%. So I’m not really sure what the practical effects may be. I do think it creates a mess with regards to what happens next. But as far as him feeling any sort of limitation, I’m in favor of that.

Beth [00:11:17] I think I disagree with you about the major questions doctrine, but my opinion about that is still forming because it’s relatively new. It really started to coalesce around COVID restrictions. And I agreed with the court in some of those cases, with the conservative majority in some those cases and disagreed in others. What I think is helpful about that discussion in this case-- and all of this is kind of sitting in an alternate universe. That’s how the Supreme Court operates, right? It only answers one question at a time. Roberts would say, not my job to figure out what happens next. I had one question to answer, I answered it. And now the lower courts have to figure out unwinding those tariffs. The court of international trade is going to have to tell the administration how to do those refunds. It’s going to work its way through the process again. So the Supreme Court gets to create its own bubbles and work in those bubbles. And in that major questions bubble, which is just such a luxury question for the world that we’re living in right now, I think that Gorsuch contributes a lot in his concurring opinion in this case by saying without principles like that, where we say, here’s how we’re going to do statutory interpretation; we all are hypocrites all the time, which is just part of politics. We all are inconsistent about politics. Gorsuch is really giving it to both the liberal and the conservative justices in this case. He’s saying to the liberal justices, I’ve been reading your writing about presidential power for many years now and it sure seems like you ought to be on the other side of this one. Because you read statutes for all they were worth when president Biden was in charge.

[00:12:59] And then he looks at Kavanaugh and Alito and Thomas and says, huh, wonder what’s different for you now because I sure read your opinions in those years too when you said, absolutely not; the major questions doctrine is a huge line protecting Congress’s power and limiting the power of the executive. So what’s changed everybody besides the person in office and your feelings about their policy? And I think that contributes a lot to this discussion, and I think it’s far from over around the major questions doctrine. To your point about Trump coming out and immediately saying, I’m going to do new tariffs now, it’s going to be a lot harder for him to use other authorities. So that 10%, no 15%, where he’s already changed his mind, comes from a different law, the 1974 Trade Act, and it only lets him do that tariff up to 15%, that’s the ceiling, for 150 days. And if he wants it to go on after that, Congress has to approve it. And other laws that they might use to keep the tariffs going, because they know Congress isn’t going to approve it, require agencies making certain findings. They’re going to have to do investigations that justify tariffs on specific countries or about specific products. This liberation day, I woke up and just felt what I felt and divined what the tariff should be isn’t going to cut it under all these other laws. So it’s not a complete shutdown of his tariff power, but it really does change the landscape for him now.

Sarah [00:14:34] I think what hasn’t changed is his articulated desire to reduce the trade deficit. He thinks we import more, way more than we should and export too little. And he thinks that is screwing America. Now, we have run a trade deficit for decades and post-liberation day, the trade deficit has increased, not decreased. Now, some people see this as a problem, others see it as just a natural consequence of having the world’s dominant currency- the dollar. But the Trump administration thinks it means we’re getting screwed and the tariffs are supposed to fix that. I think it’s worth talking about, which is what we’re going to talk about next, their view of the dollar and the dollar as a world reserve currency and the proliferating warning signs that their approach to the economy and long-term economic trends since 2008 are really coming to a head. So I think it’s really easy to just see everything through the lens of Trump, especially because of his extreme trade deficit policy. Because of these tariffs it’s easy to just think, this is all Trump, this is all his fault. All these warning signs we’re going to click through.

[00:16:12] And I think some of them are the policy of the administration, but I think some of these are long-term economic trends, including the financialization of the American economy since 2008 we’ve had a 10-year bull market, which has really been driven, and we’ve touched on this a couple times over the course of the show. By intervention in the central bank, putting a lot of money into circulation, working with the bond market, dropping the interest rate to near zero for so, so long. And so I think that it is important to know that like some of these trends started way, way before Trump. Now, retail participation in the markets, crypto currency, poly market. They’ve unleashed a lot of that. I think the Silicon Valley culture, move quickly, break things, is growing in tandem with that. It’s like all these, to me, Beth, what it feels like is all these long-term trends have just been it’s like they’ve joined forces under the Trump administration and accelerated. The speculation, the loaning of money and all these increasingly financialized and hidden ways. And, of course, the complete lack of regulation, like all of that to me. The empowerment of the tech sector to run rampant and do what they want. Like it just feels like it’s all converging at this particular moment with the Trump administration who has some conflicting but also clearly articulated views about America’s role in the global economy.

Beth [00:18:04] I think you’re right that so much of this predates Trump and really built the groundwork for his electoral success. You sent me a terrific piece from the New York Times about how banks used to invest in real things happening in the world. It talks about this through the lens of the song from Mary Poppins where they’re explaining to Michael that when he saves his money with the bank, then the bank goes out and builds bridges and boats and makes things in the world. And that’s how our system works. Michael makes money back from that investment a little bit, but the world gets better too. He’s contributing to something in the word. And that is just not how it’s been for a long time. For a long time especially in the United States, our economy has been about investing in other investments that are hedged against other investments. And we saw that come crumbling down in the financial crisis, 2007, 2008. And I think that set the stage for people to look at someone like Donald Trump who says, see, everything is a scam, so get yours. And America should get its own instead of being burdened by trying to do things better. Out of 2007, 2018, we had a push for more regulation and more constraints on how that investment world worked. And Trump came in and said, why? All the world’s a casino. And so stack the deck in your favor as much as possible and hope for the best and try to get rich without losing anything in the process. And I understand why that appealed to people. And I understand why people like a very low interest rate. There is so much about what the president says that has real appeal, but it’s like with the tariffs. He always wants things to be a magic fix without any cost on the other side. And that’s not possible.

Sarah [00:20:00] Well, worth noting that the man couldn’t even run a profitable casino, not for nothing, in his past career. And I think you’re exactly right. And what that misses is why all of this financialization worked is because we weren’t a casino, because we were stable, because we weren’t gambling along with everything else. And what you hear articulated, there’s a document that has a policy paper come out of the Trump administration called the Mar-a-Lago Accord, that specifically talks about weakening the dollar. Trump has said, yeah, the sliding dollar is great. The dollar has fallen 9% since he took office. Trust me, I just got back from Europe. I could tell you all about the weakening dollar. Now, meanwhile, Scott Besson goes on TV and says, no, we have a strong dollar policy. So they’re saying opposing things that market’s notice and the people who invest in the market’s notice. And the problem, I think, the weakening dollar makes sense if you view everything through the we’re getting screwed through this trade deficit lens. But we only export about 11% of our economy. And other 89%, the retail sector, the services sector, that gets hurt when the dollar is weak. That means higher prices, stickier inflation. It also means that the rising stock market it’s not exactly-- when Pam Bondi goes in front of Congress and starts screaming about the Dow, well, if you price those markets in euros, something that’s maintained some stability and is not weakening, it looks a little bit different, doesn’t it? It’s not rising through the roof. And I think then you get where the stability that this global currency is built on, the rule of law, faith in institutions, an independent central bank, democratic stability. You start to see the cracks and the dollar status starts to really, really erode. And I think that that is why people are running and looking for stability. They’re either trying to bring some real precision to their speculation with stuff like poly markets, or they’re looking for real stability like gold.

Beth [00:22:18] Yeah, it’s interesting how right now everybody is trying to grab for stability knowing that it doesn’t exist. And so you do see people reaching both forward and backward. You see this clinging to the artificial intelligence sector even as people are worried that it’s a bubble. Everything feels contradictory because it is right now. And I do think a lot of that is because we are reaping what was sown far before Trump became president. And with his presidency, he wants neutral observation. I’m not saying this as a criticism, but as a neutral observational about Donald Trump. He wants maximum flexibility in all spaces at all times. And markets don’t like that. Markets want to understand. They want these policy papers. They want you to express a view and know that that view will be consistent at least for the next year, at least until the next election. We have built-in instability for markets with midterm elections coming up anyway. When you pile on top of that, an administration that just doesn’t hold very long to one idea, that’s tough. What do you invest in in that environment?

Sarah [00:23:33] According to analysts at the Atlantic Council, markets are now pricing US policy uncertainty the same way they price uncertainties in countries that do not have reserve currencies. That’s crazy. So we are reaping basically none of the benefit of having the global reserve currency because people are so concerned about the instability. And you can see that he wants that maximum flexibility. Watching him run our country, it surprises me not at all that he’s gone bankrupt as many times as he has, first of all. He wants to just throw money at it. Spending is out of control. He shows no concern for the deficit at all. The bond market, just to refresh because sometimes I start reading about the bond market and I have to go wait, what is the bond? So when the government needs money, it borrows by selling bonds and it’s an IOU. The government promises to pay you back with interest after a set period. And the interest rate, traditionally on a 10-year treasury bond, is one of the most important interest rates in the world because it sets the floor, the bottom of what borrowing costs should look like everywhere. And usually bond prices and interest rate move in opposite directions. So when more people want to buy bonds, the prices go up, the yield goes down, which means it’s cheaper to borrow for everyone. When fewer people want bonds, because perhaps they’re concerned about the instability inside the American economy and government, prices fall and yields go up.

[00:25:08] So they need to keep selling bonds to fund all this spending, but they have to offer higher interest rates to attract them. And so that has put the Fed in a real, real trap. If they cut the rates while inflation is still pretty sticky and the dollar is already weak, it makes inflation worse. And that’s why they have what they’re calling stagflation-lite. Slower growth plus stubborn inflation with limited tools to fix it. Because that’s all they want. He wants to throw money at it and drop the interest rate. Because what does he care if there’s inflation? He’s sitting on a trillion dollars. So I just think that you can see. And they’ve interfered. Like I said, they interfered so often way before he got here. But now we’re borrowing at such a rate. 601 billion in just the first three months of this fiscal year, 2026. I don’t think he knows about what the one big beautiful bill tax cuts are going to do. I don’t know if he’s paying attention to that. We have to sell more bonds to pay for this. Did you read about how they’re trying to figure out the $50 billion in military spending they want to put in the budget and it’s so much money they don’t even know how to spend it? I’m like, what is this? What is this?!

Beth [00:26:22] I think that’s really important for people to know. It’s hard to follow this if it’s not your world. And it’s hard to have any grasp of these numbers. They’re so big. For so long, the stock market has seemed disconnected from reality in a lot of different ways. So it’s easy to glaze over here. You can understand though, when officials say this budget is so large, we don’t know how to spend it. You can understand that they’re not serious about cutting costs when you look at something like DOGE. Remember the Department of Government Efficiency and all those jobs that were cut?

Sarah [00:26:59] Yeah, I do. Against my will.

Beth [00:27:01] Just as one small example to follow up on how DOGE is doing. I just made this series about special education on more to say. DOGE almost eliminated the Office of Civil Rights, where they enforced some laws that protect students in schools from discrimination based on disability. So many lawyers were laid off. So many offices were closed. Eventually, a court stepped in and said, you’re doing this wrong. You can’t do it. We have to freeze things for now. For months, the Trump administration told those people who a court said could not be fired, you’re going to eventually be fired, so stay at home. The government paid tens of millions of dollars in salaries and told people not to work. And so all of that work piled up, and eventually all those people came back to work. The government let it go, reinstated the positions, and now those folks are back to work with a massive backlog. And we just flushed tens of million of dollars for nothing. For nothing. I mean, I’m glad those people were paid and those families didn’t go without during that time period, but that’s not a serious long-term thinking businessman running our government, right? And that’s been the con this whole time because he says I’m a businessman, but what he is is a TV businessman and he handles the economy episodically. He says, one big, beautiful bill tax cut, hooray. No future thinking about what that’s going to mean. Tariffs today, hooray, no future thinking about what that’s going to mean for small businesses. Cryptocurrency, amazing, no feature thinking about what’s that going to be. It is all one episode at a time and you can’t make reasonable, thoughtful investments in the private sector based on that. You certainly can’t invest in our bonds when you know that that’s the mentality.

Sarah [00:28:57] Well, and I think, again, it’s just the manifestation of, look, we all were doing 0% interest rates, hooray, what does this mean in the long term? Post 2008, I think it was smart to make it harder for big banks to make risky loans. But did anyone say, well, where are people going to go for these risky loans?

Beth [00:29:17] That’s right.

Sarah [00:29:18] And that’s the other thing that’s really coming to head. You have this incredible Market of private credit where people are borrowing money from non-bank lenders hedge funds, investment firms, and these midsize business they need credit. They need capital to flow and it’s all tied up in higher interest rates where well the Fed is in a trap. It can’t lower interest rates because of the weakening dollar because of what we just talked about and so you have this private credit, I don’t know, growing nightmare is really what I feel like we should call it. You have a rising number of people doing payment in kind, which means they’re not paying back these private interest loans. They’re just pushing the payment to the next one like skipping your credit card payment basically and just tacking it on to the end. Then the real canary that got my attention was Blue Owl Capital. It’s one of the biggest players in private credit. It recently just stopped allowing people to withdraw money. Well, what does a lender do when there’s a run on the bank or a run on the institution?

[00:30:22] They shut it down. And the funds were marketed with the promise of liquidity. You could get your money whenever you wanted. Well, when redemption surged, they shut it down because these are risky investments and they were made on the dependability that we’d get back to that zero interest rate, that we would just have perpetual growth that would fuel all this financialization. Same things happen in private equity. You have a log jam. They’re supposed to buy things, extract the value and sell them. Well, guess what’s hurt them? Higher interest rates. And so they have $3.8 trillion in companies that they can’t get out of. They have a long jam of stuff they can sell over at private equity. So all of this simmering is starting to boil because we built so much of this economy on zero interest rates and perpetual growth. And we certainly don’t have a philosopher king who can help us out of this and transition into another form of a global economy. He’s just kneecapping things where he can and not paying attention to how this is going to play out in the long-term.

Beth [00:31:33] I think it’s really important to talk about this, not because there’s an action item today. We’re not telling anyone, go withdraw your savings from the bank and put it in your mattress or invest in gold bars or anything like that. I don’t think there’s a action item, today. But being aware of warning signals flashing is important. And when you vote, looking for candidates who have some kind of theory about all of this, it’s not going to work to have people who say, well, let’s just go back to. fill-in-the-blank date. We are way past going back to. We need people who have a future vision that pulls all these frameworks together, that figures out what government’s role is, that has a plan for when things go south because the economy will go south at some point. We’re not going to have perpetual growth forever and ever that benefits all people. So I get frustrated in elections with candidates who sound like they could be running in any year, not just this year. And that’s particularly true for me right now. I’m listening for candidates who are saying something that they could not have said if they ran two years ago or four years ago because the metrics are really different. It’s a different board right now.

Sarah [00:32:50] Well, and that’s the thing. Everyone is looking for stability. Used to you’d go to the bond market, you would go to the dollar. Well, not now. And so you see people searching like for gold, stable coins, which is making the Trump family very, very rich. Prediction markets like Polymarket, where you can really dial in the precision of your risk, also making the trump family very, very rich. And even people like speculators, I think Bitcoin was supposed to be like digital gold. It was supposed be this stable situation. It’s down 40%. All these people who trusted Trump, all these cryptocurrency bros who thought, yeah, we’ll he’ll unleash us. Yeah, unleash you to lose a bunch of money. I heard somebody describe this market as K-shaped. On one end, people are just going to get richer and richer and richer. So if they do have a long-term theory, that’s it. We’ll get richer and rich and everybody else will fall behind. And that seems to me, what’s happening? That there is not just like this search for stability, but you also have a lot of even just consumer delinquencies with regards to credit. Like just credit card bills going unpaid, other types of loans within the consumer market going unpaid. Like people are struggling and they don’t have a plan. I mean, they do have a plan. The plan is for them to continue to get rich when really what we need is an articulation of that vision, of an articulation of regulation that will prevent not only this enormous speculation, extraction of value from our economy by those at the very top, but like just fraud. I heard the guy who was the one who called Enron before it ever happened, called it the golden age of fraud. Like there’s just so much opportunity because they’ve taken their hands off the wheel to let anything and everything go. Even tying it into what you were saying at DOGE, that so many people who would be-- the government was always outmatched when it came to this kind of speculation and financial market. And with the decimation of the federal workforce, that’s just gotten worse. And I think that was the point.

Beth [00:35:13] I think it was the point too. And so as we think about who we’re electing in that K shape, I think we have to really press candidates on their willingness during their time in public service to build a little bit of a bubble around themselves. If you’ve ever been concerned about insider trading, meet poly market. These prediction markets are such an opportunity for people with access to information that lets them see around corners to make bank on that. And so we need people running for office who say, while I serve, I am willing to be hands off with my investments. I’m willing to take a lot of financial risk in order to show you that my decision-making is for the greater good, not for my personal portfolio. There are a lot of different ways that can go. Those are not sexy issues that people want to make commercials about. But that kind of focus on some fundamental fairness and some leveling of the playing field through rules is really important right now.

Sarah [00:36:25] Yeah, it’s just so opaque. It is just so hard to see clearly what’s going on. They’re making a little bit progress on the no trades, the trade ban in Congress. But how long is it going to take us to get to this Polymarket example you’re exactly articulating? Like, that’s a huge risk. We need oversight. Part of the risk for the private credit, just like it was back before 2008, is that people can’t see what’s going on and you need regulators. Well, they’ve completely disbanded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That was one of the answers to 2008. The SEC, I don’t know what they’re doing. The DOJ is decimated on so many levels. I can’t imagine they’re out there worried about private credit valuations. So I just think the oversight is lacking. The enforcement is lacking, the regulatory innovation. That’s what I’m looking for. I’m going for a regulatory innovation. Don’t just tell me we’ll clean up the mess from five years ago. The messes are piling up quicker than y’all are finding fixes. And that’s a bigger issue, both administratively and bureaucratically, that I want to hear some candidates address. Because I’m glad the Supreme Court forced this sort of transparency and accountability, but they’re not the answer. They move way too slow. We’re going to need way more than that if we’re going to see ourselves not only out of the mess he’s creating, but the mess that has been being created for the last 10 years.

Beth [00:37:48] And what Gorsuch says so plainly in this set of opinions is that the only place to have that vision and do that work is Congress. The Congress must lead this effort. Congress has got to stop following. There’s a real ode to what Congress is supposed to be and implicit in that ode in Gorsuch’s work is an indictment of where Congress is. And this is all about trust to have the regulatory innovation. You have to change people’s views of what regulators are about because Trump has been really effective in saying, regulators, shmegulators, they’re just con men too. They’re just out to get their own and enrich themselves too. Democrats, their only goal is to make themselves rich and so let’s take power and make ourselves richer. I think and hope that we’re all realizing that where there was truth in that, we need to address it. But we can’t write the whole system off. We do need government to have some kind of role in our economy because this chaos casino that he’s created and that’s his future vision. That chaos casino is going to hurt a lot more people than it rewards.

Sarah [00:39:02] It’s just nihilism. I just feel like it’s nihilistic. If you follow logically the philosophical undercurrents of this administration, particularly economically, it is just nihilism. It doesn’t make anybody happy. It doesn’t help anybody live a good life. It’s not the path to democratic health, but I don’t think he cares about the health of our democracy. Not really even sure he cares about the health of our economy as long as the people he wants to get rich are getting richer. And that is just so nihilistic. I don’t think people want that. I don’t want that. Just because he was halfway decent in articulating the problem, I don’t think people understood that the next sentence was you articulate it, so we’ll just exploit it. The exploitation, the extraction that leads to not just growing income inequality, but the fraud and the scams, the annoyance economy, I just think people don’t want this. I don’t want this for myself, I don’t want this for my kids, like it’s exhausting and it is depressing because that’s what nihilism is. It’s a road to nowhere. And that’s what it feels like he is leading us with regards to the economy and many other things right now.

Beth [00:40:30] And there are some positive indicators that show people don’t want this. Last year you started seeing repair cafes pop up where people get together and help each other fix stuff. There are a lot of movements, some of them coming out of environmentalism, some of the coming out religious communities, some of them just coming from people who want to feel real in an increasingly digital world. Lots of places where people are saying, this is not what I want and I don’t want to be scammed all the time. I also just don’t want everything to exist only on paper or in code. And I hope that we vote like it. I hope those kinds of movements show up in the way that we press candidates of both parties. Nobody has clean hands here. Neither party has done an incredible job having a vision for a sustainable long-term economy. Neither party can say, nobody does inside trading on our side. There are problems all over the place, which means that there’s opportunity all over the place. We just have to prioritize these issues as we’re deciding what candidates we’re going to support.

Sarah [00:41:47] Beth, I know who has an answer to the nihilistic narrative in America right now,.

Beth [00:41:53] Dr. Robbie.

Sarah [00:41:54] Dr. Robbie and Dana and everyone in The Pit. I’m so glad you’re watching the show now.

Beth [00:42:03] I feel really good about having caught up.

Sarah [00:42:06] It was a strain on our partnership. It really was.

Beth [00:42:09] Yes, it was tough. It is so hard when you’re really into something and a person that you talk to all the time isn’t really into that thing. My best friend just started reading the Louise Penny series. There’s relief in my heart about it that we can have this common language. And I do need everyone to watch The Pit now who wasn’t now that I have gotten my stuff together and caught up.

Sarah [00:42:29] Just go ahead and just everybody watch it. All Americans. It has such important things to say. My favorite thing I heard it described as is competency porn. Because I just think that’s it’s showing and not competency as the answer. They are not ever arguing on this show that the people who care deeply, work hard, are highly competent inside this emergency room are fixing societal problems. And I think there’s some real courage in what they’re doing. We’re just going to show you what is going on and you can take with that what you like.

Beth [00:43:13] Medical professionals seem to love this show and they talk about how accurate it is.

Sarah [00:43:18] Green flag.

Beth [00:43:19] And I think that it is really nice how much it leaves unresolved. Every episode, there’s so much, even in the emotional arc of the characters, the stories among the characters that aren’t really about whatever nightmare scenarios have come through the ambulance bay that day, but they just let people be and they let systems be. And then you walk away from it, not having any answers yourself, but really thinking deeply about how much policy and personality and the stuff of life creates our experiences every day in really important and high stakes situations.

Sarah [00:44:05] I mean, what happened to that lady and her employer? That was weird.

Beth [00:44:11] The trafficking story?

Sarah [00:44:14] Yes. What happened? They’re never going to tell us.

Beth [00:44:16] They’re not going to tell.

Sarah [00:44:17] That storyline in particular opened up a whole new level of understanding about what medical professionals and people, all kinds of people, school teachers, people who work in a library, what they’re doing on the front lines and how they reach the limit of what they can do. And the person walks out the door and you don’t know what happens. And how hard that must be and how that absolutely has to contribute to burnout. And I think like they do such a good job of showing like, yeah, for every Louis where the person you’re helping him and you’re building a relationship with him. There’s something where you see something you know is not right and you can’t really do about it and then they’re gone.

Beth [00:45:07] There are a ton of interesting questions about agency in this show. That people come in, you do for them what you can, but maybe the mom still is against traditional medicine or against a vaccine or maybe the person is not ready to receive help yet. I thought a really great storyline from season one that was gone in a flash. Was a mom really struggling and connecting with one of the doctors, Dr. McKay, who has walked what sounds like a similar path. And then one of the new student doctors pushing her a little too hard on a social worker stopping by, and she jets. And the door closes, and they don’t get to circle back around to it. And that’s just really how life goes. That dance that the doctors try to do to persuade people to take the resources that are available. The way that Dana talks about how we just keep offering and we let people know that we’re going to be here and we’re going to keep offering. And then all the ways in which that offer is imperfect, it’s really heartbreaking and beautiful and all the things.

Sarah [00:46:15] Okay, let’s talk about Dr. Robbie. Did you watch ER?

Beth [00:46:18] I did not watch ER.

Sarah [00:46:20] Oh, well, I’m sad for you because that just opens up a whole new level of this relationship. I watched all of ER. I loved that show. So I have I have known Dr. Robbie since he was a med student going by the name of Dr. Carter. I watched him learn and grow. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Beth [00:46:42] I do. does it feel like one continuing character to you?

Sarah [00:46:44] Absolutely.

Beth [00:46:45] That’s interesting.

Sarah [00:46:47] Absolutely, 100%. I’m just assuming he had to change his name for some reason, who knows why.

Beth [00:46:52] There’s a lawsuit right now about the intellectual property situation between these two shows.

Sarah [00:46:58] I know. But it is different, I mean, the hour by hour is different from ER, and ER spent a lot more time on their private lives outside of the hospital. I think the smart structure of the show, it prevents them from doing that and turning into Gray’s Anatomy, which I did not watch all of because it got super, super stupid. And it’s still going, right? Isn’t Gray’s Anatomy still on? Stop. Everybody stop.

Beth [00:47:19] My 15-year-old daughter is suddenly obsessed with Gray’s Anatomy and is watching it constantly. And she really suffered last week because when the actor who played McSteamy passed away, she had just watched the episode where he passes away on the show. So her heart was broken in a lot of different directions. But yes, there’s so much Gray’s Anatomy available to her.

Sarah [00:47:43] Yeah, it’s so drama. I think this is an improvement, like a really interesting evolution and innovation in ER. ER was great, but this is better. And I think that there was a great profile in the New York Times magazine of Noah Wile and how he makes this show and how he thinks about it. And he’s just so locked in with the medical community, the healthcare industry. I mean, he’s like their patron saint. You know what I mean? Like they love him and he loves them back. And I just think it comes across so well on the show. Even when he is truly pissing me off and he has quite often, particularly in this new season. I still just love him. I’m just like, you know what, we’ve like grown up together. Do you know I mean? Like we’re just like really in it. It’s how I feel about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. They can do no wrong. I don’t care.

Beth [00:48:28] I didn’t watch ER for the same reason that it took me a little bit to get into The Pit. I am very, very squeamish. Very squeamish. I have to look away a lot during The Pit. I watch a lot of it with my eyes closed.

Sarah [00:48:39] I’m only every once in a while. It doesn’t happen a lot, but there are some times where I’m like okay enough.

Beth [00:48:47] I have probably surprising no one, a really high degree of empathy. And so I physically tap in to worry about people and pain that they’re experiencing. And so it’s a really intense experience to watch the show for me, but I think it’s worth it. And one reason that I think is worth it, this was named by the Prestige TV podcast. They talk about how efficient the storytelling is in The Pit. So with Noah Wiley, for example, Dr. Robbie, this emergency room doctor, rides his motorcycle in every day without a helmet. He carries the helmet inside. He has the helmet as a prop, but he doesn’t wear it on his head. And the setup for season two is he’s getting ready to go on a sabbatical for a motorcycle trip. And those details, the way they show us so much in something that never gets discussed or fleshed out, but gives us a lot of information about the characters, creatively, I am obsessed with that. And I love watching it, and I love hearing people dissect it. I’ll read everything about it because that kind of storytelling is just really captivating.

Sarah [00:49:55] The most physically painful part of the show so far for me is in a recent episode where the baby that has been abandoned keeps crying and no one will pick it up. And I was about to jump through the screen and I was literally screaming, “Pick up the baby. Pick up the baby.” I cannot stand to hear a baby cry. It makes me want to come out of my skin.

Beth [00:50:14] The baby creates a lot of tension for me in this season too because there are long stretches of time where we don’t get to know about the baby. We just know there’s a baby that was abandoned in a bathroom in the hospital. And we know that baby Jane Doe is waiting, but we’re having to get through all this other stuff and the whole time my brain is going, but what about baby Jane Doe? What’s happening.

Sarah [00:50:38] They should give me the baby. I will take the baby. That part is so realistic though. Do you know how long it takes to get like a social worker? Oh my Lord, no. That would take a million years. I’ll be surprised if baby Jane Doe there at the end of this season. And then, of course, there’s Dana.

Beth [00:50:58] Gosh, I think she’s the best.

Sarah [00:51:01] She won an Emmy, killing it. I mean, talk about efficiency. The way this woman will steal the entire scene with like five words is so impressive.

Beth [00:51:22] And a look. Just a look. She has the best facial expressions. So if you don’t watch the show, Dana is the charge nurse. Everybody recognizes that Dana runs the whole operation and that the whole operations would fall apart without Dana. And Dana is also the queen of boundaries. She both really cares about everybody and has a really strong sense that she can’t fix everything. And she can’t make everybody feel better and she shouldn’t promise things that she can’t deliver on. I think one of the most beautiful scenes in season one came in the late episodes. I can’t remember exactly which hour it happened, but one of doctors who was having a crisis that I don’t want to spoil, comes to her really trying to get her to promise to help him out, to kind of put on a word for him. And he’s just saying in so many ways, please make me feel better right now. And she won’t. But she won’t in a kind and caring way. And it’s just a great example.

Sarah [00:52:25] It probably speaks to my own boundaries issues or maybe like over-dependence on my capacity that when I see a capacity of hers, I’m like, just fix it. You could fix it, Dana. I would just watch a whole show of Dana going around fixing everybody. And I think it would be a good show and I think she could do it. Because a lot of times I’m just like I’ll see what you’re doing there, but maybe you could just fix this one time. One of my favorite Dana scenes is the beginning of season two when the little baby nurse comes. And she’s like, oh, welcome. And before she can even say anything, she’s unpacked all this gear off this girl. Just like her fanny pack and this and that. And she was like, no, no baby, you don’t need all these things. And it is just so well executed. And I love her. And I want to watch a show only about her. That’s like two hours long every week.

Beth [00:53:18] It’s just really nice to see a really mature woman in a show like this, fully embodying all of those life lessons that she has won in such a hard way. I really, really love that.

Sarah [00:53:31] I think she embodies those life lessons because she’s been married in real life to Dennis Hopper, French Stewart, and Grant Show from Melrose Place and that is the craziest husband lineup I’ve ever heard in my whole life.

Beth [00:53:40] It is the sampler platter of spouses. It really is something else.

Sarah [00:53:44] Dennis Hopper, French Stewart, and Grant Show. What is that? What is that?

Beth [00:53:50] Good for you, Catherine.

Sarah [00:53:52] Good for you, Katherine. All right. I think that we just recorded a really, really well executed and in depth and important conversation about the economy. And I promise you all the comments are going to be about The Pit.

Beth [00:54:08] It’s just a lot more fun to talk about.

Sarah [00:54:09] It is just so good though, but it’s helping. That’s why it feels good to talk about it. Because it is not Real Housewives, which is actually harming America. Don’t message me. I don’t want to hear your defense of Real Housewives. This show is helping. I sincerely believe that. It’s like doing good work in the world as a piece of art.

Beth [00:54:27] I totally agree with that. I feel so many things every time I watch it and I always take something positive away. And it’s also just affirming for a lot of different professions. Like I love that this show both demonstrates the unbelievable competency of these professionals and the fact that they’re always kind of guessing. And just trying to do their best and they don’t know exactly how it will turn out. Hopefully it works, but it might not. I felt that way as a lawyer all the time. I graduated from law school and I thought, I should have all the answers now. And then I started practicing law and learned that you use the word practice because you’re just guessing. You know a lot of stuff, but you’re guessing about what happens when you apply it and how you apply it and all those things. And I feel like that’s just true for so many professions. And I don’t know why we can feel that about our own discipline, but we walk around expecting every other discipline to be perfect. And I think this show does a great job at a really needed time in medicine of saying they know a whole lot and not everything. And that’s okay.

Sarah [00:55:39] I did the best I can. Ugh, God, I love this show. Listen, cannot wait to hear from all of you. I know how passionate I already am about The Pit because I announced when I started watching it last fall and I got so many messages. So unleash yourselves and all your thoughts on Dana and Dr. Robbie.

Beth [00:55:56] May I propose a specific prompt as well?

Sarah [00:55:58] Yes.

Beth [00:56:00] I would love to hear what character people most see themselves in. Like a little almost like BuzzFeed, which Disney princess are you, but our version will be The Pit.

Sarah [00:56:10] But wait, just hospital staff or patients as well?

Beth [00:56:13] Everybody. Anybody is fair game

Sarah [00:56:17] Okay. I’m excited. All right. That’s a good prompt. All right. We can’t wait to hear from you. We will be back in your ears on Friday. Until then, keep it nuanced y’all.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

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This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

Then there’s the way that our guest and friend Natalia Terfa describes holding her breath in Minneapolis. Even as Operation Metro Surge “winds down,” there are still agents and agitators. There is still fear and tension. There is damage left to repair after “it’s over,” and a sense that it’s not really over yet. We’re grateful to Natalia for her leadership on the ground and her willingness to discuss it with us today.

We often talk about outside of politics as an exhale, and we hope it is today. We talk about our very-non-sports-y Winter Olympics takes, with a special shout out to all of you who participated in the Spice Cabinet Opening Ceremonies.

If you’ve listened for a long time, you know that I love yoga. One of my favorite parts of a yoga class is taking a collective breath. It reminds me that we’re here. We’re alive, right now, and that’s its own form of miracle. It reminds me that we’re not alone. I hope this episode gives you that sense, too. -Beth

Topics Discussed

• Unrest in Iran and Potential Military Action

• On the Ground in Minneapolis with Natalia Terfa

• Outside of Politics: The Winter Olympics

Episode Resources

• The Iran war powers resolution (Congress)

• Start Here episode with data center story (Spotify)

• 2/16/26☀️ AM: - Punchbowl News

• The community Olympics slideshow

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:10] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today we’re going to talk about the increasing intensity happening with respect to Iran and the United States government. Then we are going to have a conversation much closer to home with Natalia Terfa, who has been on the ground in Minneapolis organizing, observing, providing pastoral care to people. She’s going to take us through what this experience has been like and what it continues to be like. As Operation Metro Surge ramps down but is far from over. And Outside of Politics, we’re going to take an exhale ourselves with the Winter Olympics. They’re wrapping up. We have absorbed a little bit of the controversy, a little of the sports. So we’re going to chat about our observations coming out of these games.

Sarah [00:00:55] Here is talk with Natalia about our upcoming visit to Minneapolis at the end of August. We’re going to do our only live show of the year on Saturday, August 29th. Premium members have already had access to tickets to the Spice Conference surrounding that live event, but tickets to the public will go on sale probably in early March. So keep an eye out for that and save the date to come see us live on Saturday August 29th.

Beth [00:01:19] Next up, we are bracing ourselves with every headline we read about Iran. We’ll talk about it. Sarah, I have had this strategy of trying to just not speak too much out loud about Iran for about a month. I have been distraught for the protesters there and the mass violence being carried out by the Iranian regime against the Iranian people. I have been worried about the expectations that President Trump’s social media posts have created in those protesters. And I have been at the same time worried that our government has been building up a military presence that looks like preparation for war there. But I have hoped that my worries were all misplaced and that the situation would turn out to be, at least as to US military action in Iran, less dangerous than it feels to me. But that is not what the reporting looks like as we record on Thursday morning.

Sarah [00:02:27] No, the buildup is pretty significant. I know you saw reporting that a senior Trump official said that the chance of kinetic action (our new favorite word) is at like 90%. They’ve set a bar that as far as like no nuclear enrichment at all that Iran I don’t think we’ll agree to. Also, the negotiators that Iran are sending are way more experienced than Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in particular in this waiting out. And that will also be the strategy if and when we begin to engage in military action with Iran. There’s a lot of reporting right now that we’re at the 40 day mark so that under Iranian tradition, they celebrate the lives of the people who were lost at 40 days. And so that’s like all over the country right now because of all the young people that were lost during these protests. But a regime that will sacrifice that many lives, what won’t they sacrifice during military action? Like they’re just going to wait it out. Now, I’m not saying that the Iranian regime is not significantly weakened at this point. Of course it is. But the ability to just-- it’s like Russia-- lay lives and everything on the altar of sustaining their power is pretty significant. I mean, they don’t have a lot to lose. You know what I mean? They don’t care about their people. They’ve lost so many other partners in the region or allies in the regional that could maybe hold back or prevent escalation. I don’t really see that as a factor right now. I think it’s just there. It’s going to be ugly and it could be ugly for a really long time.

Beth [00:04:31] I think it’s hard on the US side to have much credibility in negotiating about anything in the world when we have shown a real lack of commitment to what’s been done by other administrations and even day to day within this administration. The handling of the tariffs, the approach to the United Nations, the Board of Peace is meeting today on Thursday as we’re recording without a lot of our traditional allies because they’re fearful that the Board of Peace is going to become a rival to the United Nations. There are many ways in which I think we have weakened our own hand at the negotiating table. Not the least of which is that Steve Wittkopf and Jared Kushner are right in the middle of this as they are also negotiating in Ukraine. The State Department has been hollowed out in terms of experienced personnel, the people who really know these countries and their customs and the long-term players behind the principles. It’s a bad, bad situation. Politically, I don’t know what American interests this serves. I don’t think that the administration can simultaneously make the case that our military so outmatches Iran, this will be no big deal. And also that Iran is such a threat that it’s necessary to jeopardize military personnel’s lives, not just in that action, whatever it may be, but also throughout the region at American bases. I don’t know what the argument is to the public to support war here.

Sarah [00:06:09] They don’t make many arguments to the public.

Beth [00:06:11] Yeah, because they don’t care about the public matter. [crosstalk] That’s right.

Sarah [00:06:15] To me, this administration’s just continued rejection of any sort of democratic process or feedback. Like, again, we’re just at the whims of Donald Trump. And if he wants to do it, he’s going to do it. I don’t know what argument he’s making to himself or the others around him are making as far as his like-- I can imagine the argument that Benjamin Netanyahu is making to Donald Trump in advance of this action or in argument for this action. But do I think the American people who are so frustrated at the downward spiral of the reality of life here in America with regards to health insurance, which they’re undercutting, they published a federal rule to further undercut Obamacare and kick more people off Obamacare as far as affordable housing. I read a great piece about he was going to give us the DOGE bonuses, then we were going to get the tariff checks. None of which have materialized. So the prices are still high. They’re going to get higher because so many companies have said they’re not going to shoulder the cost anymore and the New Year’s a time to raise price anyway. You have AI rolling around the country and these huge data centers that are driving up energy costs and freaking people out as far as job prospects, much less their role in education. You have a big old trial about the addictive nature of social media in our children. It is bold. It is a bold move to just continue to take military action no one wants and slap your name on everything when people are this frustrated and discontent.

Beth [00:08:24] I heard terrific reporting from ABC News this morning on their podcast, Start Here, about data centers. And a woman who lives near one in Chicago, in a Chicago suburb, said that there are times when that data center’s generators take over and it sounds like a helicopter is landing on her roof. It’s so loud. It’s a nuisance. It is also driven up her electricity by about 22%, I think she said. Like it is a lot. There was a man interviewed in Wisconsin about a data center going in. And there’s going to be a power line built on his property to supply that data center. And he was told that if he doesn’t agree, they will use eminent domain to build that power line to the data cente. This is going to get really bad, really fast. And I do think this administration is on the wrong side of it, six ways to Sunday. The other thing specific that jumped out at me this morning in that line of a frustration that you were describing is that in the meta trial, the judge had to take a moment to tell people that if they were wearing glasses that could record or analyze jurors faces, they would be held in contempt of court. Like the meta glasses that may have been worn by someone in Zuckerberg’s entourage were such an issue that the judge had to have a real moment, like a come to Jesus moment about how inappropriate that is in a trial. Like we are facing so many matters of incredible significance to who we are and how we live. A war in Iran does not serve anyone. Fortunately, I think we have a real call to action on this one because we have two bipartisan duos in the House and the Senate, trying to reassert Congress’s power as the only entity in our government that is supposed to legally declare war. So Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey, I’m here for this dynamic duo. There at it again.

Sarah [00:10:20] I’m into it.

Beth [00:10:21] They plan to force a House floor vote next week on an Iran War Powers Resolution. And then Tim Kaine, who has long been interested in reclaiming Congress’s power here.

Sarah [00:10:31] Because there’s children in the military!

Beth [00:10:35] Yes. And Rand Paul, so two Kentuckians also in the mix here, have an Iran War Powers Resolution ready for consideration in the Senate. So support those folks in that effort, reach out to your representatives and tell them that you don’t want this if you agree with us about this topic. I would just hate to see another war. I have such war fatigue right now. I think the situation in the Middle East is so precarious. I cannot imagine what good might come from this. I can’t imagine. In that long list you made, Sarah, of reasons Americans are frustrated, we didn’t even get to ice and border patrol occupying American cities.

Sarah [00:11:12] Which showed up in my town this week. So the fact that I couldn’t even squeeze it in the list is a real red flag.

Beth [00:11:18] That’s right. And it does feel to me like media on a national scale has moved on awfully fast from Minneapolis when we know that there are still more than a thousand agents there and there will be ramifications of what the federal government did in Minneapolis for many years to come. So we wanted to invite Natalia Terfa on to talk with us today. You’ve heard Natalia’s voice before. We played a message from her about what she saw on the streets in Minneapolis where she is a pastor. She’s going to spend more time with us today telling us about that experience, what the state of things looks like right now, and what she thinks is going to be required to rebuild on the other side of this. So that’s up next.

Sarah [00:12:08] Talia, thank you for coming back on Pantsuit Politics.

Natalia Terfa [00:12:11] Thanks for inviting me. I feel I’m trying really hard not to be excited because I just love you guys. And I’m so grateful for all that you do in the world and all that put out into the world.

Beth [00:12:20] It’s mutual.

Sarah [00:12:21] Thank you. It’s Mutual for sure. And so much of our audience is in the Minneapolis St. Paul area. I think that’s why the voice recording we shared of yours a few weeks ago is so important. And we’ve really felt like the media coverage-- I feel like Holman showed up and everybody was like, okay, he did something moving on. But what we were hearing from all of y’all is nothing’s really changed. Maybe we don’t have like all the eyes of the nation, but the day-to-day has not changed. Now, since they’ve said, like, Operation Metro Surge is over, I’m sure it’ll take a while to dial it down and remove the agents, but there’s still a lot left there. I kind of want to start at the beginning. What did you first notice when things started to change, when the operation kicked in? Did you know the operation was happening before you noticed any changes showing up in your day-to-day life? What was it like in the beginning.

Natalia Terfa [00:13:19] I think we really noticed it in December, and partly I think that’s because there were a lot of us who recognized that in churches that primarily worked with immigrant community members, that it was known among our community that there was going to be an intensification of raids on churches during the holiday season. And so there was sort of this uptick in clergy colleagues and neighbors recognizing like, this is not okay, what can we do? That’s sort of when it started. I think the recognition of something is different and we need to do something. We need to be around, we need watch, we need help, we to show up. So I think that’s when more people started paying attention, at least in my direct circles, because I’m a clergy person and I have other clergy colleagues that work with immigrant communities. That’s when it felt pretty noticeable. I do think there was another uptick after Renee Goode was killed, but my network of clergy colleagues was already kind of cranking. I was on the phone with somebody when another clergy colleague was like I’m hearing reports that someone was killed on Portland and 36th. And she’s like I’m going there now. I’ll let you know if you should come. And 20 minutes later, she’s, like, get over here if you can. And so there was a group of us, clergy, that showed up at that corner pretty fast on the 7th. So I just think that was some of the shift, like the level of intensity. We knew it was happening and we knew they were around and we know they were targeting specific communities between Christmas and the 7. It was really obvious from the 7 on because it was like-- they I don’t know how to say this in another way, but it was like they were untethered. It just felt like they got like, we did it once, now we’re like... It just felt like there was a level of now we don’t care, and they just went. It wasn’t like it wasn’t bad before then, but that was just an uptick. And I think the more people watched, the worse they got. It was like the more observed, the more aggressive and they just got more and more aggressive.

[00:15:49] And so they would show up in bigger groups and do-- even one of the times after I left that recording for you, I was on patrol in my neighborhood and a whole bunch of them split a whole bunch of us up. They just drove right in between us and then turned sideways on the road on a main road in my neighborhood. All traffic stopped and they all got out of their vehicles and they took one of our observers. Like they just took him out of his car. We all watched it happen and it was so awful and so traumatic for all of us neighbors. And that was just a big shift for me personally. I mean observing and watching I think from the seventh on you could stand on the corner of my neighborhood on a main strip five minutes and an ICE vehicle would drive by. Like that’s how often they were. They were just around. And there’s stats pages all over that we share with each other and they show where things are happening and where reports are being made. And my neighborhood’s the fourth most active neighborhood in Maine, so it’s not even the worst one. And it’s pretty dang active. The neighborhood got really good at following and whistling and honking and so they couldn’t do it in secret. They were always being observed and their aggression rose as they were being observed. I think there was a lot of times where I was like come at me. I mean, there was little bit of it where it was like the optics are bad guys. Like if you take me out of my car I usually wear my collar when I patrol because I feel like-- it’s not a bulletproof vest. I understand, but I wear my clergy stuff because I do think it makes them stop sometimes for a second. You’re messing with me. You’re not messing with a community member that’s more vulnerable than I am. So I’m like waste your time on me. I got nothing but time for you.

Sarah [00:17:45] So what was the, like, organizational and training effort when you knew they were coming, before you knew they were coming. I’m just trying to think about this. Like we officially have had ICE show up in our courthouse here in Paducah. I know Minneapolis had such a foundational organizational community that I’m like I don’t know how you replicate that somewhere else, and what the trainings were like, how you get them off the ground so quickly. Like, what advice do you give to other communities about this? And what did it look like on the ground as it was ratcheting up?

Natalia Terfa [00:18:21] I want to say, I don’t want people to hear when the news or when people say like we had this already built in after 2020. That means you’re five years behind or six years behind and you have no hope of organizing. That’s not true. So I don t want people think that’s what I’m saying. But I live in the neighborhood of the third precinct in Minneapolis that burned down after George Floyd was killed. The police left that precinct and our neighbors, my immediate neighbors organized block patrols because-- so like my spouse was one of them. They would stand over nights on the end of our blocks and watch just to make sure we were safe. They were patrolling the blocks and that’s how it started in 2020.

Sarah [00:19:06] Wow.

Natalia Terfa [00:19:06] And communities were coming around and cleaning up the mess and all these beautiful things, showing up for neighbors, showing up for people, helping people get food, all of these things that were built in after 2020. I think in this neighborhood, I live in a pretty, pretty middle-class white neighborhood of Minneapolis, progressive. And I would say that for a lot of my neighbors in 2020 was the first time that people realized they’re not going to save us. We have to do this ourselves. That was the time for a lot of people. The police did not help us. They had left. They left the precinct. They left our neighborhood. And so we were taking care of each other and we were taking care of ourselves. And I think that foundation was there and it really matters. And that foundation was there for communities of color, I want to just say it, like well before that idea where you need to take care of ourselves and save ourselves because no one else will was there for other communities well before the white people caught on. That’s what I would say. The middle class white folks caught on. But I would for my very typical Pantsuit Politics listener neighborhood, that was the first time we were like, oh, we got to do this ourselves. And learned from communities of color that had been organizing and doing it for many years. So that was ready to go in a lot of ways when ICE really kicked up. But some of those were just-- I mean, for me, I didn’t get the training I was supposed to get, I think. I just jumped in somewhere and then they added me to another list and another list and another one. And part of that was because, as a pastor, I had had some de-escalation training. I had done some non-violent resistance training. I had some of those things that just got me added into other groups.

[00:21:05] But I started, the first thing I did in December was show up at a mosque at tea time because another pastor nearby asked me to. And we just showed up in solidarity. This is right when the Trump administration really said all of their horrible things about the Somali community. They were really worried about ICE showing up at prayer time. And so we definitely said yes and showed up for these things and did what we needed to do. And then somebody in that group was like, hey, are you in this group? And I said, no. And they’re like, let me add you. And that just snowballed. So now if you go to my signal chats, I think I was in two before December and now I’m like 50. I don’t know. There’s so many, just so many. And then you have to narrow it down to the ones that match what you want to do. So, for me, neighborhood patrol felt like a thing I could do. I could drive around my neighborhood. I know the neighborhood well. I could be present as a clergy presence before, during, after raids and try to care for people. So one of the groups I’m in we call it the aftercare group. Goal is to stick around after the ICE agents leave, and commuters might chase them out of the neighborhood still, but I stick around and talk to the people who watched it happen because it’s really, really traumatic. It’s really traumatic to watch them shatter a window and drag somebody out of their car. And you feel the adrenaline, your fingers are tingly, you’re shaky, people are chattering. It’s hard to watch. It is hard to see. And try to help people process and talk is part of what I’ve signed up to do as well. So I think it matters to have clergy people doing that piece too. And it was easy for me to do.

Beth [00:23:03] Natalia, I would love for you to take us to today and tell us what things look and feel like. I read this morning that there was a fire at the memorial for Renee Goode that is suspected to be arson. So I can imagine that it’s still just heightened emotions and tense and I read that people are still nervous about leaving their home. So tell us what it feels like as we’re recording on Thursday, February 19th.

Natalia Terfa [00:23:29] I think you can feel the breath holding has not released yet. I think it’s like we all know. I mean, we joke about this as Minnesotans when they were like we’re going to leave. And everybody’s like, okay, we’ll believe it when we see it. Like that was kind of the standard response for most of us. And we joked about false spring here. Like we had a couple of days of 50 degrees, which was incredible. And everybody runs around like baby sheep on a new spring day, but it snowed six inches last night. So it’s like we all know what the up and down of this feels like. And so nobody really trusted it. And it feels like it was built into our system based on how winter and spring shows up here. So I feel like we were all like, yeah, we know. I will say there are less actions it feels like, but nobody trusts it. So the ICE is still around. I would say we’ve still had them around. There are agitators that follow ICE into town that are just right-wing people that come and record and come to observers, especially around preschools and schools and yell stuff at them. It’s really awful. And so, there’s a sense of like stuff is still happening and we don’t want to let our guard down yet. And so that like bracing for impact sort of tension is still really present. And everybody’s still pretty tense. The fire I know it’s suspected arson, but it was arson. Like you don’t douse a fence in gasoline and light it on fire just for funsies. So for sure arson. And if you go over to those memorial sites, it takes just a special kind of horrible person to try to burn it down. It’s a memorial site. It just felt there are still hateful people running around trying to undo all this beauty and goodness that is our neighborhoods. There is still this beauty and goodness. The school patrols are still full on. So I think one of the more beautiful ways-- if you want to patrol, you can see ICE. But you can also just drive around a neighborhood at drop off or pick up time and see people standing outside in yellow vests, watching the schools and making sure everybody’s okay. And that’s so beautiful and it’s incredible to watch. And if a school is like we’re short on patrollers today, 10 people will be like, I got it. And they’ll just show up.

[00:26:12] There’s a Spanish immersion daycare two blocks from my house that put out a call, we don’t have any observers this afternoon. And six of us showed up in 10 minutes. And it was just like we’re just here neighbors being like absolutely yes, I’ll show up. And just waiting to be asked and waiting to step in. And grocery deliveries are still happening and people are still getting rides to appointments and because the tension or the fear that they are hiding, that they’re still here, that they waiting is not gone yet. It’s still pretty tense. And I would say we have reports of ICE that is in town. As we learn, they learn. And so they are dressing in more plain clothes and they’re trying to show up differently. I think Peggy Flanagan told a story of some ICE agents carrying groceries to somebody’s house and pretending to be delivering so they would open the door. And then there’s video of two agents in plain clothes pretending that their car was broken down outside of somebody’s home and when he came out to help them a bunch of other cars pull up and grab this guy. So they’re getting sneakier and those videos do come out, which is good that people are observing. This is why observing matters is because then we can see it happen and we know it’s happening, but that scares people too. They’re still scared. So I think it’s a both and. We feel like there has been some let up. I mean, going from 2,800 or 3,000 agents to 800 or a thousand is better. That’s better, but 1000 agents can still do some damage and they still are. I think they’re moving into the suburbs more, they’re moving out of the city proper more because the organizing in the city is so good. I read something that my neighborhood is a two minute response time, which I was like, that’s so awesome. I’m so proud of that. And so if they can’t get in and out in two minutes, they don’t do it. And that’s great. Like that’s great. That also means they’ll go to places that are further spread apart where two minutes response time is not possible.

Beth [00:28:29] Can I ask you to go back and say more about did I hear you correctly that there’s sort of an entourage of people with ICE just there to harass people they think might be immigrants? Can you talk more about that?

Natalia Terfa [00:28:45] We call them right-wing agitators. They might be local, I don’t know, but like Jake Lang is one of them. He’s been around a ton in town. There’s this other guy, I don’t remember his name. He drives a blue car. Like we all know what his car looks like because he shows up in this blue car and he yells at... Particularly on one stretch of my neighborhood, there’s two Spanish immersion preschools within a couple blocks of each other. And he likes to be over there yelling at the observers. That keeps us. Even if ICE might not be around, like these other dudes are around. And it does feel like it scares kids, it scares parents, it scares the daycare workers. It’s scary for the observers too, of course. So it just keeps everybody at a higher tension. And so we say, like, we don’t engage with our rule as a commuter or observers. You don’t engaged with, we don’t follow them. We don’t chase them around. We might follow ICE to make sure they leave or to see what they’re doing, but we don’t do that for agitators because they seem--.

Sarah [00:29:50] That’s what they want. They want content.

Natalia Terfa [00:29:52] Yeah. And that seems more dangerous for an observer than ICE. Like even though it is pretty dangerous to observe ICE, honestly, at this point. But it does feel like they’re more of a question mark. We just don’t know how they’re going to act or react. But yeah, some of the characteristics of ICE are the same with these agitators. They drive recklessly, they do really crazy things, they endanger the neighborhood. I just think those pieces raise everybody’s awareness and make us just a little more tense. You watch people run red lights and breeze through stop signs and do UIs in the middle of a street. And it just makes you feel that like we’re not safe feeling is still around. I don’t know how long it’s going to take us to come back from that. I don’t know. I don’t know how it’s going to take me to stop staring down a dark tinted SUV for. I’m not sure how long its going to take me to stop doing that. I’m not sure how it’s going to take it to stop reading plates from out of state vehicles as quickly as I can. Like, I’m so good at it right now. I don’t know how long that’s going to take, but a truck can come by me and I’m like that was a Florida plate. And I can say the first three. That’s just you’re just getting so good at this weird skill, such a weird skill set to have learned how to do. And I’m not sure how long people are going to... Even honks people are like I heard honking. That’s like the kind of stress level, high awareness is like, ah, we’re just like that. It’s still there and still pretty exhausting for people, I think.

Beth [00:31:45] I coach future problem solving and I’m in the midst of that endeavor right now. And we have a number of categories that we use to assess a situation. And it’s everything from arts and esthetics to physical health and recreation and the economy. And I just keep thinking about that list of categories in Minneapolis and all the ways that this operation has and will continue to change the city. I wonder what you see as most acute right now in terms of needs to tackle, and then what you think is going to be the longer term work to do.

Natalia Terfa [00:32:24] Yeah, I think the immediate needs are still the businesses that have been hurt. I think the ways that people aren’t attending, I mean, the two that are like the most apparent in my mind are like The Carmel Mall, which is a Somali sort of a place you can go and there’s just Somali stores everywhere, kind of like an indoor market. And then there’s version of that called Mercado Central, which is also a central market on Lake Street in Minneapolis that’s for the Latinx community. So I feel like those two they’re representative of greater community stores, shops, restaurants, places that just... But even in a less obvious way, like my daughter is 15 and she made like the Minnesota All-State 10th Grade Honor Choir. And they have this big conference and they’re supposed to do it in the city and they canceled it because people from outside of the city were really nervous about doing a conference in the city. And so that affected the hotel it stayed in. That affected The Convention Center and all the businesses around there and the restaurants. And this incredible school in a Southern suburb took it up and took it on and so they could still have their concert. But it’s like those little things too. It’s not just the everyday restaurants, but it’s the reputation of Minneapolis and are people scared to come here? And like, what stories are we telling? Somebody once commented on one of my posts that I wrote on Substack about what’s happening. They’re like, whatever, it’s not bad in Minneapolis. My friends one I was like, yes, we’re still going out because we still live here. Yes. And part of trusting the community is saying when I need to step out and do something for me or my family or for joy or for art or creativity or whatever it is, somebody stepping in. Like that’s what we’re trusting. That the web is big and we’re taking care of each other.

[00:34:37] And I don’t have to do it every second of every day and neither does anyone else. And what we are doing with those other parts of the day is being with each other and leaning into joy and still supporting our-- my husband and I, every time there’s this incredible taco shop just a couple blocks north of us, and we’re like, we’re supporting the local economy because we just go and get these incredible tacos and support this awesome business. And, yes, that’s what we’re all doing. We are doing these joyful, wonderful things, as well as leaning into taking care of people and supporting each other. And I think the balance of that is really interesting. I’m not sure with the patrolling and the commuters and the observing and the intensity of always being on alert and look out, I’m not sure how sustainable that is long term. I don’t know how we come down from it. To me, that’s the longer term question is like I don’t know how we stop doing this. Like are we doing this forever? I just don’t how we ramp down, how we do less, how stop looking over our shoulders or suspecting all these. I just don’t know how we stop doing that yet. I guess to me that’s the piece that feels hardest because I just don’t know when can we let our guard down? And it feels like the second we do something bad is going to happen. We don’t trust that they’re not going to keep doing something horrible. For a little while there was some violence by an ICE agent with a gun every like once a week. It was Renee and then it was the neighbors up on the north side that got shot up that were not killed. Thank goodness. And then a week later it was Alex Pretti. Like it just felt like it was constant and we’re all kind of holding our breath to see if it keeps happening. And I don’t know when we let our shoulders drop and our breath out yet. I’m not sure. I don’t know when that happens or how we let go. I don’t know.

Sarah [00:36:48] Well, I think history can be your guide. The whole time you were talking, I was thinking Londoners during the Blitz probably have a lot of insight because they did it for years and years and years.

Natalia Terfa [00:36:58] Yeah. And that’s true. Like you look at the people of Ukraine, you’re like they’re on years here. Like we’ve just done it a couple of months. Calm down, Natalia.

Sarah [00:37:05] No, I’m not even saying calm down. I’m just saying, like, they offer a lot of wisdom. You know what I mean? Like they offer a lot of wisdom about what that looks like. And I think it’s worth noting that Pantsuit Politics is not afraid to come to Minneapolis. We will be there at the end of August in a city that I love a great deal. I’m so excited. And it just brings tears to my eyes because I think it’ll be other cities that we love. Like, this is not over. And I think Minneapolis has done such a service to the nation by showing what it looks like when people are brave and courageous and show up and say we’re watching. Like, what if nobody had gotten a picture of Liam Ramos? He’d still be in Dilley, Texas. This stuff matters and it is dangerous and impactful, not just to the immigrant community, not just the Minneapolis community, but to America as a whole. And so thank you. Thank you so much for all the work you’ve done. Thank you for coming here and talking to us about it. Thank you to all your fellow community members. I just think it’s an incredibly powerful action and strategy that Minneapolis has shown the country.

Natalia Terfa [00:38:19] Well, I do just want to say one of the things I’ve loved most about how we’ve shown up for each other is that there’s been zero guilt or shame about the way people choose to show up. And I feel like that was sort of different in 2020. Like if you didn’t do it this way, you weren’t doing enough. But that has not been the case. It’s like you give as much as you can when you can and everybody’s like, yep, thanks. Like it’s just thank you for showing. If you were here for five minutes, if you we’re driving along Lake Street for five to drop a kid off or from coming back from dropping a kid off and you pop on the call, they’re like, thank you for being here for this little bit. If you have kids at home and you can’t leave, great, we’ve got a job for you. If you don’t want to interact with ICE at all, then you only interact with community members, great. We need you out there dropping off groceries. If you don’t feel safe going out in the community, great we’ve got inside jobs for you. It’s just like there was never a you have to do it this way. You have to show up at the Whipple building or you have to show in protest or you to do. There’s no have to’s in this movement in a way that has been really beautiful and freeing and there’s just no guilt in this, no shame in this movement. And it’s been so beautiful. I think that’s what’s made it so beautiful. Like however you show up, nobody’s like why weren’t you there? There is none of that happening. It’s just so lovely. And I hope that’s something people take from it too. Like if you don’t feel comfortable chasing ICR out of your neighborhood, please don’t. Like.

Sarah [00:39:55] Yeah.

Natalia Terfa [00:39:56] Trust that people will, trust that people do. It’s not all on you to fix what’s happening. That’s like whiteness at work, of course. And we don’t need to do that. You can trust that the great web that you’ve created of community and of humanity will show up and take care of each other. And you show up for your one piece and you’re part of the web. And that is so beautiful to see your place in this big wide web and to know that you matter and know that you’re not everything. And I just think that’s really important and has been at least for me really beautiful to be a part of like we all see each other and you’re like, yeah, I see you. It just feels really sort of like the community that has always been supposed to be. It’s always the one that’s supposed to be there.

Beth [00:40:50] Thank God for that because we’re talking about Ukraine and London as examples when this is being done by our own government. And the repair that will be needed on the other side of that really necessitates that kind of web where everybody has a role to play, but nobody has to be the hero. And I hope we can find a way to have some grace for each other on kind of the folks who didn’t show up as part of that effort, and the work that we have to do as Americans to figure out what happens on the other side of this for real because it’s horrifying to me to really sit with the reality that you don’t know when you get to exhale because your own government has made you feel that unsafe.

Natalia Terfa [00:41:36] Yeah, that’s hard. That’s really hard to fathom for me too. But my exhales, truly the exhales come from community. Like we hang out with each other. We do beautiful things. Brandy is going to be in town on Saturday. She’s going to help us take a breath. And it just feels like we’re going to have these moments to be together and to take breaths together. And it’s not happening because of something our government is or isn’t doing, but we’re taking breaths because of who we are together. And I think that’s how we do it. Unfortunately, I don’t think-- again, it’s the same lesson, but they’re not going to save us. Like they’re not going to save and so we’re just going to keep saving each other.

Beth [00:42:18] Well, that’s a perfect note to end on. Thank you so much, Natalia, for joining us and for everything that you’re doing.

Natalia Terfa [00:42:23] Thanks for having me. And I can’t wait for you guys to be here in August. Oh my gosh.

Beth [00:42:37] Thank you so much to Natalia for spending time with us and for sharing her perspective, which is so valuable. And I definitely don’t want to move on before it’s time to move on from Minneapolis. We are going to move on in our show today and just take that exhale at the end of the episode by talking about the Winter Olympics, which are wrapping up this weekend.

Sarah [00:42:57] So I haven’t really watched any of the Winter Olympics. I’ve just been following internet stories and controversies. I watched the dog cross the finish line. I know the quad god crashed out. I know about the controversy with Eileen Goo. I know The Olympic Village ran out of condoms. Do you know what I’m saying? I’m like following top level drama. I know I did watch one American downhill skier. It was a woman who’d won it at 18 and then never again. I did watch her win live in the morning because we were watching it in the morning before Felix went to school. And Felix has been watching a lot of curling. I know there’s a lot of curling controversies. Yes. So I’m absorbing a lot, but also nothing. Do you understand what I’m saying to you here?

Beth [00:43:42] Well, yes, and I would say that my experience of watching it is pretty similar because the Winter Olympic sports tend to be so specific and so detail-oriented. The scoring is so precise that I watch it and really all I think is, wow, look at them. Sometimes I think, wow, look at them, they’re crazy. I could never. Like would never, ever, ever do this. How are they doing this? How is this not the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened in their lives. But I have enjoyed watching it. Mostly I turn it on before bed with Chad and we watch a little bit of it. I was really excited that we had it on when Alana Myers Taylor, who’s 41, won the gold medal in the bobsled and then her son was there and she was signing to her son about her victory. It was a beautiful moment. I really like all of the people in their 40s just crushing it at the Winter Olympics. It’s been exciting to me.

Sarah [00:44:36] I’m into this and I need our help from our audience. I have big plans to attend the Los Angeles Summer Olympics. I am open to attending as an Olympian. So if anybody has some like low entry Olympic sport, I keep thinking about the Australian break dancing lady. I’m up for that. If you’re like, Sarah, I got it. I know what you could do maybe in the next two years.

Beth [00:45:02] If Team USA has an opening that they’re struggling to fill.

Sarah [00:45:05] Yeah, you know what I mean? Obviously, I’m not going to be like running track. I’m just saying like some of the ones that are like nobody’s watching, nobody’s paying attention until like some like 45 year old mom wins it. So I’m open. I’m just saying like I’m open for that opportunity from the universe.

Beth [00:45:25] Well, since we have been absorbing at a level that it’s not going to make for real in-depth sports analysis, I want to ask you what you think about the moms at the Olympics. Because there have been a couple of instances now where a female athlete has won and been interviewed, and a child has been right there with her in the scene. There was that viral clip of an Italian woman whose son was like doing the things that I felt it in my body that toddlers do, like pulling at her hair and touching her face. And I have gotten a number of DMs just saying, like, what do you think about this? Does this bother you? Do you love it? Like, how does that sit with you?

Sarah [00:46:06] It doesn’t bother me. No. I think it is, but I can see why it would bother people because it’s a real statement on motherhood, or in particular, you just don’t see dads having that experience. It’s not like any of these Olympians aren’t dads, but they’re not out there trying to manage their toddler while doing press interviews. Somebody else has the toddler. There’s no reason that could also not be true for women. Somebody else could have a toddler. But if it was like I wanted to hold my child in my moment of victory, that would bother me less than like the child wanted me and somebody gave him to me because he only wanted me. Like then that to me is... But what am I going to do? Critique that from my seat in the internet? Like, whatever. I think there’s bigger issues here.

Beth [00:46:58] Yeah, I have felt pretty neutral about it too. I think in part because, especially with these games, you see that athletes now understand that going to the Olympics is going to shine that bright light on you and everything that you’re doing is going to be scrutinized. You can tell they’re prepared this year for tough political questions. They’re prepared for questions about their lives. There was a great moment with an athlete where someone asked her like do these two silver medals feel like victories or like losses of gold? And she laughed in his face and was like, it’s just a big deal to win an Olympic medal. Like what a weird perspective. But you could tell like she’d done some media training maybe she was ready for that moment and handled it just very skillfully. So I say all that to say, I assume now that these folks are not unaware of what they’re doing in front of cameras. I think they have made choices deliberately. I think they handle themselves with a lot of professionalism, even outside the context of competition. And so I assume that they intend whatever they’re doing. And I just want to kind of respect like, okay, your intention was to share this moment with your child or to say something about motherhood or your intention is not and that’s fine too and neither is like morally superior to the other.

Sarah [00:48:19] Well, my thing is about the Olympics has always been the triumph of human spirit and what we all share together is a little overblown. Now, I’ve come around on this. Y’all have worn me down. And I’m much more pro-Olympics than I used to be. But this Eileen Gu story does sort of make all of what Sarah from 2000, let’s say 15 or 16 was saying, seem ever present. And even their like preparedness for the political questions. A lot of these people are not what anyone would call an amateur. You know what I mean? That’s not what they’re doing. Clearly, Eileen Gu, she trained in the United States and then when it competed for China, even though she’s an American. To me, that’s such a weird, again, indication that this isn’t always as simple and as wholesome as we would like it to be.

Beth [00:49:22] There was an interesting post that went, I guess, semi-viral about how Norway is so successful in the Winter Olympics, and Norway’s approach to recreation and sports is pretty opposite from what we do in the United States, that they have Olympic athletes who came up through pretty chill systems. It’s not like you have to start at three and be doing travel sports as a toddler to someday reach these heights. And I think that’s been an interesting conversation. I think there’s just been a lot of interesting conversations around these games and there always will be. And I’m with you. I used to have a lot more criticism for the Olympics than I do now. I kind of feel like it’s just not the most important thing to be upset about in the current state of the world. There are a lot of really fun stories. It’s nice to have on television, so I enjoyed it.

Sarah [00:50:15] I freaking love figure skating. I’m so into it.

Beth [00:50:18] Yeah, it’s fun to watch, and I’m happy for the people, and I just want to treat them with respect and let them have their moment in the spotlight and not let it last so long that they get doxed in hatred.

Sarah [00:50:29] I don’t even mind the, like, controversies. I like that the curlers are fighting. Who cares? You know what I mean? Like, who did touch it twice? Dun, dun, dun.

Beth [00:50:37] A little drama is good for us. That’s a low stakes drama.

Sarah [00:50:42] Exactly. Exactly.

Beth [00:50:43] I do want to give a quick shout out to our premium listeners who made the most incredible Google Slideshow with our own opening ceremony. We just super casually said, like, if you’d like to participate, I’ll drop a random country for you. And people made a slide about themselves and then a slide about the country and their athletes in the games. And they’re wonderful. If you haven’t seen it on you’re on Substack, you must find it. We’ll put a link in the notes. It’s just the feel good that I needed coming into these Olympic games. And we’ll do a medal count at the end and I’ll send some fun treats in the mail to the person whose country came through with the most medals. But we’ve enjoyed celebrating in that way this year too. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Pantsuit Politics. Thank you to Natalia Terfa and thanks to all of you for listening. We’ll be back with you next Tuesday. Until then have the best week available to you.

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Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

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