Kamala Harris Goes to Fox

Discussion thread for October 18, 2024

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On today’s show, Sarah and Beth discuss the interview Kamala Harris did with Bret Baier on Fox News, plus the state of the race and how we’ve seen Donald Trump’s campaigning shift and evolve over the last nine years.

TOPICS DISCUSSED

• Brett Baier of Fox News Interviews Kamala Harris

• How Nine Years Campaigning Has Changed Donald Trump

• Outside of Politics: Was Email a Good Idea?

EPISODE RESOURCES

Process your post-election stress with Sarah, Beth and Vanessa Zoltan of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text! Join us in Boston vis live stream on November 7 - for a fun night among friends.

• Full interview: Vice President Kamala Harris sits down with Bret Baier in 'Special Report' exclusive (Fox News)

• Trump Interview: His Plan for Taxes, Tariffs, Jerome Powell, More (Bloomberg) 

• Ann Patchett: The Decision I Made 30 Years Ago That I Still Regret (The New York Times)

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.

Sarah [00:00:29] Thank you so much for joining us. Today, we're going to talk about Kamala Harris's Fox News interview, as well as some of Donald Trump's more recent appearances and how all of that is helping us think about communicating with our friends and family about this election. Outside of Politics, we're going to continue to talk about communication. We're going to talk about online communication and e-mail. Ann Patchett wrote an essay for the New York Times on her regrets about ever signing up for email in the first place, but it left Beth inspired to email some more. We'll talk about that at the end of the show.

Beth [00:01:03] Before we do, we are sharing in many places, many times, in many ways this week that we have made a big move. We've taken a hard look at the health of our business this year, and realized that the most rewarding work that we do, the most fun work we do, and the work that keeps our business the most stable is all in making two additional podcasts for our listeners who financially support the show so that it can continue to be free. In the mornings, Sarah starts off your daily news practice by telling you what you need to know from the headlines. She curates and tells you what's important, what you should care about, or what's delightful and gives you her thoughts on those issues. On Thursdays, she focuses exclusively on good news so that you can really see progress in the world. And this is real good news, not just feel good news, not stories of people being nice to each other, but seeing the world evolve in positive ways. So it's a really wonderful part of staying informed without feeling depleted. And that's our mission here.

[00:02:10] In the afternoons, I make about a 10 to 20 minute podcast called More to Say, where I explore one issue in detail because the need that drives me to create More to Say, I think is shared by many of you. I care a lot about what's going on. I'll read an article and I find that I just need more context for that article. I need to understand some history. I need to understand some terms that are used in the article that maybe aren't defined clearly. I need to think about the application of what I've just read, so that's what I do on More to Say. I try to bring all of that perspective so that we can feel like we have a deeper understanding and an understanding that allows us to converse more thoughtfully with other people about the news. So we would love to have you join us and listen to those shows and benefit from the incredibly thoughtful, kind, fun group of people who listen to those shows and who discuss these episodes over on Substack.

Sarah [00:03:06] So we hope to see all of you there. Up next, we're going to talk about Kamala on Fox News.

[00:03:11] Music Interlude.

[00:03:22] Vice President Kamala Harris went on Fox News for a pretty intense interview with Brett Baier. It started with-- Beth, I'll give you one guess. I wish it wasn't you. Guys, I wish we could just grab someone off the street who knows almost nothing about the presidential race and said, "What do you bet was the first topic Fox News questioned her about?" I bet the lowest of low information voter can answer this question correctly.

Beth [00:03:48] He did have a spin on starting with immigration that I thought was interesting. Pursuing how many people have you let in? What number? How many millions of people have you allowed into this country, you personally, Kamala?

Sarah [00:04:03] You personally, you stood at the gates and opened them. I know she can't do this, but in my head I just thought, you made a point for her, which is what was the ultimate number? Six million or something. And then you listed four women who were murdered. So can you tell me, Brett, the number of violent crimes perpetuated by "illegal immigrants"? What's that number in relationship to six million? Because I bet it's pretty frickin low. I know she can't do that. I get why she can't do that. But that's what my brain was doing during this line of questioning.

Beth [00:04:45] I had a similar I-wish-she-could-say thought with this line of questioning because he was there with the graphic he showed the women, it's tragic. And I was really impressed and comforted by the way that she responded to this line of questioning. She was not defensive about that at all. She said this is a tragedy and she did not add anything to it or take anything away from it. I lament these deaths with you. This is awful. And I thought that was exactly the right way to handle it. What I found myself wishing she could say is, "And these deaths are not remedied. The pain is not lessened. The horror is not lessened by treating every single person who comes into the country as though they have a criminal history and are a foreseeable murderer. It doesn't make this better to take the leap that you always take from statistics like this."

Sarah [00:05:42] The morning brief from David Leonhardt at The New York Times did a round up this morning. His ultimate point was government has impact; let's quit it with the nihilism and the cynicism. Because we do try to hold both points and you could sort of feel it inside this interview that your administration is the worst. But Donald Trump was doing the best he could when he was president and nothing really bad happened then it all happened on your watch. Or everything he did was stopped by Congress or outside players, so he couldn't really make the positive impact he needed to do. But you're ultimately responsible for every single foot that steps across the border. That sort of interplay of responsibility-- hypocritical interplay of responsibility, I would argue. But he talked about immigration. He was like, look, some people aren't going to want to hear this, but the chart speaks for itself. The Biden administration did come in and removed a lot of the Trump administration policies. Did a catch and release and it surged. And then they saw that it surged and said we're not going to do this anymore, and they shut it down.

[00:06:49] And I was trying to think how could she express that? How could she say in this interview without it being split and cut and used against her to say we learned. I liked that question she took from the change of her positions before. Like, I listened and we learned and we changed footing. I think there would be a line of argument to say unlike Donald Trump, I'm willing to admit that I am fallible. And that every policy is not perfect and has unintended consequences. And we listen to experts and we pay attention to data. We don't draw the hurricane in another path on a map because it doesn't hurt my feelings to be wrong. Which I think she did. I think she does do that and brought that up, maybe not here in immigration. But there were this immigration policy which is consuming Americans imagination did change at the beginning of the administration. I was trying to think how best she articulated. I thought she did good and she held her own against him. I'm not criticizing. I'm just imagining.

Beth [00:07:54] Yeah, I think that she gets really close when she talks about how this was their first priority. The first thing that they put in front of Congress was immigration reform. And I think maybe the evolution of this answer is something. And the truth of it, too, is something like we wanted a durable, humane solution to immigration. And so that is the first thing that we proposed. Because, yes, we have some levers that we can push through executive action. But we know that that is not the best way to tackle this problem, and we wanted to tackle it the right way. And when it became clear that Donald Trump and his Republican and allies in Congress were not interested in tackling this the right way, we went back to the executive branch tools that we have and used them to deal with what was becoming a crisis situation. And I will, as president, use those tools to the best of my ability while continuing to pursue a durable, comprehensive fix. Something like that. Because I think I think the substance of what her answer is just needs to be fleshed out a little bit more for people who don't understand what the president can do versus what Congress has to do.

Sarah [00:09:15] Well, what I think is so hard is in a forum like this one-- I totally agree with you that going back to immigration reform as opposed to just executive action is what is needed. I think most Americans agree on that. But what always happens-- and I guess she could have focused on Trump; although, I think it's a problem within the entire Republican Party and she's on Fox News trying to reach moderate Republicans. So I understand why she can't take this line of attack. What I want to say to people, to my own relatives, is it's the same exact thing with abortion. This works for us electorally. We have no plan for afterwards. This works for us: to keep people afraid, to say Democrats are the enemy. But we don't have a plan. We don't have a health care plan for what will help most Americans. We don't have a reproductive care plan for what will get women out of these awful scenarios in which they're being arrested for miscarriages or dying for lack of medical treatment. And we certainly don't have a plan for the border; although, her argument is they did. They had a bipartisan plan, a very conservative plan that he tanked. But it's still the ultimate argument, which is they just want to use this electorally. They don't have a governing strategy.

Beth [00:10:35] The other thing I would love to hear her make a more intentional case around is labor. Because I do think the Fox News viewer is frustrated when they go into a restaurant and have poor service because there aren't enough people to work. When agricultural businesses cannot hire help. I mean, we are so dependent on immigrant labor in so many industries. And the Fox News viewer is constantly talking about wanting more industry here in the United States. We want to build more businesses, manufacture more things, more and more, more, more, and we must have more labor for all of that. And a sane approach to immigration would allow people to come into this country with dignity, to work with dignity, to contribute to our communities, to have the feel of the economy that people are looking for. And I think that she could articulate that well. And I would like to hear that kind of built into this framing, the more this gets raised.

Sarah [00:11:38] Well, I just wonder, though, because, look, you and I know that we are not the target for this interview or any other interview. And what the arguments she has to use don't need to convince us. They need to convince low propensity, low information voters. And I think the labor argument and I think the energy argument, I encounter this with my own relatives, I say, "We export energy." And they go, "No, we don't." "We don't have enough people in American to fill these jobs." "Yes, we do. People need jobs." It's this dated reality. I don't even really think it's misinformation, honestly. I think it is a dated understanding of the United States. You come up in a certain time, in a certain age period, and that reality that surrounds you just gets hardened. It gets set in concrete. America doesn't produce enough oil. America has too many jobs and not enough people to fill them. And that's just not the reality. That's not the facts on the ground. But it is so hard to argue that when people go, "No, that's not true. We don't make enough energy here." No, we export it. We make so much we sell it other places. And people just cannot believe it.

Beth [00:12:49] I share that observation with compassion. It's happening to me. I'm in my 40s now. There are things where my base level understanding of a situation is really dated. I have to check it all the time. It's hard. It's frustrating. It calls you sometimes into a little bit of an existential place. What's happening to me? So I get it. But I do think that pointing out the things that frustrate people presently might help here, because there are common frustrations that you hear, especially among the people who I think are the target audience for all of the activity in the campaign now. And she is so good at bringing everything closer and closer and closer to home that I hope that she might be able to work with some of that as she continues to refine how she talks about immigration.

Sarah [00:13:44] And I think she did that in the sort of turning the page argument. Everyone is tired of this. I liked it when she kind of looked at him a couple times and said, "Come on, you know what I'm talking about." He's been on the stage for nine years, turning us against each other. Like, you know what I'm talking about. This frustration, exhaustion-- I thought exhaustion was the perfect word for it, which she used a couple of times. The exhaustion Americans feel with this polarization is real. It is real. And I think that is such an incredibly strong argument. I think you probably-- Listen, do I understand someone who complains about polarization and watches Fox News? I do not. But I do think there's probably a fair amount of them.

Beth [00:14:28] A lot of it. I will never forget when you and I were on Mike Huckabee's show promoting our first book, which was an interesting experience, to say the least. And we watched the beginning of the show, which was a lot of anger. And we walk out on the stage and he very kindly welcomes us, greets us warmly, and then says, "Why are people so angry about politics?" That moment is imprinted in my brain forever. It is hard to watch this as someone who does pay close attention to news and politics and see what Brett Baier was doing. The idea that Kamala Harris has had more power and influence over the state of our politics as vice president for the last three and a half years than Donald Trump has for a decade; when for the entire duration of her term as vice president, his news channel has allowed Donald Trump to operate as a shadow president in a separate universe, is very galling. And you could tell that she experiences some of that in her body as she is trying to respond to this argument. But I did really like the way she said, "We want to move on from this. Look at me, I represent moving on. Can I make it more obvious? Look at me. I am a new generation. I'm a different person. It will be different."

Sarah [00:16:03] Yeah. I think the idea, and especially in conversation with friends and family members, that just he's been running for nine years. He's been running for president continuously. Remember when he was sworn in and it was like the next day they filed to start accepting campaign donations and running for his re-election. The same thing in January. It wasn't a day we got to celebrate him losing before he was saying I'm going to run again. Because talk about things that live rent free in our head, Jon Favreau's tweet about I'm going to break off the New York Times needle and poke it in my eye if he runs again, lives rent free in my head. Especially because I have our New York Times feature framed on my wall that says A Post-Trump America and it's four years old. So this idea that Americans don't love professional politicians, but this man has been running for president for almost 10 years and can't come up with anything better than the enemy within is the problem. Democrats destroy everything. Everything's your fault. I don't do anything wrong. Nothing compares to me. Literally on the wall behind him at that weird ass dance party they had for 30 minutes said Donald Trump Was Right About Everything. Really? Good. Then he was right about vaccines and I want to have a conversation about that with Fox News viewers.

Beth [00:17:27] It is almost helping me to hear you say that he's been running for nine and a half years. I am not immune to the anxiousness that polls can create, especially this close to an election. And I do continue, as we talked about on Tuesday's episode, to have that feeling of how is it this close? How are this many people still with him? But when I think about it, as he had Trump golf courses, Trump hotels, Trump casinos, Trump steaks, Trump University, Trump the White House.

Sarah [00:18:01] The Apprentice.

Beth [00:18:01] Yeah, The Apprentice. This has just become another business line for him that he has pumped out a stream of products and advertising around for nine and a half years. And that is effective. It is effective to sell people slogans like he was right about everything. I saw a sign saying that a couple of years ago in my neighborhood, I thought, I don't know what that means. I would like to knock on the door and ask some questions. But to you remember that this has been a long, shameless exercise in branding and that that is an expertise he's built over the course of his entire long life, helps settle me down a little bit about how we got here.

Sarah [00:18:45] Well, and it helps you remember how abnormal some of this is. I don't know if we've forgotten-- some people, I guess, like our children who have never existed outside Donald Trump's political America. Some of us, though, remember that presidential candidates didn't used to sell things for profit to their followers. They didn't sell Bibles made in China. They didn't sell $300 tennis shoes. They didn't sell crypto schemes to profit off the people who voted for them. And he does that all the time and we just forget that that's really weird and abnormal. But at what point in this decade-long experiment do we stop talking about this is abnormal? I know it is annoying when a politician is asked a tough question and they go to their opponent, but I do think some of this is smart. I think she's done a good job in this closing argument to go, "You want to go read my 80 pages of policy? Fine. You want to talk about Joe Biden's administration? Fine. But never forget, the other person you have to pick from has been doing this to us for nine years." I thought the Univision moment with him in the question about January 6th and that it was a day of love and those people's reactions was like, Lord, it was all of us. Just the way he manipulates in that marketing. And for her to just pivot constantly, like, don't forget who we're talking about. Don't forget who my opponent is. You have a beef with me? Fine, we can talk about it. But do not forget that Donald Trump is who I'm running against. And the issues with him are not only at least that his policies lack details or that he's made mistakes in the past, it's that he hits us against each other in a way that is a real threat to our democracy.

Beth [00:20:45] And what else can she do when she's asked about Joe Biden? If she said anything truly disparaging about Joe Biden, imagine how that would be received. Everyone criticizing her for saying, yes, I would do the same things, and speaking about him with respect; and no, I don't doubt his competence, knows exactly what it would mean if she said in any space, "I've had concerns about his aging." They know what it would mean if she said in any space I would handle the border differently. I would handle Israel differently. She is the vice president. She does not have the luxury of answering these questions as hostilely as you all seem to think that you want her to. But even if she weren't, she's the woman. And if she answers these questions as hostilely as you all seem to want her to do, then there would be a whole news cycle about her temperament and her judgment and her ambition and her ruthlessness that would also be received poorly. The only thing that she can do is make the case for herself with a lot of respect and deference to the person she is currently serving with.

Sarah [00:22:11] Watching this interview, especially those moments where she's discussing her role as vice president and her view about the Biden administration, illustrated the total and complete hypocrisy of so many lines of questioning inside this interview and inside our friends and family’s reasons for supporting Donald Trump. I'm going to try to say this without cussing, but I'm not promising anything. You're going to get in her face about Joe Biden and then refuse to hold Donald Trump's feet to the fire over Mike Pence's refusal to endorse him. Do you recognize the complete and total intellectual bankruptcy of that argument? That Joe Biden is old. Joe Biden's capacity has decreased. No doubt about it. It's why I didn't want him to be the candidate.

[00:23:12] But you don't see his secretary of defense, his Joint Chiefs of staff and his vice president saying I can't and you shouldn't either. Not for one more day. I can't. Give me a break. And it's the same thing I was so pissed about during this border conversation about these women who've been killed. The consuming and, I believe, performative grief from Republican politicians, including Donald Trump, about these women's deaths when we're all supposed to swallow any child that dies in a school shooting because that's just the cost of doing business, get out of here with that bullshit! I'm sorry. Get out of here. It is so transparent to me. I know it's not transparent to everyone, but it infuriates me because the hypocrisy is so thick, you can barely see a foot in front of you.

Beth [00:24:05] Well, and if we're just venting for a second, I would add the performative grief about these women's deaths, which are tragic and should not have happened, from his supporters who support him because of something supposedly connected to Christianity bothers me enormously. Because as a person of faith, I believe that those lives were precious and I am so sorry that they were lost. I believe also that when a child dies in the Rio Grande because their parents are trying to get them to a safer life, that is equally tragic. I understand our government has a different responsibility to citizens versus non-citizens. I'm very clear on that. But the way that he treats people coming into this country as less than, the way that he treats people who are here legally as less than-- I will never get over the way he talked about the Haitian community in Springfield. The way that he decides who is a person and who is not deserving of that full personhood, who is not deserving of our grief. And the fact that so many people anchor their support of him in faith, that is where I lose my ability to stay calm and cool and collected. I did think it was really effective the way that she kept saying to Brett Beiar, you and I both know.

Audio Clip: Kamala Harris [00:25:45] He has repeated it many times and you and I both know that. And you and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy.

Beth [00:26:06] Sarah, watching this, I observed a couple of things. One, I think this interview might have aged Brett Baier. I think this was very stressful for him, too. I think the pressure on him at Fox to be harsh and aggressive and to be the voice of the audience was probably really intense. But I also think that these moments when she cut through it and said, "You know, too," were difficult for him because they land. We all do know that Brett Baier, probably in his heart does not believe that Donald Trump should be the president again. And in his heart knows that he played a clip of Donald Trump that was misleading. And so I wondered as you took that in, if you feel like that is something that could land in just our conversations with our friends and family.

Sarah [00:26:53] When you were talking and you were saying he sees certain groups of people as less than, he sees everyone as less than. I truly believe Donald Trump thinks there is one person and one person only who is fully human and deserving of all the loving kindness the universe has to give, and that is himself. I don't think he feels that way about his wives. I don't think he feels that way about his children. I think if they did something or pushed him far enough, he would cut them out and talk about them in the same way. He certainly doesn't feel that way about groups of people like women. At these town halls where he's saying, "Explain IVF to me," and then bragging about how quickly he understood something that should have been understood already is like all you need to know. We all know how he is. You just want to make excuses for it. I think that the smartest thing we've landed on and you said it weeks ago where you were, like, if you just want to vote for him, fine, but don't make excuses for him.

[00:28:00] If you want to vote for him and you think he's hateful, but that the taxes will go down and that's more important to you, then just own it. Because we all know who he is at this point. He is selfish. He is hateful. And he will not be a president for everyone. You know that. I know that. So just be honest with me. He doesn't care about me. He doesn't care about a Democratic woman in a red state who will never vote for him. He will never, ever consider what is best for me or my children. Ever. And you know that, and I know that. And if that's a sacrifice you're willing to make, then fine. Make it. But don't lie to my face and tell me that it's not a popularity contest and we're not voting for class president, and he's this and he's that. We've all seen enough evidence at this point, Brett Baier included.

Beth [00:28:56] Yeah, I was just trying to think about the things that I could say "You and I both know" to some of the people in my life to see this so differently than I do. And I think you and I both know that I wouldn't trust him to stay at my house for an hour with my daughters. You and I both know that we don't want our kids to talk the way that he talks about other people. You and I both know that if you were the CEO of your company, he would get fired. You wouldn't want to work for him. You and I both know that. It's really hard in this information environment to get to the policy stuff because I think there are lots of things where you and I both don't know. But those personal characteristics, I think it's really effective. And I think we saw that it was effective with Brett Baier. He struck me as a living avatar of a person that we keep getting emails about.

[00:29:50] So we keep hearing from listeners about men in their lives who present as very rational and logical, who are well-spoken, who keep their emotions in check in conversations about politics and who filibuster, who go on and on, making 50 different unconnected points, but it all sounds pretty coherent and pretty tight and you don't know how to respond to that. And I felt like she gave us a little bit of a road map with that you and I both know because even though he continued to do the interview, he's professional, he did his job, whatever. However he conceives of it over there at Fox News, he did his job. But I do think that you could see it crack a little bit when she confronted him with the fact that, like, I understand what your play is here.

Sarah [00:30:41] I do want to talk about some of the tougher moments for me, speaking to realities that we have to face that have changed and that are in opposition to our internal dialog. So my internal dialog as a Democrat for decades, has been the risk to Republicans in their primaries. Is that their true believers are so radical that they have to twist themselves in knots to meet those radical positions and then turn around and moderate themselves for the American populace. I think that happened to Mitt Romney. I think that happened to John McCain. Now, did it happen to Donald Trump? No, because he just did whatever the hell he wanted. He didn't care if it was a Republican position or not. Maybe not an accident that he won based on that. But watching them use that clip around her, the clip that's been very popular is a Trump ad of saying we need to make sure prisoners get this care. I realized that's true for our side, too. That in the primaries particularly in the political environment in 2019 and 2020, we forced Democratic candidates. And by we, I mean some of the more radical organizations. Now, I don't consider the ACLU. I was an ACLU panel radical.

[00:32:11] But I do think some of these issue groups is particularly on the left. This happened around with republicans on abortion. These issue groups were driving the positions and now Donald Trump's like, oh no, I'm the father of IVF. I love it. Well, it's probably news to some of your more conservative primary supporters. But anyway, we do it, too, right? The Democrats have groups that are supporting their positions and their demographic group or their policy group or their ideological group. And we push our candidates into really far left wing positions and it comes back and bites them as it has Vice President Harris over and over in the cycle as she's tried to moderate herself. And I don't watch TV. Even if I did, I live in Kentucky, I might get some of the Illinois ads, so probably not. And so I had seen this and I thought, man, why do we do this to ourselves? Because my internal dialog was like, well, we don't do that because we are not radical and we're smarter. But watching her have to contend with some of the positions she took during that Democratic primary, this is not true. It's not true.

Beth [00:33:30] I live in northern Kentucky, which is in Cincinnati's media market, so I have seen the ad a lot where she talks about ensuring that prisoners receive gender affirming care. And it does feel like a time capsule from 2020. And the push for Democratic candidates to not only get the policy right, but to say it in exactly the right language. Now, if you've listened to this show for any amount of time, you know that I am personally way out of step with mainstream America on how I view people who are incarcerated and what that experience should be like and what its goals are and how it should be done. So every time I see this, it just makes me sad because I think here we are taking transgender people and prisoners and beating up on them some more. And in such a cynical, dumb way that is divorced from the issues that the president really needs to spend time on. So I hate it. I hate this. I think we are appropriately considering in many spaces the collective we, are appropriately considering where the push for inclusion became exclusive.

[00:34:57] And where the push for inclusion mostly in terms of style, but occasionally in terms of substance took our politics way out of step with where most people are and what their concerns are and how they view the world. This is a really delicate thing to get to, and there was no way she was going to get to a nuanced, thorough discussion of it in this interview with Brett Baier. I also think the fact that she sits down to do this with Brett Baier in and of itself that she will look him in the face while he plays the clip and she answers the question, goes a very long way. And I think it's much better to watch her in these contentious situations than in the softball situations. So I would rather her have to answer that question a hundred times between now and Election Day and see her look back at him and say, "I will follow the law just like Donald Trump did." I think that's fine. I think that's good enough for now.

Sarah [00:36:00] Yeah, I think she should continue to do as many interviews as she can for these places that are not necessarily the softballs. Do I still want her to go on hot ones? I do. But do I think she should go on Joe Rogan as well? For sure. I think that's a great idea. I think the more she can show that she's up for the challenge as opposed to Donald Trump going to the town hall of female voters that was just filled with Trump supporters, the better. Especially to that point that he is unstable and that his capacities are decreasing, which I think they are. I think the way he stood 30 minutes with music playing was really not only deeply weird, but concerning that he never had a moment of like, wow, I've been up here dancing-- not even dancing, just swaying to music-- wonder if I should talk about something else or do something else. That's wild to me. And so the more she can put herself in contrast, the better.

Beth [00:37:01] The dancing and then the clip from the Bloomberg interview where he's asked about Google and whether Google should be broken up. And he has no framework whatsoever to even pretend to talk policy on that. I think both of those moments are really illustrative that this is not 2016 Donald Trump.

Sarah [00:37:21] Yeah.

Audio clip: John Micklethwait [00:37:22] Should Google be broken up?

Audio clip: Donald Trump [00:37:25] I just haven't gotten over something the Justice Department did yesterday where Virginia cleaned up its voter rolls and got rid of thousands and thousands of bad votes and the Justice Department sued them that they should be allowed to put those bad votes and illegal votes back in and let the people vote. So I haven't gotten over that a lot of people have said that they can't even believe that.

Audio clip: John Micklethwait [00:37:54] The question is about Google, President Trump.

Beth [00:37:56] If you go back and watch 2016, Donald Trump, which I don't choose to do very often, but I have a couple of times recently to check myself on this. He is quite different. In 2016 he still would have talked about himself and Google being unfair to him, but I think he could have said something about antitrust enforcement and about whether this company should actually be broken up by the government and what that means. That would have offered some hint of recognition that policy is at stake in the election. He cannot do that anymore. He doesn't have it. So I like her in these tough contexts making that contrast really apparent. I think it's really smart the way her socials today are showing him on Fox on the same day as her on Fox. And the difference in what you see.

Sarah [00:38:46] So we know all of you are out there in the trenches just like Kamala in tough interactions with your friends and family trying to influence where you can and make a difference where you can. And it all matters because what we do know is that it's going to be close. And so I really hope that we can keep coming together here over the next few weeks and working through some of these arguments, working through what we're coming up against, because all we have is together.

[00:39:15] Music Interlude.

[00:39:25] At the end of the show we always take a minute to talk about what's on our mind Outside Politics. An email has been on our mind because we have moved our premium content to Substack, which started as an email platform. Still emails all are new creations episodes, discussions, newsletters directly to your inbox. When Beth brought an article from Ann Patchett for the New York Times and their series about your biggest regret and her biggest regret is email.

Beth [00:39:53] I was really struck by the idea that if you look at your whole life, the thing you most regret is getting an inbox. And she confronts that a little bit, like what a lovely existence you have if this is your biggest regret. But as I was reading her essay in which she talks about the really beautiful friendships, especially in the early days of email, that were able to evolve because you are exchanging written communications with each other, but more quickly than you could through the mail. It made me really miss that kind of email interaction. I think part of the reason that I have loved Substack to follow other people is that I do now get these really thoughtful essays in my inbox that I want to spend time with. It doesn't feel like a commercial or an ad. I get to hear from people where they've really spent time thinking about what they want to say. And I read this and got wistful for those early days of email when just with friends I was kind of writing a letter. And I don't take the time to do that anymore. But when I consider the role that email played when I first started dating Chad, for example, how much we shared with each other through email, how easy it was to be vulnerable because we weren't face to face or feeling the energy that happens in your body when you're being really open with someone, I don't know. It was as much an ode to email for me as it was a criticism of it.

Sarah [00:41:26] Yeah, I have all the emails that I sent to my mom when I first went to college, printed out. Nicholas and I also exchanged a lot of emails when we were first getting together even though we were on a small campus together. And I still use email quite a bit to communicate. I thought she was a little bit wrong about the idea that we've spent so much time typing these emails out to our friends that live far away that maybe we're not getting to know our neighbors. I don't know if you've ever spent any time with written communication people sent. Those letters were long. They took time. I don't think it's new to spend a lot of time trying to communicate to those who live far away from you and to maintain those friendships. I've been thinking about this with technology overall because she talks about how she doesn't have a smartphone, and I'm really battling with that idea right now. But for a lot of ways, I open email, I open text messaging, and I particularly use Marco Polo to communicate with people I love.

[00:42:30] And it's really important to me and it brings me a lot of happiness and joy, and I don't think it's a distraction and I don't think I'm numbing. And so I'm really trying to pay attention to technology and how it improves my life instead of constantly being in the position of critiquing the technology. And I think there's just a passivity to it I think that I have to really watch for. There's not a lot of time and space in my life for passive pursuits. I don't watch that much TV almost at all. I spent a lot of time reading. I spent a lot of time on Marco Polo talking to my friends or texting and or even in Instagram. A lot of time where I spend an Instagram right now is in the inbox with people sharing stuff that reminds me them of me and me of them. And so I'm just trying to maybe less be critical of technology and watch out for passivity in my life where I'm just consuming and more about where I'm participating.

Beth [00:43:35] I love that. One thing this article gave me as sort of a call to action is maybe reintroducing the practice of writing to people through email. I thought about how I don't get to spend even a small percentage as much time as I would like to with my mom and sister. And I really don't get to interact with them as my mom and sister because when we face time or call, usually my kids are around, my sister's kids are around. So I'm more interacting with my mom as the grandmother of my children, which is great and something I want to continue but it's less of interacting with her as my mom. And with my sister it's more like we're two aunts and these are all the cousins. And that's great too. I don't want to lose a second of that, but I would like to interact with them as my mom and sister.

[00:44:23] And I thought, I wonder if I just sat down at the end of the day and wrote a note to them that they could read when it works for them and respond to when it works for them, if that would bring something new into the relationship that isn't there right now. Because I'm like you, my day doesn't have a lot of space in it. I love Marco Polo, but even Marco Polo feels really kind of draining to me. I struggle a little bit with Marco Polo because I get distracted by looking at myself and feeling like I need to perform in some way because it's video and I spend all day professionally as you do, talking and listening on a lot of zooms. And so even when I desperately want to talk to the closest friends that I communicate with on Marco Polo, sometimes I'm like I don't have any more of that kind of capacity in me today, but I do think I could sit down and write an email. And so I don't know. I found Ann Patchett's regret really inspirational.

Sarah [00:45:22] The part of the piece that really did connect with me is I would like to write more generally, but she was like what any novelist will tell you is that it involves discipline. And the problem with all these forms of communication is that they are always available to feel like you're doing something. And that's the risk of email, right? The email is I'm clicking things off the box. I'm clearing the inbox. I'm deleting, I'm doing this and it can just fill the time. Not that the time does not bring something to you. Obviously, it does. That's why we keep checking our inboxes. Some of us run our business through there. Some of us get our news information from there. So we're getting something, but what she really connected with me is this idea of the before time when there was a lot more time. In so many ways technology saves me an enormous amount of time, but in a lot of ways it fills my time. Even when I'm doing it actively, it's still a finite resource. I'm still making a choice.

[00:46:29] And when she was talking about all we had to do all day was learn how to write and then run to the beach and look at the stars, I was just at the national park and just how often I would turn around and people would be sitting in this vista and looking at their phones, it's hard to shake the feeling that that's bad. There was one day where Nicholas and Felix went on a hike around Trout Lake in Yellowstone National Park, and I was too tired and I didn't want to hike around the lake. It wasn't that long, it was only 20 minutes, but I didn't want to. And I wanted to sit. And there was a log and Griffin and I sat. And because there's no service, there was nothing I could do on my phone. So I just had to sit and it was that art of sitting and noticing that I have not done in so long. Watch how the light on the lake changed. I noticed a duck I wouldn't have seen before and I thought, I don't do this enough. I'm too busy taking the pictures or checking the experience off without sitting with it and being bored and not filling the time with even something as lovely as chatting with my friends on Marco Polo. And so it's a balance and I think she does know that some of that balance is hard with the ability to communicate and to do always at our fingertips.

Beth [00:48:02] Chad and I drove out to a dark kind of open spot to try to see the comet this week, and I really couldn't see it with my eyes, but I could see it with the phone camera.

Sarah [00:48:15] Yeah.

Beth [00:48:17] And so it was really cool that the technology enabled me to experience the natural world in such a big way to think we haven't seen this in 80,000 years. That's amazing. But also there's the phone and it does all the things all the time. It doesn't just do the one thing that you want it to do in a moment like that. And I had my phone with me. And as you've said, we have had a very busy couple of weeks here trying to make this change to Substack. And so I too quickly picked up my phone again and was just back in it.

Sarah [00:48:52] Yeah.

Beth [00:48:53] I don't want to be anti. I think part of what I saw in this piece is that it's a beautiful piece of writing as everything Anne Patchett creates is. But part of what I saw is I don't want to look back and say I wish I had never engaged with some new technology. I don't think that's how I want to live. I don't think I want to go back from a smartphone, that would ask an awful lot of the people in my life and I'm not sure at what game I would do that. I do just want to be more thoughtful about what I'm using and how I'm using it and why and when. I think your point that it's always available is a really good one. And so how can I think through when it's not available to me because I've decided it isn't? I think that would change my relationship with email, too.

Sarah [00:49:48] Well, thank you, as always, for joining us as we ask these deeper questions about everything from the presidential election, to technology, to our own personal relationships with each other, with our friends and family, and, of course, with all of you who we are absolutely in relationship with. And we have seen that manifest this week a thousand times over. Your messages of support, your reviews on Substack, your subscriptions, obviously. But just the comments and the emails that we've gotten from all of you have been amazing. So if you found this episode helpful, we would love for you to share it with a friend or someone in your life who you're looking to have deeper conversations with. And if you like this show, we would love for you to come check us out on Substack, where we have two other shows for a daily news practice: Good Morning with me where I share the day's headlines, and More to Say with Beth in the afternoon. We'll be back in your ears on Tuesday and until then, keep it nuanced y'all.

[00:50:44] Music Interlude.

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.

Beth: Alise Napp is our Managing Director. Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Emily Helen Olson. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. Genny Francis. Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen. The Munene Family. Ashley Rene. Michelle Palacios.

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.