Federal Firings, Say Something, and SNL50

Discussion post for February 18, 2025

On today’s show, Sarah and Beth talk about President Trump's mass firings of probational federal employees and what that means for our communities and government, a mass shooting that was averted and why we're hearing about it, and outside of politics, SNL's 50th-anniversary celebration.

Topics Discussed

• DOGE Fires Federal Employees

• Sandy Hook Promise Prevents Mass Shooting

• Outside of Politics: SNL 50 and The White Lotus

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Episode Resources

Pantsuit Politics Resources

• 14 dead from storm in Kentucky as the region braces for another storm (ABC News)

DOGE Fires Federal Employees

• Trump administration wants to un-fire nuclear safety workers but can’t figure out how to reach them (NBC News)

• Sassoon resignation letter (CNN via DocumentCloud)

• Read the Resignation Letter From Hagan Scotten (The New York Times)

• Seventh DOJ official resigns, warns Trump could use charges as leverage over NYC mayor Eric Adams (NBC News)

• Trump dispatches NY real estate dealmaker to solve global crises (BBC News)

Sandy Hook Promise Prevents Mass Shooting

• Say Something Anonymous Reporting System

• Sandy Hook Promise Prevents a Mass School Shooting in Indiana (Sandy Hook Promise)

Outside of Politics: SNL 50

• Black Jeopardy with Tom Hanks (SNL)

• Watch Saturday Night Live Season 50, Episode 13: SNL50: The Anniversary Special (Peacock)

• Watch SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night (Peacock)

• The Pitt (Max)

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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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, and today we're going to discuss more firings in the federal government, the Trump administration's impact on European leaders, and something that might not have broken through your headlines. How a possible school shooting was prevented this week in Indiana. And then Outside of Politics, we're going to talk about TV, and there's a lot to talk about.

Sarah [00:00:28] There's a lot to talk about. On Sunday night we had the big SNL 50th anniversary extravaganza. So we're going to talk about that, which competed with the season premiere of White Lotus, which (drumroll please) we have decided to do recaps of on Substack. We did this with the final season of Succession, and that was just so much fun. And so we're going to watch the new season of White Lotus, which is coming out a week at a time, as God intended, Beth.

Beth [00:01:00] I applaud that decision. Absolutely.

Sarah [00:01:02] That's the way it should be. I feel so strongly about this as a Millennial.

Beth [00:01:06] It takes a lot of pressure off.

Sarah [00:01:08] Yes.

Beth [00:01:08] Gives you something to look forward to. I like appointment viewing.

Sarah [00:01:11] Yes. You can't process that level of writing and plotting if you binge it all at one time. Okay, so that aside, we're going to do week by week episode recaps, which are really just our episode processing. So that will start today on Substack with the very first episode of season three of White Lotus. So go check that out.

Beth [00:01:32] Because we are people who have a variety of tastes, we are also on Substack this month, beginning our slow read of the book Habits of the Heart. So last year we read Democracy in America together, and we took so much from reading and discussing democracy in America with all of you. Habits of the Heart is a follow up to Democracy in America, written by a group of authors in the 1980s. It's a much easier read than Democracy in America. That's going to feel like the pages are just flying by if you read along with us for Alexis de Tocqueville. So you can find more information about the reading schedule for that in our show notes and on Substack. Our first episode for that read along will be at the end of February. And I can't wait because I love the first section of this book so much. I was immediately sucked in to the characters and the approach, and just the way the authors are exploring what we're all trying to do here and what the point of anything is. It really meets the moment for me.

Sarah [00:02:26] So there's lots of stuff going on Substack, and you can just dip your toes in if you want to with a free trial. So go check it out.

Beth [00:02:31] We want to acknowledge that we are recording from our home state of Kentucky. Sarah lives in far western Kentucky. I live in Northern Kentucky and all across the state end to end, as many of our local papers have described it, Kentucky is experiencing historic flooding. More than 11 people have died. Some of the stories are horrific about people getting stuck in their cars. There have been straight line winds, there have been landslides, there have been snowstorms. It's all happening here right now. And we are aware that it's not just all happening in Kentucky, and that many of you are dealing with some severe winter storm warning. So just sending a lot of love and care and good energy out to everyone who's been impacted.

Sarah [00:03:12] And really relevant, we're about to have a conversation with a New York Times reporter about when do you decide to just give up? Because we had historic flooding just a few years ago, which calls into question the use of the word historic, as we so often describe these weather events and particularly this time because we have flooding, then we're going to have dropping temperatures. There's going to be all this water in place, it's going to start to freeze. So it's a really difficult time in our home state and it brings up so many different issues with regards to climate change and disaster management and the federal government's role in disaster management and how we're all going to manage that. And so that is at top of mind this morning as we have many, many, many other news stories to discuss.

Beth [00:04:01] So next up, we will discuss the Trump administration's continued bender (to borrow from Representative Greg Landsman) throughout the bureaucracy. Sarah, I have been putting off booking a flight that I need to book, and I feel like that is my body's response to the news. I am just putting off booking this flight, even though I know that flying is still very, very safe, especially compared to driving a car. I will do this. I think, you know what? Maybe I'll just drive that trip instead of flying.

Sarah [00:04:38] That's crazy. Don't do that.

Beth [00:04:39] And then I remember that is a bad application of risk and math. That's not how it works. But I am struggling and I struggled even more when I read that the administration is firing hundreds of people from the Federal Aviation Administration. I would just like to kind of huddle up there and check in on everybody and make sure everybody's doing well, because the importance of those jobs is in our faces every day.

Sarah [00:05:04] Yeah, they're not firing air traffic controllers because we don't have enough of those to begin with. But the firing at FAA and everywhere seems to just be like a find anyone with probationary in their title and fire them. They're trying to reach these numbers. They're using a axe where a scalpel would be more appropriate. And there's no place or agency, nothing that's in an important enough subject matter that seems to be untouched. It does seem like there's a couple places. So the air traffic controllers-- they're not firing any postal workers. I heard a story from a friend who works in the VA, and they had a nurse anesthetist that was like, I would like to take the fork in the road. And they're like, sorry, you can't. We need you. So very, very high level. It seems like they're trying to say like, no, you're essential or they'll fire them and then two days later they'll go back and go, just kidding. We want you back. If they can find them. Which is what happened at the Nuclear Safety Board.

Beth [00:06:17] Yes. I will just let this headline speak for itself. NBC News: Trump administration wants to unfire nuclear safety workers, but can't figure out how to reach them.

Sarah [00:06:26] This is the one that really blew my mind. I was like, what did you mean? Do you mean they ran away? I was like, wait, what happened? What do you mean you can't find them? It's because they're moving so quickly in deleting everyone's emails and access. What's the point of just wiping them off the system entirely? Like, that's the part I'm like, I don't what's. Why are we doing that? Why are we deleting their emails and all their files and telling them they have 30 minutes to get out of the building? Like, what's the rush? That's what I can't quite put together. I guess so they can't organize or get some important records, do something to support the inevitable lawsuits. Although, the reason they go after the probationary employees-- first, they retracted the offers. That make sense. Like you're not going to even start. Then they went after the probationary employees because they don't have as many civil service protections. You have to work there for like a year or two years to start getting those protections. Those are what people are going to sue over. So in a certain sense, I guess it makes sense. But I'm like why just wiping them from the system? That's the part to me that I can't quite figure out.

Beth [00:07:29] You know how we all have our personal Ted talks? Mine is called Smart Girls or Dumb. And it is about how we have raised a couple generations now of people who think that if you can show it on a graph it's real, and if you can't, it's not. And that is my concern about what's going on here. I again am positive and federal workers say this to us all the time in our emails and DMs, of course, let's improve things. Let's upgrade the software. Let's be leaner, meaner, more efficient. All of the things. I support it. When you are firing people and then trying to unfire them, you are not being lean and mean. You are making your graph appear, right? It's not even a word. But you are showing on a graph look how much I did today. And if you are one of these young people who has been told to demonstrate that you too have demon mode in you, that's why you go this fast. You show I deleted however many terabytes of access or information today. Like you can put it on a graph and so it looks like you did something real. And you did something and it was real, but I don't think it ultimately serves the purpose of what they're trying to do here.

Sarah [00:08:45] Well, that's a good point though, because the numbers game-- like even I was having a conversation with the federal employee and he was just like cool headedly talking about like, well, they're trying to hit this number. This is the percentage. And that's the thing; they're treating this like numbers and they're not treating them like people. That's the number one issue I have. It's just mean. They're just being mean. Especially people you've recruited, it'll mess with you. Like the government wanted me here. They recruited me. I could be making more money in the private sector and then I get this email that's like you're worthless. Get out. You have 30 minutes. It's almost like they're users, right? They're treating them like data and users behind a computer screen and not real people. Although, I guess when Elon went to Tesla and SpaceX, he was firing real people. Those were not social media platforms when he was going into demon mode there, which I guess says he just doesn't care. Just see the nastiness of it, just to treat people like they are not people. Like they are just either cogs in a machine or villains. That seems to be the two approaches. You're either a worthless piece of machinery or you're a villain. Because we haven't even gotten to the Justice Department. And what went down over Eric Adams. We even haven't got there yet.

Beth [00:10:09] It's even worse because if you stop treating people like people, then you're going to totally lose any goal other than the numbers. It's all just the service of the numbers. Nobody is coming out and saying, we have a new vision for how the FAA works, or we have a belief that immigration cases can be processed in a different way. And that's why we're going to fire 20 judges despite 3.7 million pending asylum cases. Because here's where we're going. But the people who stay behind when their coworkers have been treated this way are not the same people as before the firings. That's the other thing. You learn this early when you're managing people. Every time you add or subtract a person from a team, you have killed the old team and given birth to a new team. And it takes a whole lot of time. And most people do not come out on the other side of a reduction in force as a locked in, ready to go, charged up employee.

Sarah [00:11:09] That's totally right. I was actually just telling the story of my personal life; I was on an organization and I was running for an office and they made the truly heartless decision to have the election when I couldn't come because I had just found out that my 20 week pregnancy was over and they had the election anyway, because nobody knew why I wasn't there and I lost. But what they didn't count on is they were going to find out eventually why I wasn't there. And then people hated them. So it's this sense of even when the government employee was before Judge Tanya Chutkan was like I cannot confirm whether all these employees have been fired. Like they're just so in this present moment because their vision is right now flood the field. So they do have a vision for the present for right now. Right now is flood the field, demon mode, move as quickly as possible before the cogs of the bureaucracy and the judicial system can slow us down. And I do think, for better or for worse, that speed is appealing to a majority of the American populace. I think a lot of people are just right now-- just right now, I don't think this will last. Nothing lasts in American politics. That's the good news. Right now like, well, at least he's doing something. He told me he was going to do it. He told me he was going to do big things and he's doing big things. And so they're high a little bit on that supply in this present moment. The demon mode feeds itself. You know what I mean?

Beth [00:12:45] I do. And I'm glad you brought up Judge Chutkan because major kudos to her for responding differently in the face of this. She recognizes that the speed is the point. And so she said, you know what? We're not taking Presidents Day off this year. We will have our hearing. We will be in court. I will rule fast. That's the energy that you need to meet this kind of action.

Sarah [00:13:08] If Judge Tanya Chutkan is not on the Supreme Court in like 10 years, I'll be so mad.

Beth [00:13:14] Agreed.

Sarah [00:13:14] She is out there doing the work every day. Reminds me of that moment when they had the big snowstorm and Lisa Murkowski and like three of the congressional clerks came in anyway. They're like, we're here. A little snow don't scare us. Like that's the energy you're going to have. It's going to have to be like the Justice Department. It's going to have to be people saying, hey, you know what? Fine. We're entering a new era where we act quickly and we do big things. I can do that. I can do that, too. I think that's what you see people responding to and with. It's like Bishop Buddy that's like no here and no further. This is my job. This is the action I can take. Or it's Danielle Sassoon out there going, nope, this is what I can do here and no further. We're going to act big; we're going to talk big; we're going to act quickly? Fine, I can do that too. And I think that energy in the present moment that's like here and no further. I'm going to do what I can do. I might not be able to stop you, but I can use the levers I have control of in the way that I have control of them.

Beth [00:14:14] So if you don't recognize the name Danielle Sassoon, she is a very, very conservative prosecutor who was appointed by Donald Trump like a couple weeks ago. Who just resigned and wrote a brief of a resignation letter to explain that there is no cause to drop the charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. That that case is well-founded, that a grand jury indicted him and that she would not be bullied into dropping those charges. And so she resigned. And a lot of people are resigning over the situation with Eric Adams, including deputy mayors in the city of New York. And the governor of New York today is going to hold a meeting to discuss the future for New York City's mayor, Eric Adams, in his current office. There's a lot going on there. And I agree with you that noisy resignation is a powerful tool, especially for prosecutors. And I'm glad that they're saying, no, I think this is wrong and I won't be part of it. Somebody will be, but it's not going to be me.

Sarah [00:15:11] I loved-- is his name Hagan Scotten?

Beth [00:15:13] Yes, a great name. Fantastic name.

Sarah [00:15:15] He was like you might find a fool or coward, but it was never going to be made that was going to sign this. Because again it was ham-fisted. It was, well, we're going to do this so we can hold an investigation in the future over his head, so he'll do what I want over immigration. And they put it in the documents so they like wrote it out like that. Like by the way, we're going to drop these charges now because you better do what we want because we might bring them back later. That's bananas. And I love that Danielle Sassoon and all these other people were like-- I mean, y'all, these are people who clerked for Justice Scalia. Hagan Scotten clerked for Roberts and Kavanaugh. But that's a perfect example, right? When you take an axe, not a scalpel, you are eliminating people who could help you, who actually agree with you probably most of the time. This administrator that just resigned from the Social Security Administration, some of these bureaucrats within the bounds of the law do feel obligated to help the president, whether they agree with him or not, and you're eliminating them. So you are taking out people who could help you. That's just the reality. I don't care what department we're talking about. I don't care what staff we're talking about. If you do have a vision that goes beyond demon mode, you are absolutely making that harder right now.

Beth [00:16:42] The Hardest lesson that I learned as someone who had the obligation to think about how we staffed a place was that people are always a good use of time. Even the people who don't belong in the organization long term, or whose time has come to an end, or who were never a good fit in the first place. Even those folks are a good use of your time, because how you treat people on their way out the door impacts the morale of everybody else there. So just slowing this down enough to know what you're talking about, to have any clue who's going to be an ally to your agenda and who isn't instead of just barreling in like this. And this is bananas. And I understand that Elon is willing to say, well, I make a mistake now and then and we'll correct it. No, you're making some mistakes that are not correctable because, again, these are people, not codes that you can just go back and change.

Sarah [00:17:40] Okay. But that's the hard part I want to talk about because I don't want to just rail against the firings, because I think there are two hard realities we have to face here. One is they are not paying a political price for any of these ham-fisted decisions. I don't know how to say it any more clearly. They're not. I thought, how silly to waste all this political capital on Eric Adams. Why? What do you need so badly from Eric Adams? Except it doesn't seem that they did spend any political capital. For the most part, people are happy with how quickly he is moving and most of these changes. I don't know when that will end. Again, I don't think there's any permanent state in American politics. But I also don't want to ignore the fact that things that we have warned against for years, that you can't do this, you can't fire people, he is and he continues to. And I don't see him stopping anytime soon.

Beth [00:18:40] I don't think he's going to stop any time soon. I think that there are people who are overjoyed about what he's doing right now. I think there are people who wake up in the morning stressed and go to bed and don't sleep because of their concern about what he's doing right now. And I think most people don't have the details and haven't felt the effects yet. I think that some of this will surface in ways that really upset people. There are government checks that if they don't go out on time, the public will riot. And the administration is probably sharp enough to know that and to be a little bit careful around some of those things, but I think again it's not early for the people in government who are experiencing all of this. And that's a lot of people and they are all connected to a lot of people. So when we say people are happy, now, a whole lot of people are not happy. Some people are happy and some people are not happy and some people don't know yet. But I do think there's still a yet out there, because the impact of all of this hasn't been fully felt. And it's also true that the government works on things that the vast majority of the population never thinks about, never interacts with, and would say the government shouldn't do that if you ask them because it benefits the public in such an indirect or such a long term, or such an esoteric way that most people aren't going to be reached by it.

Sarah [00:20:14] Well, and that's what I think we need next. Is that what we want? Has that worked? We need a vision for what comes next if they don't have one. Because I think the other thing I'm really struggling with beyond the answer to what you just said, which is what if it doesn't? That's the little devil on my shoulder. Every time I say, this is ham-fisted, this is going to cause harm, there's just a little devil on my shoulders that goes, but what if it doesn't? What if it doesn't? What if all these esoteric applications of the federal government's power disappear and people don't feel it? That's what I can't quite shake. That's the nightmare in my head. Or maybe, I don't know, is it a nightmare? Do I wish for bad things to happen so that Donald Trump pays a political price? Is that actually what I'm wishing for? Because that feels like a weird prayer, too. I know one thing. And that the political reality I have existed with it for most of my adult life is over. And I realize the last few days, like, why am I cranky? What is this feeling? And I think it's grief. I think I went through the reasoning, and I think I went through the anger, and now I'm just trying to really face the reality. There's no magical thinking here. It's over.

[00:21:41] The way that we experienced government and the Democratic Party and the presidency and Congress for most of my adult life, certainly when I lived in Washington, D.C., is done. It's over. And I don't know what comes next and that is scary. But I think what I'm feeling right now is the sense of like, it's almost like I keep thinking about that moment in Covid when I realized like, oh my God, I transitioned to a new phase of parenthood and kind of like missed it because I was so discombobulated because of Covid. I miss the fact that I sent my youngest child to kindergarten because I didn't really send my youngest child to kindergarten, which is why I missed it. But I left the little phase behind and I was so upset about other things, I missed it and that's what that feels like. This is what that feels like right now. Like I've entered a new phase. The country has entered a new phase. The things that were before are broken. They're not going back to the way things were. We're just not. I don't know a lot right now. I feel foggy about so many things, but I do not feel foggy about the fact that we have entered a new era of American politics and American governance.

Beth [00:22:45] I think Covid is a really good reference point because the early days of Covid especially, but the entire pandemic, you had everybody going through it, but some people experiencing it so much more acutely than us. And that is absolutely the case with these firings. There are so many people who are in the equivalent of New York City in the early Covid days, and then a lot of us just wandering around rural America, hanging out at football games and wondering what the big deal is. And I think that that's a lot of why everyone feels a lot of strain because we are all going through it, but it is impacting us to such vastly different degrees.

Sarah [00:23:28] Well, and that's when I try to push myself to think, okay, well what would make a difference? What comes next? What's the vision? I think, well, that's the problem. I know we're a big, diverse country and we're never going to experience everything the same way. But there is a lack of responsiveness within the federal government in particular, including with our like representatives, who should be the closest to the ground and the most responsive. Here's where I put in my plea again to uncap the House, which I think should be a part of the vision for what comes next in America. But there's no ecosystem. It's too diffuse. There's no feedback loop. Until it hits the level of where we got here. Like the feedback from the American populace about the functioning of the federal government should not have gotten to Elon in demon mode. We were missing many, many, many, many, many layers of feedback. We shouldn't have gotten to this point. It shouldn't have gotten to where someone like Elon Musk feels empowered to go demon mode on the federal government because people have been so unhappy for so long.

Beth [00:24:34] Yeah, I think that's right. I think we are getting the Marvel movie equivalent of government at the federal level, because it's so big that only the Box Office hit breaks through. And that has to be pretty simplistic and pretty loud, and it has to have something entertaining about it, like mass entertaining about it. So if I think about what's next, if I were a state governor right now watching what's playing out in the federal government, I would be thinking Covid again and those small collections of states that got together and said, how can we support each other? How can we create a supply chain that works for our little region? What are the policies that we want to put in place about travel? Especially as I hear them threatening to take down FEMA. In light of everything that's being experienced, I think regional cooperative action is what's really called for right now.

[00:25:30] And maybe that is a good way to think about the future, no matter what's going on at the federal level. To think more regionally. I don't think we can go it alone state by state. But I look at Europe's response to Trump and Vance and Hegseth marching around and basically spitting on the international order that has existed since World War Two. And whatever the merits and the problems with that, I think it's really healthy for Europe to say, all right, huddle up, everybody. We're going to meet in France. We're going to make a plan. We're going to work together. We're not going to rely on America anymore because they're not reliable. And so here we go together. I just think that that spirit of we're not going to sit here and be mad about it we're going to do something, is the right one.

Sarah [00:26:19] Yeah. Because I think when you get into the five alarm fire about everything he does, everything he does is wrong, every critique is wrong, there's nothing here except destruction, I just don't think you can go anywhere from there. I don't think you can produce a vision for an answer from there. I read a really good piece from Matthew Parris in The Times from London, not the New York Times, and he was just like don't panic. This is not the second coming of Munich. First of all, Vladimir Putin is not Hitler. His economy is in the garbage, and he's thrown enough people, hundreds of thousands of people, as cannon fodder that he had to ship some in from North Korea. So he can't exactly have big ambitions to conquer Europe right now. My favorite line is what he said about Trump. Trump is not Chamberlain. He's King Lear, only fitfully lucid, his grip on reality weakened and his vanity bloated by a world too ready to take him on his own terms. But he isn't always wrong. And he talked a lot about when he was in Ukraine, like they're so cynical.

[00:27:22] Most people in Ukraine know we're not going to get this vision where we claw back every inch, including Crimea. No one thinks that's realistic. They are so sort of bereft, but they know a compromise with Russia has to come. Now, do I think the Trump administration should have telegraphed everything that Ukraine will have to give up and put a timeline and then not invited Ukraine to the table? Of course not. But I also think we have to acknowledge the weakness of Russia, even as we align ourselves with them and not Europe, and that some of the things and the critiques about Europe have been true. That's the thing I just don't want to miss. I don't want to be so angry and clinging to what was that I can't be a part of articulating what was weak about what was and what could come next. I think you're right. I think Europe coming together and saying, okay, we're going to have to spend more on our own defense. He's been telegraphing this to us since 2016. So what are we going to do?

Beth [00:28:28] I have a lot of critiques of this approach to the war in Ukraine and the negotiations. And also this is the fourth year of the war in Ukraine and that's a failure. That's just a failure. For war to rage in Europe for four years, that's a failure. So I tried to sit back this morning and just think well I hope what they do works. I hope what they do works even if it's not how I would have done it, and even if I don't like the people who are running their mouths about it. I read an article about Steve Witkoff, who is the Middle East envoy that Trump is trusting with all of these negotiations, and people say that guy's a really good negotiator. He actually really is. He is kind of what Trump thinks he himself is. But this guy is like the real deal. And I understand that he doesn't know the history of Ukraine and the history of Russia and the history of the Middle East and all of the culture and all of the people.

[00:29:25] He would not pass a defensive learning about any of it. But there are skills in just getting people to the table and getting something done. And I'm just willing to take a flier here in service of peace if we can get to peace. A durable peace. Now, I don't trust Vladimir Putin for anything, and I am worried that we'll be taken for a ride in this process in ways that are detrimental for the long haul. So I'm not optimistic, but I'm trying to not be knee jerk pessimistic either because the facts are that four years of war here is a failure. The amount of destruction that Ukraine has endured, and that lots of parts of the world has endured because of the agricultural and economic implications. Let's try for some movement here.

Sarah [00:30:13] Because our approach to this post-World War Two order has not remained consistent. It's the same thing that we were talking about last week with our vision of the presidency. He's not exploiting something that we didn't pave the way for all along. He's exploiting a powerful presidency because we've been on that road since FDR. He's exploiting the weakness of this American version of a post-World War Two peace because we've been abandoning it for years. The idea that we were going to support Ukraine, but not in any way that would make anybody uncomfortable. Russia acted big. Our support for Ukraine should not have been medium, which is what it was. It should have been big. It should have said we'll give you whatever you want to blow them back and you can do it now. But we didn't.

[00:31:11] That's not the approach of the Biden administration. And it wasn't the approach that Europe wanted either. Europe was also medium at best this whole time. When they invaded I remember because I was right and that sticks in your head. Everybody was like Europeans were not hopeful. They thought this was going to be over quickly, that Russia was going to take Ukraine, and they were prepared to let it happen just like they let it happen in Crimea. Donald Trump is not at fault for Crimea. The rest of us are. And that was the first step. And so I just think we can't just go he's shredding everything, it's all his fault. We have to acknowledge the missteps along the way so that we can learn from them, acknowledge them, and build a vision for a different approach, not just take it back from him and put it back the way it was.

Beth [00:32:03] I think accepting the reality as it exists and trying to meet that reality with something more effective is a good transition to the story we're going to talk about next. I was really struck this weekend, Sarah, reading a CNN email that included just a tiny blurb about the prevention of a mass shooting. It got my attention because usually the prevention of something doesn't make a news roundup. And I clicked into the story and learned about this situation in Indiana, where a person called the anonymous tip line created after the Sandy Hook shooting. This tip line has been around since 2012. It's called the Say Something Anonymous Reporting System. It is an around the clock crisis center staffed by counselors. And the caller said, "I know a person who says they have access to an AR 15 and has just ordered a bulletproof vest. And this person really admires the Parkland shooter, and I'm worried about it." And so Sandy Hook Promise, which operates the system, notifies the FBI and sends the discord screenshots that the caller provided. And the FBI gets in touch with the Wisconsin Department of Justice because they think that's where the potential shooter is, but it's actually Indiana.

[00:33:23] So there's some investigating and the Department of Justice goes back to the caller and says here's what we need you to do to interact with this person online and get us some more information. And they finally track down exactly where in Indiana this is happening, and they arrest the student after they find credible evidence of a planned Valentine's Day massacre at school. And there's a lot of sadness and grief on the other side of this story about that student. But to prevent something horrific, to accept the world as it is, to not wait for the legislation that we want, or the world to be the way we want it to be, to accept the world as it is and set up a structure that in its existence has prevented at least 17 school shootings and many, many other acts of violence, that's amazing and worth talking more about.

Sarah [00:34:21] Yeah, the prevention of bad things, which, for what it's worth, is a huge, huge function of the federal government that just doesn't get a lot of attention because it's not a sexy story. It's not. It's competing with headlines when things didn't go right. Even the plane crash in Toronto is a little bit of both, right? Like, no, it shouldn't have flipped, but also nobody got killed and everybody got off the plane. And so it's just hard to hold all of that. I'll tell you a thing I find-- I don't know if interesting is the word, but it got my attention. Because that the student is a female, self-identified as male just like the student at Nashville, the student in Madison was a female. This is something that we just took as gospel truth. Student shooters were male. Females never did this. And here we are with these complicating factors of the shooter in Nashville and this shooter. And this person's story, there's like a picture of her as a little girl with the same police department because she was, I think, hit on the street and then their parent died.

[00:35:36] It's just lots of awful complicating factors here, but I'm trying to again face things that disrupt my narrative. And so this is the third time that it has been a female shooter. Two times female self-identified as male. Because that's the other thing I want to face, too, because I just feel like there's so often things that are disrupting my narrative. And by nature of the beast, the other side is more than happy to take those disruptions and feel them. So I was reading about after the Madison shooting, where the shooter was a female, that so much of that hard right media ecosystem has now glommed on and is ready to be like they're trans every time. Like, I'm sure it's a trans shooter. And there's a part of me that wants to just go, that's so gross. Of course they're doing that. But then there's a part of me that's like pushing that aside and being like they're just gross lets it build, lets it feed itself. I want to say, yeah, there's something happening here, particularly with the growing number of female shooters, that we should acknowledge and talk about instead of just accepting the old narrative and saying, well, they're not enough of those and you're just being gross. And I can build up the counter narrative in my head, but I'm trying not to let those fuel.

Beth [00:37:09] To have the folks from Sandy Hook have been involved in this since 2012, I'm sure they've learned a lot of lessons. They got a lot of information. But to just, again, accepting the world as it is and then saying to teenagers everywhere, "If you see this online, here's what you do. It's real easy." That, to me, is worth just broadcasting as widely as possible. I sent this article to Jane. She's on a little committee at school that's working on teaching people to be upstanders instead of bystanders. I was like, this is how. This is how. We always end with sort of an exhale, and today we got a good one. We're going to talk about television. I need to start with a confession, Sarah. I had a crazy weekend. I was running with scissors all weekend, and so I did fall asleep during SNL 50. I watched part of it, but I have not finished yet.

Sarah [00:38:04] Okay, well, Beth, let's just talk about the logistics of celebrating SNL, because I know you love it.

Beth [00:38:10] I do love it.

Sarah [00:38:11] Were you to participate in all of the SNL celebratory programing, you would need to dedicate 13 hours of your life to that task, which is, I think, the first thing we should talk about. Four our documentary, a three hour music documentary, a three hour live music performance and a three hour SNL episode, which is what took place on Sunday night. Does that seem maybe a bit excessive to you?

Beth [00:38:51] It seems a bit excessive to me until I think about how close I am to my 50th birthday, and I would take 13 hours of celebration around my 50th birthday.

Sarah [00:39:01] That is not even true. I don't think that's true. I think you feel like that's too much. Every day you're like, "If I ever want to run a memoir, tell me not to."

Beth [00:39:08] No, that's true. But doing like a couple of days of travel or something, I'm just trying to be fair about the fact that 50 is a milestone.

Sarah [00:39:16] First of all, I do want to remind you that they did a lot of stuff around the 25 years.

Beth [00:39:21] That's true.

Sarah [00:39:22] So it's not like they've put it off. You know what I'm saying? I at first was like, this is so fun. I love all of this. I watched the music documentary and then I found out about the concert. I think the concert and the length of the actual 50th episode or 50th anniversary episode is was when I was like, okay. And also I did watch all of it on Sunday night and at a certain point I was like, wait a minute, what are we doing here? Because for a lot of reasons, I don't want to say I didn't enjoy it. I laughed my ass off at Eddie Murphy doing an impression of Tracy Morgan.

Beth [00:40:00] That was fantastic.

Sarah [00:40:01] That was the peak. If you don't want to watch any of the rest of it, just go watch Black Jeopardy. And they brought Doug back. I didn't think they used Doug to the fullest extent possible. They were more making fun of Doug. When the genius of that first Black Jeopardy with the MAGA person was the connection that they had with Doug, which was-- I mean, it's truly one of my top five SNL skits of all time as far as perceptiveness. So that was funny. I thought the self-satire when Tom Hanks came out and he thought he was going to do a memorial section and really it was just like all the weird, yikes, cringe stuff they've done over the years, was great. There are parts of it that I thought were wonderful, but I don't know why we did so many skits that are not old. Why do we do Domingo? That's skit's like two months old. Why do we go and do that? And they did the John Mulaney New York City Broadway thing stand up. I'm like why are we not revisiting-- you got 50 years to play with and you've dedicated a big, huge chunk of this to kids that are not that old. It felt weird to me.

Beth [00:41:07] I think the documentaries were done really beautifully, and I loved that they took you into why this is so hard. Why SNL is so uneven. That's what SNL is, right? It's uneven. And there's something that I like about that because it reminds me that creating stuff is hard. And it reminds me that what sounded good in the room with everybody sometimes just doesn't land when it goes out over the airwaves. I feel like SNL is a constant celebration of creativity in all of its glory and its defeat. And so I thought that looking back at something like Cowbell, there's a whole hour on the Cowbell sketch. And I thought that was so smart to say, like, this got ditched multiple times before it actually ran. Here's why it ran. Here's why it felt different when we performed it in front of the audience than when we rehearsed it. All those little pieces showing you how it when it comes together and it really works, it really works. But that's so rare because getting it to really work as hard. So I was worried when I saw that they were going to do three hours. Because three hours is a lot to ask for that incredible feeling of when something really hits.

Sarah [00:42:32] So clearly I'm not Lorne Michaels. I don't like Lorne Michaels. That stance is well established. Because a lot of this was also him rewriting history, particularly around Sinead O'Connor. Okay. You treated her like crap and banned her. Stop acting like now you thought she was brave, okay? No. No, sir. You should have done like Questlove's amazing eight minute mix up. One amazing live performance, one hour on how hard it is to do some really important historic sketch and then like one new sketch-- not 12 hours. Because by the end I just thought this is old. Let me just tell you one of the highlights of my life was seeing Paul McCartney live and singing Hey Jude with an arena full of people. Okay, this is not a diss on Paul McCartney, but his close out and him performing, I was like, dude, he's 82. Do you want to be here for another 50 years? Because this ain't the way, son. I had to explain so much to Felix. And I thought, like, if this was a celebration of what y'all do well and try to get you to the next 50, he should be laughing at some of this. He should be like this is really cool and I'm into it. And then I woke up the next morning and read this Axios email about how Democrats have realized they've lost the culture. And I thought, well, that's what that felt like watching SNL. It felt like a celebration of an era of American culture that is now over. And it made me sad.

Beth [00:44:10] Now, I thought Sabrina Carpenter and Paul Simon was perfect. I thought that was right on for how special this occasion is and what SNL intends to do, which is still be with the culture. And to say here on this anniversary, we're going to put Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter together-- and how beautifully did their voices work together. Everything about that worked for me. I thought that was fantastic. I agree with you, and I wonder if part of the mistake here was airing all of it. Because so much of this was just about status and about all of them, the people who are attached to SNL. They could get together and have a big party. It didn't all have to be on TV. They could do nods to every single person. It gets bloated. I thought the Domingo sketch was the weakest of those because it was bloated. They were just trying to shove too much into that frame too early.

Sarah [00:45:03] Well, and even the Robert Goulet, I was like, why are you doing this with The Lawrence Welk Show. What are we doing here? And I thought the Adam Sandler thing was beautiful. That would have made it into the final cut for me. And I think so much of it was acknowledging, like you said, how hard it is to do. I thought the digital sketch on the anxiety, how everybody has anxiety, was fair. But who's that for, guys? Like when Fred Armisen stood up and did this, like, can you tell me why he didn't get my sketch 50 years ago. And Jimmy Fallon was losing it, and that was entertaining to me. But again, I was like, who's this for? Who's this for?

[00:45:40] Because if you guys don't understand that the culture is changing, if you stay-- because the thing is SNL over 50 years has gained an enormous amount of status. Lorne Michaels isn't a powerful, very, very wealthy man. And so if you want it to keep this, if you want it to keep that energy-- now, he still pulls people out of obscurity, comedians out of obscurity, which is probably what's kept it alive for so long. But I just watched all these old dudes and I thought what are we doing here, friends? Britney Howard and Miley Cyrus were amazing. Lil Wayne was amazing. But, again, who was this for? I think you're right. I think they could have done something for the-- because they deserve it. What they do is hard.

Beth [00:46:31] Absolutely.

Sarah [00:46:33] I've watched enough stuff about how these come together. I thought John Mulaney's joke about how the celebrities were the hardest part, and he can't believe only two of them have committed murder was really funny. But it felt like watching this moment that is capturing what people are through with in American culture. Like this self-congratulatory, the assumption of people's politics, the degrading of other people's politics. And I just thought I think this maybe is a funeral, not a 50th anniversary celebration. That's kind of what it felt like sometimes.

Beth [00:47:12] It's hard to do new things.

Sarah [00:47:14] And I don't want that because I love SNL to continue.

Beth [00:47:17] I agree. I wonder what a reinvention of SNL could look like. They experiment a lot, but there are some worn things. I think on the musical guest front. It would be great if SNL became about these really special collaborations instead of just a performance of somebody, even a breakout performance, to be this powerful, to be this institution, and be able to put two artists together who you wouldn't otherwise mix, that'd be a great use of that venue.

Sarah [00:47:49] I'm sad the Grammys stopped doing that. That's what became so good about the Grammys for a couple of years. It's they were doing that. You can't see them anywhere else. They were performing songs that weren't going to happen again. And so I'm like go back to doing that. That's really cool.

Beth [00:48:02] Yeah, some specialness I think could be inserted into the mix here that would really help the show.

Sarah [00:48:07] And I don't want to say that SNL is this dinosaur that's not adapted. I mean, digital comedy in the digital shorts, they were in that. They understood that. And I don't know if he was like, well, let's put 12 hours out there so that an hour of it makes it onto the internet in a way that people really engage with on TikTok and YouTube. Perhaps, I don't know. But it feels like a lot of things in the culture, even in Democratic politics, like the people who have contributed to the past era and made it what it was-- and I'm not dissing that. Even though I don't like Lorne Michaels, I can absolutely acknowledge the incredible genius of what he has built at 50 years at SNL. Just like I can acknowledge that Nancy Pelosi is one of the most transformative politicians of our time. And also it's time for some new voices.

Beth [00:49:01] Or just new voices in a different way. I am obsessed with The Pitt right now, the new medical show on HBO, and people have talked about it as just an ER retread, to the point where I think there's a lawsuit about that. Noah Wiley is the main doctor, but it feels like I'm watching something I've never seen before. It's so interesting the way that it's filmed, the way that the stories are coming together. I hope that people in the medical community, this is what I've been reading, feel so respected by this because it is trying to be so true to the experiences that they have every day in emergency rooms.

Sarah [00:49:35] Well, it's real time, right?

Beth [00:49:37] Real time. It's one hour. Every episode is a shift and the season is one day. And it's just a breath of fresh air. It has enough familiarity that you can you can walk into it, but it feels really new. And I think that that's what SNL could achieve here. Weekend update, in its current form, drives me crazy. I don't like it at all.

Sarah [00:49:59] I can't stand either of those men. I'm just going to be really honest.

Beth [00:50:03] I would be sad if there weren't a weekend update, though. I want a spin on it. I want some innovation and some growth and maybe they will. Maybe part of this was so heavy handed because they're going to take some risks on the other side of it.

Sarah [00:50:16] Yeah, I would just look at whoever's going to lead SNL. I'm assuming Lorne Michaels is not in fact immortal and that someone will eventually have to take over. And I just would say, like, be real allergic to anything that's self-congratulatory. Real, real allergic. Have a hyper sensitivity to anything that's self-congratulatory right now.

Beth [00:50:42] And still congratulations, SNL, because 50 years of being on television is incredible. And the way that they have changed the lexicon, they've put so much into the mainstream and it's wonderful. And when it works, it brings me great joy. And I will keep watching no matter what they do. Because when it works, it is so, so good. Well, thank you all so much for being here with us. If you want to hear more about pop culture, Substack is the place for you.

Sarah [00:51:09] Yeah, we're going to have a conversation about whether White Lotus is doing that thing where they're building something new, or if maybe they're just too self-referential in this third season. We're going to do recaps of this new season of White Lotus on Substack with our premium community, just like we did with the final season of Succession. So get excited about that and join us over there.

Beth [00:51:29] We'll be back with you here on Friday with a brand new episode. Until then, have the best week available to you.