Funding, Free Markets, and Free Speech

Plus, what we love every day, treasure every week, and remember every month.

Since Donald Trump began his second term, I have often described myself as feeling through a fog. I couldn’t identify his motivations. I couldn’t see any real or articulable goal. I knew everything had changed, but I wasn’t sure how. 

During our conversation on this episode, I realized the fog was beginning to lift. 

We’re far enough in now that I can see what the Trump team learned from the first term and what they didn’t. I can see how this new political reality is taking shape at home and abroad. I’m beginning to distinguish threats from rhetoric. The aggressive momentum of the administration in January is slowing and, as a result, we’re all regaining our bearings. 

It doesn’t make what we’re facing any easier. As we discuss in this episode, the government could shut down, an economic downturn seems all but certain, and the attacks on our Constitutional rights are real. However, there is strength in realizing that though the field might be flooded, you still remember how to swim. 

-Sarah

Topics Discussed

• Rep. Thomas Massie and the Budget Deal

• The Escalating Trade War

• Ceasefire Negotiations Between Ukraine and Russia

• The Detention of Mahmoud Khalil

• Outside of Politics: Rituals of Joy

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Episode Resources

• Rep. Massie Video on His Vote

• Modern Mrs Darcy

• 2 things you love, 1 thing you treasure, and 1 thing you'll never forget. (Modern Mrs. Darcy)

• [Bracket City]

Show Credits

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

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

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

To search past episodes of the main show or our premium content, check out our content archive.

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

Episode 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, and on today's show, we're catching up on the week's news. We'll talk about the rapidly approaching deadline to fund the government, the ever-increasing trade war, and several other stories that we think are important from the last week. And Outside of Politics, we're going to talk about this beautiful, I don't know what is it, an instruction?

Beth [00:00:29] I think instruction, yes.

Sarah [00:00:30] A prompt? I don't know.

Beth [00:00:31] Prescription, maybe?

Sarah [00:00:32] Prescription? Prescription, I like that. That everyone should do two things every day you love, one thing a week you treasure, and one thing a month you will never forget. So that's what we're going to talk about Outside Politics.

Beth [00:00:44] We want to let you know that if you haven't visited our website in a while, it's gotten a nice facelift. Everything we do now lives at pantsuitpoliticshow.com. So, for example, if you're interested in our extensive thoughts on California Governor Gavin Newsom's new podcast, you could go there to check out our spicy bonus episode from yesterday. If you're interested in having us come speak to your group about the value of disagreement, you can check it out on the website. If you want to know if we've talked about a certain topic, the search feature is so much better now. We are so delighted about that. If you need a candle that says Have the Best Day Available, you can get that there. So, pantsuitpoliticsshow.com for all things that you might need from us.

Sarah [00:01:24] Next up, let's talk about funding the government. Beth, the House voted on Tuesday to approve a six-month funding bill by a vote of 217 to 213, referencing Gavin Newsom's podcast that we talked about extensively in the bonus episode. He framed it up to Steve Bannon as they approved Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's budget with that CR. Because it just continues previous levels of funding, which I thought was pretty clever. Made Steve Bannon uncomfortable, I can tell you that much.

Beth [00:02:05] They voted, and then they split. Take the vote, get out of town.

Sarah [00:02:09] Yeah, then they left town. But Thomas Massie didn't vote for it, Beth. He didn't vote for it. Thomas Massie and Rand Paul are out here making everybody's lives harder, and you know what? I like it.

Beth [00:02:19] Thomas Massie recorded a seven minute direct camera video about this that I watched. I don't seek out Thomas Massie content very often, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. I like it. And what he had to say about this is that the whole framing of it is fake. That it is Washington DC theater.

Sarah [00:02:40] Spicy Massie.

Beth [00:02:42] That Mike Johnson spinning this as a fight between Democrats and Republicans is simply not true. Because he knew he would get rescued in the Senate. That's why he had the House leave town. He said nothing about this is real. It is just a continuation of the budget from before. If we're going to really cut spending, it's our job to cut spending. And I'm not going to vote for something that doesn't really cut spending no matter who tells me to. So there you have it.

Sarah [00:03:07] I agree with Thomas Massie. How about that?

Beth [00:03:09] Thomas Massie also has been saying that the president spent all day picking on him in Canada.

Sarah [00:03:17] I am selling Tesla’s on the White House front lawn.

Beth [00:03:19] That's true, he did leave that out.

Sarah [00:03:20] I wouldn't have. I'd have added that to that list.

Beth [00:03:24] But Massie's fundraising, which has been record high this week, says that the difference is Canada will eventually cave, but he won't. Now, I don't think that about our friends to the North, but he is not feeling chastised, is what I'm trying to communicate to you.

Sarah [00:03:40] Listen, I'm here for it. I think he's right.

Beth [00:03:43] He has a new look, too. I think there's just a lot going on with Thomas Massie. He's pursuing a different version of himself that is pretty consistent with what he believed when he went to Congress. He's always been libertarian, cut everything. And to be clear, I disagree with Thomas Massie on almost everything.

Sarah [00:04:01] Basically everything.

Beth [00:04:01] Almost everything. I'm just communicating though that I think he's got some mojo and some chutzpah.

Sarah [00:04:09] But this is important because this is why we love pluralism and democracy. Because when we can align with people who maybe we disagree on everything else, it strengthens our argument. So I think it is so important what he's saying because it's also in conflict with this entire DOGE trade war mindset that we're going to talk about in a minute, which is we can just do everything right now, even though it's hard, right? We can just do it all. Big things, hard things, things that have fallout. So why isn't this on the list? That's my question. Why isn't that on the list of things Donald Trump can just fix easily?

Beth [00:04:52] I thought a lot about what Democrats should do here, and I concluded that I would vote against this in the Senate even though I think a government shutdown is a horrible prospect. Because this CR is a lie. It is a lie to the American public. Spending levels are not going to be consistent with what they've been in the past. If you support the efforts of DOGE and the administration to cut everything everywhere and not just to find waste, fraud, and abuse but to wholesale cut programs out of the government, if you support that, put it on paper and sign your name to it at the apex of your power as a member of Congress.

Sarah [00:05:33] Absolutely. I could not agree more. I really struggle. I don't know where your average American who is not plugged in to the news cycle, particularly to the political cycle, would see all this. I don't know if they can see that passing this six month funding bill in the midst of all these dramatic changes is a lie, is hypocrisy. I think the Senate Democrats are doing as best a possible job in a tough media environment of getting to that, of saying you're out here cutting the Department of Education in half and saying you're going to shut down a congressionally mandated cabinet department, but you want six more months? Under the status quo as far as this continuing resolution? Those are in direct conflict with each other. Those are in direct conflict with each other. And I do appreciate the consistency of libertarians, even though I am not a libertarian, both Thomas Massie and Rand Paul, that are saying, absolutely not. Rand Paul's already said he's not voting for it in the Senate. Fetterman has said he will. It'll be interesting. The fact that they left town I think is a cheap, ultimately unsuccessful ploy that shows ultimately Speaker Johnson's inexperience with this legislative body, but we'll see.

Beth [00:07:15] I think he thinks it's a masterstroke. That it puts Democrats against the wall and he's so proud of himself about it. But what I believe is the truth is that he is afraid to have to negotiate further. He barely got this over the line. He got it over the line through President Trump's direct threats to primary people. Elon Musk threats to fund those primaries. And he's afraid that if they have to vote again, he'll lose folks. And he probably will because this thing is a joke, no matter what perspective you're looking at it from. Yes, it mostly maintains current funding levels, but it also really, really hamstrings Washington, D.C. as a city. It also adds a lot to defense spending.

Sarah [00:07:58] Oh my gosh, don't even get me started.

Beth [00:07:59] It does some things, and those things are broadly unpopular. From a libertarian perspective, from a Democrat's perspective, from just about everyone's perspective, this thing is a dog, and it is a lie. And that's why I think even if the politics of it are bad, even if the effect of it is bad-- which it will be, there are only bad choices right now. So you got to pick which bad you're most comfortable with. But I just could not as a matter of fundamental integrity vote for something that is directly opposed to what the government is actually doing.

Sarah [00:08:31] Yeah. The DC component, for those of you who have not been following this, how much time do we have to go into the anti-democratic system? The citizens of Washington DC are forced into taxation without representation tax dollars. They collect that then the United States Congress can prohibit them from spending, cutting a billion dollars from the city budget. A billion dollars. That's not waste, fraud, or inefficiencies. That's firefighters and police officers and schoolteachers in a city that is already experiencing dramatic unemployment due to DOGE. It is cruel. Again, it is anti -democratic. It is just an extra layer of cruel, like in your face, you have no power here to United States citizens who are already taxed without representation in Congress. It's outrageous. As a former Washington DC citizen, it is outrageous.

Beth [00:09:38] And it's counterproductive. America is not safer, better, stronger, more prosperous in any way by doing this to our nation's capital. It's not. This is just about the fact that most of the people who live and vote in Washington DC are Democrats. And Trump wants to bully and kick around Democrats at every opportunity, but that is not good for America.

Sarah [00:09:58] Well, let's talk about something else that's not good for America, which is the ever-increasing trade war Donald Trump insists on perpetrating. This week, the U.S imposed a 25 % tariff on all steel and aluminum imports, affecting countries from Canada, Mexico, Japan, to South Korea. Now, we had a little tit-for-tat between Ontario that said fine, we're going to tariff the energy parts of the upper Midwest imports from Canada. Trump then said, well, we'll increase our tariffs to 50%. Ontario backed down. There has been an extension in the tariffs to Canada and Mexico, but no one is feeling like this is all talk anymore. You're seeing markets really, really respond. The Dow Jones fell by 600 points on March 11th. It had already fallen previously by 900 points. Other markets are responding in kind. There was a CEO gathering in Washington where I think many of the CEOs of the biggest corporations in the United States were- frustrated is one word. I read another expert described universal revulsion against the trump economic policy.

[00:11:21] So it's just escalating. He's articulating it's just going to be a tough time. And we're seeing now, I think, more of what we've talked about a lot, which is what is his goal? Because we all knew the Fentanyl situation was a screen, if you will, because he has to have emergency powers. This is Rand Paul's beef. Rand Paul is like Congress is supposed to be the one instituting tariffs. We've let presidents get away with it, including Democratic presidents for a long time under "emergency powers" which is why he's hiding behind this fentanyl narrative; when really what he wants is to decrease the trade deficit and make sure everything's manufactured in America. I don't know why, but that is something that he wants. He wants to reduce our trade deficit and bring all this manufacturing back to America.

Beth [00:12:09] I do think Rand Paul is correct about that. I also think Rand Paul is correct that what DOGE is doing requires acts of Congress. He has said they need to bring a rescission bill to the floor. If this is what you think is right for the country, again, write it down and sign your name to it. That is your job as a member of Congress. I have the same problem with the tariffs that I have with the government funding crisis that visits our door every time we get to a deadline. It's a terrible way to run anything to not know what tomorrow's going to look like. The only reason that I can even begin to swallow the idea of a government shutdown right now is because that's already what's happening in our government.

Sarah [00:12:45] Right, exactly.

Beth [00:12:47] Already government employees are living hour to hour instead of year to year. So I think it's all bad. Again, picking among the bad options, what am I most comfortable with? With the tariffs I appreciate that he is starting to say there's going to be a transition period. It's going to be hard. He's never said anything close to that honest before. I heard him say in the interview with Maria Bartiromo that's getting so much coverage that America tends to think in quarters and countries like China think in a hundred year periods. And he's trying to do longer term thinking. Now, I have no confidence in his ability to execute a long -term strategy that fundamentally reorders both the American and the world economy in a way that benefits the middle class of this country. I do not believe he's capable of that.

Sarah [00:13:35] The continuing resolution drama isn't giving you confidence in his long term planning and ability to execute?

Beth [00:13:39] It is not. I haven't seen anything in the first 30 some odd days that has given me that confidence, or in his first term. We do have a large body of work to draw conclusions from at this point. But it tells you how bad their internal forecasting is that he's even using the words transition period because that is not his style either. His style is everything's great and wonderful and I did it. And if it's not great and wonderful, it has nothing to do with me. And so to connect anything negative about the economy, any metric with his policies, even tangentially, is pretty significant.

Sarah [00:14:17] The only thing Donald Trump can do long-term is hold a grudge. That he has shown an ability to do excessively well. So that we know. I appreciate his honesty about his goals. I just don't understand them. What you are articulating is what you have critiqued in Europe. This protection of their industries, this industrialization. Again, this is what has sent Germany down a pretty bad path in combination with their very aggressive debt break. Germany until very recently spurned by Donald Trump, which is going to, I think, really fuel Europe's economy for a while. They had a prohibition on any sort of deficit. It was like 0.35%, which really hamstrung them. But on top of that, they protect their automotive industry, which is why they don't have a lot of innovation and they're struggling in the face of competition from China. We can pull everything we want back into America, but if we are not forced to compete on the global stage, we will lose innovation, we will fall behind. Does anybody look around at the coming artificial intelligence evolution and think, "Yeah, manufacturing, that's the answer. Industrialization." I don't get it. You critique this in other countries, sometimes I think pretty clear-eyed, so why would you want to take what you critique in countries like Germany and Japan and bring it all back and do it here? Just cause what, we'll do it better? I don't get it.

Beth [00:15:51] I don't get it either. I have listened to a lot of right-wing podcasting over the past week, so much, because I do want to understand the worldview. I want to understand how they diagnose the problems and what solutions they're offering. And I want to understand it from the people who have direct lines to this president. I'd never hear an acknowledgement of trade-offs. I like America.

Sarah [00:16:15] Me, too.

Beth [00:16:16] I really do. I think we have a lot going for us in America. And I don't like it when I hear from the left or the right that we're a disaster because I just think that's false. And I think that if you have any perspective whatsoever, you can look around and say, wow, a lot of things here are historically good. We have problems. They could be better, but they are historically good. And I hear no acknowledgement in this conversation about re-industrialization of trade-offs. That, in fact, if we want to make everything here, we are going to have less of it, we will get it more slowly and it will cost more. Now, I am a revolting globalist to most of these folks because I do believe that when we trade with each other, we understand each other better. I believe that trade fosters peace and stability in the world. I think it's great how fast we can get a huge variety of things at pretty low cost.

[00:17:17] I am aware that the low costs are not always real, that there are higher costs that are not being charged somewhere. And we got to work on that. Again, I don't think anything's perfect. But I try to acknowledge, when I talk about my worldview, those trade-offs. Yes, we can get really cheap things. And that is both good for increasing the standard of living for people at the lowest rung on the economic ladder. It is also bad for workers who are exploited in the process of making it and for the environment. And so we've got to work all of those different pieces. I hear none of that in this conversation about tariffs and nearshoring and bringing more manufacturing back into the United States.

Sarah [00:17:57] What I hear is the egotism and overconfidence of people that think that they can harness history instead of be forced to adapt to it like everybody else. They think that all these other cycles, which show that the idea that you're going to what, stop the evolution, protect it, get all the benefit and none of the cost is available to you. You'll figure it out this time. Come on, you can go back to McKinley, someone he cites all the time. Watch what happened when the United States levied hard tariffs on Canada thinking they would cave. They didn't, which I don't think they will this time.

Beth [00:18:38] I don't either.

Sarah [00:18:38] And watch the fallout, not even for America and their economy. How about just for that president and their party? That's to me it's just this blindness to cycles of history and economics. And the idea that you get to stop history, harness it, keep all the benefits and take none of the cost, it's just such hubris.

Beth [00:19:04] Yeah. It is the quintessential having your cake and eating it, too. The only thing that I can figure out in terms of his strategy is that he does what he has done a number of times, make a complete mess, partially clean it up and take credit for how great the cleanup has been. Because I see nothing in these tariffs long-term that benefits anyone.

Sarah [00:19:28] I do want to acknowledge the cost of globalism, and I think what's so frustrating to me is if there was less hubris and more humility, they could use the political capital. And I think some of the well-placed critiques they have for the international system, including the cost, it takes from American workers including the being awash in cheap goods and how that's not really making anybody happier. I think they could take all that and the political capital that they do have and push us in a new direction instead of trying to, like I said, pull us back and stop it. I just don't see any ability to prognosticate, to accept like there is real problems coming our way from AI. Let's think about, let's learn the lessons from the internet revolution, from the industrialization of America, from the costs that this global economy has extracted from particularly the middle and lower class, and move forward into the next evolution as leaders instead of bullies. There's none of that. There's none of the deep thinking. There's glimmers. Because I think he's right, that hundred year outlook at China versus quarterly outlooks in America, this beholdenness we have to growth every quarter at all costs. But I'm supposed to believe you're really interested in that while you have Elon Musk out on the front lawn selling Tesla’s? Like a complete illustration of the global market. You think all Tesla’s are made in America? Like are you talking about?

Beth [00:21:14] As much as it feels like MAGA is always in lockstep, when you start to think about this forward-looking versus backward-looking posture, you see a lot of fracturing within this coalition or opportunities for fracturing. There are people within the administration who I think are correct to be prioritizing the Arctic. I don't think we should steal or militarily invade Greenland. but I think they're correct to prioritize the Arctic as an important place for both exploration of minerals and also for global shipping in the future. I think they are correct about prioritizing space. I think they are right that we need more energy all the time. I don't agree with how they want to get it and where they want to put those resources and investment, but I think they're right that we are only going to need more and more and more electricity. I think they're right that rare earth minerals are important right now. I don't think that President Trump himself could articulate why they're important, but I think the people around him are telling him that they are and that that's true.

[00:22:13] There's a lot that's forward-looking a couple of rungs down from the president, people surrounding him. I don't understand how they talk to themselves about combining that forward-looking position with his clearly very backward-looking economic policy. And then all of that taking place in the context of what is just the product placement administration. The Tesla's on the lawn. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is at Steak and Shake. The DOGE employee who's doing outfits of the day trying to build her influencer profile on the government clock. There's just going to be so much transactionalism in our faces constantly from these people. And I try to be really honest with myself about how maybe there are some Americans who think, well, at least it's just out there instead of being done through insider trading or all kinds of grift that we can't really see, but that we suspect is going on. But, man, I hate it. And I think it's tacky. And I think it shows that the one constant, maybe even more constant than his ability to hold a grudge, is his ability to make money one tiny deal at a time in the tackiest way possible.

Sarah [00:23:26] Well, what's to me so gross about the Tesla's on the lawn, which obviously I keep bringing up because it really bothers me, is I guess Elon doesn't have to suffer any hardship. I guess the cost when we're going through this tough transition will all be borne on the backs of the middle class and the lower class and not on anyone at the top or surrounding the president. Including Republican representatives who go and lobby for exceptions for their federal workforce in their district. It's just there is no sense of an us here. Including the bullying and abuse of the people of Washington DC. It's just who I want to protect, who can get to me, offer me the best deal, or speak to me last. So let's talk about that in the context of the ceasefire negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. Up next. So, Ukraine finally got a seat at the table. They met with the United States in Saudi Arabia and agreed to a 30-day ceasefire. It's led to the US resuming military aid and intelligence sharing, which it had stopped, to pressure the people of Ukraine to agree to a negotiation they were not invited to. So we got that. So now the ball's back in Russia's court, which is interesting. I don't like the way this negotiation has gone, but I do think it has created increased pressure on Vladimir Putin at this stage in the game.

Beth [00:25:04] I think this has been a gift of Vladimir Putin. And I think the ball has always been in Russia's court because Russia invaded Ukraine. It's not like Ukraine has ever said, you know what, we love this war. Let's keep fighting it forever. It's really great for us. Never ever has that been the case. This has always been about Russia's willingness to accept peace or not, to follow the international order or not. And at every turn they've chosen not to. And, again, Trump comes in, creates a total mess, partially cleans it up and claims victory. He says, look, we got Ukraine to the table. Ukraine has always been willing to stop fighting if their sovereignty has been respected. Cutting off our intelligence sharing with Ukraine, even for a short period of time, to me used all of our leverage on the wrong party. And Putin knows it. That's why he has this very choreographed PR trip into a military region dressed in fatigues to show the world like we're doing it, we're triumphing, we're winning here. We know that all the leverage is on our side and our good pal the United States has made it even more so. And the whole thing makes me sad. I certainly hope that peace comes of this in a way that is acceptable at all to the people of Ukraine and to the international community. But I am something between unimpressed and depressed about the way that the administration has conducted these negotiations.

Sarah [00:26:42] Well, I think it's important to always remember that Russia, even though it is the more powerful party currently within the conflict, still has a lot of weaknesses. War is unpopular in Russia. It has taken an enormous amount of money. Their military resources are incredibly depleted, not to mention the 200,000 plus Russians that have given their lives on the front line of this war, often conscripted, paid prisoners. It's a dark reality, this war inside Russia. And I try to remember that because I think it's Vladimir Putin have choreographed visits like this and a lot of other reasons. Wants us to think that he's always a step ahead. And I have to catch myself. I have to check myself and be like, no, that's not always true. Not always true. Not to say that Trump is playing four dimensional chess because I do not believe that to be true. But just because that's the reality in Russia. And I do think that everyone on the international stage knows at this point that Donald Trump is impatient and impulsive. So that introduces a certain amount of instability. Now, that's a dangerous factor always.

[00:28:13] But there is something I've heard international experts and diplomats articulate that previously there's like all this choreography when everybody knows where we're going. And for better for worse, when Trump enters the scene, not everybody knows where we're going. And so I think Vladimir Putin is not in a great position right now. He knows he can't just ignore and say this isn't what we want like he has to every other ceasefire negotiation up until this point. No, we don't want that. So, no. It's not that simple anymore. Now, I don't know ultimately who will blink, who cares more about pushing this to the next level. Will Donald Trump care most about being perceived as bringing it into this conflict and just give Russia what it wants? I hope sincerely that Marco Rubio has some say in this and enough expertise to be like, no, that can't be what we're going to let happen. But who knows?

[00:29:25] I don't know if the sort of instability of this, the fear of what Donald Trump will do if he feels like Russia's blowing him off, will, like I said, upset the apple cart enough with Putin and his team that they'll give a little. I don't know, but even the Ukrainians with the election of Donald Trump were like at least we'll get some sort of movement. You've seen dramatic movements in Europe. Dramatic. Rearmament, defense spending, the sense that we cannot depend on America. That makes me sad as an American, but I do think it's good for Europe. So it's hard to predict, I think, how this will all play out. Because I think my most hopeful and pragmatic take at the same time is Russia does not come out of this stronger under any really rubric. It's too depleted. It's cost too much. He doesn't have a succession plan. He can't live forever. There's just a lot of ways I see that even if they gain territory in Ukraine, which I think at this point we have to accept they probably will, Russia (or at least Putin's Russia) is not stronger on the other side of this.

Beth [00:30:48] Our government is practically insisting that they will. Our government has told Ukraine, we do not support your admission to NATO. We do not support you as part of the European Union. We do not think that you are going to ever get Crimea back. And we think that probably other parts of your country that Russia has been controlling for months now and for years are not going to be yours again. Even Marco Rubio has made public statements that give it all away for Ukraine. So while I agree with you that Russia is not stronger on the other side of this, because I think no one wins a modern war-- whether it's an actual war or a trade war, I think no one wins a modern war. All of these places where we think we're just going to escalate, escalate, escalate, and something good's going to come from it, I think is misguided. And again, no one wins a war. I want it to stop, too. I am aligned with Trump on wanting it to stop.

[00:31:38] But wanting it to stop in a way that announces to the world that America is no longer on the side of countries that are trying to be sovereign democratic nations, I think also really damages us in the long term, too. And I agree with you that it's good that Europe is strengthening. The person I am most attuned to right now is President Macron of France. I have always thought that he is an interesting and pragmatic leader. He accepts the world as it is instead of dealing constantly in the world as he wishes it would be. And I think he's doing the best job he can do under these circumstances. So I'm watching him very closely and I hope that his leadership helps get to something that is at all palatable for the Ukrainian people and for the European countries that I think are going to be left to enforce whatever deal comes on their own. Again, I really hope that peace can come here, but the price of it has been awfully high, and it's been higher than it had to be.

Sarah [00:32:38] I think it's interesting. It feels like everybody is learning with Trump in the second term (the markets, our allies, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Hamas) that with Donald Trump there is this weird paradox of he acts impulsively, but it's always in pursuit of something he has articulated from the beginning as his goal. So he wants to be seen as this wily negotiation partner, this wily actor that will always do what needs to be done in the moment; but his motives, and often the steps he's going to take, are broadcast a million ways to Sunday, up until that point. So he's not that actor because he's always telling you what he's going to do. He might do it in a way you didn't expect, like do it kind of last minute without the expertise required to get it done, but you always know what he's going to do. The unpredictability I think everyone's figuring out, including, like I said, the market. He goes back, but the market's like, yeah, but that's just for what, four more days? You said you're going to impose tariffs. We believe you. It's like we're back to Ezra Klein. We should believe him because he says very clearly what he's going to do. I think the big picture right now is that he said he was going to bring back this roaring economy. That's not the case. He's articulating that. So it is this weird paradox with him always.

Beth [00:34:13] I think that everyone is also adjusting to the power of flattery and relationship with him. And Putin has understood that from the very beginning. And now we're starting to see other leaders capitalize on opposing him because while they might lose some credibility with America, what good is America's word anyway when we know what his real allegiances and preferences are? And so let me make the most of standing up to him. I have thought since that disastrous White House meeting that Zelensky might have made a real calculation there. I don't think that was just a screw up. And his popularity has increased in his country since then because he did speak out for his people.

Sarah [00:34:51] Well, if he was following Justin Trudeau's journey at all, it would be an easy conclusion to make.

Beth [00:34:56] That's right. And you see it with the business leaders too, because the business leaders talking about the tariffs say they are revulsed on background. And what they say with their name attached to it is, well, we've got to have some patience with the president's agenda and I think we're ultimately moving in a good direction. Because they know that if you get crossways with him, it's over. It is all personal allegiance. And I get again that some people believe that that's all it ever is and that everything else is BS. I am not that cynical about the world, but, man, it is laid bare right now.

Sarah [00:35:30] Well, before we wrap up, we wanted to talk about the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and Columbia graduate who was arrested this week. Khalil is a legal permanent resident married to an American who is eight months pregnant. He has not been charged with any crime, but the Trump administration is attempting to deport him. He has not been allowed to speak to his attorneys. He has been placed in a deportation facility in Louisiana, far from his community and his legal representation. A judge has ordered that he be allowed to speak with his attorneys. I don't know if that has taken place yet, but this case is very, very disturbing to me. And it really falls in a pattern of behavior with the Trump administration that is attempting to chill speech and criticism in many, many, many different ways.

Beth [00:36:28] And I think this is not just about chilling speech, but it is also about furthering an anti -immigrant agenda and increasing the power of the federal government to just decide, again, on kind of a patronage system, who gets to be here and have rights and who does not. If you have $5 million, then you can buy your way here and have a pathway to citizenship on the other side of it. But while you're here in that pathway, you better be on our team. And the second you're not on our team, we will send people with guns to come get you out of your house, take you to another state and not let you consult with an attorney. It's wrong.

Sarah [00:37:11] Well, it's a clear violation of the First Amendment. We don't use the power of the government to police people's speech. You have free speech. And as hard as it is to accept this, there is no hate speech exception. There's no anti -Semitism exception to the First Amendment. That is awful. I know it's hard to accept that, but the government does not get to police speech, including heinous political speech. Also, I don't even understand this pursuit of all this antisemitism, which really, I think you're right, is more about anti -immigrant and anti-academia pursuits that it has anything to do with antisemitism. MAGA is going all the way down this anti-Semitic conspiracy theory patch. Joe Rogan had Ian Carroll on his podcast for three hours to talk about how Israel and Jeffrey Epstein were in cahoots and how the Zionist mafia caused 9/11.

[00:38:15] This is cuckoo banana stuff that of course Joe Rogan didn't question a single time because that's just not in his wheelhouse. And Candice Owens is everywhere, got fired for being anti -Semitic, but is still proliferating her views across the MAGA media spectrum. So I'm supposed to believe that you really prioritize anti -Semitism? Which I do believe is a problem on particularly elite college campuses, without a doubt. But this is not what this is about. You don't care about that. This is about chilling speech and scaring people. I'm going to go after one person so everybody else is scared. And it's working. Columbia set out guidance that was like do not publish any basically pro-Gaza perspective if you are not a United States citizen. And, honestly, I wouldn't say it's safe to do that if you were a United States citizen at this point.

Beth [00:39:10] Well, that's the problem, right? If a legal permanent resident married to an American can have this happen to him, how far are we from United States citizens behaving in a way that the administration decides makes them unworthy of their citizenship? They've already taken us down that path by talking about sending the worst of the worst criminals to Guantanamo Bay. Even a murderer in the United States has rights. That is our system and it is important. And the protection of that murderer's rights protects your rights and my rights and all of our rights. And the second that we start to let that go, even in cases where it seems justified, where it feels morally good, where we have an argument to make, when we start to let that go, we have opened the floodgates. And that's how I view this case. People have not liked what I've had to say about the protest on college campuses around Gaza and Israel. You know, if you've listened to me talk about this, that I have major concerns about these protests and about antisemitism and about how we're going about this. Now, I also think that people have a right and a responsibility to tell the stories of people in Gaza, to champion the Palestinian cause, to talk about what's fair and allows a life of dignity and sovereignty for people of all races, ethnicities, religions, and backgrounds. All of that exists for me. This is to me a clear-cut case of government overreach, trampling the rights of people-- not just citizens, but of people who are in the United States legally. And if the courts do not affirmatively draw a big, bold line here, we are in a world of trouble.

Sarah [00:41:01] Well, there's great news. If you support a more aggressive approach on campus protests, the campus administration is not the government. And therefore that is not in conflict in any way, shape or form with any First Amendment concerns you have because the First Amendment concerns the government suppressing speech, not the administration at Columbia University, not your friend on Facebook, not anybody else. This is when we want to start crowing about the First Amendment because this is what the First Amendment is concerned with. It is concerned with the using the power of the federal government to suppress political speech and to the monstrousness of whoever's speech we're suppressing, this also includes, (and here I'm going to give a little shout out to the extensive conversation we had about Gavin Newsom podcast on our bonus episode) people who hold these opinions about the First Amendment.

[00:42:00] I know that sucks. I hate it, too. I hate that we apply it universally. That we say we want an open exchange of ideas. We don't use the government to suppress people's ideas about DEI. We don't use the government to suppress people's ideas about pursuit of anti-immigration policies. Whatever end of the political spectrum you are, we let those ideas out. We let them out. We expose them to the light and then we debate them. We don't go, well, your ideas about First Amendment are so heinous and repressive that we then want to oppress your speech. See how we can get stuck in a cycle here? That's what they're doing. We don't want to do that.

Beth [00:42:42] And again, that's all this is. He has not been charged with a crime. He has not been charged with a crime. This is just about the ideas that he's expressing. That cannot be a path that we allow ourselves to go down. Sarah, you and I have tried to be patient and restrained and circumspect. We have tried very hard not to spend the beginning of this administration just in a posture of outrage. You've tried to prioritize issues, think clearly, wait and see what the outcomes of some things are going to be. This starts to ring the five alarm fire bell for me. The disappearing of a person from his wife who is a citizen, the disappearing of a person who is here legally, who has not committed a crime, preventing him from speaking to an attorney. This is where I start to see the long arm of the government crushing an individual for his ideas. It's the kind of thing that I think makes its way into the poetry about what happens first and you ignore it because it doesn't affect you. But the slippery slope does not seem to me to be a fallacy when we get in this arena. And I sincerely hope that the court system works and is allowed to work here.

Sarah [00:44:09] I completely agree. I think this might be a good opportunity for us to call our respective libertarian representation and say, hey, we appreciate Senator Paul what you're doing around the deficit, around tariffs. We know you have strong concerns about people's personal liberty being attacked, suppressed by the government. And I would really like to see you use your power as my representative or you, Thomas Massie, use your representative to advocate for the release of Mahmoud Khalil. Beth, I was cleaning out my Evernote and I found this great prompt from our friend Anne Bogel's blog, Modern Mrs. Darcy, which has been around a long time. So she has a lot of great content on there. And I'd saved a post where she said a friend told her that a woman should do two things every day you love, one thing a week you treasure, and one thing a month you will never forget.

Beth [00:45:14] It's very good. I have so much respect for Anne and the way that she works. She's the best. And the way that she thinks about life.

Sarah [00:45:21] That's how she works. She works hard.

Beth [00:45:21] She works hard and wisely. She's both smart and wise in so many ways. And so this feels even more special to me because it's connected to her. But I love this advice. I was trying to think about how closely I adhere to it unintentionally and what I might change if I adhere to it more intentionally. I think my weak point is probably the two things a day that I love.

Sarah [00:45:47] Really?

Beth [00:45:48] Yeah.

Sarah [00:45:49] That's interesting.

Beth [00:45:50] I'm pretty good at having something once a month I won't forget. I naturally tend to schedule concert tickets or seeing a show or something fun and memorable once a month, because I need something to look forward to. It really keeps me going. So I think I do that well. And every week I tend to have dinner with my friends and we play cards and I treasure that time. And even when we don't, usually I have a dinner with a friend or some kind of gathering with people once a week that is really meaningful to me. The days can get away from me, though.

Sarah [00:46:23] I love a routine. I believe in a routine. And so the days are a real easy thing for me to do. First of all, I just love a cup of coffee in the morning. And I don't mean like it's nice. I mean, I love it on every level. Cause to me the things you do every day that really you love hit like so many of your senses. So the smell of coffee, the warmth of the mug, the taste, obviously. And I have a big and expansive collection of mugs. So seeing which mug I'm picking out-- like I'm using my mug from Redwoods National Park this morning. I have a lot of national park mugs or mugs I picked up while traveling. So that triggers like something really wonderful. And so it's like really one of the best parts of my day. I love a cup of coffee so much. Again, you can hear the love of my voice. Do you understand me?

Beth [00:47:20] I am picking up what you're laying down.

Sarah [00:47:22] I love it. And I think the other thing that I love every day is just walking with my husband. We walk our dog every morning. And so just that kind of routine. Cause it's hard to have a daily routine between weekdays and weekends. Something that you do every day. And I don't think this has to be the same thing every day. That's just sort of how I read it. But that's definitely my daily. The week thing I know I didn't even have to think about, I get a weekly massage. It has kept me sane, mobile. My massage therapist, Marina, is an angel. I live in perpetual fear that she will move or retire or somehow leave my life. It's on a Tuesday every week, which is just a day. Tuesday's not the most exciting day of the week, but it is when I have this thing I treasure once a week. It's just so, so good. God, I live for it. I live for it. And then, yeah, I travel a lot. I always have a celebration or a big event. I also need anticipatory pleasure. So it's interesting to me that it says one thing you will never forget, because I think really what it does is it's on the front end as much as the back end. Something that you anticipate as much as something you'll never forget.

Beth [00:48:37] I think my one daily routine that I don't miss that I do love is Chad and I do the New York Times Spelling Bee together every day. And I really love that time with him. It's just fun and we're using our brains and we do it. We do it every single day, no matter what.

Sarah [00:48:52] Not to take us down a rabbit hole, but I have fallen out of love with New York Times puzzles. I need enough novelty in my life that I can-- I'm not going to do the Spelling Bee. Or I was like really into Wordle and now I'm a little bored. I need a little assignment around that puzzle situation. And if you are like me and you would like some excitement in your puzzle life, I have found a new one called Bracket City and the website is Bracket.city. And it's really fun. It's like nesting clues. So you fill in a bracket and that leads to a clue in another bracket. And then it gives you like a fun fact for the day that something that happened today.

Beth [00:49:28] That's fun.

Sarah [00:49:29] It's really fun. So if you're looking for a little excitement in your puzzle life, because you're worn out with the New York Times, as I was, may I recommend to you, Bracket.city.

Beth [00:49:38] I love that puzzle time with him, though. And we walk at night when the weather's nice, and I do love that evening walk with him. I love my yoga mat, which I do pretty well seven days a week as well. So maybe I have more things every day that I love that I'm thinking about immediately, but I want to find something that's like your morning coffee, that's really tangible sensory experience every day. I don't drink coffee, but something.

Sarah [00:50:02] May I recommend coffee to you?

Beth [00:50:05] Yeah, coffee's not going to be it for me.

Sarah [00:50:07] I just love it so much.

Beth [00:50:08] I love to have tea; I just don't do it every day.

Sarah [00:50:10] It's cause tea's not as good as coffee. I said what I said. People, don't message me. I said what I said. You know it's true. You know how you know it's true? The British drink more coffee than they do tea. That's how you know it. The people who love tea who are known globally for loving tea the most now drink more coffee.

Beth [00:50:24] I don't know it's true because I just don't like the taste of coffee, but I take your point and I'm so glad that you love that moment of your routine.

Sarah [00:50:33] Listen, it's an acquired taste. Nobody drinks coffee the first time and is like, wow. I guess there are some people. I wasn't, but you just acquire the taste over time. And then it's a lifelong love. God, I could wax poetic about that morning cup of coffee for days, but I won't cause we've been here long enough. So thank you for joining us for today. I can't wait to hear y 'all's two things every day and one thing a week and one thing you don't forget every month. That's going to be really fun. Don't forget, you can find everything related to this episode and sign up to get our episodes and Friday newsletter delivered directly to your inbox for free. And today you are in for a treat because Beth is writing about listening to all three hours of Elon Musk on Joe Rogan's podcast. And y'all, she doesn't even speed it up, which is wild.

Beth [00:51:20] Three hours and 17 minutes. Don't forget that last little bit.

Sarah [00:51:23] It'd have been less if you'd sped it up. You won't even do 1 .2? Not even just a nice little bump?

Beth [00:51:28] I cannot do it. It makes my heart race. I am a calm and chill person by practice and trade and one of those things is I can't speed anybody up. But, listen, I have made a list of 10 things that I learned from this conversation, five insulting and five inspiring. So I'm looking forward to sharing it.

Sarah [00:51:45] Okay, good. I'm excited. So you can sign up at PantsuitPoliticsshow.com to make sure you don't miss the Beth's posts. And until we're back in your ears on Tuesday here on Pantsuit Politics, have the best weekend available to you.