Pardons, Strategy, and the Joe Biden of It All

Discussion post for December 3, 2024

President Biden has chosen to pardon his son, Hunter. Sarah and Beth discuss that choice in light of incoming president Trump's latest nominations and how Biden's choices over the last few years have had rippling consequences. Plus, Sarah and Beth are divided on their Wicked takes!

Topics Discussed:

• President Biden Pardons Hunter Biden

• The Joe Biden of It All

• Outside of Politics: Wicked

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Episode Resources:

• Pete Hegseth’s Metamorphosis: From Critic of War Crimes to Defender of the Accused (The New York Times)

• How the Ivy League Broke America (The Atlantic)

• BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity by Ruth Whippman (Amazon)

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.

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

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.

[00:00:29] Thank you so much for joining us today. We are going to talk about President Joe Biden. If you've not been following the news this week, President Biden issued a pardon on Sunday night for his son, Hunter, and that pardon was a very expansive one. It covered any crimes Hunter committed or may have committed from January 1st, 2014 to December 1st, 2024. Hunter had been convicted on gun charges earlier this year. He also pled guilty on tax charges. And the circumstances of this pardon are almost undoubtedly related to President elect Trump's intended Cabinet appointments. So we're going to have more conversation about that. In all the discussion and writing and rumination about the pardons, people are obviously still working out post-election feelings, so are we. We're going to talk more about how we're viewing President Biden and what we're learning about ourselves right now. So a ton of international news that's a little hard to follow without some background. So rest assured, we will get to you on Friday. We're going to devote Friday's episode to breaking down headlines from the Middle East and South Korea. We'll, end the show talking about Wicked, because that's what people are talking about right now. And we, like many of you, saw it over Thanksgiving.

Sarah [00:01:37] You might notice this episode is on your feet a little later than usual. Because of the pace of the news right now and what we anticipate the future pace of the news will continue to be, we're experimenting with recording our episode on Tuesday morning and publishing it as soon as our audio team has it ready for you. We'll still publish new episodes on Tuesday and Fridays, and you should typically see those Friday episodes in the early morning. But our intended plan is to react to the news on Tuesday and think about bigger picture questions on Friday. So that Tuesday episode will come a little bit later. We're experimenting here and on Substack throughout the month of December as we continue to evaluate the world and our contributions to it post-election.

Beth [00:02:14] Next up, President Biden's decision to pardon his son.

Sarah [00:02:25] Beth, before you heard the news about Joe Biden pardoning Hunter, what were your thoughts on presidential pardons?

Beth [00:02:32] I have always felt that presidential pardons are the closest thing the Constitution gives the president to a magic wand. It is exclusively in the president's power to do this. There are very few checks on it. We had a lot of conversation about presidential pardons when Donald Trump's presidency was coming to an end and there was speculation that he might pardon himself. Could he pardon himself? No one knows. And the scope of that power was largely undefined then, and I think it became wholly undefined and undefinable when the Supreme Court said that what is a core presidential power is none of our business. And so I think it's basically a magic wand.

Sarah [00:03:17] Yeah, they've always felt like treats to me. It doesn't feel like a check on the court. It feels like we're going to give you a little treat because you were president and it's hard being president and here's a little treat for you. So you can pick any of your friends or family members, influential donors, perhaps, that you would like to pardon. And the list of pardons is super weird. I saw this list on X of Jimmy Carter's pardons. That was Wild. G. Gordon Liddy. Why, Jimmy? Why would you pardon G. Gordon Liddy? And this weird legislative thing he did with former confederates like Jefferson Davis. I'm like, what were you doing? He pardoned his brother. Bill Clinton, pardoned his half-brother. So it has never felt in any way, shape or form like an important constitutional check or some way to exercise policy. And it was just felt like a treat and just like a little gift to the president on the way out the door.

Beth [00:04:18] And like many treats, it can turn to poison pretty quickly. I think maybe some presidents-- and maybe this is Jimmy Carter, I don't want to speak for him. But I think some presidents have maybe a high minded view of the pardon as closure. We often discuss the pardon as closure related to President Nixon. When people have advocated for a pardon of Donald Trump, it has been discussed as a closure, a unity, an opportunity for the country to put something really unpleasant behind it instead of continuing to live in the unpleasantness. I do not think that is what's happening with Hunter Biden; although, I do think President Biden would like to tell that story about it.

Sarah [00:05:00] Well, I would just like to say that that high minded narrative is complete and total bullshit. And if I had a time machine, I will go back to the 70s and be like, don't do it, Gerald Ford. This is going to mess everything up. It sent us down this path to the unitary executive. It sent us down the path where we ended up with the Supreme Court saying Donald Trump could do whatever he wanted. I think there's a strong argument if you go back and say Gerald Ford, not pardon Richard Nixon. We might not be here. Because I actually think that is the only time a pardon has felt more than a treat, more than just like an individual president's kind of what would I like to do here? And I think you're right. I think people tell themselves and Gerald Ford definitely told himself that it was this sort of high minded exercise. And maybe, but high minded exercises often do not give us the results we want. See the entire Democratic Party's establishment strategy right now, which we're going to get into a minute, put a pin in that. Do you think Joe Biden is telling himself any high minded stories about this? I don't think so. I think he's like, forget it. I'm just going to do it.

Beth [00:06:10] Well, let's talk a little bit about the letter that accompanied this pardon. Joe Biden said to the American public, look, my son was targeted because his name is Biden. And they were trying to get to me through him and enough is enough. And this is political persecution. Hunter Biden made the argument in court that he was being maliciously prosecuted, and that's a high legal standard and the court rejected that. I think the most honest version of this is Joe Biden loves his son and he had the opportunity to help his son and he decided to. I think that's the honest version of what happened. And there might not be more to say about that if he had done it before Trump started announcing his cabinet picks. He could have done it before Hunter went to trial, before a jury was impaneled, before millions of dollars were spent on a special prosecutor to push these charges forward. At any moment I think he could have said, I'm sorry, I love my son and I'm able to do this for him and I'm going to do it. And I think the vast majority of the American people would do the same thing. I wish that I would not be a person who did that, but I don't know. I can't say that sitting here today. I think that's a really sympathetic position.

Sarah [00:07:26] I totally agree. I think most people would do the same thing. And I think Joe Biden, over the course of his career from the very beginning, which was defined by his election to the Senate, simultaneously a heartbreaking family tragedy, has felt torn between his personal roles and his public service. I think this has been true for the entire Biden family. I know I've said this on the podcast again, but I think it bears repeating in this particular moment, the most affecting thing I've ever read about Hunter Biden was that Vanity Fair profile where they talked about Hunter was going to be the one to make the money because Bo was going to be the president. Because this is not an independently wealthy family, we're not talking about the Kennedys. And I thought, man, you could see how that could play out and how we could get here. And it's so hard because he was like Hillary when she said it's like a vast right wing conspiracy. And we all made fun of her. But was she wrong? Is he wrong that this is political persecution? Do we think, like Eric Holder said, if Hunter Biden was Joe Smith, he'd be here? I don't really think so. I also don't think Hunter Biden would be here if he was Joe Smith, if that makes any sense. You know what I mean?

[00:08:41] I think you can't detach in a way I think Joe Biden has tried his whole life and it's impossible, your familial ties from your public service. It's just incredibly hard to do. Do we think Jenna Bush would be on The Today show? Do we think Malia Obama would be directing films at 24? No, of course not. But what are we going to do about it? That's just the human reality. I had this moment where I was thinking about nepo babies and I thought, wait, is it not being a nepo baby the actual exception to human history? Like for most of human history, you do what your parents did. We made our last names like Butcher Taylor. You know what I mean? It was so indicative of who you were going to be. We would make your last names that. And so I just think especially when you reach presidential levels, the intricacies of these ties are not always nefarious. And also at the same time easily exploitable in a way that's really difficult. And then people, mostly political opponents, decide to make an example of something that had been accepted before. And so I don't know. I think it's really hard. I don't buy this line of argument that now Democrats have sacrificed any argument over the rule of law and the independence of the Justice Department. I think most Americans see this exactly as you described it, as a sympathetic situation in which Joe Biden is doing what any father would do in his situation.

Beth [00:10:24] Now, look, I don't think that means it's good. I wish that Joe Biden had stuck to his word. I think it's bad that Joe Biden has for years said he would not interfere here and then he did. I think that's really bad. I also struggle with hearing over and over from a ton of high profile Democrats that Hunter Biden wouldn't have been charged like this if his name weren't Hunter Biden. He wouldn't have had a special prosecutor appointed. It wouldn't have been so high profile. It would have gone down differently. But a whole lot of people are sitting in jails for minor offenses right now. They get there in a lot of different ways. But I think when you say this would never have happened if they weren't persecuting him politically, you sound like a person who only knows wealthy people who are able to get out of things usually. I mean, it's a lot of people have a real sense of unfairness that was done to them through the criminal justice system. And I don't like acting like that's not true. Just own this for what it is. All he needs to say, I think, is this is my son and I love him. And I couldn't live with myself if I didn't use the power I had to help him, and so I did.

Sarah [00:11:36] Yeah, I think what's really hard about this is the fact that he had said repeatedly, I'm not going to do this right. I don't know if people would be as critical if he had not made such a point of this high minded stance that I'm not going to be Trump. Because let's be honest, that's what it was. It was, see, we're different than him. I'm different than him. I would never interfere. And so then to get to this point, which at the same time, a lot of Democrats are arguing there's this tension here between we got to play like they play and oh my God, don't play like they play inside some of this that I think people are still teasing out. And I think we can get into that in a minute when we talk about still processing the election. But I think the other part of this is what they're saying is not that no one is persecuted for small offenses. Eric Holder knows that. What they're saying is no one like Hunter would be persecuted for this. And they mean wealthy.

Beth [00:12:32] That's right.

Sarah [00:12:33] And they mean resourced. And so isn't that also true? And isn't it true to say we all know that someone like Hunter would never be prosecuted for something like this. And the only reason he is because he's Joe Biden's son. So both things can be true.

Beth [00:12:53] I think both things can be true and that gets to my fundamental unhappiness with this. Which is that the timing of it and the fact that Biden is doing it after he said repeatedly that he would not reads less like a loving father and more like a vote of no confidence in the system. I think that waiting until Trump has said, "I'm going to put Kash Patel at the FBI," and then releasing this read like a vote of no confidence. And that's really serious from a sitting president. And if he's serious about it, this is the problem. I think if he's serious about it, then he should pardon a ton of people. He should pardon Jack Smith. He should pardon Letitia James. He should pardon Judge Engoron in New York. He should pardon Fani Willis and everybody who worked for any of those people. He should probably pardon every media outlet that's ever gotten a press release from the White House and all of their teams. Maybe he should give one pardon for every dollar that E. Jean Carroll is owed from Trump. I don't know.

[00:14:00] But if he really is saying I think the wheels are about to come off this whole thing, I think America has elected a very small man for a very big job. And he is so obsessed with retribution and vengeance against his enemies that I'm going to use the power I have, the closest thing I have to a magic wand and not allow him to do that. And I'm going to do that in the interests of the American public. Go ahead and make it high minded. I'm going to do that to save Donald Trump from himself, because his own pettiness and his own obsession with people who have been mean to him somewhere along the line is going to be his undoing and the country's. And I won't allow it. So just Oprah it, you get a pardon and you get a pardon. Abracadabra, baby. I am going to do what I can do to stop that train. If that's what he believes, then Hunter can be on the list but shouldn't be at the top of it. I don't understand what he's trying to say at this point and it feels to me like it would be better if he's just trying to say I love my son to say that. But if he's trying to say we're headed to some dark times, then, man, you're still the president; do what you can do about it.

Sarah [00:15:12] Yeah, because I'm not mad at the hard politics of the situation. That's exactly what you and I argued for post-election. I'm actually here for that. If we're going to play, let's play. Let's play hard politics like they do. But you can't be and hardball politicos in this moment. And that is where Joe Biden has been stuck from the very beginning, particularly with Ukraine. If you want to play, you got to play. But you can't protect everything and be the status quo and be the institutionalist and be the professionals (again, put a pin in that. We'll come back to that in the process of the election) and have it both ways. If you want to play hardball politics with the opponent in front of you, (which is what I advocate for at this moment in time) then let's do it. And that's exactly what Nicholas said. It's so funny you said that. My husband did the same thing. The second he said it he was like, let's do this. Hillary, Bill, everybody, Kamala, Tim Walz, give them all pardons.

Beth [00:16:09] I pardon myself. Peace out, everybody.

Sarah [00:16:11] Everybody's pardoned. Because I do think you're right. I do think this is a reaction to Donald Trump announcing he's going to nominate Kash Patel as the FBI director. Fun fact, our current FBI director appointed by Donald Trump, Christopher Wray, has two years on his 10 year term left. But clearly, Donald Trump has big plans to fire him. Ain’t just that enough, right? That's announcement enough. That's a red flag enough. I'm going to fire the guy appointed before his term is out, which presidents try not to do with FBI director because it is our government's law enforcement agency, so we really don't want an appearance of bias. But he didn't care. And if that wasn't enough to say, I'm going to fire Christopher Wray and appoint my own person, then to say I'm going to appoint Kash Patel, who has very little experience. He started as a public defender in Florida. He became a prosecutor and the Justice Department has lied pretty proficiently about what he worked on during his time in the Justice Department. But I read a long profile this moment where he got sort of dressed down by a judge for not having the proper attire.

[00:17:12] This judge was kind of crazy. Everybody acknowledged it. They tried to stick up for him, but it wasn't enough. And he felt like they don't have my back. And this just fed this narrative. But I thought the smartest thing I read about him is that he's a spotlight ranger, which I do feel like is a good description of many of the people that have been nominated for cabinet appointments. Spotlight Ranger. These people who are just seeking attention, it's probably not even about a goal or a perspective; it's just about rising up the ranks just for the pure purpose of rising up the ranks. And so that's what he's going to do. He's going to make Donald Trump happy. He's going to soak up the spotlight for himself. And he hates the institution. And so if you're trying to protect the institutions while they've been used to persecute your son, but you still want to protect them, again, you're trying to split the baby in a way people can sniff out. That's not authentic.

Beth [00:18:04] I think that's right. And if you combine this with Pam Bondi as the attorney general, Pam Bondi is a former Florida attorney general, who has been a big Trump supporter and has publicly said that there should be prosecution of people related to the stolen election of 2020. And you look at the picture that is taking shape of this cabinet and the things that they have promised to do explicitly. They're not being subtle. I mean, good on them. They're saying this is what my plan is. And if you are Joe Biden and you truly believe that this is a turn towards authoritarianism, that this will undermine democracy, then I don't know what you're waiting on. And, look, I love institutions and I love incremental change and I love process and I love being really persnickety about things like ethics and rules. It's just not getting anybody anywhere. And I don't love Joe Biden seeming to want to have everything both ways.

Sarah [00:19:10] And I don't think the voters did either. And I don't think that's where the American public is. I read a long profile of Pete Hegseth, the nominee for the secretary of defense, because I'm really trying with these nominees to not take the headlines and not create one dimensional villain in my head and really try to understand and take seriously the perspective on the institutions themselves. And with Pete Hegseth, to read about his time as a soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan is to be sympathetic to an anti-institutional viewpoint when it comes to the Department of Defense. It just is. The soldiers on the ground in both of those places were dropped in chaotic, confusing, dangerous situations. And they felt-- again on the spectrum of feeling linked to Kash Patel, now you don't get more different than being dressed down by a judge because you didn't wear the right things verses walking into a building loaded with IDs. Again, very different situations. But this sense of like they don't have my back. They asked me to sacrifice. They asked me to do the work. They asked me in Hegseths’ situation to put our lives on the line and they don't have our back when it matters.

[00:20:44] You can even see how he gets there with the with the pardons for the war criminals, these war criminal prosecutions that he has been very vocal about. Again, it's not hard to be sympathetic to that. And I'm trying to take that seriously. I'm trying to take the institutional critiques seriously. I'm thinking a lot about the 2008 recession and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, these huge moments in our adult lives and how people of our generation came out of those moments looking at our government, looking at the institutions within our government and saying burn it down, build it back up from scratch. Now, I don't think that these appointments show people who have the capacity or the wherewithal to actually do that. That's my concern. I think they have the wherewithal to break stuff, but that's about it. But I see it. I can see a thread. And I'm not unsympathetic to it. I see how they got there.

Beth [00:21:51] It is unclear to me who got there in good faith versus who has gotten there because it's been really profitable for them.

Sarah [00:22:02] Spotlight Rangers.

Beth [00:22:03] Right. Or really effective in bolstering their own status and profile. And that's why I think President Biden might be doing the American public a great service by abusing the pardon power by saying he promised you all that he would be there for you, not for himself. So I'm going to remove the thing that tempts him to care only about himself. I don't know. I don't like that argument that I'm making, but I am also trying to reexamine the way I typically look at everything. I interacted with the institutions this week in a way that I usually don't. Much closer. I went to my first day of jury duty. And the judge gave what I thought was a pretty moving orientation to jury service. He acknowledged that it's hard for people to get off work. It's hard to not know what your schedule is going to be. But it is one of the most important things you can do for your country. And it's a really different level of sacrifice than being deployed and shedding blood for your country. And I was particularly moved when he said in a criminal trial you'll be asked whether the state has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and no one can tell you what that means. No one can tell you what reasonable doubt means. It is simply your job to show up as the conscience of the community. And I keep thinking about that, especially because my greatest anti-institutionalist streak is the criminal justice system.

[00:23:33] I probably could sit down with Kash Patel and have a real chat about Pfizer. That is a law that allows the US government to surveil communications and a law that has been abused and a law that was applied to some Trump campaign officials in a way that it probably ought not have been. So I am sympathetic to some of that, too. And I am not going to get on a roller coaster with each of these Cabinet nominees. I will study the people who are confirmed. I'm not going to spend a lot of time thinking about the people that are being blasted out over social media. Once we have a confirmed cabinet, I will spend a lot of time thinking about who these people are and what they want to do. But I'm not Joe Biden, and I don't have the power to do anything in government right now. And he does. And I just think that if he wants to demonstrate to the American people that he has meant what he said about Donald Trump, I'm not sure spending time in Africa and the Amazon is the way to do that. Whatever he decides to do, I think he should use whatever juice he's got in the tank to make some things happen that he believes will help the country be in a better position come January.

Sarah [00:24:45] Well, I think the problem is he doesn't have a lot of juice left in the tank. And I think this familial situation is part of the reason. A lot of the reporting is that he has been consumed by this. You've said this repeatedly. He has aged. It looks like he is under enormous stress. And a lot of this has to be the situation with Hunter. Who wouldn't it stress? And so he felt like he brought this on Hunter, that they were trying to disrupt his sobriety. And if you have had a family member with a fragile sobriety, it is all consuming. I don't care if you're the president of the United States. And so I think that this consumed him from the reporting and just from my own lived experience in a way that I understand. I'm actually supportive of the trip to Africa because we've promised it and I don't want to break that promise because I think Africa is going to be increasingly important on the global scene. But I understand your point that we only have so much time left.

[00:25:35] But I just think generationally and because of his time in office, he's not going to get to an anti-institution place because Joe Biden knows the risk of having a Kash Patel is not just that he'll go after his son, it's that we'll have another September 11th and there will be no coordination and there will be enormous risk and there will be terrorist all over the world going, this is our chance. These bozos are not paying attention. They're fighting amongst themselves. He knows that. He's lived it. So I can see all of it. I'm not saying in any way any particular perspective is right. I do think there is a particular perspective even if these cabinet officials are not confirmed, that is appealing to the American populace. My family group chat [inaudible] great pic. Loved it. They think it's great. So I'm trying to take that seriously. I'm trying to take that seriously instead of occupying the position of the professional with all the information because I don't think that's gotten us very far as Democrats, which I think we're going to talk about in a minute.

Beth [00:26:48] And yet both things are true. I am very worried about terrorism if this cabinet is confirmed in the direction that it looks like it's going. I think the American people have made a huge gamble that the world believing Trump is crazy will keep us safe. And I understand the appeal of that position, but I also understand that Trump is not a unique figure in the world. And people who wish to do the United States harm play a much longer game than we play here in the United States. They play a much longer game than the next four year cycle. And they've seen a lot of Trumps come and go. And they study us and they study these people. You best believe that China deeply understands every single person who has come across at Truth Social post. And so I'm very worried about that. All I can do is worry about it, and that doesn't get me very far. But I'm not the president. And I have to believe that there are some pieces that the president can be moving now.

[00:27:52] And I hope he's moving them quietly and wisely and diplomatically and otherwise to try as much as possible to proof against some of what I think is going to be disastrous for us. Maybe they'll do some good things, too. My heart is open to that. These are huge jobs and any time you change something, you're changing it in a lot of unforeseeable ways. And certainly some good can come of shaking things up. But there is a reason that person after person, as different as our last few presidents have been and as different as their parties have been and as different as the mood of the public has been, there's a reason that they all have kind of coalesced around a mean in terms of foreign policy. And that's because it's really difficult to make changes because if you make the wrong one and you're responsible for another September 11th, you have to live with that forever.

Sarah [00:28:52] I think that carefulness, though, will continue. I don't see Joe Biden changing his stripes. Even to the point of backtracking on some of his previous statements, that's not unheard of in Joe Biden's political history. And so I think that he will remain the institutionalist, that he will remain the careful, deliberative presence that he has been over the four years. I don't think he's going to learn any massive lessons or taken any dramatic actions. May I be proven wrong, but I don't anticipate that over the next three to four weeks. I think that any juice Joe Biden had to make an ahistorical choice was used when he dropped out of the race. And I'm glad he did it, even though we still lost. I said at the time put Kamala in. If we lose, we still lose but we tried something. And I stand by that. But I think he will stay the institutionalist probably for the next two to three weeks. I don't anticipate him doing anything dramatic. May I be proven wrong. But I just don't see that happening with him.

Beth [00:30:04] Well, I think it's possible to challenge the narrative of Biden as careful institutionalist when you take a look at where we are now. And so we're going to talk about that after the break. Some lessons from the election and how we're viewing things with the benefit of a couple of weeks of hindsight.

[00:30:22] Music Interlude.

[00:30:30] Sarah, I kind of struggled when you talked about how careful Joe Biden is because the decision to run again to me seemed not careful at all and not like something an institutionalist would do at all. I heard the institutionalist when he said that he was going to come in and be a transitional president. And I saw the institutionalist in negotiating bipartisan deals for legislation that will benefit the country for a long time. But I have always been troubled by his decision to seek reelection at his age and then specifically later with polling that suggested he would start at a massive deficit.

Sarah [00:31:07] I think Joe Biden should not have run again. I mean, is anybody debating that? Everybody is saying that was a bad call, but it just felt so stuck. I articulated so many times on this podcast, I'm trying to see what rules still apply and what don't anymore. And I think you could see him and the people around him trying to figure that out, too. I think Ezra Klein's argument that the 2022 midterms really scrambled the usual calculus for a party is accurate. Because usually a party takes a beating in the midterm and then they recalibrate based on what the American people have just given them as feedback. And the 2022 midterm was this outlier where the ruling party gained seats. And so this was like new data. And so you could see the Biden administration take in this new data. I was trying to take in that new data. I was trying to say, okay, well, then that means abortion is this really motivating issue and maybe this is upending some of our regular understanding. We have January 6th. It's new data. Maybe that's going to be, you know, upend the regular rules. But then you're clinging to some old rules like incumbency that is powerful, usually.

[00:32:26] And so I have such sympathy, even though I think it was a terrible call that most likely cost us the election. You're trying to piece together the old rules that suit you and the new rules that suit you instead of just acknowledging that probably it's all new rules. I think that's what the Democratic Party has been fighting from the beginning, that Donald Trump is new and different. I was watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles over Thanksgiving. Follow me, I'm going somewhere. Have you ever seen it? They're old school. Steve Martin, John Candy, they make a Donald Trump reference. That movie is 40 years old, if not older. And every time I stumble on a Donald Trump reference from like the 80s or 90s, I'm like, right. He was different. Always different. Just such a known quantity inside American culture. And we never really wanted to acknowledge that. I think there's this sense inside the Democratic Party, the professional wing of this Democratic Party that feeds this sense of elite status quo, institutional, upper educated shift we keep reading about so much post-election. Well, it's fed by consultants that fit that mold, that say it's all about data and professionalism inside the campaigns and all this like that's what wins elections.

[00:33:51] And so, of course, will win up against somebody like Donald Trump. I think all the time about the Pod Save America guys making fun of Jared and all of them on Trump's plane looking at 270 to win in 2016. Lives rent free in my head. I can still draw it up just like that, the audio of that moment. Like these bozos aren't going to win. Their plane with 270 to win.com on the plane the night before the election. They don't have a real strategy. They don't have a real professional operation. They can't win. And I still believe that up until Election Day, 2024. I said it on this podcast I believe in Plouffe. I believe in these people. They have the data, they have the analysis, the professionalization is what wins campaigns. You can hear them still, these post-election analysis on Pod Save America recently where they're like, well, we upped the numbers in the swing states. Where we were running she did better and he did worse. You all know he still won. He still won in the swing states. All of them. And it's like you can just hear this clinging to the old rules that polling and testing and the professionalization and the data like it gets it done. That's what wins elections. And there's this refusal to acknowledge that in Trump's America and on Trump's terms, everything's different. And so you could see Joe Biden, but I beat him. I used the old rules to beat him. You know what I'm saying? You can see them because I did it. Take the old rules that don't work anymore, take the new rules that seem like they suit your narrative and put together a story that you can believe.

Beth [00:35:23] What's really annoying about getting older is that what feels like the old rules you kind of lose perspective on how old they are. Because the old rules to the Obama staffers were brand new when they did it with Obama. Those were the new rules. This is the new way. They're ahead of the game. And Team Trump, for all of its chaos, understood how to evolve those rules to the social media landscape in a way that now the Democrats are behind and in ways that we can talk about the ethics of. We can talk about the money involved. We can talk about flirting with other countries and the wink and nods among bots to amplify messaging. We can talk about all of that, but that's a conversation in a pretty small room of people compared to what is needed to win elections. And so, yeah, it really stinks when you think you've got your arms around a situation and something new enters the picture. And that's happening everywhere post-COVID. Everywhere, post-COVID it's a new set of problems. It's a new set of resources or a new version of a lack of resources to tackle those problems. And what happens any time something isn't flawless in the landscape? The people who would have done it differently, they think had they been in the room come in and say, well, you're a bad person Stephanie Cutter. You are so arrogant Pod Save America, guys. You are so high on your own supply David Plouffe. And that's unfair.

[00:37:01] These people took the situation that they had and what they knew, and they did their best in a hard circumstance. The bigger questions are what happens next? Who has an idea about how to evolve new rules? Because it seems like the American people are not going to be content with anything reaching some sort of stability. Our lives keep changing constantly. We're dealing in all of our organizations and our families with the wreckage of Covid. And hearing it could have been worse doesn't satisfy us. We want to know who can fix it. And that is about ideas, ideas, ideas, ideas. I'm just not interested in people who want to talk process all day and the meta level of campaigning instead of ideas. And I'm super disinterested in hearing people trot out the Bernie Sanders playbook as the answer to things going forward. Maybe there are some good in there and I'm open to it. But to use this moment to say, "Well, I've had this right for the last 15 years," that's silly. Any of us who are not saying, okay, what am I missing? Where could we go from here? What would my normal reaction to this be? Let me stop that and ask where am I go from here. I think I think we are losing the chance to ask the questions that might propel us forward.

Sarah [00:38:32] Well, and I think it's bigger than Covid and I think it goes further back than that. I think Covid is too tempting because then you can just blame it on Trump and you can get in the space of like, well, he was just terrible on the pandemic and that's what ruined everything and this running against Trump. It's like we wanted to run against Trump but not acknowledge Trump's strengths. We never wanted to see clearly what was the appeal, what was the idea? Because MAGA has ideas. You might not like them and you might find them abhorrent, but it does have a worldview and it does have ideas. And so I think that as a Democrat, I want us to go even further back than that because I think it starts further back than that. I think the anti-institutionalist, the disdain for the professional elites who I think it's correct David Brooks in his big piece for The Atlantic, How the Ivy League Ruined America, that most Americans hate the professional class more than they hate the billionaire class is 100% correct. And I am including myself in that professional class. And so I think that zooming further back than that, like I think it does start in 2008 with the recession.

[00:39:38] I think it starts maybe even sooner with the war in Iraq and a Democratic Party that was always scared to say and do the radical thing. To say the American people might be on George Bush's side with the Iraq war, but we are not. This is wrong. Everybody knew it was wrong. This was not a secret. This was not a hard call, especially people in the Congress who had the intelligence. They knew and people remember. And I wish that all the blame would be foisted on the Republican Party. And I feel like that's what Democrats keep waiting for. It's like, well, they put us in this position; why doesn't this party get blamed? Well, because we were the careful ones going, well, we'll protect the institutions even though we think this is a terrible call with the war in Iraq and this is a terrible call with the deregulation. I have some sympathy even to the Bernie people. Bernie Sanders, for all his faults and they are many, was on the right side of both of those things. And so I think it's this careful tested message which that goes farther back. That's Clinton.

[00:40:43] The Clintonian reputation was you bring in Dick Morris and you get the polling and you follow the polling. And there's some of that they did right. James Carville, for all his unique predilections, he has not and never has sounded like a marketer. He sounds like somebody who is listening to Americans, is trying to speak to what he hears on the streets. I think that so you have this sort of paradox inside the Clintonian reality of somebody that can speak authentically, but it is following polling. And we keep doing that. We keep doing that careful mix. And sometimes you get a politician that's good enough to do it. That's what I keep coming back to in these moments as like how much of this even post analysis matters? Are we going to do an autopsy and then the person with the big ideas and the right political talent is going to show up in the primary and that's going to be the reality of what moves the Democratic Party forward? Do you see what I'm saying How much is this is just defined by the people? We talk in the eras of Clinton and Obama and even Bernie to a certain extent. So what does it even matter anything we say right now because it's all going to be defined by the next leader of the Democratic Party.

Beth [00:41:53] Maybe that's true. And I think you're right that it's not just Covid, and it probably goes further back. And look, I think it probably goes farther back than the Iraq war. A lot of what this election has been about has been extremely personal. You could trace some of this gender stuff back to women entering the workforce and losing a sense of what everybody's role is. I mean, that's some of what MAGA is saying. Hey, we liked it better when everybody knew their part. We liked it better when there was a familial script. I've been thinking a lot about how some of the reason that I think Wokeness has so backfired is that people in all walks of life from all different ethnicities, races, places, socioeconomic classes have really crushing experiences growing up. And those crushing experiences growing up, someone who is supposed to love you hurts you systematically over time. And hurt takes a lot of different forms, and hurt can come inside your house or inside your church or from a teacher. So many people have a story that goes back to childhood of being failed by something that they put their trust in someone or some place that they put their trust in. So I understand why people have had a hard time swallowing well you're privileged if they haven't had the ultimate privilege of growing up in a home where they are safe and they know every single day that they are loved.

[00:43:31] I understand that there are a lot of factors at work here. And the biggest lesson for me of Donald Trump specifically right now-- I'm sure I'll continue to learn them. But the biggest lesson for me right now of Donald Trump is that the most powerful thing one of these politicians can do, this was probably true of Clinton, too, is describe what people experience. Maybe it isn't about ideas. Maybe what I said five minutes ago is wrong. Maybe it's just someone who's really good at putting words to what people are feeling. That's the power of podcasting, right? The messages that we get where people have connected with us most say you put words to something that I was feeling but I didn't know how to describe. And maybe it's just as simple as that and you just have to wait for those to come along. I don't know how that works at the scale we're living in and the pace of change that we're living in and the complexity of the world we're dealing with. I think you could make a hell of a case for the Deep State if that's the truth. If what we're doing is waiting for a new leader to come in who most gives voice to what people have been feeling, then don't you want an administrative state that keeps everything else moving down the tracks as it goes? I don't know. But I do think that you're right that it's hard to see any universe in which we poll and focus group and think our way to someone who can actually compete with what Trumpism offers.

Sarah [00:45:11] Yeah, and that's the thing. I think what's really hard is we're talking about so many things at once. We're talking about the party, but we're talking about the president. We're talking about Joe Biden's Democratic Party, but what happens with the Democratic Party after Joe Biden before the next person comes along? So we're talking about party politics. We're talking about presidential campaigning. And then in the midst of these cabinet appointments from a president elect who's been president before, we're talking about governance. I believe sincerely the American people don't just want to be heard in describing their problems. I think you're 100% correct that in presidential politics that's what works the best. It's certainly the populist message that works not just here, but around the globe. I see your pain. I feel your pain. I'm going to do something about it. But I think the American people are ready for something to be done about it. The problem is the skills to be a presidential campaigner and to articulate that and do it authentically and to translate that into long lasting structural change are not the same.

[00:46:23] I believe Pete Hegseth has legitimate concerns about how he was treated as a soldier and how his fellow soldiers were treated both during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and after the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I share some of those concerns. I do not believe that Pete Hegseth has the skills to institute any long term structural changes in the Department of Defense. If the Trump campaign and becoming the Trump administration was working to actually make these big changes they keep crowing about both off and on the record, they wouldn't be appointing Spotlight Rangers. They'd have congressional strategies in place to work with Congress to pass legislation that you will actually need to make these long term structural changes. Look, I'm here for it. I don't think our government is perfect. And I think the American people are saying we will prioritize change over stability for a little while. And I would agree with them. I think our deficit has got to change. I think our retirement age should probably change. I think there's room for lots of big changes, but it's not with Spotlight Rangers who are you going to spend all your political capital on getting confirmed, maybe, probably not, as opposed to solidifying an actual multi branch strategy to get that accomplished. Because that's not even what you read in Project 2025, is it? There wasn't this like well-laid out, multi-pronged this is who in Congress is going to put forward this legislation to put forth this change. It was all just the executive branch will get in and wave a magic wand.

Beth [00:48:08] Yes. Although, I will say that some sections were more thoughtful about that than others, and some sections acknowledge Congress's role and responsibility more than others.

Sarah [00:48:17] Not surprising.

Beth [00:48:18] And I continue to think that the most well thought out section of Project 2025 was about the Department of Defense.

Sarah [00:48:25] Interesting.

Beth [00:48:26] I think Christopher Miller, look, he's someone that I would talk to on this podcast. I would talk to an author of Project 2025 on this podcast because I thought that his ideas were considered provocative and realistic about what can be done without Congress as partnership. The other piece of prioritizing change over stability is being honest about the fact that change means change. I have only discussed for the idea that Elon Musk, the largest supplier to the federal government, is going to be making so many decisions about the direction of the federal government. I think if he wants to serve his country, then he ought to have to divest his interest and serve his country, not serve his country and himself at the same time.

Sarah [00:49:17] Did you know that $50 billion of his wealth is tied up with China? So it's not just United States investments that have some red flags about, Beth.

Beth [00:49:27] I think that's really fair. So I have nothing but disgust about the corruption that is in the opening unfolding before our eyes.

Sarah [00:49:38] It's going to be so bad.

Beth [00:49:39] And I appreciate that Elon Musk is seemingly only person close to Trump who will say this is going to be painful. Because that's the truth. Changes are painful. Even welcomed changes are painful. And who they're going to be painful for and the intensity of that pain are often hard to discover before you get to them. That's why change management is a discipline. I know we're mad at all the academics, but you do some research on these things when you see over and over and over again it's not as simple as Elon's a genius and he'll be Twitter and everything will be perfect. Ask Ron DeSantis about how perfectly things can unfold on a technology platform where some genius has come in and fired everybody who he thought wasn't working hard enough. Change is really, really painful. And if we're talking about the skills that you need to be an agent of change for the people, one of those is the ability to communicate.

[00:50:40] This is painful right now, and I need you to get behind me and I need us to be in it together. And I need you to tolerate it with me because we are really trying to make this better on the other side. And we're going to have to tweak that as we go, because better is non-obvious, especially at the scale of the Department of Defense or the Department of Agriculture or whatever, you name it. At the scale that they're working in, every single change is so hard and is not just domestically focused. And we aren't going to get that from this administration. And if I were advising people within the Democratic Party on what to do next, I would be saying, who do we have here who can do that? Who can say, "See, they didn't have the skills to make the changes that you want. All they had was media training." I can talk to you, but I can do as well and I want to show you that. That's why I'm so optimistic about a Wes Moore, a Josh Shapiro, people who have had disasters and turned them around fast, got stuff done as well as communicated about it.

Sarah [00:51:54] Yeah, I think that's hard. I think it will be a shift to say I know you're tired of the professional class. And I don't think we're going to get people back there for a while. They're not wrong that there's opportunity hoarding at all levels, that there is elitist capture at all levels. That's not wrong. They're right. They're right to be mad about it. And so I think the shift from saying, yeah, but the celebrities and the TV show stars were not the answer, were they? To say, I know we all thought that we were seeing businessmen-- I kept thinking about this with Donald Trump. I feel like my whole life what I heard was we just need a really good, smart CEO in charge. That was the narrative. And he came along and captured that because what he'd sold himself as to the American people was a good, smart CEO. Now, it was smoke and mirrors largely, but you got to acknowledge the skill in keeping himself in front of American culture again for 40 years.

[00:53:02] It's shocking how often you will watch something from the 80s or 90s and his name will come up. Designing women. I was watching an episode of that and he came up. I'm like, Jesus! We're all going to watch Home Alone 2 and he walk through the lobby. And so I think acknowledging that he fit that bill marketing wise, we never took that seriously. That even to be a good marketer, you're selling a good story. So what's appealing about that story? And acknowledging that and saying, hey, we agree that things need to change and not just in a poll tested, pragmatic way. But the celebrities aren't going to get it done for you. The celebrities aren't going to make that happen. And how are we going to do that if we're going to have a event after event with celebrities? Not for nothing.

Beth [00:53:47] Well, I totally agree with that. I am over the celebrity vibes surrounding campaigns, but I never liked them to begin with. So that's not a big shift for me.

Sarah [00:53:58] That's true. You have been consistent.

Beth [00:54:00] But here's the thing, the CEOs aren't going to get it done either. When people say run it like a business--

Sarah [00:54:05] It's not a business.

Beth [00:54:06] They are referring to a set of tactics that have made them so mad at everything in the first place.

Sarah [00:54:12] So true.

Beth [00:54:13] If you don't like globalization, why would you want a big time CEO to come in and run the U.S. government? If you are upset that you lost a pension or that you were laid off or that your company was bought by managers from another country, why would you want a CEO to come in and run the U.S. government? Government is supposed to be for everyone. Run it like a business is the opposite of running it for everyone. Run it like a business is an extremely focused strategy where you have a limited number of objectives to benefit a limited number of people, and those are the outcomes that we are all rejecting here, there and everywhere. The result of run it like a business is what people are rebelling against in so many ways. That's also where the opportunity courting comes in, right? I want the prestige to get the job that puts me on the path to be the big bright CEO.

Sarah [00:55:06] I think people still want that version of meritocracy, though, and they see it for better or for worse most clearly in the business leaders. Griffin and I had a long conversation about this. And I think David Brooks gets a lot of it in that piece for The Atlantic about how the Ivy League ruined everything. People want a meritocracy based on grit, resilience, hard work. And what we said is we're going to give you a meritocracy based on intelligence and professionalism. Only those things. And in a very narrow understanding of intelligence. And so I think that that's what's we're kind of teasing apart, too. I don't think the story people want to hear is the government's going to come in and it's for everybody. What they want is the government to make it so they can fight for their place fairly. They don't want people cutting the line. This is what we're hearing. We hear from immigrants about asylum seekers. They're cutting the line. They're getting government benefits. I worked hard to get here. They don't want people cutting the line. They don't want a sense of unfairness. If I worked hard and then there's this elite capture that's keeping me from the benefits of my hard work-- you hear that a lot around of affirmative action from people of color. That's not what Americans want. They want the government to get out of the way so that they can achieve the results of their hard work. It's a shift. It's a subtle shift in how you talk about it, but I think it matters.

Beth [00:56:48] And that's not what they want. That's what I want. That is my vision of things. That is what I want. I think we all want some form of meritocracy. We just want it to be more distributed. And we want to not constantly be degraded if we didn't go the Ivy League path because the Ivy are yes about intelligence, but they are about, as you said, a particular form of intelligence wrapped in status. If you think you can't find someone who could compete in the Ivy Leagues at basically every university in this country, that's ignorant. There are promising, creative, thoughtful, highly intelligent people everywhere. The person who can nail that, who can communicate to people a vision, I think Jason Kander had this right.

Sarah [00:57:43] Yeah, for sure.

Beth [00:57:44] You can live with your people and have a great life. You can feel a sense of safety and security and togetherness. The person who can get that, I think, takes us a long way. Maybe it's Jason Kander, someone should call him. I don't know.

Sarah [00:57:58] We have his number. It could be us. And I think, look, for better or for worse both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton did that. They had mostly conservative social messages about the way people live and the way people want to live. The Sister Souljah moment. If you haven't heard about when Bill Clinton came out in the 90s and kind of got on to Sister Souljah and tell people to pull their pants up, something that would never fly, that would just get totally torn apart on Twitter. But we elected Barack Obama and he was opposed to gay marriage openly. You have to balance that sense of you want change, so I'll keep some things the same. Griffin and I've been having this conversation a lot around the wokeness debate. And I'm like, Griffin, I had this moment. I'm like, think back. Think back to when the United States of America so generously gifted white women the right to vote. It's the beginning of the 1920s, a massive moment of economic prosperity. When did the civil rights moment take place? The 1960s. American prosperity we hadn't seen before.

[00:59:08] It's a hierarchy of needs, right? You can't say everything's fine. You have enough economically. We want more people at the table. Just psychologically, that didn't work for people. You have to get them feeling safe. You have to get them out of a scarcity mindset if you want to push the Overton Window socially and culturally. And I think that really good politicians understand that. And I think that there's a lot of really important conversation happening in the Democratic Party, particularly about nonprofit groups, advocacy groups that aren't membership groups. They're not listening to a membership, but they're advocating a position. And, of course, there's some conflicting priorities when you're trying to keep your job, you're trying to advocate for your particular idea. And then you have politicians who all of a sudden stop saying, no, we can't go that far. That's not doable. That's too far. People aren't ready for that yet. You have a lot of really gifted politicians who were really strong at saying, enough. We can't do that right now.

[01:00:17] And I know that's hard to hear, especially if you're on the other side of the group advocating for pushing people into new directions. But that is the political reality. It's not ethics. It's not morals. It's advocacy. It's influence. It's an argument that you're trying to make. And I think we lost that. It became testing and marketing and data and analysis, and we lost the sort of gritty, beating heart of politics, which is where are people at and where can we get them within this cycle? And what does that mean for governance on the other side of the election?

Beth [01:00:55] It's funny that I was thinking as you were saying we lost the grittiness, I was thinking the soul of it. And then I immediately thought about how Joe Biden said he was running to restore the soul of America and how the soul doesn't mean the same thing to everybody. And that's hard, that none of this is easy. And I want to find a tone that is clear eyed and pushing, examining, questioning without villainizing people. We don't have to villainize the nonprofits or the advocacy groups or the Ivy Leagues or anybody. We don't have to villainize Trump to say, I don't think this man should be the president. And when he does something that I fundamentally disagree with, I will oppose it. That's like as far as it has to go. I think that would help, too. I think this this tone where everything is life and death-- and this kind of takes me full circle to the pardon. Is it life and death or isn't it? If it isn't, just be honest about it.

[01:01:55] I think the American people can hear I love my kid and that's enough. And if it's something else, then act like it. But getting more of a sense from a gut level-- and it doesn't have to be the same and shouldn't be for everybody in the Democratic Party. But just a sense that you are on the level with people. You're saying what you mean. You mean what you say. If you say you do it, you'll do it. If you say you can't do it, then you won't. Whatever. But just walk it back a little bit from trying to please everyone all the time and be willing to say, I'll work with you. And this was the best thing about Joe Biden. I'll work with you even if I disagree with you. I won't cancel anybody. I'll stay in it because that's how things actually get done.

Sarah [01:02:39] Well, maybe that's the fundamental tension, right? We are trying to hold space for both the data and the villainization. We're saying we're experts, we're professionals. But if you don't agree with us, you're a terrible person. You're a terrible person. And that's not an inhabitable place. And it's certainly not a place you can expand. That's why the Democratic tent keeps shrinking, because if you disagree with us you're stupid because you're not smart enough to see the data clearly in front of you. And that's why when the data conflicts with the story, then the shaming comes in. That's when, of course, it's confusing that we came out and said don't wear masks and now everybody must wear a mask or you're a murderer. And we never owned that. We never said that was a mistake. Keeping kids home from school was a mistake. And we never owned it. We never said we were wrong and we mean about it because we were. That's the truth. Anything that conflicts don't point out. That disrupts the story and then you're joining the bad people. Because whatever we got wrong, they're terrible. We can get things wrong, but we can't talk about it because the other option is the bad people. The really, really bad people.

[01:03:53] I'm reading Boy Mom right now. And talk about disruptive narratives, I got to a part in her book she's talking about boys in schools, which you all know is a subject of deep interest to me. And she lays out pretty plainly, black girls are now more likely to graduate from high school and white boys. More black women aged 18 to 24 enrolled in college than white males of the same age. And black women in their late 20s are more likely than their white male peers to hold a master's degree. That is really disruptive. That's a disruptive statistic to a lot of the stories that the Democratic Party tells about itself, about voters, about America. And so if you say something like that, if you push, if you say we screwed this up, we're getting this wrong, we're ignoring this dataset, then it becomes the moralizing. Well, we're not them. We're not him. We're not trying to destroy America. We're not fascist. So that doesn't really matter. And I hope if nothing else, we learn that that is not a winning strategy. Might be true, might be ethically, morally righteous, but it's not politically persuasive.

Beth [01:05:03] I think the other piece that I'm trying to constantly return to is that things are changing really, really fast. And so what might be the lesson of this election today will look different to me in January. Ellen had a crushing moment. Ellen is my nine year old daughter who's a real creative and very sensitive. It's her gift and her curse at the same time as our gifts often are. And she was really upset because she said to her sister and an adult who loves her that she wants to be a poet when she grows up. And that adult who loves her from a loving place responded, "How are you going to make money?" And Ellen was devastated by it. And I was having a chat with her about this and I said, you know, Ellen, I think if that happens again in your life, you say this is what I want to do and someone says, how are you going to make money? You should just say, "My mom's a podcaster, so we'll figure things out." Because the truth is if I were nine and telling anyone any version of what I do for a living today, they would have told me, as people did, when I said things like I might like to be a poet, to get my head out of the clouds. One of the most devastating conversations I ever had with a loving adult in my life included "Beth, you need to get your head out of the clouds.".

[01:06:25] We have no idea what the job market for our nine year olds is going to be. None. And you and I read about this stuff all day, every day. And we have no idea sitting here right now what the job market for our nine year olds is going to be. We have no idea what college is going to look like for your kid who's in high school and mine who will be there next year. We have no idea. And that is miserable in a lot of ways. It's just miserable. Takes me back to the Obama staffers who thought they were on the cutting edge and just learned that their strategies are old news now. It is really hard to accept that what I thought I knew is different now. And that doesn't make me bad or wrong. It's just different now and it will be different again tomorrow. And that is why you and I are talking about beginning the year with a series of whiteboard conversations. Inviting some people who we respect as thinkers, some of whom will be challenging to us, some of whom we think will find really inspiring. But a group of people to sit and really have conversations with us about where we go from here and what they're seeing and what might be possible in this landscape. And we're really, really excited about it and looking forward to continuing this conversation with all of you and into the new Year.

[01:07:49] Music Interlude.

[01:08:00] Okay. Sarah, we always have an exhale at the end of the episode by talking about something that's Outside of Politics. And what would that be but wicked here in December 2024.

Sarah [01:08:11] So you saw it?

Beth [01:08:13] I saw it.

Sarah [01:08:14] And?

Beth [01:08:16] It wasn't for me.

Sarah [01:08:16] What?

Beth [01:08:18] It wasn't for me.

Sarah [01:08:18] You were peer pressuring me to see it, so I saw it and I liked it. And I feel like this is a real bait and switch.

Beth [01:08:24] Well, you're welcome. I'm so glad you saw it and liked it. That's great. Okay. Chad and I read the book.

Sarah [01:08:31] I haven't read the book.

Beth [01:08:31] We have seen the live show twice, possibly three times. I like Wicked a lot. And I thought that everyone involved here was very talented. It just felt to me like there was no space for contemplation at all. Like this movie was so obsessed with being a great big movie. And I felt like every moment of it, it was almost like someone was reaching through the screen going, isn't that amazing? Don't you feel affected now? Wasn't that hilarious? It was relentless. I know that this is just about taste, right? That doesn't mean it is bad. But for me, it was just much too much and it lost I thought its obsession with this story because it was so obsessed with being a big movie.

Sarah [01:09:23] I liked the bigness of it with fantastical stories. Broadway is just limited. They make up for it with the music, which is my favorite part. But they are limited right by the stage and the laws of gravity no matter what we might be singing about at the end of the first act. And so I really liked the way the movie could just be like you want to see some shit. I thought that was fun. I liked it. Let's lean into that, the Ozness of it all. So I'm down for that. And I thought that Ariana and Cynthia's clearly close relationship personally-- unless they are exquisite actresses in all these PR interviews they're doing, unless they're just as exquisite actresses off screen as they are onscreen and have been faking this all was apparent. I thought they had a real emotional connection that came through beautifully. I thought in particular Ariana Grande just slayed it. And not in a way that I felt like she was doing a Kristin Chenoweth impression, which I was prepared to see and feel a little piqued by. But that's not what I felt like she was doing. I actually thought the moments with her internal struggle were those moments of like, yeah, this is contemplation and kind of the stickiness of it.

[01:10:49] I just thought she was really, really good. I wish she would stop being so weird in real life so that I could just embrace her fully. We talked about this on our Spicy Live when she like licks the donuts and does weird things, that really disrupts it for me. And I really wish she would just lean into being not weird in places so that I could just embrace her talent because I thought she was great. My only critique is I thought Cynthia was an, again, exquisite actress. I really liked what she did with Elphaba. People are going to be so mad when I say this. But I think vocally, I can't decide if it's her power as a vocalist or maybe it's just the range, because I shared this clip of her and Jennifer Hudson singing together, that was just perfect. No notes, perfect. But I felt like maybe she was singing in a different key range. I don't know the specific vocal term than what most of these parts were. But I didn't feel the power even in the final song that I feel from Idina Menzel-- now, look, I'm an Idina Menzel stan. I think she's pretty close to perfect. I like her voice a lot. Not a lot. I'm talking like 10, 20%. It's a small critique. Just like 10, 20% I felt like her voice could be... I would have liked her turned up just like not even volume or power, like a sharpness. Do you know, I'm saying? Just a little. I'm just turning the nozzle ever so slightly. That's it, though. That's really my only critique.

Beth [01:12:19] Well, I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

Sarah [01:12:20] I thought it was really fun. I'm not sure about part two because that part only has one good song. Spoiler alert. The second act of Wicked is a little weak. I'm just going to say it. It's a little weak as second acts often are.

Beth [01:12:35] It's really challenging to take a book that is this dark and turn it into a musical, too. I saw A Funny Girl over the weekend. I have loved the movie, A Funny Girl. I've seen it. I'd never seen it on stage. I had only seen the movie, which I've watched many, many times because Barbra Streisand is incredible in it. And it is a reminder of how difficult it is to do a pretty dark and sad story in a Broadway format. But it, I think, just nails it. And I was watching it and compared to Wicked, it's so slow in its pacing. It's so old school. Tons of little vaudeville moments. My kids were like, what is going on here? And I loved that. I loved a little friction around it. And I felt like the movie was just like a ride of Disney. You know what I mean? Ain’t this beautiful? Don't you feel things? Here we go cruising. Look again. Look. It's Ariana Grande. It's Jeff Goldblum. Oh my God@ how incredible is this? And it just to me it lost a lot of texture because of that. But I understand why people enjoyed it and I am not going to yuck anyone's yum. I'm just going to be honest with you that it wasn't my cup of tea.

Sarah [01:13:48] I was also so delighted when Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel showed up. Spoiler. When they came on screen and I didn't know that was going to happen and I was just so happy to see both of them. I love them both so much, and I think that they're perfect.

Beth [01:14:04] And it's hard. Credit to Cynthia and Ariana because Idina and Kristin defined those roles in such an intense way. I was feeling before I saw this regional production of Funny Girl for the main Actress because I thought, I don't know what you do when this is Barbra Streisand, right? She so cemented this. But the actress was fantastic and that was wonderful to see.

Sarah [01:14:30] Lea Michele did fine. I wouldn't know it because she was sick for the night I had tickets and I didn't get to see her, but I hear she was great in it. I was thinking that maybe the highest and best use of a time machine would be to go back and see the original Broadway casts and their formative roles. When I was watching, I'm like, what I wouldn't give to be in the seats? Because I've seen Wicked on Broadway and it was incredible. But not with Idina and Kristin, which would be even better.

Beth [01:14:59] Well, I hope that whatever you're watching right now, you're enjoying it. I watched a ton of movies and TV over Thanksgiving break. It was really refreshing. It kind of helped me figure out, I think, what I didn't like about Wicked because of what I found in other things that I saw. And I'm sure we'll continue to talk about all of that. We're going to give you your day back now because we've been talking for a long time. So thank you so much for spending this time with us. We always appreciate your support of our show. There are two ways that we want to throw out there for the holidays that you can support us and hopefully treat yourself. We would love for you to check out our Pantsuit Politics fan gift guide. Alise has put it all in one spot for you so it's easy to send to whomever is buying for you this year. Hey, here are some things from my podcast friends that I would love to gift.

[01:15:42] We also really love to make Cameos, which are just personalized video messages from us to celebrate birthdays, to give a pep talk, to say Happy Holidays. So if you would like to send a Cameo to someone or suggest that someone said one to you, please just get those requests to us by Thursday, December 19th so that we can turn them back around for you thoughtfully. We really do spend quite a bit of time thinking about what to say in those video messages for each person, so we would like to have those before we get too close to the holidays. All the details for all of this are in our show notes. We'll see you back here on Friday. Until then, have the best week available to you.

[01:16:16] Music Interlude.

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

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

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

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers: Ali Edwards, Nick and Alysa Vilelli, Amy & Derek Starr Redwine, Amy Whited, Anya Binsacca, Ashley Rene, Ashley Terry, Barry Kaufman, Becca Dorval, Beth Loy, Brandon & Jessica Krausse, Catherine Kniss, Chelsea Gaarder, Christi Matthews, Christian Campbell, Christie Johnson, Christina Quartararo, Connie Peruchietti, Crystal Kemp, The Adair Family, Ellen Burnes, Emily Holladay, Emily Helen Olson, Gabrielle McDonald and Wren, Genny Francis, The Charney Family, Heather Ericacae, Jacque Earp, Jan Feltz, Janice Elliott, Jeff Davis, Jen Ross, Jeremy Sequoia, Jessica Whitehead, Jessica Boro, Jill Bisignano, Julie Haller, Julie Hough, Karin True, Katherine Vollmer, Katie Johnson, Katy Stigers, Kimberley Ludwig, Kristen Redford Hydinger, Kristina Wener, Krysten Wendell, Laura Martin, Laurie LaDow, Lee Chaix McDonough, Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen, Lily McClure, Linda Daniel, Linsey Sauer, Bookshelf on Church, Martha Bronitsky, Megan Hart, Michelle Palacios, Michelle Wood, Morgan McHugh, Onica Ulveling, Paula Bremer, The Villanueva Family, Sabrina Drago, Samantha Chalmers, Sasha Egolf, Sarah Greenup, Sarah Ralph, Shannon Frawley, Stephanie Elms, Susanne Dickinson, The Lebo Family, The Munene Family, Tiffany Hassler, Tracey Puthoff, Veronica Samoulides, Vicki Jackman.