The Only Reaction Left: Processing the State of the Union

Plus, The 2028 Candidate Nobody's Talking About Enough

I don’t want to be a person who hates Donald Trump. I think it’s damaging politically, persuades no one, and is bad for my soul. I want to hate his ideas, his approach, his decision-making.

And yet, when I watch the State of the Union, the emotion that is stronger than anything is hate. I am running out of road on how to engage with this man and how he treats people, how he runs the country I love, how he speaks without feeling visceral rage directed squarely at him.

The only thing that keeps me from burning myself up from the inside out is trying to channel that rage into what comes next. That’s what we do on today’s show. We catalogue everything we hated about the State of the Union and everything we love coming from the race for 2028.

Then, we have a conversation outside of politics that I have a hunch might provoke a visceral reaction in many of you…I welcome it all. -Sarah

Topics Discussed

• Trump’s State of the Union

• Looking Ahead to 2028

• Outside of Politics: Brutal Truths from AI

Want more Pantsuit Politics? Subscribe to ensure you never miss an episode and get access to our premium shows and community.

Episode Resources

• Join us at Memorial Drive UMC in Houston on Sunday!

• More to Say About Special Education (Part 1) (More to Say)

• State of Disunion (Puck)

• How Mississippi Transformed Its Schools From Worst to Best (The New York Times)

• More to Say About the Labor Secretary (More to Say)

• Questions to help you think deeper, see clearer, and grow faster (Dan Pink)

Episode Transcript

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

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are going to respond to the State of the Union and really workshop some feelings about the president and the cabinet and the Congress, which will lead us to talking about 2028. I love reminding myself that elections come. It’s just that grounding force. We’re not stuck here forever. There will be something new. We get to decide what that something new is. So I think you’re going to love that conversation about 2028. I think there’s a lot to discuss around it and we love it when you discuss the episode with us. And then Outside of Politics, we just both did Dan Pink’s self-reflection exercise using AI Which was a fascinating and mind-bending experience, and so we process that just a little bit

Sarah [00:00:54] Reminder, we will be a Memorial Drive United Methodist Church in Houston Sunday. This Sunday, March 1st at 5 p.m. We’ll be discussing how to move forward and build connection through conflict. So for those of you in the Houston area, we would love to see you there.

Beth [00:01:11] Next up, let’s talk about the State of the Union.

Sarah [00:01:23] I have taken Nancy Pelosi’s admonition that we don’t hate seriously. I really have tried. The more unleashed he is, the more completely obvious it is that what motivates the people he’s put in power like Stephen Miller is just bare, naked racism. The more we have to wake up every day and acknowledge that we’re learning, more that he might actually be incredibly accused of abusing women in the Epstein files, but also that we’ve just accepted that he was like best friends with this prolific child sex trafficker and have to just kind of accept that. And he’s like so bad at his job. And everything he does is in pursuit of his own interests. And it’s just like I can’t breach the wall, man. It’s too tall. It’s so hard to find anything at all to cling to. And so I’m just left with like, well, if you are going to nakedly show me who you are, how you feel about America, then what am I supposed to do with that? There’s nothing but a laundry list of things to hate that feels like what am I supposed to do?

Beth [00:02:55] I think that on an individual level, if Donald Trump were suffering, I would try to get him help. I can still see him as a human being worthy of dignity, and I work on that all the time. Where I can feel myself hardening and I am trying to figure out what to do about it, it is about all the people who spend all their time telling him he’s the king. The State of the Union was so hard to watch because he’s really angry at Democrats in a very visceral way. And I felt that you could just see, particularly this year, that he’s not in rooms anymore with people who don’t make him feel like the king. And when he is, he didn’t even get a lot of democratic resistance. It was a very subdued vibe compared to past years, but he seemed angrier. And I think it’s because he just doesn’t have to be in a space anymore with people who don’t treat him like he is the most special person on the face of this planet who can do no wrong. That is what I am so mad about, that so many people do that, that so people were standing and applauding at every pause for him last night who you know don’t like him, who you know are worried they’re going to lose their seat because of him, who you give quotes to reporters anonymously about how much he sucks and they still perform this. That is where I am really, really struggling.

Sarah [00:04:39] Yeah, just the standing ovations every three and a half seconds are so obnoxious. I know Democrats do it too, and I would like everyone to stop. If we elect a Democrat, please don’t do that. Can we all just dial back the hero worship and the we’re right all the time and they’re wrong all the times? One of my favorite moments is when he asked him to pass the ban on stock trades and Elizabeth Warren stood up and her face was like, yeah, I’ll clap for things that I think are worthwhile.

Beth [00:05:09] Did you see Sarah McBride in that moment? Sarah McBride kept holding out her hands and going, how about you? How about you, too? Do you not profit from your office as well?

Sarah [00:05:18] Yes, good idea. I mean, the hypocrisy. And I know people in the Republican caucus understand the hypocrisy of this administration standing up and putting JD Vans in charge of fraud. What is this? Why are you mocking? I feel like I’m being punked constantly.

Beth [00:05:40] There are so many things that I wonder in 10 years, how are we going to think about this? Beginning with the photographs of the Al Green protest. This is a tradition now for Al Green. He’s a representative who always ends up getting kicked out of the State of the Union. He’s been censured about it before.

Sarah [00:06:01] He also got a tough primary coming his way, not for nothing.

Beth [00:06:02] He does have a tough primary coming up. He comes into this one with a sign that says, black people aren’t apes. Seems like a very non-controversial sentiment, right? And he’s just holding it. And there’s a picture of Steve Scalise pushing against the sign. And I thought, I wonder in 10 years what Steve Scalise is going to see when he looks at a picture of himself pushing down a sign that says black people aren’t apes. What are we doing here? What kind of time capsule is that?

Sarah [00:06:40] So much of him warps people’s perception. And I think that’s why I’m just like, I hate this. I hate all of this. We spent a lot of time on the Spicy Bonus episode yesterday talking about the men’s hockey team and their reaction to Donald Trump saying I guess I’ll invite the women too. And I’m like we don’t even get mad at him because we’ve just accepted that he’s the misogynist in chief. Like our reality is so warped that we can’t see how jacked up all of this is. I was listening to your special education series and just getting so mad like this gaping wound at the heart of our education system, and he’s up there telling us how the economy is roaring. And it’s just crazy making. It is crazy making

Beth [00:07:36] So I think he had a couple of revealing moments during this speech in terms of how he’s assessing himself and the world. He was telling us how great everything is because he knows it isn’t. And so he decided I’m just going to do exactly what Joe Biden did on affordability and deny that there’s a problem and talk people out of their experience.

Sarah [00:08:01] I’m going to piss on your leg and call it rain. My favorite Southern expression.

Beth [00:08:04] And he talked about the violence of crimes committed by people who are here illegally, but he did not say the word ICE in the whole speech. He did not talk about Minneapolis. He did not talk about renovating the White House, which is something he’s clearly spending a lot of time on.

Sarah [00:08:27] He loves it too. And I thought it was so interesting how often he brought up I didn’t name it. Well, bitch, then tell them to name it something else. Do you not have the power to change the name? That’s intriguing to me.

Beth [00:08:39] And he says it because he knows on some level it’s a problem. But he can’t refuse it.

Sarah [00:08:44] He can’t not do it.

Beth [00:08:45] He didn’t use the word infrastructure one time.

Sarah [00:08:50] Well, maybe we’re done with infrastructure.

Beth [00:08:52] I guess we are. And he did not talk about the Epstein files at all. I was curious about whether he would try to tell us that’s a hoax, like talk us out of our experience on that one too, but he just left it out entirely.

Sarah [00:09:05] Puck had this great like clocking of the time he spent on everything and you could tell Particularly with affordability it was like two minutes and 17 seconds. It was way about the same time he spent on the men’s hockey team, less than he spent on Venezuela. Venezuela was like four minutes and 37 seconds. So he sort of stuck to the script but you could tell like he doesn’t want to talk about affordability. He didn’t give a shit and he thinks everybody’s wrong and that tariffs are going to make up for the income tax. Again, I don’t even know how to react to that. That’s ludicrous. The top thing they think if you just maxed out tariffs, which in some ways this makes sense because you know what Republicans like to do? They like to regressively tax. So you would get rid of this income tax and you put sales tax in places that are a burden on the poor and middle class. So in some way this makes perfect sense because that’s all the tariffs are is a sales tax, basically. But even if you tapped it out, it’s not going to get close to the like I think it’s like $2 trillion we take in with income tax. Like, are you dumb? Does anybody tell you the truth?

Beth [00:10:10] Even with how ludicrously sycophantic that room was, he did not get roaring applause in that whole tariff section. There were multiple times that you could tell he was stopping for applause that did not come even from the Republicans. Laying into the Supreme Court is a bad move, even for the Republicans. Like it was silly. I watched the speech this time yesterday. Can I just feel real sorry for myself? I had dental work and then I watched the State of the Union. I sat down and I watched it though with the transcript in front of me so that I could like mark it up as I was going. And so seeing paragraphs unfold, the page I have in front of me now just in the margin all the way down the side I just wrote long illegal immigration section where he’s talking about crime in these extremely visceral gross terms. I felt so sorry for the family members who were there to be recognized because I thought this is a horrific way to describe what happened to your loved one. And I felt like he just had to do that because of the violence perpetuated by his administration. The only way you can accept a joke about blowing people up on fishing boats, which he made, is if he has convinced you that the people that he’s against are so dangerous to you and are coming for you in the most graphically violent terms possible.

Sarah [00:11:37] I don’t think people are going to buy it. I do think the fear mongering has worked in the past, but I think the way that ICE has rolled out across the country and the impact down into the smallest farming communities, I just don’t think the hits are going to work this time. I’m sure it will tighten up some of the base. But as far as the persuadable people, they know that this is not ever-- I mean, not everybody, but I do think it has penetrated that so many people getting swept up in these ICE raids are not violent criminals. If you are on social media at all, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, there are so many stories, videos that you’re going to see some of it. I just think it’s pretty much unavoidable. I guess there’s probably some far right wing media silos that it’s not getting through to, but that’s not who the State of the Union’s for. You know what I mean? The State of the Union is for the people you’re trying to persuade. I was like I see you trying to pull out your hits, my dawg, I just don’t think they’re going to work.

Beth [00:12:45] I truly don’t know who the State of the Union is for anymore. I’ve always felt this way. I hate how this debases Congress. And I have for every president, Democrats and Republicans, I do not think that the Constitution in saying that the president is supposed to report to the Congress about the State of the Union means the Congress is supposed to bow down and kiss the president’s feet in their own chamber. He openly mocked the role of the Congress throughout this speech. There were multiple times he said, I don’t even need this. I don’t need Congress to do this. He said it about the terrorists. We don’t need Congress. I can just do it. When he asked Congress to pass things, you could tell his heart isn’t in it because he doesn’t care about asking anybody to do anything. All of that said, I tried to give this an analytical read-- if not a generous one, an analytical reading. And so I went back through the transcripts of all of his State of the Union addresses from his first term, last year, this year, looking for what’s new here. He plays his greatest hits. Is there anything new? And where he has new things that are good, or at least down a good path, they’re kind of complicated. They’re not things that I think the public can really sink their teeth into.

[00:13:58] Like most favored nation on prescription drugs has not been a great sell for Democrats who’ve tried to do that forever because it’s complicated. You have to explain that for a while for people to get it. And he said it’s done now and people aren’t feeling the effects of it in large enough numbers. Some people are; it makes a real difference for some people. I’m not trying to diminish that. Those Trump accounts for kids will make a real difference for some people. I’m not trying to diminish it. I like that he’s talking about home ownership and trying to make that available to more people without diminishing the equity people have built up in their houses. I don’t hear a lot of specifics about how he’s going to avoid that very difficult tension, but I like that he’s taking about it. I want to give credit where it’s due. Politically, I think what’s tough for him is that none of this has the mass appeal and the easy bumper sticker slogan kind of understanding that has made him politically salient despite all of his downsides. I think his downs sides are very clear this time. They’re much easier to understand than these limited upsides.

Sarah [00:15:04] What I heard is somebody who has now been in American politics for over 10 years and on some level, either through like the speech writers themselves or like the political reality, is facing that outsider don’t work no more. So he kept saying it’s all the Democrats fault, but we’ve done such a good job. We’re doing such a job at fixing it. It’s always the incumbents challenge to say, I feel your pain, but also I’m responsible for your pain. And you can feel him struggling with that, especially because he wants to promise the moon. And eventually people are like America is not great again. We’re all freaked out about AI, prices are so high, people cannot afford the American dream. You said you were going to make America great again. It’s not great again. And all you do is slap your name on everything and code it in gold. So what’s going on? Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but I just think like people have gotten pretty good at speaking Trump and they just know he’s just going to lie. He lied so many times. And again that’s another thing that we’ve just absorbed as a reality.

Beth [00:16:22] Yeah, I don’t try to fact check it anymore. What’s the point?

Sarah [00:16:25] Right. The president of the United States stands up at the State of the Union and lies to all of us. Like, it is so heartbreaking. And we’ve just absorbed it for survival. And it’s just so frustrating. I’m just running out of emotions besides like I hate this. I love this country. And to have him wrap himself in the flag-- it’s like even the medals, the medals really bug me. Because if you want to honor someone with a presidential medal of freedom, then they should get their moment. This never happened before. If you got that honor, you got invited to the White House. You weren’t a prop in a room where you had to sit on the fucking stairs. You got to invite the people that were important to you into the room for this honor. And he has just made it like a bachelorette rose. Everybody gets a rose. It’s just so debasing and infuriating. Some of these people deserve these awards, but you know what they deserve? They deserve a ceremony. They deserve it to be about them, not you wrapping yourself in stolen valor.

Beth [00:17:46] Yeah, I was thinking about this as I was watching it because we talked about this with the men’s hockey team in our Spicy onus conversation. I don’t blame anybody who goes and accepts that medal. I don’t expect people to come out and denounce their State of the Union invitations. I don’t expect someone whose daughter was killed in the line of duty to say, “Pass. I don ‘t like this president’s policies.” I don’t assume anything about those folks for the most part. At the same time, I do think it is gross. And I’ve thought this in every presidency too, doesn’t matter if it’s a Democrat or a Republican. I don’t like using people as props. If we want to have every year some kind of feel good, introduce America to real heroes out there doing interesting things, there’s a beautiful way to do that. And that’s something that Congress could decide it wants to do instead of hosting the president. Congress could say we’re here because of you. We’re here for you. And we want to highlight you. We want to lift up people across this nation in all different kinds of work who are doing amazing things and tell their stories. I think that would be a wonderful State of the Union replacement. And the president could send a written report to Congress where honestly the Congress ought to be able to send the president questions they’d like answered. I did an episode of More to Say this week about the Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer. And in part of my research, she is plagued with scandal right now, but I was trying to look at policy issues too. And six senators have sent her a letter with lots of very specific policy questions about things happening in the Department of Labor. And I thought, this is what the State of the Union should be. We have questions, answer them, because you are accountable to us as the people’s representatives. And this display where he can’t even hand out a medal without saying, “Wish I could give this to myself. They tell me I can’t,” it’s hilarious.

Sarah [00:19:46] That’s the thing. I assume one thing only about these people they deserve better. Again, if your child has died in the line of duty, then you deserve a real moment not 30 seconds of quick applause before we move on to talking about how crazy the Democrats are. Like they deserve better than that. And look, the State of the Union as a vehicle to communicate with the American people, I appreciate. It’s really not just communicating with Congress. I think it is a moment outside of a campaign or a crisis that is like a report to the American people that I do think serves a certain purpose. And I’m not really opposed. I thought it was I don’t agree with this policy. I seriously doubt Americans are going to, again, see this dramatic drop in their pharmaceutical prices. But I don’t mind putting a face on it. I think that’s valuable to say, we talk in big numbers, but here’s a woman who had a drug that she needs for her IVF and it’s bottomed out and now she can afford it. Fine. I think it’s worthwhile to invite people into the gallery and say, let me tell you their story because everything we do here matters to real Americans. Here’s one that matters in the room with us. I don’t really mind that. I think it’s valuable that people are consenting like as long as they show up and say you can use my story to illustrate this problem or the solution, fine. But all the awards, they gave a medal to that man who saved all those children from the floods. And then he sat on the steps. What is this? Stop. They deserve their own ceremonies. Heroes deserve their own ceremonies not 15 seconds of standing ovation. Like, and to use them as like a gotcha. Like, see, they don’t even stand up for this. Blah, blah, blah. Like, it’s just ugh!

Beth [00:21:33] I think the reason I still disagree about the individual stories is because what the president does for them is very brittle. For that to be a lasting policy change that those families can rely on, it has to come through Congress. That would be appropriate in a congressional hearing.

Sarah [00:21:51] I’m thinking like you’re George H.W. Bush, you’re trying to push the Disabilities Act across the line in Congress. Then you say, look, this matters. You have to pass this. Like, this is the person it matters to.

Beth [00:22:01] And I get that stories are how we all grasp policy. And it is the most important way to communicate to the American people about it. There is a real rub for me in Donald Trump who is turning the White House gold and spending a lot of his attention on building a ballroom there. Touting an extra $5,000 coming into a household because of no tax on tips. And again, $5,000 is significant. I’m happy for those families. Looking at who this administration benefits, it just felt so Marie Antoinette to me. The caricature of Marie Antoinette, I think she gets a bad rep in history too, but the caricature of that it just really grates me. Especially when I think about things that he has in the past at least given some lip service to that are just gone now. He used to talk about paid family leave. He talked about it in every State of the Union in his first term. Gone. He used talk about criminal justice reform and did some actual work on that in his term. Gone. He used to talk about ending the HIV epidemic. Gone. Again, not even the word infrastructure was used. And despite like a throwaway line as he talked about how we shouldn’t have political violence, which I agree with, I’m glad he said it, despite that, there was not even a surface level appeal of bipartisanship here. Not a single moment of real outreach to Democrats in the room or watching at home.

Sarah [00:23:40] Again, we’re not having a policy debate. And there’s a part of me that’s like, well, this is what he wants. He wants us to hate each other. Like that’s what fuels him. But I just hate him. I just think he’s such a cancer. And every time I’m like forced to listen and witness what motivates him, which is just pure transactionalism and it is so Heartbreaking. It is. I do love this country and the way you’re exploiting America 250 to say only people who love me and want to worship the king that I am and live in my court and obey my rules get to celebrate this country. It’s just God. It’s so infuriating. I’m running out of reactions. I really am. I’m just left with like trying to survive it.

Beth [00:24:42] I think that that’s where we are, just trying to survive it. And that’s why my deepest ire is for all the people who are writing it for their own purposes. Watching the members of the cabinet, every time Pam Bondi stood up, something inside me almost exploded. He, to me, just is-- and I can accept that there will always be people like him in the world-- the enablers that I can’t get over. The number of enabler and the depravity of the enabling that I just can’t. I can get over

Sarah [00:25:23] Enabling is not even a strong enough word to me. It’s like accomplice. A criminal accomplice is what we’re talking about.

Beth [00:25:29] Yeah. Let’s take a quick break and come back and talk about the response from Governor Spanberger and many other people as 2028 really kind of fires up. Sarah, I have a confession. I got up this morning to make our outline for this conversation and then I got in the shower. And while I was getting ready, I realized that I had not put anything about the response in the outline. And I mean that as a compliment, I think, because the responses to the State of the Union that I remember, I remember only because they were horrifying. I remember Katie Britt. I remember Marco Rubio. Like if it is SNL-able, that’s when I remember it. And I think hers was just very competent and fine. And that’s about the best you can do with this assignment.

Sarah [00:26:24] I thought it was better than fine. I don’t know who said, okay, we’re just going to put you in front of a podium with an audience.

Beth [00:26:30] Much better.

Sarah [00:26:31] But that person deserves a raise. Like, that was much better instead of asking a politician to work with the camera. That’s hard, guys. That’s really hard. That’s a skill you have to practice. And so I thought like that orientation with she gets applause too was so much better. But I thought more than just do no harm, she just laid out a roadmap. You want to know how to do this? You want to how to talk about what people care about while also sticking it to Donald Trump? Here you go. And do it real tight too. Just like real tight.

Beth [00:27:05] I liked that it was short. I did like the questions she posed. I thought it got repetitive in a way that was not very inspiring. I liked the end of her speech very much. He sucks is just a bad message. And I thought at the end she found the thing that is other than an additive to he sucks and here’s why we want to work for you, not just he’s not working for you. Thinking about how tough this gig is though, I have developed, I think, a new Roman Empire because I am obsessed with this fact. The last five responses to the State of the Union have all been from women.

Sarah [00:27:43] Wow.

Beth [00:27:44] Before Spanberger, it was Elissa Slotkin. Before her, it with Katie Britt, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and then Kim Reynolds. You have to go back to Tim Scott in 2021 before you hit a man. 10 of the last 14 responses have come from women. 14 years and 10 women have done this. And this is supposed to be a slot that’s rising star in the party, who we want to highlight in contrast to the sitting president. And I just think this is fascinating.

Sarah [00:28:17] If you look at the list, they’ve eaten these women alive.

Beth [00:28:21] Yes.

Sarah [00:28:22] Who the hell is Cathy McMorris Rodgers? I don’t even know who that is.

Beth [00:28:25] She was a very powerful Republican in Congress. Paul Ryan was putting her in charge of committees. She was big deal in the pre-Trump Republican Party. She served for 20 years in Congress.

Sarah [00:28:42] It’s her Joni Ernst who said she’s not seeking reelection. The Senator from Iowa, Nikki Haley, even Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kim Reynolds. To me, particularly on the Republican party side, although I think you can make the same case for Stacey Abrams, but I think that harm was self-inflicted, not for nothing.

Beth [00:29:01] It’s a more complicated case, for sure.

Sarah [00:29:02] But like Marco Rubio did in 2013; he’s doing just fine.

Beth [00:29:05] And his was a disaster.

Sarah [00:29:07] And it was a disaster. I think there’s a real glass cliff thing. Do you know the glass cliff?

Beth [00:29:12] Yes.

Sarah [00:29:13] Where they bring in female CEOs when it’s really, really bad. But usually it’s often too bad to rescue.

Beth [00:29:20] That’s why this fascinates me. This assignment sucks and it’s being given to women.

Sarah [00:29:26] But I think Spanberger did exactly what you should do. To the point where it’s like now I’m like why are we not talking about her for 2028? We should be talking about Abigail Spanberger for 2028. She’s a moderate. People love her. She swings seats. She’s also fighting the gerrymandering fight. Like I would imagine after that pitch perfect performance we probably will be.

Beth [00:29:48] I don’t know. I don’t think she has any kind of magic about her. I admire her. I respect her. I think she’s competent and smart and will probably be a very good governor and doesn’t have the thing that you watch a speech and go, oh, okay. This makes my heart go pitter-patter the way that it seems like we want from presidential candidates. I would love for us to be like, you know what, a competent, smart president who doesn’t razzle-dazzle me is good enough. And I don’t really want to see her do a State of the Union. I just want her doing her dang job and reporting to Congress for Congress to reassert its power as the first branch of government. I would love to live in that world. I’m not quite sure that we’re there yet, but maybe we’re moving in that direction. We can hope.

Sarah [00:30:30] I feel like sometimes though like it’s hard to name a woman who does the razzle dazzle because I just think that’s like a standard set by men. Can you name one you feel like when she does a speech?

Beth [00:30:40] I think people feel that about Gretchen Whitmer. They certainly feel about AOC.

Sarah [00:30:43] Yeah. I’ll give you AOC for sure.

Beth [00:30:46] So I think it’s possible.

Sarah [00:30:48] I think it’s harder though.

Beth [00:30:49] It’s hard.

Sarah [00:30:49] So I think for women to do it, the standard is so, so high. Because I think the charisma factor coming from a woman, it’s just such a double-edged sword, man. Like, it’s a such a tight rope.

Beth [00:31:04] That’s Stacey Abrams. That tight rope is Stacey Abram’s. People felt that from her. And the lights got so, so bright that it became a lot to carry.

Sarah [00:31:16] Yeah. And I just want competency. Like the hatred that I felt during the State of the Union when Abigail Spanberger stepped out there and I was like this is what we could have. We could just have somebody who does the job, who just cares, who’s whip smart, who knows what the hell they’re talking about, who doesn’t need you to bow down to their ego. I was texting a friend, I was, like, what about Spanberger-Talarico 2028? I feel like that’d be a little bit unbeatable. You know what I mean? Like I’m into that lineup. I am really trying to think about a different type of appeal. I don’t want to see somebody sort of like-- I know people like the fight. You sent me that Senate candidate in Illinois commercial that’s just everybody saying f*** Trump over and over again. And I’m like, guys, no, I don’t want this. I want to go back to where it’s like, oh, I don’t know, people figuring out that your friends with Jeffrey Epstein would ruin your career permanently. I want that again, please, please, please. I want like if you had a staffer who self-emulated after an affair, that’s career ending. Like I want a really high standard, not for the fight, but for the ethics of the person running for office.

Beth [00:32:35] I agree. That is my number one issue going into 2028. I want someone who is willing to limit their own power and is committed to clean government. In addition to that, if I’m just looking at policy today and not trying to be razzle dazzled by a person and not trying to fall in love, Rahm Emanuel is working on me. I feel like he is demonstrating what it looks like to take a career filled with experience and apply that experience to this moment. And to say, here’s what government can contribute. His policy proposals seem possible to me and on the mark, like things that would just hit, that would do something.

Sarah [00:33:21] They feel responsive to the actual problems Americans are concerned about. I don’t want to be so laser focused on affordability that we miss things like the role of tech in our lives, which everybody is like fully freaked out about. So it’s like I want to hear... And I think that’s why all of a sudden you have democratic governors like Pritzker and Shapiro being like, whoops, I was pushing too far for AI, I better back up on this because people don’t like it. Democrats have traditionally been so strong on public education. And it is crumbling. And I want to hear someone talk about it, which he’s doing. He’s talking about scaling up the Mississippi miracle. Which if you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s like this incredible situation coming out of Mississippi, where they have not only met their pre-COVID literacy rates, but like blown past them by guess what? Getting out paper and pencil and putting the computers away.

Beth [00:34:11] And focusing on phonics. Just Basics, just the real basics.

Sarah [00:34:15] So the first presidential candidate that stands up and says we have a special education crisis that is affecting general education, they might just have my vote. You know what I mean? I need to hear you talk about what people are actually struggling with and policy proposals to fix it.

Beth [00:34:36] And I like the specificity and narrowness of the policies he’s talking about. They would affect big change, but they do sound manageable. This idea that he has to give a $10,000 tax-free bonus for military members to get in an apprenticeship, to go into the skilled trades, electricians, carpenters, plumbers, construction workers, that is an affordability idea. That is a workforce idea. That is an idea that grapples with our aging population. That is an idea about mental health and purpose and community. But it’s a targeted idea. It’s one program, right? The government’s good at giving out money. The government could do that. The federal government could that. And I feel like that’s the kind of thing that an independent would hear and say, great idea. That a Republican would hear and say great idea, who’s not for this? I love that. That’s what I want more of. That feels like a breath of fresh air to me.

Sarah [00:35:35] I mean, his national service requirement, which we’ve talked about on the show a lot. And I think I’m like getting these net price calculators from college and they want me to mortgage my home and extract money from my retirement to pay upwards of $130,000 a year to send my child to college. What is this? What are we doing? That’s insane. I don’t even know what to say because that’s insanity. And until someone starts speaking to these things that we’re all encountering, the crisis of care with older generations. And that’s the other thing. Somebody needs to say, look, voter skew older. Our population is going to skew elder. These situations and problems are going to compound unless we name that and put up procedures and policies and processes to weight younger generation’s concerns. Because it’s just going to get worse sending your kid to elementary school or college or trying to buy a house because we’re just going to to get a higher and higher percentage of the older generations and elderly population, which already have a lot of support in our social safety net. And even that’s not enough because we are exporting all the immigrants who take care of people.

Beth [00:37:00] Well, here’s another thing I really like about Rahm Emanuel, which listen, I am as shocked as anyone that I’m becoming a Rahm Emmanuel cheerleader. I really am.

Sarah [00:37:07] I’m not. I think Rahm Emanuel’s really freaking smart.

Beth [00:37:11] Super smart. But like not someone I would be friends with. I’m never going to love Rahm Emmanuel the way that I love Pete Buttigieg, but this is smart politics, it’s smart policy, it’s targeted, it makes sense. I have struggled in myself with how frustrated I’m getting about the very, very top of the income ladder and the control, especially tech CEOs have in our society, because I don’t want to do class warfare. I don’t want to say that being rich is bad. A lot of people want to be rich and good for them. I want to live a comfortable life as much as the next person does. I think the way he is speaking to that issue is so good. He talks about that national service requirement and says, everybody should do six months of service before they’re 30. If you do more than that for every six months, the government should cover a semester of college for you at a public university because our public universities are great. And that’s where community gets built, right? I love that he is talking about how with Mississippi, the answer to our core educational challenge is in Hattiesburg, not Harvard. That’s a way to not do class warfare, but to say we have too few people controlling the narrative in this country. We value too few peoples’ opinions. We’re not looking broadly enough for solutions and ideas. I love it. I think he’s about pitch perfect right now.

Sarah [00:38:38] Well, here’s the thing about Rahm Emanuel, okay? And maybe this gets to the policy that we were talking about, but also like the fight that people want. Make no mistake, Rahm Emmanuel is a shark. This is not a warm and fuzzy man. He was the mayor of Chicago, okay?

Beth [00:38:58] And the White House chief of staff.

Sarah [00:39:00] The place where they made that [inaudible] Trump. And some of the parts with the Chicago accents, I did enjoy. So he is a shark. He is a street fighter. And I think what’s so smart about him is he’s like I’m not going to be James Talarico. And honestly, there is a part of me that’s like I really want that. I really want someone who is a good person and kind and empathetic. Clearly that’s the path Andy Beshear is trying to walk for himself. I get the appeal. And also we have some really, really big problems. And, to me, he is like a really good crossover of the shark, the street fighter who knows what to do, who knows how tough the situation in front of us is. And I think it’s brilliant that instead of like trying to dress up and do this sort of heartfelt dance that is appealing, he’s like, no, you know what I’m going to do? I’m just going to put some ideas on the table that people can listen to and decide for themselves. Because at the end of the day we need someone who knows how to get shit done. And like Andy Beshear is thoughtful and caring and all those things, but he is not a very powerful governor. I don’t mean him personally. I mean, constitutionally within the state of Kentucky. Like they have taken more and more powers away from the governor. So he doesn’t have to think about how am I going to street fight this through the halls of Congress because they have a veto proof majority in Kentucky. To get things accomplished here, he’s learned a lot into economic development. He’s done the things he can, but street fighting to convince somebody to pass is just not within his wheelhouse because there was just no path forward with some of these things. And so I want somebody who’s like had to-- I mean, Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Education, not a problem I’d want on my desk. Let me tell you what, not a problem I’d want one on my desks. But he did some of the hard things like closing some schools that need to be closed. And that was hard because Chicago’s population was decreasing. I just think we have to really like check in. Do they make me feel good or can they get it done? And I do think Spanberger is a good melding of that. I believe that she is a good person, that she can speak to what it means to be a good person. I believe her. I don’t think she’s necessarily like a shark, but I think, I mean, considering her--

Beth [00:41:31] She worked for the CIA. She’s a shark. And good for her.

Sarah [00:41:34] Exactly. Considering her previous career in the CIA. I do believe that. Right, but I also believe like she will come up with some like actual idea. But I’m going to need to hear some policy from some of these people.

Beth [00:41:50] I have so much to say about this. I love a good person, obviously. I hope that’s obvious. My faith is incredibly important to me. And exploring my faith and cultivating more depth in my faith is important to be more and more as I get older. I also have less and less interest in hearing that from politicians as I get older because that’s not what this is. Seeing the power that Trump has had over our population has informed me in a lot of ways. And one of those ways is that I care less about having a president who makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I want someone who can comfort the nation after tragedy. I want somebody who likes people and cares about people. I mostly want someone who’s smart and can do the job well. And I don’t want someone who decides that they are going to try to make us all into images of themselves. That’s what Trump wants. He wants a lot of people running around America, acting the way he acts. And I think when we are tempted to fall in love with the opposite of that, there is a horseshoe effect, right? There is still that effect of I’m trying to create a lot different versions of myself.

[00:43:03] And while I think that that is in ways, promising and good for us, I think could be incredibly damaging to faith too. There does need to be some separation. And I don’t like the way that Andy Beshear is positioning himself right now. I don’t like the title of his book. I don’t like the invocation of faith in all the spaces. I think if you look at his record, he’s been a good governor and I appreciate him. There’s damage to the state of Kentucky that the legislature has rolled back the governor’s power so significantly on his watch. In response to him, he has not forged relationships across the aisle to prevent what the super majority in the Republican Party has done. He has not chipped away at that super majority in the Republic Party in our state. He has not built an enormous bench of Democrats who can win across the state. And I’m not trying to put down a person who I respect and like quite a bit. I think he’s a good person and I do think he has been a good governor and I’m grateful that he’s been our governor. But this savior thing I think is bad. And I think it’s bad for faith as well as politics. And so I would rather have somebody like Emanuel who will put something specific on the table and not try to convince me that he’s amazing, but say, this is a good idea. I want it to be about the idea.

Sarah [00:44:24] Well, here’s the thing. I don’t need you to tell me I need you to show me. So even Talarico, when I heard like he’s in seminary I was like well okay that changes my perception of him. So he’s not just trotting it out. Like he was actually putting some time and his own personal energy behind it. Same with Raphael Warnock. It doesn’t read as like thou does protest too much or like let me make sure you understand me through this lens. You don’t have to know shit about Raphael Warnock when he stands up to talk. That you’re like, oh, okay. It hits different, man, when you’re not trying to like put it on as a branding exercise versus when it’s the fiber of who you are. And I think Rahm Emanuel, the fiber of who he is, is a street fighter. And he’s going to fight for it not about him, it’s about tell me what works and what we can get done. That’s all I care about. Put something in front of me that will have impact and tell me how we can get it done and what I can do to get it across the finish line. Everything else is bullshit and I don’t care. And like doesn’t that sounds so sexy? Sounds so sexy to me.

Beth [00:45:37] Well, the other side of it that is so sexy is that it is also about these ideas, not about Trump. He’s not doing the Gavin Newsom street fighter. Gavin Newsome’s a street fighter too. And he’s been effective in talking about Trump, but I don’t want the next president to talk about Trump ever for a day.

Sarah [00:45:53] But the thing about the most successful moment Gavin Newsom had is when he put that street fighting to effect in the gerrymander fight. When he was like I will not sit here and do nothing. I have the power to do something, so I’m going to do it. And that’s what I want to see. I don’t want to see another Vogue profile, my friends. Show me what you’ve done. I think Pritzker is a fighter. I really do. I think he is. I think he has some limitations because of his own personal-- to be real honest, I’m not looking to elect a billionaire at the end of the day. It’s a little disqualifying for me. I hate to be that way, not trying to perpetuate class warfare, just how I feel. And I think Buttigieg is in a tough spot because he can’t show the fight. He’s very limited because he’s not in a... But you know what, so is Rahm Emanuel and somehow he’s getting it. Like he’s showing like I can’t just do podcasts. I can do something else. He’s not just saying about Mississippi. He’s showing up at these small democratic party candidate meetings in deep, deep red America.

Beth [00:46:55] And, look, I don’t know what Emanuel’s ultimate goal is here. If he doesn’t get anywhere in the Democratic primary, he will make a Buttigieg better. Steve Buttigiege is now putting out some policy proposals. Like he has this new social contract about AI. I don’t think he would have felt the pressure to do that without Emanuel. I think that putting ideas on the table and trying to generate some excitement about ideas, even simple ones. Like if you’re the president or a member of Congress or a federal judge, 75 is it?

Sarah [00:47:30] Hallelujah.

Beth [00:47:31] Simple.

Sarah [00:47:32] Hallelujah, my dawg.

Beth [00:47:33] Understandable. Doesn’t take a policy paper to explain that to anybody. Has bipartisan appeal. Just him throwing that stuff out there and getting us back to ideas. God, that is a public service that I’m grateful for.

Sarah [00:47:45] Also want to say, Rahm Emanuel, you are welcome on Pantsuit Politics.

Beth [00:47:49] You could have three hours of my day, friend. I would love to go deep with you on these ideas.

Sarah [00:47:54] I believe he would do it. I don’t think for a second he’s somebody’s just presenting this and he’s like sounds like a good idea. I bet you he knows it inside and out.

Beth [00:48:02] That’s right. He would have no problem in that format, none. And that’s important too.

Sarah [00:48:08] Yeah. Well, I hope he listens to this.

Beth [00:48:10] Well, on the Republican side, I just wanted to mention the reporting that President Trump’s new favorite game is to ask people if they like JD or Marco better.

Sarah [00:48:18] I love it so much. I want JD Vance to get screwed so hard in this. And I think he could. I think Marco Rubio is gaining allies and JD Vance is not. JD Vance has some good ones like Donald Trump Jr. But it’s a tough gig being the vice president. Not a lot of opportunity. When he was like I’ll do the war on fraud; I wanted to be like then why don’t you call up Kamala and ask her how that works? When it’s fundamental weakness of the administration and you’re put in charge of fixing it. That’s not a great guess. It’s just not, I wouldn’t have done that.

Beth [00:48:47] There was overt praise for Marco Rubio in the State of the Union and not for JD Vance, I noticed. So really interesting. I also like this because it reminds me that President Trump knows he can’t be the president a third time.

Sarah [00:49:01] It does. I like that too.

Beth [00:49:02] And he loves pitting people against each other. It feels to me like another symptom of his boredom with the office. His heart’s not in. He’s not having fun anymore.

Sarah [00:49:10] No.

Beth [00:49:11] And once he gets everything built and decorated, he’s really not going to have fun anymore?

Sarah [00:49:14] Well, he’s going to try to build that arch and I swear to God I’m going to chain myself to something.

Beth [00:49:18] And you know we’ll see even more of that if the midterms don’t go his way.

Sarah [00:49:22] Well, he is really on the party. I think he’s pretty focused on the America 250 party. I do think he is having fun with that. I think we will have a prize fight at the White House on his birthday, which is just embarrassing. I’m embarrassed. But I think Marco Rubio if he ended up being the nominee, I would not be surprised.

Beth [00:49:45] But you know what, if he can get more excited about a prize fight at the White House on his birthday than bombing Iran, I’ll take it.

Sarah [00:49:52] Word.

Beth [00:49:52] I’ll take it. I’m not trying to be greedy here. Well, I’m sure you all will have many, many thoughts about the State of the Union and the state of the 2028 race, and we cannot wait to hear them. We are going to take a hard turn up next and talk about self-reflection. Sarah, you sent me Dan Pink’s self-reflection questions that are built to be used as AI prompts. And I would like to hear how that came across your desk first?

Sarah [00:50:35] I just like Dan Pink, so the algorithm knows that. I guess I still get his emails. Maybe I saw it on YouTube. I don’t know. I like Dan Pink. I watch a lot of his stuff. I think he’s smart. And so when I saw this, I was like, oh, wowzers. Like you prompt the AI to say like I want you to be a consultant. I want you to be brutally honest with me, taking in what you know about me from my-- now it’s a lot easier if you’re Dan Pink or you’re us and there’s just a lot of public information about you on the internet. But to say like, okay, I want you to brutally self-assess my blind spots and what am I pretending to care about that I don’t actually care about? My favorite, what advice do I give others that I’m terrible at following? I mean, that’s just a good journal prompt whether you’re doing this with AI or not.

Beth [00:51:25] How long did it take you to work through this?

Sarah [00:51:29] Probably an hour or so. My husband was horrified. Nobody tell Griffin I did this, please. He might not speak to me for a month. I’m concerned it would be harmful to our relationship because it is weird. It’s a weird thing to do. And that’s the thing. It’s not like I was doing it because I’m like going to change my life based on what... I just wanted to see like what is this like? What does this feel like? Because the hard reality is people are asking real personal questions and forging like personal relationships with AI. And so I was just trying to see what is this like?

Beth [00:52:05] That’s what interested me about it when you sent it to me too. I thought, I don’t want to take this very seriously, but I do want to go through it. And I didn’t even like some of the questions. Like, I hate the question, what nasty things do people say about me behind my back? Really hard for me to imagine a scenario in which that information would do me much good. That does not feel like self-reflection to me, that feels like ego. So I had a problem with a lot of these questions. I don’t want to maximize anything in my life. There’s a question about what am I playing small in? Listen, I’ve done a lot of therapy to learn to play small. You know what I’m saying? This really didn’t speak to me in terms of the questions themselves, but I was interested in seeing what would happen just interacting this way with Claude, which is the large language model that I use the most. And it was a pretty fascinating experience.

Sarah [00:52:58] I actually like the what nasty things are people saying about me behind my back because they were about what I expected. And so there is like a kind of relief of anxiety or fear or paranoia when you’re like, oh yeah, I know people think I think I’m better than everyone else. I know. I don’t believe that. And so, there’s just very little I can do about that. Some of them I was like, okay, well I knew this already. That’s fine. I felt a certain amount of relief with that one In a way, but Claude also told me that I had a savior complex dressed up in more reasonable clothes, which I thought was so rude and perhaps somewhat accurate. And just hearing I think it’s the older you get-- and I think that’s why this exercise appealed to me, the older you get the easier it is to navigate, manipulate your way out of honest feedback. Your tools get better and your brain’s capacity to be like, yeah, but just gets better and better.

[00:54:09] Especially if it’s coming from a friend or it’s coming from a therapist you always kind of say-- and look, you can say it with Claude too. Like Claude doesn’t know me; it’s a robot. But if it hits, it hits and some of this stuff hit. And it’s not hitting because I can tell myself Claude doesn’t me and it’s robot, but I knew some of it was true in my soul. And I just think it gets harder. It’s hard to find a therapist who will do this sort of judgment of how you behave in the world. Because I feel like they’re not really trained to do that. And a life coach at the end of the day, you’re paying. There’s just a lot. And people who love you, friends and family, don’t want to hurt you. They don’t want to be brutally honest. And so I think it’s sort of protective in a way coming from a robot. So you can hear it and take it in, but it doesn’t hurt your feelings in a way because it’s a damn robot. So, I don’t know, I found it really interesting and it helped me really be honest with myself about some stuff that I’ve talked myself out of. Let’s just put it that way.

Beth [00:55:21] I’m stuck on what you said about how it’s easier to get out of honest feedback as you get older because I think that’s true. And simultaneously, I think it’s easy to accept really hard feedback as we get older.

Sarah [00:55:36] Yeah. It’s a real paradox.

Beth [00:55:37] This exercise probably would have really gotten me in my head 10 years ago. And instead I find some of the brutal honesty pretty refreshing. I feel an enormous sense of peace about the things identified as problems for me. Like, yep, that’s how I am. And it’s true, and I’m at peace with it. And I understand that I can work on it all day, but that’s probably something that’s always going to be true about me.

Sarah [00:56:08] But would you have felt the same way if you and I worked through this together and I was the one telling you this stuff?

Beth [00:56:13] No. Because I think that what’s really valuable-- and I felt this in therapy too-- is working with someone who just doesn’t have a stake. Especially when you first start a new therapeutic relationship, it’s so clear that that person they don’t know you, they aren’t invested in you, they don’t care about you beyond their professional obligations. And so you can poke at things without believing there’s an agenda behind those. And it was nice to do this to something that doesn’t care. Period. That it doesn’t have the capacity to care and to know that. Now, I did continue to feel that sense of dread that I feel about a lot of AI through this exercise because it was so sophisticated in responding to me. And I think it would have been very easy, especially if I were younger to treat this as a human who is in relationship with me and be really drawn in to the authoritative tone that it uses to respond. Like, I just thought, man, this is something where keeping this in its frame is so valuable. And I’m probably like just old enough and mature enough to keep it in its frame and just the right place like technologically to be able to do this well and keep it in its frame. Like it’s dangerous, man. This is dangerous stuff.

Sarah [00:57:34] It’s a set of skills that you have to be a lot older to take in and navigate for sure. And, look, I’m just coming around that all the kinds of places. Like with fame is the thing I’ve been fascinated with for so long. And I’m just coming around to like, well, I don’t think it’s fame. I think it how old you are when you get famous. George Clooney is fine. You know what I mean? It’s fine. Dude’s fine because he spent 15 years trudging through and didn’t get famous until he was older. And he’ll tell you I am so glad I did not get famous when I was younger. It would have ruined me. And I think back to Rahm Emanuel, finally getting to a place where we’re saying like we can’t just roll this out on kids. They do not have the capacity to navigate. I feel that way about social media. I feel that way about AI. I feel that way about sports gambling or prediction markets. So many things. I feel that. Fame. Like I just feel like the intensity of the human experience and the way it gets more intense because of technology, that’s why you have this generation that’s becoming so nihilistic. These babies cannot handle it. Like there’s no character flaw there. It’s just you can’t handle it, man.

Beth [00:58:47] I think it’s age and it’s connection. So you look at like a Taylor Swift who got famous pretty young, but she’s very grounded in family. Yeah. And I noticed that going through this exercise too, Claude was really hard on me for trying to clean up for everyone. I try to manage everyone’s feelings. I try buffer where someone else has been harsh. I am constantly out there trying to take care of everybody. And Claude was like, who are you really honest with than just yourself? And now I have a list. Like I’m at a place in my life where I have a list and Claude was like, okay, that’s a good list. And I think this is fine.

Sarah [00:59:22] That same exact moment where it was like, you’re a public figure and this can be really damaging and you want to see a perception of competency and capability. And it’s just like, who are you really yourself with? And I’m, like, dude, I have so many close friends. It’s fine.

Beth [00:59:37] Plenty of people.

Sarah [00:59:38] I have so many close friends and family. And he was like, oh, well, that changes things. Like, that’s interesting that we both had the same experience.

Beth [00:59:44] Yeah, there were a lot of moments like that where Claude would be like... Claude kept saying to me like, you’re a pastor, I don’t know why you’re avoiding it. And I said, for lots of reasons, here they are. And Claude was like, okay. Those are good reasons. And I do want to say I think it would be interesting to do this with different models. Like, I don’t know what chat GPT would have done here. I saw some of the ethical constraints built into Claude in this experience. One of them was at the very beginning when Claude was like, hey, there’s a lot I don’t know about you. So I’m really limited in what I can tell you. And I thought that was good. At the end, because of some of Claude’s harsh feedback for me, I fed in some transcripts of our episodes and said tell me what you see in here. And that was very, very valuable because this feedback was so specific. And so then I asked, how often should I run a transcript like this to check in on this tendency that I have? And Claude was like, not very often. You’ll try to grade yourself if you do it. And you don’t need to be in your head about this. You should just trust that you’ve asked the question, you absorb what you needed to absorb from the exercise and you’re going to go do it.

Sarah [01:00:57] And I thought, well, this is the first time that technology has ever told me not to use it. And I felt really good about that. Again, I didn’t feel so good about it that I’d be like, hey, Ellen, you should come do this. But I did see the choices that I’ve made in using Claude and the information that has compelled me to use Claude versus other models, I did see reflected in this exercise. I’m really curious if anyone else has done this. I’m curious what people think about these questions. We’ll link the questions just for fun and see if you have any feedback on those. We really appreciate you listening today and spending time with us as we workshop how we feel about everything from Donald Trump to ourselves, and that’s a broad spectrum. If you’re in Houston, we would really prefer to spend time with you in person because that is the best way to be together. We’ll be Sunday night at Memorial UMC. For everyone else, we’ll be back with you on Tuesday. Have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

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

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

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.