Speaker 1: I think there's a sense among Democrats that business isn't
Speaker 1: producing some of the things that we value, what equal opportunity, right,
Speaker 1: like the ability for for all people to prosper. But
Speaker 1: the solution to that is it to throw up in
Speaker 1: your hands and look the other direction. It's to scare
Speaker 1: people who have the ability to change that dead in
Speaker 1: the eye and push them to do it. So, if
Speaker 1: we think we have a problem with wealth and equality
Speaker 1: in this country, then let's ask a ceo, why do
Speaker 1: you deserve that paycheck? And I did that with a
Speaker 1: pharmacutical ceo, and you know what the answer was, The
Speaker 1: other guys get paid a lot too. That is not,
Speaker 1: in a capitalist economy, a justification for a particular age.
Speaker 1: So we just have to be very very comfortable diving
Speaker 1: into these conversations. You have to be. In our country,
Speaker 1: capitalism and democracy are hand and glove, and a lot
Speaker 1: of what's broken about our democracy is because things are
Speaker 1: broken in our capitalist system. Today we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: capitalism and Congress. You know, capitalism has become completely warped
Speaker 1: in this country. The concentration of super wealth over the
Speaker 1: last twenty years is extraordinary, and we have seen big
Speaker 1: money influence bad policy. In the last four years, it
Speaker 1: has been absolutely out of control. But we'd be lying
Speaker 1: if we said all of that started four years ago,
Speaker 1: or eight years ago or ten years ago. We've seen
Speaker 1: big money influenced bad policy year after year, and it's
Speaker 1: only getting worse. This is one of the reasons so
Speaker 1: many people across the country say they don't trust their lawmakers.
Speaker 1: I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor, NBC News Senior correspondent, and
Speaker 1: this is Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. But there is a member of Congress
Speaker 1: who I've gotten to know the last few years, who
Speaker 1: is determined to bring us back to the kind of
Speaker 1: capitalism or possibly bring us there for the first time
Speaker 1: where every American can succeed. We're working mothers can actually
Speaker 1: afford to go to work, where people from the poorest
Speaker 1: neighborhoods can go to better schools and potentially get really
Speaker 1: good jobs. Where we're in a situation where businesses can
Speaker 1: thrive but not control our government. That congress person is
Speaker 1: Katie Porter of Orange County, California. I'm so honored that
Speaker 1: she's here with me today. Congresswoman, I want to start
Speaker 1: with how are you. This has been an extraordinary a
Speaker 1: few weeks and before you being a member of Congress,
Speaker 1: you're a mom. What have the last few weeks been? Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to believe it's it's been a week. It's
Speaker 1: just been one week. Um, I was thinking about that,
Speaker 1: you know that from when this happened, and you know,
Speaker 1: at the at the end of the day, we were
Speaker 1: part of a workplace shooting. That's really what this was.
Speaker 1: This was a violent a talk. During that time, I
Speaker 1: was holed up in my office. UM. I was there
Speaker 1: with Alexandrio Kazio Cortez, and we barricaded the doors, we
Speaker 1: turned the lights off. We had basically no information and
Speaker 1: we're in a dark, cold room together for six hours.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know a couple of things that
Speaker 1: will really stay with me is I texted my middle
Speaker 1: son because he's twelve and he was home, so I
Speaker 1: knew he would be seeing stuff because he's always glued
Speaker 1: to YouTube. I texted Paul and I said, Paul, you
Speaker 1: know it's Mom. I'm okay, I'm I'm hiding. You know,
Speaker 1: everything's locked. And he said, okay, Mom, because I'm really worried.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, you know here I took a
Speaker 1: picture of myself just to selfie and said, you know
Speaker 1: here I am cm okay And he said, okay, good.
Speaker 1: And I just hope you have enough diet Dr Pepper
Speaker 1: to get you through this? Did you? I did? But
Speaker 1: it's just the sweet moment of under a can't understanding,
Speaker 1: like what his mom needs when she's stressed. Um. And
Speaker 1: then the other thing that will really stay with me
Speaker 1: is you know when when Alexandria Casio Cortes was in
Speaker 1: the hallway and she was looking for a place to
Speaker 1: go to be safe, right as we evacuated the Cannon building,
Speaker 1: and she she asked if she could come in her
Speaker 1: office and shelter and I said, of course, um, and
Speaker 1: you know, we came in and she just had a
Speaker 1: very harrowing experience and she was a little rattled. And
Speaker 1: we locked the doors and locked the inner doors and
Speaker 1: we were sitting there and I said, is there anything
Speaker 1: I can get you? You know, water, Um, I have
Speaker 1: left over holiday chocolates that someone gave me. And she
Speaker 1: looked kind of whistfully at my shoes and I was
Speaker 1: wearing antique sweats there might go to work shoes, and
Speaker 1: she said, I just wish i'd warn flats so I
Speaker 1: would be better able to run away. And that really
Speaker 1: hit me, like, this is what it's coming down to,
Speaker 1: Like you dressing for work in a way that you
Speaker 1: could run if someone is shooting at you. And so
Speaker 1: we went and found her a pair of sneakers, um
Speaker 1: that belonged to my staffer, and she put those on,
Speaker 1: and she said, I feel so much better now because
Speaker 1: I could run. Maybe I'm naive and romantic, but given
Speaker 1: the horrific events that took place in the Capitol last week,
Speaker 1: do you think that kind of trauma in some way
Speaker 1: could bring Congress together to work together? I thought about
Speaker 1: this a lot. What does it mean that we went
Speaker 1: through that together? Um? I do want to observe one
Speaker 1: thing that was that was pretty obvious right there in
Speaker 1: the moment. It has become obvious since then. Is people
Speaker 1: experienced that day very differently depending on if you were
Speaker 1: a man or you were a woman, you had been trained,
Speaker 1: you're a veteran of combat or not, you were a
Speaker 1: person of color or a white person, And so you know,
Speaker 1: the reality is that the two parties are pretty different
Speaker 1: in that regard. I think that you know a lot
Speaker 1: of white men didn't feel the same level of personalized
Speaker 1: threat and fear from that attack as you know, women
Speaker 1: or women of color, progressive women, whatever it is. And
Speaker 1: so you know we have the same experience. Um, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we had all the same takeaways from it.
Speaker 1: Did any of what happened that day make you think?
Speaker 1: Why am I doing this for a living? Yes, it's
Speaker 1: a huge honor to be elected a member of Congress.
Speaker 1: But you're an extraordinary woman. You're a law professor, you're
Speaker 1: a mom, and you just went through a workplace shooting.
Speaker 1: And now you've got members of Congress with you who
Speaker 1: are queue and on sympathizers who refused to certify a
Speaker 1: free and fair election. Is any part of you saying
Speaker 1: why do I do this for a living? I think
Speaker 1: what I feel is really profound disappointment. I think this
Speaker 1: is the most disheartened I've been. You know, And I
Speaker 1: ran for Congress, and I ran this district that, like
Speaker 1: everybody was like, you can't win there. There hasn't been
Speaker 1: a Democrat there since the nineteen forties, and and I
Speaker 1: just was like, I'm gonna make it happen. I'll just
Speaker 1: try harder, and I'll make it happen. And even when
Speaker 1: I was serving and we were dealing with a Senate
Speaker 1: that was just broken and a president who was leading
Speaker 1: this country if we even use the word lead in
Speaker 1: a really wrong direction, I kept kind of believing that
Speaker 1: I could do it, that I could make it better.
Speaker 1: And they think this is the first time in the
Speaker 1: four years, the two years that I was a candidate,
Speaker 1: the first two years of my service, where I've I've
Speaker 1: really just felt heartbroken. Another member called me this morning
Speaker 1: to check in, and I said, well, I do okay
Speaker 1: once I get out of bed I just don't want
Speaker 1: to get out of bed um right now. But of
Speaker 1: course I have to, and I have to vote, and
Speaker 1: I have to vote to impeach this president. The work
Speaker 1: doesn't stop. If this were any other kind of workplace shooting,
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine that an hour or two after it,
Speaker 1: the boss would ask you to go back into the workplace.
Speaker 1: And yet that's what we did. We returned to that
Speaker 1: building to take those votes at midnight, in the wee
Speaker 1: hours of the morning. How hard has this been this
Speaker 1: year been for you. You're a single parent and you've
Speaker 1: got kids doing remote learning, and you're going back and
Speaker 1: forth to Washington. Yeah, I mean today is a really
Speaker 1: really special day. This is the first day since mid
Speaker 1: March when the school's closed that I have all three
Speaker 1: children in school at the same time. And I got
Speaker 1: out this morning, I was like, oh my god, where
Speaker 1: is somebody? Because there's always somebody who's not in school,
Speaker 1: So that has been hard. But look, I am so
Speaker 1: fortunate I have in an excellent school system that has
Speaker 1: had the resources to do things like hand out pron books. No,
Speaker 1: I mean in a neighborhood that's safe, when my kids
Speaker 1: can go outside, um and there's a park and they
Speaker 1: can go play. This is so hard for so many
Speaker 1: people and so many kids, and disproportionately on those who
Speaker 1: are an overcrowded houses, on strange school systems, parents who
Speaker 1: cannot help their kids. And I just have the tiniest
Speaker 1: taste of that, and I think about what it must
Speaker 1: be like for parents for whom English is not a
Speaker 1: dominant language, to try to help their kids with all
Speaker 1: of the whole work, all of the subjects. One of
Speaker 1: the big mistakes of this pandemic was back in March
Speaker 1: and April, we should have been focusing immediately on how
Speaker 1: we were going to safely open schools and putting as
Speaker 1: many resources as we needed into providing them with ppe
Speaker 1: with extra classroom space. You know, even now teachers and vaccinations, e.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to go to a Walgreens, take the mobile
Speaker 1: vaccine vehicle, pull up to school and start giving teacher shots.
Speaker 1: Let's go, Well, let's talk about what's most important to
Speaker 1: you and what you want to get done in this job,
Speaker 1: because in the last week we have seen all sorts
Speaker 1: of corporations pulled for the time being their donations, whether
Speaker 1: it's too strictly Republicans who didn't certify the election, or
Speaker 1: to both parties. But as any of this making you think,
Speaker 1: because I promise it's making me think, why the hell
Speaker 1: do corporations why are they giving so much money? And
Speaker 1: way the system just seems so warped. Yeah. No, Look,
Speaker 1: corporate paths shouldn't exist, and they say that for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons. You know, you don't have an ardent capitalist.
Speaker 1: And I've heard all the arguments about how you shareholder primacy.
Speaker 1: It's all corporations exist for the purpose of raising money
Speaker 1: and making money for their shareholders. Now, I don't believe
Speaker 1: that is the correct definition of a corporation. I reject
Speaker 1: that idea. But even if you buy into this rather
Speaker 1: extreme idea that the only purpose, the only metric that
Speaker 1: corporations should have is doesn't benefit shareholders, tell me how
Speaker 1: shareholders benefit from giving money to elected officials who are
Speaker 1: trying to overthrow our government, which would be the demise
Speaker 1: of the very economy that allows these companies to make money.
Speaker 1: Here's the stone cold fact. Corporations don't make donations in
Speaker 1: January or February of March of the off year. They
Speaker 1: make donations when it's closer to election time, so they're
Speaker 1: pausing giving them We're never going to do in the
Speaker 1: first place. So I am completely unimpressed by these kinds
Speaker 1: of shallow gestures. What I would like to see as
Speaker 1: corporations make very clear that they will not support people
Speaker 1: who spread disinformation, who urged the overturning of this election. Um,
Speaker 1: and I would just like to see corporations say, you
Speaker 1: know what, We're not gonna last through a path. We're
Speaker 1: gonna take that money, give it to our employees in
Speaker 1: the form of fire wages, our employees, whatever their political
Speaker 1: views might be, to participate in our democracy. We'll be
Speaker 1: back after the break then what's a big focus for you?
Speaker 1: So here you are Democrats have full control of the
Speaker 1: federal government. What is your focus? What do you want
Speaker 1: to get done? Because I know how much you care
Speaker 1: about getting corruption and green out of the system, how
Speaker 1: can you actually take it on. So one of the
Speaker 1: answers here is obviously past HR one. Um. This was
Speaker 1: the House bill that we introduced and passed the House
Speaker 1: last time. UM. That both addresses corruption. Um. It's the
Speaker 1: most sweeping anti corruption built since Watergate. Would also strengthen
Speaker 1: voting rights, um, you know, and it would help get
Speaker 1: a dark money out of politics. Really important that we
Speaker 1: passed that again in the House because I now believe
Speaker 1: we have the votes in the Senate to actually see
Speaker 1: it become law. You know. The other thing I really
Speaker 1: focused on right now is, of course, our academy. I'm
Speaker 1: interested in thinking about what really is happening to families
Speaker 1: right now and how these numbers translate on the ground.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that we are seeing that
Speaker 1: is just a huge, huge consequence of COVID. It's not
Speaker 1: just job loss, but job loss that is concentrated on
Speaker 1: brown and black women in particular, And you know that
Speaker 1: is a really really potentially enduring consequence of this, and
Speaker 1: so it's really important that we think about what's this
Speaker 1: mean for our economy, for the global competitiveness of our economy.
Speaker 1: That women are stepping out of the workforce, are being
Speaker 1: forced out of the workforce because they can't afford or
Speaker 1: find childcare, because they're not safe in their workplace. Mackenzie
Speaker 1: the consulting company, right, this is about a feminist you know,
Speaker 1: leading institution said that did a study recently and found
Speaker 1: that one in four women are contemplating leaving the workforce.
Speaker 1: So we need to get a handle on this. And
Speaker 1: it means understanding the phenomenon. Is it really about um
Speaker 1: the wages and the wage gap? People are needing to
Speaker 1: pull one parent home, and they're pulling the lower earning person,
Speaker 1: and this is just reinforcing the gender pick up. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I intend to find out. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I am really excited about with the
Speaker 1: Biden administration is the way that they're conceiving of and
Speaker 1: talking about child care as infrastructure. It's just really really
Speaker 1: important that we start thinking about it that way, that
Speaker 1: we start understanding it that way, and we start making
Speaker 1: investments not just in help care centers and the people
Speaker 1: who do this work. Do you think we've made a
Speaker 1: mistake Year after year we're patting ourselves on the back
Speaker 1: when we start to address maternity leave, paternity leave, but
Speaker 1: that's twelve weeks. We're responsible for our children for eighteen years,
Speaker 1: and forget wages while kids are doing remote learning. It's
Speaker 1: for so many of us impossible to just leave our
Speaker 1: kids to do it on their own. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of parents, specifically moms who because of COVID just
Speaker 1: have to go home. Look, I mean I think that
Speaker 1: things like paper and to leave. Really, I mean pat
Speaker 1: ourselves on the back for getting their thirty forty fifty
Speaker 1: years later than a lot of other countries. We need
Speaker 1: to think about how to become global leaders in developing
Speaker 1: and retaining a top quality workforce. And you are not
Speaker 1: going to have a top quality workforce when you exclude women.
Speaker 1: You're just not. And there's a lot of research in
Speaker 1: virtually every industry, corporations that have women on their boards
Speaker 1: of directors take a less risk and then this is
Speaker 1: my favorite fact, make more money. So just overall, we
Speaker 1: see that in the medicine, women physicians communicate with their
Speaker 1: patients differently, they're better listeners that were likely to pick
Speaker 1: up on certain kinds of diagnoses. I think women legislators
Speaker 1: are are different and how we do our job. So
Speaker 1: we just stopped talking about this as just a women's issue,
Speaker 1: although the disproportionate harmies on women, and instead say, if
Speaker 1: we want to have a strong, stable capitalist economy, we
Speaker 1: have to make sure that women and men have equal opportunity,
Speaker 1: equal pay, equal support in the workforce. I do want
Speaker 1: to ask you about the Cares Act and now the
Speaker 1: next stimulus spill. It's not like we haven't spent any money.
Speaker 1: We've spent trillions of dollars. Yet the one thing we
Speaker 1: keep hearing from government is we need more. Is it
Speaker 1: that we need more or do we need to do
Speaker 1: a little bit of a better job looking at all
Speaker 1: the money we've spent. There is an oversight committee that
Speaker 1: I haven't actually heard from them. There is a committee
Speaker 1: dedicated to oversight of the CARES funding. But there was
Speaker 1: a structural problem right from the start, which is the
Speaker 1: the chairperson of that committee, without which they can't hire
Speaker 1: staff and they can't really be effective, was to be
Speaker 1: a person agreed upon by Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 1: In other words, the chair was supposed to be like
Speaker 1: a unicorn, and we're are we gonna find this person.
Speaker 1: So the reality is that committee has not been as
Speaker 1: effective as it should be because there was a structural
Speaker 1: problem in the creation of it. But I also think
Speaker 1: that we need to take a hard look. And I've
Speaker 1: been pushing on this for a long time. You and
Speaker 1: I have a lot of conversations about this, But the
Speaker 1: Paycheck Protection Program I think was not optimally designed or
Speaker 1: administered from the get go, and there were whole range
Speaker 1: of problems, from allowing Congress members to get p p
Speaker 1: P loans to the fact that there is a more
Speaker 1: effective way to keep people employed, which is an approach
Speaker 1: that European countries used that we call paycheck recovery or
Speaker 1: paycheck guarantee, which simply provides money to businesses to help
Speaker 1: them make payroll. That money would pass directly through the
Speaker 1: payroll system into people's pockets. The Paycheck Protection Program was
Speaker 1: much too attenuated, and it was too slow to roll out,
Speaker 1: and I think it should have been ombious to everybody
Speaker 1: that that the Small Business Administration was not going to
Speaker 1: be ready to administer this that it was gonna be
Speaker 1: a ramp up period. So I do think that we
Speaker 1: have a duty to ask what happened to every dollar?
Speaker 1: Was it spent effectively? Didn't really help um? And if not,
Speaker 1: to rethink these programs, then talk to us about this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it third lane that you're in, right
Speaker 1: there's a lot of traditional Democrats, there's very progressive Democrats.
Speaker 1: Within progressive Democrats, there's the squad anti big business. As
Speaker 1: you said earlier, you're a very proud capitalist. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about that and your sort of ideology Because the
Speaker 1: average person on the street, and if you watched Fox News,
Speaker 1: they would tell you, oh, you know, younger lawmakers like you,
Speaker 1: you're part of this socialist movement. You're not, but you're
Speaker 1: not feeling good about the capitalist society we're in right now?
Speaker 1: So can you help us understand? Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: this is really understanding what is the capitalist economy that
Speaker 1: people who are nineteen twenty nine, thirty nine, even me,
Speaker 1: I just turned forty seven. What's the coupitalist economy that
Speaker 1: we have seen in this country? What if we lived
Speaker 1: through We've lived through a lock of enforcement of antitrust laws,
Speaker 1: unprecedented consolidation of market power, more and more barriers and
Speaker 1: hardships on small businesses being able to compete, regulation of
Speaker 1: investor protection laws, the removal of consumer protection laws. People
Speaker 1: my age do not have the trust in banks or
Speaker 1: businesses that people a generation or two before us did,
Speaker 1: and there's no reason for that because those industries have
Speaker 1: abused the very capitalist economy, the workers, the consumers that
Speaker 1: have allowed them to profit. Younger people are skeptical about
Speaker 1: capitalism for good reason, because our capitalist system isn't producing opportunity,
Speaker 1: it's producing inequality. Our capitalist system isn't producing price competition,
Speaker 1: it's producing monopoly power. So we have to be straight
Speaker 1: about what's broken and that it can be fixed. There
Speaker 1: are tools that we have to fix it, and that
Speaker 1: we're going to fight to use those tools, and we
Speaker 1: are not going to blink in the face of corporate
Speaker 1: power to do it. And I think that is a
Speaker 1: way to acknowledge the skepticism, the heartache, the suffering of
Speaker 1: a lot of people in today's capitalist economy without losing
Speaker 1: what a different generation. You know, my grandparents generation saw,
Speaker 1: which was unbelievable economic growth and opportunity. If I say
Speaker 1: this to my grandparents and the last were just guide
Speaker 1: for COVID. But I used to say this to my
Speaker 1: grandparents all the time. I didn't get what you got.
Speaker 1: So my grandparents went to college. They worked in the
Speaker 1: summer and earned enough to pay their tuition. That's not
Speaker 1: possible now, and it should be. And if it were,
Speaker 1: that would be an economy that was really developing the
Speaker 1: potential of every worker. That would be a capitalist economy
Speaker 1: that's really investing in more marketplaces. From what I've learned
Speaker 1: about you over the last few years, everything you are
Speaker 1: most interested in is about putting people first. Given the
Speaker 1: amount of money and lobby influence in politics, how can
Speaker 1: you actually make those changes? We've all seen you ask
Speaker 1: the most extraordinary questions to these business guys in these hearings.
Speaker 1: We watched them squirm, but then they walk out, get
Speaker 1: on their corporate plane and go home to their big, fat,
Speaker 1: cushy life. Does change actually occur? And I love when
Speaker 1: they come to testify before Well, here's where I think
Speaker 1: the change comes. When I had this back and forth
Speaker 1: with the president of JP Morgan Chase Jamie Diamond, he's
Speaker 1: a very bright man and he's a good business leader
Speaker 1: in many many ways. When I had the back and
Speaker 1: forth with him about whether his lower wage employees could
Speaker 1: make ends meet, and I definitely started to him how
Speaker 1: hard it would be, if not impossible, for them. Did
Speaker 1: he did? He in the moment, didnt crock and promised
Speaker 1: that he would race wages? He did not. Well, I
Speaker 1: hope the next time they go to make a decision
Speaker 1: about whether to give their employees a wage or not,
Speaker 1: I'm on their mind. Unless we actually change the rules.
Speaker 1: Do you think businesses are going to operate in a
Speaker 1: different way, Because at the end of the day, the
Speaker 1: way it is currently structured, right, CEOs need to perform
Speaker 1: for their shareholders. The way they're compensated is tied to
Speaker 1: this value of the stock of their company. They're not
Speaker 1: currently incentivized to put their employees first. And even if
Speaker 1: they say all the right things, and even after that exchange,
Speaker 1: if Jamie and Diamond thinks a little harder, the next
Speaker 1: time he makes a big decision at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, is he really going to change his behavior
Speaker 1: unless regulation forces him to do so. Watch Much more
Speaker 1: importantly than my interaction with him was the fact that
Speaker 1: millions and millions of Americans said that's me, this woman
Speaker 1: understands what it's like to work all day and come
Speaker 1: home and not be able to pay the bills. They
Speaker 1: felt heard and seen and recognized by their government, and
Speaker 1: as a result of that, they got just a little
Speaker 1: bit more engaged. It's not my exchange with the CEL
Speaker 1: that matters. It's whether my exchange with the CEO gives
Speaker 1: people confidence in government and believe that we can make
Speaker 1: this change, because corporations are full time engaged in telling
Speaker 1: people that nothing can change. If you could wave of
Speaker 1: magic wand and change one thing, one policy, without having
Speaker 1: to go through all the rigamarole, what would you do
Speaker 1: that you think could really start to change the way
Speaker 1: we operate? Change the system I would reach. I would
Speaker 1: change the campaign finance system straight up, no corporate paths,
Speaker 1: no high dollar contributions. Um. You know, I think that
Speaker 1: is the really the most important thing, because I think
Speaker 1: it will change how people in my jobs spend their time. Um.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that you have to raise so
Speaker 1: much money means that you know who mostly runs for
Speaker 1: Congress and wins is wealthy people. And so I mean
Speaker 1: consider that until this Congress, I was the only single
Speaker 1: mother of young children in the Congress, and people kept saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know your situation, it's so unique, and I would think, no,
Speaker 1: it's unique in Congress, it's not unique in the world, right,
Speaker 1: And there are lots and lots, millions and millions of
Speaker 1: single parents, So so don't act like my concern about
Speaker 1: not having a work calendar for the next day is unusual.
Speaker 1: There are tons of workers at retail jobs who don't
Speaker 1: know what their schedule is gonna be tomorrow and therefore
Speaker 1: can obtain childcare. So real change is gonna come from
Speaker 1: us as elected officials explaining to the American people what's
Speaker 1: at stake and how they can get involved. That's how
Speaker 1: we're going to change the system. It isn't about me.
Speaker 1: It's about everybody that I can talk to or listen
Speaker 1: to or connect with and engage. That's where the change
Speaker 1: is gonna come from. Then I have to ask you
Speaker 1: before go. People can tune the news out, they can
Speaker 1: take a day off, they can unplug. You are more
Speaker 1: motivated and more energized than ever. How is that? I
Speaker 1: think this is something that we mean we have in common.
Speaker 1: Um you know on your Twitter handle. I think we're
Speaker 1: both named maybe like a bad Asses of of Instone magazine,
Speaker 1: and you said something like, I never thought I'd naked
Speaker 1: past smart ass. That was definitely my childhood experience. Like
Speaker 1: she's kind of a smart ass. She has a comeback
Speaker 1: for everything. She talks too much in class. I don't
Speaker 1: want to give up. I don't think we can give
Speaker 1: up when things get hard. We have to think of
Speaker 1: what we do about it. And it doesn't mean we
Speaker 1: don't pause and take care of ourselves and acknowledge how
Speaker 1: hardness is. But you know, I've sort of I meant
Speaker 1: one of these kids from childhood were the very best
Speaker 1: way to guarantee that I would do something is tell
Speaker 1: me that I can. This week, I'm actually taping from
Speaker 1: my hotel room in Washington, d C. Where I'm reporting
Speaker 1: on the inauguration of President elect Joe Biden. This was
Speaker 1: obviously not the first time I interviewed congress and reporter,
Speaker 1: but it was the first time I did it for
Speaker 1: over an hour. Like Katie, I'm very interested in change,
Speaker 1: what motivates people to change, what constitutes change, and what
Speaker 1: blocks it from actually occurring. So what does change need
Speaker 1: to look like in order to create a fair and
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