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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds. We are off for the holidays, but

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Speaker 1: in advance, we made you a fantastic show. Today. Bill Keller,

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Speaker 1: the founder of the Marshall Project, stops by to talk

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Speaker 1: to us about his book What's Prisoned For? But first

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Speaker 1: we talked to the former supermodel and author Paulina Porskova

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Speaker 1: about her book No Filter, The Good, the Bad, and

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Speaker 1: the Beautiful. Welcome too, Fast Politics. Paulina Porskova, Well, Hi there.

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Speaker 1: I'm so glad I got to have you on because

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Speaker 1: it's like not that often that you get to have

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Speaker 1: on a friend, you know, someone you really friends with.

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Speaker 1: So I'm very thrilled. I know, I don't think I've

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Speaker 1: been interviewed by a friend yet. Hello friend, Hello. So

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Speaker 1: I knew that you were going to write a book,

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Speaker 1: but I knew that you were like very back and

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Speaker 1: forth on it. So tell us what sort of pushed

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Speaker 1: you over the edge to do it? Well? Actually, you

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Speaker 1: know what, Well, what pushed me over the edge was

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Speaker 1: the fact that Maria Shriver called me and said, hey,

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Speaker 1: would you write me a book? And she said, I

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Speaker 1: followed you on Instagram, That's why she called, and I

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Speaker 1: want you to write me a book like you write

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Speaker 1: your Instagram. So that to me was like, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm doing that every day for free anyway, So it

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Speaker 1: would be a chance for me to like delve a

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Speaker 1: lot deeper and you know, get my thoughts out a

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Speaker 1: little clearer. And so that's sort of you know, it

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Speaker 1: was just like an offer I couldn't refuse. It was perfect.

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Speaker 1: What was a little less perfect was that she gave

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Speaker 1: me three months in which to write it. And now,

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Speaker 1: you as a writer, you know, three months, right, a

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Speaker 1: lot of time. Now, it's such a hard thing. How

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Speaker 1: did you sort of decide what to put in there,

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Speaker 1: what not to put in there? How did you get going?

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Speaker 1: This is funny because I'm talking to somebody who has

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Speaker 1: written a book about her life too, and I've read

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Speaker 1: your books and I love the feelings mutual. You're so

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Speaker 1: funny and so bright, and you revealed a lot. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I wasn't editing myself on the page. I just

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Speaker 1: wrote everything that was like inside me. You know that

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Speaker 1: I had been taking up space for the last two years,

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Speaker 1: and I just poured it all out because I figured, well,

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Speaker 1: I can always go back and edit it after, right,

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Speaker 1: I can cut out things that shouldn't be out in

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Speaker 1: the world. And I ended up cutting very little actually,

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Speaker 1: because I feel like when I was writing it, I

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Speaker 1: really concentrated on writing about myself. This is like my

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Speaker 1: experience is the way I perceived things. I wasn't giving

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Speaker 1: away other people's secrets, so you know, I didn't feel

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Speaker 1: like I was in dangerous territory necessarily because it wasn't

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Speaker 1: about other people. It's not like hell, oh and when

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Speaker 1: I'm at such and such and they said, you know this, No,

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Speaker 1: but part of these books is that you have to

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Speaker 1: decide how much of your interactions with other people you tell. Well,

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Speaker 1: my husband was my entire life from the time I

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Speaker 1: was nineteen, so it's not like I could omit him

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Speaker 1: because very short book. I was just looking at the

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Speaker 1: Amazon reviews and someone said, came for Okay six stage

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Speaker 1: for Poliscovich. Well, that's really sweet. I thought that was

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Speaker 1: a great kind of line there of just like how

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Speaker 1: how you're magnetic. But I mean when you finished it,

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Speaker 1: were you just like kind of terrified or were you

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Speaker 1: just like ready or I mean, just talk to me.

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Speaker 1: About that. Oh god, you know, you know the process

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Speaker 1: of writing a book, and then you finished the book,

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Speaker 1: and then you double guests everything you've ever written, and

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Speaker 1: then you would like to go back over it. But

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Speaker 1: guess what, because of this super short time limit, I

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Speaker 1: really didn't have a chance. So it just kind of

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Speaker 1: had to you know, I just had to go out

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Speaker 1: there though the way it was so in a way

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Speaker 1: it was kind of good because I couldn't like belly

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Speaker 1: ache about how I was going to feel about this

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Speaker 1: coming out and this coming out, and I thought, you

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Speaker 1: know what, I had been perfectly honest in in my writing,

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Speaker 1: and so I don't have to be ashamed of me.

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Speaker 1: I don't have to be ashamed of the way I feel.

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Speaker 1: I mean, maybe I can sometimes be a little ashamed

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Speaker 1: of not getting a phrase right or you know, doing

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Speaker 1: a stupid metaphor. But hey, you know, it was it

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Speaker 1: was going to be what it was because I knew

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Speaker 1: I was, you know, I was telling my truth. And

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Speaker 1: and and I think, when you do tell the truth,

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Speaker 1: how is that wrong? It was so incredibly tragic when

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Speaker 1: rip dad. Did this help you process the grief? Well,

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Speaker 1: here's the thing, I don't really think that whatever processes grief.

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Speaker 1: I think grief sticks with you for life. I don't

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Speaker 1: think there is such a thing as processing grief. I

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Speaker 1: think there's just living with grief. What he did do, though,

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Speaker 1: oddly enough, was allowed me to process a bit of

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Speaker 1: my anger at his betrayal at the end, you know,

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Speaker 1: with the will, and the way that happened was not

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Speaker 1: by putting that down on paper and talking about how

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Speaker 1: miserable I had been and you know how screwed up

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Speaker 1: everything was, but going back and writing the chapter about

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Speaker 1: falling in love with him, because then suddenly I was

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Speaker 1: forced to confront how much I loved him and how

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Speaker 1: much he meant to me for such a long time,

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Speaker 1: and whether it was healthy or unhealthy, or toxic or

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Speaker 1: not toxic, whatever. I had a lot of love for

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Speaker 1: a really long time with this man. And having to

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Speaker 1: go back to the good memories is what really helped me.

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Speaker 1: Can you explain what sort of the situation with the well?

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Speaker 1: So about two days after he died, we got the wills.

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Speaker 1: Me and my boys got the will in the in

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Speaker 1: the mail, three envelopes, and I opened it and on

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Speaker 1: the front of the will there was sort of like

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Speaker 1: an a them, and it just said I will not

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Speaker 1: provide for my wife Paulina because she abandoned me. And

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Speaker 1: when I first saw this, this is like we're talking about,

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Speaker 1: you know, he just died. I just found him, I

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Speaker 1: was taking care of him, and then he died. And then,

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Speaker 1: you know, and I thought, well, this is obviously bullshit,

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Speaker 1: because I'm right here. I never abandoned my husband, so

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Speaker 1: this is like some sort of a mistake. And then

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Speaker 1: when you know, as time went on and I realized

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Speaker 1: it actually wasn't a mistake. Well, then I realized it

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Speaker 1: was a lie. And that was a little bit harder

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Speaker 1: to put up with. Obviously, you know, what do you

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Speaker 1: do when your husband's last words to your blatant lie?

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Speaker 1: And I felt like, you know, of course, you know,

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Speaker 1: the surrounding press because the will had been written so

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Speaker 1: that it was public knowledge. You know, suddenly I had

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Speaker 1: to defend myself. But there's all these people, you know,

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Speaker 1: going on about like, well, how bad was she that

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Speaker 1: he's leaving her? Nothing, like, she must have been a

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Speaker 1: horrible person and she must tea the horrible person, And

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Speaker 1: it completely wrung me out. That was pretty rough, actually,

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Speaker 1: not to mention the fact that I also had no

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Speaker 1: cash flow, So that was I mean, that is the

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Speaker 1: sort of most transparently angry. I mean, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: just it does seem like something someone who was very

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Speaker 1: angry does. Yeah. And I had no idea. I had

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Speaker 1: no idea he was angry. I had no idea he

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Speaker 1: felt that way. I thought we were like friends, you know,

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Speaker 1: I thought we just made up and and you know,

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Speaker 1: we were cohabiting peacefully. He knew all about this boyfriend

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Speaker 1: that I had met, you know, like everything was out

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Speaker 1: in the open. I had no idea. And you had

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Speaker 1: also been with him for at that point, how many years?

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Speaker 1: Five years? Jesus Christ, that's a long time, Yeah, my

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Speaker 1: whole life. Really. And I asked this as someone who

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Speaker 1: myself got married very young. Are you glad that you

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Speaker 1: got married young? Or do you that you hadn't? Oh gosh, Molly,

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Speaker 1: that's a hard question. I'm allowed to ask it because

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Speaker 1: you know, I got married when I was twenty three,

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Speaker 1: so I know we booked got married twenty three. Actually, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, because I don't know what my wife would

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Speaker 1: have been if I had gotten married later. I don't

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Speaker 1: feel like I can really answer that question now with hindsight,

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Speaker 1: I think but you know what, I had twenty five

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Speaker 1: years of a really great marriage of where I was

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Speaker 1: really happy and I felt loved and I felt safe.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it was worth it. Yeah, it was worth it.

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Speaker 1: It was worth the heartbreak at the end because I

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Speaker 1: came out stronger than ever from it. I also think

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Speaker 1: you have these great kids. I do. That's sort of

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Speaker 1: the most meaningful mattrac tell me what you I mean.

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Speaker 1: One of the things I think you've done really well

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Speaker 1: is you write about aging and what that is about. Well,

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Speaker 1: you talk to us a little bit about that. It's

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Speaker 1: something that we women are really I mean, everyone is

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Speaker 1: confronted with it, but women are confronted with it on

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Speaker 1: a whole other level. Yeah, we do, because we do

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Speaker 1: turn invisible at a certain age. I don't know that

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Speaker 1: it's set in stone, but it's somewhere in your forties

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Speaker 1: some women say thirties even, which kind of it's flabbergasting

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Speaker 1: to me. But you know, I didn't necessarily realize this.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was my my marriage. By the time

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Speaker 1: I was fifty, my marriage was tanking, and I felt

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Speaker 1: really invisible to my husband. And then I realized I

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Speaker 1: felt invisible in the rest of the world as well,

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Speaker 1: because I had, like, I had no career, I had,

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Speaker 1: you know, nothing going. I mean, I think you met

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Speaker 1: me around then, and you know I was a bit

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Speaker 1: of a mess. You had a career. But I know

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Speaker 1: what you mean that. I mean, I think like everyone

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Speaker 1: has that sort of going to yeah. Yeah. And I

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Speaker 1: would ask all my girlfriends because I thought this was

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Speaker 1: particular to me, having been a model and having been

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Speaker 1: visible my whole life. I thought, I'm taking this harder

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Speaker 1: than most women, or maybe I'm the only one. Maybe

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Speaker 1: I'm so freaking narcissistic and vain that I can't get

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Speaker 1: my head out of my ass. And I just, you know, like,

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Speaker 1: this is my problem and I'm gonna have to overcome it.

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Speaker 1: And then I spoke to all my girlfriends and I said,

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Speaker 1: do you ever feel invisible? And they said, uh, yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh wait, so this is not just me,

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Speaker 1: this is all of us, This goes for all of us.

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Speaker 1: And then I started looking things up, and I started

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Speaker 1: looking for women our age and representation of women our age,

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Speaker 1: and you know in the really noticing the media and

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Speaker 1: magazines and TV and all of the you know, places

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Speaker 1: that represent women publicly. And I thought there are not

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Speaker 1: a lot of fifty is looking women, are there? I mean,

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Speaker 1: everybody sort of looks at vague thirty nine. It's true,

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Speaker 1: and I really sort of enjoy I really enjoy my age.

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Speaker 1: I think I'm I really do think that I'm the

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Speaker 1: best that I've ever been. I mean, because some really

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Speaker 1: hard lessons, but I do feel like I'm just so

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Speaker 1: much better on the inside and the outside. Fine, it's

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Speaker 1: maybe not associate, you know, sociologically acceptable as beautiful, but

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Speaker 1: I think it's beautiful. I find it beautiful and other

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Speaker 1: women right, and so I feel like, you know, ladies,

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Speaker 1: we need to like gang up here and show them

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Speaker 1: that we're not supposed to change ourselves to to smooth

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Speaker 1: out societal norms of what who we're supposed to look

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Speaker 1: like or what we're supposed to look like, but rather

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Speaker 1: change their perspective, we should claim where we are and go,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I am beautiful. It might be a

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Speaker 1: different kind of a beauty than what you're used to,

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Speaker 1: but keep looking, you'll see it. If you just keep looking,

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Speaker 1: you'll see it. Don't you feel like there's been some

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Speaker 1: movement towards less ages? Um? Not much, bolly not okay, again,

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Speaker 1: I do think that some of our biggest power player

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Speaker 1: look above forties. Right. It's a good point, you know that,

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Speaker 1: And that's that's the problem is like, yeah, you can

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Speaker 1: but you can't look it. Thing gracefully is when you

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Speaker 1: do right, right. I have accidentally walked into this as

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Speaker 1: see see if I can change people's minds about Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know what, do you still look great? And you

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Speaker 1: don't have to look twenty to look great, like you

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Speaker 1: can be a great looking older woman. Yeah. No, I

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Speaker 1: think that's a really good point. Tell me what else?

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Speaker 1: What is sort of next for you? That is such

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Speaker 1: a good question. I have like cereal idea. So I

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Speaker 1: just literally just fell off the book tour. Right, it's

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Speaker 1: like winding down to Christmas, and I'm doing my last

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Speaker 1: book signing next week and like you're like one of

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Speaker 1: like tumbleweeds. There is nothing on my schedule, there's nothing

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Speaker 1: trying to put together this reality show with a friend

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Speaker 1: Beyond the Edge with me, the Jungle show where I

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Speaker 1: nearly killed myself, and he wanted to do a show

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Speaker 1: about the second coming of age of the one of

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Speaker 1: the fifty year old woman. And I thought it was

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Speaker 1: such a great idea, and we pitched it and the

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Speaker 1: response was, yeah, you know what, it's not really our demographic.

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Speaker 1: He yes, we don't have a demographic, Molly, no demographic

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Speaker 1: for older women. Jesus. Apparently older women don't want to

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Speaker 1: watch themselves true, right, Yeah, I mean that seems kind

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Speaker 1: of nuts, but very interesting. Thank you so much, Paulina.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on the podcast. You're the best. You know.

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Speaker 1: I always love to talk to you. And next year

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Speaker 1: let's hang out. Yes, yes, yes, I would love it. Yes.

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Speaker 1: Bill Keller is the founder of the Marshall Project and

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Speaker 1: the author of What's Prisoned For. Welcome to Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: Bill Keller. Thank you very excited to have you. This

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Speaker 1: is like a topic that Jesse and I are pretty

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Speaker 1: obsessed with, and so I'm so excited that you, first

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Speaker 1: of all, you're founding editor of the Marshall Project. Which

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Speaker 1: can you tell our listeners a little bit about the

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Speaker 1: Marshall Project in case they haven't heard of it. Sure,

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Speaker 1: it was started by a guy named Neil Barsky who

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Speaker 1: was a reporter for the actually for the Wall Street Journal,

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Speaker 1: who covered Donald Trump's real estate fieldings, among other things,

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Speaker 1: and then he went into the hedge fund game, got

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Speaker 1: very rich and decided he wanted to give some back.

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Speaker 1: He grew up in a civil rights activist family and

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Speaker 1: decided he wanted to create an online news organization that

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Speaker 1: would focus on the criminal justice system. This was a

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Speaker 1: preposterous idea, and when newsrooms were dying right and left

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Speaker 1: has now got I think forty people working for it,

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Speaker 1: you know, counting the people who do fundraising, but also

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Speaker 1: the reporters and editors and guys who do magic with data.

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Speaker 1: We've won a couple of Pulitzer Prizes and various other awards.

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Speaker 1: We do a daily, daily news round up that sort

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Speaker 1: of just gives you a shortcut to what's going on

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Speaker 1: in the world of criminal justice. So one of the

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Speaker 1: things you did was you were the editor of The

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Speaker 1: New York Times, and you went to the Marshal Project,

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Speaker 1: which must have really helped them. I mean, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you're too modest to say this, but it certainly helped

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Speaker 1: them get on the radar. Yeah, I'm sure it did.

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Speaker 1: I mean, whether whether it should have or not, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. You know, I did bring a reputation that

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Speaker 1: was helpful with fundraising and probably somewhat helpful with hiring.

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Speaker 1: There aren't a lot of people working at the New

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Speaker 1: York Times with the Washington Post who want to give

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Speaker 1: up that security to go with the news startup, so

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Speaker 1: we didn't have the pick of the litter, but we

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Speaker 1: probably had probably helped that. I was the founding editor.

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Speaker 1: So now the book you've written is for It's called

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Speaker 1: What's Prison for Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of

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Speaker 1: Mass Incarceration? So explain to us a little bit about

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Speaker 1: how you sort of got to this and a little

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Speaker 1: bit about what the central thesis of the book is. Well,

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Speaker 1: after about five years working with all those reporters and

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Speaker 1: editors at the Marshall Project, I retired as the editor

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Speaker 1: in chief. I thought I'd learned some lessons from those

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Speaker 1: five years that I'd like to share, offer up humbly

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Speaker 1: for public approval. I decided to focus on prisons. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there are lots of parts of the criminal justice system

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Speaker 1: that Marshall Project covers, including courts and policing. A lot

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Speaker 1: of policing and policing, and courts have gotten an incredible

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Speaker 1: amount of attention over the last decade or so, as

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Speaker 1: they should have. Prisons are different. They're not the most transparent.

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Speaker 1: They're probably the least transparent arms of the domestic government

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Speaker 1: that we have. I think there's a sort of reluctance

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Speaker 1: to one of people don't necessarily want to know that

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Speaker 1: much about prisons. That's where you put your problems behind

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Speaker 1: walls and then you don't deal with them. So I

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Speaker 1: thought I would try to write essentially a primer on

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Speaker 1: prisons and the role they play in America and have

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Speaker 1: played historically. Provide some context the kind of endless tension

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Speaker 1: between the professed belief in second chances and redemption on

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Speaker 1: the one hand, and on the other hand, the sort

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Speaker 1: of punitive puritan streak in America. What did you find

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Speaker 1: as you were working on this? What surprised you? I

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Speaker 1: think the thing that struck me most was, Yes, prisons

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Speaker 1: are scary and exhausting. They grind people down, they leave

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Speaker 1: them stigmatized and often with no skills. And I don't

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Speaker 1: want to sound Pollyannish about this, but there's ample evidence

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Speaker 1: that it doesn't have to be that way. The heart

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Speaker 1: of the book is really focused on people who are

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Speaker 1: trying to prepare prisoners for life after prison, to give

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Speaker 1: them an education, to give them behavioral therapy, to teach

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Speaker 1: them how to avoid anger. And then some of the

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Speaker 1: more ambitious efforts or experiments where prisons or parts of

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Speaker 1: prisons have adopted lessons from Europe and how how they

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Speaker 1: do prisons, which is much more enlightened and successful I

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Speaker 1: think than ours, both in terms of being humane and

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Speaker 1: in terms of assuring public safety. There has been a

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Speaker 1: weird bipartisan It's weird because it's bipartisan and that is

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Speaker 1: so deeply unusual in America. Push to reform criminal justice?

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Speaker 1: Is that real? I mean, do you feel like the

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Speaker 1: Koch brothers are committed didn't reform in criminal justice? And

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Speaker 1: if so, can you talk to us a little bit

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Speaker 1: about that? Sure? I'm happy to back in. I wrote

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Speaker 1: a piece for The New Yorker focus on the right

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Speaker 1: wing a campaign for criminal justice reform. There's a conservative

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Speaker 1: logic to reforming the criminal justice system. The libertarians, like

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Speaker 1: the Koch brothers, tend to see prisons and courts and

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Speaker 1: police as another arm of overbearing government, over taxing government.

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Speaker 1: A lot of evangelicals have taken up this sort of

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Speaker 1: effort to reform conditions in prisons and access to them

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Speaker 1: to the outside, connections to the outside. And there you

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Speaker 1: have some fiscal conservatives who who just think that it's

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Speaker 1: the eighty billion dollars a year we spend locking people

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Speaker 1: up is not worth that much money. So their motives

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Speaker 1: are different than progressive advocates of criminal justice reform. But

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Speaker 1: I think up to a point that there is some

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Speaker 1: room for common ground. Unfortunately, that movement sort of hit

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Speaker 1: a public high water mark in with the passage of

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Speaker 1: the First Step Act, which was a very modest reform

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Speaker 1: made it somewhat easier for prisoners to earn time off

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Speaker 1: their sentences by enrolling in education courses or other sort

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Speaker 1: of betterment programs. It somewhat lessened the ridiculous over sentencing

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Speaker 1: for crack cocaine is compared to powder cocaine. It was

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Speaker 1: a piece of legislation that has been a little overset sold.

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Speaker 1: It dealt with the federal prison system, which is really

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Speaker 1: only about ten percent of the people who are incarcerated.

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Speaker 1: But that said, it passed the Senate eight seven to twelve.

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Speaker 1: Can you imagine anything passing the Senate a margin like that?

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Speaker 1: And Trump signed it and tried to take credit for it.

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Speaker 1: And I know that Jared Kushner was who is has

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Speaker 1: a personal interest in criminal tessics reformed because his father

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Speaker 1: did time in New Jersey. He was involved in drafting

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Speaker 1: and negotiating the terms of that piece of legislation. That

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Speaker 1: was sort of the high water mark. And since then,

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Speaker 1: the general paralysis that afflicts everything in Washington these days

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Speaker 1: seems to have kicked into criminal justice reform at least.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to imagine, but in the TwixT

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Speaker 1: campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, there were four Republican

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Speaker 1: contenders who embraced this so called right on crime conservative

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Speaker 1: criminal justice reform measures. One of them was Ted Cruz.

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Speaker 1: Of all people, that those people have kind of gone

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Speaker 1: mute in the this this sort of Trump era absence

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Speaker 1: of bipartisanship. You know, whether it's just kind of gone

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Speaker 1: silent for a while. I mean, there are some reasons

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Speaker 1: to Somebody reviewing this book described me as unexpectedly optimistic,

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Speaker 1: and I slightly recoiled from from that because it sounds naive.

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Speaker 1: But I'd say there's reason for hope. In spite of

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Speaker 1: the groodlock in Washington, a lot of states are doing

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Speaker 1: at least incremental reforms on their own. That's there. They're

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Speaker 1: responsible for the largest portion of the prison population. We're

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Speaker 1: hearing more words from prisoners themselves. It's actually a new

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Speaker 1: nonprofit called the Prison Journalism Project that conducts classes in

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Speaker 1: journalistic skills and values inside prisons and then helps prisoners

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Speaker 1: get journalists and published outside. So there's a little more

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Speaker 1: transparency creeping into the prison world. For example, during the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: a number of prisoners managed to write essentially expose as

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Speaker 1: of how badly prisons handled the pandemic. This week, we've

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Speaker 1: got a prison strike across Alabama, which in earlier days

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Speaker 1: probably would have been suppressed. Nobody would have known about it,

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Speaker 1: but a bunch of prisoners managed to get word out

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Speaker 1: and now it's a big story. I'm a journalist, so

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Speaker 1: I believe in the curative powers of journalism, but I

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Speaker 1: think that may be a small indication of a reason

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Speaker 1: for hope. Thank you so much, Bill, This was so interesting. Well,

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Speaker 1: thank you. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.

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Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to your the

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Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to

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Speaker 1: a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening. H