Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and shockingly, Jim Jordan's is embarrassing himself
Speaker 1: as head of the Judiciary Committee. We have one hell
Speaker 1: of a show today. MSNBC political analyst Cornell Belcher stops
Speaker 1: by to talk about the bias the press has when
Speaker 1: covering VP Kamala Harris. Then we'll talk to actress and
Speaker 1: podcast host Busy Phillips about her activism and how the
Speaker 1: world of celebrity has changed. But first we have NPRS
Speaker 1: Robin fars Odd. Welcome to Fast Politics. Robin, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me on again. I think you
Speaker 1: guys are making a mistake. I see Nancy Pelosi, Brian
Speaker 1: Stelter and then wait for it or something. What happened? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a different and uh, we have all different people
Speaker 1: talking about all different things. Sure, and you know the
Speaker 1: truth is, we need to talk about that job's report.
Speaker 1: And as much as I love, you know, Nancy Pelosi,
Speaker 1: she's not well. I mean, actually should be great to
Speaker 1: talk about it too, But I would love to talk
Speaker 1: to you about those jobs numbers last week because they
Speaker 1: were kind of blockbuster. It just blew everybody away. I mean,
Speaker 1: we at all. You know, in psychological terms, the self
Speaker 1: fulfilling prophecy of recession. It was supposed to be faded
Speaker 1: complete and then you just have a number that just
Speaker 1: blows all estimates out of the water. Now, obviously that's
Speaker 1: great and the White House can run victory laps around it.
Speaker 1: Not that you need a much lower unemployment rate than
Speaker 1: where we are now. I mean vsa V the lowis
Speaker 1: since ninety nine. But the flip side of that is
Speaker 1: that you know, Jerome Powell and the Fed are going
Speaker 1: to become much more cautious about keeping rates where they are.
Speaker 1: They're going to go ever higher because they did a
Speaker 1: half point. So they're still anxiety, right, I mean, the
Speaker 1: problem is there is this push and pull, right, there's
Speaker 1: an anxiety about the economy getting too hot and that
Speaker 1: encouraging inflation. So the Fed, whenever they're good economic numbers,
Speaker 1: there's immediately this anxiety that the Fed is going to
Speaker 1: raise rates. In a perfect world, you could have a
Speaker 1: soft landing where it's not too hot, not too cold.
Speaker 1: I think you know, when Jerome Powell puts his head
Speaker 1: down on the pillow at night. He imagined is as
Speaker 1: a scenario of maybe three percent inflation and four and
Speaker 1: a half percent unemployment if there were a knee trade off.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it works that way. At least. We
Speaker 1: look back to the early eighties and Paul Wolker, you
Speaker 1: have to crash the economy and send it into a
Speaker 1: deep procession, indeed, to kill inflation the kinds that we
Speaker 1: saw of double digits forty years ago, and the concern
Speaker 1: was that this FED would have to do the same thing. Maybe,
Speaker 1: just maybe it won't have to. Oh interesting, I mean,
Speaker 1: where do you think this goes? Now? My mind has
Speaker 1: been on something that I think no one in either
Speaker 1: party really wants to mention much. Is we talk about
Speaker 1: the FED taking interest rates to zero, but how often
Speaker 1: do we talk about p p P. And the excess
Speaker 1: is in the profligacy of p p P. I think
Speaker 1: that so much money was pumped into the economy with
Speaker 1: no questions asked, and many small and medium sized businesses
Speaker 1: still have that some of that money stockpiled in their
Speaker 1: cash and that's why it's so hard to kill inflation.
Speaker 1: I think that, combined with zero percent interest rate policy
Speaker 1: and all the fear of missing out in the pandemic
Speaker 1: has led to this just really long, deep inflation that
Speaker 1: we're feeling. And we're still way too high for comfort.
Speaker 1: I think the FED wants to get to two percent,
Speaker 1: and we're maybe at three times that right now. And
Speaker 1: the question is how much do we have to exact
Speaker 1: pain on the economy in terms of interest rate hikes
Speaker 1: until the economy cries uncle and says, all right, you've
Speaker 1: got me, that's enough, leave me alone. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: really good question. I think. So it was half a million,
Speaker 1: a little more than half a million. The expectation was
Speaker 1: about half of that, right, I think half of that
Speaker 1: a little less than half of that. It completely blew
Speaker 1: everybody away, and you saw the stock market sell off
Speaker 1: initially and afterwards like, maybe it's not bad because we
Speaker 1: can have this idea of a soft landing. Maybe the
Speaker 1: Fed will have one or two quarter point hikes left
Speaker 1: in it, and then we'll get to what's called you know,
Speaker 1: terminal interest rate level. What does that mean? That sounds
Speaker 1: bad for you? Unhealthy? Yeah? The peak level where we
Speaker 1: get interest rates at this time is it five and
Speaker 1: a half percent? Is a five and a quarter percent?
Speaker 1: I mean again, we were at zero interest rate policy,
Speaker 1: and they had to hike by so many chunky increments
Speaker 1: last year that I think the market just wants to
Speaker 1: have an endgame insight. So I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about that for a second, because one of the
Speaker 1: consequences of these higher interest rates is that it kills
Speaker 1: the home buying market. Yes, but I guess arguably the
Speaker 1: home buying market got so out of control and it's
Speaker 1: still out of control for first time buyers. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was so much speculation and FOMO and people suddenly
Speaker 1: fetishizing housing. We were staying at home. We're like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to downsize. In fact, I'm going to
Speaker 1: put an addition on an office in al Cove, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy a vacation home and buy something in
Speaker 1: Aspen in South Florida on Coral Gables, And that is
Speaker 1: really crowded out. And this is almost sounds like a trope.
Speaker 1: I mean millennial buyers, younger buyers who have no hope
Speaker 1: of kind of hitting the ask. You know, housing prices
Speaker 1: were up I think during the pandemic by and this
Speaker 1: was supposed to buy design. I think if Powell had
Speaker 1: a lever and he could attack housing and some of
Speaker 1: the super hot areas of the economy. He would do it,
Speaker 1: but as you know, it's a blunt instrument fed rate
Speaker 1: hikes and it takes it could take everything down with it. Right,
Speaker 1: we have these two paradoxes. We have tight employment, right
Speaker 1: so almost full employment were you know, which drives wages higher,
Speaker 1: which needs to happen. And then we have these higher
Speaker 1: interest rates which drives housing costs lower, which needs to happen.
Speaker 1: But the process of going through it is quite painful.
Speaker 1: But you don't have unanimity out there of you know,
Speaker 1: wages need to go higher. You might say that from
Speaker 1: a kind of a quality and income and standard of
Speaker 1: living perspective. But if you talk to the Chamber of Commerce,
Speaker 1: of the Club for growth by people like you have
Speaker 1: restaurant people, in hospitality people and and airline people complaining
Speaker 1: that people don't even show up for job interviews, much
Speaker 1: less take the jobs. And that is inflationary. And maybe
Speaker 1: we were deluding ourselves for fifty years that we were
Speaker 1: able to pay people seven dollars an hour and get
Speaker 1: away with it and pocket the rest is profit or
Speaker 1: reinvested back into the business. Yeah, and and maybe that's
Speaker 1: bad not paying people living wage. It is, but what
Speaker 1: is the equilibrium? I know, the Club for Growth might
Speaker 1: not say that. Yeah, but you're gonna see a lot
Speaker 1: of residue, a lot of the detritus, detritus of this
Speaker 1: um pandemic you walk into, Like the Einstein's near me
Speaker 1: used to be just the thriving place where all the
Speaker 1: parents would meet after drop off or during pick up,
Speaker 1: and they completely got rid of their interior dining room
Speaker 1: area because it's strictly become a pickup indoor dash operation.
Speaker 1: Because they just don't have the staff. There's no way
Speaker 1: people can clean the tables, provision customers, sweep the floors,
Speaker 1: all of that excess space, all of the Starbucks that
Speaker 1: are contorting to move to kind of a drive through model.
Speaker 1: How permanent is this? If businesses just try to automate
Speaker 1: and do so much more with less. Yes, you can
Speaker 1: only take a three and a half percent unemployment rate
Speaker 1: for granted, for so long? Right, all right, right, I
Speaker 1: mean it is, it's just a lot of really interested
Speaker 1: in paradoxes. Ultimately, I just don't know, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: You know, when I was at Business Week after two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, everybody was asking about the new normal.
Speaker 1: What is normal when we're we at an equilibrium and
Speaker 1: when you talk to people that tell you there was
Speaker 1: never a normal. It's not like a point in time
Speaker 1: in history where things were not too hot, not too cold.
Speaker 1: It was a peace time thing. There was a peace dividend.
Speaker 1: We weren't speculating. The FED wasn't an interest rate policy,
Speaker 1: you know, zero interest rate. There wasn't a Cuban missile crisis,
Speaker 1: or there's always something that's kind of out of whack.
Speaker 1: And now we're really experiencing inflation and supply chain disruption
Speaker 1: and a reluctant workforce that is in no rush to
Speaker 1: go back. With unemployment shoots up to eight percent, I
Speaker 1: think that would expose very different motivations and people very
Speaker 1: eager to go back and collect the check. But for
Speaker 1: the time being, you know, you're seeing so many openings
Speaker 1: for every avid job taker. It's it's pretty disconcerting even
Speaker 1: to the feed. Interesting. Um, so what are you watching now?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean that we're we're kind of
Speaker 1: in this. Everybody thought going into this year, if you
Speaker 1: pulled people, uh, you know, around Christmas or Hanaker Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: that recession was was kind of guaranteed. I wonder where
Speaker 1: commodity prices go. I wondered the extent to which Europe
Speaker 1: can heal in the wake of you know, Russia, Ukraine,
Speaker 1: emerging markets. I do watch the FED. I don't fetishize
Speaker 1: over it. I follow the markets. I feel like um
Speaker 1: inflation is a part of life again, at least in
Speaker 1: my investing and and you know, business journalism career. I
Speaker 1: have never truly experienced it. There's always been this cry
Speaker 1: wolf of inflation. And do prices really go down again?
Speaker 1: They say they're sticky upwards. Are you're going to see
Speaker 1: menu prices fall? Are you going to see you know,
Speaker 1: right now, there's a big battle for the soul of
Speaker 1: tipping wherever you go to a cafe and they flipped
Speaker 1: the iPad around. Is that gonna subside once you win?
Speaker 1: And if you see unemployment go up. I just think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of coat tails of this pandemic
Speaker 1: and the many disruptions that we're still trying to to
Speaker 1: separate and pick up the pieces of. And I know
Speaker 1: I mixed three thousand metaphors there, but that's just my style.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about e VS and you
Speaker 1: on and Twitter because we have to. That's a mandatory question.
Speaker 1: You on has not killed Twitter, but he has not
Speaker 1: killed it with Twitter, right, He's happy just to keep
Speaker 1: servicing the debt on this thing. I mean, what do
Speaker 1: you see? What do you think? How much money can
Speaker 1: you throw at this? He already paid way too much
Speaker 1: for it, and he fired half the staff. We saw
Speaker 1: maybe some of the wheels come off again last night.
Speaker 1: Did you see yesterday what was happening where you tried
Speaker 1: to host tweets? And it said do you've tweeted too
Speaker 1: many times? I was like, I've tweeted thrice? What he
Speaker 1: got against me? You know, I'm afraid of these kind
Speaker 1: of these eyes of of sa Ron looking at me
Speaker 1: whatever I tweet. I want to say something sassy, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to get banned because you know, I
Speaker 1: need that nectar. So I don't know what he's doing.
Speaker 1: I know that whatever his net worth was before he
Speaker 1: bought this two hundred billion dollars, even if he has
Speaker 1: to liquidate Tesla stock to do this, I think just
Speaker 1: to prove a point, he keeps throwing good money after
Speaker 1: bad and I just don't get it. I don't see
Speaker 1: the business emerging out of this. I don't see the
Speaker 1: return on investment. It's just a shiny babble for a
Speaker 1: man with a massive ego, As if it isn't hard
Speaker 1: enough to do Tesla and SpaceX and kind of be
Speaker 1: the Steve Jobs of his age, he had to go
Speaker 1: in and buy Twitter. You had to be a big shot,
Speaker 1: did you. As long as he's happy losing money, there's
Speaker 1: not going to be a day when the dead comes back.
Speaker 1: I mean to consider his equity, disposure and everything else.
Speaker 1: He can take out the debt at lower levels and
Speaker 1: retire some of the banks and the others who were
Speaker 1: who right now probably have remorse for putting into this
Speaker 1: club deal, and he could take them out just for
Speaker 1: just for the sake of saying I have it now.
Speaker 1: If you were a true cold eyed investor, you'd want
Speaker 1: to be taking them out at a discount so you
Speaker 1: could sell it back at let's say a hundred percent
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. There's no evidence that this business
Speaker 1: has been improved. If anything, all of tech has been
Speaker 1: impaired since he first came in and had this dance
Speaker 1: with them I think in April of two. So I
Speaker 1: don't see what the upshot is for him. Just to
Speaker 1: let all these different characters back onto Twitter. Maybe, just
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't matter when you're that rich, if you
Speaker 1: know you're marked down by thirty or forty billion dollars,
Speaker 1: what does it matter to you? Are you gonna Are
Speaker 1: you gonna eat less? Are you gonna shed any of
Speaker 1: your homes? Are you gonna do less of this? But
Speaker 1: for a while at least it really ticked off test
Speaker 1: La shareholders because he was he was taking his eye
Speaker 1: off the test le bawl. So now are Tesla share
Speaker 1: shareholders less ad and why the stock is back up
Speaker 1: after it created? I think it had a good report.
Speaker 1: But again, you know how much of this stuff, how
Speaker 1: much of it, how much of of Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: tweeting about Twitter versus Tesla, which is his cordetting and SpaceX.
Speaker 1: I think that is the concern. And honestly, Twitter, for
Speaker 1: as sticky as it is for all of us, it
Speaker 1: was never a great business. It was never making anywhere
Speaker 1: near what meta, Facebook and Google and Apple were doing.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how you reinvent that into a
Speaker 1: good business. There was this idea, maybe you could turn
Speaker 1: it into a mega app and it could have payments
Speaker 1: and photos sharing and everything into it. But I'm not
Speaker 1: all that sure anybody could have pulled it off. But
Speaker 1: then again, he didn't have to come in and bid
Speaker 1: so much for it to leave him no room for maneuver.
Speaker 1: So you know, you break it, you buy it, you
Speaker 1: own it. But I just want to keep going with
Speaker 1: this for a minute. Doesn't Tesla seem like largely overvalued
Speaker 1: considering that now a lot of that ev technology is
Speaker 1: I mean, if you could buy a Tepslo, you could
Speaker 1: buy a Chevy Vault, right, yeah, but the Tesla is
Speaker 1: far preferable. I mean, you know, back back, you remember
Speaker 1: the Geo Metro, the Chevy Vault, everything. I think the
Speaker 1: airport where I live has a little signed by the
Speaker 1: parking garage says you are not allowed to park a
Speaker 1: Chevy Bolt in here because it's a fire risk. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the worst kind of advertising for general motors ever. Wait,
Speaker 1: is it a fire risk? There was something that happened
Speaker 1: with their batteries and a fire risk that they had
Speaker 1: to have in a recall. Tesla is still worth seven
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars. It's perceived to have a six or
Speaker 1: seven year head start ahead of all of the legacy
Speaker 1: car makers. It's not like you were ever settling if
Speaker 1: you bought a Tesla. It wasn't like a Geo Metro
Speaker 1: or a you Go. It's an elite car, and it
Speaker 1: feels like you're still settling with some of these other vehicles.
Speaker 1: I think Ford has made enormous strides with its Mustang.
Speaker 1: There's still a war for for range. You're seeing Rivan.
Speaker 1: Some of the giant pickup trucks come out for it.
Speaker 1: But it's still a perception of kind of you know,
Speaker 1: Dr Pepper versus Mr pib if you will, I understand
Speaker 1: the idea of that it's a premium product, but the
Speaker 1: valuation is so high, and also Tesla's and its own
Speaker 1: problems with spontaneous fires. So I mean, isn't there a
Speaker 1: world where Mercedes just starts making e v s and
Speaker 1: then Tesla goes away. I mean, I'm just this is
Speaker 1: I'm just pushing because it is such an expensive company. True,
Speaker 1: they call it the innovator's dilemma. Why didn't Microsoft invent
Speaker 1: the first smartphone? Why didn't Microsoft ce mobile coming? Why
Speaker 1: didn't Sony, the parent of the Walkman, invent the iPod?
Speaker 1: And can you expect these guys who have a hundred
Speaker 1: years of addiction to the internal combustion engine and the
Speaker 1: fossil fuel industrial complex and their supply chains to overnight
Speaker 1: just kind of shift to a vehicle like a Tesla,
Speaker 1: which has far fewer parts, which is software and battery intensive.
Speaker 1: That's culturally just not in their blood. And they can
Speaker 1: advertise about it as much as they want on the
Speaker 1: super Bowl, but again they're not the ones. I mean,
Speaker 1: how many Sony products do you have in your house
Speaker 1: right now versus Apple products right right? It's an innovator's dilemma,
Speaker 1: and it's a self disruptor's dilemma. They can advertise about it,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure if you get a bunch of beers
Speaker 1: into the CEOs of Ford and GM and and the
Speaker 1: other one which is called Stalantis, is is what's left
Speaker 1: of Chrysler, which merged with some you know, European carmakers,
Speaker 1: they would much rather stretch out there one way by
Speaker 1: selling as many ginormous gas guzzlers as possible. Right now.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're advertising on the Super Bowl about the
Speaker 1: electric future, but you can't get enough of Ford f
Speaker 1: one fifty sales or these GM super SUVs or suburbans
Speaker 1: that are put together out of Arlington, Texas, and that's
Speaker 1: just brutally hard to disrupt. That's your profit center, and
Speaker 1: Wall Street is judging you heavily un quarter to quarter profitability,
Speaker 1: where Tesla's mostly getting a pass because it has this
Speaker 1: charismatic CEO that has what they called with with Steve Jobs,
Speaker 1: how to reality distortion force Field. So I think there's
Speaker 1: an asymmetry to it, to be honest, what I mean,
Speaker 1: I I just I think you're giving a lot too
Speaker 1: much credit. The market's giving him too much credit. Ford
Speaker 1: plus GM combined is worth a little over a hundred
Speaker 1: billion dollars. Tesla is worth seven hundred billion dollars. Every
Speaker 1: short seller has been trying to short it for forever,
Speaker 1: and the market is paying for some sort of future
Speaker 1: that the Big three, the Big two and a half
Speaker 1: are not able to convince the market to pay up
Speaker 1: for right now. I agree with you. If they can
Speaker 1: come up, and someone could come up with a killer
Speaker 1: app Like I got a six hundred mile range car.
Speaker 1: You're gonna lust after it. People are gonna love it,
Speaker 1: just gonna pull up at the Oscars and everything. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be amazing. And I could sell it for thirty
Speaker 1: five or forty grand profitably, then you would see Tesla
Speaker 1: stock fall. If Apple came out suddenly that that the
Speaker 1: following morning and said we're gonna have the Apple EV
Speaker 1: you're gonna see all these fanboys and fangirls flock into it,
Speaker 1: and Tesla stock will fall. Until then, Tesla is the
Speaker 1: industry standard for EV. It has at least a five
Speaker 1: year head start, and for a while people were paying
Speaker 1: up more than a trillion dollars in market value for that.
Speaker 1: A lot of that sold off last year when Musk
Speaker 1: was distracted with Twitter. Right, yeah, I mean I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean that's where we are so interesting. Will you
Speaker 1: please come back? I love it, and in fact I
Speaker 1: have I have a new jingle for you if you guys,
Speaker 1: you know, if your producer wants to excerpt and use it,
Speaker 1: I will charge royalties or anything. So wait for it.
Speaker 1: Three to one jong jong jong jong yo. No it's
Speaker 1: not gonna work. No, that's going to get the cutely
Speaker 1: getting the cut. I thought you you know what cut it? You?
Speaker 1: You always a delight and you must come back. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Cornell Belcher as President of Brilliant Corners Research and Strategies
Speaker 1: and an MSNBC political analyst. Welcome to Fast Politics, Cornell Belcher.
Speaker 1: I you have to say it really fast. I wanted
Speaker 1: to have you on for a number reasons besides being
Speaker 1: a fan, but almosto because you did a video the
Speaker 1: other day, which is something that's actually quite close to
Speaker 1: my heart, which is why the media, right wing, mainstream everybody, uh,
Speaker 1: continues to be horrendous to the first female black East
Speaker 1: Indian vice president ever, the highest level of woman has
Speaker 1: ever gotten in American government. Like you clearly were moved
Speaker 1: by something, and I wanted to ask you about that.
Speaker 1: But but you know, it's not even just the the
Speaker 1: just the mainstream and well, and I put the right,
Speaker 1: you know, aside, because they're a hate echo chamber, but
Speaker 1: but it's also those on the left who are also falling,
Speaker 1: falling into these these sexiest tropes and certainly treating the
Speaker 1: vice president in a way the first woman vice president
Speaker 1: away that they absolutely didn't treat any man in and
Speaker 1: ask questions of the vice president, this vice president and
Speaker 1: demands of this vice president that they just didn't make
Speaker 1: of any of the the the over twenty years of
Speaker 1: men who said in this position, no, I mean that
Speaker 1: is the thing that I have been so shocked by.
Speaker 1: It just strikes me. And I mean liberals, conservatives, everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what they say. I mean, the
Speaker 1: thing that I've heard so much since I've interviewed her
Speaker 1: and had her on this podcast and also written about
Speaker 1: it from anyffair is that, Um, they'll say. I can't
Speaker 1: put my finger on it. I just don't like her.
Speaker 1: We'll see. That's the thing. Okay, Look, it is fair.
Speaker 1: It is completely fair and inbound to question policy initiatives.
Speaker 1: And Okay, I disagree with the Biden administration on a
Speaker 1: policy initiative. And the vice president was out talking about
Speaker 1: this policy initiative. But understand, she's the vice president. It's
Speaker 1: not like these are her policy and so her job
Speaker 1: is to support and so I talked about it and
Speaker 1: and and my video. The job device president is to
Speaker 1: be the man beside the man, and for unfortunately it
Speaker 1: has been for overturning years, the man beside the man,
Speaker 1: and to smile and to dote on and to support
Speaker 1: and then help him try and unfortunately it has always
Speaker 1: been at him to help him try to sell and
Speaker 1: move his policies. That's basically a job. But now in
Speaker 1: the media, they're criticizing her for not showing leadership, you know,
Speaker 1: in spaces that where the president isn't right. They want
Speaker 1: her to be out in front on certain on issues,
Speaker 1: and why isn't she out in front on this, and
Speaker 1: why isn't she talking about this? And one of them
Speaker 1: criticize her for not showing that the world that she
Speaker 1: is ready to be leader of the party, much less
Speaker 1: the United States. And I'm going, oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: not the job of the president the vice president to
Speaker 1: leave the administration to be a leader on any of
Speaker 1: these things. The job is back to back up the president.
Speaker 1: And so this criticism that's coming towards her about how
Speaker 1: she's not out in front on X, Y and Z
Speaker 1: sort of liberal issues that so many of them want
Speaker 1: her so so so many of them want her to
Speaker 1: be out in front on is you know, to me,
Speaker 1: it's a double standard that you certainly didn't see them
Speaker 1: calling out when Biden was president. I can't recall a
Speaker 1: time where they were going, oh my god, I wish
Speaker 1: Biden were out in front on X Y and Z issue,
Speaker 1: you know, all right, that is the like the real
Speaker 1: question here, and especially because during early days of this presidency.
Speaker 1: She was accused of calling the strengths remember that, yes,
Speaker 1: on the right, you know, And I understand in a
Speaker 1: diabolical political way, I understand what the right was trying
Speaker 1: to do when they were trying to call her sort
Speaker 1: of the puppet master, like this old guy who's not
Speaker 1: in control. And it's easy to vilify her because one again,
Speaker 1: sexism is real in America. It's easy to vilify the woman,
Speaker 1: and particularly a woman of color, right, and it is
Speaker 1: easy to sort of vilify her and play into all
Speaker 1: these race tropes and and sexism tropes around her. So
Speaker 1: I get it from the right, and I understand it
Speaker 1: from the right. I don't approve it from right, but
Speaker 1: I do understand everyone right because that's how they rile
Speaker 1: up their base, right. It is that it is this dark, evil, uh,
Speaker 1: scary mean woman who we got to watch out for. Right,
Speaker 1: this is the you know, it's the scary, scary black person.
Speaker 1: I get that, that's that's historical. But what I don't
Speaker 1: get is is it from the left and and it
Speaker 1: and it goes to me it sort of speaks to
Speaker 1: how even on the left there is implicit gender bias
Speaker 1: that we just have to call out because there are
Speaker 1: folks on the left who are criticizing her for things like,
Speaker 1: you know, not showing leader ship, not smiling enough, right,
Speaker 1: And again those are never critiques that they've made of
Speaker 1: men over the last two d plus years, because it's
Speaker 1: not the job of the vice president to be out
Speaker 1: in front and lead. No. I mean that is it's
Speaker 1: such an important issue, and I think that until we
Speaker 1: are willing to talk about it, we will continually make
Speaker 1: this mistake as a country. And I think, like I
Speaker 1: think about this a lot because you know, in the UK,
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher thirty years ago more. I mean, and we
Speaker 1: in America just cannot break this misogyny that is preventing
Speaker 1: us from letting female politicians really lead. No, I think
Speaker 1: that's right, and that's such a good point. And you
Speaker 1: point out most of the Western democracies have had and
Speaker 1: quite frankly, any of those when when you think of India, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I mean even in Asia. You know, most of the
Speaker 1: modern democracies have had women leader. But why is it
Speaker 1: that this still escapes us here? And I think when
Speaker 1: you look at the way the double standard that applied
Speaker 1: to the first woman to reach this high office and
Speaker 1: the first woman of color to do it, I think
Speaker 1: you begin to understand it. And even sort of in
Speaker 1: Hillary's run. You know, some of the coverage of Hillary,
Speaker 1: whether it be talking about her hair or how she
Speaker 1: was dressed, it is such an overt double standard, and
Speaker 1: I think we've got to call it out and we've
Speaker 1: got to make it not okay for them to treat
Speaker 1: women differently than how they treat men, or they're going
Speaker 1: to continue to do it. And that was that was
Speaker 1: my major point is to put is it put so
Speaker 1: at least the mainstream media on notice, is that we
Speaker 1: are going to start calling this out because if we
Speaker 1: don't call it out, you're going to continue to do it.
Speaker 1: A lot of like straight news reporters were furious about
Speaker 1: the k Hive, right. They were really mad that there
Speaker 1: were people on the internet defending the vice president and
Speaker 1: that she had these super fans. They were really, really mad.
Speaker 1: But the reality is that you know, Bernie had them.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of politicians have super fans.
Speaker 1: I mean Trump had, you know, super fans like you
Speaker 1: can't believe. And the fact that this particular group was demonized,
Speaker 1: I think does speak to this larger issue of she
Speaker 1: is held to a completely different standard than male politicians are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it makes it more difficult for women to rise
Speaker 1: in these positions because of this double standard. When you
Speaker 1: look at how difficult it has been for women to rise,
Speaker 1: particularly in politics, and I look, and I was watching
Speaker 1: this this video the other day about the great Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 1: You know, who's going down is the greatest you know,
Speaker 1: speaker in modern American history. There was all of twenty
Speaker 1: three women in Congress when when Nancy Pelosi arrived there,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot more now. But look, even now,
Speaker 1: there's not enough representation, not enough women representatives in Congress
Speaker 1: and certainly not in the in the Senate. And again,
Speaker 1: I think what we're seeing level and at the vice
Speaker 1: president is an attribute of this gender bias that makes
Speaker 1: it so difficult for women to get a hit in
Speaker 1: politics and had access to power. So last week we
Speaker 1: had Nancy Pelosi on this podcast. You know, my parents
Speaker 1: are that age, and I know how fragile people in
Speaker 1: their eighties are, so you know, I was sort of
Speaker 1: just horrified and even shocked that the family thought said
Speaker 1: that he was going to make a full recovery, because
Speaker 1: when you're at that age, you don't really know if
Speaker 1: you'll ever you know what I mean. But she said
Speaker 1: that the thing that got her the most upset was
Speaker 1: she really worried that women were not going to run
Speaker 1: because they were worried about their families. Well, yes, and
Speaker 1: there is a culture, unfortunately, there is a culture of
Speaker 1: violence broadly in this country that is second to none.
Speaker 1: And let look and look, that's just faction. And and
Speaker 1: we're going to pretend that there's also not a culture
Speaker 1: of political violence in this country. As I was reading
Speaker 1: Stokely Cartermichael's biography of of Stokely, and and we at
Speaker 1: this section where where they talk about King's assassination and
Speaker 1: how deeply, you know, painful it was for for Stokely,
Speaker 1: and how he saw Hope, you know, slipping away, and
Speaker 1: it talked about how Robert Kennedy talked about the violence
Speaker 1: that had that he had seen, you know, taken his
Speaker 1: brother and the violence had taken King, and of course
Speaker 1: just months later Robert would be killed himself. Right, So
Speaker 1: just so we we try to shove it under the road,
Speaker 1: but there's such a history of violence in this country.
Speaker 1: And and look, the we know that the members of
Speaker 1: Congress are under more assault now than they have been
Speaker 1: in the past, sort of more threats coming in against
Speaker 1: them and in the past. And it's sort of the
Speaker 1: bullying society that I think. You know, if you are
Speaker 1: if you are a woman, and particularly if you're a
Speaker 1: mom with with with with a family, you do have
Speaker 1: to take that in consideration when you think about putting
Speaker 1: yourself in your family out there in the public spotlight
Speaker 1: and out there in the public arena, because there are vulnerabilities. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I just I don't know, I just it is
Speaker 1: such a real problem. And I mean, you know, we've
Speaker 1: only had eleven African American senators, only two female African
Speaker 1: American senators. You know, we have lived in this country
Speaker 1: where there just is not a fair representation. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you, what do you think about the South
Speaker 1: Carolina primary move I actually like it and look and
Speaker 1: as someone who worked for you know, both of the
Speaker 1: you know, the Obama campaign, I have a fondness for
Speaker 1: Iowa New Hampshire. It is very reflective of an old
Speaker 1: style politic, especially in Iowa the CAUCUSUS. I think it's
Speaker 1: also fair to say that we need more diversity upfront
Speaker 1: and the primaries, and we need you know, more states
Speaker 1: that are reflective of of how the country looks and
Speaker 1: reflective of of of some of some of the broader
Speaker 1: issues beyond beyond sort of these sort of smaller states
Speaker 1: and more more agricultural states. I do think that's fair,
Speaker 1: but I also understand why Iowa New Hampshire want to
Speaker 1: hold on to their very right But I think you know,
Speaker 1: when you put when you put Southfrolina and you put
Speaker 1: you know, Michigan, sort of these these bigger, more diverse
Speaker 1: states and these in Georgia and these more you know,
Speaker 1: industrial states, I think it does help candidate who's going
Speaker 1: to be quite frankly able to speak to a broader
Speaker 1: swath of the general actor. I think it prepares them
Speaker 1: more to speak to and reach and win abroad us
Speaker 1: wall of the general electric that Iowa New Hampshire. But
Speaker 1: again I respected great respect for Hampshire. But I think
Speaker 1: it was the right move for the for for the
Speaker 1: party to do. I want to ask you about Biden's
Speaker 1: polling because this is something that gainst me, well, I
Speaker 1: just don't understand, I truly believe. I know you saw
Speaker 1: this Washington Post ABC poll that came out earlier in
Speaker 1: the week I saw it and thought, this can't be right.
Speaker 1: So there was an ABC Washington Post poll that basically
Speaker 1: showed his approval rating being it showed that no one
Speaker 1: in the world wants to match up between Trump and Biden,
Speaker 1: and then it's sort of put together a kind of
Speaker 1: false equivalency of Biden and Trump. That is my hot take. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, I thought it was wrong, and I wondered why,
Speaker 1: and again, like we both saw the same pretty excellent
Speaker 1: State of the Union speech last night, and I just
Speaker 1: want to know, are the polls wrong? Are we wrong?
Speaker 1: I mean what I mean, do you buy that his
Speaker 1: popularity numbers are this? We're often looking for the wrong
Speaker 1: things and polls, and we're looking for polls to do
Speaker 1: something that that polls can't do because we want polls
Speaker 1: to be crystal balls, because because we Americans always want
Speaker 1: to know the future. That's not a job of a poll.
Speaker 1: So you take the information that's in a poll that's
Speaker 1: actionable and you should act on it. Look the in
Speaker 1: Washington Post they are pretty darn good posters. Like there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot of public polls that that are that
Speaker 1: are that aren't very good. But but the Post is
Speaker 1: is usually pretty good. But that said, look what do
Speaker 1: I take from that pole. I take from that poll
Speaker 1: that there is a large swath of Americans, the majority
Speaker 1: of Americans, I think was of Americans or more who
Speaker 1: have no idea what the president has done. I think
Speaker 1: for a lot of US insiders who pay attention to politics,
Speaker 1: a lot who read the newspaper or read online political articles,
Speaker 1: you know, several times a day. And you know, my
Speaker 1: Twitter feed is full of smart people like you and
Speaker 1: other reporters and what have you. It's easy for us
Speaker 1: to understand that this president has been transformative in the
Speaker 1: legislative way, the lights of which we probably haven't seen
Speaker 1: since LBJ. When you look at the legislation that they
Speaker 1: were remarkably able to move in just two years and
Speaker 1: a very tightly divided Congress, it is remarkable. It is
Speaker 1: a political experience and political gravitas on the part of
Speaker 1: the President, Pelosi and Schumer that should go down in history.
Speaker 1: I mean, for how many years have we heard presidents
Speaker 1: talk about an infrastructure bill and none of them are
Speaker 1: able to actually get it done. And they got it
Speaker 1: done with a fifty fiftist but sent it. So what
Speaker 1: they've been able to do is fairly remarkable. But the
Speaker 1: American public they don't know it, they have no context
Speaker 1: for it, and all they hear is negative news. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say thought, as I want to put this
Speaker 1: in context of two things. One is I really do
Speaker 1: when I do focus groups and listening to Americans around
Speaker 1: the country, there is a disconnect with Washington because they
Speaker 1: see the fighting and the negativism and the division, and
Speaker 1: what I hear from them is they tune it out.
Speaker 1: They don't want to pay attention to it because it's
Speaker 1: always bad or sad news and it's always just fighting.
Speaker 1: So they actually don't have a real grounding and understanding
Speaker 1: of the tremendous work that President Buying has put in
Speaker 1: on his behalf and his accomplishments. Because when you get
Speaker 1: six percent of people saying that they don't think he's
Speaker 1: done anything, when he's been one of the most accomplished
Speaker 1: presidents since l B J. That's a real problem, right,
Speaker 1: and it's actionable. And when you see the president and
Speaker 1: vice president and members of the cabinet spread out like today,
Speaker 1: like the presidents of the Wisconsin, the vice presidents in Georgia,
Speaker 1: and that you've got cabinet members out all the parts
Speaker 1: of country, talking about infrastructure, talking about climate change right,
Speaker 1: and talking about their legislation. They've got this information and
Speaker 1: they're and they're acting on it. But the second piece
Speaker 1: of this I want to point out is that the
Speaker 1: Republicans are crazy like like they're crazy like foxes. And
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is they all this negativism,
Speaker 1: all this division, all this ugliness they constantly drive. It's
Speaker 1: for purpose. It is to grow that cynicism about politics.
Speaker 1: It is to grow this ideal that Washington is broken
Speaker 1: and nothing can get done, and so I can just
Speaker 1: tune out, and that's how they win. And I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you right now, it is a real problem that
Speaker 1: so many Americans are tuning out, and so many Americans
Speaker 1: don't really understand what's happening in Washington, and that they're
Speaker 1: cynical about Washington and think Washington is broken and the
Speaker 1: President isn't doing anything. And in that context, that's how
Speaker 1: Republicans win. Thanks for now, all right, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I know you, our dear listeners, are
Speaker 1: very busy and you don't have time to sort through
Speaker 1: the hundreds of pieces of pundentry each week and This
Speaker 1: is why every week I put together a newsletter of
Speaker 1: my five favorite articles on politics. If you enjoy the podcast,
Speaker 1: you will love having this in your inbox every Friday.
Speaker 1: So sign up at Fast Politics pod dot com and
Speaker 1: click the tab to join our mailing list. That's Fast
Speaker 1: Politics pod dot com. Busy Phillips is an actress and
Speaker 1: activist and host of Busy is Doing Her Best. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, Busy. Hey, how are you. We're good,
Speaker 1: very excited to have you. Thank you. We're just talking.
Speaker 1: You are a podcast host, among other things, and one
Speaker 1: of the things I really have been wanting to talk
Speaker 1: to you about for a long long time is your work,
Speaker 1: your advocacy work around abortion. And I was curious. You know,
Speaker 1: you come from acting. There's often like a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure for actors not to be political. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you came up in that world that way,
Speaker 1: but did you feel that, Oh yeah, no, honey. I
Speaker 1: came up in the world where I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you didn't do the maximum hot one hundred, you
Speaker 1: weren't going to have a film career, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Like that was like I was definitely shut
Speaker 1: up and hit your mark. And you're expendable and don't
Speaker 1: make waves. And if a guy on set tells you
Speaker 1: that they jacked off to you last night, you gotta
Speaker 1: laugh and keep going with your day. So no, I
Speaker 1: definitely was of the era that taking like real political
Speaker 1: stands isn't a safe thing to do, especially as a
Speaker 1: woman in the industry. You know, I think that just
Speaker 1: collectively that as the all of the tides started turning.
Speaker 1: I was always a person that was politically active and
Speaker 1: motivated behind the scenes. I mean, I threw my own
Speaker 1: fundraisers in my twenties with my friends for different candidates,
Speaker 1: and I remember going to see Barack Obama speak when
Speaker 1: he was running for senator, paid to go to some
Speaker 1: fundraiser in Los Angeles to see this new superstar of
Speaker 1: the party, and always like gave money to Planned Parenthood,
Speaker 1: but never was going to be vocal about the fact
Speaker 1: that I had had an abortion when I was fifteen
Speaker 1: years old, or that bodily autonomy is you know, all right,
Speaker 1: and then we all that we all deserve, you know. Again,
Speaker 1: Also though it's the same, I'm gen X. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm on the younger side. I guess of gen X, right,
Speaker 1: I'm forty four and Jesse is forty five. I'm forty three. Guys,
Speaker 1: we're in a row, okay. You know, by design, our
Speaker 1: generation was told that row was safe, that this work
Speaker 1: had been done. And you know, I was very busy
Speaker 1: building my career in Los Angeles and traveling for work,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't Also, you know, this is like before
Speaker 1: the twenty four news cycle, and then even when it started,
Speaker 1: we didn't get the you know, trap laws that were
Speaker 1: passing in different states and the slow but sure chipping
Speaker 1: away at the rights. I mean, I just want to
Speaker 1: get back to this for a second, because I do think.
Speaker 1: I so we're the same age, older than you are,
Speaker 1: but we'll just pretend we're the same age. We're all
Speaker 1: in high school at the same time, exactly. Yes, But
Speaker 1: you know, when I came up, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: for actresses, there was a real feeling that you weren't
Speaker 1: supposed to talk about politics, and you know this whole
Speaker 1: men's magazine thing, which you know, I was writing in
Speaker 1: magazines back then, and there were these men's magazines. And
Speaker 1: it's funny because I was watching like an old episode
Speaker 1: of thirty Rock and they were so disgustingly misogynistic. I
Speaker 1: mean to the point where I mean just terrific. You
Speaker 1: don't know to tell me. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: was there, I was in one and it was like
Speaker 1: I was like a holdout. I didn't want to do it.
Speaker 1: And I'm not kidding you when I say I had
Speaker 1: a general meeting with the head of casting at a big,
Speaker 1: huge studio. I was on Dawson's Creek at the time,
Speaker 1: and I wanted a film career, like I wanted to
Speaker 1: do movies, and at the very least I wanted to
Speaker 1: do another TV show. When Dawson's Creek was over, and
Speaker 1: the head of casting at this studio pulled out multiple
Speaker 1: issues of Maximum, f h M and Stuff magazine and
Speaker 1: said to me, look, I'll be honest with you. At
Speaker 1: every executive, every person making creative decisions and signing off,
Speaker 1: you know, they send me these lists, so these girls,
Speaker 1: and they say, let's get her in a movie? When
Speaker 1: can we put her in? If you don't do one
Speaker 1: of these, you know, you're just you're effectively you know,
Speaker 1: you might not have of the upper hand of of
Speaker 1: a woman that does. He probably didn't say woman. You know,
Speaker 1: and I was twenty one and I'm like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll like put on some a bathing suit and
Speaker 1: crawl around on the floor of a studio for a
Speaker 1: couple hours, and it's like horrifying in retrospect, you know that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's also why I love being on Girls
Speaker 1: BYBA too, because we get to skewer that so very
Speaker 1: specific time um and culture. But you know, I think that, yeah,
Speaker 1: no one wanted to hear what my views were, no,
Speaker 1: and so I do think it's very brave. So what
Speaker 1: explain to me the thinking of when you came out
Speaker 1: and told the story? Also fifteen? I mean, I got
Speaker 1: sober when I was nineteen, so I relate to having
Speaker 1: like a very complicated teenage hood. But to come forward
Speaker 1: with that story is particularly brave. So how did you
Speaker 1: make the decision to do it? Well, I actually knew
Speaker 1: that it was always something I wanted to do, talk
Speaker 1: about come forward with, and after sort of the advent
Speaker 1: of social media and my own Instagram becoming very popular
Speaker 1: my Instagram stories, I finally got a book deal, which
Speaker 1: is what I literally had always wanted. I had always
Speaker 1: wanted to write a book, and part of it was
Speaker 1: that I thought that that was where I was going
Speaker 1: to best be able to tell that version of a
Speaker 1: story as opposed to talking to a reporter about it
Speaker 1: in stuff magazine like can you imagine? Can you even imagine? Right? No, No,
Speaker 1: I remember and Gear and I mean they were just
Speaker 1: they were just one was worse in the next. Yes,
Speaker 1: they were all terrible. So I knew that that was
Speaker 1: the opportunity that I was going to take in order
Speaker 1: to talk about my pregnancy and abortion at age fifteen.
Speaker 1: You know, and my late night talk show that was
Speaker 1: on the E network for about a year almost was
Speaker 1: coming out. It coincided with my book coming out. Everything
Speaker 1: was happening all at once, like as as it does
Speaker 1: in these things. And I was actually very surprised when
Speaker 1: my book came out that the story about my abortion
Speaker 1: didn't get much traction. And writing a memoir is a
Speaker 1: certain kind of therapy, and hell yes, and then releasing
Speaker 1: it into the world as another that no one can
Speaker 1: prepare you for. I had sort of, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I feel like I had really prepared myself for a
Speaker 1: lot of negative responses to the abortion story, and then
Speaker 1: all anyone wanted to talk about was like James Franco,
Speaker 1: my relationship from freaks and geeks. I'm sorry, I mean
Speaker 1: that like really hurts. And also I am sorry. I
Speaker 1: mean it's like it was not last on me. You know.
Speaker 1: The point that I was making in the entire book
Speaker 1: was just about my experience as a woman growing up
Speaker 1: at this particular time in history, and then being in
Speaker 1: the entertainment industry during this time in history being asked
Speaker 1: about James Franco. Literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of headlines about my book my memoir
Speaker 1: are about James Franco. Amazing, just like, well, there you go.
Speaker 1: You can't win, you can't win even still. But then
Speaker 1: you know, because I had the talk show, you know,
Speaker 1: this is when en was when these like you know,
Speaker 1: they started really testing the waters. After you know, they've
Speaker 1: gone as far as they could go with these trap laws,
Speaker 1: and they started passing the extreme abortion bills in different states,
Speaker 1: and Ohio was one of them. And and you grew
Speaker 1: up in Ohio, Georgia, No no, no. I I grew
Speaker 1: up in Arizona, which had had their owners. Yes, ship
Speaker 1: show of a of a pre statehood band is what
Speaker 1: they reinstituted for a minute in Arizona. But thankfully that
Speaker 1: crazy woman didn't win. And it is carry like I
Speaker 1: didn't want to say her name. I was like literally
Speaker 1: not saying her name on her bost like Baltimore, right,
Speaker 1: don't say it she is. I don't want her to
Speaker 1: like be famous. I don't want her to have name recognition. No,
Speaker 1: she's horrible, but no. It was when Georgia passed their
Speaker 1: extreme abortion band and also coupled that with a story
Speaker 1: that came out from Ohio about a child. No I
Speaker 1: remember that story, Yeah, not the one that the Republicans
Speaker 1: accused people of making up. This is a different one.
Speaker 1: This is and the child was my child's age, And
Speaker 1: all I could think was like, oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: a little kid, Like that's a little little little kid.
Speaker 1: What's happening. I reached out to like friends of mine
Speaker 1: who had been like very active in the pro choice
Speaker 1: space over the years and that I knew a little
Speaker 1: bit from that space, and asked them what they thought
Speaker 1: about me talking about my abortion on my show. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like what we say, right, like representation matters for moments,
Speaker 1: like for cultural moments like this, And so we made
Speaker 1: the decision. My showrunner, Casey, my friend who I do
Speaker 1: my podcast with Casey, and I made the decision. I
Speaker 1: talked to a bunch of people. I talked to Center
Speaker 1: for reuper Rights and Planned Parenthood and you know, uh,
Speaker 1: they roll and just got everyone sort of take on
Speaker 1: what they feel felt in that moment was an important
Speaker 1: piece of the messaging, you know. And then we kind
Speaker 1: of like zeroed in on making it not too long,
Speaker 1: because you know, Lord knows men can talk for twenty
Speaker 1: five minutes about something, but we felt like we should
Speaker 1: keep it under two. And the point that I really
Speaker 1: wanted to get across is that if you think this
Speaker 1: isn't going to affect you, it has already. You are
Speaker 1: friends with people, you know, people that need this is
Speaker 1: an essential part of health care and being a person
Speaker 1: and controlling your own life and making decisions that are
Speaker 1: best for you and your family, not because a politician
Speaker 1: arbitrarily has decided it goes against his religious beliefs and whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean, we can, you know, we can get into
Speaker 1: the whole history of that anyway. Were you shocked at
Speaker 1: the response? I was definitely like prepared for the worst,
Speaker 1: and what I got instead was absolutely the greatest. And
Speaker 1: I've never felt better. I mean, Okay, not hyperbolically. If
Speaker 1: I only had that talk show for this re in
Speaker 1: and that is enough, that was it. That was everything
Speaker 1: to me. And sometimes I actually think about that because
Speaker 1: the fact that I even did it and had this
Speaker 1: idea and wanted to do it was so weird. And
Speaker 1: there is a part of me that thinks, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you had to do it so that you could do
Speaker 1: this in this moment, because after you know, it was
Speaker 1: a real moment in the in the movement, and like
Speaker 1: in terms of getting people to pay attention and realize
Speaker 1: what's happening with the extreme abortion bands and of course
Speaker 1: mant people you know, did not take it seriously or
Speaker 1: didn't think it would happen to their state or for
Speaker 1: any number of it never thought Rowe was gonna solve
Speaker 1: and also just destigmatizing being able to say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had an abortion as well. I mean I had
Speaker 1: friends who literally didn't know that the d n c
Speaker 1: s that they had were abortions and that's still true.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. People getting people to understand that is wild. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just wrote Peace a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: it was inspired by talking to Rob and Marty. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know her, she wrote the post
Speaker 1: row hand. She runs a women's health center in Alabama,
Speaker 1: and we were talking about, you know, now they can't
Speaker 1: do abortions there, but they do maternal fetal health and
Speaker 1: they do early stage pregnancy stuff. And she was telling
Speaker 1: me she has all these people who have miscarriages and
Speaker 1: they can't get the treatment from miscarriages, and they never
Speaker 1: put it together, you know, they never put it together. No,
Speaker 1: they never did. I had a discussion with a friend
Speaker 1: who had had a lot of fertility issues and had
Speaker 1: had many miscarriages and then because of that had to
Speaker 1: have the aftercare which is considered and all of these
Speaker 1: places where abortion is effectively illegal to be abortion and
Speaker 1: they will not do it. They won't do it. And
Speaker 1: my friend was like arguing with me. She's like, no,
Speaker 1: that's it's not that's not what it's I'm like, honey,
Speaker 1: I literally I'm like on the board of these things now,
Speaker 1: Like I know, I get the emails that aren't just
Speaker 1: like you donate money emails. I get like the real
Speaker 1: emails from these people. They're not They're denying women care
Speaker 1: and regardless you know, of whether it's a choice or
Speaker 1: medically necessary or rape or incest or like, you know,
Speaker 1: qualifying this has only done exactly what the men and
Speaker 1: the readers of the you know, anti choice movement want
Speaker 1: to do, which is make that some some are morally
Speaker 1: better than others. Like you don't get to beat You're
Speaker 1: not the arbiter of that. That's not for you to decide.
Speaker 1: That is for me and my doctor, my god, my partners,
Speaker 1: my parents, and stay out of it, stay out of
Speaker 1: my body. Dude. Yeah, no, no, I agree, And I
Speaker 1: think that's a really important point. I also, do you
Speaker 1: think this idea of sharing our experience to help others
Speaker 1: and you know, I say this is someone who's sober
Speaker 1: like is really profound and useful. Yes. And also I
Speaker 1: am a person who holds space for friends and people
Speaker 1: who I don't know who it's re traumatizing for them,
Speaker 1: and they don't want to do it. They don't want
Speaker 1: to share whatever the experience, whether it's a sexual assault
Speaker 1: or their abortion or their you know, miscarriage and abortion
Speaker 1: care after. People have all kinds of feelings about things.
Speaker 1: But I do know from my own personal experience that
Speaker 1: sharing my story about my abortion freed me from holding
Speaker 1: a shame that I didn't even know I was still
Speaker 1: holding onto Yeah. Oh, I believe that that's really interesting
Speaker 1: and I think it is important. I mean, I definitely
Speaker 1: feel that way about sharing my sobriety. You know, I
Speaker 1: really do get more from sharing it than of people do,
Speaker 1: If that makes any sense. It does make sense. And
Speaker 1: I think that part of the piece of the conversation
Speaker 1: that keeps coming up and then getting missed and then
Speaker 1: coming up again is this is this empathy piece, and
Speaker 1: that for us to be able politically or otherwise exist
Speaker 1: in this states, these states, very disparate states, with lots
Speaker 1: of different people, with lots of different views, we have
Speaker 1: to be able to hold a bunch of truths at
Speaker 1: one time. And it's not something that political news and
Speaker 1: you know, pundits and like how everything is, you know, politics,
Speaker 1: how everything is turned into like this sort of game
Speaker 1: show in our culture. It's not something that is encouraged
Speaker 1: in our society right now. But it is the only
Speaker 1: thing that ever crosses party lines and bridges people together,
Speaker 1: which is just empathy, the and storytelling and sharing between
Speaker 1: each other so that you can understand and by the way,
Speaker 1: you don't even have to understand, but you can at
Speaker 1: least get a sense of someone else's humanity. Busy Phillips,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: thank you. It was so nice to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon, Molly john Fast. I heard you were at
Speaker 1: some fancy dinner last night. I was at a congressional
Speaker 1: media dinner, and at this dinner was a person who
Speaker 1: supposedly hates the media and does not care what they
Speaker 1: think and things they are all liars and cheaters, get
Speaker 1: showed up to a thing where they're going to smooze
Speaker 1: with the media. Sounds like them. And her name is
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Space Laser's Green. I think it's really important
Speaker 1: that we in the mainstream media make a concerted effort
Speaker 1: to launder the career of a woman who came to
Speaker 1: power on Q and on and anti Semitism. And while
Speaker 1: she has nice stresses and can go to parties and
Speaker 1: look like every reasonable person, she's not a reasonable person
Speaker 1: and she should not be laundered, and we cannot treat
Speaker 1: her like a normal congress person. And so as she
Speaker 1: is on her rehabilitation tour, I say this is our
Speaker 1: moment of gray. Do not help rehabilitate Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: and politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.