Speaker 1: Hi, Welcome back, Carol Marcowitz show on iHeartRadio. Clay Travis,
Speaker 1: he of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton podcast network
Speaker 1: that this show is on, highlighted a new study about happiness,
Speaker 1: and he pointed out that the happiness index has hit
Speaker 1: an all time low and that that number is largely
Speaker 1: driven by young people.
Speaker 2: The United States overall happiness index, to the extent that
Speaker 2: they track, this hit a all time low, and it's
Speaker 2: being driven by people under the age of thirty. And
Speaker 2: I would bet that it's women under the age of
Speaker 2: thirty overwhelmingly who are unhappy. And I think it's hard
Speaker 2: not to believe at this point that all of this
Speaker 2: isn't directly connected to social media. I mean, if you
Speaker 2: go look at the charts overall mental health rates. Now
Speaker 2: certainly COVID didn't help, but overall mental health rates just
Speaker 2: collapsed about twenty fourteen when social media became prevalent in
Speaker 2: everybody's lives. Yeah, and I think we're going to find
Speaker 2: out that this is like the nicotine or cigarettes of
Speaker 2: our generation, where we allowed these phones and these social
Speaker 2: media apps, particularly for young people, to really kind of
Speaker 2: lead us astray in terms of our life's pursuit.
Speaker 1: Now, he's right that it's the phones. But people who
Speaker 1: have been listening to the show for a while know
Speaker 1: what I'm going to challenge here. It's not the social media.
Speaker 1: There is no social media anymore. It used to be
Speaker 1: that teenagers would get depressed because their friends would share
Speaker 1: pictures on Facebook or Instagram of the amazing weekend they
Speaker 1: had and maybe didn't include them. Or they'd see their
Speaker 1: friends living amazing lives, filtered pictures, great vacations, perfect babies,
Speaker 1: all of that. That's just not what's happening on the
Speaker 1: internet anymore. That's not what the kids are watching. We're
Speaker 1: just all watching TV all the time. It might not
Speaker 1: be half hour or hour episodes, but these young people
Speaker 1: are just scrolling through hours of videos. And I said
Speaker 1: this last time, in the last episode about the girl,
Speaker 1: the mom wrote in to me about her daughter who
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to have a social life, and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd recognize depression if I told you someone
Speaker 1: watches ten hours of TV a day. But because they
Speaker 1: do it in bite size, you know, pieces, and they
Speaker 1: carry it around with them on their phone, we don't
Speaker 1: see how bad it is. Social media has nothing social
Speaker 1: about it, and I think we need to see exactly
Speaker 1: what the problem is in order to fix it. We
Speaker 1: have to think of it like a little TV we
Speaker 1: carry around. We have to understand how damaging it is
Speaker 1: to be that distracted all the time. Just imagine when
Speaker 1: there were no phones. If every time you were in
Speaker 1: an awkward interaction, you just turned your television on. When
Speaker 1: you're out, you don't see people taking selfies with their
Speaker 1: friends anymore. Instead, you still might see like a full
Speaker 1: on photo shoot, hapless man shooting his girlfriend from all
Speaker 1: different angles. She's a content creator, fine, but there's nothing
Speaker 1: social about that. And look at least her content is
Speaker 1: a break from the videos. Instagram, by the way, now
Speaker 1: offers bonuses for creator accounts that post photos because so
Speaker 1: few of them do that. It would be something else
Speaker 1: entirely if young people were still posting pictures of their
Speaker 1: lunches or their parties or whatever. But they're not. They're
Speaker 1: just zombiefied watching TV all the time. There's no way
Speaker 1: happiness levels will increase until we solve that. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Coming up next an interview with Selena Zito. Join us
Speaker 1: after the break. Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitch Show
Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Selena Zito. Selena is
Speaker 1: a Washington Examiner reporter and author of the upcoming book Butler. Hi,
Speaker 1: Selena is so nice to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Hi there, how are you?
Speaker 1: We were just talking offline about how insane it is
Speaker 1: that we've never met in real life. But I've been
Speaker 1: a Selna Zito fan like much of the country for
Speaker 1: a long long time now, and I just think you're
Speaker 1: fantastic and everything you do is like full of joy
Speaker 1: and happiness and you're wonderful. Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. I'm everybody's grandma.
Speaker 1: No people really, actually everybody's bestie.
Speaker 4: For it's basically the food. Then they maybe read me,
Speaker 4: but basically the food. I have to tell your listeners though,
Speaker 4: that I thought you gave me a homework assignment and
Speaker 4: I obeyed because you told me.
Speaker 3: I don't know how you phrased itel Like I said.
Speaker 1: Here are the three questions I ask all my guests,
Speaker 1: and my listeners will know that a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: the guests won't read the emails, and you'll be able
Speaker 1: to tell because they'll just be deer in headlights. When
Speaker 1: I ask them kind of, you know, a big question
Speaker 1: and like what do you worry about? And they're like
Speaker 1: what where did this come from? But Selena sent me
Speaker 1: back the answers, which was the cutest thing ever. I said, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about it on the show and
Speaker 1: she said, oh, I thought you gave me a homework assignment,
Speaker 1: which she then did. She finished the homework assignment, she
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I have homework. What am I
Speaker 1: going to do?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: It was late though, Like if it was true homework,
Speaker 5: I would have answered it that night, but in my
Speaker 5: zeal to be a perfect progressister, I.
Speaker 3: Sent it to you the night before.
Speaker 1: It was great. I did not read your answers because
Speaker 1: I want to be surprised.
Speaker 3: I on't even remember them.
Speaker 1: So the questions will be brand new either way, right,
Speaker 1: brand new? So how did you get into this world?
Speaker 1: I know a little bit about your story, but you
Speaker 1: really hit the national scene in twenty sixteen writing pieces
Speaker 1: that I think nobody else was doing anything close to. You.
Speaker 1: Were doing this crazy thing where you went out and
Speaker 1: you talked to regular people and ask them what they thought,
Speaker 1: and that was really groundbreaking. So tell us about your path.
Speaker 3: So I got into this accidentally, and sort of the
Speaker 3: old fashioned way, the way journalists used to be years ago,
Speaker 3: at local newspapers where they were members of the community,
Speaker 3: and most of them didn't have college degrees, but they
Speaker 3: had good writing skills, they had good people instincts, and
Speaker 3: they were able to turn a phrase pretty well.
Speaker 4: And that's basically all I had. And I also had
Speaker 4: experiences as a hairdresser, as a waitress, and most importantly
Speaker 4: as a soccer and football mom and hockey mom. So
Speaker 4: you know, I came into the game late. I was
Speaker 4: in my mid furies when I went back to work.
Speaker 4: I was mostly a stay at a home mom at
Speaker 4: that point. And they worked for the local newspaper, the
Speaker 4: Pittsburgh Tribune Review. But the owner of the paper's name
Speaker 4: was Richard Mellon'scaife. He had a very nationally well known name,
Speaker 4: one of the richest men in the country, from a
Speaker 4: very old family, the Mellon family, who owned all the
Speaker 4: melon banking, and he had a really keen interest in
Speaker 4: national news. And I don't know what he saw in me,
Speaker 4: but he saw my ability to listen to people and
Speaker 4: to be able to tell a decent story. And so
Speaker 4: he said, do you want to cover national politics, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, and I did, and.
Speaker 3: I learned pretty darn quickly. I was there for twenty years.
Speaker 3: I did this for twenty years, covering local and national
Speaker 3: politics and culture, and I learned pretty quickly. I think
Speaker 3: it was the John Kerry campaign or the maybe it
Speaker 3: was the Obama campaign. I can't remember. I knew very
Speaker 3: quickly that I did not belong on the campaign bus,
Speaker 3: like I just didn't not belong there. I remember calling it.
Speaker 3: It happened. Maybe it was Carrie. I don't know, I
Speaker 3: can't remember.
Speaker 4: I'm old.
Speaker 6: I just remember calling my boss from a pave phone,
Speaker 6: yeah in Scranton, Pennsylvania, saying I can't go on this
Speaker 6: bus any longer.
Speaker 3: All I am doing is spending time with other reporters,
Speaker 3: and they're all like, I have the same mindset. They're
Speaker 3: not from Pennsylvania. They don't kind of understand our quirkiness.
Speaker 3: And I'm not having any interaction with voters because they
Speaker 3: when you're in the press bus.
Speaker 7: You don't get to talk to people. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 7: writing crap. So he said, okay, just come home, and
Speaker 7: and in typical Selena fashion, I told the bus to
Speaker 7: just keep going without me. And then I was like, oh,
Speaker 7: wait a minute, I'm I gonna get know. SAT randomly rent.
Speaker 4: A car, and from that moment on, I only drove
Speaker 4: to whatever I was covering.
Speaker 3: And I've driven driven to every state. I've even been
Speaker 3: to Alaska. And I used to fly to.
Speaker 4: Events, but flying then became ridiculous because I live in
Speaker 4: a city where there's no hub, so therefore you had
Speaker 4: to make like thirteen different connecting flights, and you would
Speaker 4: miss one of them because one was late.
Speaker 3: And so I just started driving. So when I interviewed
Speaker 3: Governor DeSantis, I drove to Florida. But in that stretch,
Speaker 3: I got seventeen other really good stories, right and and
Speaker 3: and I always take back roads, they don't take turnpikes
Speaker 3: or interstates, because that's where you can see how places
Speaker 3: have changed for the better or for the worse, and
Speaker 3: you can understand why people vote the way they do.
Speaker 1: That is so amazing. I had no I did not
Speaker 1: know the driving thing. I always felt like your writing
Speaker 1: was you were trying to get to the bottom of
Speaker 1: what people really thought and where they really lived. And
Speaker 1: you always treat every place with such respect, And I
Speaker 1: think that that's you know, so beautiful, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know you were driving the back roads to get those stories.
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
Speaker 4: My first Jeep had four hundred thousand miles. It was
Speaker 4: fourteen years old. I'm on my second one and I
Speaker 4: just passed two hundred and seventy thousand. So yeah, but
Speaker 4: you know that's where the best stories are. I can't
Speaker 4: if I take the interstate. That's no different than flying right.
Speaker 4: When you pull over to get gas, it's like the
Speaker 4: same gas station and the same McDonald's. And there's nothing
Speaker 4: wrong with that. There's no depth of perception of understanding
Speaker 4: why people vote the way they do. And that's why
Speaker 4: I understood in twenty sixteen and Trump was going to win.
Speaker 4: But I actually called this this conservative populist coalition that
Speaker 4: was forming in two thousand and six during those mid terms,
Speaker 4: and interestingly enough, it was when Republicans were losing to Democrats,
Speaker 4: and I was like, what's going on here? And it
Speaker 4: was this really interesting intersection where and Rob Emanuel, who
Speaker 4: was then in charge of the d Triple C and
Speaker 4: recruiting candidates, he picked candidates that were pro life, pro gun,
Speaker 4: were fiscally responsible. So they picked candidates they Republicans could
Speaker 4: be comfortable voting for In because he understood that Republicans
Speaker 4: were pissed off at Republican candidates because they were spreending
Speaker 4: like drunken sailors, right, and they had lost their way.
Speaker 4: So it was showing me that these coalitions were starting
Speaker 4: to shift and that the working class was becoming part
Speaker 4: of the Republican Party. That was very early inception, but
Speaker 4: it was definitely happening.
Speaker 1: What has been the best part of all this, this
Speaker 1: whole crazy journey that you've been taking.
Speaker 4: Oh, all the people I get to me, all the
Speaker 4: privilege that I have to interview people where they are,
Speaker 4: and really getting a profound sense of what place means
Speaker 4: to people and having a sense of place being rooted.
Speaker 4: You know, people don't realize, but eight out of ten
Speaker 4: people in this eight out of ten people in this
Speaker 4: country live within one hundred miles of where they grew up.
Speaker 4: Seven ten people live within ten miles of where they
Speaker 4: grew So roots matter. So when people don't understand take
Speaker 4: my take my state for instance, and.
Speaker 1: Her state is Pennsylvania. For anyone who doesn't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh Pennsylvania. So if anybody remembers one of the
Speaker 4: last best speeches Joe Biden gave was at the State
Speaker 4: of the Union dress in twenty twenty four. It was
Speaker 4: arguably his best speech, and it was coherent and it
Speaker 4: was to the point, and it was something that had
Speaker 4: been lacking with him and leading to that date, and
Speaker 4: so people were like, okay. But then he said something
Speaker 4: in that speech. He said something about snackflation. And he
Speaker 4: was talking about how greedy, uh, these these these uh
Speaker 4: snack company owners were, and he pointed to Bob Casey,
Speaker 4: who was then the US Senator from Pennsylvania Democrat, said
Speaker 4: I'm putting you in charge of these evil, bad people.
Speaker 1: I'm honestly paraphrasing a little bit on made yeah.
Speaker 4: But not really in tone. He was like, you're in
Speaker 4: charge of snackflation. Get you know, the all this greed,
Speaker 4: And he was sort of putting the blame of inflation
Speaker 4: on that. And I'm watching it and my mouth is
Speaker 4: wide open. I'm like, wait, what do they not realize
Speaker 4: that eighty percent of the snacks consumed in this country
Speaker 4: are made in six counties in Pennsylvania. Affect someone's vote. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the farmers, the manufacturers, the peoples in the people in
Speaker 4: the c suites that live in the nice neighborhoods, to
Speaker 4: drive the truck drivers. All of these people are a
Speaker 4: coalition of people, and you just called them the bad guy.
Speaker 1: Right, I had no idea, that's really sure. It's like
Speaker 1: such an interesting point.
Speaker 4: As not mean me, But I know you expect this
Speaker 4: much Montumbery County or your county c suite, like living
Speaker 4: in a half million dollar home, vote for Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: or Joe Biden because that's what sort of the stereotype dictates.
Speaker 4: But if you're going after my industry, I don't think so.
Speaker 4: I know you think my family's going to vote for you,
Speaker 4: I don't think so. So it's those sort of intimate,
Speaker 4: granular things that that makes me understand like why my
Speaker 4: state is it mattered? But also if you didn't know this,
Speaker 4: if you weren't on a back road in York Pennsylvania
Speaker 4: and you didn't see snyders potato chips, or if you've
Speaker 4: never been to Hershey Park and understand sort of all
Speaker 4: that happens in our state, you know that that contributes
Speaker 4: to snacks, then you know there was just such a
Speaker 4: huge disconnect.
Speaker 1: Right, he had no idea. He was just criticizing you.
Speaker 1: Know some ceo. Yeah, some ceo somewhere right.
Speaker 4: You literally look it up on Wikipedia. Snack belt Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4: It's fascinating, not that hard.
Speaker 1: Wow. So you're such a champion for Pennsylvania. You clearly
Speaker 1: love your state so much. And you know, one of
Speaker 1: my best friends considers Pittsburgh like, you know, the undiscovered
Speaker 1: or not undiscovered but undervalued American city, which he just
Speaker 1: thinks is like the greatest city in the country. I've
Speaker 1: never been to Pittsburgh. What makes it so amazing?
Speaker 4: And if you asked me five years ago, I would
Speaker 4: say everything but the people. Undeniably, it's the people that
Speaker 4: make the city amazing. Unfortunately, the politics in the city
Speaker 4: has gotten very weird, uh. And there's been a lot
Speaker 4: of anti Semitism, there has been, uh, you know, a
Speaker 4: defiance to the Ice Org. There has been Its just
Speaker 4: been very ugly, ugly politics. A lot of that has
Speaker 4: to do with the Democrats Socialist of America sort of
Speaker 4: being backing these far left candidates, right, because we are
Speaker 4: a closed state and a closed primary state, and because
Speaker 4: people generally that vote in primaries tend to be either
Speaker 4: the furthest left or the furthest right of their party.
Speaker 4: They have become the leaders in the in the city.
Speaker 4: So thinks Summerly is our congresswoman. And so the politics
Speaker 4: have have sort of hurt the city a little bit. Right.
Speaker 4: We have a homeless problem, we have a crime problem.
Speaker 4: But outside of that, my city is you know, it's
Speaker 4: it's a beautiful city. It's a very old American city.
Speaker 4: It was was literally considered the West uh in the
Speaker 4: beginning of found things of our of our country. It's funny,
Speaker 4: you know, my family has been in Pennsylvania since sixteen
Speaker 4: thirty two, the Scottish shide, not the Italians. Yeah, there
Speaker 4: wasn't even in Italy in sixteen thirty two. But the
Speaker 4: and and have been in pennsylv in Lake, Pittsburgh and Butler.
Speaker 4: That's what made That's what made what happened to me
Speaker 4: and Butler are all that more. You know, personal have
Speaker 4: been there since the seventeen fifties. I love my city.
Speaker 4: I just wish that it would clean up as app We're.
Speaker 1: Going to take a quick break and be right back
Speaker 1: on the Carol Marco It Show. So what happened to
Speaker 1: you in Butler? For anybody who doesn't.
Speaker 4: Know, So, yeah, wait, y'all need to buy my book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the book is called Butler, and when.
Speaker 4: It's coming out, you can pre order it to re
Speaker 4: order it now. So I was four feet away from
Speaker 4: the President when he was shot at in Butler. It
Speaker 4: was an interesting day, as any journalist knows when you go.
Speaker 4: When you when you have certain things planned for a day,
Speaker 4: including an interview, there's a seventy percent chance it's not
Speaker 4: going to happen. Sure right, like your day's just not
Speaker 4: going to go the way it planned, and you have
Speaker 4: to be ready at cord of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was supposed to interview President Trump that day, July thirteenth,
Speaker 4: in Butler, and it was supposed to be five minute
Speaker 4: interview right before the rally, and about three hours before
Speaker 4: he got there, I get a text saying, Hey, change
Speaker 4: of plans, and so I immediately think, I it's not going
Speaker 4: to happen, But they said no, can you interview them
Speaker 4: for five minutes after the rally? I said bought. And
Speaker 4: then about an hour before President Trump gets there, I
Speaker 4: get a text saying, so, hey, President Trump really doesn't
Speaker 4: want you to be like five minute interview. Want to
Speaker 4: fly with him to Bedminster to the interview. On the plane,
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, I didn't have out on my bingo card, right,
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, I had my daughter with me. She's
Speaker 4: a photo journalist, so she was gonna do the photos.
Speaker 4: So she you know, has four kids. Her husband was
Speaker 4: with her. There's a reason why her husband was with there.
Speaker 4: It was one hundred and three degrees that day. We
Speaker 4: made him carry everything, so we're like, okay, that's what
Speaker 4: we're gonna do. And about two minutes before, no, about
Speaker 4: five minutes before President Trump's about to go on stage,
Speaker 4: this campaign advance man grab me and said it's go time.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh my god, everything's changed again. Like follow
Speaker 4: him through this like narrow little causeway. We go in
Speaker 4: the back of the stage, there's President Trump. It's called
Speaker 4: a clickroom. A clickroom is where generally the president will
Speaker 4: meet with like local people. A couple people grabbed from
Speaker 4: the crowd and law enforcement and then their photo taking
Speaker 4: with the president. They put me at the end of
Speaker 4: the line, the three of us at the end of
Speaker 4: the line, and I said, well, where are we doing
Speaker 4: this interview? And the poor guys his name was Michelle goes,
Speaker 4: I actually don't know. He's let me go ask the president.
Speaker 4: He goes, around. There's a big curt and he goes
Speaker 4: around and uh, he comes back. It's just like the
Speaker 4: very sheepishly says, he just wanted to say, Hi, We're
Speaker 4: still going to Bedminster. I'm like, okay, right, so again
Speaker 4: things are changed. I go around and and we have
Speaker 4: this thing between us. He always is like, say, you know,
Speaker 4: best hair in America? Yeah, And I get so embarrassed
Speaker 4: because then everybody is staring at me, like, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 4: is my hair good? I've been in the amenity for
Speaker 4: like five hours. I don't I hear you?
Speaker 1: Girl?
Speaker 4: Yeah, my curly Italian hair, like we can't keep it straight. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So he asked about my great children and then set
Speaker 4: me on my way. So at this point he can't
Speaker 4: get us back to the press riser where the rest
Speaker 4: of the press are, because that little causeway that we
Speaker 4: were sent through was now closed off. So he goes, okay,
Speaker 4: since you're going right after the rally with the President,
Speaker 4: let's put you in the buffer. And the buffer is
Speaker 4: is sort of a well mostly used by security that
Speaker 4: separates the president from the crowd and also by photo
Speaker 4: journalists because just going to well follow him around as
Speaker 4: he goes out on the stage and then get over
Speaker 4: on the far side. Okay, we're all taking photos. My daughter,
Speaker 4: my son in Loave became We're what. He comes out,
Speaker 4: he waves to the crowd. He then goes up to
Speaker 4: the podium. And you know, if you've never been to
Speaker 4: a Trump rally, you don't understand. But the relationship between
Speaker 4: him and the people that are attending it is very transactional.
Speaker 4: He feeds off of them, they feed off of him.
Speaker 4: And this is in a positive way. This is a
Speaker 4: very sort of aspirational way. People believe they are part
Speaker 4: of something bigger than themselves, and Chump intuitively understands that
Speaker 4: he is as well. He's part of it. He's part
Speaker 4: of them. It's not just about him, it's about everybody there.
Speaker 4: So because of that, he never looks away from the crowd.
Speaker 4: He'll move his he'll move his body and look at
Speaker 4: different size, like turn around and look at crowds around.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: It's not like he has notes or anything.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so two things happen simultaneously that never happened. He
Speaker 4: brings a chart down, I'm like, what is he? Ross
Speaker 4: Perot like, he never has a chart? Amazing, And then
Speaker 4: he turns away from the crowd, and he never does that.
Speaker 4: And at that moment, I hear pop pop pop pop.
Speaker 4: The bullets fly right over. I watch him go down,
Speaker 4: but he takes himself down. I note that, like it's
Speaker 4: really weird. You know how they always say things happen
Speaker 4: in slow motion, They absolutely do. Really, I can see
Speaker 4: him go down. I can see him hold his ear.
Speaker 4: I see the Secret Service go around him. You remember,
Speaker 4: I'm like four feet away from him.
Speaker 1: At this point. And is your daughter snapping pictures?
Speaker 4: My daughter? Yeah, we're We don't stop working until the
Speaker 4: second four bullets go by and Michelle takes us down.
Speaker 4: The campaign press guy, He's amazing. He's my hero, he
Speaker 4: Michelle Picard. I will love him forever. He was so
Speaker 4: protective of all of us. And I can I can
Speaker 4: hear the whole conversation he is having with the Secret Service,
Speaker 4: and you know, like about when to go up, you
Speaker 4: know that the shooter is dead, Like you can hear
Speaker 4: them talking, you can hear their ray. I can hear
Speaker 4: the radio's just because of how close you am, and
Speaker 4: I can. It was a little bit funny. It's funnier now.
Speaker 4: It was a little bit funny in the moment, and
Speaker 4: hear him like they want him to get up and
Speaker 4: wanted me to go. But he's like basically saying, I
Speaker 4: need to put my damn shoes on right, like his
Speaker 4: someone had knocked his shoes off, and and I hear
Speaker 4: one agent sigh like okay, all right, like okay, put
Speaker 4: your shoes on right.
Speaker 1: But they get his shoes off. That's so weird.
Speaker 4: And then he comes off the stage. He goes right
Speaker 4: past me. There is an agent that holds a gun
Speaker 4: right in our heads as he's going past, because they
Speaker 4: still don't know what. And so I did not go
Speaker 4: to Bedminster that day, no, obviously. But he calls me
Speaker 4: the next morning, right and early, and before I could
Speaker 4: say hello, like I didn't even get my hello out.
Speaker 4: So are you okay? Is Shannon and Mike okay? I'm
Speaker 4: like and I felt like saying, are you freaking kidding me?
Speaker 4: You do you've just been shot?
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe focus on yourself.
Speaker 4: Yeah. We would ended up talking, I believe seven different
Speaker 4: times that day. You called me back a lot of
Speaker 4: times because he kept getting interrupted obviously obviously, yeah, but
Speaker 4: also just talking about faith, about him making that decision,
Speaker 4: like all of that's all details of those conversations are
Speaker 4: in the book.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to read this because he seems like
Speaker 1: a changed person after.
Speaker 4: He's probably changed. Yeah, as someone that has interviewed him
Speaker 4: nineteen times, he is definitely a changed hersent. And there's
Speaker 4: really some poignant moments with him and I after that
Speaker 4: at different places. Is they're really powerful. But but the
Speaker 4: book also really gets into like everybody was reading things
Speaker 4: in other newspapers and thinking one thing might happen, and
Speaker 4: I kept writing notes, not you'll need to come to Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: It was clear to me that that that she stood
Speaker 4: no chance. Biden definitely didn't stand a chance. Probably, I mean,
Speaker 4: I will say this unequivocally, would have lost worse than
Speaker 4: she did. Really, it was clear to me that she
Speaker 4: was not gonna win. She she had no cultural connection to.
Speaker 1: The voters here and that or any kind of connection
Speaker 1: I think to any voters she was impossible to really
Speaker 1: get through to.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, and and you'll find out in the book
Speaker 4: the first the forward in the book, not the forwards,
Speaker 4: the first chapter, you'll find out that there was another
Speaker 4: president that was shot in Butler. And it is really
Speaker 4: intense and it's really really.
Speaker 1: Interesting, shocking. I can't wait to read it, Butler, and
Speaker 1: when does it come out again?
Speaker 4: That comes out of July eighth.
Speaker 1: But pre order, pre order preorders are important like this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the main thing. Everybody pre orders Lena's book. It's
Speaker 1: going to be amazing. You could tell by the story
Speaker 1: she just told how incredible a storyteller she is. And
Speaker 1: I just can't wait to read it. So a question
Speaker 1: that I ask all of my guests is what do
Speaker 1: you worry about?
Speaker 4: So, as I said in my homework sign, yeah, I
Speaker 4: tend not to work really yeah, I mean it doesn't
Speaker 4: kind of.
Speaker 1: Italian doesn't worry.
Speaker 4: Well, here's why you don't worry, because it has no power.
Speaker 4: Worry has absolutely no power. It drains you. It can't
Speaker 4: do Worry can do nothing to change circumstances. It is
Speaker 4: just a waste of energy. If you want to, if
Speaker 4: you have something that's really sort of concerning you, or
Speaker 4: a life struggle that you're trying to work your way through,
Speaker 4: or even if it's just an issue with your child
Speaker 4: or your parents or your family or your career, the
Speaker 4: best thing to do is go outside and take a walk.
Speaker 4: And if faith is important to you, prayer is something
Speaker 4: that has often gotten me through And by the way,
Speaker 4: ever get everything I ask for. When I pray, I
Speaker 4: probably only get a tense But prayer is really really
Speaker 4: a great way or being reflective is a great way
Speaker 4: to uplift that stress, and it helps you understand that
Speaker 4: there are some things you just don't have control over,
Speaker 4: and it helps you think about better ways to manage it.
Speaker 1: What advice would you give your sixteen year old self?
Speaker 1: What does sixteen year old Selena need to know?
Speaker 4: All the things you're going to fail at, don't worry
Speaker 4: about it. They end up being the things that make
Speaker 4: you successful.
Speaker 1: What do you What have you failed at?
Speaker 4: Oh? I've a fired so many times?
Speaker 1: Really, just I see you as like this beloved writer.
Speaker 1: Like I was thinking about this before our interview, Like
Speaker 1: the right is very fractured, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: like groups or clicks or whatever, and you just kind
Speaker 1: of transcend all of that. And so it's surprising to
Speaker 1: me that you failed at anything.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's because I didn't belong there. You have. We
Speaker 4: have to recognize failures aren't about not trying hard enough.
Speaker 4: Failures about it not being a good fit. It's sort
Speaker 4: of like going on a date with the euro Say
Speaker 4: you're a woman and you meet the perfect guy, right,
Speaker 4: and you like you know you, you get along and
Speaker 4: on paper he's great. On paper, you're great. But it
Speaker 4: doesn't work out. And it's not because either were bad.
Speaker 4: It's because it wasn't a good fit. He's in corporate
Speaker 4: America for two jobs and I was terrible at it.
Speaker 4: And it was not nothing to do with not working
Speaker 4: really hard, right, I was just really really bad. But
Speaker 4: where I learned so much, and I think what makes
Speaker 4: me a good writer is observation skills. I have always
Speaker 4: been a people watcher and it has taught me so much.
Speaker 4: But also being a waitress, being a hairdresser, being a
Speaker 4: hockey mom, soccer mom, football mom, my kids played every
Speaker 4: cross mom, my kids played every sport imaginable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have one of those.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And also understanding place in the world where you
Speaker 4: are and where you're from. A respect for a place,
Speaker 4: no matter where you no matter where you find yourself,
Speaker 4: helps you become a better writer.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love everything you do. She's so fantastic.
Speaker 1: Selena Zito, leave us here with your best tip for
Speaker 1: my listeners on how they can improve their lives. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go one of the three questions, Selena, you
Speaker 1: wrote out an answer, I can go find you right out.
Speaker 4: An answer, and I go back to my second answer. Okay,
Speaker 4: how do you improve your lives? Take a little care
Speaker 4: of yourself. I'm telling you nothing is better than either
Speaker 4: a good cup of coffee or glass of water or
Speaker 4: whatever your drink of choices shouldn't be alcohol in the morning.
Speaker 4: And take a walk. Yeah, a fifteen minute walk you
Speaker 4: walk in your house like it gets your endorphins going, right.
Speaker 4: As What's your Name famously said in What's the Movie
Speaker 4: where she becomes a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I think legally blind. I felt like I knew where
Speaker 1: you were going with this reason. With food, your endorphins.
Speaker 4: If you're if you're working, you're endor happy.
Speaker 1: People don't kill people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so taking that walk, you know, in the
Speaker 4: first thing in the morning, even if your kids are
Speaker 4: around the how do circuits around your house, whatever you
Speaker 4: need to do, get get those juices flowing. It helps
Speaker 4: your mind be clear and had its Exercise is never bad.
Speaker 1: That's right, hear. I wouldn't take the chance myself, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be my best advice. I love it. She
Speaker 1: is Selena Zito. She's amazing. Pre Order her new book, Butler.
Speaker 1: It's going to be out in July, but pre order
Speaker 1: it right now so you have it the day it
Speaker 1: comes out. Thank you so much, Selena Zito.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. This is fun.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Markho
Speaker 1: would show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.