0:06

I am a woman. Hear me roar in numbers

0:08

too big to ignore, and I know too

0:10

much to go back and pretend because

0:13

I've heard it all before and I've been down there

0:15

on the floor. No one's ever going to

0:18

keep me down again. I

0:20

am strong, I

0:22

am invincible, I

0:25

am woman. That

0:33

song from Helen Ready came

0:35

out in ninety one. I was fourteen

0:38

years old, and Brian, that

0:40

was the beginning of my ursioning feminism.

0:44

That's exciting. I was negative ten when

0:46

it came out. Wait, really, it

0:48

was a really meaningful moment. This

0:51

was ten years before you were born. It was

0:53

I'm sorry to report I'm going to reach across

0:55

this desk and slap you. Yeah, it wouldn't be the

0:58

first time anyway. But

1:00

yeah, that's equal rights, isn't it. But you

1:02

know, I think that that song

1:04

was so important to me in my formative years.

1:07

That and the Mary Tyler Moore Show, because

1:09

let's face it, Brian, she could take a nothing

1:11

day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile.

1:14

Why are we talking about all of this? Well,

1:17

at the convention in Philadelphia, we

1:19

saw the first female nominee

1:22

for President of the United States in

1:24

history, and no matter what your politics

1:27

are. That's a pretty big deal. So

1:29

we wanted to get a take on what

1:32

this means, how people feel about

1:34

it. We went out to Times

1:36

Square to talk to women

1:38

and men, boys and girls about

1:41

the prospect of the first female president,

1:43

female president. Do you want to talk to me? So?

1:46

And here's some of the things they had to say. Where are you from

1:49

New York? Oh? You were,

1:51

Well, how do you feel about potentially having

1:53

a female president? It's

1:55

everything, it's everything

1:58

that we need. Doesn't mean anything

2:00

to you, but I mean it's kind of

2:02

surprising. Why

2:06

because like if it's like the

2:08

first girl, I mean,

2:10

it's always a new thing. So how

2:13

old are you?

2:16

Okay, So, how do

2:18

you think you'll feel if, in fact Hillary

2:20

Clinton's elected and you watch

2:23

her being inaugurated? Proud?

2:26

Kind of like we could all do it too. They

2:28

give you one day I could be president. Um.

2:32

I think it's more significant of the

2:34

person and the character rather than the

2:37

person's gender. Um. When

2:39

I'm looking at voting for somebody, I'm not looking

2:41

at sex, race,

2:44

religion, anything, looking at what they stand

2:46

for and what they're doing. And so,

2:48

how do you feel about you? Can

2:51

you tell me who you're voting for UM,

2:53

I'm winning much more towards Trump than than

2:55

through for Hillary. How do you feel about

2:57

it, I don't think. I don't really it's a matter. I think it's

2:59

a your opportunity. Personally,

3:02

I feel like how the female president will probably

3:04

change the standards of you know,

3:07

I don't know. I feel like it's kind of an equal

3:09

in the world of men and women. We get paid

3:11

less, men get paid more. So if

3:14

Hillary does become president, maybe those

3:16

rules were changed when everyone is kind of equal.

3:18

It's not. As she's a good president,

3:20

then it would be great. So her ability

3:23

matters more to you than her gender. Half

3:27

in half, we're

3:34

excited to have the fictional

3:37

feminist heroin Julia

3:39

Louis dryfe is akj or

3:42

anti heroin Selina Meyer,

3:44

who is currently running the country, at least

3:46

on HBO. Like so many Americans,

3:49

I have a massive girl

3:51

crush on Julia Louis dreyfuss. I

3:53

first met her as Elaine on Seinfeld

3:57

and I did a story on

3:59

the final episode of Seinfeld, so I

4:01

went to the set. We had so much

4:03

fun, and in fact, she taught me some

4:05

of her moves on the dance floor, which

4:07

is my favorite Seinfeld episode explained

4:10

so much about you on the dance floor. Hey wait

4:12

a second, I'm a really good dancer. I have to work hard

4:14

to look like a bad dancer. Actually, Brian,

4:17

come on, but we I just I

4:19

don't know. We just hit it off. And of course

4:21

I'm so thrilled for her success

4:23

on V because I think the show is

4:26

brilliant and she is brilliant in it,

4:28

and she was nice enough to let us give her

4:30

a call at her house in l A. Hi,

4:33

Julia, Louis Dreyfus, Hi, Katie Kurt. It's

4:36

very exciting to have you joined our podcast.

4:38

And by the way, it's because we're in my

4:40

house. It's possible things are gonna happen

4:42

while we're talking. That's okay. Like my teenager

4:45

is still sleep upstairs, and

4:47

so he may come down and ask for breakfast.

4:50

Okay,

4:52

this is a good time to teach him how to boil an egg

4:55

exactly. This is Brian Goldsmith,

4:57

who's a huge fan of yours I am and

4:59

a huge fan of the show. Thank you, thank

5:01

you, thank you. So welcome to our

5:03

little podcast. Well, thanks for having

5:05

me on your little podcasts. You listen to podcasts,

5:08

I do. Yeah, I

5:10

I think they're amazing actually,

5:13

and I listened to them when I have a long drive

5:16

or on a plane. What's your favorite podcast?

5:19

Well, I'm a big Iro Glass and uh, this

5:21

American Life fan. That's sort

5:23

of what I usually go to. And then the like

5:26

the Moth Series and stuff like that.

5:28

Yeah, well there's so many. I don't know.

5:30

You know, there's so much material out there that's

5:32

actually really worthy. I

5:34

don't know how people ingest

5:37

all the incoming good quality

5:39

stuff, right, no kidding, I mean between

5:42

podcasts and all the

5:44

good television that's out there on

5:46

on cave boy, I don't know. I guess we should

5:48

never get out of bed. I think you're right. That's

5:50

how I feel sometime, honestly. But talking

5:53

about good television, we have to talk about

5:55

Viev. I mean, listen, it is

5:57

so hilarious, Julia, and I know

6:00

the creator left, and you were

6:02

very insistent that you wanted to keep the show going.

6:04

I feel like it's better than ever. Thanks.

6:07

That's so nice of you to say, And apparently

6:09

you're extremely involved in every

6:12

bit of it, the writing, and when

6:14

you shoot a scene, you say, why don't

6:16

we do it this way or that way? In other words, you're a control

6:18

freak in the best possible way.

6:21

Yes, I think that's why you and I like each other.

6:23

I think you're right, But I mean,

6:25

obviously I think you're having

6:28

still having a fantastic time. And the

6:30

C word, I think was one of my favorite

6:32

episodes ever. Oh really,

6:34

Oh you know what my husband directed that? I

6:36

know he did, which made me like it

6:39

even more. Isn't

6:42

that funny that that's the episode he directed?

6:45

Well, I think everybody was talking about it

6:47

and people just loved it so much.

6:49

And when you look ahead, I mean, have have you started

6:51

shooting for next season? We

6:54

have started writing for next season, but not

6:56

shooting yet. And so where do you

6:58

you know, how do you figure out where going to take the show?

7:01

Because I think a lot of people worried when she

7:03

became president it was going to lose its edge

7:05

because so much of the

7:07

comedy was based on her being a second

7:09

banana, and yet it got funnier

7:11

and funnier. And and have

7:14

can you give us, without a spoiler

7:16

alert, any indication of how the

7:18

show is going to move forward? Well?

7:21

Yeah, I can, in in broad

7:23

terms, I mean I can say that Selina

7:25

Meyer is a political animal, I

7:27

mean fundamentally in her core

7:30

and so that's not going anywhere. And

7:33

um, and she was present

7:36

for a very short period of time, and you can even

7:38

make the argument that she wasn't even quite elected,

7:40

you know, and so um,

7:43

it's very important to

7:46

her. A top priority

7:48

for her is to remain relevant.

7:51

Relevancy is the name of the game.

7:54

So um, you know, you

7:56

haven't seen the last of her, let's just put it that

7:58

way. And and I think that's you

8:01

know, this woman is always trying to

8:03

get uphill and uh, and

8:05

that will remain in place

8:08

because even when she was president, she was campaigning

8:11

to try to stay president, and in fact campaigning

8:13

to get elected president because she wasn't.

8:16

She sort of fell into it the

8:19

first go round. You know, it's remarkable to

8:21

me how many people I know in politics who say

8:23

that VEEP is actually the most accurate

8:26

depiction of what real life

8:28

in elected office is actually like, not

8:31

House of Cards, not the West Wing. But

8:33

Veep does that thrill you

8:35

or scare you or some combination of the two.

8:38

I guess it's a sort of a cocktail of the two,

8:41

but more thrilled me than anything else, because I

8:43

feel as if we've worked very hard.

8:46

I mean, we've worked really hard to keep to make

8:48

a show funny first and foremost, but we've

8:50

also worked really hard to keep it

8:53

plausible. So so much

8:55

of the behavior and storylines goes

8:58

through sort of a sieve in

9:00

which we say, Okay, is this plausible?

9:03

Would this happen? Can this happen?

9:06

Is this too broad? Is

9:08

it just the right of small? Um?

9:11

You know? And so I I'm I'm

9:13

thrilled at that, and I do believe you

9:15

know, I know it may seem as if I'm very cynical

9:18

about politics and so on, it actually has,

9:20

in a weird way, kind of um

9:24

made me have even more respect for those

9:26

people in politics who I think have

9:28

remained true to their core and who

9:31

haven't sort of an an

9:33

elevated sense of of and

9:35

correctly so, of of doing the right

9:37

thing and and and sort

9:40

of following an idea

9:42

as opposed to just um, a

9:44

single person or an ego and and and

9:46

those people exist and so um,

9:49

and I've had the good fortune to run

9:52

into them. And of course there are plenty of people in politics who

9:54

don't fall into that category,

9:57

but I think there are plenty who do. So I'm

9:59

not. I'm not undone by the

10:02

the reality of the show. You have

10:04

real political or form of political

10:07

prose who contribute to the show.

10:09

You have also great journalists like Frank

10:11

Rich who you know, had a great proximity

10:14

to power and wrote about it through the years.

10:17

Um. I can't help but wonder how

10:20

the juxtaposition of the Trump campaign

10:22

and the craziest campaign season.

10:24

I think that you and I and most

10:27

people can remember how

10:29

that is kind of playing out in

10:31

terms of how VEEP is developing

10:33

as well. Can you talk about that a little bit,

10:35

Julia, Yeah, Well, I'll tell you something.

10:39

What's going on in the Trump campaign. I

10:42

am telling you if you were to take

10:44

the actual his language,

10:47

his his the sentences that he

10:49

speaks and put them down

10:51

on paper, or

10:53

there's certain reality the realities

10:56

that occurred at the Republican Convention,

10:59

I e. Uh, Milania

11:01

Trump plagiarizing the speech

11:04

um, either wittingly or unwittingly whatever.

11:06

But it's a fact. Uh,

11:09

it's too broad for our show. Real life

11:11

is crazier than it's too big.

11:14

I'm telling you, if they had said that, I

11:16

would have said, no, guys, we're not going to do this.

11:18

Is this is ah, this

11:21

is broad. This is like a cartoon when

11:23

you come up with stuff like that slogan

11:25

continuity with change, which is sort of

11:27

a parody of a political consult of

11:29

a slogan, And it turns out the Prime

11:31

Minister of Australia basically

11:34

copied it. His was continuity and

11:36

change. Yeah, so he changed

11:38

the uh what is that conjunction

11:40

or whatever? And then he got a lot of

11:43

shipped for it, and then I guess he made

11:45

it. He made he changed it again. But

11:49

isn't that remarkable? That's one of my favorite

11:51

UM moments, Julia. I

11:53

mean, what do you think of this whole Trump

11:56

campaign when you see it just as

11:58

an American citizen? And who on

12:00

the show is most like Donald Trump? You

12:02

think, um on the show? I guess

12:04

the person who's the most like Donald Trump on our show

12:07

is Jonah Ryan, only because

12:09

played by the wonderful Tim Simmons, only

12:12

because he's completely um

12:16

ill suited for the job of

12:18

congressman and um and

12:20

unfit is the word

12:22

of choice these days, and and potentially

12:26

mentally unstable all in one. So

12:29

I would say that Jonah Ryan is as

12:31

close as we can get to Trump. But he certainly wasn't

12:33

fashioned after Trump? Are you being inspired

12:35

by some of the things you're watching on the campaign

12:37

trail? And I don't mean inspired as a person,

12:40

I mean inspired as a writer and someone

12:42

in the field of comedy. Well,

12:44

I mean yes and no. I mean the show obviously

12:47

isn't a parody. And we've

12:49

created this alternate universe on our show so

12:51

that parties

12:53

aren't aren't defined. Uh.

12:56

And that's really been an advantage,

12:58

particularly nowadays, when everything is so

13:01

seemingly polarized. Um,

13:03

I think it gives us the opportunity

13:06

to have sort of everybody can join in on

13:08

the fun. I mean. The truth is

13:10

is that when we meet with

13:13

insiders uh and

13:15

politicians and so on in d C, no

13:18

matter what side of the aisle they're

13:20

on, they think we're making fun of the other

13:22

side. That's convenient. Yeah,

13:24

it's very convenient. So um,

13:26

I mean, yeah, sure, we're all uh

13:30

keenly involved and watching,

13:33

of course as all I

13:35

would think I would hope most

13:38

American citizens are, but also

13:40

as comedy writers and as and given

13:42

the fact that the show is political, but our

13:44

goal is not to sort of scoop

13:48

that stuff up and and and we never

13:50

have sort of put it directly into a show.

13:53

Um, although it seems to things seem

13:55

to sort of parallel a

13:57

lot in a weird way, almost

13:59

by coincidence, as in the continuity

14:03

uh, continuity with change slogan.

14:06

Let's talk about your sort

14:08

of political leans. I know you had your

14:10

supporting Hillary Clinton. Um,

14:12

and I'm curious about how

14:15

you feel she's being portrayed

14:17

out there in the world,

14:19

and if you feel that she's

14:22

being portrayed fairly, because

14:24

there is you know, I'm sure you've talked a lot about

14:26

sexes and both professionally, politically,

14:29

etcetera. And do

14:31

you think that's entering into the conversation

14:34

even in a subtle way.

14:37

I think it's in the conversation. And

14:39

we don't even know it. For instance, we're

14:41

talking about it right now, right

14:44

and um, we wouldn't

14:46

be talking about it if it wasn't

14:48

an issue. Um, there

14:51

is, there's no avoiding it. You know, it's

14:53

it's it's an extraordinary achievement

14:56

that she's a first female candidate

14:58

for for president dominated Canada,

15:00

I should say. And and at the same

15:03

time, she is being seen

15:05

through a lens as such. Um.

15:08

And you know people talk about

15:10

those pants suits and people talk about, uh,

15:13

well, look, let's put it this way, a man

15:15

who is I've said this before, but a man

15:18

who is decisive and stern,

15:21

uh is. I would

15:23

say Garners a certain amount

15:25

of respect, but I

15:28

can't say that's the same necessarily for a

15:30

woman. And I really think that's

15:32

all you need to know. And

15:34

you play the first female president on

15:36

your show, how

15:38

do you think about portraying

15:41

that character You're trying to send a message

15:44

in any way about now, I'm trying to

15:46

be funny period, I'm

15:48

not on a soapbox on this show. Having

15:51

said that, though we're making fun of this

15:53

reality, I mean, there has been more

15:55

than more than one occasion in

15:57

which uh A

16:00

Meyer has said things like I

16:03

don't want to identify myself as a woman

16:06

because people don't

16:08

like women, and as a woman,

16:11

you know that, and I know that we don't like

16:13

women. So I mean, I'm

16:15

completely botching what the line was, but we've

16:17

said a variation

16:19

on that line multiple times throughout

16:22

the seasons, and the word lady balls

16:24

has used many times on the show. Yeah, lady

16:26

balls for sure. I was asking

16:28

Brian about, gee, does

16:30

the show really kind of take on sexism?

16:34

Uh, in a in a in

16:36

a in a significant way, and we

16:38

were scratching our heads and saying, not

16:41

so much. It seems to be

16:43

somewhat gender neutral in terms of

16:46

the comedy that's part and parcel

16:48

of the show. Would you agree with that except

16:50

for those some exceptions, I think we do take

16:52

it on. But I think we take it on. It's

16:54

it's um, it's between

16:56

the lines, um, And

17:01

I think the very concept

17:03

of the show takes it on. Now

17:06

we should say there are a lot of female

17:08

conservatives who are not supporting Hillary,

17:11

having nothing to do with sexism, but because they

17:13

fundamentally disagree with her. Oh listen,

17:16

I'm not even suggesting that people aren't supporting

17:18

her only because she's a woman. For those who aren't

17:20

supporting her, I'm not suggesting that. I'm

17:23

just saying that people, Um,

17:27

it's a different kind of judgment period,

17:29

That's what I think. Right. In fact, she

17:31

said as much talked about sort of Hillary

17:34

standards, right, and think she's been very

17:36

open about that. And and do you

17:38

feel like that exists obviously

17:41

for women in Hollywood still, there's

17:43

been so much discussion in recent years about

17:45

the dearth of great

17:47

roles. You did a very funny skit with

17:50

Tina Fey and Patricia Arquette

17:52

and Amy Schumer comes up as your

17:54

last effable Day,

17:57

And and I think that was also about

17:59

agents not allowed to swear on your podcast.

18:01

Well, I don't know. You did

18:03

say it the other day, and that got a lot of

18:05

attention on social media. It did, did

18:08

it? Really? So if

18:10

I correct you and say it's called the Last fuckuble

18:12

Day, maybe it'll get more bucket.

18:16

Anyway, what was the question?

18:18

The question was about the video? Oh,

18:21

yes, yeah, And I was just gonna say, um,

18:24

is it still very frustrating to be a woman

18:27

in Hollywood? Sure?

18:30

I know, is that's a stupid question. I

18:33

know that's it sounds stupid. But I

18:35

feel like things are starting to

18:37

change a little bit, or are they not. I

18:40

don't know, It really depends. I mean, no,

18:43

no, I mean I guess they are, just because we're sort

18:45

of talking about it. And and

18:47

I think there's certainly been um

18:51

more movement in the world

18:53

of television and cable, movement

18:56

in the right direction for more

18:58

gender equality and also versification.

19:00

I would say, but um,

19:03

certainly not in film. I don't think.

19:06

I don't think that's the case. In film, and

19:09

it's definitely harder to age

19:13

in in show business as a woman than it

19:15

is for a man. But I would say that

19:17

there's a there's plenty,

19:19

plenty room for improvement. Yeah, how can

19:21

we change that? You know, as somebody who's about

19:23

to turn sixty? Uh,

19:25

that would be me, not you. I think

19:27

about it. Will it ever change? Because

19:30

it seems to me the preferred

19:33

age of actors or newscasters

19:36

even or is in their thirties

19:38

and forties, right, So how

19:40

do you change that? By

19:43

continuing to work and setting an

19:45

example, you know, and

19:47

uh and having some ladyballs because

19:50

um, as much as as as you

19:53

can or feels appropriate. I mean, I

19:56

executive produce my show and I

19:59

uh call a lot of the shots and

20:02

um, but that hasn't always

20:04

been the case, and I'm

20:06

glad it is now. And I

20:09

try to hire as many capable

20:11

women as as we can and

20:13

and uh, but

20:17

it's not easy there. I

20:19

mean, it took a long time for

20:21

me to get into this position, and

20:23

uh, I've had to work hard to get to

20:25

this moment. But maybe I'm happy to be here.

20:28

I was going to say maybe because of you, though it

20:30

will be easier for the women who are

20:32

coming after you. And

20:34

yeah, I feel that for me too.

20:36

Yeah, you know that I had to put up

20:38

with so much BS when

20:41

I anchored the CBS Evening News that

20:43

I feel like the women behind me don't have

20:46

to deal with quite as much. I mean,

20:48

there's still a certain amount of

20:50

it that they're going to have to tolerate, but it just

20:52

sort of gets easier. The less novel

20:54

it is, the easier it becomes. Yeah,

20:56

I think that's exactly right, the less novel.

20:59

And uh, you know, assuming

21:02

that Hillary gets elected. You

21:04

know, think if you're a little kid right now, think

21:06

if you're ten or twelve

21:08

years old and the first

21:10

president in your memories that is an

21:13

African American man, and the next president

21:15

is is a

21:17

a female. I mean, I

21:20

think how that changes your point of view

21:22

on life generally. Um,

21:25

I think it's enormous. We should talk about

21:27

for a second your own relationship with Hillary

21:29

Clinton, because she sent you a

21:31

note in early Can

21:34

you tell that story? I

21:37

can. Well. Um,

21:39

it turns out that when we

21:41

we shot Veep in Baltimore,

21:43

Maryland for the first four years, and

21:47

um, someone who

21:50

was in our makeup department

21:53

also did the makeup for Hillary Clinton. And

21:55

this was back when she was Secretary State and

21:58

so uh for Christmas.

22:01

Uh, the hair

22:03

make folks who are all

22:06

good friends of mine gave to me

22:08

a buck slip that's a secretary

22:11

stayed on it and it's from Hillary Clinton

22:14

and hold on him in my office. I'm gonna

22:16

get it. And

22:18

it says, uh,

22:21

Julia, you're a great VEEP. Hope

22:23

you can get gun control, immigration

22:25

reform, and job creation this season.

22:27

All the best Hillary Rodham

22:29

Clinton. And this was in January

22:32

of two thirteen, so you can

22:34

imagine how thrilled I was

22:36

to get this was such just amazing

22:39

and you thought, wow, this show is really breaking

22:42

through, Yes, exactly, And

22:44

so I had it framed and loved

22:47

it. And then her

22:51

emails came out and

22:54

uh, and a bunch of them, you know, we're put

22:56

out there for public record or whatever the word

22:58

is. And somebody

23:01

tweeted to me, did you see this, which

23:03

I had not because I really not

23:05

interested in really for emails and

23:08

uh, and the email is

23:11

from Hillary to somebody who worked for her,

23:13

saying, a friend wants me to sign

23:15

something for Julia. Lewis drce

23:18

Dryfe is for VEEP any ideas Lewis

23:20

by the way, it is spelled l e w. I

23:22

s that's not how I spelled my last name. So she's

23:25

a huge fan and

23:27

and her guy wrote back,

23:29

let me brainstorm on this one, do some

23:31

research. I confess I haven't

23:33

seen the show, so

23:38

it was just perfect. And

23:40

so I printed this up and then I reframed

23:43

this so that the buck slip and the

23:45

email are next to each other, because it's it's

23:48

just quintessentially, it's everything

23:50

about this I love to be honest with you,

23:52

and it's and and it's nothing against Hillary

23:55

at all, but it does speak to, frankly,

23:57

what our show Veep is very much about.

24:00

And uh so it's but

24:02

I was thrilled to be I mean,

24:04

to have this connection and then to have this buck

24:06

slip from her. It's just crazy, isn't it? When

24:09

it's so funny when you say what our show

24:11

is really about? What would you say your

24:13

show is really about? It's

24:15

obviously about not not about

24:18

nothing. It's about Is it about

24:20

sort of the difference between appearances

24:24

and what people what's really going on

24:26

behind the scenes. Yeah, I guess

24:28

it's about the real huge human

24:30

behavior in politics

24:32

as opposed to the lofty

24:35

idea of human behavior in politics.

24:38

And Uh, it's what's

24:40

behind the curtain. That's

24:43

what it's about. Well, one small thing

24:45

that the show accomplishes is it

24:47

is it exposes the culture of the

24:49

body man in Washington, which

24:51

I think a lot of people not in politics didn't

24:54

know about. Um. The Gary character

24:56

is kind of the body man to the

24:59

to the tenth our Um,

25:01

can you sort of describe for people who haven't

25:03

seen the show what that person does. Well,

25:06

bodyman is a real position. It's a guy

25:09

or a woman who travels

25:11

to the president and sort of attends to

25:13

the president every moment, so knows

25:15

the president's schedule or vice president schedule,

25:18

knows where what they need

25:21

when they want their snack, what if they

25:23

if what kind of snack they would want. Uh,

25:27

they have Kleenex, they have anything

25:30

is in a bag that they carry with them, throat

25:33

lozenges, throat loenges,

25:35

Purell, Taan, Pax,

25:38

whatever you need, they've got

25:40

it and it's in a bag. And it's

25:42

a very very uh

25:45

I'm going to say intimate position. Uh.

25:48

Doug Band was body

25:51

man to Clinton for many years and rose

25:54

rose up to to run the Clinton

25:56

foundation. At first

25:58

glance, I guess you could say seemingly me ne old job,

26:00

but in fact it's it's kind of just the opposite.

26:03

And Tony Hale plays my body man

26:05

on Veep and we

26:08

have so much fun together. You have no idea. He's

26:10

a great, Katie. If you manhim, I have. He

26:13

is so funny. He's kind

26:15

of he is that guy. He is the great

26:17

And it's funny because we're very close

26:20

and in a strange way,

26:22

uh like, when we're working together, he's

26:25

sort of that same

26:27

guy to me in a weird way. I mean, not that he follows

26:29

me around with the bags, but there was exactly

26:34

the levivan, but there's sort of an intimacy

26:36

there that is comfortable in the

26:38

house to say it. Well, you have such an incredible

26:41

group of people on that show, I mean every

26:43

last one of them. It is such a

26:45

true ensemble. And the people

26:47

behind the scenes, as Katie mentioned earlier,

26:50

are political pros who who have been in these

26:52

positions. Do they kind of go

26:54

through this script writing process with you and

26:56

say, well, this could happen, this doesn't

26:58

happen my past. Yes,

27:01

we have these We have these political consultants

27:03

who work on the show from both sides of

27:05

the aisle, by the way, and uh

27:08

vet our scripts so

27:10

um, which is fantastic,

27:13

And they go through and say exactly that

27:15

this isn't plausible. You would need more secret

27:18

service in this scene. Uh,

27:20

there's no way this person would be allowed to enter

27:22

the oval all that kind of stuff. And they've

27:24

been there, They've lived and breathed it, so

27:27

they know and a lot and

27:29

most of the time, I would say, we we follow

27:31

their advice. Sometimes we don't for the sake

27:34

of comedy or

27:36

telling of a story, but for the most part, we really

27:38

do because it's important to us to make the things

27:40

seem grounded, you know. I mean, but

27:42

but with this election season, it

27:45

seems like the sky is literally the

27:47

limit. I mean, you have Scott bo standing in

27:49

front of a sign that says count

27:52

at the Republican National Convention, and he's

27:54

standing in front of the Oh. I

27:56

mean, that would have been a perfect

27:59

end van for favorite episode. Yes,

28:02

it would have been an ideal ending, and

28:04

we may have to revisit that moment. And

28:06

then you have Donald Trump being handed a purple

28:08

heart and saying, I've always wanted one of these.

28:11

And this is a lot easier. I mean, can't

28:13

you see a character in veep doing

28:15

something like that? To me, that sounds

28:17

like Selena Meyer, Yeah, exactly,

28:20

who, by the way, is also unfit to be president.

28:23

Um, but that would be something she might say.

28:25

It's incredibly narcissistic and insensitive

28:28

and and and there's there's zero

28:30

understanding of the circumstances

28:33

or the realities of a purple heart,

28:36

but a lot like Selena Meyer. When

28:38

Hillary Clinton tried to get on the subway in

28:40

New York, and that was a brilliant moment.

28:42

Yeah, and I'm just that MetroCard

28:44

to work. Oh, it's just too favy exactly

28:46

because for those of us who actually do take the subway,

28:48

there's a there's a particular rhythm with which

28:51

you have to swipe, and for those

28:53

people who don't take the subway, it's it's kind

28:55

of hard to master on your first go. And it was

28:57

kind of a modern moment, a modern replay

29:00

of George Herpert Walker Bush

29:02

at the grocery store scanner

29:04

right where he couldn't

29:06

figure out sort of how much melt cost Wright

29:09

being marveled at the at the

29:11

scanner and its ability to detect

29:13

immediately what sort of food was

29:16

coming across the table, right,

29:18

Well, I mean, these guys live in a bubble. Let's not let's

29:21

not kid ourselves. Do you think we expect

29:23

too much of our leaders. We want them to be

29:25

in touch and down to earth, and we also want

29:27

them to make these big decisions

29:29

about Warren Peace. Um,

29:35

yeah,

29:37

I'm not sure down to earth matters.

29:39

I think intelligence and wisdom

29:42

is really the name of the game. Um,

29:44

but I don't know how that cells. I was going to say,

29:47

and this in this day and age, and you

29:49

watch what happened with Brexit, it

29:51

seems like anti intellectualism

29:54

is so profoundly popular now.

29:57

The guy who said don't listen to experts,

29:59

expert don't know anything. Um,

30:01

it's been very It's been fascinating

30:04

and also unsettling

30:06

to watch people dismiss

30:09

anybody with any level of expertise

30:11

or experience. Why do you think that's happening?

30:15

I don't know. But it's not a good sign. I mean, it's

30:17

happened in other times in world

30:20

history, and it's it's never a good thing.

30:23

So UM, striving

30:26

for UM, I

30:30

don't know. I don't know what to say. I'm kind of despondent

30:33

about it. Actually, I think,

30:36

let me just put it this way. Let's get out the vote.

30:38

We got to get out the vote. This is what this election

30:41

is all about. If we can get out the vote,

30:43

I think I think Hillary

30:45

will win and I'm going to um

30:48

work really really hard to help

30:50

get that in place. Well, maybe if she wins,

30:53

she'll be a guest on the

30:55

next the next veep.

30:57

What do you think of that? Now,

31:00

that won't work. I love her to death,

31:02

but she's not getting into VIEP and neither as Donald

31:04

or any of these other people. We don't put any real life people

31:06

in our shows. U. We we created

31:09

this alternate universe very

31:12

very specifically, uh

31:14

and intentionally so that um

31:17

so we don't have any of that. We don't even have real

31:20

journalists or or anything

31:22

on our show. We've create. We've just completely

31:24

made another world altogether, which

31:27

I'm actually quite glad about. Otherwise

31:29

we'd we'd fall into fall

31:32

into areas we wouldn't want to go to. I think communically,

31:35

well, maybe Larry David could be a Bernie

31:38

Sanders like character. No,

31:41

Katie, no, okay, if he's already

31:44

done that, that's true. Brilliantly,

31:46

I might add brilliantly. Obviously,

31:48

I could never work for for a show

31:50

like yours. I just don't have any new ideas.

31:53

No, you're coming, You're you're pitching terrible

31:55

ideas. But I'm my door is open if

31:57

you want to pitch me other ones, I'll listen. I

32:00

don't think I'm going to give you the job. I'm

32:02

glad at least you're honest. Well, thank

32:05

you for talking with us. This was really It's

32:07

always great to talk to you. And hopefully I'll see

32:09

you soon. Oh I hope so and um,

32:11

thanks for having me on your show. Good luck with it.

32:13

I'm psyched that you've got it. Thanks. Nice

32:16

to meet you, too, Nice to meet you.

32:19

Brilliant Oh my god, we created

32:21

a monster, fucking monster

32:26

if by you guys, talk to you. Okay, but Brian,

32:31

that was so fun. I don't know about you, but I just

32:33

love her. You must have a crush on her now too, right,

32:35

I've always had a crush until you, Louis Drive when

32:38

I was getting ready to do this interview. By the way,

32:40

I think I read that all the twenty five

32:42

and twenty six year old writers who are working

32:44

on Seinfeld we're in love

32:46

with her. So you can understand why, of

32:49

course, but it's also great because I think

32:51

that sometimes things happen on television

32:54

and they get us ready for things happening

32:56

in real life. Whether we're talking about The Huxtables,

32:59

pre Bill Cosby, Controversy

33:01

PS or other shows.

33:03

You know, I think you've got to see

33:05

it to be it, and so when you see it on television,

33:08

it normalizes it. We're going to talk

33:11

more about women in politics,

33:13

but first we're going to take a quick break. But after

33:15

that we'll talk with a reporter who's gotten

33:17

some of the closest access possible to

33:19

Hillary Clinton, New York Magazine writer Rebecca

33:22

tray Star. But first, a

33:24

word from our sponsors. Thanks

33:29

so much to our sponsors. Now let's get

33:32

back to the show. So

33:34

we have Rebecca Treyster coming up next,

33:37

and she's covering the real life version

33:39

of the story on Veep of a woman running

33:41

for president. And when you think about it, Selena Meyer

33:44

is a little bit Hillary

33:46

and a little Donald Trump. She

33:49

probably has the worst qualities of both of them.

33:51

How lovely and charming, But that's what

33:54

makes the show so good because she's

33:56

just on so many levels intensely

33:59

unlikable, but This ain't cannot be said

34:01

for Rebecca Tracer. She's

34:03

so smart, so nice, and

34:06

a great reporter for New York Magazine.

34:08

She spent a lot of time on the campaign trail with Hillary

34:10

Clinton, and she's written a couple of books

34:12

about women in politics and women in

34:14

society. And the latest

34:17

is called All the Single Ladies, All the Single

34:19

Ladies, but it's only just one, All the Single

34:22

Yes, I'm

34:24

so happy to have you here. Hi, Rebecca, Hi, I'm

34:26

happy to be here. Before we talk about

34:29

the great work that you've done. Um,

34:31

tell me a little bit about yourself, because

34:33

you are a generation younger than me. I

34:35

hate to admit, what do you satan so

34:38

quickly? Rebecca? I hate that? But

34:40

your forty one Tell me about

34:43

how you came to be

34:45

interested in women's issues and

34:48

why you really wanted to focus on this in

34:50

your writing and your journalism. Well,

34:52

I never imagined that I would focus on it professionally

34:55

because the era in which I came of age. If you came

34:58

of age in the Helen Ready era, I

35:00

came of age in the deep frozen backlash

35:02

tundra that followed. Right. So I was born in

35:05

nineteen seventy five, you were like in Susan

35:07

Falut I was. I was in Susan

35:09

Faluti Land, honestly, and so

35:11

and you know, the year I went to college was the year

35:13

that Katie roy Fe's book The Morning After, which sort

35:16

of like you know, attacked the on campus

35:18

anti date rape movement. Um,

35:20

it was a very profound anti feminist

35:23

moment in which I came of age and was a teenager,

35:25

and it never occurred to me then. I mean, I

35:27

did go to the two marches in

35:29

Washington two when I was a junior

35:31

in high school around reproductive rights, but somehow

35:34

that was cut off from any sense of a larger women's

35:36

movement. There just wasn't a sense of

35:39

any kind of feminist cohesion. Um.

35:41

In feminism has never been a cohesive movement. But

35:43

on the other hand, there just wasn't a women's movement and

35:45

it never I actually couldn't

35:47

have imagined that it would come back in

35:50

the way that it has wonderful

35:52

ten years. It is wonderful. I mean, I'm just waiting

35:54

now for the next wave of backlash. I have to say. It

35:57

is wonderful. Um want

36:00

want, Yeah, I know, well, it's true, it's coming.

36:02

Prepare everybody gird um.

36:05

Uh. It was really around

36:08

two thousand three when I took

36:10

a job writing for Salon, which was an internet

36:12

publication. UM that I sort of

36:15

just took on a flyer as I started

36:17

to write a little bit from a feminist perspective

36:19

on women's issues, and so there was

36:21

this sort of um blossoming

36:24

of a new generation of feminism. But that didn't

36:26

happen until I was really in my mid to late twenties.

36:29

Um, I believe I wrote some pieces about you. I believe

36:31

you did. You should go back

36:33

and review those pieces and I can see

36:35

if I'm actually happy to have you here. I

36:39

think you would be, I think, um.

36:41

And but then you know, suddenly

36:46

women in presidential politics became

36:49

a very real reality. So I found

36:51

myself in the in the during the two thousand and eight election

36:54

writing about Hillary Clinton, which was the mother

36:56

load, so to speak, when it came to great

36:58

material. I'm curious, how

37:01

is it different the coverage of Hillary Clinton

37:03

from two thousand and eight to this campaign,

37:06

because I've been thinking a lot about that,

37:08

Rebecca. Because I was anchoring the CBS

37:10

Evening News, I remember being hyper

37:13

vigilant and hyper aware

37:15

of sexism creeping in

37:17

to the copy, creeping into

37:19

the pieces, and I was sort of like the

37:22

the safety patrol for feminists

37:24

at CBS, at least during

37:26

my tenure. And I remember

37:29

feeling outraged when I

37:31

don't know if you remember that one video

37:33

clip where they strung together all

37:36

of the really obnoxious comments about

37:38

Hillary Clinton about her blouse or about her

37:40

pants, or about her weight, or about her laugh or

37:42

about this, that and the other thing. And

37:45

I got so incensed, and I

37:47

remember actually saying to her, why does

37:49

Sarah Palin have an action figure

37:51

and you have a nutcracker?

37:54

She laughed so loud.

37:57

But do you think it's changed now with the coverage

37:59

of this campaign. I don't think it's been entirely

38:02

ameliorated. I think it's I think it

38:04

is different. You know, one of the clips

38:06

that's very famous from two thousand eight is somebody on Fox News

38:08

saying, she's like your ex

38:11

wife standing outside of probate court. Um,

38:13

somebody to take out the garbage,

38:16

you know, the hectoring wife. It's like we've sharpened.

38:18

There's a lot less commentary about her clothes.

38:21

In many ways, I think the media has

38:23

sharpened its vocabulary around sexism.

38:25

I think two was a tremendous learning

38:27

experience for a lot of people in the media, where they were like, oh

38:30

right, those are code words for bitch the

38:32

place you still see it, and people just can't help

38:34

themselves. And I understand why, and we can talk about

38:36

it. It's her voice. We do hear

38:38

Hillary Clinton screaming into a microphone.

38:40

A. She's not a completely natural order. B.

38:44

We are simply not used to hearing

38:47

this higher register. That's what I

38:49

just read. I just read a piece about this, saying

38:51

that she needs to speak less from her

38:53

lungs and more have more air in

38:55

her stomach. And I know about

38:58

this because I had to learn it as well

39:00

as a broadcaster. But after

39:02

an election where we have had Donald Trump

39:05

and Bernie Sanders like kings

39:08

of yelling that we all are sitting around

39:11

wondering how we can make Hillary sound better

39:13

at a microphone.

39:15

So there it's both based in a kind of in a reality,

39:18

which is that we that tone

39:21

doesn't comfort us, right,

39:23

and we need to address that. At

39:25

the same time that it's like, well, men can

39:27

scream at us or comforter or speak softly

39:30

and warmly like Barack Obama, or slowly or

39:32

they can scream and we can still find them reassuring.

39:34

It was interesting. I think that there's been a reclamation

39:36

project around her laugh. I noticed was

39:38

that Barack Obama, who in Philadelphia last week said

39:41

was I can't remember what the context was, maybe it was in his speech

39:44

and he was talking about her laugh, her big laugh,

39:46

and she's got this wonderful, infectious laugh

39:50

uh that uh carries

39:52

quite far. And sometimes it'll be surprising

39:55

because you'll be in the middle and

39:58

there's a joy in a earth that

40:01

I think sometimes Bubba doesn't always see. Because

40:03

that's one of the features of Hillary Clinton that actually people

40:05

talk about all the time is how readily and

40:07

how loudly she laughs. And that's what's been cast

40:09

as the cackle that you know, all

40:12

of it. But in fact, I think there's been a decided

40:14

project amongst her friends and colleagues to

40:16

say, wait, we gotta recast this laugh,

40:19

branding the branding the laugh as one

40:22

of the like warm and appealing and

40:24

you know, one of the one of the appealing things

40:26

about her, instead of something that that we're going to only

40:29

hear about his off putting. So but yeah, all

40:31

of this, I mean, the big issue here

40:33

is, and this is part of what's radical,

40:35

and it was radical with the presidency

40:37

of Barack Obama and will continue to be. It is

40:40

trading in all our models for what presidents

40:43

look like, for what political leadership

40:45

looks like. And that really does

40:47

mean a national adjustment of our norms.

40:50

As you say, what went through your mind, Rebecca when

40:52

she came out in Philadelphia

40:54

and there was this moment where

40:57

it was everyone had to acknowledge

41:00

this was a new chapter

41:03

in American history. And just two

41:05

days before that she talked about the significance

41:07

of her candidacy when she was on that big

41:10

jumbo screen. I'm happy for

41:12

boys and men because

41:14

when any barrier falls in America,

41:18

it clears the way for

41:20

everyone. In

41:23

two thousand and eight, it seems that she really

41:25

wanted to deny her

41:27

gender in many ways, directly

41:31

by the advice, was

41:33

it pen or Dick Morris, what Mark Penn?

41:36

Yeah, by a lot of people, I mean, and that wasn't a crazy

41:39

piece of advice, given that we again have

41:41

no model for how to run a woman successfully for

41:43

the presidency and um,

41:45

but it turned out to be very bad advice for

41:47

two eight. Of course, we'll never

41:49

forget that moment in New Hampshire when

41:52

she showed some emotion in that dinner

41:54

talking about how challenging it it

41:56

was for her to run for president or to be criticized

41:59

or something. Um, And that

42:01

was completely against type

42:03

and against what she was being advised

42:06

to do. And that was the moment

42:08

where she seemed to catapult higher

42:11

up, you know, at a higher standing,

42:13

right, yes, um. Part

42:15

of what was happening in that period in New

42:17

Hampshire was it was the most sexist

42:20

media coverage that she had gotten. She had lost Iowa

42:22

and it's like all of these guys, I'm

42:24

using guys loosely, but it was mostly guys

42:27

in television media who

42:30

like had to be respectful. Ever for all this time,

42:32

suddenly she was losing, and there was like a dancing on

42:34

her grave. I mean, if you go back and listen to the way

42:36

that for example, Chris Matthews, who I like and

42:38

respect very much, and I you know, I detail

42:40

this in the book that I wrote about it. A

42:42

lot of people were just thrilled that Hillary

42:45

was not only gonna lose, she was gonna lose early, and she was going to

42:47

be humiliated. And there was all of this really

42:49

premature grave dancing in those days

42:51

between Iowa and New Hampshire and the moment

42:53

that she cried. I mean, at the time,

42:56

I was somebody who was not terrifically sympathetic to

42:58

Hillary Clinton, and I had become so enraged

43:00

listening to the media get excited about her impending

43:03

doom, and it's it's like it

43:05

had all come into focus for me. It

43:07

obviously made her more vulnerable, and I think powerful

43:10

women become more palatable and more appealing when

43:12

they show us their vulnerabilities. But there's

43:14

something else about women and crying, which

43:16

is crying for many of us, is the way that we expressed

43:18

that we're incredibly piste off. I mean, I think

43:20

the relationship between showing

43:22

emotion and anger. And by the way, I should also clarify,

43:25

she didn't cry. There's not a single tear that fell

43:27

from her eyes. She gets stuffy,

43:29

okay, But

43:32

but there was something about that. I'm

43:34

not sure that it was just that we all, like our

43:36

sisters, weep be right, which was sort of

43:38

the red of the media. I think it was

43:40

there were a lot of women in New Hampshire and they're the voters

43:42

who surprisingly put her over the top. In New

43:44

Hampshire, and she staged a huge surprise

43:46

win in New Hampshire like the next day,

43:49

and I actually think it was a lot of angry

43:51

women. I sort of see it that moment

43:53

as being more about anger

43:56

than about like a sort of soggy

43:58

vulnerability. But it is true

44:01

that the moments in two thousand eight when she successfully

44:03

talked about her place in history, and that she

44:05

was able to do so in a way that was

44:07

compelling and inspiring to people, were the

44:09

moments of loss. So the greatest speech

44:12

she gave in two thousand eight was the concession

44:14

speech about the glass, about the glass ceiling,

44:16

and about for me, I mean the parts of it that about

44:19

shooting fifty women into space, which was an is

44:21

incredible piece of speech writing the fiftie

44:23

woman to leave this Earth is

44:25

orbiting overhead. If we can

44:28

blast fifty women into space,

44:30

we will someday launch a woman

44:32

into the White House. And

44:44

although we weren't able, the shadow

44:47

that highest hardest glass

44:49

ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's

44:52

got about eighteen million tracks

44:54

in it, and

45:00

the light is shining through

45:03

like never before, filling

45:05

us all with the hope and the sure

45:07

knowledge that the path will be a

45:10

little easier next time. Um.

45:12

That was a beautiful speech, and she really marked her place

45:14

in history. And but

45:17

that was also a moment where she was no

45:19

longer a threat. We do not like women

45:21

who talk about how great they are, but

45:23

of course that is the job of a politician

45:25

running for office. And one of the things

45:28

that she was free to do in two thousand and eight

45:30

when she lost was sort of talk about

45:32

how great she was, or at least how historical she was

45:34

in a way that wasn't threatening anymore because she wasn't

45:37

up for the job. But don't we dislike when men

45:39

talk about how great they are too? I mean I I

45:41

get turned off by conceited

45:44

people in general, right well, and then

45:46

in a political context they're supposed to be running

45:48

for office. There of course they're out there telling us

45:50

that they're better than their opponent. But that's

45:52

still disconcerting and hard for us to hear,

45:55

or at least hard for us to feel warmly about

45:57

when it's a woman. And I think

46:00

it's especially true by the way. I think it's going to get easier

46:02

for her now that she's in the general. That was especially

46:04

true when the people she's addressing or

46:06

people who are divided in their loyalties

46:08

between her and Bernie Sanders in this past

46:11

race, and between her and Barack Obama in

46:13

two thousand eight, another person who has

46:15

good politics. I mean, she you're you're dividing

46:17

your natural base because

46:20

everybody sort of has the same ideas about policy

46:22

and ideology. And you have these two candidates

46:24

who probably many of us felt warmly

46:26

about in one way or another. And it's even

46:29

harder to hear the woman saying I am essentially

46:31

saying I'm the better candidate for

46:33

this job than that guy. That is

46:35

still very discomfiting for us. I

46:38

would say this time around, she embraced

46:40

her gender much more enthusiastically.

46:44

Why well, I think she realized

46:47

it had been a mistake in two thousand eight. I

46:49

mean, there was there are lessons that I think

46:51

she drew from Barack Obama's

46:53

campaign correctly. Um.

46:55

He also was very careful and had to be in

46:57

terms of how he talked about race. But

47:00

what he was very successful at was making

47:02

this kind of emotional compact with voters, like

47:04

we're making history together, We're doing

47:06

this important thing. We can all feel good about ourselves

47:09

because we are working towards something

47:11

that is very overdue

47:14

and a grave injustice in the United States, and we're

47:16

working towards a small correction of it that

47:18

will actually be a big correction of it. Um,

47:21

it doesn't work, it's it's not a parallel

47:23

set of strategies around around

47:26

women's progress in the United States. But I think that

47:28

she took some lesson, which is that people want to feel

47:30

celebratory and good about making

47:33

history, and this is making history.

47:36

This country has a hard time unambivalently

47:39

celebrating milestones

47:41

and women's rights. It's very

47:43

complicated, and it's and it's very fraught, and Hillary

47:45

is walking right into that. It's also fraught because

47:48

of who she is and the baggage

47:50

she brings to the conversation. Absolutely

47:52

she brings. But on the other hand, taking

47:55

apart who Hillary is and who she's

47:57

become and how she's become that way, you

47:59

can't do that with also without looking

48:01

at her as somebody who is formed,

48:04

um by being this rather anomalous

48:07

woman in an

48:09

extremely male world.

48:12

I mean, there's which is not to make excuses. That's

48:14

not the same thing as making excuses for

48:16

the various negative things about

48:19

Hillary Clinton and and there are many of them. Um.

48:21

But it is to say that it's not an

48:23

accident that this is the candidate we got right,

48:26

we didn't. It's not a passive, you

48:28

know, sort of quirk of nature that this is

48:30

the person who bubbled up to be the first woman

48:33

president. Right to some degree, Hillary Clinton

48:35

was also made by the very

48:37

history that she is now campaigning to change.

48:40

If that makes any sense, it does, it does,

48:43

and it doesn't because I think you

48:47

have to also consider the Clinton legacy

48:50

and the Clinton baggage in general.

48:52

It's not just Hillary Clinton. It's

48:55

I understand what you're saying on one level,

48:57

but I also wonder if there

49:00

would be the possibility

49:03

of a woman without quite this much

49:05

baggage, with the kind of choices

49:07

and judgments that had been made in the past,

49:10

to rise to the surface. Sure there

49:12

will be a woman who comes after her who has none

49:14

of this baggage, right, or who has a different set

49:16

of baggage. But but if

49:18

you look at the history of women in American politics, the

49:21

first women, the first mayors, the first representatives,

49:23

the first governors, um,

49:26

almost all of them arrived there in one

49:28

way or another via the widows mandate or

49:30

taking over their father's Here, I mean, historically

49:33

speaking, it was practically

49:35

inevitable that the first female president

49:38

was probably going to have a strong relationship

49:40

to a male president. In

49:43

in our history, proximity

49:45

to power has been the closest that

49:47

most women have gotten to power, and therefore the

49:49

first women to actually break through have been

49:52

the ones who started with proximal power and necessary

49:55

rung on the ladder if you will, I

49:57

mean, I think even if she doesn't get elected, h

50:00

the mark of her political

50:03

legacy is so big, both between two thousand

50:05

and eight and this year, that it is already

50:07

readjusted. She's helped already to readjust

50:09

our eyes and ears to the idea of what

50:12

somebody could look like on a presidential stage. He's not a white

50:14

guy. I have to ask you about the white pants suit,

50:16

because I didn't realize until

50:19

recently how symbolic that was that

50:21

Geraldine Ferraro wore

50:23

white. For example, and there

50:25

have been other examples, the Suffragets.

50:28

It was it was the color of the suffragists. These

50:30

suffragists wore white with gold and purple

50:33

um sashes. So

50:35

that was probably no mistake. Wasn't that

50:37

she wore a white pant suit, which I thought looked

50:39

really nice. By the way, is that wrong for me to

50:41

say I'm all by the way, I should say. We we

50:44

talked earlier about sort of being critical

50:46

about clothes. I'm on the

50:48

bandwagon for discussing clothes

50:50

because that's part of the history. Again, we've never had

50:52

a president who wore pant suits,

50:54

who you know, had to worry about

50:56

cleavage. And in two thousand eight, there was an article

50:58

in the Washington Post about Hillary is clevange, but

51:00

she never really bugged

51:03

me, by the way, I'm glad you brought that up, because

51:05

that really annoyed me, the tone

51:07

and angle of that story. I don't

51:09

mind sort of discussing it because

51:12

it's something that people notice and think about

51:14

and contemplate. But I didn't like. I

51:17

just don't. I didn't like the way the

51:19

person wrote that piece. That's very

51:21

fair. The thing I would defend is the

51:24

noting, for example, that she wore white when

51:27

she accepted the nomination. And we can't

51:29

be so uptight that we can't

51:31

talk about it. I just wish men had

51:34

more interesting garments to

51:36

sport, because they're so boring. There's

51:38

nothing to really talk about, and

51:40

that's why, you know, when I did the CBS Evening News,

51:43

a lot of people commented on

51:45

my clothes and my hair and my makeup

51:47

and the way I held my hands, and it

51:50

was you know, there's a fine line of

51:52

noticing, appreciating, even

51:55

discussing, and having that

51:57

be the prevalent thing

51:59

that is coming for people, right And

52:01

the amount of energy that you I mean, I imagine

52:03

that you spent having even to listen to

52:05

that stuff compared to your male predecessors,

52:08

to your male colleagues. I'm sure that was also true

52:10

on the Today Show. I mean, I'm pretty

52:12

sure you think anybody is Do you think

52:14

anybody discusses what Scott

52:16

Pelley is wearing during an interview? Ever?

52:19

Ever? But anyway, enough about

52:21

me, Let's talk about Hillary and

52:24

how she was able to just to put a button

52:27

on this clothing conversation neutralize

52:30

the whole discussion about

52:32

what she was wearing. I read. I mean, it's so interesting

52:34

to me, Rebucca, I just read a whole piece on how

52:37

pants suit? Why are women wearing pants

52:39

suits and men wearing suits? Pant

52:41

suits? The term started to be used

52:44

in the eighteen sixties, when little boys were

52:46

shorts with their jackets, and

52:48

there is something slightly demeaning

52:50

about pants in santalizing rights,

52:53

which is what we That's one of the ways we deal

52:55

with women is we treat them like their children if

52:58

we're going to indulge the clothes thing for more. Second, I

53:00

have to say that my very favorite sartorial

53:04

period for Rillery was when

53:06

she was Secretary of State. She started

53:08

wearing these big pattern dresses. I thought about it,

53:10

like, I mean, kind of move moves I mean, and

53:13

it's like, I mean, the thing about that period was that

53:15

the way she was dressing and handling herself, she was

53:17

so busy, and it seemed like she was so powerful

53:19

and like she just didn't give a ship for

53:22

me. It was her at her most sort

53:24

of beautiful. If I'm going

53:26

to evaluate the sartorial choices, but

53:28

now I think she's so busy it's just as easy to have

53:31

a set of pants suits. And she knew that if

53:33

she wore a big pattern dress right now on the presidential

53:35

trail, I would never hear the end

53:38

of it. It would be armageddon.

53:40

So you know, Hillary has very

53:42

bad numbers when it comes to trustworthiness,

53:45

no surprise and likability, but so

53:47

does Donald Trump on the likability

53:50

front. How much of the I

53:53

don't trust her is

53:55

a proxy for good

53:57

old fashioned sexism in your view,

54:00

well a lot of it. Um. I'm

54:02

actually in the midst of writing a piece,

54:05

um that delves into the history

54:07

of distrust and women

54:10

and the way that we can talk about women is

54:12

fundamentally unreliable, as deceptive,

54:15

um, as a way of diminishing

54:18

their potential power of the history

54:21

and that a little bit. I mean, I I interviewed

54:23

somebody, so I'm I'm writing this piece,

54:25

and I interviewed a professor who

54:27

said to me for and it was such a great

54:29

point. She said, whenever we talk

54:31

about our dislike for women, so often

54:34

it comes down to the fact that you just can't trust them in

54:36

a way that goes back to the Bible. I mean, this

54:38

sense that women are fundamentally deceptive

54:40

and duplicitous is an extremely

54:43

old theme with Hillary

54:45

Clinton. You have somebody if you're just going to compare Clinton

54:47

and Trump on this on

54:49

this ground, right, they're all these

54:51

like PolitiFact rates, you know, people's

54:53

truthfulness, and if you look at the charts of sort

54:56

of twenty of the most powerful politicians

54:58

in the country, right now, Hillary come is in second,

55:00

right below Barack Obama

55:03

and just above Bernie Sanders

55:05

and Jeb Bush. Interestingly as a sort of

55:08

most truthful politician. Jill Abramson,

55:10

who was another female first and she was the former

55:13

editor of the New York Times, wrote a big piece in The

55:15

Guardian about as somebody who had

55:17

been in charge of all these investigations

55:20

into Hillary Clinton's purported malfeasance.

55:22

What she found, after having reported

55:24

on it and edited pieces about these

55:27

massive investigations, was that she was a fundamentally

55:30

honest person. Um. And

55:32

yet these allegations that

55:34

she's that she's duplicit as stick

55:36

to her. We just can't trust her. There's something about her we

55:38

can't trust. It is irrational based

55:40

on what we actually know. And we can take one

55:42

story like the emails, um,

55:45

you know, the fact that she did her own she

55:47

set up our own server and went around and

55:49

that can be our evidence, um and

55:52

fair enough, except that Colin Powell also,

55:54

you know, operated in similar ways with regard

55:56

to the emails there. I mean,

55:59

but in fairness, wasn't the FBI investigation.

56:02

She didn't say I never sent

56:04

classified information where there was classified

56:06

information. According to COMI on seven

56:09

of those email changes. I mean it's

56:11

it's not quite. It's

56:14

not as cut and dried as that. And that's why, in

56:17

many ways, I

56:19

don't know that Hillary Clinton's um

56:22

dishonesty, which is and there are moments

56:24

of it. I don't know that that sets her apart

56:26

from politicians. Politicians are known

56:29

to be dishonest, and Hillary Clinton is a politician

56:31

who is sometimes dishonest. The way in which

56:33

it is blown up to be the most salient feature

56:36

of Hillary Clinton, I think flies in the face

56:38

of rationality. Then you look at somebody like

56:40

Donald Trump. Donald Trump delights

56:42

in lying to us every day. He takes

56:45

pleasure in it. He contradicts the thing he said

56:47

the day before. He tells you something that is easily

56:49

disprovable with like four seconds

56:52

on Google. He it's like

56:54

he practically enjoys getting

56:56

away with the stuff. And when we talk when when

56:58

when voters talk positively about what they

57:01

like about Donald Trump, what is it? He's a straight

57:03

talker. He tells it like it is.

57:05

He says the things we're thinking and

57:07

can't say. Right he is. There's something

57:10

transparent and even though

57:12

he's disliked, you're right. He also has very

57:14

bad favorability numbers.

57:16

The reason that people one of the reasons

57:18

people say they like him is because there's something

57:20

just straightforward about him. So yeah,

57:24

I think it's probably gendered in ways that

57:26

are very deep and very complicated. Conversely,

57:30

what we're seeing happen in the Trump

57:32

campaign is fascinating

57:34

in terms of it's I would

57:36

say cluelessness about women's

57:39

issues, as evidenced by

57:41

the comments he has made recently

57:43

about sexual harassment. I

57:45

would say I got into television when harass

57:48

was two words instead of one. It's

57:50

a very good line, thank you. It always gets a laugh.

57:53

I also say that gravitas is Latin

57:55

for testicles. So obviously

57:57

I come to this from a very

57:59

unique and probably specific point

58:01

of view. But I thought

58:04

watching this conversation about sexual

58:07

harassment of the workplace has been fascinating

58:09

because I feel that I have been in a time

58:11

machine and taken back to a Mad Men

58:13

episode in terms of the understanding

58:16

of sexual harassment by Donald

58:18

Trump, when he says if Ivanka

58:21

was treated like that, I think she wouldn't put up

58:23

with it, or she would go get another job, or she

58:25

right Um and even her brother saying

58:28

similar things too tough and strong that would

58:30

never happen to her. So, um,

58:33

what do you think of those comments? My perspective

58:35

on them is that they're probably not as clueless

58:38

as we think. You know, you

58:40

think they're playing Yeah,

58:42

well, I think their cluelessness is part of

58:44

their appeal to the audience. I think that

58:46

Donald Trump takes a pride

58:49

in and understands that part of his popularity

58:52

is based on the fact that his worldview

58:55

when it comes to gender and race is

58:57

rooted in a madman or

59:00

uh that is. I thought at the beginning

59:02

of his campaign that there would be corrections of this stuff,

59:04

And the more I see it continue, and

59:07

you know, these kind of comments grow worse, the

59:10

more I suspect that this is in

59:12

fact what he's running on. He's not going to correct

59:14

it because it's part of what makes his base

59:17

love him. There was a video published on the New York

59:19

Times website that that shows unedited

59:23

comments from Trump supporters,

59:25

and it is clear that part and they are

59:28

racist epithets, sexist

59:30

epithets. And what becomes clear

59:32

watching at least the enthusiasm at those rallies,

59:34

which are of course part of what's powering his popularity

59:37

that there's excitement that there

59:39

is a guy who would still be clueless

59:41

about sexual harassment and take a perverse kind of

59:43

pride in it, who doesn't care about

59:46

sexual harassment, who does view

59:49

women and black people

59:51

um as subsidiary populations in some

59:54

way over whom he exerts

59:56

a kind of authority. That is part

59:58

And so I have, yes, maybe

1:00:00

clueless, but the expression

1:00:02

of his cluelessness I don't think is an error

1:00:05

on his part. I think it is

1:00:07

part of what he is running on. Sometimes I

1:00:09

wonder about the women's vote

1:00:11

because I think about the wives and many

1:00:13

of these disenfranchised, alienated,

1:00:16

working class voters who

1:00:18

are perhaps more traditional and

1:00:21

live in areas that are less urban.

1:00:24

Are we discounting the possibility that in

1:00:27

some cases women adapt the

1:00:29

political positions of their husbands.

1:00:32

No, that's real. Married women vote Republican.

1:00:34

So white women vote Republican. So is

1:00:37

it too big a stretch to say that women are

1:00:39

gonna come out for Hillary and she's going

1:00:41

to do super well? Too big a stretch? The

1:00:43

populations of women who come out for who

1:00:45

are likely, based on past polling

1:00:48

data and past elections, to come out for Hillary,

1:00:50

are young women, women of

1:00:52

color, a single lady. Married

1:00:55

women who have just written a book about unmarried

1:00:57

women are perhaps one of the more powerful vote

1:01:00

blocks in the country, and one of the biggest

1:01:02

in they were of

1:01:04

the electorate. Um. They by many measures

1:01:08

one Barack Obama reelection UM,

1:01:10

and they are predicted in it's

1:01:14

predicted that of women voters more

1:01:16

will be unmarried than married, and

1:01:19

they vote very left. They

1:01:22

need a new compact with their government. They need a

1:01:24

new set of social policies. They need things

1:01:26

like paid leave, higher minimum wage, subsidized

1:01:29

childcare, equal pay protections, all

1:01:31

kinds of things that Democrats are promising. Um.

1:01:34

Single women are likely to vote for Hillary Clinton,

1:01:37

especially over Donald Trump, who's like a sexist ogre

1:01:39

um, by a huge margin, probably

1:01:42

much larger than what we saw in twelve if I were to guess,

1:01:44

UM. But married women still

1:01:47

tend to vote Republican by a smaller

1:01:49

margin. Having said that, has Donald

1:01:51

Trump changed that he may There

1:01:53

are a lot of people who the female

1:01:55

distaste for Donald Trump seems really high.

1:01:58

UM. And it's hard to know and how we actually see

1:02:00

how until we get more polling and until we see

1:02:02

how people actually act when they go into a voting booth.

1:02:05

Um, because I think there are some

1:02:08

hardcore female Donald Trump

1:02:10

supporters. She's you

1:02:13

know, they are angry about

1:02:15

some of the same things his male supporters

1:02:17

are angry about. And I think that they're

1:02:19

being underestimated. Yeah,

1:02:21

I mean, I think that they

1:02:23

are being underestimated. I think they're going

1:02:25

to be very vocal, very loud, And yes, I do

1:02:28

think. I certainly think that there's going to be a big

1:02:30

percentage of women who vote for Donald Trump. I

1:02:32

don't think it probably is going to be as

1:02:34

big um as

1:02:37

it might have been were it Marco Rubio

1:02:39

or Jeb Bush that Hillary Clinton was running

1:02:41

against. Let's talk about your time with Hillary

1:02:43

Clinton on the trail and bring

1:02:45

it full circle. You spent a

1:02:48

lot of time with the Clinton campaign. You wrote

1:02:50

a piece for New York Magazine all about

1:02:52

her. Tell us something about Hillary Clinton

1:02:54

that we don't know. Well, you

1:02:58

know, the thing that I will say, having spent time with

1:03:00

her is something that you probably you may not

1:03:03

feel it, but you may have also heard it

1:03:05

from other people have spent time with her. She's very funny,

1:03:07

and she's immensely warm, and she's quite relaxed.

1:03:10

And I think that those things are

1:03:13

I just heard people putting on their brakes

1:03:15

all over America and going what

1:03:18

Yes. I was really

1:03:20

struck by because for years, as somebody who had written

1:03:22

about Hillary and written and read everything that's ever

1:03:24

been written about her, um, I knew that there

1:03:26

was this split between how people

1:03:29

who know her say she is, Oh, she's funny, she has

1:03:31

a great sense of humor, she laughs all the time, she

1:03:33

loves her friends, versus her public perception,

1:03:35

which is like cold, driving,

1:03:37

ambitious, calculating, you know,

1:03:39

can't communicate with anybody. I knew that there was

1:03:42

this dichotomy.

1:03:44

And then when I, you know, sort of got

1:03:46

in and got to spend time with her, sure

1:03:48

enough, I was like, wow, it really is true. But

1:03:50

I think the thing that surprised me so

1:03:53

I was like, right, she is funny, and she does laugh, and she has

1:03:55

a great sense of humor and clearly has a terrifically warm

1:03:57

relationship with the people who are who are in her in

1:03:59

her circle. The thing that I didn't

1:04:01

know was how calm

1:04:04

she'd seen. The other thing is that she was

1:04:06

so good at the basics of campaigning. We hear all

1:04:08

the time about Hillary Clinton is not a natural candidate,

1:04:10

and it's true She's not a natural orator, but

1:04:12

the sort of handshaking, remembering everybody's

1:04:14

name, remembering a detail, Oh I

1:04:16

remember when we saw each other, however many

1:04:18

days ago, how's your kid doing, how's

1:04:21

that? Kind of glad handing retail politics.

1:04:23

She was just absolutely smooth and

1:04:25

capable, and it was like watching an

1:04:27

Olympic athlete. That was also surprising

1:04:30

to me. There was nothing awkward or chilly

1:04:32

about her one on one or with the

1:04:34

people that she was talking to on the trail. Are

1:04:36

they going to unleash this? Hillary Clinton?

1:04:39

Will she allow herself to be unleash

1:04:41

Like Aladdin comes out of that little lamp

1:04:43

and suddenly you're going to say, oh my

1:04:45

gosh, she's so much different than I thought. I

1:04:47

think that they would like to unleash her, but I don't

1:04:49

know if it's possible on a large scale. I

1:04:52

mean, this is one of the challenges. All this stuff

1:04:54

is in one on one campaigning or in small

1:04:56

groups. As soon as you put her on a stage in

1:04:59

front of a large crowd, it becomes much more difficult.

1:05:01

She's capable of it, but it's a much more

1:05:03

difficult project. They won't

1:05:05

let her talk to enough reporters

1:05:08

to press. It's insane. Let

1:05:10

me talk to her, let me do an interview with her.

1:05:12

I've known her since nineteen two. I did

1:05:14

her first interview as first lady.

1:05:16

I'm like, just let her be

1:05:19

herself. Obviously, I'm going to ask tough

1:05:21

questions, duh. But I

1:05:24

think she needs to to show

1:05:26

that side of her. And I just don't understand why

1:05:28

they're so reticent. I think he has

1:05:30

put her in a put her in a venue where

1:05:32

it will come out. I have. I have had the same

1:05:34

frustrations for many years. I mean it's been many

1:05:37

years that I've been asking to talk to Hillary Clinton in one capass

1:05:39

or another, and it took a really long time. Um.

1:05:42

I think she has an antipathy toward the press,

1:05:44

and I think, though I may understand

1:05:47

some of it, she's had. You know, she's had a rough

1:05:49

time of it. I always

1:05:51

say I hate the press, that I am one,

1:05:53

But this is an instance in which I think

1:05:56

it would be good for everybody if she could

1:05:58

figure out a way to get over it. And I don't. I don't

1:06:00

see that happening. And to bring it full circle,

1:06:02

how does she are

1:06:05

white men of a certain age just a

1:06:07

lost cause? At this point, Well,

1:06:09

there's certainly not a loss cause in terms of

1:06:11

the policies that she's putting forth. I mean,

1:06:13

one of the interesting things about the platform and

1:06:15

the way she's campaigning is that she's working hard

1:06:17

for them, and you know, college educated

1:06:19

white men are actually breaking for her. I'm

1:06:22

talking about working classing class white men.

1:06:24

She's having a very hard time with UM,

1:06:26

and there are all kinds of arguments about why that might

1:06:28

be. One of the interesting things about her campaign

1:06:31

is that while strategically, I think there is an

1:06:33

argument that she could sort of cut the losses on

1:06:35

that because her base, you know, of voters

1:06:38

of color women that that strategically

1:06:41

the best move is to turn out the vote in

1:06:43

those areas, she is actually choosing

1:06:46

to really work hard for the for the working

1:06:48

class white vote. I mean, this is she picked Tim

1:06:50

Kane, and there are there are a lot of arguments

1:06:52

for picking a running mate who would be both

1:06:55

more progressive and in many ways appeal to

1:06:57

other to other populations,

1:06:59

to our constituencies. Um, she

1:07:01

picked the white guy, the southern white guy. UM.

1:07:04

Talking about raising the minimum wage, infrastructure

1:07:07

jobs, green jobs, UM.

1:07:09

These are all economic issues that would

1:07:11

have a profound impact on America's

1:07:14

white working class, whether or not she wins their

1:07:16

votes. It is true that she's proposing

1:07:18

policy that would hopefully

1:07:22

be good for them, but Donald Trump

1:07:24

is tapping into a feeling, and

1:07:27

those are two very different things. What

1:07:30

about Bernie bros. You know,

1:07:33

we hear and young feminists or young

1:07:35

women in general. Um,

1:07:37

Madeline Albright got into a lot of trouble

1:07:39

when she said her famous line, which

1:07:41

I've often quoted, there's a special place in hell

1:07:44

for women who help don't help other women.

1:07:46

And I think young women felt that was a real

1:07:49

affront, saying we're not going to vote for Hillary

1:07:51

simply because she is female. Do you think

1:07:53

that they've come around? And what about

1:07:56

male supporters of Bernie Sanders

1:07:58

under the age of thirty, for example, Well,

1:08:00

by this I haven't seen the numbers post

1:08:03

convention, but at this going into the convention,

1:08:05

more former Bernie supporters

1:08:07

had said that they were going to vote for Hillary Clinton

1:08:10

than Hillary supporters said they were going to vote

1:08:12

for Barack Obama going into the two thousand eight conventions.

1:08:15

So I don't have a tremendous worry

1:08:17

um that they're not going to come around. What

1:08:19

about women under the age of thirty. You

1:08:21

know, there there was this generational

1:08:23

divide when it came to Hillary Clinton,

1:08:26

at least in the primaries. Uh,

1:08:29

what are you hearing from some of them?

1:08:31

My impression is that a lot of young women

1:08:34

are actually and I've heard from a lot

1:08:36

of them who are Bernie supporters, who

1:08:38

are going to vote for Hillary Clinton. I think young women are

1:08:40

going to move to Hillary Clinton fairly quickly. I think

1:08:42

many of them already have, and I think some of them actually

1:08:45

were excited. Many of many of the Bernie supporting

1:08:47

young women didn't hate Hillary Clinton. A

1:08:49

lot of people, and it's it's very natural for young people

1:08:52

to lean more left than older people. I mean,

1:08:54

that's and that's part of what was being presented by the

1:08:56

Bernie Hillary choice is that Bernie the

1:08:58

perception was that Bernie had left or politics

1:09:01

more radical politics. And I think it's very natural

1:09:03

and healthy for young people to prefer

1:09:05

radical politics. It's likewise natural and

1:09:07

healthy for older people who have

1:09:09

seen some of the sausage made to have

1:09:12

perhaps a more moderate take

1:09:14

on on the approach. And so I didn't

1:09:17

find that generational divide a

1:09:19

sign of like feminisms imminent demise

1:09:22

or anything. And I do think that a

1:09:24

vastly large percentage of all Bernie voters,

1:09:27

and especially young women, never

1:09:29

felt intense antipathy towards Hillary.

1:09:32

Some of them did, some of them did, and some of them

1:09:34

may change their minds on that, or may reluctantly vote

1:09:36

for her, or may abstain. But and

1:09:39

then we'll see how they feel about her if she becomes

1:09:41

the president. You know, we'll see how everybody

1:09:43

feels power she becomes the president. UM.

1:09:46

But I'm not worried that young women as

1:09:48

a population are going to stay away

1:09:50

from the polls um

1:09:52

in November. I actually

1:09:54

think that many

1:09:57

people who think they don't care, many

1:09:59

people to assume young women don't care about

1:10:02

electing a woman president. I believe they'll

1:10:04

be surprised, this is my guests,

1:10:07

by the number of women who wind up turning out to vote

1:10:09

for her and feel pretty excited about it. Rebecca

1:10:12

Trast, it's so fun to talk to you. It

1:10:14

was really fun to be here. Thanks for having me. Thanks

1:10:19

to Gretta Cone and the

1:10:21

right Reverend John Delor for producing

1:10:23

the show. Reverend, I

1:10:25

wonder how many shows before you stop doing that.

1:10:29

Thanks to Mark Phillips for our theme music

1:10:31

and Thank you for listening. If you want

1:10:33

to leave us a message, please do so. At

1:10:36

let me do this part nine

1:10:38

to four, four six, three

1:10:40

seven. Please subscribe,

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rate and review the podcast. It helps

1:10:45

other listeners to find the show. And

1:10:47

we'll talk to you next time. Bye.

1:10:57

We adjusted Katie's medicine this morning.

1:10:59

It's really the single. It is the

1:11:01

single. It is you're

1:11:05

doing it like as Liza Vanelli. Where

1:11:09

is that Todd the

1:11:11

New God? Okay,

1:11:14

I'll stop. I'm gonna be reviewing my contract

1:11:16

right after this