December 12, 2024 • 53 mins
Jessica Tarlov, who co-hosts Fox News’ The Five (as the lone Democratic voice we might add) and the podcast Raging Moderates, is no stranger to navigating tricky political debates with style and substance. Jessica’s thoughtful prescriptions for Democrats still reeling from November stand out for their sharpness and simplicity–they’re clearly honed from her deep experience debating extensively with people she disagrees with (but also respects and likes). From keeping debates civil to breaking free of partisan echo chambers, Jessica’s conversation with Katie offers a practical, no-nonsense approach to speaking across the aisle and finding some much-needed common ground.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question.
(00:24):
It's the holiday season, Okay, I tried everyone, and with that,
many of us are gearing up to sit around tables
with people we don't necessarily see eye to eye with. Well,
that's something Jessica Tarlove does every single week. If you
don't know Jessica, she is the co host of The
(00:45):
Five on Fox News, where she's the lone liberal voice
among a panel of conservatives. She's built a reputation as
someone who can stand her ground and convey her points
without stooping to personal attacks and invect it. I wanted
to know, as do a lot of people, how the
heck does she do it? What is the secret to
(01:07):
keeping her cool, rationally stating her position and keeping things
well civil. Let's face it, we could all use a
little help in that department, especially as the holidays approached.
So get your pencils ready and take notes. Here's my
conversation with Jessica tar Love. Hi Jessica, Hi, so nice
(01:31):
to meet you met Katie have we never met before?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We met once at can Lyons at pTau like five
years ago. Oh my god, but like many cocktails do you?
And it was just like a fan girling where I
was like, Katie Kurk's here, so funny, so loosely we met.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, now I'm very excited that Jessica tar Love is here.
So I guess one of the first questions I'm going
to ask you and then we'll talk about all kinds
of things. Jessica is something that a lot of my
social media followers asked, and that was how do you
do it? How do you sit with four very conservative people?
(02:10):
Not every night? I guess you alternate with Harold Ford? Right, yeah,
but how do you do that? It's a a man
job to several times a week and keep your cool,
and I think it's miraculous. I've watched you a few times.
I'm not a regular viewer of the Five.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I'm guess you are, though we have twenty two percent Democrats.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, no, no, and I do like I like Dana
and I know Judge Janine from my previous life on
the Today Show. I don't really know Jesse or Greg Guttfeld.
That's a fascinating, fascinating thing in and of itself. His
Late night show. We sometimes watch because we're fascinated by it.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, well, you're not alone in watching it and being
fascinated by it. He definitely filled a void in the
late time space, late night space, I should say, where
people didn't want to see five of the same guy
making the same jokes. Right, and he invites on a
(03:12):
wide range of people to be there, right, and people
are culty about it. I mean, he not just the ratings,
but how well he performs in the demo astounding. So
there are young people doing this, and then you look
at the election results and you say, well, this makes sense.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
They're like thirty somethings that are into this.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah. Well, getting back to you, tell me how you
go on when you go on, and how you brace
yourself to be honestly a lone voice for sort of
the democratic point of view on that show.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, so, I will say, And I think it is
important contextually because a lot of people who watch the
show or see clips of me flying around, which is
how most people with my politics at least experience, They're like,
you mean, this is a whole hour because I thought
it was a three minute and fifteen second show, Like,
not at all. It goes the whole hour. I've been
at Fox my entire media career, so I don't know
(04:10):
anything different than being odd woman out, and I think
it's prepared me for those more difficult conversations. I mean
a lot of the five And I think why it
resonates with viewers is it's pretty light. Right, it's five o'clock.
You're supposed to be like hanging out. It's after work
for you know, whever, it's dinner time for some of
(04:31):
our older viewers, right, you're.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Right, Yeah, they're having the Early Word special. Now it's
chic everywhere, and now people are maybe fixing dinner sticking rights.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
And it's not supposed to be upsetting, right, It's not
supposed to be something. And so much of political commentary
right now and just discourse is harmful to your mental
well being and enraging, enraging, and it's not supposed to
do that. You're supposed to pay attention. And we obviously
the first half of the show where we do most
of the red meat political conversation, there are moments that
(05:05):
people get amped up especially when you really care about things.
And like you said, they are very passionate players that
are part of this ensemble. But we are trying and
seem to have effectively replicated what a lot of people
know in their real lives, where they have, you know,
a Thanksgiving table that might be predominantly conservative, but like
(05:25):
Aunt Jessica is invited and like she's really pissed that
Kamala lost or whatever, and there are moments of agreement
right where we all kind of come together and say, like, yeah,
that doesn't seem right right, we can all be on
the same side of this. So, having been at Fox
my whole career, I think it's just more inherently normal
(05:46):
to me to be in those kinds of moments.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Well, actually that brings me to my obvious follow up
is why have you been at Fox your entire career,
Jessica and what attracted you to that format as somebody
who whose ideology doesn't know necessarily mesh with most the
vast majority of people there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So my background is in political polling. I have a
PhD in government. I came back to I did my
PhD at LC in London, came home and I went
to work for Doug Shown, who was Bill Clinton's polster, right,
and Doug was and he went to bar I went
to Renmark. Yeah, seven Sisters Forever that.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
My sisters both went to Smith and I got rejected.
Jessica rejected. Not even waitless jokes on that that is
another podcast for another time, but go on.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I was it's starting that I have young kids. But
I have some friends who have kids that are thinking
about heading into high school, and well they're not thinking
about it. They were going to go and they're thinking
about what high schools to go to. And I went
to Dalton here in New York City for just high
school and very prestigious, really hard to get into. And
(06:52):
they're like, oh, how did you make that choice? And
I'm like, little secret, I applied to thirteen schools out
of eighth grade and only got into Dalton. So I
feel you. The other us are like, we're not.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I feel validated. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Jessica Smith should feel bad.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I love Smith though, yeah, my sisters did too, and
one was five Beta Capain. They apparently loved sisters, so
I was really kind of bummed when they are there's
no backstory, No, I think it was I wasn't as
good a student as my sisters. But anyway, go on,
you went to Fox.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, So Doug was a contributor at Fox basically since
he got out of the Clinton administration, and he was
as I continued to grow working for him and learning
how to do polling and delving more into the research side,
and I'm fundamentally a researcher. He said, I think it
would be really good for you to build your media skills.
(07:43):
And because he had connections to Fox, he introduced me
to Bookers and I started coming on.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
But first your grandparents had met him at the Harmony
Club and basically.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Tila's all this time the Harmony Club, which is like
a very obnoxious, predominantly Jewish on the Upper East Side.
I was finishing my PhD, and my grandmother, like an
overbearing Jewish grandmother, like went up to him, probably while
he was at the buffet or something, and said, I
have a really smart granddaughter. And he's like, I've heard
that before. And he's like she's like, no, no, no,
(08:13):
she's really smart. Give her a chance, and he did,
which is how I started working for him.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And he's your grandmother, right, you owe a lot to her.
I do.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
She's another podcast about the deeply complicated history of Malvina Roberts.
But she got me where I was going and I
will always be thankful for that. But then it just
pretty quickly was a good fit. I'm a proud establishment Democrat,
very moderate by the party standards, you know, Nancy Pelosi,
(08:45):
Hillary Clinton type of Democrat, not more AOC Bernie Sanders mold.
And I think that that works better with the bipartisan conversation,
because I mean, if you want to have a food fight,
and you remember what cable news was like around once
Trump announced, and like every night on CNN, it was
like Anna Navarro losing her mind, right, and Kaylee mcanenney
(09:08):
was on in those days, and Anderson Cooper is just
kind of sitting in the middle petrified, right like that
that's what it was like. But you could have a
more thoughtful conversation. And I found myself being able to
do that more or less. And it always is embedded,
(09:28):
at least for me, coming from a place of understanding
that I'm talking to people who generally come by their
beliefs honestly, and I think that too many people suppose
that folks who they don't agree with don't actually believe
the things that they're saying, but most of the time
they do, and a lot of that is due to
circumstances how they grow up. Like I grew up here
(09:49):
in New York City, I have had a charmed life.
I know where my liberal politics come from and what
my lived experience has been, and going to work at
a place like Fox, I now have people in my
orbit who have a completely different set of backgrounds, who
when they talk about how they feel about the Second
Amendment that comes from a place of growing up with
(10:11):
guns and having hunters in their families, or when they
talk about, you know, probably the toughest issue that I
ever have to discuss on air being pro life or
bringing pro choice, especially in the wake of the Dobbs decision,
that a lot of people's beliefs on that is rooted
in their religiosity. Where I look at it as a
policy issue and a scientific issue, and they're telling.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Me about so a personal liberty issue, all of the.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Things that we think about it versus this is what
I was taught in Sunday School, This is what I
you know, I grew up in mesh in an environment
that feels really differently to that, so that has been enlightening.
But basically it was a good fit and Fox hired
me right after the twenty sixteen election, and so that
(10:59):
is just where I've been in and they've allowed me
to grow. Susanne Scott, who's the CEO of Fox, you know,
she promoted me eight months pregnant to get the hosting
job on the five, which is massive. And you know
what it's like, you're completely freaking out when you're with child,
let alone publicly with child like that, and will your
job be there for you? And They've been extremely nurturing
(11:23):
to me. And I think also putting such an outspoken
democrat on, I mean, we've been the top show in
cable news for years now, I think says something about
the kind of conversation that they want going on on
their airwaves. So yes, ah, it's still four on one
or three on one. Dana Prino is well, I.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Was I was going to say, it's it's that is
a real anomaly though in the Fox lineup. I mean,
let's be honest, you say that's the kind of show
and the conversations they want on their air but they
are really few and far between are they not, Well.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
It's different there. A panel show is different than as
host show, right, but even the guests and even sort
of the no one's going to pretend that it's not
right leaning, especially in prime time. I think you could
have conversations about what Neil Cavuto does on his show,
what Brett Bair does on a show, what Shannon Breem
does on Fox News Sunday and Chris Wallace before her,
and know that some of the most productive conversations with
(12:19):
Democrats have actually occurred on those shows, and that actually,
you know, like Brett, for instance, on Special Report has
a segment called common Ground where he has on a
dem and a Republican and the most liberal senators are
dying again like Elizabeth Warren would want to come on
Fox to be able to do that. So there are
moments where I think actually the fact that it is
(12:42):
conservative leaning, you know, writ large, not necessarily those newscasters,
creates an environment that Democrats know that they want to
be a part of that. Because also a we have
the numbers like if you're watching cable news, you're watching
Fox most likely, and especially if you look at a
post election where MSNBC and Sana has dropped off, and.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Why do you think that they have just imploded.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I think it's two parted. I think when you lose,
you received right and you go into a hole. I mean,
I have tons of liberal friends that are like, I
just don't want to see the news right now, you know,
like wake me up once he's inaugurated or something big happened.
That's impossible. But you know, I don't know what Trump
two point zero actually looks like. But everyone I think
(13:24):
will get amped up again if they're you know, if
the deportation force starts, Joe and Mika's audience is coming back,
right like, they will want to be part of that.
But I think there's fatigue and I think there's a feeling.
And I get this from a lot of people that
I know in my orbit who kind of tune out
more conservative leaning media and really are part of the
(13:45):
liberal bubble that they weren't not told an honest story
about what was going on in this election, like poo
pooing polls and interviews with people who you wouldn't expect
to be leaning towards Trump or considering Trump, and being
fed a narrative that was not reflective of what happened
(14:06):
on November fifth, and I think it's really important as
a media person to have an honest relationship with your viewers.
I try to do it like I, you know, beating
that drum. I wanted people to know Joe Biden has
a ton of accomplishments and that he should be really
proud of and that when he stands there and he
(14:27):
talks about the good things that he's done for the country,
that that's an important element of this. But at the
same time to also say, this is a jump ball, right,
there's a tiny polling error in either direction, you're going
to have this result. And Nate Silver, who took a
lot of flak for this, you know, in his model,
the number one most likely outcome was what we saw
that Trump gets all seven battlegrounds, and then just below it,
(14:49):
do just a few percentage points, was that Kamala gets
all seven battlegrounds.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
This was a run of the mill result. And I
think that people who have been on a steady dip
of left leaning media have a sense of betrayal in
all of this because they were told he's hitler. You know,
he's an authoritarian, We're going to get all of these
Republicans that you know, supported Nikki Haley in the primary,
(15:16):
but without really you know, getting into the fact that
most people do go home right when you look at
a full policy platform. It's very hard. I think of
it in contrast, like what would it take for me
to vote for a Republican? It take a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Well, I guess the question is Donald Trump is claiming
a mandate, and as the ulster that I know that
the numbers just don't add up to a so called mandate.
What do your focks colleagues say when he repeatedly insists
that he has been given carte blanche to do whatever
he wants.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
They think it's Listen, it's a problem with the electoral
college in the way that elections work in this country.
But it is a rarity that a Republican wins the
popular vote, right, you know, And he did do that
by a tiny amount. I think it's like one point
five percent now and it'll be I mean, it's certainly
the lowest performance since two thousand, but I think historically speaking,
it's like the combined with the electoral college and the
(16:15):
popular vote, like the third worst performance for a winning president.
That's not that exciting. Right, we're not talking about what
Obama did or like a Reigan I was to say
that president happened, right, Yeah, but it just in recent
memory for people who are handicapping this, But yeah, they
do feel like he has a mandate, he has the trifecta,
(16:35):
he has control of everything. But you know, if if
it was such a commanding win for the Trump agenda,
the cotails would have been larger, and Democrats I think
did really well in the Senate. I was sad to
see Bob Casey lose his race in Pennsylvania and a
little bit surprised by it, but you know, holding on
(16:56):
in Nevada, winning Arizona, Tammy bald went in Wisconsin, Elisa
Slockkin winning in Michigan, and on top of it, for
these candidates to have figured out a way to manage
the you know, I'll work with Donald Trump when I
need to. Tammy balbinz aarreed releasing ads. I was like,
this is what I did with Donald Trump when he
(17:17):
was in office. We can do that again. So I
always pushed back on it and not to diminish what
he pulled off because I think it is a dramatic feed,
especially because he took all these gen Z voters that
I didn't expect would go over in those kinds of numbers.
But I don't feel like he has some massive mandate.
And you know, Speaker Johnson is going to have to
talk to him about the hard truths. He has a
(17:39):
one seat majority. What are you supposed to.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
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(18:33):
to ask you about the fact that some left leaning
media talked about, you know, described him as hitler with Honestly, JD.
Vance did the same before he had an epiphany and
became a big fan of Donald Trump's and talked about
his authoritarian tendencies. And you were saying that as if
(18:55):
you were dismissing those claims. But I'm curious if you
do think Donald Trump has a authoritarian tendencies and were
people right to point that out.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yes, I think your strongest defense is always using the
words of people who knew him. And so when you
have quotes from Mark Milly and John Kelly talking about this,
you amplify them. And I did on the five as well.
I read them, I write, I take copious notes, I
do a lot of prep. I read them out loud.
I said, this isn't about me. But the reason that
(19:26):
I think maybe you read what I was saying as
being dismissive, is that that argument only tells part of
the story of how people see Donald Trump, and that
this came down to an incumbency election and an inflation election,
which happened all over the world, and all the incumbents
got thrown out right, and that people were thinking about
(19:50):
their grocery costs and we're not following the trend line
as closely as we are. Right. They weren't, like you know,
Steve Rattner up there with all of his charts to say,
which I love. I live off of it. I mean,
I use all of this for my own data collection.
But they weren't tracking it like that. They just have
a memory of the past few years, not feeling that good.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
They don't care if they bridge they're driving over to
get to the Kroger was the result of the infrastructure bill.
While they don't know is their groceries or thirty percent
higher than they were or.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
They know both of those things, and you have to pick.
And for a lot of people this felt like a
political sophie's choice for them, they didn't like either. Whether
if Kamala had had more time they would have felt
more comfortable with her. I think she ran a very
good campaign for getting one hundred and seven days. I
was not someone that thought a year in advance that
(20:44):
Biden should have gotten out, But in retrospect, I think
that's probably the case that we should have had a primary,
and that there is a good chance that Kamala Harris
would have won that primary and she would have been
able to talk about her experience as vice president and
gone ahead.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
But they had so much working against them, not only inflation,
but they have the border crisis, and she never really
could come up with a good explanation. No, And I've
said for the fact, which I think is honestly very legitimate, Jessica,
that there was a comprehensive immigration bill that took what
eight months for very conservative Republicans.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
And Democrats Hamward and it's not an OLM Barter's guy.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, and Donald Trump said do not vote on this
bill because he wanted to use it as a part
of his campaign strategy.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I think Donald Trump sucks, Like I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
But why didn't say he sucks. I just said he
wouldn't let them vote on the border. No.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
But yeah, I'm saying he sucks. I believe that. I
think he's manipulative, he's underhanded, he's completely self interested. I
worry he will run the country exactly in that vein,
and I'm concerned about it. But on the immigration front,
there was a tendency amongst Democrats, and especially Democrats were
(21:57):
discussing the issue, so people who do interviews or are
part of the media to minimize it. Over the first
two and a half years, when there were a lot
of people coming in here, and I thought that it
was a stunt. You know, when they started bussing migrants,
they scored a Mars vendors. Yeah, it was the smartest
(22:17):
thing they ever did.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Well. It's interesting because I have a friend who lives
in Florida, and I said what did you think of
Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott taking some of these immigrants
and moving them to Northern States, And she said, I
thought it was great because nobody really was paying attention
before that. And I do think that this untold story
(22:41):
was the strain on social services and communities, particularly along
the border, this influx, huge influx of immigrants was having
and I think the mainstream media, however you define that
these days, kind of ignored that story to its peril.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Not only but you could make a good argument that
they were protecting Biden from this that it was like,
I would rather talk about how we're inflation is coming
down faster here than it is for anyone else in
the G seven and all of these very good things
that were actually happening, then deal with the crisis, which
(23:21):
is an everyday horror show like Eagle Past. Texas cannot
take ten thousand people a day, and it's wrong for
us to ask them to do it, and Democrats like
Mark Kelly, Henry Quayar screaming about it, and it led
to a point where some of these border state democrats
(23:44):
didn't want to be linked with the administration on this
because they knew that it was being so poorly handled
and that we didn't have a good solution. And I
agree with you that comprehensive bill which James Langford wrote.
It is one of the more with Chris Murphy, but
James Langford is one of the more conservative people well
in the Senate in a genuine way. This isn't fake
right conservative populism. This is the real deal. But that
(24:08):
still came three and a half years after this crisis
really amped up. And the speed at which we've been
able to cut down on border crossings, like because of
the executive orders, and President Shinbaum of Mexico was touting
this in her letter back to Donald Trump when he
threatened the twenty five percent tariff on her, where he
(24:29):
said border crossings down seventy five percent because of the
work that we're doing in conjunction with the Biden administration.
That's all well and good, but to the average voter,
they're thinking, well, why didn't you do this before? If
it was an executive order and you didn't actually need
congressional approval to do it, why didn't you start with that?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
The second Title forty two was lifted.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Right, and their answer to every question about immigration was well, well,
early in the administration they had a bill and they
couldn't get any to do anything about it.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
We didn't think it was a big enough deal. Yeah,
that's the thing. And you're totally right about the social services.
And I've spoken to a number of people who not
only you know, have the daily experience that I do.
I take the subway in and out of work every day,
and probably one of the only people on camera that
does that. And so I know what the subway is
like now, and I grew up here in the city,
(25:21):
and I know what the difference is between that experience.
But when classrooms are filling up with kids who don't
speak English, and you have community centers like all over
you know, big cities like Boston, community centers that are
built for underserved kids who need somewhere to go after school,
(25:43):
and they're being closed down to be turned into migrant shelters,
and you.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Have hospitals that are overwhelmed, you know. And I think
I even talked to Mark Thompson at one point and said,
why aren't you covering this? And I thought it was interesting.
I also told him that I thought during the elee
they should have bureaus all across the country in smaller
towns and rural communities, so they could actually and I
(26:08):
know that John what's John's last name? Who the white
hair guy who does the map, John King, who I
really like. Sorry, John, I forgot your name for a second.
I know he went out and talked to real people,
but I feel like they could have been much more
embedded in real communities talking to people about, you know,
all kinds of issues that I think surfaced during this election.
(26:32):
You know, so it was largely an immigration and inflation election,
But I'm curious if you think sexism also played a
role in it. Because I went to a doctor and
I said, gosh, I think Donald Trump may win this election.
She said, well, we have two terrible choices. She just
doesn't have the stature to deal with world leaders. And
(26:54):
I thought, wow, that was a female doctor. Yeah, and
I'm curious if you think that sexism is still an
albatross around the neck of many of these female candidates,
especially when it comes to the highest office in the land.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, I definitely do. I think that there are considerations
that go into the life of a professional woman on
any level that men never think about. Like it was
very cute when Doug M Hoff at the DNC said,
you know, I like her laugh, but we don't care
about men's laughs, right, and we rarely notice what they're wearing. Right.
(27:36):
And I know everything. I know every pantsuit that Hillary wore,
you know, and I know about all of Kamala's fashion
choices and all of it.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Y made I think an intentional decision to be even
though they were beautiful Chloe suits, apparently to be as
nondescript as possibly very understated. Right.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And you know, I'm sure you remember when Trump went
after Nikki Haley saying her dress was ugly. You know,
Nikki Haley purposely leaned into her femininity in a way
the Democratic candidates don't typically. I think the only skirt
Kamala one was when she went to Sunday Church, or
when she went to Sunday Church, which is what to
a Black church, which is what you're supposed to do.
(28:17):
I am told.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I think it is part of it, just in what
people take in about the aesthetics. But if we're being
honest and they see no reason not to be, you know,
the first couple of years of the Biden administration, I
don't think she performed that well in public arenas, and
(28:41):
that people had that as their perception of her. There
was this moment she was sent to the Munich Security Conference,
probably about two years ago, a year and a half,
two years ago, and she gave I think one of
the best defenses of natter support of Zelenski and the
Ukrainian people, of Western values, democracy and going after totalitarians
(29:07):
like Putin, and she got praise across the political spectrum
for it. One of those moments where the five is not,
you know, right, not adversarial, where even Janine is like,
that was a good speech, That's what we're about here,
and that moment and ensuing moments where I think she
(29:28):
did well. I think especially in talking about the Dabbs
decision and the implications of that, she did a great job.
But those moments came too late, and I don't know
the inner workings of whether she was not amplified on
purpose so that it was really Biden's administration or I agree.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I agree with you one hundred percent. I don't think
she was. She was not nurtured, and I don't think
she was was showcased in any way. And part of
it I wondered if Joe Biden's discomfort and being in
spontane TuS media situations. They didn't want to then prop
(30:06):
her up for fear that she would overshadow him.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
That's interesting. I actually hadn't heard that you can use that.
I'm taking you I'm gonna be like my pal Katie
told me this.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I think you know, That's what I wondered. Well.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Also, once as this autopsy is being written about what happened,
and you realize just how small Biden's circle is, smaller
than even presidents that have small circles like we're talking about,
you know, Mike Donald and say Anita done and Anita done,
Jill and Hunter. Essentially, are you know, making all of
these decisions like dropping out of the race, pardoning Hunter?
(30:46):
We don't know. I mean, it could be one person's feeling.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
That will be interesting to find average to it.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, I'm fascinated by it. And there's, you know, part
of me who feels as someone who was very defensive
of the administration, not just for patty political reasons, but
because I genuinely believed in what we were doing and
things that we've created a recovery that's unprecedented.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Why do you think Biden gets so little credit for
the things he has achieved. Is it all about, you know,
the aesthetics of his ability to communicate, to use the
bully pulpit properly, because I think with I saw someone
reeling against the part and saying this, will you know this?
(31:34):
Maybe it was James Carville that he's going to be
the have the lowest approval rating of any president in
history and it Do you think it's a communications problem?
Do you think it's a perception problem. Do you think
there are things that are actually you know, legitimate to criticize?
I mean, what do you think is keeping him from
(31:56):
from getting credit for anything? Really?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I think that he proved himself to not be as
much of the empathizer in chief as we thought that
he was. Like in the twenty twenty primary, I thought
he did that really really well, where people thought, this
is a guy who's on our side, this is a
guy who hasn't jumped the shark. He's not saying, you know,
(32:20):
health insurance for everyone who's here undocumented, we should have
open borders.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
He seemed like the common sense right candidate him and
like Amy klobashar right, who I love and can't get
out of a primary, but would be an amazing president
for sure. And it is a communications problem. I think
he wasn't able to toe the line of being able
to speak highly of what they were doing and to
(32:45):
also say, I know it's not enough right now, I
know what your life looks like.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Right He couldn't really feel their pain like Bill Clinton did.
No well, and I wonder why no, because I think
he genuinely does. I think he's an incredibly rithetic.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Frankly about being destroyed on conservative media constantly and his
accomplishments being belittled and people talking down about him. I mean,
this guy is run for president three times. He obviously
believes that he should be there and that he has
earned a level of respect that he did not feel
(33:24):
that he was getting for being able to do these things,
for being able to work with conservatives when he needed
to to, you know, make sure that we have investments
like the Chips and Science Act. What happened. It was
a skinny version of the bill, but the Inflation Reduction Act,
which a lot of people still mistakenly say was what
spiked inflation, and that's absolutely not true.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I don't know, I've read enough stuff that's that at
least it might have contributed. I'm no economist, Jessica, but
you know, an influx of that much money, there are
some that argue that really wasn't helpful to the economy
met but again, an economists.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Justin Wolfers, who worked in the Bomba administration and is
a great liberal economist. What I'm saying is that when
you look at where the inflation numbers are now, there
was a temporary pain that was unsustainable for people, but
they were looking at it on a long curve and
it seems to have come back down to a palatable level.
(34:25):
But people went and voted feeling like inflation was fifteen
percent and not that it was two or three.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
If you want to get smarter every morning with a
breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter,
Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. Do
(35:00):
you think historically that Joe Biden will be considered a
better president than he's believed to be at this moment
in time?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
For his sake, I think, unfortunately, the decisions that he
made around what to do in terms of running and
kind of more social you know, like the Hunter pardon
or and whatever is to come. I think if he
goes around blanket pardoning anyone involved with the January sixth
Committee or things like that, it'll get even worse.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
For sort of those preemptive parties. But I don't know.
Listen but for you, listen to that interview on Meet
the Press with Donald Trump basically saying Liz Cheney deserves
to be in prison any top sale I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Mean Cashpitel has an enemy's list that he published in
his book, So why would that be so bad to
But what are you partning them for?
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Well, I think that a lot of people don't want
him to pardon them because it's an admission they did
something wrong when they were actually just holding people.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Aunt has even said, don't yeah, s that's a terrible
press and for what we weren't on the wrong side
of the law. And I'm glad that he has faith
in the system that it'll protect them. I'm not so
sure if you get through all of these confirmations. And
Pam Bondi is obviously better than Matt Gates, but she will.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Say not that much she is. I don't think he's
like sexually assaulted underage girls. But as far as we know,
she did not do that.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
But no, she you know, she was on the election
denihilism tour with a lot of these lawyers and was out.
I think she gave a press conference in Philadelphia talking about,
you know, all the stolen votes and all of that,
and none of that is good. But you have to
reassess your standards, I think for what he's doing, with
a few exceptions in terms of foreign policy, I am
(36:49):
very happy.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yes, a lot of people are.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I think I'm friends with Mike Walt, who's going to
be the National Security Advisor.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
I think people think he's fine. I think they think
Rubio is fine. It's these other people, like Fox's own
Pete Hegseeth And I'm curious how you feel that Fox
pretty much ignores the story. They invite his mother on
Fox and Friends. But when it comes to all these
allegations that are pretty serious, honestly, from I mean from
(37:18):
drinking to sexually assaulting women, to driving an organization into
the ground, to all kinds of things, Fox kind of
ignores them.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Well, I don't. I mean, at least in the last
few days, every time that I look up at a
screen when I'm in the makeup chair, Pete is on
it and there's a gaggle around him and they're covering it.
I think the first mention was Chad Program, who's a
great reporter of ours, and it was on Brettbaer's show,
The Straight News Show, and it was mentioned there. And
there has been ensuing coverage.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
But you know what I mean, I do and I don't.
It's ongoing. I you're not running Fox shows. I'm not
asking you to defend defend the editorial decisions. But it
just does seem weird to me. I take your point.
I I no, he loosely, you know, have been on
(38:13):
with him. He's always been very pleasant to me. I
think the alleysians are serious, and you see people like
Joni Ernst who's obviously taking them seriously. And I think
now she's kind of switched and said that she had
a I'm paraphrasing, you know, a great conversations. He continues
to support his nomination.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
I think that's saying that someone should get to go
before the committee isn't the same thing as saying this
is okay. And there is a very strong argument to
be made that a president who certainly in the mind
of Republicans, has a big mandate, should get to have
his nominees come through, like someone like Tom Cotton released
(38:54):
a statement saying, I expect that they will get their
hearings and that they will get confirmed. And he's one
who's a complete neo KHN like normal hawk right, like
a Mitch McConnell, but younger. And he's even saying that,
And I think.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
That I think we haven't really heard from Susan Collins
or Lisa Murkowski and they only need write one Republican
No they need.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
They'll need how many three? So because Jadie Vance will
be you can vote? So yeah, would I love it
if Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski just stood up and
said no to seventy five percent or whatever.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I think there are there are different threat levels that
each of them are posing. And I hate that someone
who I think is as dangerous as like an RFK
Junior getting as the head of HHS is now like
a shrug to people because they feel a guy have
bigger fish to fry here, like right, Tulca Gabbert is interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I know that you said something about Tulsea Cabbard. You
said that I guess what did you say about her?
That she was sort of your hair on fire? Pick? Oh,
top anxiety pick yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Peak anxiousness about Telsea Gabbard. You know, it's been interesting
because I feel like she hasn't gotten a lot of intention.
But then there was a story that came out yesterday
about the meetings that she's been having with senators and
that apparently it's not going well. So if it's just
undercovered and she ends up being not confirmed, fine by me.
I don't need to hear about it all the time.
(40:22):
But you know, watching the scenes out of Syria the
past few days and thinking back to her defense of Assad,
which is the original I think that might be part
of that was probably from my podcast. But I spoke
about her on The Five a couple of years ago
and I said, I am not in the business of
(40:43):
accusing someone of being a Russian asset. That is very serious,
and it got us in a whole host of trouble
in twenty sixteen about Trump, and you know that backfired.
But they like her too much, and they talk about
her on Russian state TV, and I think a commentator
and even said recently like she's the only good one
(41:04):
left in this, you know, the only one that guess us,
because Marco Rubio doesn't feel that way about Putin or
Asad and Mike Waltz certainly doesn't. So Tolci is very
concerning to me. But I don't know, Like Bernie Sanders
has said that he might support her and RFK Junior,
(41:25):
which seems like a complete betrayal of a lot of
his beliefs or what I thought that they were. But
I don't know. I believe more in Lisa Murkowski than
I do Susan Collins. You know, she's always deeply disturbed
by things, and then you know, votes for them. So
it's going to be a mess. It's gonna be good
TV programming.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Though, definitely, definitely. We're almost out of time. But I
wanted to ask you just a couple of questions in
closing one. You know, there's so much handwringing and introspection
about what the Democratic Party needs to do now, and
Chris Murphy, who I'm interviewing this afternoon, I think they said, yeah,
that they need to be more populist and come up
(42:08):
with really a different strategy. I mean, as somebody who's
been steeped in democratic politics, for a long time. What
advice would you give the party.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Well, it's hard to do it if you're not naturally
prone to be able to but speaking like a normal
human is a good one. And rewiring. I mean, I've
heard a lot of people and there's a huge rise
in the number of folks who identify with a third party, right,
who are just like I'm an independent, And then it's
usually an issue like being pro choice or something that
(42:39):
sways you in one direction or the other. But I
would love it if we could kind of strip the
title Democratic Party off of it and just common sense party.
What does your heart tell you about X policy or
exposition that you might be taking? And I think that
that would serve us a lot better. We certainly wouldn't
(43:00):
have gotten into this mess with you know. The ad
that had the most impact on the election was the
They Them You ad with Charlemagne in it, and it
was an ad about trans issues, but it was mostly
an economic ad, right. It was basically saying, the Democratic
Party is taking your cash and putting it towards something outlandish, right,
(43:25):
that no one thinks about, that affects one person every
five years, maybe, right, the sex changes for undocumented people
in jail. That is the smallest subcategory you could probably
ever come up with.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
And I think that's interesting, But you think it really
translated to a feeling of being economically ripped off by government.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
This is where your dollars are going. They do it
about migrants, they do it about foreign policy. That's how
they've turned people against the idea of giving money to
your brain and in some cases to Israel. I mean,
Jade Vance even voted against the Israel funding package, which
I know he's on board now that you know there's
a new sheriff in town, and he's part of that
(44:12):
ticket obviously. But I think if you just let yourself
be governed by your gut more than your party affiliation,
that we would do better. Because a lot of these
people who were interviewed, and I'm sure you saw some
of these interviews as well, like the former Democrat who
is a prison guard who was interviewed about why he
had voted Hillary Biden Trump, and he said, the Democratic
(44:37):
Party doesn't like people like me. Or the woman who
was in a focus group who said, they've asked, you know,
what words would you use to describe the two parties?
And she said the GOP was crazy and the Democratic
Party was preachy, and she said, preachy doesn't work for me.
I can handle a lunatic, then I can handle a
(45:01):
party that makes me feel bad about myself. Right, And
we made a lot of people feel bad about themselves.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah. I got to know someone who's covering the Trump
campaign and she said, I said, what is you know,
you go to a lot of these rallies. What do
you think is really motivating? And she said the lefty
lecture culture.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah, which frankly is me. I mean a lot of
the criticism that I get from the right, and you know,
I think now I'm just part of the ecosystem and
they've come to accept me. But you know, I have
a PhD. I wears you went to the school shuring
you about your your I went to Brent Maar, grew
(45:41):
up in New York City, went to private school, all
of it like limousine liberal to the max. And I
sit up there and sometimes go off for you know,
a full minute at a time about Biden's accomplishments. I
did it just yesterday. I said, you know, we were
talking about what his legacy would be, and my colleague,
we're crapping on him, and I said, you know what,
(46:03):
his legacy is the best recovery in the G seven.
That's what his legacy is. And what did they say
to that? Jesse was like, we're moving on. You know,
I take all of those as a w when they
just say moving on. But I would like to be
more common sense about things. I would like to speak
in plainer language.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Well, I know you do a podcast with Scott Galloway
called Regene Moderates, and there was a time when being
a moderate was so out of fashion. Yeah, and I
wonder if you think, as a result of this election
that suddenly we're going to say, maybe it's not so
bad to be moderate. But how do you fight sort
(46:44):
of extreme conservativism, which it has been pulled over to
the right with moderation because it seems like the whole
idea is to get people all worked up right, and
moderation isn't very sexy. Jessica, No, but I think that
if the number one thing that people took away from
(47:05):
Kamala's campaign, which was she's too left for me, And
part of that was they did a great job at
amplifying clips from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty and that
Kamala didn't want to deal with them, right, and she
net down and say like she never really answered that
those questions very well. Well.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Obviously the view question from Sunny Houston that was the
nuclear explosion, like how are you different from Biden? And
I saw you speaking about it where you're like, how
do you want to have an answer to that?
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Right?
Speaker 2 (47:33):
And Biden doesn't seem to me to be someone who
would be aggravated if you said, respectfully, we did a
lot of great things, but this is what a Kamala
Harris presidency does.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Definitely, we don't know, we don't know how. No, but
he would have responded to that.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
But what's he going to do to her?
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (47:51):
No, no, no, I agree.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
I think she went too out of her way not
to hurt his feelings.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
And we also have to think about not only winning
back the working class voters, but there are moderate Republicans
and centrists that do not want to go home to
the Republican Party. Even if the top of the ticket
in twenty twenty eight, it shouldn't be Donald Trump. God
knows what he'll do, but let's say it's some JD
Vance or other. They want to be part of a
(48:18):
pro democracy party, and we are that, and we have
to be reasonable to be able to integrate them and
make it easy for the liz Cheneys of the world
to want to be part of us, not just when
there's someone with you know, authoritarian tendencies. I think to
be you know, fair about it at the top of
(48:41):
the ticket, but when they're running a normal Republican to
just say, actually, what the Democrats are selling resonates with me,
and they're better for the economy, and they respect people's
personal liberties and they're not insane.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
You know. It seems to me that you are a
role model for people on how to get out of
their bubbles, how to have conversations with people respectfully, with compassion.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
I'm writing a book about it.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Well you should because and I'd love to saying.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Your copy it will be down the line. It takes
a lotting a book. I did not know about the
schedules of these things.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
Yes it does. I can test to that. But I
really think that you would have a lot to say
about respecting people, having conversations, meeting people where they are,
and not ending with a food fight at the holiday
dinner table, because I think we really need that if
we're going to solve some of the thorniest issues that
(49:41):
are facing our country.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Yeah, I hope so. And I appreciate the compliment. Thank you.
I take it really seriously. And I know that also
for a lot of people around this country, I'm the
only Democrat that they might know in their lives, right
because there are people that are siloed, and I think
it's so important to represent the values of this party
that I care deeply about in a sane and approachable
(50:06):
way where you know, they can't write me off as
someone that's lost their mind or someone who can't say
something that's obvious. And obviously I have my moments, you know,
where I am over my skis as far as they're concerned.
But generally speaking, I think if you you know, had
my colleagues on, they would all say, I'm just like
(50:28):
a pretty moderate rational Democrat.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Do all ever like have dinner, go out for drinks?
Speaker 2 (50:34):
So well, the it's I go out with Jesse Waters's
wife on my own, you know, Janine. I've recycled the
story now, but like Janine who has a grandson around
the same age as my oldest who turns three today,
Happy birthday, Cleo. Got me baby formula when there was
no baby formula. I don't she knew a guy. I
don't ask questions when Janine says I know somebody I
(50:56):
can get you that. But like, there it is. It
is genuinely the messed up family that you see on TV.
And I really appreciate that and the opportunity to get
to talk. I talked to four point three million people
a day about what Democrats are doing right or what
frankly translating the perception that they've gotten through people who
(51:21):
are not being honest brokers with them, or a communication
system for the party that I think really failed, you know,
and I hate having to start a sentence with like
I would have said it this way. You know, I'm
not auditioning to be press secretary or anything like that,
but you know, you know what that's like where you're like,
that's actually not helpful. It's not helpful, and it's not
the truth. It's not what the policy actually does, it's
(51:44):
not what happened at X event.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
You know. Yeah, definitely, Well I could talk to you
for hours. Yeah, but thank you so much for being
on this podcast. Thank you for what you do every
other day. I guess on follow me a week and
I feel like you should probably have your own show
where you talk one on one which shy call Suzanne Scott.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
Great? Do I get to get percent?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
I mean, see is going to fight you for it?
But yeah, great work. Be with you.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
Thank you, Jessica.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
This is great.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
a subject you want us to cover, or you want
to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,
reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would
love to hear from you. Next Question is a production
of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me,
(52:47):
Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz,
and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian
Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter wake Up Call,
go to the description in the podcast app, or visit
(53:08):
us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me
on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
Into it.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
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Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question.
(00:24):
It's the holiday season, Okay, I tried everyone, and with that,
many of us are gearing up to sit around tables
with people we don't necessarily see eye to eye with. Well,
that's something Jessica Tarlove does every single week. If you
don't know Jessica, she is the co host of The
(00:45):
Five on Fox News, where she's the lone liberal voice
among a panel of conservatives. She's built a reputation as
someone who can stand her ground and convey her points
without stooping to personal attacks and invect it. I wanted
to know, as do a lot of people, how the
heck does she do it? What is the secret to
(01:07):
keeping her cool, rationally stating her position and keeping things
well civil. Let's face it, we could all use a
little help in that department, especially as the holidays approached.
So get your pencils ready and take notes. Here's my
conversation with Jessica tar Love. Hi Jessica, Hi, so nice
(01:31):
to meet you met Katie have we never met before?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We met once at can Lyons at pTau like five
years ago. Oh my god, but like many cocktails do you?
And it was just like a fan girling where I
was like, Katie Kurk's here, so funny, so loosely we met.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, now I'm very excited that Jessica tar Love is here.
So I guess one of the first questions I'm going
to ask you and then we'll talk about all kinds
of things. Jessica is something that a lot of my
social media followers asked, and that was how do you
do it? How do you sit with four very conservative people?
(02:10):
Not every night? I guess you alternate with Harold Ford? Right, yeah,
but how do you do that? It's a a man
job to several times a week and keep your cool,
and I think it's miraculous. I've watched you a few times.
I'm not a regular viewer of the Five.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I'm guess you are, though we have twenty two percent Democrats.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, no, no, and I do like I like Dana
and I know Judge Janine from my previous life on
the Today Show. I don't really know Jesse or Greg Guttfeld.
That's a fascinating, fascinating thing in and of itself. His
Late night show. We sometimes watch because we're fascinated by it.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, well, you're not alone in watching it and being
fascinated by it. He definitely filled a void in the
late time space, late night space, I should say, where
people didn't want to see five of the same guy
making the same jokes. Right, and he invites on a
(03:12):
wide range of people to be there, right, and people
are culty about it. I mean, he not just the ratings,
but how well he performs in the demo astounding. So
there are young people doing this, and then you look
at the election results and you say, well, this makes sense.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
They're like thirty somethings that are into this.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah. Well, getting back to you, tell me how you
go on when you go on, and how you brace
yourself to be honestly a lone voice for sort of
the democratic point of view on that show.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, so, I will say, And I think it is
important contextually because a lot of people who watch the
show or see clips of me flying around, which is
how most people with my politics at least experience, They're like,
you mean, this is a whole hour because I thought
it was a three minute and fifteen second show, Like,
not at all. It goes the whole hour. I've been
at Fox my entire media career, so I don't know
(04:10):
anything different than being odd woman out, and I think
it's prepared me for those more difficult conversations. I mean
a lot of the five And I think why it
resonates with viewers is it's pretty light. Right, it's five o'clock.
You're supposed to be like hanging out. It's after work
for you know, whever, it's dinner time for some of
(04:31):
our older viewers, right, you're.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Right, Yeah, they're having the Early Word special. Now it's
chic everywhere, and now people are maybe fixing dinner sticking rights.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
And it's not supposed to be upsetting, right, It's not
supposed to be something. And so much of political commentary
right now and just discourse is harmful to your mental
well being and enraging, enraging, and it's not supposed to
do that. You're supposed to pay attention. And we obviously
the first half of the show where we do most
of the red meat political conversation, there are moments that
(05:05):
people get amped up especially when you really care about things.
And like you said, they are very passionate players that
are part of this ensemble. But we are trying and
seem to have effectively replicated what a lot of people
know in their real lives, where they have, you know,
a Thanksgiving table that might be predominantly conservative, but like
(05:25):
Aunt Jessica is invited and like she's really pissed that
Kamala lost or whatever, and there are moments of agreement
right where we all kind of come together and say, like, yeah,
that doesn't seem right right, we can all be on
the same side of this. So, having been at Fox
my whole career, I think it's just more inherently normal
(05:46):
to me to be in those kinds of moments.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Well, actually that brings me to my obvious follow up
is why have you been at Fox your entire career,
Jessica and what attracted you to that format as somebody
who whose ideology doesn't know necessarily mesh with most the
vast majority of people there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So my background is in political polling. I have a
PhD in government. I came back to I did my
PhD at LC in London, came home and I went
to work for Doug Shown, who was Bill Clinton's polster, right,
and Doug was and he went to bar I went
to Renmark. Yeah, seven Sisters Forever that.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
My sisters both went to Smith and I got rejected.
Jessica rejected. Not even waitless jokes on that that is
another podcast for another time, but go on.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I was it's starting that I have young kids. But
I have some friends who have kids that are thinking
about heading into high school, and well they're not thinking
about it. They were going to go and they're thinking
about what high schools to go to. And I went
to Dalton here in New York City for just high
school and very prestigious, really hard to get into. And
(06:52):
they're like, oh, how did you make that choice? And
I'm like, little secret, I applied to thirteen schools out
of eighth grade and only got into Dalton. So I
feel you. The other us are like, we're not.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I feel validated. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Jessica Smith should feel bad.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I love Smith though, yeah, my sisters did too, and
one was five Beta Capain. They apparently loved sisters, so
I was really kind of bummed when they are there's
no backstory, No, I think it was I wasn't as
good a student as my sisters. But anyway, go on,
you went to Fox.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, So Doug was a contributor at Fox basically since
he got out of the Clinton administration, and he was
as I continued to grow working for him and learning
how to do polling and delving more into the research side,
and I'm fundamentally a researcher. He said, I think it
would be really good for you to build your media skills.
(07:43):
And because he had connections to Fox, he introduced me
to Bookers and I started coming on.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
But first your grandparents had met him at the Harmony
Club and basically.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Tila's all this time the Harmony Club, which is like
a very obnoxious, predominantly Jewish on the Upper East Side.
I was finishing my PhD, and my grandmother, like an
overbearing Jewish grandmother, like went up to him, probably while
he was at the buffet or something, and said, I
have a really smart granddaughter. And he's like, I've heard
that before. And he's like she's like, no, no, no,
(08:13):
she's really smart. Give her a chance, and he did,
which is how I started working for him.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And he's your grandmother, right, you owe a lot to her.
I do.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
She's another podcast about the deeply complicated history of Malvina Roberts.
But she got me where I was going and I
will always be thankful for that. But then it just
pretty quickly was a good fit. I'm a proud establishment Democrat,
very moderate by the party standards, you know, Nancy Pelosi,
(08:45):
Hillary Clinton type of Democrat, not more AOC Bernie Sanders mold.
And I think that that works better with the bipartisan conversation,
because I mean, if you want to have a food fight,
and you remember what cable news was like around once
Trump announced, and like every night on CNN, it was
like Anna Navarro losing her mind, right, and Kaylee mcanenney
(09:08):
was on in those days, and Anderson Cooper is just
kind of sitting in the middle petrified, right like that
that's what it was like. But you could have a
more thoughtful conversation. And I found myself being able to
do that more or less. And it always is embedded,
(09:28):
at least for me, coming from a place of understanding
that I'm talking to people who generally come by their
beliefs honestly, and I think that too many people suppose
that folks who they don't agree with don't actually believe
the things that they're saying, but most of the time
they do, and a lot of that is due to
circumstances how they grow up. Like I grew up here
(09:49):
in New York City, I have had a charmed life.
I know where my liberal politics come from and what
my lived experience has been, and going to work at
a place like Fox, I now have people in my
orbit who have a completely different set of backgrounds, who
when they talk about how they feel about the Second
Amendment that comes from a place of growing up with
(10:11):
guns and having hunters in their families, or when they
talk about, you know, probably the toughest issue that I
ever have to discuss on air being pro life or
bringing pro choice, especially in the wake of the Dobbs decision,
that a lot of people's beliefs on that is rooted
in their religiosity. Where I look at it as a
policy issue and a scientific issue, and they're telling.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Me about so a personal liberty issue, all of the.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Things that we think about it versus this is what
I was taught in Sunday School, This is what I
you know, I grew up in mesh in an environment
that feels really differently to that, so that has been enlightening.
But basically it was a good fit and Fox hired
me right after the twenty sixteen election, and so that
(10:59):
is just where I've been in and they've allowed me
to grow. Susanne Scott, who's the CEO of Fox, you know,
she promoted me eight months pregnant to get the hosting
job on the five, which is massive. And you know
what it's like, you're completely freaking out when you're with child,
let alone publicly with child like that, and will your
job be there for you? And They've been extremely nurturing
(11:23):
to me. And I think also putting such an outspoken
democrat on, I mean, we've been the top show in
cable news for years now, I think says something about
the kind of conversation that they want going on on
their airwaves. So yes, ah, it's still four on one
or three on one. Dana Prino is well, I.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Was I was going to say, it's it's that is
a real anomaly though in the Fox lineup. I mean,
let's be honest, you say that's the kind of show
and the conversations they want on their air but they
are really few and far between are they not, Well.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
It's different there. A panel show is different than as
host show, right, but even the guests and even sort
of the no one's going to pretend that it's not
right leaning, especially in prime time. I think you could
have conversations about what Neil Cavuto does on his show,
what Brett Bair does on a show, what Shannon Breem
does on Fox News Sunday and Chris Wallace before her,
and know that some of the most productive conversations with
(12:19):
Democrats have actually occurred on those shows, and that actually,
you know, like Brett, for instance, on Special Report has
a segment called common Ground where he has on a
dem and a Republican and the most liberal senators are
dying again like Elizabeth Warren would want to come on
Fox to be able to do that. So there are
moments where I think actually the fact that it is
(12:42):
conservative leaning, you know, writ large, not necessarily those newscasters,
creates an environment that Democrats know that they want to
be a part of that. Because also a we have
the numbers like if you're watching cable news, you're watching
Fox most likely, and especially if you look at a
post election where MSNBC and Sana has dropped off, and.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Why do you think that they have just imploded.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I think it's two parted. I think when you lose,
you received right and you go into a hole. I mean,
I have tons of liberal friends that are like, I
just don't want to see the news right now, you know,
like wake me up once he's inaugurated or something big happened.
That's impossible. But you know, I don't know what Trump
two point zero actually looks like. But everyone I think
(13:24):
will get amped up again if they're you know, if
the deportation force starts, Joe and Mika's audience is coming back,
right like, they will want to be part of that.
But I think there's fatigue and I think there's a feeling.
And I get this from a lot of people that
I know in my orbit who kind of tune out
more conservative leaning media and really are part of the
(13:45):
liberal bubble that they weren't not told an honest story
about what was going on in this election, like poo
pooing polls and interviews with people who you wouldn't expect
to be leaning towards Trump or considering Trump, and being
fed a narrative that was not reflective of what happened
(14:06):
on November fifth, and I think it's really important as
a media person to have an honest relationship with your viewers.
I try to do it like I, you know, beating
that drum. I wanted people to know Joe Biden has
a ton of accomplishments and that he should be really
proud of and that when he stands there and he
(14:27):
talks about the good things that he's done for the country,
that that's an important element of this. But at the
same time to also say, this is a jump ball, right,
there's a tiny polling error in either direction, you're going
to have this result. And Nate Silver, who took a
lot of flak for this, you know, in his model,
the number one most likely outcome was what we saw
that Trump gets all seven battlegrounds, and then just below it,
(14:49):
do just a few percentage points, was that Kamala gets
all seven battlegrounds.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
This was a run of the mill result. And I
think that people who have been on a steady dip
of left leaning media have a sense of betrayal in
all of this because they were told he's hitler. You know,
he's an authoritarian, We're going to get all of these
Republicans that you know, supported Nikki Haley in the primary,
(15:16):
but without really you know, getting into the fact that
most people do go home right when you look at
a full policy platform. It's very hard. I think of
it in contrast, like what would it take for me
to vote for a Republican? It take a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Well, I guess the question is Donald Trump is claiming
a mandate, and as the ulster that I know that
the numbers just don't add up to a so called mandate.
What do your focks colleagues say when he repeatedly insists
that he has been given carte blanche to do whatever
he wants.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
They think it's Listen, it's a problem with the electoral
college in the way that elections work in this country.
But it is a rarity that a Republican wins the
popular vote, right, you know, And he did do that
by a tiny amount. I think it's like one point
five percent now and it'll be I mean, it's certainly
the lowest performance since two thousand, but I think historically speaking,
it's like the combined with the electoral college and the
(16:15):
popular vote, like the third worst performance for a winning president.
That's not that exciting. Right, we're not talking about what
Obama did or like a Reigan I was to say
that president happened, right, Yeah, but it just in recent
memory for people who are handicapping this, But yeah, they
do feel like he has a mandate, he has the trifecta,
(16:35):
he has control of everything. But you know, if if
it was such a commanding win for the Trump agenda,
the cotails would have been larger, and Democrats I think
did really well in the Senate. I was sad to
see Bob Casey lose his race in Pennsylvania and a
little bit surprised by it, but you know, holding on
(16:56):
in Nevada, winning Arizona, Tammy bald went in Wisconsin, Elisa
Slockkin winning in Michigan, and on top of it, for
these candidates to have figured out a way to manage
the you know, I'll work with Donald Trump when I
need to. Tammy balbinz aarreed releasing ads. I was like,
this is what I did with Donald Trump when he
(17:17):
was in office. We can do that again. So I
always pushed back on it and not to diminish what
he pulled off because I think it is a dramatic feed,
especially because he took all these gen Z voters that
I didn't expect would go over in those kinds of numbers.
But I don't feel like he has some massive mandate.
And you know, Speaker Johnson is going to have to
talk to him about the hard truths. He has a
(17:39):
one seat majority. What are you supposed to.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
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(18:33):
to ask you about the fact that some left leaning
media talked about, you know, described him as hitler with Honestly, JD.
Vance did the same before he had an epiphany and
became a big fan of Donald Trump's and talked about
his authoritarian tendencies. And you were saying that as if
(18:55):
you were dismissing those claims. But I'm curious if you
do think Donald Trump has a authoritarian tendencies and were
people right to point that out.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yes, I think your strongest defense is always using the
words of people who knew him. And so when you
have quotes from Mark Milly and John Kelly talking about this,
you amplify them. And I did on the five as well.
I read them, I write, I take copious notes, I
do a lot of prep. I read them out loud.
I said, this isn't about me. But the reason that
(19:26):
I think maybe you read what I was saying as
being dismissive, is that that argument only tells part of
the story of how people see Donald Trump, and that
this came down to an incumbency election and an inflation election,
which happened all over the world, and all the incumbents
got thrown out right, and that people were thinking about
(19:50):
their grocery costs and we're not following the trend line
as closely as we are. Right. They weren't, like you know,
Steve Rattner up there with all of his charts to say,
which I love. I live off of it. I mean,
I use all of this for my own data collection.
But they weren't tracking it like that. They just have
a memory of the past few years, not feeling that good.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
They don't care if they bridge they're driving over to
get to the Kroger was the result of the infrastructure bill.
While they don't know is their groceries or thirty percent
higher than they were or.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
They know both of those things, and you have to pick.
And for a lot of people this felt like a
political sophie's choice for them, they didn't like either. Whether
if Kamala had had more time they would have felt
more comfortable with her. I think she ran a very
good campaign for getting one hundred and seven days. I
was not someone that thought a year in advance that
(20:44):
Biden should have gotten out, But in retrospect, I think
that's probably the case that we should have had a primary,
and that there is a good chance that Kamala Harris
would have won that primary and she would have been
able to talk about her experience as vice president and
gone ahead.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
But they had so much working against them, not only inflation,
but they have the border crisis, and she never really
could come up with a good explanation. No, And I've
said for the fact, which I think is honestly very legitimate, Jessica,
that there was a comprehensive immigration bill that took what
eight months for very conservative Republicans.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
And Democrats Hamward and it's not an OLM Barter's guy.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, and Donald Trump said do not vote on this
bill because he wanted to use it as a part
of his campaign strategy.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I think Donald Trump sucks, Like I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
But why didn't say he sucks. I just said he
wouldn't let them vote on the border. No.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
But yeah, I'm saying he sucks. I believe that. I
think he's manipulative, he's underhanded, he's completely self interested. I
worry he will run the country exactly in that vein,
and I'm concerned about it. But on the immigration front,
there was a tendency amongst Democrats, and especially Democrats were
(21:57):
discussing the issue, so people who do interviews or are
part of the media to minimize it. Over the first
two and a half years, when there were a lot
of people coming in here, and I thought that it
was a stunt. You know, when they started bussing migrants,
they scored a Mars vendors. Yeah, it was the smartest
(22:17):
thing they ever did.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Well. It's interesting because I have a friend who lives
in Florida, and I said what did you think of
Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott taking some of these immigrants
and moving them to Northern States, And she said, I
thought it was great because nobody really was paying attention
before that. And I do think that this untold story
(22:41):
was the strain on social services and communities, particularly along
the border, this influx, huge influx of immigrants was having
and I think the mainstream media, however you define that
these days, kind of ignored that story to its peril.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Not only but you could make a good argument that
they were protecting Biden from this that it was like,
I would rather talk about how we're inflation is coming
down faster here than it is for anyone else in
the G seven and all of these very good things
that were actually happening, then deal with the crisis, which
(23:21):
is an everyday horror show like Eagle Past. Texas cannot
take ten thousand people a day, and it's wrong for
us to ask them to do it, and Democrats like
Mark Kelly, Henry Quayar screaming about it, and it led
to a point where some of these border state democrats
(23:44):
didn't want to be linked with the administration on this
because they knew that it was being so poorly handled
and that we didn't have a good solution. And I
agree with you that comprehensive bill which James Langford wrote.
It is one of the more with Chris Murphy, but
James Langford is one of the more conservative people well
in the Senate in a genuine way. This isn't fake
right conservative populism. This is the real deal. But that
(24:08):
still came three and a half years after this crisis
really amped up. And the speed at which we've been
able to cut down on border crossings, like because of
the executive orders, and President Shinbaum of Mexico was touting
this in her letter back to Donald Trump when he
threatened the twenty five percent tariff on her, where he
(24:29):
said border crossings down seventy five percent because of the
work that we're doing in conjunction with the Biden administration.
That's all well and good, but to the average voter,
they're thinking, well, why didn't you do this before? If
it was an executive order and you didn't actually need
congressional approval to do it, why didn't you start with that?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
The second Title forty two was lifted.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Right, and their answer to every question about immigration was well, well,
early in the administration they had a bill and they
couldn't get any to do anything about it.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
We didn't think it was a big enough deal. Yeah,
that's the thing. And you're totally right about the social services.
And I've spoken to a number of people who not
only you know, have the daily experience that I do.
I take the subway in and out of work every day,
and probably one of the only people on camera that
does that. And so I know what the subway is
like now, and I grew up here in the city,
(25:21):
and I know what the difference is between that experience.
But when classrooms are filling up with kids who don't
speak English, and you have community centers like all over
you know, big cities like Boston, community centers that are
built for underserved kids who need somewhere to go after school,
(25:43):
and they're being closed down to be turned into migrant shelters,
and you.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Have hospitals that are overwhelmed, you know. And I think
I even talked to Mark Thompson at one point and said,
why aren't you covering this? And I thought it was interesting.
I also told him that I thought during the elee
they should have bureaus all across the country in smaller
towns and rural communities, so they could actually and I
(26:08):
know that John what's John's last name? Who the white
hair guy who does the map, John King, who I
really like. Sorry, John, I forgot your name for a second.
I know he went out and talked to real people,
but I feel like they could have been much more
embedded in real communities talking to people about, you know,
all kinds of issues that I think surfaced during this election.
(26:32):
You know, so it was largely an immigration and inflation election,
But I'm curious if you think sexism also played a
role in it. Because I went to a doctor and
I said, gosh, I think Donald Trump may win this election.
She said, well, we have two terrible choices. She just
doesn't have the stature to deal with world leaders. And
(26:54):
I thought, wow, that was a female doctor. Yeah, and
I'm curious if you think that sexism is still an
albatross around the neck of many of these female candidates,
especially when it comes to the highest office in the land.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, I definitely do. I think that there are considerations
that go into the life of a professional woman on
any level that men never think about. Like it was
very cute when Doug M Hoff at the DNC said,
you know, I like her laugh, but we don't care
about men's laughs, right, and we rarely notice what they're wearing. Right.
(27:36):
And I know everything. I know every pantsuit that Hillary wore,
you know, and I know about all of Kamala's fashion
choices and all of it.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Y made I think an intentional decision to be even
though they were beautiful Chloe suits, apparently to be as
nondescript as possibly very understated. Right.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And you know, I'm sure you remember when Trump went
after Nikki Haley saying her dress was ugly. You know,
Nikki Haley purposely leaned into her femininity in a way
the Democratic candidates don't typically. I think the only skirt
Kamala one was when she went to Sunday Church, or
when she went to Sunday Church, which is what to
a Black church, which is what you're supposed to do.
(28:17):
I am told.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I think it is part of it, just in what
people take in about the aesthetics. But if we're being
honest and they see no reason not to be, you know,
the first couple of years of the Biden administration, I
don't think she performed that well in public arenas, and
(28:41):
that people had that as their perception of her. There
was this moment she was sent to the Munich Security Conference,
probably about two years ago, a year and a half,
two years ago, and she gave I think one of
the best defenses of natter support of Zelenski and the
Ukrainian people, of Western values, democracy and going after totalitarians
(29:07):
like Putin, and she got praise across the political spectrum
for it. One of those moments where the five is not,
you know, right, not adversarial, where even Janine is like,
that was a good speech, That's what we're about here,
and that moment and ensuing moments where I think she
(29:28):
did well. I think especially in talking about the Dabbs
decision and the implications of that, she did a great job.
But those moments came too late, and I don't know
the inner workings of whether she was not amplified on
purpose so that it was really Biden's administration or I agree.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I agree with you one hundred percent. I don't think
she was. She was not nurtured, and I don't think
she was was showcased in any way. And part of
it I wondered if Joe Biden's discomfort and being in
spontane TuS media situations. They didn't want to then prop
(30:06):
her up for fear that she would overshadow him.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
That's interesting. I actually hadn't heard that you can use that.
I'm taking you I'm gonna be like my pal Katie
told me this.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I think you know, That's what I wondered. Well.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Also, once as this autopsy is being written about what happened,
and you realize just how small Biden's circle is, smaller
than even presidents that have small circles like we're talking about,
you know, Mike Donald and say Anita done and Anita done,
Jill and Hunter. Essentially, are you know, making all of
these decisions like dropping out of the race, pardoning Hunter?
(30:46):
We don't know. I mean, it could be one person's feeling.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
That will be interesting to find average to it.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, I'm fascinated by it. And there's, you know, part
of me who feels as someone who was very defensive
of the administration, not just for patty political reasons, but
because I genuinely believed in what we were doing and
things that we've created a recovery that's unprecedented.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Why do you think Biden gets so little credit for
the things he has achieved. Is it all about, you know,
the aesthetics of his ability to communicate, to use the
bully pulpit properly, because I think with I saw someone
reeling against the part and saying this, will you know this?
(31:34):
Maybe it was James Carville that he's going to be
the have the lowest approval rating of any president in
history and it Do you think it's a communications problem?
Do you think it's a perception problem. Do you think
there are things that are actually you know, legitimate to criticize?
I mean, what do you think is keeping him from
(31:56):
from getting credit for anything? Really?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
I think that he proved himself to not be as
much of the empathizer in chief as we thought that
he was. Like in the twenty twenty primary, I thought
he did that really really well, where people thought, this
is a guy who's on our side, this is a
guy who hasn't jumped the shark. He's not saying, you know,
(32:20):
health insurance for everyone who's here undocumented, we should have
open borders.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
He seemed like the common sense right candidate him and
like Amy klobashar right, who I love and can't get
out of a primary, but would be an amazing president
for sure. And it is a communications problem. I think
he wasn't able to toe the line of being able
to speak highly of what they were doing and to
(32:45):
also say, I know it's not enough right now, I
know what your life looks like.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Right He couldn't really feel their pain like Bill Clinton did.
No well, and I wonder why no, because I think
he genuinely does. I think he's an incredibly rithetic.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Frankly about being destroyed on conservative media constantly and his
accomplishments being belittled and people talking down about him. I mean,
this guy is run for president three times. He obviously
believes that he should be there and that he has
earned a level of respect that he did not feel
(33:24):
that he was getting for being able to do these things,
for being able to work with conservatives when he needed
to to, you know, make sure that we have investments
like the Chips and Science Act. What happened. It was
a skinny version of the bill, but the Inflation Reduction Act,
which a lot of people still mistakenly say was what
spiked inflation, and that's absolutely not true.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I don't know, I've read enough stuff that's that at
least it might have contributed. I'm no economist, Jessica, but
you know, an influx of that much money, there are
some that argue that really wasn't helpful to the economy
met but again, an economists.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Justin Wolfers, who worked in the Bomba administration and is
a great liberal economist. What I'm saying is that when
you look at where the inflation numbers are now, there
was a temporary pain that was unsustainable for people, but
they were looking at it on a long curve and
it seems to have come back down to a palatable level.
(34:25):
But people went and voted feeling like inflation was fifteen
percent and not that it was two or three.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
If you want to get smarter every morning with a
breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter,
Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. Do
(35:00):
you think historically that Joe Biden will be considered a
better president than he's believed to be at this moment
in time?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
For his sake, I think, unfortunately, the decisions that he
made around what to do in terms of running and
kind of more social you know, like the Hunter pardon
or and whatever is to come. I think if he
goes around blanket pardoning anyone involved with the January sixth
Committee or things like that, it'll get even worse.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
For sort of those preemptive parties. But I don't know.
Listen but for you, listen to that interview on Meet
the Press with Donald Trump basically saying Liz Cheney deserves
to be in prison any top sale I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Mean Cashpitel has an enemy's list that he published in
his book, So why would that be so bad to
But what are you partning them for?
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Well, I think that a lot of people don't want
him to pardon them because it's an admission they did
something wrong when they were actually just holding people.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Aunt has even said, don't yeah, s that's a terrible
press and for what we weren't on the wrong side
of the law. And I'm glad that he has faith
in the system that it'll protect them. I'm not so
sure if you get through all of these confirmations. And
Pam Bondi is obviously better than Matt Gates, but she will.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Say not that much she is. I don't think he's
like sexually assaulted underage girls. But as far as we know,
she did not do that.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
But no, she you know, she was on the election
denihilism tour with a lot of these lawyers and was out.
I think she gave a press conference in Philadelphia talking about,
you know, all the stolen votes and all of that,
and none of that is good. But you have to
reassess your standards, I think for what he's doing, with
a few exceptions in terms of foreign policy, I am
(36:49):
very happy.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yes, a lot of people are.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I think I'm friends with Mike Walt, who's going to
be the National Security Advisor.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
I think people think he's fine. I think they think
Rubio is fine. It's these other people, like Fox's own
Pete Hegseeth And I'm curious how you feel that Fox
pretty much ignores the story. They invite his mother on
Fox and Friends. But when it comes to all these
allegations that are pretty serious, honestly, from I mean from
(37:18):
drinking to sexually assaulting women, to driving an organization into
the ground, to all kinds of things, Fox kind of
ignores them.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Well, I don't. I mean, at least in the last
few days, every time that I look up at a
screen when I'm in the makeup chair, Pete is on
it and there's a gaggle around him and they're covering it.
I think the first mention was Chad Program, who's a
great reporter of ours, and it was on Brettbaer's show,
The Straight News Show, and it was mentioned there. And
there has been ensuing coverage.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
But you know what I mean, I do and I don't.
It's ongoing. I you're not running Fox shows. I'm not
asking you to defend defend the editorial decisions. But it
just does seem weird to me. I take your point.
I I no, he loosely, you know, have been on
(38:13):
with him. He's always been very pleasant to me. I
think the alleysians are serious, and you see people like
Joni Ernst who's obviously taking them seriously. And I think
now she's kind of switched and said that she had
a I'm paraphrasing, you know, a great conversations. He continues
to support his nomination.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
I think that's saying that someone should get to go
before the committee isn't the same thing as saying this
is okay. And there is a very strong argument to
be made that a president who certainly in the mind
of Republicans, has a big mandate, should get to have
his nominees come through, like someone like Tom Cotton released
(38:54):
a statement saying, I expect that they will get their
hearings and that they will get confirmed. And he's one
who's a complete neo KHN like normal hawk right, like
a Mitch McConnell, but younger. And he's even saying that,
And I think.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
That I think we haven't really heard from Susan Collins
or Lisa Murkowski and they only need write one Republican
No they need.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
They'll need how many three? So because Jadie Vance will
be you can vote? So yeah, would I love it
if Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski just stood up and
said no to seventy five percent or whatever.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I think there are there are different threat levels that
each of them are posing. And I hate that someone
who I think is as dangerous as like an RFK
Junior getting as the head of HHS is now like
a shrug to people because they feel a guy have
bigger fish to fry here, like right, Tulca Gabbert is interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
I know that you said something about Tulsea Cabbard. You
said that I guess what did you say about her?
That she was sort of your hair on fire? Pick? Oh,
top anxiety pick yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Peak anxiousness about Telsea Gabbard. You know, it's been interesting
because I feel like she hasn't gotten a lot of intention.
But then there was a story that came out yesterday
about the meetings that she's been having with senators and
that apparently it's not going well. So if it's just
undercovered and she ends up being not confirmed, fine by me.
I don't need to hear about it all the time.
(40:22):
But you know, watching the scenes out of Syria the
past few days and thinking back to her defense of Assad,
which is the original I think that might be part
of that was probably from my podcast. But I spoke
about her on The Five a couple of years ago
and I said, I am not in the business of
(40:43):
accusing someone of being a Russian asset. That is very serious,
and it got us in a whole host of trouble
in twenty sixteen about Trump, and you know that backfired.
But they like her too much, and they talk about
her on Russian state TV, and I think a commentator
and even said recently like she's the only good one
(41:04):
left in this, you know, the only one that guess us,
because Marco Rubio doesn't feel that way about Putin or
Asad and Mike Waltz certainly doesn't. So Tolci is very
concerning to me. But I don't know, Like Bernie Sanders
has said that he might support her and RFK Junior,
(41:25):
which seems like a complete betrayal of a lot of
his beliefs or what I thought that they were. But
I don't know. I believe more in Lisa Murkowski than
I do Susan Collins. You know, she's always deeply disturbed
by things, and then you know, votes for them. So
it's going to be a mess. It's gonna be good
TV programming.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Though, definitely, definitely. We're almost out of time. But I
wanted to ask you just a couple of questions in
closing one. You know, there's so much handwringing and introspection
about what the Democratic Party needs to do now, and
Chris Murphy, who I'm interviewing this afternoon, I think they said, yeah,
that they need to be more populist and come up
(42:08):
with really a different strategy. I mean, as somebody who's
been steeped in democratic politics, for a long time. What
advice would you give the party.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Well, it's hard to do it if you're not naturally
prone to be able to but speaking like a normal
human is a good one. And rewiring. I mean, I've
heard a lot of people and there's a huge rise
in the number of folks who identify with a third party, right,
who are just like I'm an independent, And then it's
usually an issue like being pro choice or something that
(42:39):
sways you in one direction or the other. But I
would love it if we could kind of strip the
title Democratic Party off of it and just common sense party.
What does your heart tell you about X policy or
exposition that you might be taking? And I think that
that would serve us a lot better. We certainly wouldn't
(43:00):
have gotten into this mess with you know. The ad
that had the most impact on the election was the
They Them You ad with Charlemagne in it, and it
was an ad about trans issues, but it was mostly
an economic ad, right. It was basically saying, the Democratic
Party is taking your cash and putting it towards something outlandish, right,
(43:25):
that no one thinks about, that affects one person every
five years, maybe, right, the sex changes for undocumented people
in jail. That is the smallest subcategory you could probably
ever come up with.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
And I think that's interesting, But you think it really
translated to a feeling of being economically ripped off by government.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
This is where your dollars are going. They do it
about migrants, they do it about foreign policy. That's how
they've turned people against the idea of giving money to
your brain and in some cases to Israel. I mean,
Jade Vance even voted against the Israel funding package, which
I know he's on board now that you know there's
a new sheriff in town, and he's part of that
(44:12):
ticket obviously. But I think if you just let yourself
be governed by your gut more than your party affiliation,
that we would do better. Because a lot of these
people who were interviewed, and I'm sure you saw some
of these interviews as well, like the former Democrat who
is a prison guard who was interviewed about why he
had voted Hillary Biden Trump, and he said, the Democratic
(44:37):
Party doesn't like people like me. Or the woman who
was in a focus group who said, they've asked, you know,
what words would you use to describe the two parties?
And she said the GOP was crazy and the Democratic
Party was preachy, and she said, preachy doesn't work for me.
I can handle a lunatic, then I can handle a
(45:01):
party that makes me feel bad about myself. Right, And
we made a lot of people feel bad about themselves.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah. I got to know someone who's covering the Trump
campaign and she said, I said, what is you know,
you go to a lot of these rallies. What do
you think is really motivating? And she said the lefty
lecture culture.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah, which frankly is me. I mean a lot of
the criticism that I get from the right, and you know,
I think now I'm just part of the ecosystem and
they've come to accept me. But you know, I have
a PhD. I wears you went to the school shuring
you about your your I went to Brent Maar, grew
(45:41):
up in New York City, went to private school, all
of it like limousine liberal to the max. And I
sit up there and sometimes go off for you know,
a full minute at a time about Biden's accomplishments. I
did it just yesterday. I said, you know, we were
talking about what his legacy would be, and my colleague,
we're crapping on him, and I said, you know what,
(46:03):
his legacy is the best recovery in the G seven.
That's what his legacy is. And what did they say
to that? Jesse was like, we're moving on. You know,
I take all of those as a w when they
just say moving on. But I would like to be
more common sense about things. I would like to speak
in plainer language.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Well, I know you do a podcast with Scott Galloway
called Regene Moderates, and there was a time when being
a moderate was so out of fashion. Yeah, and I
wonder if you think, as a result of this election
that suddenly we're going to say, maybe it's not so
bad to be moderate. But how do you fight sort
(46:44):
of extreme conservativism, which it has been pulled over to
the right with moderation because it seems like the whole
idea is to get people all worked up right, and
moderation isn't very sexy. Jessica, No, but I think that
if the number one thing that people took away from
(47:05):
Kamala's campaign, which was she's too left for me, And
part of that was they did a great job at
amplifying clips from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty and that
Kamala didn't want to deal with them, right, and she
net down and say like she never really answered that
those questions very well. Well.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Obviously the view question from Sunny Houston that was the
nuclear explosion, like how are you different from Biden? And
I saw you speaking about it where you're like, how
do you want to have an answer to that?
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Right?
Speaker 2 (47:33):
And Biden doesn't seem to me to be someone who
would be aggravated if you said, respectfully, we did a
lot of great things, but this is what a Kamala
Harris presidency does.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Definitely, we don't know, we don't know how. No, but
he would have responded to that.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
But what's he going to do to her?
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (47:51):
No, no, no, I agree.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
I think she went too out of her way not
to hurt his feelings.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
And we also have to think about not only winning
back the working class voters, but there are moderate Republicans
and centrists that do not want to go home to
the Republican Party. Even if the top of the ticket
in twenty twenty eight, it shouldn't be Donald Trump. God
knows what he'll do, but let's say it's some JD
Vance or other. They want to be part of a
(48:18):
pro democracy party, and we are that, and we have
to be reasonable to be able to integrate them and
make it easy for the liz Cheneys of the world
to want to be part of us, not just when
there's someone with you know, authoritarian tendencies. I think to
be you know, fair about it at the top of
(48:41):
the ticket, but when they're running a normal Republican to
just say, actually, what the Democrats are selling resonates with me,
and they're better for the economy, and they respect people's
personal liberties and they're not insane.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
You know. It seems to me that you are a
role model for people on how to get out of
their bubbles, how to have conversations with people respectfully, with compassion.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
I'm writing a book about it.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Well you should because and I'd love to saying.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Your copy it will be down the line. It takes
a lotting a book. I did not know about the
schedules of these things.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
Yes it does. I can test to that. But I
really think that you would have a lot to say
about respecting people, having conversations, meeting people where they are,
and not ending with a food fight at the holiday
dinner table, because I think we really need that if
we're going to solve some of the thorniest issues that
(49:41):
are facing our country.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Yeah, I hope so. And I appreciate the compliment. Thank you.
I take it really seriously. And I know that also
for a lot of people around this country, I'm the
only Democrat that they might know in their lives, right
because there are people that are siloed, and I think
it's so important to represent the values of this party
that I care deeply about in a sane and approachable
(50:06):
way where you know, they can't write me off as
someone that's lost their mind or someone who can't say
something that's obvious. And obviously I have my moments, you know,
where I am over my skis as far as they're concerned.
But generally speaking, I think if you you know, had
my colleagues on, they would all say, I'm just like
(50:28):
a pretty moderate rational Democrat.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Do all ever like have dinner, go out for drinks?
Speaker 2 (50:34):
So well, the it's I go out with Jesse Waters's
wife on my own, you know, Janine. I've recycled the
story now, but like Janine who has a grandson around
the same age as my oldest who turns three today,
Happy birthday, Cleo. Got me baby formula when there was
no baby formula. I don't she knew a guy. I
don't ask questions when Janine says I know somebody I
(50:56):
can get you that. But like, there it is. It
is genuinely the messed up family that you see on TV.
And I really appreciate that and the opportunity to get
to talk. I talked to four point three million people
a day about what Democrats are doing right or what
frankly translating the perception that they've gotten through people who
(51:21):
are not being honest brokers with them, or a communication
system for the party that I think really failed, you know,
and I hate having to start a sentence with like
I would have said it this way. You know, I'm
not auditioning to be press secretary or anything like that,
but you know, you know what that's like where you're like,
that's actually not helpful. It's not helpful, and it's not
the truth. It's not what the policy actually does, it's
(51:44):
not what happened at X event.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
You know. Yeah, definitely, Well I could talk to you
for hours. Yeah, but thank you so much for being
on this podcast. Thank you for what you do every
other day. I guess on follow me a week and
I feel like you should probably have your own show
where you talk one on one which shy call Suzanne Scott.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
Great? Do I get to get percent?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
I mean, see is going to fight you for it?
But yeah, great work. Be with you.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
Thank you, Jessica.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
This is great.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
a subject you want us to cover, or you want
to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,
reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would
love to hear from you. Next Question is a production
of iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me,
(52:47):
Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz,
and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian
Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter wake Up Call,
go to the description in the podcast app, or visit
(53:08):
us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me
on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
Into it.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
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(53:47):
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