Midterm Prep and the Ever-Empowering Gretchen Carlson

Topics Discussed

• Healthy Midterm Election Behavior

• Advocating for Workplace Change with Gretchen Carlson

• Outside of Politics: All Saints Day

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Episode Resources

• Holiday Huddle Tickets

• Write an Amazon Review for I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening)

• Biden's job rating sinks to 42 percent in NBC News poll a year from midterms (NBC News)

• Gretchen Carlson Website

Transcript

Gretchen Carlson [00:00:00] That's the big thing, because I want people to be able to own their own truths. You know, a lot of women who reach out to me now, they're understanding the evolution of the revolution and they're not going to sign mandates anymore. They're saying, I'm going to stand up and say that I'm not going to be silenced anymore. And and so that's the massive progress that we have made in a short period of time. 

Sarah [00:00:27]  This is Sarah Stewart Holland. 

Beth And this Beth Silvers. 

Sarah Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. 

Sarah [00:00:46] Welcome to Pantsuit Politics, we are so glad you are here with us today. It's Election Day, which means we are exactly one year out from the midterms. It felt like the right moment to talk about cultivating some healthy midterm behavior. We're going to that first. Then we're going to share our conversation with Gretchen Carlson about her work advocating for women in the workplace and the end of workplace NDAs. And Outside of Politics, we're going to talk about All Saints Day. 

Beth [00:01:07] It's a big week here at Pantsuit Politics because we're celebrating our birthday tomorrow, November 3rd is our sixth birthday. We just hover on that for a second. Six years of Pantsuit Politics, it has been such an unexpected, wonderful part of my life. I can't talk about it too much or I'll get all teary, but I just want to say thank you to everyone who's been with us on this journey for however long you've been on it with us. We are so grateful to you for making this work. The beautiful unfolding of community that it is. And if you would like to give us a present, we would love just a one sentence review on Amazon of our first book: 'I think You're Wrong, but I'm Listening: A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations'. We have set a goal for ourselves to get to a thousand Amazon reviews of our first book before our second book comes out on May 3rd. And so if you have read it and have a second to give us a one sentence review would appreciate it so much. And thank you for all of your enthusiasm about our next book. Just we're living in abundance here at Pantsuit Politics, and we're so grateful to all of you for that. And happy birthday to all of us together who create this community. 

Sarah [00:02:28] Before we talk about next year's elections, we did want to take a quick moment and acknowledge all of you who are running this year. Some of our favorite messages are from members of this community who share how they are inspired to run for local office. We know the last few weeks and months have been exhausting for you as you worked hard to turn out the vote. We hope you all have an exciting outcome tonight, but most of all that you continue to do the good work in your communities. No matter what the position is, it's all essential. Now, Beth, you said you woke up this morning inspired by the work of Anne Lamont about how to have a more healthy approach to the midterms. 

Beth [00:03:04] We are reading Anne Lamont's wonderful 'Help, Thanks, Wow' in our extra credit book club and that framework of just 'Help, Thanks, Wow' as the three essential prayers has been so valuable to me over the years, I've started to think about friends as sort of Help, Thanks, or Wow kinds of friends. And I just think that might be a good recipe for centering ourselves because I have found myself really carried away over the Virginia gubernatorial election. I listen to a bunch of The Bulwark Podcast. They've talked a lot about it. I read a lot about it, and I don't want to do this frenzy. I think it's so important. I'm not trying to downplay the importance at all. But when I think about the frenzy around the Virginia gubernatorial election, both on its own and what it means for the state of Virginia, what issues it's surfacing and also as like a crystal ball into what the midterms could look like, I just feel lost. And so I'm looking for something to keep me grounded and the idea of thinking about elections as a moment to say, OK, who are we trying to help? Where do I see evidence of help? Where do I see evidence of help on a local scale, especially like, what are people trying to do to be helpful, feeling a sense of gratitude for people who run or for people who work on campaigns or for the opportunity to vote or for all of those things? And then kind of a wow factor of not like who's knocking my socks off with their personal charisma, but where can I sort of stand in all of the issues in my community or the good work going on in my community or the good work going on in the country or the extraordinary times that we live in? You know, just trying to use those guideposts to process my thinking and using those to filter out noise, things that don't fit in those categories maybe shouldn't make my list. It just makes me feel a little bit more steady. 

Sarah [00:05:01] Naming the anxiety particularly surrounding the Virginia governor's race is such a good place to start. I think that is frenzied is the right word for it. I was so struck by the reporting and the POLITICO's playbook this morning as we're recording on Monday about a moment after this big Halloween parade where a staffer in a panic was calling for police because there was an intoxicated individual sort of belligerently harassing the campaign. And, you know, previously, in years past, this would have just, you know, people would have just blown it off and walked away. But the anxiety is so heightened and the tension is so intense. And you know, we're in the midst of all this. Reporting about January 6th, The Washington Post just released a big three part series, and so we're all still contemplating and learning more in depth about the threat before January 6th, the intensity of the people on the ground on January 6th. And so all of that is like playing into the tension surrounding the elections right now in 2021. So as we move into 2022. Yeah, I am concerned about the intensity. I told you last week, I think that I think my body is experience some sort of like post-traumatic stress from last year's election, like it's just it's like it remembers it keeps the score right. It remembers what an anxious mess I was at this time last year. And I don't want to be that way in 2022. And it's just as the stakes get higher and higher, it is really hard to keep a centering perspective. In the midst of all that, in particular, in the midst of a certain type of media coverage, Beth, did you see all the coverage about the NBC News poll about Biden's performance? 

Beth [00:06:55] Yes. 

Sarah [00:06:56] She rolled her eyes are you can't see we're on screen and she rolled her eyes, and I just want everyone to know that. 

Beth [00:07:00] I did because it's everywhere this morning as though it is the most important thing happening on Earth. And that is this far out from a presidential election to be getting this kind of frantic reaction to poll numbers about the president's job approval rating. It just it seems bananas to me that this is getting so much attention. 

Sarah [00:07:24] You know, even Axios, who I almost always respect and enjoy the reporting was like on the brink of the midterms and like the brink, the brink? What definition is the brink a year away? The brink of like it's the brink of the Virginia's governor election. But it's not the brink of the midterms, and I'm just honestly, I'm 10 kinds of done with the, How do you feel about the direction of the country? What does that question even mean? Like, it's not that I don't think polling is important in a democracy, but this is not a direct democracy. Obviously, this is an emotional, you know, test of a massive, diverse population of human beings who are biased towards negativity just under the rules of basic psychology. And so you poll people and you say, Do you think the country is headed in the right direction? Like, based on what I think of that through the lens of even the reporting on COP26, the big climate conference going on right now. I love Senator Ed Markey saying we're on second like we've made progress, but we're not done. And so when you say the direction of the country like. How is anyone supposed to hold the complexity of like progress we've made things we should be grateful for? You know, like things we should sit in awe of, like it's just so frustrating to me every time I read that question. 

Beth [00:08:59] I think that's right. And where I am right now is that everything election related, even really related to political coverage is just falling flat for me. 

Sarah [00:09:10] Yep. 

Beth [00:09:10] Every campaign email I get falls completely flat, even where you can see them trying to pivot and take a new tone or a new direction. I just am not interested. I don't want that sort of horse race coverage. I don't really want to listen to a speech, even from someone I really like right now. I'm having trouble letting any of it in. You know, I got a DM yesterday from a good friend from high school who is a teacher, and he was saying to me that lost in all the conversations about public schools right now is the fact that we have basically a generation of people who cannot be educated the way that the generations before them have been educated, that attention spans have collapsed so dramatically that everything that we're trying to do doesn't work. 

Sarah [00:10:00] That is such a good point. 

Beth [00:10:01] And he was saying the pandemic as an accelerant has just accelerated the trend of screens, doing a lot of our teaching, doing a lot of our parenting that we're all experiencing the effects of the pandemic in ways that we don't really understand and we certainly don't understand about our kids. And he said, I'm not sitting like in a place of judgment. My own kids fit these descriptions. But he was like even the kids who are pretty OK. School doesn't work anymore, and every teacher I know is dealing with crisis level behavior almost every single day. And he's like, Something is broken here. And that kind of conversation is the conversation that I want to be present for right now. I just can't do the same tired arguments that elections draw out of us when I feel like in our personal lives, there's so much happening. And in a good way to, I mean, trick or treating last night in my neighborhood filled people with joy in a way that we haven't seen in a long time. There are just so many currents happening around us personally, and I think that what we do around elections. No one has yet figured out how to plug in to the new dynamic. But I'm looking for the Schitt's Creek and the Ted Lasso of campaigning right now, something that meets us in that really personal tender space and says, gently, Let me come along with you here. 

Sarah [00:11:30] Yeah, I totally agree. I think that's exactly why the coverage is falling flat. I actually thought that the other day I thought, how are we playing the same game with the coverage, with the polls, with the emails, when everything is different? Look around. Everything is different. But we're going to do the midterms the same way. I think that's why I bristle every time someone says, Well, you know, the midterm after the president's first term, they lose the seats and I'm like, Right, but everything is different right now, so let's not assume that's going to be true. That is exactly what is bothering me about the coverage is it's like, Well, OK, gather the wagons. It's election season. So we're going to trot out the same crap that we do every other year. And I'm like, I don't want to do the same crap post-pandemic. I think what we've seen to have really clarified is that nobody wants to keep doing the same crap in every single area of their life. And so I really would like it to be different in the election cycle. I hope that's what we do here. But I'd like to see it beyond just the means you politics community. I'm reading Barack Obama's memoir right now. And it's really interesting because I'm in the part I'm in the Democratic primary and you know how he approached elections and how they thought about it differently and how it felt it felt so different to people, right? He had that moment where he, you know, sort of shook everybody out of their stupor and said, We can talk about it, we can do it a different way. And so it's interesting to be reading that at this moment where we're all so hungry for that. And it will be interesting since we are not on the brink of the midterms, clarify that. Hopefully, somebody will figure that out. I think that there is a really good chance that we'll start to see a different tone from people who want to break out of that same, that same approach. 

Beth [00:13:16] And that's why 'Help, Thanks, Wow' feels right to me. Those are the feelings that I'm looking for in my life. Those are the needs that I feel. And I do think there are candidates out there who can meet us in those spaces. I think a lot about Tabitha Eisner in Alabama, who we talked to during her first congressional run. I think she was a little bit ahead of her time in the way that she spoke about her campaign as an act of service to the community. But I think there are people who can do this, and I just want to find those people and encourage them and and make known that as that college educated, suburban, white woman, voter that keeps being discussed as the person who's probably going to vote for Glenn Youngkin instead of Terry McAuliffe in Virginia, which is going to set off a whole new set of alarms for Democrats and whatever right? You can follow that ad nauseum. As that person, I can tell you that I think many of us are waiting for someone, my pastor used this term and I'm going to steal it from her. She was talking about re-presenting as Christians what Christ looks like in the community instead of represent re-presenting, like showing over again. I thought that little twist was so beautiful. And I think that many of us in this demographic at least are looking, and I and I think beyond this demographic are looking for someone to re-present what elected governance looks like. And that gets back to the climate summit, you were talking about, Sarah, the vast majority of people on my street would not say the most important thing President Biden could be doing right now is meeting in Glasgow with world leaders about climate standards and corporate taxation internationally and other issues. But it is probably the most important thing he could be doing this week. What is popular is not always what is wise. And I think we're looking for people who are willing to say that to us. I do respect the way the Biden White House is is responding to these poll numbers. I respect them saying, you know, I get that most people aren't all that jazzed about infrastructure, but the country needs an infrastructure investment, so we're going to keep working toward that goal. I think that's the right approach and that that does kind of fit with what I'm looking for right now. 

Sarah [00:15:41] Well, we have many, many months to continue this conversation. And if you see something in a local race or in a congressional race around your communities that you feel like re-presents the idea of campaigning or citizenship, definitely share with our community. Next up, we're going to talk to Gretchen Carlson, journalist and advocate, about the real legacy of Fox News. Her work to end nondisclosure agreements, and what it's like to be back sharing the news again. 

Beth [00:16:24] Gretchen, we're so happy to have you back with us on Pantsuit Politics when we first talked with you. Your book, 'Be Fierce, Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back' had come out. Since then, you have launched this multi-pronged battle against forced arbitration and nondisclosure agreements to create safer workplaces and greater justice. And we thought as we talk about that work, it might be helpful to orient everyone listening to where it all started for you. And we know that there is a lot of your own story that you can't tell, but we love how you are using your platforms to reflect on your experiences as you can. So we wanted to ask you first. As Fox News is celebrating its 25th anniversary. How do you think about your time there now with some more space from it and what you see as the legacy of Fox News sitting here today in 2021? 

Gretchen Carlson [00:17:14] Yeah, it's a loaded question. Thanks for having me back. I have such great memories of when I got together with you all when my book came out already four years ago. In Cincinnatti, I know. And then we were having our panel discussion. Of course, I worked in Cincinnati for a couple of years, so it was always great to to go back and see what's changed and what hasn't. But then I got to meet the two of you. So, so much has happened in this space over the last four years. Hard to believe. It's been five years since I jumped off a cliff by myself in suing Roger Ailes at Fox News for harassment, not knowing what was going to happen the next minute. And you know, I had a friend. I just remembered this recently. I had a friend who told me at the time, You know, Gretchen, something good is going to come out of this. And I was like, Maybe not so much the initial eight. But you know what? Something really great has come out of this, and that is that this is my passion project. You know, changing the world and making the workplace safer has become my passion project. And sometimes when you live a horrible experience, you, you know, you have all the more understanding and energy to to make change. So, you know, it all started at Fox. I guess I was there 11 years. They just celebrated their 25th anniversary and I noticed something really funny. They left out like a whole big chunk of history, which would be my story. They left out a whole big, you know, I guess they've just changed. I mean, and you know, here's my message if you have changed, as you say, you have Fox News, then why do you not let me out of my nondisclosure agreement, which I have asked you to do for the last year and a half? Because if everything is just dandy there now and women are treated with such respect, then then what's the worry about letting me own my own voice, which is what I'm fighting for for millions of other people? So that was sort of my reflection of the twenty five year anniversary. Oh, and then so two things on a funny, kind of funny note on my old show, Fox and Friends. They did this sort of compilation of celebrities over the years, and they must have gone to great efforts to edit me out because I remembered, well, for sure, they're not going to show my face. I mean, no way. But I remembered most of the celebrities because I was actually sitting on that couch with all those celebrities. And the funniest thing was I heard my laugh about 50 times because they couldn't quite, you know, slice that out. So that was the first kind of moment of joy that I had for a second. And then I don't know if you saw it. Trevor Noah on his show did sort of that video and it's been done before it happened right off my lawsuit, too, where they put together all the clips of women not being treated great and things that were said to them. And, you know, no surprise a lot of those clips I'm in. So I liked that particular tape because it ends with me walking off the set one day, which was one of my sort of, you know, tiny protests that I tried to do while I was there because I had to be really, really careful. Obviously it was. It was scary for me and I didn't plan it that that day. But but that day on the on the curvy couch, as they used to say on Fox and Friends. One of the guys said something about how, you know, it's just such a shame that women can just do everything now. And, you know, we've let them just rule the world. And I was like, You know what, if you guys are so fantastic, then you guys read the headlines, and I just stood up and I was laughing. But I left the set and the camera kept panning over to me to make sure that I was OK, you know, and everything. Let's just say that I got several calls from the second floor after that. In retrospect, that was my way of sort of trying to show the world that all things were not well and that something was was going on so that, you know, those are sort of my reflections of the twenty five year anniversary. 

Sarah [00:21:13] It's so interesting that you bring up The Daily Show because my most vivid memory of that time is when Jon Stewart did that compilation and was like, this woman went to Stanford. This woman is brilliant. Why does she get treated this way? I remember that I still remember that segment so well from your time there, and it feels like you were going through that same revelation, like why am I being treated this way? 

Gretchen Carlson [00:21:33] Well, Jon Stewart had no idea what was happening, right, that that came out like 10 years ago. And you know, the interesting back story on that is that it turns out that one of his main producers also went to Stanford, where I went to college. Now he was five years younger than me, but I ran into him on an airplane when we were going out to cover the Democratic National Convention when Barack Obama was nominated as the candidate. And it was in Denver. We had a big, long flight together. I was sitting with the entire Jon Stewart Daily Show. You know, they used to make fun of me almost every night. Oh crap, how did I end up on this plane? But anyway, I sat next to this, this friend of mine, and that's how that segment came to be. Wow, when we got done with the four and a half hour flight, I was like, So I'm not so dumb, right? And he was like saying that. And I think that's how they came up with sort of doing this segment. That actually was kind of a backhanded compliment to me. 

Sarah [00:22:31] Yeah, that's amazing. And I love that back. You know, as we talk through your history and we get to this moment where you filed the suit and you know, every time I think about this history with you, I think it's so easy to sit where we are now to sit post what happened to you, to sit post Harvey Weinstein and to understand what it was like at that moment where it seemed impossible, it seemed impossible that men of that stature, men with that much power could be taken out. It seemed impossible that you would get any sort of victory at all. That only thing that would come your way was a tax. And I just wonder, like now, there are still so many women in that situation that are in industries that have no example of men at the top levels of people at the highest levels of power being held to account who feel like if I stand up, the only thing that's going to come at me is attacks. What do you say to women like that? What do you offer them now, five years later? 

Gretchen Carlson [00:23:33] I say that it's such a personal choice to make that decision for yourself because we are still in the evolution part of the revolution, as I like to call it. So we've made great strides over the last five years. But let's face it, you're probably still going to be maligned to a certain extent. If you come forward, you'll probably face retaliation. I just did an Instagram Live video with a woman who has come forward and gone viral on TikTok for talking about her experience at at a bank and the retaliation that ensued. You know, that's probably still going to happen. So it's a huge decision for people because your career could still be over. Now I'm hoping that all the work that I'm doing and all the work that so many other millions of people have done in coming forward and sharing their own personal stories is is slowly but surely changing that. But it's a big choice. I mean, I I'd love to be able to say, Hey, everyone should just come forward. But I I know that it's you have your whole life to weigh because, for example, if you're a single mom and you're the breadwinner, you know, are you going to come forward knowing that you're going to be blacklisted, demoted and probably fired? No, probably not. So it is a personal choice. I spend an inordinate amount of time answering emails and sometimes speaking to speak people about this exact thing, and that's what I always share with them. It's really what propels me to continue doing the work that I'm doing because I'm very optimistic and we had made great strides over a short period of time, but we still have a lot of work to do. 

Beth [00:25:03] And it's obvious from the fact that you're asking those questions that that your story has been powerful, even as you haven't been able to tell the whole story. And you talked about how, you know, I would love for Fox to let you out of that NDA so you can tell the full story as you're thinking about that and all the success that you've had that Roger Ailes was fired, that you got an apology from Fox News, that you got a settlement. You have still described in multiple places that there is just such emotional turmoil associated with not being able to fully tell your own story. And I wondered if you would describe that a little bit for our audience because I think that that's hard for a lot of business owners to understand or executives who make these decisions who have the nondisclosure agreements in place or had this forced arbitration clauses. What is it like for someone to not be able to tell their own story? 

Gretchen Carlson [00:25:55] Yeah, gosh. That's another loaded question, because nobody's really examined or cared to examine the repercussions of not being able to own your own truth when it comes to harassment. And I can say this as a journalist. Five years ago, nobody gave a damn about any of these stories. We wanted to cover them. I would have pitched my own personal story. There would've been like, what? No, we're not interested in that. So nobody has really looked into the emotional damage of not owning your own truth. But. I mean, if you think about it's not just women and men who face harassment in the workplace who don't own their own troops if they sign NDAs. Think about all the kids who've gone away to camps and have been abused or abused in school or within the Catholic Church, for example, and their families sign NDAs, and they never own their own choice. Imagine they're already trying to deal with the emotional turmoil of what happened to them, and now they don't own their own troops on top of that. I mean, I think a psychologist would say that that is exactly the wrong way to heal, right? I mean, we all know that by it's ironic because the way we solve this problem is by talking about it and be open about it. And yet there's millions of us who can't do that right? So, you know, it's a lot of irony in there. Listen, I don't spend my time. I try to spend my time worrying about the emotional impact it's had on me personally, not be able to own my own truth. I know what it is in my heart. I think it's why I spend so much time now trying to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. That's that's the big thing, because I want people to be able to own their own truth. And for example, you know, a lot of women who reach out to me now, they're they're understanding the evolution of the revolution and they're not going to sign the NDAs anymore. You know, they're saying, I'm going to stand up and say that I'm not going to be silenced anymore. And. And so that's the massive progress that we have made in a short period of time. If I would have known that I was going to help to jumpstart a revolution right then I would have thought long and hard about not signing my NDA as well. But at that time, how did I know that we would actually, five years later be talking about the fact that women don't have to sign those things anymore? You know that we'd actually have started this discussion of massive change. I think that for sure, anyone at Fox would have gladly not had a settlement in exchange for having their own voice. And what I'm arguing for now and trying to change is that we should never get to the point where there's actually a settlement, an NDA, because what should happen is that when a woman has the courage to come forward and say they're being treated in a wrong way at work, there should be an independent investigation. And when that person likely is found to be telling the truth, then she gets to just keep working and you get rid of the bad egg, right? But the system that we currently do is so old school, it's like immediately. We're like, Oh, we got to get rid of her, even though she hasn't done anything wrong. And you know, let's make sure she no one ever knows about this. So we have an arbitration clause, so she goes to the secret chamber to adjudicate it instead of an open jury process. Oh, good. Now she's gone, and we saved and protected the predator, and now we just move on to business as usual. No, we should be able to upend this entire system. It's what I'm trying to promote and sell to companies now. Be courageous and brave. Allow your people to come forward, have independent investigations. Get rid of the bad person. Allow the person to keep working. Now guess what you don't need. You don't need settlements. You don't need arbitration clauses. You don't need nondisclosure agreements because there's no money being exchanged. There's nothing happening anymore. We did the right thing. You got rid of the wrong person or the right person for doing the wrong thing. And now the woman just gets to keep working. We have no idea how many women we have pushed out of the workforce into these secret chambers or as a result of them. And these are exactly the people that businesses want to retain. 

Sarah [00:29:55] Mm hmm. 

Gretchen Carlson [00:29:56] Every study has shown that that people of color and women add to your bottom line. And so this is my selling point to companies, and I have to tell you, some have made changes when they hear me and listen to what I say, they're like, Oh my gosh, we don't even realize what we're doing here. So it's a it's a huge educational process. We've made a lot of progress, but to own your own truth is what I'm fighting for and to stop this process of pushing the very people that we want out of the workforce. 

Sarah [00:30:25] Well, it occurs to me in our current labor environment, there is a lot more power to say, No, I'm not going to sign that because people are desperate for employees and desperate for particularly in-demand employees and high demand employees, so, high demand workers. So I think that your work couldn't have been a better time because it's not only opened up like this is an option, but now the current labor environment has really made that an option. 

Gretchen Carlson [00:30:51] It's such a great point that it's such a great point, and I will point to the Google walkout as a prime example of the power of the employee. It was one woman's idea turned into an international day of men and women. And you know what? They were protesting. People forget what they were protesting. They were protesting my exact issue forced arbitration clauses. So then what happened? Google felt the pressure and they took them out of their employment contracts. So see, it shows. And it's emblematic of my favorite quote, which happens to be anonymous, which is 'One woman makes a difference; but, together, we rock the world'. And we saw that play out in the Google walkout, and this is what I say when I speak to two people large groups, small groups, whomever that your voice matters and you have power and such a great point that you made that especially now where companies are just fast and furiously trying to retain people through the pandemic and people have choices. You know, all the more reason why you should get together with a small group or a large one to go to and say, No, I want to have these clauses anymore. Let's stop protecting predators. Let's make this a safer environment. 

Sarah [00:31:57] So you co-founded Lift Our Voices and that works on the not just NDAs, but the forced arbitration clauses. But it's not like you're just out there having conversations with companies you've been advocating with state legislative efforts and federal legislative efforts. Tell us where those are at. 

Gretchen Carlson [00:32:12] Yeah. So without getting too complicated because people don't even realize they have these clauses again, so go look at your contract, see if you have these clauses because people don't anticipate having something bad happen to them at work. But so, you know, they sign on the first day and then maybe something bad happens and like, Oh darn, that's what happened to me. They stuffed an arbitration clause in my last contract and I didn't get it. And my lawyers said to me when I brought them my case, they were like, Well, you don't really have a case. I mean, I was like, What are you talking about? I have all this evidence and they were like, It doesn't matter. You're going to the secret chamber of Arbitration. So we'll look at your go, look at your contract. It's why I sued Roger Ailes personally instead of Fox News as an entity because we were trying to circumvent the arbitration clause. So the Federal Arbitration Act was written in. Ding, ding ding. A long time ago. 1925. I mean, a lot's happened in the workplace since 1925. Like, the biggest thing is women are actually working. So it needs to be amended. And the only way we can actually change and make it illegal for companies to use arbitration for these types of things is by amending the FAA, the Federal Arbitration Act. So my legislation is bipartisan and I know you guys love that part of it because it's the only way we're going to get it done. And it just was reintroduced this summer in the House and the Senate. And what this would do is carve out from the Federal Arbitration Act, sexual harassment and assault. And it would just simply say that no company in the United States of America can use forced arbitration for somebody who comes forward about sexual assault or sexual harassment. It will probably be if it passes the biggest change in labor law in the last 100 years because it will affect millions of people and millions of workers. And then once we're successful at that, then we're going to go back piece by piece and get rid of the other toxic workplace issues that are also still subjected to arbitration like gender discrimination, race discrimination and LGBTQ discrimination right now. This is what I can hopefully get Republicans on. It tends to be more of a Democratic issue. And so I've spent much of the summer and the fall on the phone and in person in D.C. trying to to get Republicans to get on my side. I need 10. As you know, in the Senate passes, it will likely pass in the House because it's democratically controlled. And so we're in the process now of heavy lobbying and hopefully it's going to come up for a vote soon. And and that'll be, you know, huge, huge progress. So this is something I've been fighting for for the last four years, and I'm just going to tell you, this will be my greatest life achievement if I can pull off. 

Beth [00:35:00] Do you mind, Gretchen, for people who don't know what arbitration means? I like how you're calling it the secret chamber. I think that's such a great description. But do you mind to just share why companies want arbitrations and why it's bad for someone who's experienced sexual harassment at work? 

Gretchen Carlson [00:35:14] Yes. And also for your listeners. The Senate bill is twenty three, forty two and the House bill is forty four, forty five. So wherever you live, please, women by huge margins don't let their voice be heard to their members of Congress. So please, please, if you believe in women being safe at work and having a voice, email your member of Congress, call them. Tell them that you want them to get on this bill because it is bipartisan. Arbitration Yes, secret chamber. Never the intent to be used in the way it's being used to cover up companies dirty laundry. So arbitration was invented to unclog the court systems because judges had way too many cases in front of them. And so the idea of arbitration was to settle small business disputes. So like, for example, if my neighbor, you know, accidentally puts his lawnmower into my fence and he owes me five hundred bucks, am I going to go clog the court system to try and adjudicate this? Or could we just go to arbitration where an arbitrator will listen to both sides and decide who owns what? Right? That was the intent of it. Well, then, after the Anita Hill hearings happened about 30 some years ago and sexual harassment sort of became something that people were talking about. I think a lot of businesses said, Oh my gosh, we can't have an Anita Hill here. We have to figure out how to cover this up. And that's when they started putting arbitration clauses into employment contracts and essentially abusing the original intent of it because it's never supposed to have been used for human rights violations. But that's what's ended up happening inside of companies. So here are the differences. When you go to arbitration, you can tell nobody what's going on. It's secret. You don't get the same amount of witnesses or depositions. There's no precedent being set. So therefore there's we've lost like 30 years of case law, if that makes sense because, you know, normally how you watch like a legal show and they're always referring back to some other cases to prove their next case. We don't have these cases about harassment because they've all been going to arbitration and there's no precedent being set. So we've lost like 30 years of cases, and they're invisible because nobody can ever talk about them. The other problem is that it's usually retired judges and lawyers who are arbitrators who tend to be old white guys. So that's really not a jury of your peers. 

Sarah [00:37:41] Well, and sometimes the company gets to pick them. 

Gretchen Carlson [00:37:43] That's right. I mean, I could go on and on. So the company and the arbitrators come back for repeat business because the company is obviously having way more arbitration cases than the one employee who has the courage to come forward if they tend to find in favor of the company. The latest stats show that only two percent to six percent of the time does an employee win in arbitration. I mean, it's unbelievable. And then when you get done with the process, you never work again because imagine trying to go out and get another job. Let's say you were a VP at a company for 15 years, and now you try to get another job and they say, Well, what happened to you at such and such? Well, I really can't talk about it. You look shady, right? So the vast majority of women who reached out to me over the last five years have never worked in their chosen profession ever again, and that that is the crime in all of this. So at Lift Our Voices, we're trying to do the research for the very first time to prove just how many people have been forced out of the workplace and who exactly these people are because we know how much power there is and being able to prove to companies and to members of Congress that their own constituents and their own employees have suffered greatly. 

Sarah [00:38:54] So I think these legislative efforts. I think you're right. I mean, if that bill gets through, it will be huge. But I also think that you are so good at helping people see the progress. And I think part of it is because truly, like the first out there, breaking this open, wide open. So help people keep their eye on the prize because I think there's been some discouraging stories recently, particularly with regards to Bill Cosby. But just help us see the progress that we've made so that even though there's a lot of work in front of us, we don't get discouraged. 

Gretchen Carlson [00:39:30] Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up Bill Cosby because I did a couple of TV interviews after that case was overturned and I got really upset at members of the media of which I'm part of it because it's almost like we immediately go to, well, there goes the MeToo movement, you know? Well, well, damn all that work for nothing right? No. Yeah, it was a horrible thing that happened. And Bill Cosby abused scores of women, and he should sit in prison for the rest of his life. However, we would have never convicted Bill Cosby if it hadn't been for this movement. If you recall in the first jury it was a hung jury and the judge did not allow in other women to be able to talk about their stories about Bill Cosby. And a couple of years later, you now have a jury pool of people who have been educated on the MeToo movement, right? So they bring with them to this case knowledge that they didn't have before about how pervasive this is, about how women are now being believed and how even a famous guy who came into our living room every night as a great TV star could be responsible for these types of things. They actually could wrap their head around that. So I say this was a huge success for this movement, and I really get upset when the media immediately goes to the line about how this is. This is a negative. Yeah, it's a negative because we all want to see Bill Cosby in prison. But it's still a positive for how far we've come with this movement, and I just want to make sure that that I'm clear on that because we have to stay optimistic about the great success that we've had. And of course, we're going to have pitfalls, but that's the story of life. 

Sarah [00:41:17] Mm-Hmm. 

Gretchen Carlson [00:41:18] That's what gets you up the next day to work harder to make sure that doesn't happen again. 

Beth [00:41:22] I'm still thinking about that statistic about how many women don't return to the fields that they were in when this happened to them. And I'm I'm so glad that's not true of you. I will never forget the first time we met you. You saying that people always ask you, you know, why did you? Why did you work at Fox News and why did you stay in this environment? And how you said, because it was my dream to host a morning news show. And so you are hosting morning news again. You're giving us a daily news podcast on quake media, and we would just love to hear how that feels for you and how you feel about where you've ended up professionally in addition to all this advocacy work. 

Gretchen Carlson [00:42:00] Right, exactly. And being a mom, which is my number one job, but I also work for People TV, which is People magazine's new entertainment show, so I do interviews with inspiring people. They usually are women who are empowering others to do great things, and that's been great to be back on TV and do longform sorts of interviews. But my yeah, my daily podcast, actually the genesis of it was the hyperpartisan political time that we live in which I know both of you can can understand and you're trying to bridge the gap as well. And so this podcast was my idea because I had so many friends who came to me and said, Where can I actually just get the facts? And I was like, Hmm, well, maybe local news, you know, maybe Pantsuit Politics. And and so the idea behind the podcast was, OK, ten minutes a day, the top eight to 10 stories. Just the facts, man. And you know, so it can be straight down the middle and can be trusted. And that was the genesis of it, and it's been really fun to to get back into the swing of daily news. I love it because it's it's not in the opinion, you know, side of things, and I feel like I'm doing a good service for people who are really looking for just the facts. And I know so many people in this era of fake news just wonder what they can believe. So I'm really happy to be doing that. 

Sarah [00:43:19] What has changed? What feels different this time? 

Gretchen Carlson [00:43:22] Oh my gosh. Well, so much because I can actually talk about what I did there. First thing, I'm not told what to say. 

Sarah [00:43:30] Hmm. 

Gretchen Carlson [00:43:31] And you know, it's just been, listen, I have so much experience in this arena, so I just got into a rhythm. I love being able to sift through all different kinds of sources and resources every morning from the left, from the right, from the center, and watch all my colleagues on television, on the morning shows, you know, to figure out what what they're talking about. I read tons of newsletters and and then I just, you know, from there, I like do my choices every day, and here are my top eight to 10 stories that I think that the rest of the nation should should know about. You know, I will say that if there is any bias, it might be that I tend to sometimes choose stories that are important for women. But I think we have we got a lot of years to make up for when we weren't. So this has been a really it's been a really fun journey and we're into a good rhythm on it. 

Sarah [00:44:22] Well, thank you so much for coming back on our show. You are so inspiring. We love talking to you. I think that your story, which is yours and the way that you tell it, is so inspiring and empowering and will continue to be so five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now. 

Gretchen Carlson [00:44:39] Oh well, well, thank you. There have been there's been a movie made about my story in a mini-series, which I couldn't partake in at all, which must be so weird. Weird. That's some really fantastic actresses wanted to take these roles. And again, this would have never happened five years ago. And if it if it helps one woman, then it's all worth it, even though it's not my, my story or my voice per say. So, you know, I continue, I continue the movement and I. I'm doing it first and foremost for my two children. They were my paramount concern, as I shared with you earlier and when we first met and I've seen my courage transfer to them and that has been the greatest achievement personally for me is seen courage go to your children and then they pass it along and they pass it along and they pass along. And that's how you make change with the younger generation, especially. So I just encourage everyone to go to my website to liftourvoices.org and learn more about my passion project because everyone probably has had a story and everyone also has a voice in making this change. So come along on the journey with me. Learn how you can help and make workplaces safer for everyone. 

Sarah [00:45:47] Thank you so much to Gretchen Carlson for talking with us, her ongoing support for this community means the world to us, and we hope you enjoyed the interview. Next up, we're going to talk about what's on her mind outside politics. 

Beth [00:46:07] Sarah, what is on your mind outside of politics? 

Sarah [00:46:10] Well, today, as we are recording, is All Saints Day on the church calendar. Yesterday was Halloween or Hallow-een, in which that old English means holy evening. So the eve of All Hallows, the night before the Christian holy days that on honor saintly people of the past. And then tomorrow we have all souls day, which is just anybody we've lost in the church community. They kind of get shrunken down so our church on Sunday. We bless the trick or treaters, and we celebrated All Saints Day. But I love this holiday. It's one of my favorite day in the church calendars. I was reading a lot about the history of All Saints Day, and they were talking about, you know, it was established by Pope Gregory. But really, it was sort of a way to say, Well, we can't fight these pagan rituals, so we'll just incorporate them into the church calendar. And I thought, Well, that's great. That's probably why I like it so much that it's this nuanced, complicated combination of things human beings have been doing for a long time, which is remembering their dead. And I grew up in a church community that didn't do anything like this, didn't acknowledge those who had passed in in a ritualistic way. And I think it's so important. I'm so comforted by the ceremony each year, and I think it's such an important way to mark the passage of time and to acknowledge that those we have lost are still with us in real, in important ways and in remembering them. I just I just love it. I love it. Every year, 

Beth [00:47:36] My church will observe All Saints Day next Sunday with a special service. Today, I decided to just light a candle thinking specifically about my grandmother, and I'm just carrying it with me to every room of the house. Just like she's chugging along with me today, I found myself missing her tremendously over the past year. I think something about, you know, tumultuous ness in life really brings me back to this longing for the days when I could sit at her table in her kitchen and play cards and feel like everything in the world was just fine, and that she had an answer to every question that I had. And so it is nice to have this way to remember her. And as we were talking about this, and I know this has always been really important to you. It just struck me that this is one of those places where I wonder, I wonder what we do as our institutions kind of breakdown who teaches us to commemorate people we've lost? Who helps us continue to hold on to both grief over a loss and the celebration of a person's life, in some sense that that person still matters to us and is still alive to us in some ways? Not that everybody needs to be in a church congregation, but it is a pretty special function of a church to give us this kind of ritual. And and I wonder how we can create more rituals that are inclusive beyond church communities to do these things. I mean, we've lost five million people worldwide from COVID 19. It seems to me that rituals that honor those who aren't with us anymore and that keep them present with us in some way are going to be even more important in the future than they've been in the past. And I don't know that, like Mark Zuckerberg's Meta is going to get us there. Like, I just want to think through where, where do we get these practices? 

Sarah [00:49:34] Well, and to me, this is a throwback to our 'Help, Thanks, Wow'. This is a thanks to the diversity and the beauty of living in a multicultural democracy, because I feel like over the past five years in particular, the cultural influence of particularly Mexican heritage and the Dias de los Muertos, like through movies and just music has really amplified in such a positive and impactful way. I mean, it definitely will. There was a moment, you know, where I thought, Oh, Dias de los Muertos, All Saints Day like? And they kind of connected for me and I thought, OK, I get it. And honestly, it was because of the stuff I've watched and enjoyed about Dias de los Muertos that I thought, I'm going to like, lean into All Saints Day. That's the beauty of diversity. That's not to advise you to like, culturally appropriate and, you know, put the skeletons everywhere, but there is a beauty in diversity and culture that I think can sort of prop up the places in our lives where the institutions have weakened, where we can see like, Oh, this is this is a beautiful thing that this culture does. And it doesn't mean, like I said, that I appropriate it, but I can recognize the beauty in that that ceremony and that cultural emphasis on this particular value and bring it into my own life. 

Beth [00:50:50] On our friend Erin Moon's recommendation. I am reading a version of the New Testament interpreted by an indigenous author, and it talks about Christ as the great spirit. It's just it's lovely. And it again, is that kind of re-presenting of something that I have heard a million times, but putting some new words around it really opens it up again for me as something relevant to this particular moment that I can take a fresh look at and kind of think about again. And I think that all of that blending has the capacity to deepen our understanding. And I just am really craving more of that. I mean, I do think this connects to the the midterms conversation about what really matters to me right now. And it is all kind of personal and quiet in many respects, but universal in many respects, too. 

Sarah [00:51:44] Well, and I think the other reason it's so important to me is because we just don't make a lot of space in our culture to think about death. And I think that's why this last year and a half has been so traumatic. You know, like capitalism doesn't want you think about dying, you know, so there's just this constant grinding forward momentum. And also death is, you know, can be a frightening thing to think about. And so if there's a heavy cultural for saying, don't worry about it, don't think about it. I think it makes grief harder. I think it makes life harder. And that there is a important opening that happens when we allow space in our lives to think about death and to acknowledge the ever present place of death in our lives because we lose those ones we love and we will eventually die ourselves. And I think that that's really, really important. And I think we're suffering from blocking it out at all costs during the pandemic. And I think that that's why, you know, taking space in a year to say. People we love will die, we will die. That's just a part of the human experience and in standing together with other people and this sort of moment of like, Yes, this is true and we're not alone in that. It's just really, really beautiful to me. 

Beth [00:53:02] Yeah, I think if you're avoiding thinking and talking about death, then you're avoiding thinking and talking about life. And they are essential to accompany each other. I mean, what is Gretchen Carlson's work? If not, saying the stories of our lives must be told because we have this finite human experience, and if we are, we are prevented from telling the stories of our lives. Then what are we doing here if it is just a commercial transaction? Bad thing happened. Money is paid. The story is buried that doesn't allow people to live and thrive. And I think going on as though we haven't lost people or we haven't experienced death or we aren't constantly facing our own deaths, just it just keeps us numbed out. And that numbed out space is exactly the space that I think everybody wants to exit. I do think that's why trick or treating was so joyous this year because it felt like life. There was a fatality that has been missing for a while. And so every place where we can find that vitality is important and our politics must go there, they must go there. 

Sarah [00:54:10] Yeah, because the vitality cannot exist. If you block out the risk of loss, the risk of ending right. They cannot coexist with one another. The precariousness is built into the vitality or it's it doesn't exist. And I think that that's what's so important to remember in all facets of life to take a hard turn. We're going to think about this and talk about all this during our holiday huddle. You know, the holiday huddle will be wide ranging. We're in theory sitting around and huddling about coming together with our loved ones over the holidays. But we'll probably like tackle Marvel and our own mortality, and God knows what else. In the course of this live discussion that we're having on Thursday, November 18th

Beth [00:54:50] I'd be incredibly disappointed if we didn't. 

Sarah [00:54:53] So please join us and don't worry if you can't come to the live event. A ticket still gets you access to the recording of the event for seven days after, so we'll take you right after Thanksgiving, you guys. We're going to get you all ready and we love to gather with this community, particularly live. So we hope all of you can join us. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We will be back in your ears on Friday. And until then, keep it nuanced ya'll. 

Beth [00:55:27] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.

Sarah Megan Hart and Maggie Penton are our community engagement managers. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

Beth Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers (Read their own names)  Martha Bronitsky, Linda Daniel, Ali Edwards, Janice Elliot, Sarah Greenup, Julie Haller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs.

The Kriebs, Laurie LaDow, Lilly McClure, David McWilliams, Jared Minson, Emily Neesley, Danny Ozment, The Pentons, Tawni Peterson, Tracy Puthoff, Sarah Ralph, Jeremy Sequoia, Karin True, Amy Whited, Emily Holladay, Katy Stigers, Nick and Alysa Vilelli.

Beth Melinda Johnston, Ashley Thompson, Michelle Wood, Joshua Allen, Morgan McHugh, Nichole Berklas, Paula Bremer, and Tim Miller.