Acquittal and Aftermath (with Olivia Beavers)

Topics Discussed

• The Acquittal of Donald J. Trump

• Olivia Beavers

• Outside of Politics: Revenge Bedtime

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Episode Resources

• Is the GOP's extremist wing now too big to fail? (CNN)

• 'Revenge bedtime procrastination' could be robbing you of precious sleep time (CNN)

Transcript

Sarah: This is Sarah

Beth: And Beth, 

Sarah: You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth: The home of grace-filled political conversations.

Beth: [00:00:00] Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Pantsuit Politics, where we sit down together twice a week to process the news, discuss what we've learned and consider how we're thinking about it as citizens. We've got a lot to process and consider right now, we're going to discuss the Senate trial and acquittal of the former president today. We're going to talk about the aftermath of the insurrection in a very special conversation with Politico reporter Olivia Beavers and we'll end as always with what's on our minds outside of politics. Before we jump into those conversations, we have some really exciting news. 

Sarah: [00:00:33] We are beyond thrilled to have been selected as a part of Spotlight, Apple podcast's new program, where they highlight a creator, a creative team every month that the editorial team thinks that you want to spend more time with. When they reached out to us, there was a little bit of like, wait, who, who us? We, we, we are so honored that they have chosen our [00:01:00] podcast as a member of Spotlight.

Beth: [00:01:02] You know, there are over a million podcasts on Apple podcasts. And so to be recognized in this way is a really big deal to us. We take it very seriously. It is a Testament to our listeners who for five years now have trusted us with their time and thoughts. We work really hard to earn that trust. We know that what we do improves by bringing more people into the conversation and having a greater diversity of perspective and experience in the community of people who listen to the show and interact with us.

So if you are new here, welcome, we're so happy that you're here. If you've been here forever, thank you. Welcome back. And we hope to respect everyone's time today, and that you walk away with some new thoughts about your own citizenship as we process our thoughts about ours. 

Sarah: [00:01:45] So if you did not watch the impeachment proceedings, we wanted to give a quick rundown of what happened Friday and Saturday. So the house managers concluded their case. I thought it was really, really helpful how [00:02:00] house manager, Jamie Raskin summed up the questions that the defense needed to answers, which were: why did Donald Trump not tell his supporters to stop the attack? Why not stop the attack for at least two hours after it began? Why do nothing to send help and why not condemn the insurrection on January 6th? 

I think that they really focused in on like what happened after the insurrection started. I thought his summation, very philosophical, quoting Thomas Paine and Voltaire was, you know, if you know Jamie Raskin as I do, perfectly in character and just a really emotional, beautiful way to just call on our better angels to say, Hey, like we have gone out of our way to make this case and not to draw on political partisanship, but truly citizenship and democracy and what is our commitment to these institutions 

Beth: [00:02:59] Prior to [00:03:00] your representative Raskin's very effective closing, we had a little bit of drama on the Senate floor. You've probably heard about it. Because as Sarah was saying there was such a focus on what did the president know and when did he know it and how did he respond to it, some of the timeline came into issue. Representative Jamie Herrera Butler has been saying consistently since January 6th, that she heard a phone call between Leader McCarthy and the president of the United States in which leader, McCarthy was asking president Trump to do something, to stop the attack.

 Friday evening, she put out another statement, imploring other people who know about the president's mindset to speak up as she has and she recounted that she heard Kevin McCarthy on the phone with the president and she heard Kevin McCarthy explain to the president when he said this must be Antifa. No, these are your people. And then according to her conversation [00:04:00] with McCarthy, when he said, no, these are your people. The president's response was well, Kevin, they must be more upset about the election results than you are, to which Kevin McCarthy said, who the F do you think you're talking to?

So this is a Republican member of Congress who puts the statement out. She's clearly willing to testify if needed in the Senate trial and a vote is it's a little 

Sarah: [00:04:26] bit like, please call me to testify. Can you please call me to testify? 

Beth: [00:04:30] And a vote is called on the matter of whether witnesses at all can be heard from during the trial. And everybody thought things were going to wrap up pretty quickly on Saturday. And so the internet was rocked when the vote went down and a few Republicans joined 55 senators voted to hear witness testimony, and it showed how the Senate is really not made for unpredictable moments.

 [00:05:00] Because it just became very chaotic and all kinds of conversations start taking place over what's the form going to be? If they're going to be witnesses how many? Are we going to depose people over zoom? Are they going to happen here in the trial? Are there going to be depositions before they come back to the trial? What are we going to do? You have a Trump aide putting on Twitter, a picture of a list of supposedly 300 witnesses the defense would like to call if witnesses are to be called. 

Ultimately an agreement is struck to enter representative Herrera Butler statement into the record and to proceed to closing argument, which was exceptionally disappointing for people observing this trial, who thought for a moment that greater factual inquiry was going to happen.

It did not. The statement was entered into the record. The defense team did not stipulate to the veracity of the statement. I'm not sure that any of that matters anyway, because one of my big takeaways, Sarah, is that I think we need a different word than trial for what [00:06:00] this proceeding does. You know, the defense team and the house managers did good lawyering in deciding to quell this chaos by entering the statement into the record.

But there's not an appeal. When you enter something into the record, as a lawyer, you're doing it to have it preserved for your appeal. This is it. This is the opportunity. It's a political process. You have witnesses in an impeachment trial for a completely different reason then knew have them in a regular trial.

Sarah: [00:06:29] Well, and I think that leads to all the confusion about, well, if they're jurors, how are Graham and Holly and Cruz meeting with the defense team? I thought they were supposed to be jurors. If they're juror, should they be legally required to sit there? If you're a jury, you can't just up and leave and decide you don't want to hear anymore.

It's like all of those conflicts and all of that frustration, I think you're right, is fed by the idea that this is a quote unquote trial, not to mention the jurisdictional debate like, Oh, well, Can the Senate hear this? Well they [00:07:00] settled that they settled that jurisdictional question, but still people like Mitch McConnell are basing their entire vote on disagreeing with the jurisdictional question that had been voted on.

 You know, it's not like juries vote on jurisdictional question. So I think you're right. I think that language and describing it as a trial and using acquittal and conviction in such a political process is harming all of our understanding of what this is. Okay. 

Beth: [00:07:23] And it diminishes our trust in the proceeding to have these crazy courtroom moments. Most of the argument about jurisdiction was about precedent. What precedent does it set if we try a former official? Yeah. Does anyone doubt for a second that if another Congress, another house of representatives, impeaches a former official, it goes to the Senate. We could get a completely different result. They'll just, re-examine the question again, as they should, as they have the power and obligation to do, it's not a binding precedent.

You know, the other aspect of this kept coming up for me was that a couple of [00:08:00] legal analysts who I really respect, Sarah Eschar and David French over at the Dispatch, kept talking about how the house impeachment articles should have been about dereliction of duty instead of incitement to violence. It should have been more focused on what did he do after this started.

I respect that analysis and agree with it and think it would make zero difference in the way that anybody proceeded in the arguments that were made in the evidence that was introduced. I think it doesn't matter at all in this context. It would matter enormously in a regular court of law, but in this context it doesn't. And so I just think it's for purposes of trying to rebuild the way we feel about the United States Congress, we've got to figure out how to describe this differently. 

Sarah: [00:08:45] I struggled, you know, some of the group texts I was on were sending around takes that were like, this is just the, the Democrats caved, they accepted defeat. We always go around accepting that things are over before they've begun. [00:09:00] And I think that's really unfair. I think that is a very short sided, shallow analysis that discounts the both devotion and honestly legal genius of that house impeachment managers. And I think that in the same breadth that some of the political analysis of what was going on in the Republican side is shallow and short sided.

You know, I think there's this analysis that well, the Republican party is just, is doing well. Why would they change their strategy? And I don't think that's true either. I think that this says a lot more about the state of Congress, the state of impeachment as a process for a check on the executive than it does necessarily about the political strategies of either party.

I think particularly [00:10:00] there isn't much of a political strategy on the Republican side. There sure isn't a single political strategy and I think you see one of many coming from Mitch McConnell from that speech of well, we can't do it cause he's out of office, even though you all know every single one of you know, that I delayed this process until he was out of office.

And so what I really think is that he's awful and he violated his oath of office, but that, that accountability needs to come from somewhere else. And I think you see it from what another strategy from the seven senators, I mean, it is, you know, in the history of impeachment, a large number of members of the opposite party, voting for conviction, you see it in the statement of Bill Cassidy, which I thought was great. I voted for conviction because he was guilty. 

So I think you see a strategy there. I think you see maybe if not a strategy, a reflection of a movement [00:11:00] or emotion or reaction in the censure of Bill Cassidy by the state Republican parties. Like I just, I think there's a lot of politics and honestly, I can't quite break the nut on like, what is actually at the center of this cause I think the reality is probably there isn't one thing at the center of why we all feel so frustrated watching this president be acquitted. 

I don't think it's one thing. I think it's a lot of things and that's, what's so frustrating. I think it's just a total revelation of the brokenness of several processes and the brokenness of several political realities right now. And that's, what's leaving us all very very emotional and the spectrum from like angry and frustrated to brokenhearted and despondent. You know, I think we have a large range of emotional reactions here because there is a large range of problems here.

Beth: [00:11:59] To the [00:12:00] extent that there is something animating the GOP right now, I don't know how you describe it without saying it is all purely symbolic, because the thrust of the defense in this case was that the very idea of holding president Trump accountable constitutes constitutional cancel culture. That's the phrase that his lawyer, Bruce Caster used. That is the emotion behind everything you heard from his lawyer David Schoen, from his lawyer, Michael Vanderveen. 

The trial itself was filled with one example after another, that senators don't like to do real work. I'm delighted that they unanimously voted to give officer Goodman the congressional medal for his bravery during the January 6th attacks, juxtaposing that against the acquittal vote is depressing.

Juxtaposing that against the catastrophe that happened when they even thought about bringing in witnesses. It's embarrassing. The fact that after the acquittal happened, you get this speech that you reference [00:13:00] from Senator McConnell saying all of the reasons that president Trump bears responsibility for what happened on January 6th, but that's a speech, not a vote and he's there to vote, not give speeches.

And it's frustrating and then you get this passage of a resolution congratulating Tampa Bay on winning the super bowl. Like, again, I'm delighted, but that's not what people vote for senators to go to Washington to do. And I was really struck by reading Senator McConnell's statements to Politico after all of this was over, as he tries to say, we are not going to be a party that is dominated by Donald Trump anymore. He's talking to Politico about his intention to get behind candidates who can win Republican primaries. And he says, former president, Trump will probably like some of those candidates and not like others, but here was the quote: "The only thing I care about is electability." 

Sarah: [00:13:54] I know, I know I read that and I felt flames shooting out of my ears. Like the only [00:14:00] thing that matters in the function of our democracy is electability. Seriously?

Beth: [00:14:04] And electability of course matters because who you have there to vote matters a lot. But if that's where you begin, the only thing I care about is how we get numbers here. You're playing the game of survivor, not actually trying to govern. 

Sarah: [00:14:20] I say this every time I use this quote, I don't quote Dr. Phil a lot, but the one thing I think that he is very helpful is when he says "how's that working for you." All you ever cared about was electability. That's how you got here. That's how you got here with Donald Trump only serving a single term, with you're losing the house, with you losing both Senate seats in Georgia, is only caring about electability. How can you not possibly see that doing more of the same is not going to get you out of the place you are in? Oh, that's so frustrating to me. 

Beth: [00:14:53] So my main takeaway in terms of what happens next from watching this proceeding [00:15:00] is about the filibuster. It was the most bi-partisan senate trial in our country's history in that seven Republicans voted to convict the former president. That got you to 57, you needed 67. But what I was thinking about is that if you can't get to 60 votes, the threshold required to do legislating, which is what this body is there to do.

If you can't get to 60 votes, on these facts with an issue, this personal, with an issue this emotionally charged, where a poll after poll tells you that the majority of the American public believe the president should be convicted, I don't think you can get to 60 votes ever.

 I cannot say enough about how much democratic Senator from Arizona Kyrsten Sinema is my jam. I like everything about her. I think she is so fascinating and so interesting. And I just wish as a [00:16:00] citizen that she and Joe Manchin, who are people that I tend to be pretty aligned with in a lot of ways, I wish that they would get together with some of the sort of centrists from both the democratic and the Republican caucuses in the Senate and say, this was a game changer in terms of my thinking about the filibuster.

I watched my Republican colleagues make a show of not paying attention, some of them, during this impeachment. I watched, as in consultation with my Republican colleagues, the Trump defense team went scorched earth, partisan politics to defend the president, even as the house managers and democratic senators have so steadfastly refused to do that. I took it seriously. I've taken everything that has happened to demean this process seriously. I watched my Republican colleagues threaten to not confirm president Biden's nominees and threatened to [00:17:00] stall out every attempt at legislation if witnesses were called. 

And that tells me that some of us believe we're here to do the people's business and some of us don't. Some of us are here for another purpose and I came here to get work done, and there are too many crises unfolding in America right now for this body to be stalled out. And because of that, I will vote in favor of eliminating the filibuster. I don't want to, I think it serves an important purpose, but everybody has to be here for the same reason for that purpose to be served.

Sarah: [00:17:29] Yeah, I feel the way that you do about the filibuster. And I also think it is a reflection on impeachment as a process. Like to me, it's dead. You know, I think the founding fathers were they're trying to get at something. They were trying to get at a check in a way to remove, um, elected officials from office and hold them accountable for their behavior.

And it's obviously uh, not working if it ever worked. And to me that speaks deeply to the check of the congressional branch on the executive branch in that we don't have one. And it speaks to me, the [00:18:00] brokenness of the impeachment process, speaks to problems in both the executive branch and the congressional branch, and that us wanting to push too much authority to the executive branch and Congress, which I think is what you're speaking to with the filibuster, just wanting to abdicate any responsibility to do work. 

And I think this has been a problem for a long, long time and this is exposing that. And you hear them saying it, you hear them retiring and saying, I wanted to do things. Listen, I heard Senator Barack Obama articulate this exact thing back in, Oh my goodness 2004 or 5 when I was a congressional intern and he did a speech and he said, I came here to do things and we're not doing anything. So, you know, I don't think the answer is everybody dropped out of the Senate and run for the presidency. I think this imbalance of power and this imbalance of ability to actually get things [00:19:00] done is reflective in both the failure of impeachment and the need to get rid of the filibuster.

Beth: [00:19:08] And I recognize as someone who tends to think that the federal government ought to be our problem solver of last resort, not a first resort, that eliminating the filibuster will lead to the creation of some large federal programs, that it will be almost impossible to get rid of down the road, that it will lead to the creation of programs that don't evolve fast enough and nimble enough to meet some of our challenges. It will lead to outcomes that I don't like that that's what will happen. 

And at the same time outcomes that I don't like that reflect the majority of what the American public is looking for should go forward whether I like them or not. And I just don't trust the reason that they are being opposed right now. If we had an opposition party for the purpose of making [00:20:00] the majority legislation better, I would be really excited about that, but just preventing everybody from voting on it, that is so nihilistic and it's ruinous.

 When we say like, Burn it all down, whether you're saying that from the progressive left or the conservative right, the result of that becomes what happened on January 6th and we can't have that anymore. And so I think that the first step is for legitimately democratic senators to say enough of this, this is not working and we're going to change it now.

Sarah: [00:20:40] You know what I would say to Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin? Is that moderation has become this word that reminds me of how we talk about bias in the media. Like you're only moderate if both sides are equally mad at you. Well, that's not what moderate means. [00:21:00] Sometimes when you're a moderate one, side's going to be furious and one, side's going to be happy.

Just like sometimes when you report on a story one, side's going to be mad at you and one that's going to be happy. The idea that you have to equally criticize both parties in order for us news story to be neutral or unbiased is ridiculous and the way, and it seems like that narrative has this affected the way we talk about moderates.

Like the only way to be a modernist to make both sides equally mad. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what that means. And I think to me, like that's what, a little bit of what we're talking about with this, this failure and this, I feel like rot is the right word. Like this rot inside Congress, where we can't get anything done is because we've decided the only thing that should happen is like we were talking about, well, we're not, we're basically nobody's mad or we're all equally mad.

No. Sometimes people are going to be, like you said, sometimes in a, in a multicultural democracy, the majority is going to want something that's going to make just one side really mad. [00:22:00] And it's like, we've forgotten that. 

Beth: [00:22:02] And that we have to accept things that we don't choose every time too, because we prioritize living together in a multicultural democracy. So the trial is over. I'm using the word trial, even though I think it's the wrong one. There is a real push this morning on Monday as we sit down to record to move along now, a real push and I think that that's a mistake. And I think that what happened on January 6th is much too important to brush past.

And I think even if we wanted to move on, we can not do it. And that's what I think this very important conversation with Olivia beavers, who is a congressional reporter and the author of politicos huddle illustrates. It's just not available to move on right away. And we have to sit with what's happened. So we are so grateful for Olivia's time and sharing with us. And we hope you enjoy this conversation too.

[00:23:00] Olivia Beavers: [00:23:08] Yes. That was about four days in of this new job. And, you know, I've been covering the Capitol for a couple of years. And so at least it wasn't my first day up there, but it really sort of turned you around and just your understanding of how the Capitol is and I've talked to a lot of people, whether they're staffers members, police officers. 

You worked in a place where you didn't, we thought was sort of this strong institution. And now you, you come in to work each day thinking it can be breached. It's it's vulnerable. It's fragile. And, you know, even military people who say, you know, we're, we're used to sort of these crazy scenarios of being in war torn countries said this was different because this was our home turf. 

Beth: [00:23:51] How does it feel to you in the Capitol as a reporter? I can imagine that there's a shift in dynamic because of the Biden administration's approach to press, [00:24:00] but also that so many of you were there for the insurrection and also experience the trauma of that event firsthand. 

Olivia Beavers: [00:24:07] Yeah, I've been to the Capitol a few times since the attack. And the first time I went, it was a few days after, there had been a lot of cleanup done and I'm walking around the house chamber and, you know, I was part of the, the evacuation out of the gallery, which was separate from the house floor, but we're all in the same building in the same room together. And it just was basically completely empty. You know, I, wasn't seeing huge, you know, officers or, you know, Authority figures around that area and I'm just walking around and it's, it feels really eerie.

And you start going, you can still see different parts of the shatter glass. I walked by where Ashley Babbitt was shot. And then I ran into a Capitol police officer that I know, and, you know, they're, they're not really allowed to talk to press, but he came over and asked how I was doing. And it was like [00:25:00] one of those weird moments where I found myself crying hearing his story. 

And he went to hug me and it was one of those weird moments where it's like, you really wanted that hug, but it's also COVID. And so you couldn't decide what to do in that moment. And so, you know, pulled away, we're both wearing our masks, but there's certainly this new sense of an unease.

It's not just at the Capitol. It's that I have a text group with other female reporters who went through that with me, it's about six of us. And we're, we're talking about our nightmares. We're talking about our mental health and the help that we're seeking, but we're basically finding that trauma sticks with you in ways that you don't always foresee.

And you know, members are talking about it more and more, but, you know, Work was so busy for us, right after that, when you finally got a moment to breathe and actually that's when the nightmares started to hit. So it's like a delayed reaction and [00:26:00] it's hard too, because right after the attack I published in the newsletter, my, my full personal account of what I had seen and what I had observed in the best way possible.

But with any major trauma, you're not, you're not the perfect eyewitness. And I realized weeks later that I had completely blocked out this image of seeing the rioters. I told myself, I didn't see the rioters. I didn't see the rioters. And then I'm trying to compare a story and I'm with a reporter friend of mine.

I said, did you see the rioters? And she said, yes, we both saw them. We, we gasped, Oh my gosh. And that's just sort of, you know, your brain protecting itself. And now it's the memories there, but it's very fuzzy. And that's sort of like one of the interesting parts is that you're a witness to what happened, but you also need to be pulling in other information to make sure that you know, you're not just relying on what you saw because so many people had various different experiences. 

[00:27:00] Sarah: [00:27:00] I think that's really a beautiful reflection and an intense observation that we are depending on the traumatized to both help us understand what happened and to respond and lead us out of what happened.

I mean, you hear it when Nancy Pelosi says the enemy is within. I mean, they were hunting her and she is a human being and you heard, definitely heard it in Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's Instagram live like just the raw vulnerability of, I thought I was going to die. And I think that that is an enormous ask of people who are traumatized to help us understand what happened and to decide on the consequences.

And I think that's sort of the tension is not just the sense of betrayal, but the consequences of the trauma that everyone in that building experience that day. And I think there is this added layer that's hard to [00:28:00] understand for people who have not ever worked in the Capitol of exactly what you said.

You know, I, I worked on the Hill for about a year and I did a lot of Capitol tours and there is this narrative that it is the safest place to be. And I think that it reminds me so much of the school shooting I experienced as a high school or that this sense of this place that was safe, especially for, for me, because my high school was one of the very first high school shootings.

And so it's like this sense of like this place that was safe, that you had a sense of being safe and protected was not. And that is, that's a layer of trauma on top of everything else. That is, that is very, very difficult to deal with. Yeah. 

Olivia Beavers: [00:28:41] And I don't think that that feeling, I mean, I haven't personally experienced that, so I don't know when that feeling goes away or if it goes away. And it's interesting to think about like, watching. The Capitol, having to decide how to improve its security measures after something like that. But also how [00:29:00] you're, you're trying to reconcile whether that still makes you feel safe or not, even if it's not rational or irrational. 

Those are, you know, especially going through that trauma, there were so many conflicting thoughts in your mind, going through with the trauma, I felt like I felt stupid at points for carrying my backpack with me cause I thought. I needed to use it to protect myself. And then I was like, that's stupid. I'm not in that much trouble. But then clearly that was my fear telling me your life might be in danger and you need to take these actions, you know, and, and the decisions you make in a split second, I found myself in this weird medium where I was a reporter and I was also a person. 

And so I caught myself at some points thinking I'm a reporter, so I can't be in trouble. I can't get hurt. And then, and also then clearly saying like, we're all being evacuated, this is clearly an entirely dangerous situation. Why wouldn't I be, you know, in danger?

How will they know I'm a reporter? And at one point, [00:30:00] a friend of mine who I used to work with said, should we take off our badges? And because she didn't want to be identified as a reporter. And I said, well then how are we going to get through the Capitol if we get evacuated? So it was just sort of these dueling thoughts in our head of who are we in a moment of crisis.

And that's not just a personal thought in my head. That's, that's what we're seeing in the Capitol. Who are we in crisis? And the thing that when I have conversations on the Hill and I, I understand this sentiment entirely. This was probably one of the greatest tragedies to happen in our country, in my lifetime.

And one of them, and we couldn't in that moment have the various Republican and democratic leaders come together in a sign of unity and say, this is not okay. We don't agree with this. And that is something that has stuck to Republicans who are reeling from this experience, it's stuck with Democrats who are reeling from this [00:31:00] experience and you know, we couldn't come together when it mattered most. 

Sarah: [00:31:04] Well. I'm sorry to say. I don't think it ever leaves you the sense that like, once you turn on the part of your brain where you feel like you're in danger, like your life is in danger, it is very difficult to turn off that part of your brain.

It is only through, you know, lots and lots of therapy and treatment for PTSD. But I still think about, you know, something happened to my children every time they go in a school building, like lots of people who have not experienced school shootings, but. And I think that there you're seeing that raw since of both you know, not especially like we're talking about a couple of weeks out from feeling like you were going to die. Like that is a very intense experience.

 And then for it to ask people to not only get over that trauma, but like you said, to the sense of betrayal of like, we couldn't even come together, that you didn't have my back and not only did you not have my bag, I feel like you're to blame for the fact that I felt like I was going to die.

You [00:32:00] know, that I think that's hard. And there's this sense of like, How do we piece that apart? I'm interested in like how, as a reporter, like, how do you report on politics wrapped up with this level of trauma? Like I think that that's very difficult to piece apart. That's very difficult to pull out, you know, much less your own response, but looking at somebody like AOC and her response to Ted Cruz, like I'd love to work with you, but you about had me murdered and like that, just the intensity of that.

Olivia Beavers: [00:32:28] It's funny cause when I watched, I didn't watch the whole video of hers, I caught it late and had to turn to the newsletter. But when she was talking about this pressure to move on. I have not had anyone telling me that, but I still felt it. Like, I felt like this shame that the trauma still is with me a few weeks after. And at one point, does it become notokay to talk about it? Um, does it become tiring or, you know, do people start [00:33:00] rolling their eyes when you start saying this affects you and I don't know.

 I mean, like on the bright side, I have other people who went through that and we can talk about it. But, um, you know, when you're kind of describing it to people who went through it, you're so much more raw about what, what happened to, whereas with my mother who is not sleeping at night over what happened, you know, I'm saying I'm okay. You know, like the stories you tell about yourself in those moments sometimes guide how you ended up feeling later on.

Beth: [00:33:35] Well, as a citizen who relies on work like yours, my expectation is not that you put it aside or that lawmakers put it aside. My expectation is not that there's an expiration date on this story. I actually think that we are so much worse off in America for our minimization skills and our [00:34:00] compartmentalization skills. I think that's how we are still reckoning with race in the country. I think it's not great that we don't talk about 9/11 very often anymore and the trauma and the way we reacted to that trauma.

And so just for what it's worth, it feels really important to me that this not get put away in terms of both the side substantive outcomes that make their way through Congress, but also the dynamics and the relationships and the way that we speak about the press. I mean, it just breaks my heart that after at least four years, more like five, of reporters being talked about, like they are enemies instead of agents of democracy and you're on the cusp of moving towards an administration that will at least do a press briefing, you know, and, and not use that kind of language [00:35:00] that this culmination of all that language comes in, in such a violent way. And so I think it's really important that we keep talking about it. 

Olivia Beavers: [00:35:09] There was one moment where, and I've kind of pulled back from it, but like, there was a moment where, and you just, you just touched on it. We go through the trauma together, but we deal with it alone. And that's something that, you know, reporters, I didn't know well before who had to go through this were trying to rectify that sort of situation and be honest about just how you, we lost our sense of appetite for weeks, how our bodies were, we're dealing with it differently or at different speeds. And that's okay.

 There was, there were so many people reaching out to me individually that at some point on Twitter, I tried to put out how the trauma was personally affecting me. And the problem with that is, is that I talked about this feeling of being found. You know, I heard screaming outside my apartment. I ran to the window. It was a man trying to [00:36:00] get a truck to fit through a tight alleyway. And I was sitting there thinking like, is this someone who has found me? 

And when I, when I highlighted that another colleague of mine emphasized it on, on social media, and then what we found was it attracted the wrong attention. So then we're finding like either the people who wanted to intimidate or to scare were were getting either ideas or thinking like, Oh, then like we can still mess with them. And so it's made, and that really angered me because here we're trying to tell the story of just how, how bodies respond when they go through something horrifying.

And whereas we're still being told if you keep, if you keep using your voice, if you speak, then we'll still keep coming for you. And it didn't help that I'd seen a Parlor post about describing [00:37:00] reporters as soft targets. And, you know, just for many of us who were in the Capitol, it just seemed to get worse and worse the more we saw with pictures and social media and videos. And so when we were sitting there thinking, am I overplaying my fear? What I came out thinking was I probably under underplayed fear because I had no idea what was going on. And I kept thinking, it can't be that bad. It can't be that bad. 

Beth: [00:37:28] It felt like for the last four years, anytime I would try to think, well, what's the driving force in terms of what's going on in Congress, the answer was always the president. As I'm listening to you talk about this do you sense today, a couple of weeks out that this event is the driving force in terms of what's going on in Congress and that it will be, or is there something deeper that is causing division even around this event? 

Olivia Beavers: [00:37:56] I think it's dueling, um, because the insurrection [00:38:00] came naturally at a weird time, which is that you have a new administration coming in. You have donald Trump going out, he still has major influence over the party. And that's something that, you know, was clear after the election. If you have 74, 75 million voters voting for you, you still have a huge amount of support. So we knew we knew he was gonna have influence, but you also have a new president coming in who has all these various ideas of what he wants to make change.

And for him, this insurrection was completely, you know, changed the whole narrative of the start of this new administration that he was trying to make it about unity and the start of this year and his administration was anything but. It's a sign of disunity and, and just how far the political divide is how, disenfranchised people are, how rhetoric manifests into action in [00:39:00] ways that we don't understand, you know, talking to very Trump Republicans, they go, I don't understand it.

We hadn't had violence. You know, we hadn't had violence at any of these Trump pro Trump rallies before. I don't know why we had it now, but then you have police officers said, I don't know. It certainly looks like in, in previous marches that, that there could be trouble. I don't know why it wasn't looked at earlier. So you're hearing, hearing dueling ideas about where people are. 

And, you know, even before the election, there were talks about if Biden, you know, makes the country go into lockdown, people were throwing around the word civil war, Oh, we're going to go into a civil war. So I think like we have to do a much deeper dive into what state was our, our country at, before the insurrection, because that will be telling of why the insurrection happened. Sometimes we, we run from the [00:40:00] stories that aren't being told if they, they aren't, you know, it's not beneficial for Republicans to tell them, it's not beneficial for Democrats to tell them and reporters don't necessarily see them. I just keep wondering what are we missing? 

Sarah: [00:40:12] Well, I mean, I think part of it is, they're not being told because they're hard to tell, cause there's not an easy answer. There's not an easy even narrative. I mean, I think that, you know, to a certain degree, both things are true. Yeah. There were Trump rallies that weren't violent.

There was also a kidnapping plot against the governor of Michigan, you know, like there's lots of factors out there. And to me, looking at you know, what did we miss in preventing it as opposed to like, well, what actually got us here? They're both really important angles to examine. And they're both really difficult to look at.

Like, you know, like this is really hard, painful examinations that we all have to go under on the top of [00:41:00] an incredibly difficult four years, a global pandemic where everybody's margins are already very small. And then the trauma of the insurrection. I mean, it's a huge lift. It's a huge lift. Yeah. 

Olivia Beavers: [00:41:12] So, I mean, I hope that we're all, you know, the press Corps is able to do that, that reporting justice it's um, um, I'm definitely interested to know, and I don't have all those answers. We're we're, we're trying to sort out what, you know, environment plus people equals outcome sort of scenario, so.

Sarah: [00:41:36] Well, I hope, but, you know, we give a lot of grace on this show and I hope that you're giving yourself an enormous amount of grace because on top of what you went through, this Congress feels different to me than any Congress before, for all those reasons we just listed. The politics has changed. The parties are shifting the way to be a congressperson. It continues to shift. And so, I mean, I just [00:42:00] think that it's one of the oldest institutions and also it feels a little bit like the wild wild West to me right now.

Olivia Beavers: [00:42:07] Yeah. You know, I don't have the answer, but something that I keep asking myself is what is the limit? You know, if, if we're not and we're not responding in an effective way to what happened on January 6th, is they're going to be another January 6th, even though we don't know when we don't know how, like what does it take for the country to really examine what went wrong and how to fix it rather than choosing political reality and strategy over how to steer the boat the best way? 

Sarah: [00:42:46] Olivia was one of the first reporters inside the Capitol to live tweet what was happening. And she shared with us that she found that focus to be a type of coping mechanism. 

Olivia Beavers: [00:42:57] It's also like a weird [00:43:00] when that all that was happening, I turned off the texts notifications on my phone or Twitter notifications and I was just live tweeting all of this. My family jokes, but, you know, there's fight or flight and then in our family there's freeze. So my mom was under pressure. You know, I didn't know what I was going to respond like in that moment. And I found that if I focused on tweeting, I could keep my mom informed what was happening to me and my body.

I could focus on something that wasn't just the entire scary scene unfolding in front of me. I could, you know, I had like a mission that I set for myself. And then I have a very good friend who goes, I completely broke down and she goes, I didn't expect myself to be like that in a moment of crisis and I'm kind of embarrassed. She was like, I think I'd be better the next time.

 And I was like, I hope there's not a next time but you know, we, we learned so much about ourselves not because we were trying to, but because we were forced to, and yeah, so it's, it's just [00:44:00] sort of an interesting realization of who you are in a moment of crisis and my legs, as soon as we're in the middle of the evacuation, my body started getting out, my legs started shaking.

And so I was able to hold on for some points and still be asking members questions, and then, you know, A few days later, there was so much pain and in my upper back and my, my hips, just because that was how the trauma was manifesting itself. 

Beth: [00:44:27] We spend some time talking with Olivia about how every single person present on January 6th, from the people who work in the Capitol to politicians and their staff members to journalists are still dealing with the trauma.

Sarah: [00:44:43] All these people, they're all still dealing with it. They might not think they are. But they are just because like, they've built it into a different political narrative doesn't mean that they didn't experience. They did.

Olivia Beavers: [00:44:53] I know that. I know that that's something that you can see, even if they're not saying it. You can see with staffers, you can see [00:45:00] it with, you know, members of Congress in various ways, you can tell it in the, in the tenor of someone's voice falling to not give away just how shaken they are or angry they are. So you definitely see that. Yeah. So I'm really grateful to be able to have this conversation with you two. 

Sarah: [00:45:18] We can not express how deeply grateful we are to Olivia for having such an important, intense and emotionally impactful conversation with us.

Beth: [00:45:33] When I was thinking about sharing this episode today, I remembered that a lot of people are in this like move on headspace and that hearing this discussion with Olivia Beavers, if you're already upset about the outcome, it's not going to make you less upset. It's probably going to make you more upset. Sometimes I think we need to be more upset and I think we especially need to be more upset in ways that help us consider new angles, deal more resolutely with realities and [00:46:00] stay motivated to be engaged. 

If that looks like recruiting new people to run for Senate in your state or for the house, I hope that that you're motivated. If it's corresponding with your legislators, letting them know how you feel. If it's writing, op-eds just talking to your friends and neighbors about what went down. I hope that you feel that motivation. And again, thank you so much to Olivia.

Sarah: [00:46:42] Beth what's on your mind outside politics? 

Beth: [00:46:45] I read a piece that put words around something that you and I've talked about before. And I've been thinking about for a long time and the phrase is revenge bedtime procrastination. And the idea that many of us before we fall asleep [00:47:00] are lying in bed at night, scrolling through our phone, online shopping, playing games, social media, whatever.

But we're doing it to carve out a little space where nobody is the boss of us. It's like this little place where we get to just be humans, not parents, not workers, not part time, virtual school administrators, but just this space where we get to just be us. And we're getting all that just us time out on our phones, in a way that is not good for us and we all know it, but we're not going to stop doing it because this is the one place where no one is the boss of us. 

Sarah: [00:47:41] It's so true. Listen, this reminds me of my friend, who is a nutrition coach, and she talks about women have to have a space to rebel because women in particular are sort of rule followers. I mean, we are seeing the ways that women are propping up the world right now in the midst of the [00:48:00] pandemic. And often they will use food as a way to rebel. So like, Uh, I know eating this pan of brownies is gonna make me feel like crap. I'm gonna do anyway. And she was talking about like, you have to, it's really important.

And I think the revenge bedtime shows it's really important for all of us, particularly in an incredibly stressful time, like right now during the pandemic, to find like sustaining ways to rebel. So I have shared previous on the podcast that one of my ways to rebel is either to go to the movies in the middle of the day, which again, not available to us right now, or to go out without a bra on, because especially my Southern grandmothers have just pounded into my head that gotta wear a bra when you go out. 

So it's like a really fun way to be like, just kinda like stick it to the man, man, you have to find that way to just stick it to people. And so I think the revenge bedtime is a hundred percent true that it feels like you're sticking it. Like when you've spent the majority of your day with little to no [00:49:00] control over how you spend your time. And then now you've got this chance to be like, Oh no, I don't have to follow the rules that tell me I should go to bed at the same time every night, and then I should avoid blue light. And then I should do all these. I should have a nice, good routine blahdy, blah, blah, blah. I could do what I want. And what I want is to scroll Instagram for approximately an hour, an hour and a half. 

Beth: [00:49:25] And it's not even that conscious. Right. But for me, it's the feeling that I finally have a chance to just pay attention to what I want to pay attention to. This morning, I was trying to brush my teeth and put my clothes on and get ready for the day.

And I turned on a podcast to listen to while I was doing that. 15 minutes into the podcast, I had paused it to say something to my children who kept coming in six times, six interruptions in 15 minutes. And I'm going to start paying attention to that and sharing that data with them. [00:50:00] I told them, it's not that I'm uninterested in what you have to say. I'm very, very interested.

 I need us to combine it so that we can just have a conversation instead of a thought pops into your head and you come find me to share it. And then another one pops into your head and you can find me to share it. This morning while I was getting ready, my ten-year-old came into the bathroom and just stood and looked at me and I said, do you need something? And she said, I just wondered what you were doing.

 And I said, I told you, I'm just going to get ready. And then I'm going to come make you breakfast, but I cannot come make you breakfast if I cannot get ready and I cannot get ready if you keep walking in. And so I think that revenge bedtime procrastination is really the place where I'm like, you know, if I want to read another article about freeing Brittany Spears, I get to do it right now. I get to read it from start to finish. 

Sarah: [00:50:48] Well, and I know as I'm doing it because I'm going back to the same places. Right. So I've checked my Twitter list and then I've gone to [00:51:00] Instagram and I've checked the two celebrity gossip accounts that I want to know if they posted anything more. And then I check my email and then I checked Facebook messenger. And now I'm like, well, I still want to numb outq a little bit more on being in control.

So I'll go back to the insta, I go back to the Twitter list and then I'll go back to the celebrity gossip accounts on Instagram. And I'm like, that's the moment where my head is like, there's this little quiet voice in my head going, Hey, do you see what you're doing? I love you so much. Understand it, so much self compassion and also, can you see what you're doing here? I'm like, yeah, I can. And I'm going to do it anyway. So get out of my face little voice of conscience, very quietly whispering to me that this is probably not making me feel better. 

Well, and I will say, I will say this to the kid interruption. I was able to articulate this to my, my child, my interrupting child, because I have realized that I've trained my children to when they opened my door without knocking, which they seem incapable of learning not to do, they have learned if they knock and they opened the door and I'm meditating even the sixth [00:52:00] or even the five-year-old quietly closed the door and leave, which feels like a massive victory.

And I think it's because I was finally able to articulate to them, like showing that you're interested in me and I'm interested in you is not only about sharing, but also about respecting boundaries. And that takes a lot of work to convey to a five-year-old, but it does seem like important. Like we have to teach them like the only way to set show you love someone is not sharing, but also deciding not to share this particular moment in time. 

Beth: [00:52:36] 100%. My 10 year old talks about needing alone time. And it aggravates my five-year-old so much, but I said to both of them this morning, we all need some alone time and it feels like a luxury right now. And one way that we can show we care about each other is to say, if you need to go shut your door for an hour. Do that. Do that. Go shut your door for an hour. I'll be fine here. I don't need you every [00:53:00] second. 

That's a way that we show love. And I think you're right teaching that respect that we, that it's not that I don't like you and want to keep you away, it's that I really love you and I want to be my best self when we do interact, but it is difficult and it is difficult to remember that the revenge bedtime procrastination does not foster any of those objectives in the long run. It just makes us more tired when we are interacting with our people. But I'm not sure I'm going to stop doing it. And I'm not sure anybody else is either. 

Sarah: [00:53:30] If we could just, maybe it would be helpful if we just said, this is what we do, we see that we're doing it. And so when we sit down in our beds, we're going to just set a 30 minute timer. We're going to be like, okay, revenge bedtime. It's like, just schedule it. 

Maybe if there was like a conscious scheduling and saying like, I'm going to do this for 30 minutes because I want to do it. And I'm going to do it, but maybe if I could just have a little chime that reminds me, like, you can do it, but you don't have to do it for an hour and a half. I wonder if that would be helpful. Maybe we could all try that.

Beth: [00:53:58] Then maybe just know [00:54:00] here's the thing I'm going to do for a few minutes after that to get myself into sleep.

Sarah: [00:54:04] That's, what's hard. That's as hard as like, even in the midst of it just being like stuck like stop it, stop it, stop it. 

Beth: [00:54:08] So I'll give myself a 30 minute chime on my procrastination and then I'll do the 10% happier, 10 minute sleep meditation, something like that. Like a little reward for upholding my time and also helping me get to sleep. 

Sarah: [00:54:23] The bundling. It's the bundling. Do you, do you do it together and that helps you get the good stuff done cause you've bundled it into this stuff that he knows not so great. Being a human is hard work.

Beth: [00:54:33] It sure is. And the bundling is what we hope that we do here. Even as we're slogging through the hard stuff politically, we try to bundle it with friendship and laughter and our whole lives, instead of pretending like politics exists on an Island separate from everything else.

 So we're so glad that you're here with us. We hope to see you here again on Friday as we discuss the child tax credit proposals that are on the table and how those affect families, along with everything else that develops this week. Have the best week available to you.

Beth: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  

Sarah: Alise Napp is our managing director. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

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

Sarah: David McWilliams. Ali Edwards, Martha Bronitsky, Amy Whited, 

Janice Elliot, Sarah Ralph, Barry Kaufman, Jeremy Sequoia, Laurie LaDow, Emily Neesley,  

Allison Luzader. Tracey Puthoff,  Danny Ozment, Molly Kohrs, Julie Hallar, 

Jared Minson, Marnie Johansson. The Kriebs! 

Beth: Shari Blem, Tiffany Hassler, Morgan McCue, Nicole Berkless, Linda Daniel, Joshua Allen, and Tim Miller. Sarah Greenup

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