“Very specific problem solving” (with Rep. Jim Himes)

IMG_1401.jpg
 

Topics Discussed

  • Atlanta Spa Shootings

  • Immigration Surge

  • Moment of Hope: Low-Income Water and Sewer Investments

  • Rep. Jim Himes

  • Outside of Politics: Mara’s Career Shift

Thank you for being a part of our community! We couldn't do what we do without you. To become a financial supporter of the show, please visit our Patreon page, purchase a copy of our book, I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening), or share the word about our work in your own circles. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for our real time reactions to breaking news, GIF news threads, and personal content. To purchase Pantsuit Politics merchandise, check out our TeePublic store and our branded tumblers available in partnership with Stealth Steel Designs. To read along with us, join our Extra Credit Book Club subscription.

Episode Resources

IMMIGRATION SURGE

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] Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for a new episode of Pantsuit Politics. We have a special guest with us today, representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, who is on, among other things, the house intelligence committee, spent some time with us, and we are excited to share his comments with you.

We are also going to talk a little bit more about the Atlanta shooting and spend some time focused on what's happening at the Southern border and outside of politics, we have a listener commemoration to share and are going to think a little bit about how what happens in the news influences us personally. 

Before we get into all of that, we want to remind you that this Thursday at five o'clock Eastern, we will be on Instagram live doing a little happy hour with our friends from Caliber CBD. We're going to do some Ask us Anything questions that have already been submitted, but you'll be able to submit questions live as well. So you want to show up and just hang out with us, we would love to see you there Thursday at five o'clock Eastern. We are @PantsuitPolitics on Instagram.

Sarah: [00:00:56] We have now learned the names of the four [00:01:00] victims from the Atlanta shooting last week. We of course already knew the names of Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Delaina Yaun and Paul Andre Michels. We now know the names of four other victims. 

Beth: [00:01:14] So Yong Ae Yue was 63 years old. Her sons told the Washington post that she was laid off during the pandemic and was excited to get back to work.

She cooked Korean food, visited with her friends and loved watching movies and soap operas, and reading that soap operas detail really got me. Those are the, you know, the things that life are made of. 

Sarah: [00:01:34] Hyun Jung Grant was 53 years old. She was a single mother and her son said that she loved dancing and music, and that she told them that she worked at a makeup store.

Beth: [00:01:45] Soon Chung Park was 74 years old. She had moved to Atlanta from New York several years ago, to be closer to her friends, she helped manage one of the spas. She made lunch and dinner for the employees. Her son-in-law said that she loved [00:02:00] working and she missed her family terribly during the pandemic. She had planned to move in with her daughter and son-in-law when her lease ended. 

Sarah: [00:02:08] And Suncha Kim was 69 years old. She was a grandmother who was married for more than 50 years and her family reported that one of her favorite things to do was line dancing. And we share all those personal details because as a victim who's seen coverage of a shooting play out in her own community, I was thinking about this the other day, a few years ago, it was probably honestly like 10 years ago, I realized that the Wikipedia entry about my own school shooting was deep in detail on the shooter and left almost no personal details about my fellow classmates who lost their lives. And it, it really upset me.

And so I think whenever possible, during these events to add these details and to remember that this is not just a number, that it's not just quick [00:03:00] age and demographic information, but that these were full and complex human beings whose families will never be the same. I know Beth, that we've been following the story of many of these victims and I always was particularly struck by the husband of Delaina Yaun, who reported that the police handcuffed him and he spent four hours in handcuffs as they were gathering evidence and trying to figure out what was going on. So this poor man lost his wife and they told him while he was handcuffed, that she'd been killed and then left him there for hours further traumatizing him.

Beth: [00:03:32] I have thought so much about that. I've also thought so much about LCS Hernandezo Ortiz who goes by Alex, who was shot and hospitalized and how quickly our attention moves on from stories like this. Even as we continue to wrestle with the big themes here of race and purity culture and hate crimes and how we respond to them, you know, the, the person who was [00:04:00] shot in the forehead and had a bullet go down into his lungs and his stomach and is in the hospital in need of facial surgery can easily be left behind in that national coverage at a difficult time this morning, finding out much about his condition beyond the fact that his family has set up a go-fund me for his medical expenses.

And it's hard to hold space for all of the people who need space held for them around something so horrific and to do that for a sustained period of time, when it feels like life is just marching on outside of that immediate community, so just continuing to think about everyone who's been impacted and send love to them.

Continue to think about holding space for every single life, we're going to get into a situation where the numbers are pretty overwhelming as well. One of the top stories as we [00:05:00] record today on Monday is the situation at our Southern border and this will continue to be a real challenge for the Biden administration, for the state of Texas, for a number of nonprofits that work very hard at the border and really for our entire country for a long time.

 We have currently a surge in people trying to come to the United States. About 14,000 people are in federal custody and more people are coming. In February 18,945 family members and over 9,000 unaccompanied children came into custody. That is up 168% in terms of total people and 63% in terms of unaccompanied children from January. It is not as high as those numbers in the spring of 2019, just to give us some perspective, but it is a lot of people. 

Sarah: [00:05:53] You know, it strikes me that maybe we just need to start orienting ourselves to spring surges, [00:06:00] that this, like you said, it's going to be our reality for a while. That we're going to see surges of people, particularly from central America, particularly unaccompanied minors, because there is such political unrest, because the economies in many of these countries are struggling. People can't provide for themselves or their children. Of course, we have the added pressure of the pandemic.

 Then of course we have weather that has contributed to the issue and I mean, weather in Central America, some natural disasters in concert with better travel weather. So I don't, there's a part of me that's like, I don't love the language about crisises because this is clearly going to be an ebb and flow. That's going to be our reality for awhile. Right. I don't, I think we've seen through very different approaches between the Obama administration and the Trump administration and now the Biden administration that the surges still occur.

And so that it's not an issue of, well, if you put the right [00:07:00] administrative approaches in place, the surges don't happen. Right. So we know tha and instead of acting like it's just out of nowhere, it feels like we need to orient ourselves to this new reality. 

Beth: [00:07:12] I think it's true that the weather is a factor and everything that you mentioned contributes. I also think it's fair to say we see a surge typically with a change in administration, and we were bound to see a surge with a change to an administration that talks about immigration and more welcoming, humane, respectful, positive terms. I think it is important to put all of the pieces together. 

So it's not just, you know, Joe Biden's surge, but I think it is fair and I think Joe Biden would acknowledge the fairness of saying, yeah, we went from an administration that was so focused on keeping people out to an administration that wants to find a way to allow people in, in a more humane way and in a controlled way and we aren't [00:08:00] there yet. So what we hear from the administration is that the Trump administration really left them no infrastructure for bringing people in. 

The, every effort of the Trump administration was just about deterrence. So we really don't have the facilities, we don't have the personnel, uh, to handle this many people at once. I think the Biden administration was right to start, uh, taking in children at the border and families with very young children. But I think everyone has to acknowledge that they did so before we were fully staffed up and prepared to handle what that means on the other side.

And there are some things that are just out of their hands too. We had a public health order in place to send some families back to Mexico because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Mexico stopped taking some of those families. And so that caused our border agents to have to accept parents with children under seven years old. 

Representative [00:09:00] Veronica Escobar of Texas has said there was no transition here. The transition was an insurrection, that quote really struck me. And so for lots of reasons, we have a real problem here and the administration is working on it.

 I don't like the reporting about whether this is, is, or is not a crisis. I think just describing what's happening, lets everyone know that it is an urgent situation that requires emergency responses and we're seeing the administration trying to respond. 

Sarah: [00:09:30] That's what's so hard is when it becomes an urgent situation, the conversation about a long-term solution feels a little bit out of grasp to me, you know, it feels like, well, let's just do triage cause it's just this urgent situation, then it will be over and then we won't have this problem, but clearly the problem keeps reappearing. Right? And I think with regards to the Biden administration, there's two things.

 The first is that, you know, we've talked about on the podcast before with regards to foreign policy, the Biden administration came in [00:10:00] laser focused on the pandemic and COVID relief. I think that was the proper priority. And I think that even when we're talking about something as big as the federal government energy and focus, and you know, all of that is a finite resource. 

There is only so much, particularly in an administration that's being led by one person or like the Biden Harris administration, two people, like there's just only so much of the people at the tops attention and ability to give direction and give priorities that's out there. And I think that that's what we're seeing, right? Like they were so laser-focused and they did a fantastic job and continue to do a good job with regards to the vaccines and the relief package that the other problems are starting to bubble up. Right. 

It's not that they weren't there and it's not that the byte administration didn't care, but again, it's just, they have finite [00:11:00] resources and so it's going to be imperative that they start to redirect that focus to other places from the diplomatic issues at the talks between China and the U S over the weekend to, you know, other foreign policy issues into the immigration crisis at the border.

And I think the other issue, they did a really good job on this and the New York times this morning, is that there's not a real clear progressive or democratic vision for what we want immigration to look like. I mean, he, he did do an immigration reform bill, which is way more specific than other administrations have put forth as far as like, when they first came into office.

I mean, he has, it's not like he, you know, was ignoring this until the surge at the border. I mean that first day, like this is one of his big priorities. I want a very specific immigration bill ready to go but even like at this point, so much of comprehensive immigration [00:12:00] reform is very specific problem solving, like, because we've neglected it for so long.

Like so much of the reform is just, it's comprehensive in that it's trying to tackle all the problems we've neglected over the past, but it's not necessarily comprehensive in, in the way that it's presenting a vision for the future. Like, what do we want the border to look like? What are our guiding principles as far as who can come in and who gets deported and how long they stay before they get deported and how that deportation process is going to look?

And I think that's what really is hard right now is a little bit of that is missing, not because I, I don't think the administration sees it as important, but because this issue has been neglected for so long and because so much of the conversation was driven by just not being a human rights violation, like what was going on in the Trump administration that as we start to chip away at [00:13:00] these sort of acute problems, we do have to get to a point where we are presenting a vision for the future. 

Beth: [00:13:07] I agree with a lot of what you said. I definitely agree with that sentiment that we need to be looking at root causes and I think it is really unfortunate that the Republican response on this has been well, we can't do anything on the big picture of immigration until the small picture is resolved.

And what we know from history is that the small picture doesn't get resolved without the big picture getting resolved. And I also think it's just beyond the pale for specifically Kevin McCarthy, to talk about human rights issues at the border, given where the GOP stood with the Trump administration on the border.

So I share all of that sentiment and frustration. I struggle a little bit. I agree with you that there are finite resources within the federal government. I think that's hard to hear from an administration that has said from the beginning, no, everything's a priority and we can do it. And from [00:14:00] a party that is generally animated by the idea that we bring the federal government to our biggest problems, all of them, because the federal government can do more than anyone else.

I do though, take in good faith of the administration is trying here and is, is working on some concrete steps that I'm not hearing a ton of reporting about in terms of how those steps are designed to solve the problem. I've read more about the deployment of FEMA, the federal emergency management agency to the border in terms of like, well, they say it's not a crisis, but they sent FEMA.

Okay. Well, the other side of that is that they sent FEMA. They're trying to work on this. They've entered into contracts for hotel rooms, to house people in more humane conditions. I think one of the most significant things that's happened is we reached an agreement with Mexico in exchange for some AstraZeneca vaccines going to Mexico. Mexico will help us better contain the surge.

And Mexico has announced the closure of its Southern border to non-essential travel. There's consideration of flying people coming [00:15:00] into the States near the Canadian border so that we better use all of our immigration resources to help move people through the system. And the administration has been saying, clearly, do not come now. Now that isn't being heard clearly, and of course it isn't, and there's a lot of that that's out of their control, but they are telling people, we are not prepared for you to be here. 

Sarah: [00:15:20] Now, Beth, over the weekend, we were talking about this and specifically a vision for the future and you were talking about a proposal from the Republican side that you were encouraged by.

Beth: [00:15:32] Yes. So Republican representative Maria Elvira Salazar from Florida spent 35 years as a Spanish language journalists covering border crises and central American conflicts and immigration issues in Miami and she voted with Democrats for the two pieces of immigration legislation that the house passed last week, the American Dream and Promise act.

We talked about both of these on the podcast and the Farm Workforce [00:16:00] Modernization act. So she crossed the aisle and she said, I am showing that I'm serious about getting things done and I hope that this sign of good faith will allow Democrats to work with me on my proposal as well. And so she has just said that the immigration reform put forward by the Biden administration and its allies in Congress is never going to be law.

That it, there is no way that it gets through the Senate. And it seems unlikely that it gets through the house, even with a democratic majority. And she said, this is a quote," as Hispanics, we don't want any more false promises, false hopes. We want for those 11 million undocumented who are here in the country to be treated with dignity, but this will not happen, it will not happen if we don't stop the madness at the border with real permanent solutions, not with executive orders."

 And she uses the phrase dignity a lot because her proposal is called the Dignity proposal and it's pretty straightforward. It starts with border security and it makes border security, the top priority. So [00:17:00] physical barriers, technology security at ports of entry would have to happen before any other reforms follow and I thought that component was pretty interesting. 

Sarah: [00:17:11] She also calls for some asylum reform to prevent abuse of a system, the system, while improving the processing side for people fleeing persecution and violence. She has an enhanced efforts to immediately remove criminals. You know, this was a priority of the Obama administration and was focusing on people who had committed violent acts. So I wonder if she could get some bi-partisan work together on that, um, immediate legal status for dreamers, which is, has wide bipartisan support among Americans and a pathway to permanent legalization through work, military service or higher education.

Beth: [00:17:46] And then kind of the centerpiece of this proposal is what she calls the ten-year dignity program. It would provide work visas for people who are here, undocumented if they pass a criminal background check, pay back taxes, start paying income [00:18:00] taxes and remain employed. They would also have to pay a fine and interest contribution to the American small business fund.

And those initial contributions would go to the paycheck protection program and then to work force training initiatives. So she's really trying to tie together a focus on the health of the American economy, along with an immigration policy that is tough, but fair. She would say that folks in this program would receive no access to federal means, tested benefits or entitlements.

And that once you've successfully completed that 10 year program, you would get indefinitely, renewable five-year visas to maintain a work permit and legal status. And then after that, you could start the, what she calls the redemption program to earn permanent resident status. To be in that program, you would have to learn English and US civics, contribute to the community through either volunteer work or contributions to that small business [00:19:00] fund.

And then you would have eligibility to existing pathways to citizenship. She makes a point that she's not writing a new way to become a citizen here. People in this program would go to the back of the line that we already have on pathways to citizenship, but they would have that eligibility and her program also creates some guest worker reform. So what did you think of this when you took a look, Sarah? 

Sarah: [00:19:22] I don't love all of it. It's not the immigration reform I would write. But I do feel like at this point where we are with Congress and particularly congressional Republicans, I feel that praising any policy proposals at all is important. So I respect that she comes from deep experience and an important perspective.

And I see a lot of parts of this proposal that meet many Americans where they are. It's not where I am, but I understand that it's where many Americans are with immigration. And so, I mean, I think that's [00:20:00] important. I think that's an important part of the process and any sort of bipartisan reform. I think that the best argument I've heard and she gets at this a little bit is like, we're not going to get through some giant piece of comprehensive immigration reform.

We are going to have to start tackling this bit by bit congressional action on dreamers is way overdue and again, it's, it's popular across the country so making that happen and giving those people some dependability, as far as what are their future's going to look like is hugely important. And I think she gets it, some of the issues, it's just not exactly how I would solve them, but again, Congress is not a place for zero tolerance or moral purity so I think that that is a good step coming from congressional Republicans. 

Beth: [00:20:46] Totally agree. I was happy to see this from her. I would also not write it this way. The part that I object to most strongly is the part that's hardest to talk about. And that is that the access to federal means, tested benefits and [00:21:00] entitlements, because I don't think it serves anybody to have a large population of people in the country who are cut off from some of their basic needs being met.

And I think what we've learned about public health should compel all of us to want all of the people we share space with to have access to good care and I also think, as we look at crime and the relationship between crime and inequality, I'm not saying that immigrants are more likely to commit crime than people who have not recently immigrated to the United States or their families have not.

In fact, I've seen studies that that show that new Americans are very unlikely to commit crime. But I am saying that if we have large numbers of people who are here and isolated from programs that are just there to ensure people have like basic subsistence during difficult times, [00:22:00] I think that could be a recipe for real problems and so I would like to see that part changed.

 I get that politically, that is, that is a very difficult piece to move, but it makes me feel hopeful that there's a real substantive discussion to be had here and that she took the step of voting for other pieces of legislation. Yeah. That part in particular, for sure, that makes me, I feel confident that she is operating in good faith.

She's serious. And, and I like the leadership coming from people who have deep experience and ties to the Hispanic community. I think that leadership is much more important than anything that I have to say sitting here in Kentucky about immigration. 

Sarah: [00:22:40] We wanted to move on to a moment of hope. You know, we're planning a big infrastructure series for the summer, but there's something to celebrate now. Congress has begun paying attention to our water systems that have been ignored for far too long. 

So in December 638 million was appropriated for low-income water customers [00:23:00] and for water and sewer investments, another 500 million was approved for that in the American rescue plan and 350 billion in the Coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds was designated for water and sewer systems. Our water and sewer systems are aging. They need funding. And so this is something that is incredibly important and will hopefully impact citizens across the country. 

Beth: [00:23:24] Next up, we'll be talking with representative Jim Himes of Connecticut. His district is largely coextensive with the Connecticut side of the New York metropolitan area. And we had a wide ranging conversation with him that we'll introduce you to many of his committee assignments and legislative priorities.

[00:24:00] Sarah: [00:24:33] Now today, the director of national intelligence officially released their report on the 2020 election and we know you're the ranking member of the NSA and cybersecurity subcommittee. So we want to, as someone with a lot of experience in this area, what do you want people to understand about what went right in the 2020 election and what we still need to work on based on what this report is telling everybody?

Jim Himes: [00:24:53] Wow, big topic, big topic. I mean, an awful lot of what went wrong about the 2020 election of course has, uh, has nothing to do with [00:25:00] foreign powers. It has a lot to do with the way, uh, the way the country responded to it and in particular, the way Trump's supporters, uh, responded to it, that was the very personal experience I had on January 6th.

But, but your question is valid and it's something that everybody needs to look out for without reference to whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, which is as you point out the declassified, uh, intelligence report, uh, shows a very robust effort on the part of Russia in particular, but also on the part of Iran and North Korea and to a much lesser extent, China, um, to poke around in our electoral system.

 And the Russia piece really bears watching because, um, though we were led to believe in the run-up to the election that, Oh gosh, it was a big thing. China was, was maybe the, the main perpetrator, which by the way, is something that the attorney general and the director of national intelligence, uh, were dishonest with the people and with the Congress about, but let's, let's set that aside for a moment.

You know, the Russians came in in a big way, uh, to 2020 through, uh, what they call active [00:26:00] measures. In this case um, trying to promulgated the idea that the Biden family was corrupt, that there had been corruption in Ukraine and they used a couple of agents in Ukraine and in Russia and what's interesting about it was that they got a bunch of us persons, uh, as the report indicates supporters of Donald Trump.

And though those supporters are not named you, don't have to think too hard to imagine who they might be to really push this fantasy, that there was deep corruption surrounding the Biden family, perhaps, uh, due to, uh, you know, whatever fantastical ideas of, of, of what may, uh, what may or may not have happened in Ukraine.

Beth: [00:26:37] Our listeners are really on the front lines of this way that Americans are aiding foreign disinflation campaigns. We have people who write to us and say, I still don't know how to convince my relative, my friend, that the election was not stolen and I wonder as someone who experienced January 6th, who sits on the house intelligence committee, what would you say [00:27:00] to those listeners to help equip them for those conversations?

Jim Himes: [00:27:03] Well, that's a, it's a great question and it's a hard one to answer because, you know, there's just not a single fact out there that the election was stolen. There's no evidence of corruption and from top to bottom, the courts, some 60 or 61 62 court cases have dismissed the notion that there was illegal activity. Uh, you know, the attorney general under Donald Trump who, uh, was hardly, I would say an objective, uh, participant in this said that he saw no evidence of, of anything having gone wrong. And so you just, you don't have a single fact to back the notion that there was a problem.

 Now that makes, that makes persuasion pretty tough, but, but let me offer up what I think is a really important thought and this applies equally to Democrats and to Republicans, which is as American citizens, our democracy is not to be taken for granted. It is a remarkable gift that we have [00:28:00] been given through the mortal sacrifice of generations. Uh, and it comes to us with a certain responsibility. And that responsibility is to be thoughtful, critical consumers of information thinkers.

And if what you're doing, I say this every chance I get, if what you're doing in your political activities is watching a very narrow set of websites, far left or far right, and what you're doing is you're sitting in front of your computer and you're getting angrier and angrier and more and more emotional and you're pretty sure that the other side is not just wrong, but they are evil and they are unpatriotic. You are doing your obligation to citizenship a terrible disservice. And by the way, you may be doing it in the service of the Russians or the Iranians or the North Koreans. 

And so Americans have got to start taking seriously. The idea that you know, what most people here in Washington are pretty decent people trying to do a good job. Yeah. There's a little corruption, no question about it, but nobody's evil here. [00:29:00] Nobody is here because they're deeply unpatriotic. Issues are hard. They're not black and white and you know what, if you're not thinking that way, you are doing a huge disservice to the generations of sacrifice that lots of Americans put forward so that we could be sitting here today.

Beth: [00:29:14] I would love to ask you about the American Rescue Plan. I know that's a hard turn from where we just were, but it has to feel good to have passed such a big piece of legislation. I'm wondering if you could do a little new Democrat orientation for me. I was a Republican until the Donald Trump era and I have changed as well as the party, right? It's not just one thing and I'm very supportive of this plan. It seems like a very, just equitable allocation of money to me, definitely the right thing to do.

And I still feel a gut reaction about the amount of money that's in it and I wonder if you can talk to me as a new Democrat about how I should think through deficits and debt. I know this is something you care a lot about and have worked hard on while you've been in Congress. Yeah. 

Jim Himes: [00:29:58] Great, great question [00:30:00] and in the spirit of my answer on issues being complicated, let's, let's, let's talk about this, honestly, rather than in using partisan talking points and the partisan talking points, the Democrats say, Oh, this is absolutely necessary. And it should of had $15 minimum wage and it should have had this and it should have had that. And the Republicans say, this is a big giveaway. 

Look, this is a pretty well targeted and conceived bill that sends almost all of its money to either COVID relief or to rebuilding the economy. It also may be too big. Let's just, let's just be honest about that and try to have the conversation that is, that is consistent with our obligation to be smart and thoughtful and understand the policy is complicated.

It may be too big. Larry Summers who's a democratic economist and by the way, they don't make them a whole lot smarter than Larry Summers said it may be too big. It may cause inflationary pressures. Others are saying that it's going to add a lot to our deficit. That is also true. Now, by the way, those folks that are saying it's going to add a lot to our deficit that didn't seem to mind when they were adding exactly the same [00:31:00] amount of the to the deficit, offer up a whole bunch of tax cuts that people really didn't need.

But let's set that aside for a second because it is adding to our deficit. So again, let's keep the conversation honest and say that it is not perfectly targeted. People are going to get cash who are doing okay. You know, some people are going to get those $1,400 checks we're doing okay. Is there a logic for that? Yeah. Those folks are going to go to a restaurant. They're going to help that restaurant who knows, maybe they'll go out and buy a piece of furniture. That's going to help our economy get started, but it, but yeah, it's not perfectly targeted. So that's the honest conversation that we're not having. 

The honest conversation about deficits we're not having, is that almost anybody who's pointing the finger on deficits is being pretty hypocritical because yeah, over time, uh, maybe Democrats have been, uh, have been interested in spending more than the tax revenues they bring in, but it's certainly true that Republicans have been real interested in cutting taxes to create deficits that way.

One thing I can tell you for sure about deficits and debt is that when you're in the middle of a once in a century pandemic with an absolutely [00:32:00] horrid economic catastrophe, that's not the moment where you say, Oh my goodness, we've got to worry about the deficit. You do that when the economy is healthy and growing, and that's when you sort of start taking a little bit of medicine and by the way, we've never done that. 

And ironically, the one time we've actually done that in the 12 years I've been in public service was in the Obama administration. The Obama administration actually agreed to sequestration, agreed to start trimming back the spending. Um, but that was a very, very brief interlude, but, but the important point really is that, you know, deficits do matter. If we keep running deficits for years and years and years, at some point, uh, we will suffer some consequences, but when you're in the middle of a pandemic and an economic meltdown, your first priority and second priority, and third priority is fixing that economic meltdown, uh, not addressing issues of debt and deficit.

Sarah: [00:32:46] I'm wondering how you respond to the people that asked do they matter because we've run these big deficits with short intervals. I was born in 1991. So since the, the Reagan era is we've been, we've been running big deficits, always with the [00:33:00] concern that there's going to be consequences, there's going to be consequences.

And there's, I think there's a growing critique that, yeah, but where are the consequences that we've been warned about for decades? Not that we should, you know, abandon all care, but if the way we orient towards spending and deficits needs to be recalibrated. 

Jim Himes: [00:33:20] Yeah, no, that's a really good point. I mean, I remember 12 years ago when the national debt stood at about $10 trillion, this is the start of the Obama administration. You know, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff tells us that the single biggest strategic threat to the United States is the debt and the deficit, right. Greece melts down and you, you know, we're promised that in weeks, if not months, we will be Greece. We will have a massive meltdown.

Interest rates are going to skyrocket and our economy is going to collapse. None of that happened here. We are 12 years later, none of that happened. Interest rates in the United States are just pretty much zero. So I got to tell you, we have a huge case of crying Wolf. Uh, and that, by the way, it makes it hard for people who are concerned about the deficit.

And I put myself in that [00:34:00] camp because, uh, there is no evidence out there that the United States blessed as we are and we are very blessed. Look, our currency is the reserve currency around the world. Uh, we're the safest place to put your money. Uh, and so we are very blessed by lots of things, but there's nothing to say that we can be unsustainable forever.

There's no evidence for that to be true and look bottom line, I think we should agree regardless of where we are on the political spectrum, that we all have to pay our debts, right? And there's two ways you can get rid of debt. You can either pay it back and you've got to ask yourself, who's going to pay that back.

Um, or you can inflate your way out of it, right? This is a sort of your classic Latin American strategy. Uh, having grown up there, I saw that up close and personal. You know, let inflation go to 20%. Well that shrinks your debt pretty effectively. It also devastates the savings of Americans. Now you can also grow, right? And we want to do that, but I'm not sure where to level here, where we're going to solve the debt problem simply through growth. So again, there's no evidence whatsoever that we can be unsustainable for forever. [00:35:00] Uh, at some point we got to start thinking about, you know, how to get, how to get our, our spending with inhaling distance of our revenues.

Sarah: [00:35:06] Well, before we move on from the American rescue plan, I do want to ask you, you know, part of the reason that it is so big is because we have such few opportunities to get legislation through the house and the Senate and you know, you've been in Congress since 2009, you've introduced a lot of legislation.

And I wonder how you feel about this evolution that we, we, we seem to have fewer and fewer opportunities in what I'm really would love to hear you talk about is the fact that some in the opposition, you know, some in the Republican party seem to have just embraced this and are saying things like, well, I'm staffing around communications and not legislation and I'm going to just focus on tactics or media strategy and not actual legislation. 

Jim Himes: [00:35:53] Yeah, that's a, that's a big, big, tough, ugly furball of a question. There is no question [00:36:00] that sometimes it feels like activity around the Capitol is about retaining or regaining power, as opposed to actually finding that compromise that makes everybody angry. That's that's kind of the definition of compromise, right? Everybody's everybody's a little angry. Yeah. But you make a little bit of incremental progress. That ladder ethic, that idea that we ought to do some tough things together, um, is very rare here. And that's a huge problem, a huge problem. 

And, and, um, I'm not going to draw an equivalency between the right and the left as proximate as we are to the January six attack on the Capitol. I'm not going to suggest that there's equivalency there, but I'm going to suggest that both parties engage in that. And I would love to find a way, uh, to down shift away from that. I think I, you know boy, we could talk for, we could talk for an hour on this, but you know, the primary system is a system that encourages, shall we say, you know, aggressive and more, uh, marginal, [00:37:00] uh, points of view.

Uh, if you're a Republican you're challenge is from the right and you want to run hard to the right. And if you're a Democrat you're challenge is from the left, ask Joe Crowley, as Mike Capilano, you to, you want to run hard to your left. Um, that's a system that, that makes it pretty hard to staff this institution with people who are willing to compromise.

Beth: [00:37:18] It feels to me like a thread through this conversation, all the topics we've talked about so far, it shows how more than any other time that I can remember, it seems like we have this real convergence of what constitutes foreign policy and what constitutes domestic policy. So when we think about safeguarding, our elections, We have foreign and domestic aspects of that.

When we think about investing in our economy, you know, there's been so much interesting scholarship lately about how kind of rebuilding America, this Biden build back better plan is in many ways a foreign policy initiative and I wonder, especially sitting as you do on committees with such a cybersecurity focus, how you're thinking about the upcoming infrastructure push and how much of that feels [00:38:00] like a domestic priority to you and how much feels like a foreign policy priority?

Jim Himes: [00:38:04] Well infrastructure certainly feels to me like a, like a really critical domestic priority. And it feels like one where we ought to, uh, much more so than other topics we're going to talk about in the next couple of months, immigration being one of them, it feels to me like we ought to have a lot of common ground on infrastructure.

I'm not sure there's anybody's congressional district where they would give their roads and bridges and rails a, an a plus, uh, it's particularly important for me in Southwestern Connecticut, where our infrastructure is way substandard. Uh, maybe as a foreign policy issue in that in as much as if you fly into Europe and you see one, you know, you see the European airports. So you go into East Asia and look at the East Asian airports, you realize, Holy smokes, what's, what's wrong, what's wrong with us.

So maybe it's a foreign policy issue in that regard, but I, I, um, You know, we're, we're going to need to do this. It's not optional. And the good news is that everybody, Democrats and Republicans agrees with that point, we need to invest in our infrastructure. The reason this is a terribly frustrating [00:39:00] issue is that when you ask the question, who's in favor of investing infrastructure, you can't move in the room, everybody's there. Then you say, okay, now we're going to talk about how we pay for it and all of a sudden that room empties out faster than you can blink your eyes.

We saw this in Connecticut, right? Everybody in Connecticut understands we need to invest in our infrastructure, but we had a civil war in Connecticut. I'm joking. We didn't have a real civil war, but it felt like it over the question of how we pay for it. When the idea of tolls came up now, by the way, tolls are such a radical idea that every single state in the proximity of a, of Connecticut uses tolls. But when it came up. 

Sarah: [00:39:30] that's why y'all shouldn't, you shouldn't have waited until you went last. Cause they're so mad about all the surrounding States. 

Jim Himes: [00:39:38] It also makes you wonder what would've happened if we'd tried to go first. 

Sarah: [00:39:43] Oh, it's so true. We talk a lot about roads and bridges, but what else do you think really constitutes infrastructure? Like, are you thinking about internet as a utility? Are you thinking about issues of cyber security? When you think about infrastructure, how big [00:40:00] are you thinking? 

Jim Himes: [00:40:01] Yeah, both of those things are important and I'm going to add one, one other thing to list. COVID of course has shown something that I think we suspected but maybe we didn't feel in our bones, which is that, um, access to broadband is not optional anymore and if you don't have it, um, you are not participating in American life or in the 21st century economy. 

And of course I say this representing a district that has massive disparities in wealth. Um, it does tend to be the poor, uh, communities of color that are, that don't have adequate, uh, access to the internet through broadband. And that, and you know, that's unlike a lot of our problems. That's not that hard to fix. We can do that. 

And it's a long tradition in this country. We, we electrified the Tennessee Valley, you know, I mean, there's a long tradition of doing that kind of thing. So, um, absolutely and with that, of course comes up an obligation to do a heck of a lot better and smarter around cybersecurity because the more wired we get the bigger a target we are to the Russians and to others. 

And let me add another thing to infrastructure. This, this may be isn't quite fair, [00:41:00] but it's about something that also begins to close disparities. We've got an opportunity here to, to, to, to rethink education. For the, for the first time in years, when all of a sudden young people couldn't go to school, uh, all of us started thinking hard about what it meant to go to school.

Uh, do you actually have to go to school? Is there an opportunity for distance learning? Who gets educated, who doesn't? I am convinced that, uh, that, uh, if we don't do a better job educating our people, and by the way, I'm not saying you got to go to a four year college, we've made a terrible mistake, uh, over the course of the last generation saying, Oh, if you don't go to college, you're in trouble.

No, no, no, no. Um, you know, you can go get a two year associates degree. You can go get a certificate in HVAC and plumbing and electrical work, you know, in Connecticut where we're teaching people, how to weld submarines together, and those are going to be great middle-class jobs. Um, so we, we, we really got to focus on that other or, or we're going to leave too many Americans behind.

Beth: [00:41:51] Does the scope of what constitutes infrastructure also have some bipartisan agreement? Do you hear Republican colleagues agreeing with you about broadband, [00:42:00] education, et cetera, or does that get us into thorny territory as well? 

Jim Himes: [00:42:04] You know, I, I do think there's bipartisan support. I mean, it's very interesting, you know, if you come from the Northeast the way I do, you tend to think about isolation and poverty in terms of, um, in terms of cities. The reality is, um, there's a lot of poverty and a lot of disparity of opportunity in America's rural areas.

Um, those rural areas tend to be heavily represented by Republicans and they care about that. They care about access to healthcare because maybe in certain parts of Iowa, you've got to go five hours to get to a, a hospital. I do think that that is not a partisan thing. You know, there, there are people all over this country who need better access to, uh, to everything we've been talking about here.

Sarah: [00:42:44] So do you think that the recent rules change allowing for earmarks is going to help this transportation project as much as everyone hopes it will, or at least people on the democratic side hope it will, although I think that had some bipartisan support as well?

Jim Himes: [00:42:58] Yeah. There was just a vote, I guess, [00:43:00] today, um, where the majority of Republicans decided to support the idea of, um, Of, I guess we're calling them community investment projects now. Right. There we go.

 Look, I've, I've always believed and, and, and let's, let's acknowledge that there was abuse of earmarks in the past, and that's why Rossa Deloro who's in charge of this now as chairman, the appropriations committee is saying, if you ask for an earmark, you're going to put that up on your website. And you're gonna represent, uh, you're gonna swear basically that you have no financial interest in it and nobody in your family has financial interest in it and everything's going to be totally transparent.

 By the way, can only go to states, municipalities and nonprofits. Can't go to for-profits that, you know, hire you down the road or whatever. So I think, I think a process has been put together, um, that we'll be transparent and, and we'll, uh, we'll avoid abuse. Um, so, so two good things happen. Number one, um, you know, with all due respect to the, the good people at the department of transportation, I'm in my district every single day [00:44:00] and, and I, and I know what the critical projects are so I'm glad now to have a hand in allocating resources to do those projects.

And number two, this is an internal thing and maybe people wish that legislation weren't that way. But one of the problems we have in the Congress is that, you know, our leadership has a very difficult time getting people to do hard things, compromise. Remember we were talking about compromise earlier. 

Well, when leadership can, uh, it has a little currency in the form of these, uh, earmarks, uh, community development projects. It's going to be easier, I think, to compel members to compromise because there will be some poker chips on the table. 

Beth: [00:44:37] Will you talk to us about the Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor Protection act and how you see getting that type of issue through Congress where you would think just on the face of it, there would be bi-partisan support, but it runs up against some of our partisan talking points.

Jim Himes: [00:44:56] Yeah. Yeah. It's not even partisan talking points. Right. It's [00:45:00] uh, for years we've been dealing with, um, the fact that the gun lobby, um, has always taken the, uh, the slippery slope approach. If you allow anything to happen while it all goes to hell. Um, and next thing you know, you've got Blount black helicopters landing in people's lawns taking away guns.

I mean, I can't tell you the number of times when I say, Hey, Universal background checks, probably a good idea. Right? We don't want folks that have been violently convicted of violent felonies or people who were on the terrorist watch lists, uh, purchasing weapons and, you know, by the way, 90% of Americans, more than 90% agree with that.

But then, then, then the God, the gun guy comes back and says, Oh, well, yeah, but if we allow that you, you want to take away my guns, you know, so, so we have a really stupid discussion around that and, and sadly, Lori Jackson, um, gets caught up in that. Lori Jackson of course, was a, a woman who was murdered by her, uh, ex spouse who went to Virginia to buy a weapon, um, and slipped through the cracks of, of, of the system.

And so, again, not a, not a, not a gun grabbing crazy idea. [00:46:00] The idea is that if you are subject to a temporary restraining order, Or a permanent restraining order, or if you've been convicted of stalking somebody, uh, for a period of time, you're not going to have access to lethal weaponry. I don't, I don't think that's radical. I don't think that's gun grabbing. I mean, but we're going to have a heck of a fight getting that, getting that passed the folks who say the only answer is no and never. 

Sarah: [00:46:22] Mm. So when listeners, you know, hear about bills, just like this here about infrastructure projects that they support or whatever the case may be, it feels so disempowering to just say, Oh, well, call your legislator. What's a call to action you can give us as a citizen to really feel empowered inside the process? 

Jim Himes: [00:46:46] The call to action is not a particularly rousing one, you know, and I know I'm supposed to be rousing, but, but the call to action is, um, don't lose faith in the idea that your voice matters and it [00:47:00] matters a lot.

So there's no doubt in my mind that the affordable care act was preserved because tens or hundreds of thousands of people protested the idea that the Republicans would do away with it and, and that's not because it's perfect far from it, but doing away with it would have kicked 20 million Americans off their insurance, would have gotten us back to a world where people with preexisting conditions couldn't get coverage.

And as hard as we all worked on that, it was really the people who just said, nah, you can't do that that, that made that happen. And you got to, you acknowledge that there's been slow progress, but progress on gun things. We were just talking about guns. HRA, which is universal background check passed the house last week with actually some meaningful Republican support. So we're making progress. 

So I know that's not rousing. Um, our country is not wired. The, the political engine of our country doesn't move fast. Uh, you can blame the founding fathers for that. They didn't like the idea of moving too fast because they were used to Kings who could move really fast and usually made dumb mistakes. So [00:48:00] yeah, just got to not lose faith in the system and just keep the pressure on because over time it works. 

Beth: [00:48:07] What'd you say to someone who is considering a run for Congress, what should they know that they might not know in the abstract? 

Jim Himes: [00:48:15] I guess I'd say two things. Maybe the second one is a little bit influenced by what happened on January 6th.

The first thing I would say is exactly what I just said, which is we have a system that I have a lot of respect for, for all of its warts and flaws, too much money, too slow. Not everybody here is exactly who I would choose to have here uh, and, and, uh, you know, son of a gun who knew, but, um, if you're comfortable with incremental progress, because that's the way the machine is wired and every once in awhile amidst the incremental progress is a huge step forward.

 Think civil rights in the 1960s, maybe the affordable care act and Dodd-Frank, and the early part of the last decade, every once in a while you have a big move, but if you're the kind of person who's willing to just kind [00:49:00] of get up, work hard over a period of time, you will find success. If what you believe is that because you've arrived in Washington, everything's going to be different. Um, you're likely to be frustrated. 

And the second thing I would say is maybe related to what I saw on January 6th. And I'll say this in a very non-partisan way. If your campaign to be in the Congress, or if you're in the Congress, be honest about its flaws. Democracy is a very messy system and we have a particularly messy democracy lately, but don't completely trash the system because if people like me and whoever challenges me two years from now, if the message is Washington is corrupt and it can't serve you. And it's a bunch of bad people and special interests, the logical outcome of saying that enough times is people breaking windows in the United States Capitol.

Now I understand why people do that. You know, this has been going on for 240 years in this country. Washington was always, you know, the boogeyman. Uh, it was always what you attacked, but be, be a little thoughtful about what happened on January [00:50:00] 6th when you talk about the problems with our system of government.

Yeah, it's got too much money in it. Uh, incumbents may have too much of an advantage. Um, but, but be careful about telling the American people that it is an evil and corrupt system, because at some point they'll start listening to you. 

Sarah: [00:50:15] What did January 6th change for you? You know, you'd been along serving congressperson you'd been there since 2009. I'm sure you had some pretty intense ideas about the institution. You'd been through several administrations, but what was it like on January 7th? What did you think? I didn't understand this or now I see this even more clearly? 

Jim Himes: [00:50:36] I have to tell you, I had half an hour. I was in the chamber when it was attacked and I had a half an hour of real anxiety. I was a little stunned by the security failure. I assume that something like that could never happen and boom, it did. Um, I, I'm still not at peace with the idea that thousands of Americans and I'm, uh, look, I'm an optimist.

I believe that Americans are not bad people. And I, and I don't have reason to believe [00:51:00] that all of the thousands of people who showed up at the Capitol are inherently evil and bad people, but somehow they had gotten thesemlves twisted into a world where they thought it was okay to break windows and attack the global Sims as a symbol of self-government.

And so it really gives me an appreciation for how the power of demagoguery, the power of lies, the power of fear and anger can twist somebody's because there were a lot of twisted people that day on January. They, I mean, here's, here's a crowd that I think if you'd asked them the day before, you know, do you back the blue, do you stand up for police officers?

They would've said, Oh, absolutely. And the next day they killed a couple of them or they killed one and then subsequently killed himself. And so I am a, still a little stunned by the ability of hate and lies and demagoguery to twist people into places that are unrecognizable. Uh, and I think we better unpack that.

That's why I said what I did about advice I would give somebody who wanted to come here, point out the problems in our system of government, but when you start using language like evil, [00:52:00] un-American, unpatriotic. People will listen and they will see that as a reason to leave their senses behind and do some very bad things.

Sarah: [00:52:08] Well, and I, I just wonder as a member of Congress, you know, I think it would be easy before that day to compartmentalize some of the language of your colleagues and say, it's elections, it's media appearances, it's their shtick, but I can't imagine how much more difficult that becomes after that date to see some of the language from these people that you, like you said, you have to work with.

You have to, you have to come together, you have to work on legislation. You have to figure out infrastructure and cybersecurity, because it would feel like to me, that compartmentalization would really no longer work as a strategy. 

Jim Himes: [00:52:49] Yeah. I mean, I've had to work hard to remind myself because I experienced emotions and anger and desire for, uh, for, even in the score and everything. But every day [00:53:00] I remember I myself, that the reason I'm here is not to satisfy my own personal wants, but to try to get something done for my constituents.

 And, um, that requires me to work with others and, um, I may not want to work with somebody, but that's somebody got sent here by 750,000 people just the same way I did. And so may not, may not make me happy to work with somebody that I feel encouraged, the violence that occurred on January 6th. But my primary job here is to get stuff done for my constituents and that's, that's, that's what I'm going to do. 

Sarah: [00:53:29] Can I ask you one more thing? That's just my, my own personal obsession, because you mentioned the number of people represented by members of Congress. And I think so much of what happened on January 6th is people, like you said, not feeling heard, feeling frustrated. And I think some of it has to be with the size of the constituency. And I wonder how much talk there is in Congress. I know there's another, like sort of democracy reforms about changing the members of Congress.

How many members we actually have increasing the numbers so that people aren't representing 700,000, that they're [00:54:00] representing fewer so that people feel like they have more access and their voices are heard. Is there any discussion of that within the halls of Congress?


Jim Himes: [00:54:06] I've heard that suggestion a lot and it makes sense to me. `Um, I must tell you, I'm not an, I'm not an expert on these things, but it makes sense to me and I think you frame it exactly right. You know, the truth is, try as I might, it's very, very hard for me to get around as I much, as much as I might like to. I represent 17 towns. And by the way, mine, mine are all pretty compact.

I can drive from one end of my district to the other in an hour. Right. A lot of my colleagues it's nine hours across their districts out West. And so, um, it sounds like a reasonable idea. There's not much action on that idea. Um, but, but you're pointing in the right direction. 

You know, let me, let me give you another example. This was a tough one. Um, but the electoral college, you know, talk about causing people not to feel heard. You know, we've now had three or four episodes where, uh, the popular will of the American people was overwritten by the electoral college. 

Um, now if you talk to somebody from Montana, they're going to give you a good [00:55:00] reason why that should be. But I, I, I would, I would suggest to you that they're kind of talking to their book or talking to their state because look, democracy is about people, not vast tracks of land. Right. And, um, we've now had a series of episodes where most America, where, where most Americans didn't get the president that they asked for.

So I do think that that things like increasing the size of the Congress, doing away with the electoral college, um, thinking a little bit about Senate reform. We don't have time of course, to get into the filibuster, that's a whole hour, but you know, doing things that, that, that, uh, that create a government that is more responsive is clearly part of what needs to happen in this country. 

Sarah: [00:55:35] Well, you can steal my idea, if you want to become the more members guy, that's fine with me.

Beth: [00:55:39] I do want to end on a positive note. So I would love to ask you what's the most rewarding experience you've had as a member of Congress recently? 

Jim Himes: [00:55:50] Recently, that's hard. That's easy to answer and it's easy to answer because of course there's so much pain out there because of COVID-19. Um, I mean, I can't tell you [00:56:00] what a strange feeling it is to see, to walk down the streets of Norwalk and see restaurants closing down over the course of this last year, you know, hear about the woman who runs the hair salon, who had to shut down and you know, now she's got no income.

Uh, but the aid we've been able to, uh, offer to restaurants and small businesses has made all the difference for them. And some people said, and I think I acknowledged right, right up front in this podcast that we may have gone too big, but boy, I'd rather go to big than too small when we're talking about the livelihoods and the dignity and the food on the table of Americans.

So that's a pretty easy question to answer right now, having now really stood out in the world for having delivered aid to our, to our constituents and to the American people. You know, ordinarily, I would say when we're not in COVID time, I have a saying that I use, which is when you're in Congress, you get to be a small part of some big things and big things I put, you know, The affordable care act, which covered 20 plus million Americans, Dodd-Frank which put [00:57:00] together a financial sector that held pretty, pretty well during the COVID nightmare.

Um, or you can be a, you can be a big part of small things. Uh, maybe it's something as silly as you know, that family vacation, uh, that, uh, the family hadn't taken in and they weren't going to be able to go cause they realize they didn't have passports and you fixed that. I mean, you, you, you know, you laugh, but you know, to that, to that family, it makes all the difference.

Sarah: [00:57:23] Now I laugh because I worked in United States Senate and I did that work and you're right. It does make think of an impact. 

Jim Himes: [00:57:29] No. You know, when you, when you bring a metal, you know, when you bring a metal to somebody's grandpa that they never got after the Korean war, you just, you, you just, you just can't pay for that kind of gratification and, uh, and satisfaction. 

Beth: [00:57:41] Thank you so much to representative Himes and his team for the conversation. We really enjoyed talking with him. It's always good to get the insight of people who are there in Congress doing the work.

[00:58:00] Sarah. We had a commemoration to celebrate outside of politics today. 

Sarah: [00:58:22] Yes, Mara emailed us and she emailed us specifically in response to our podcast on voting rights. And she said, literally leaving my job in fashion and going back to school, law school and pray, I can pass the bar one day and work in justice law and try to fight voter suppression. That's how pissed I am as a Georgia voter and citizen and mom, and raging former Republican. 

So first of all, Wow, Mara, congratulations on such a massive life shift. We need so many more people working in this area, working for justice, specifically in voter rights. So that's amazing and [00:59:00] congratulations, and thanks for sharing it with us. 

Beth: [00:59:01] And to make a decision like that in the midst of 2021, also very impressive. And I just think what really struck me about Mara's commemoration is that I'm having a hard time understanding people for whom everything has not changed in the last year or so. And I don't say that out of judgment, it's a judgment of myself as much as anything because intellectually, I know that it is important to have people who really value how things have been.

It is important to have people who say like, we need to get the kids back in school. We need to get concerts going again. We, all these things are so good for our society. We need to get them going. I value those voices. And I also think the, can we talk about how it should be different first? Can we talk about like what the new kind of norms should be? Because a lot has shifted for me. 

I find myself thinking constantly [01:00:00] about what do I want to keep from this period and what do I want to discard? And what do I want to resume? And what do I want to re-imagine? And so I love hearing people talk about major shifts in their lives as a result of everything that we've experienced, not just related to COVID, but politically for the past several years.

Sarah: [01:00:20] Yeah. I loved hearing from Mara that you know, what to, most of us was just a national news story, a moment to get mad on Facebook is really transforming her life, because we've all been living that with the pandemic and with the election and with lots of other things. And like you said, it's the pandemic in particular feels impactful on every level.

And as things start to shift more and more people get vaccinated and we start to have these conversations. I'm realizing like, there's just so much of this, I want to be here able to like sit down and intellectualize the answers to all those questions that you just listed. And also, I just, [01:01:00] can't like, it's really going to have to be baby steps.

Right. And like feeling my way through some things. Okay. I did this thing. Was it too much? Or was it too little? Like, I just, it's so hard to just sit and think about it. Right. And, and to visualize it or work through it, it's just, that's not going to work. 

You know, I went with Felix, my husband and my oldest son had a camping trip and so my middle son stayed with my parents and my youngest son, Felix and I took a little trip for some one-on-one time because he was really having a tough time at school. And I thought, well, maybe everybody just needs a little one-on-one time. And it's not like we did anything that big or exciting and it was still massively overstimulating and like in different ways. 

And the impact was harder and in ways I didn't expect. And I just made me realize, like I picked the word gentle in a moment of real clarity and wisdom for 2021, because every single thing is just going to take such gentleness to [01:02:00] figure out how do I feel doing this? Is this right? Do I need to dial it down? Do I need to dial it up? Like, it's just going to take such care with ourselves and with others. And it, it feels both essential and extremely hard. 

Beth: [01:02:18] I think that's right and I think we're all living our own versions of that and we certainly hope to be a spot here for you where you can stay connected with what's going on, but feel a sense of gentleness around all of it as well.

We'll be back with you here on Friday, talking about the union vote coming up at Amazon. We want to give you as much information about that as we can and we'll also cover anything else of significance that happened this week. Until then, 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

Sarah: To support Pantsuit Politics, and receive lots of bonus features, visit patreon.com/pantsuit politics. 

Beth: You can connect with us on our website, PantsuitPoliticsShow.com. Sign up for our weekly emails and follow us on Instagram.

 
Alise NappComment