January 6th Hearings: Mailbag

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Answering your Questions about the January 6th Hearings

  • Outside Politics: New Parenthood with Alise Napp

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EPISODE RESOURCES

January 6th Hearings

1st Hearing

2nd Hearing

3rd Hearing

4th Hearing

5th Hearing

6th Hearing

7th Hearing

8th Hearing

TRANSCRIPT

Beth [00:00:00] A constitutional crisis would mean that that dance has come to a place where it can no longer be resolved through process. And what happens in governments when process can no longer resolve conflict? Violence, almost always. 

Sarah [00:00:24] This is Sarah Stewart.  

Beth [00:00:25] Holland and this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:28] Thank you for joining us for pantsuit politics.  

Beth [00:00:43] Hello, everyone. First, thank you so much for your responses to our summer series so far. We are glad these conversations are connecting with you. We're so appreciative of all the people who participated in them. We're excited to share the third episode of that series with you. We were going to do that today, but there have been two January six hearings over the last two weeks. We ask you to make time to watch these hearings and you are watching them. And we really appreciate that. So we want to show up with you. Sarah is still in Europe enjoying the July break that we all traditionally take. So Alise is here with me, fresh off parental leave. Hi, Alise.  

Alise [00:01:21] Hi. Isn't that what everyone wants to come back from parental leave and talk about, you know, the threat to democracy and insurrections and potential coups? I think that's just the traditional reentry.  

Beth [00:01:33] It's a light and breezy, professional path that you've chosen for yourself, Alise. Well, we ask on social media what questions you have about the January six hearings at this point, and you responded. So really, this is like Beth, Alise and all of you sit down to do a bit of a mailbag episode. So that's we're going to do today. We're going to go through some of these questions, especially the most frequently asked questions. Many of them do not have satisfying answers, but we will do our best to tackle them.  

Alise [00:02:11] Okay. So, Beth, when people shared their many questions about January 6th, they fell into some pretty clean categories. So we are going to tackle those categories and get into some specifics. But before we jump in to kind of those categories of questions. Let's take a minute and just center on what we're really even talking about here. So Lori asked and she said she's heard the phrase constitutional crisis being thrown around a lot. So what exactly does that mean? Are we in a constitutional crisis? Would we have been if Pence had gone along with Trump's plan on January six? Talk to us about a constitutional crisis.  

Beth [00:02:54] This is a fantastic question because we do use this term somewhat casually and it is not a casual thing to have a constitutional crisis. I'm going to try not to begin every question with like let's go back to the founding of our nation here, though, I think it is important to think about what do we mean by government. The reason that Sarah and I have emphasized these hearings as being so important and being more than other, hearing more important than other hearings or other moments politically that we have discussed is because this is not about what government does. This is about what government is. This is a hearing of being, not of doing. We have our three branches of the federal government and we have the relationship between the federal government and the states. And each of the branches of the federal government is supposed to check the other's right. And then within each of those branches there are tons of checks. The fact that Congress is split into two chambers, the fact that the executive branch has both the president and all of the president's political appointees, plus all of these civil servants who are supposed to provide continuity administration to administration. The federal court system has these different levels and rules governing which level you're entitled to at one time. So this is a long way of saying the United States never is supposed to operate through the exercise of brute force. It is always supposed to be a dance among competing powers. We consent to go slowly. We consent to get outcomes that are not maximalist. We consent to moving inch by inch by inch because we say that is the best way to ensure that all of the different interests this country includes have representation and no one person acquires king like power over everyone else. So with that incredibly long windup, a constitutional crisis would mean that that dance has come to a place where it can no longer be resolved through process. And what happens in governments when process can no longer resolve conflict? Violence, almost always. It is an unusual thing that we have the ability to impeach a president here, because for most of history, leaders have been removed from office by violence, by death. When our framers were debating whether to include impeachment, some of them pointed out like, well, that seems better than death, which is usually the alternative. So if Mike Pence had done what Trump asked him to do, if he had rejected slates of electors proposed by states even just to delay certification of the election, to say, well, we're going to consider competing slates of electors, we don't really know what would have happened next. And that's why people use the phrase constitutional crisis. If that had been taken into courts, would courts have said that's the kind of political question that we don't exist to resolve? Would courts have issued an order that certain states or the president himself would have ignored? We would have been out of where our process roads lead us, which probably means that violence would have been part of the answer.  

Alise [00:06:27] Which of course, violence was already part of the answer. Right, on January 6th. It probably would have been much, much worse.  

Beth [00:06:35] That's such a good point, Alise, because if you have been kind of tuned out of these hearings, a lot of what they have been saying is, look, Trump was relentlessly pursuing the goal of remaining in power despite having lost the election. He did it a bunch of different ways and some of those ways were okay. Chairman Thompson of this committee emphasizes constantly it is okay to make your stand in court, to raise the best arguments you have in court. But the court has to be the end of the line because if it isn't, then we are out in this unknown territory. And that's what the final hearing told us, that once Trump realized that all of his roads to navigate in and around our existing structure seemed to come to a dead end. He was fine with a violent mob going in and trying to just through brute strength, impose his will on the American public.  

Alise [00:07:29] So, as we think about all these actions that Trump took in his desire to stay in power, which we're going to get to his culpability here in a minute. But let's take a step back as we're still kind of setting our framework and think about the oath of office he took. Britney asked a great question. I've basically. How much does the oath of office matter for the president? Is there legal accountability? Is it legally binding? Is it kind of just a bunch of words that we say and we trust that people are going to abide by them? Does the oath of office matter?  

Beth [00:08:09] Well, I think the oath of office matters tremendously. But how and in what way depends a lot on my long and winding path to answer the constitutional crisis question, because. An oath is supposed to center a person's conscience. There was debate over including the oath of office in the Constitution because some of the framers thought that it was sort of a throwback to barbaric time. Some of them thought it was a religious test. Some of them couldn't figure out how to separate it from a religious test.  

Alise [00:08:47] Which we have seen people continue to argue about now, right? About what you take the oath of office on. Right. Obviously, for much of our history. Most people have taken the oath on a Bible and that is not required. You can take the oath of office on a comic book if you want your mind standing.  

Beth [00:09:04] And we have been given the option of swear or affirm so presidents can make that decision depending on the meaning to them. But interestingly, you know, our Constitution is very nonspecific in almost every way. The oath of office is in quotation marks. It's the only phrase in quotation marks. So they did land on language that they felt represented the intention to have a non-religious test of conscience for people who serve the public in this way. And oaths have a long history and are used in many contexts. If you talk to someone who is in the military, the oath of office is extremely important to them. I think that's part of why we saw two veterans, Representative Luria and Representative Kinzinger, leading the questioning in the hearing that really centered around the presidential oath of office. But we take oath when we marry. We take oaths in multiple aspects of our lives. And I think Brittany's question hits at something really important in a world where we don't share a whole lot in terms of our beliefs as humans about what it is we're doing here and what powers should govern our lives and kind of what all this even is in terms of our existence. I don't know that an oath means a lot beyond the person saying the oath, except in so far as our entire system of government is fueled by trust and agreement and consent. And so. Fundamentally, we have an obligation as a public to elect leaders who we believe will abide by an oath of conscience. And whether or not that oath is legally binding just depends on the rest of the system holding. It depends on a Congress that will hold the president to account. It depends on the rule of law being enforced through the judiciary. It's all interrelated. Every single piece of this locks into the other pieces, and it must be so. Otherwise, we are in an authoritarian system, and an authoritarian system is the only system in which there is always going to be a hard backstop. And that hard backstop, again, is not one of principle or ethics. It is of power exercised through violence.  

Alise [00:11:25] You might be wondering why we are spending so much time at the top here talking about the Constitution and the oath of office and things that seem like, you know, government class one. Oh one Yeah. What does this have to do with January six? But I think it's really important that we start here because I think that it's important for us to remember as we talk about the specifics of these hearings and whatever happens next, that what we are fundamentally talking about is what kind of country we want to live in and. The structure that has been set up. And if we stay within that structure and what does it mean to trust that structure and do we need more guidelines than just trust in some places? We're going to get to some more of that. But the first big category of questions that we got far and away was under this heading of what happens next. Okay. We've had kind of the to put it in a TV analogy, the first season of hearings. You know, listen, the gang got renewed for season two. They'll be back in September. But but what happens next? So let's start with actually that kind of the break, right? Why are they taking a break? Why did we kind of get these this group of hearings and now they're not coming back until September? Why aren't they kind of keeping going with the momentum here when we're just thinking about the committee? What happens next with the committee?  

Beth [00:12:43] There is an enormous responsibility on this committee to do their work transparently and well and doing it transparently and well. Our intention with each other, in some respects, to focus the public's attention on these hearings. They necessarily have to decide not to tell all of the stories that are part of the story of January 6th. There are so many side paths they could go down. They could do six hearings just on the involvement of the Oath Keepers, not including the proud boys, not including the far right media ecosystem. So many paths that they could explore. And so they have to make decisions about what are they going to focus on, because the public can only digest so much.  

Alise [00:13:29] And what of those things to focus on will have the most impact and what impact are they even going forward?  

Beth [00:13:35] Right. What impact are they trying to have? I think they need a break to regroup, because I do think especially Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, to use Liz Cheney's words, broke the dam. But they have more people coming forward now, which means that they have more testimony to corroborate. They might have some areas that look fuzzier because more people are coming forward in their hearings and different stories. So they've got stories they have to reconcile to come up with. What is the closest we can get to the truth of these things that happened? I think they have new decisions to make about what paths to go down. We've seen a lot of reporting about Secret Service text messages not being made available to the committee. That in and of itself raises so many questions that they need to pursue. And I'll tell you, Alise, one of the things that struck me as very significant about this in the last hearing is that Representative Luria did not say anything other than they didn't get what they asked for. And I think that means that there is a lot going on here that the committee really needs to spend some time navigating. They are engaged still in lawsuits about who has violated their subpoenas. We know that Steve Bannon was convicted for contempt of Congress. So I think it's wise to take a minute and regroup. And I think it tells the public we're pursuing this with a lot of seriousness. Maybe this is bad in terms of losing momentum. Maybe it's great for momentum. Maybe a little break. We'll have people captivated to come back and see what's next. I have no idea. It does strike me as the responsible course of action. When you have a flood of new information to go back to the office and work on that information and come back with a coherent presentation to the public.  

Alise [00:15:25] I think you're right to that. Taking a break actually might help the momentum in some ways. It's going to give people more time to be talking about this with their friends and family, which we are going to talk about. But also in general, people tend to be more focused on what's happening in the news once the academic year picks up. For a lot of cultural reasons. Right. But, you know, it's the summer people are on vacation and doing things and just not as focused on what's happening in the news as they are at other times of the year. So and also, as we get closer to the midterms, I think that will impact it as well. Now, you were talking about how this idea that Cassidy, Hutchinson, Sassaman kind of broke the dam. Maybe they're getting new testimony now, which I think raises the important question that many people asked. Why haven't we seen some of the bigger names, specifically Mike Pence, testify? Why? Why hasn't Mike Pence testified or some of these other big names that would, in theory, have a lot of things to say about what went on that day and leading up to it.  

Beth [00:16:23] I don't pretend to understand Mike Pence's psyche.  

Alise [00:16:28] That's a good...That's a good call.  

Beth [00:16:30] And I do think a lot of this to go back to that oath question is really between Mike Pence and his own conscience. At the same time, Peggy Noonan. Whose name I do not use to start a lot of sentences. Wrote something really insightful after Cassidy Hutchinson testified, which was that it takes someone like Cassidy Hutchinson to observe everything going on around her because she isn't so busy being impressed with her own power and authority to miss the details. She is the one who remembered names, times, places who was in a meeting that the catch up was on the wall. She's the one who's going to go back and clean the catch up off the wall. Right. So in some ways, someone, I think on Instagram asked me, who would your dream witness be next? Probably a person whose name I've never heard, because I do think it is some of those people who were just always present, who were taking things in. Well, who can tell us the most about what happened? Probably even more than Mike Pence. What I love to hear from a member of Mike Pence's Secret Service detail after that last hearing where we were told that they were calling family members because they believe they might not make it out. I probably would, but I recognize the challenges that poses. I recognize that Mike Pence wants a political future for himself. Whatever I think of that, I recognize that if he testified, it would be so crafted for his own political objectives that it might not be valuable. I would rather hear from people who can just in a straightforward way, tell us what they saw. I think that's right.  

Alise [00:18:11] Okay. So in this vein of what happens next - lots of people also asked, what is the Department of Justice doing? Are they sitting on their hands? What's going on? Merrick Garland, where are you? Are you going to take any of this evidence and do anything with it?  

Beth [00:18:26] I both understand this question and find it distressing.  

Alise [00:18:30] I concur entirely. I think we're going to be very much on the same page here.  

Beth [00:18:35] Okay. So I mentioned that the committee is trying to do its work transparently and well, and there's often a conflict with those two things. And that's why prosecutors do not conduct their work transparently. They work extremely quietly until it's trial time. And then here is the evidence, and we are presenting it to you in a certain order. We're leaving out certain things. We are emphasizing other things. That's how our system allows prosecutors to do their work. And so I imagine there's all kinds of investigations going on at the Department of Justice. Thousands of people working on this. Working on angles we've not thought of. There could still be people considering the Mueller report, which pretty well invited the Department of Justice to indict Donald Trump for obstruction of justice after he was out of office. So who knows what's happening at the Department of Justice? We're not supposed to know, because if we knew all of that, it would interfere with their ability to continue interviewing people and pressing leads and trying to get to what is the best case to make here? What does the most justice here. 

Alise [00:19:40] Yeah, Just because we're hearing not hearing from them does not mean things are not happening. Their work and their role is different than what the committee is doing.  

Beth [00:19:48] Absolutely. Here's what distresses me. I think one of the most damaging things that Donald Trump brought into our political discourse was lock her up and the proliferation of this idea that we should demand as a public. The incarceration of our political opponents. It is not a good thing for us to walk around. Not even we don't even walk around. Right? We type it. But it's not a good thing for us to insist constantly that Merrick Garland be indicting people left and right. Now, I have a bias here. I believe we have too many crimes in this country that we over sentence, that we over punish, that we are overall a punitive instead of a redemptive society. And I don't like it. So my bias informs my perspective on this. I just think it is critical that the Department of Justice be able to do its work independently and with restraint and with an understanding that the rule of law and the application of the law, what you can prove matters tremendously as to your allocation of resources in pursuing justice, as does the calculus of what is fundamentally good for the country. And whatever I think of Donald Trump, that question is still hard. It is a hard question, and I don't want to pretend like it's an easy one.  

Alise [00:21:12] It is a hard question and that is a question we got a lot is will Trump be convicted, if so, of what is his legal liability here, which, you know, there's a whole other conversation to be had about how complicated the logistics would be of incarcerating a former president. That is a that's a completely different conversation that we could spend a long time on we won't get into. So certainly not thinking about the sentencing of what might come from a conviction. But is Trump legally liable and if so, for what? 

Beth [00:21:41] Well, there are a bunch of ways to be legally liable without being criminally liable. So that's the first thing to know. And Trump is being sued by a lot of people related to January six, members of Congress, Capitol Police officers. So Trump will be in court, I imagine, for the rest of his life about these events.  

Alise [00:22:03] If there's anything true about Donald Trump, it's that he has spent most of his life being sued by someone.  

Beth [00:22:09] That's right. And that makes people feel depressed. Right, because they feel like he's never really held accountable, but he has like a lot less money than he might otherwise. Because of the court system, he has probably been restrained from taking actions that he would like to take by the court system. So I think it is very possible that he will have civil liability related to January six, where that comes and what form it takes and what consequences are attached to that. I'm not sure, but don't think for a second that there is no accountability if you don't see Donald Trump handcuffed and hauled off to federal prison. That's right. There are federal criminal charges that have been discussed here related to sedition. Obstruction of justice. Defrauding the public. I am not a criminal lawyer, not an expert on these matters. I don't think that any expert in this arena believes the committee has proven a case for criminal liability against Donald Trump in these proceedings. That is not the committee's goal. That's not the committee's job. The committee doesn't have all the tools it needs to do that. I think it remains possible. I think it remains highly possible. And I think Trump is out there every day doing everything he can to keep the main story. The main story. He still doesn't accept the results of the election. He continues to lie to people about it. He continues to fundraise off of it. He continues to threaten violence against people who disagree with him. I hate to use his phrase, we'll see what happens, but that's kind of where it is. We'll have to see what happens.  

Alise [00:23:45] And as you said before, we, I think, are only seeing the top of the iceberg of what this committee knows and how much of that we end up knowing publicly is certainly still unknown. There is likely a very large iceberg under the surface of what we are just seeing on the in these hearings. Okay. So whatever happens with Donald Trump, there are a lot of other people who are involved in making January 6th what it was. Are they criminally liable? Is someone going to go to jail?  

Beth [00:24:19] Well, someone is already going to jail. There are individual individuals who participated in the Capitol. Riots have been sentenced. There are people still being tried. There are high level people in some of these far right wing militia groups who are facing serious charges. I've seen references to the Department of Justice pursuing a bottom up strategy in terms of liability in these cases. Now, I hate that that's what the Department of Justice always does. That's what a lot of prosecutors around the country always do. You get the little guy because you can get the conviction. It's not as expensive, it's not as difficult. And that stinks. And that's the kind of thing that erodes public trust and confidence. Right. So that is not an endorsement. That is what I believe is happening. There's a reason the people like Steven Ayres, who testified in front of the committee, have already gone through the process of either pleading to something or being tried and convicted for their involvement. So, yes, there are people who who are going to face criminal liability. I think that can extend into folks who tried to submit false documents to Congress. There's a lot going on here and there's a lot of money that's made the rounds here that the committee hasn't even cracked into in public hearings yet. So. Again, I think we are at the very beginning of this chapter.  

Alise [00:25:45] I think that's right. And I think as unsatisfying as this is, I think there are. Years, if not closer to a decade or more, of us trying to sort out just the legal and criminal ramifications of this. Not even the cultural ones, which will be far longer lasting than any of our lifetimes.  

Beth [00:26:05] Generational. But let me say, this is a reason to love our system. As frustrating as it is right now. It should be hard to put people in jail. It should be hard to prove crimes, especially crimes related to our government and our politics and our elections. That should be hard and is hard and it should be time consuming. And. And the attorney general should think a lot before just shooting off an indictment against a former president. There are countries that operate that way. We don't want to be them no matter who's in charge here. We'll take a quick break here and then we'll kind of move into the politics of this. I feel like we've covered as best we can maybe the immediacy of the committee's actions. But let's get into the politics next.  

Alise [00:27:08] The other huge category of question that we received basically boils down to, do you Republicans care? So I do want to be careful that we don't pay all Republicans with a broad brush. There are categories of people here that may or may not care in different ways about what this committee is doing and what's going on. So let's start with Trump loyalists. What does what's going on here with the committee, what we're learning about Donald Trump and his actions, what does that mean for his most diehard supporters? And maybe the better question here is, what does that mean for Trumpism as a movement? Should we be worried that if there are ways that Donald Trump is held accountable, there will be more violence from that group of people? What do we think about what's going on with that group at this moment?  

Beth [00:28:02] I think there are gradations within this group as well. I think the people who are most loyal to Donald Trump. Have kind of cast their lot there and maybe there's a sunk cost going on. Yeah, I don't think that we need to sit around and wait for people who have loved Trump from the beginning to denounce him. That will happen here and there. Some people will. Some people have and others won't. Ever. And that's just going to be what it is. Yeah, I think there are I think there's a broad category of people who just despise Democrats so much and don't trust Democrats so much that what they might conclude from all of this is. He was great. And I loved the guy. He wasn't perfect. It's probably time to move on to somebody who can better continue the work without all the baggage. I think that's a I think that is maybe happening. I've seen as well a lot of indication that that might be happening.  

Alise [00:29:13] Yeah, I think that Trumpism has proven that it will continue on without Donald Trump. I mean, certainly if he is still on the scene now. But, you know, Ron DeSantis is certainly picking up that mantle for a lot of the policy and type of energy that Donald Trump brought to the scene. And I think depending on what we see in the next election cycle, there will be plenty of of the brand of Trumpism, even if it's not under the brand of Trump.  

Beth [00:29:38] And I think that's even hard. I don't know what that means. Other than governing as like the toughest of tough guys, who's going to run over everybody who disagrees with me? I'm not sure from a policy perspective that Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump would decide every question the same way. I couldn't even put a percentage on that. So I think that there are people in this country who are looking for an anti Democrat as their leader. And the toughest, most hardcore anti-Democrat they can find is going to be their person. And they wish that could be Trump, but maybe it can't be any. Fine. We'll see who goes next. I am not convinced that that means Ron DeSantis runs away with the Republican nomination and the presidency because Ron DeSantis has really not been tested outside of Florida. And we have a long history that tells us that there is a flavor of the month for the next presidential contest. And one by one, they get knocked off because they cannot handle the truly grueling vetting process that you go through to get to the presidency. So I just every time I feel myself getting into a reactive space about 2024, just try to turn that dial down.  

Alise [00:30:54] And I think that's a great point that Trumpism is more about. Culture than policy in a lot of ways. It's it's about crushing all of us liberal snowflakes and wokeism and whatever. Okay, let's think about maybe probably a larger group than just the Trump diehards. And that is just kind of the traditional conservative kind of where you were before Trump entered the scene. As, you know, just someone who has always identified as a Republican still sees themselves in that camp in a lot of ways. I'll actually I'll tackle this one. We have a family member who voted for Trump, and it has caused a decent amount of conflict in relationship. And we spoke to this person this weekend and we have never heard them say more bad things about Donald Trump than we have now, because they have been reading up on what's going on with these committee hearings and are disgusted by it and didn't have very nice words about Mike Pence either. Interestingly, because they were definitely on their well Pence is a good Christian will hold them accountable train for much of Trump's administration. So I know that's just anecdotal. But I do think that there are people paying attention to this who you might not expect to be paying attention to this. And hearts and minds may move, maybe changed, maybe not as many as we want. But I do think that the needle is moving.  

Beth [00:32:24] I totally agree with that. Listen, here's the thing. I have the least patience for right now. It is the nothing matters. Yeah, I just can't do that. Nothing matters. It it matters if we decide it does. And again, I don't think we're going to have some kind of moment in American politics where everybody goes, oh, you know what? You were right. Like, that was definitely a mistake. We should not have done the Trump thing. That was terrible. That's that is an unreasonable expectation. Maybe it's not unreasonable, but it is an unserious expectation. That is just not how most people conduct their lives. I do think that plenty of Republicans think that the fact that he sat in a dining room for 3 hours while cops were being mauled by this by a group of rioters, I think they think that's appalling. I think they want no association with the people who caused that whatsoever. I think that they can't believe the kinds of things that he said about Mike Pence during this period. I think they probably think he looks like a big baby that he keeps talking about the 2020 election. Even some of your like really hard core Republicans just want him to shut up. They want him to stop talking about this because they know how harmful it is all the way down the ballot. They blame him for losing those two Senate seats in Georgia. Right. So we need not write everyone off. People are listening and people are taking it in. How they process it and what they do with that information might not be the same as you or I would, but that's okay. A little bit of movement. I've said this 100 times. I will say it until I die in our system. A couple of percentage points in the places that matter change the whole ballgame. So we want to create an environment that allows for that.  

Alise [00:34:24] Definitely part of allowing the needle to move and allowing people to have a change of heart is getting this information in front of them in the first place. You know, this family member that I referred to, we actually recommended that they start reading the dispatch a few months ago. And so I'd like to just take like infinitesimal amount of credit for the fact that they are getting some what I would consider a very quality reporting on on what is happening here. Because most of the time at their house, Fox News is on all day, every day. For those of us who are not engaged in the right wing media landscape, but we love people who are are they hearing about this over there? Or maybe not even Fox like Oann or like some of these more extreme right way? What what's the media narrative coming out of the more extreme end of right leaning media?  

Beth [00:35:11] A bunch of different things are going on. One of them is, let's just hope this plays itself out. Let's just ignore it and minimize it as much as possible so we can weather it and move on like we've done with every other Trump related scandal. So you've heard like Josh Hawley saying, I'm not even watching it. It's just going to be such a circus. And there's a lot of that just minimizing. This is theater, this is drama, it's a committee of Democrats and to want to be Democrats. So there's just a ton of minimization. And then there are sort of the armchair lawyer arguments. It's all hearsay anyway. Well, hearsay has zero applicability to these hearings whatsoever. There is a an evidentiary rule against hearsay in trial to ensure that the best evidence is used. There are a gazillion exceptions to that. I've passed two bar exams. If I had to sit down and take a test on the rule against hearsay today, I would fail it because it is so incredibly complicated. So, you know, but but we do those things right. We attack small points. And so there was that's that sort of dustup about Cassidy Hutchinson testifying about Donald Trump, lunging at a Secret Service agent. And then unnamed sources reportedly close to the Secret Service say it hasn't happened. Well, then the committee says, cool, we'll investigate that. Anybody is welcome to come testify. We've not heard an update saying that, in fact, her story was incorrect. Right. So. Attack at the margins. Ignore it. And then I think just pound away at the fact that this is Democrats. You also have people doing the classic political thing of like this doesn't actually matter. What matters is inflation. What matters are the riots from the summer of 2020. What matters is Antifa and Black Lives Matter, you know. So we're just going to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. Classic stuff. What I think is great about some of these strategies is if you are engaging with friends and family who are taking that in, you don't have to pick. I think the January six hearings are monumentally important, existentially important for the country, and I don't say that lightly, but that doesn't mean that I think the baby formula shortage is insignificant. I think that is quite important as well. I can even say, you know what? Looking back on the summer of 2020, I think I did a poor job. I think I Beth Silvers did a poor job taking seriously how dangerous some of our cities felt during that period. And I could have responded more thoughtfully to that, and I regret it. And I also think that it's different when we're talking about violence against an official proceeding of the government. You know, there are just tons of ways that we can hear some of those points and not be hostile to them and still emphasize this. This is a really big deal. This is a really big deal.  

Alise [00:38:11] So do you have tips for people who are trying to talk to their family and friends about this who are maybe are bringing some of those more right leaning talking points?  

Beth [00:38:20] This may be because I have spent most of the last four weeks in mom mode, but I've been talking a lot about boundaries and particularly talking about what are we responsible for and what are other people responsible for and respecting those delineations. I think that one of the worst things that all of us, me included me first have a tendency to do when we talk about politics is we do not respect boundaries. I am not responsible for what Merrick Garland decides here. I have not seen all the evidence. I have not researched the criminal charges. I do not have to make a decision on who gets indicted in connection with these cases. I shouldn't take responsibility for that. Why would I fight with a family member over whether Trump should go to jail when I don't have all that information? What I am responsible for as a citizen is how I vote in the next election. And I think Liz Cheney's very pointed question Should someone who sits in a dining room for 3 hours nursing a grudge while all hell breaks loose at the United States Capitol, be trusted to be our commander in chief again. It seems like a hard no to me. What do you think, Uncle So-and-so? You know, I just. I think remembering now, we don't have to take on the whole of the thing to have a really good, productive conversation about what the thing is. And again, I don't dismiss anybody's concerns about gas prices. I can say, you know, yeah, I think the Biden administration did a pretty poor job communicating with us in planning for the Afghanistan withdrawal. That to me is on a different level, been saying to the public, I won an election that I lost by millions of votes. Those are different kinds of wrong and I prioritize one of those over the other. What about you?  

Alise [00:40:23] And if you in response to that, your family or friend or whomever gets into. The minutia of how they think the election was stolen. I would encourage them to watch the hearings because the committee has laid out pretty clearly that it was not. And they have really done a good job of laying the evidence, especially in those early hearings, which were a little bit more dry because they were really breaking down the legal arguments that like, no, this was not stolen and Donald Trump and his group knew that. So I would encourage them to go to the hearings, go straight to the source material.  

Beth [00:40:57] 100%. There are people who are going to talk about that silly Dinesh D'Souza documentary, which I use in air quotes. But again, I don't have to say to anybody. There is zero election fraud ever. That's not true. People get convicted of election fraud. No one has demonstrated any evidence of election fraud at a scale that would have changed a single state's outcome. And that is the salient point and the only thing worth arguing about. And I again, in the hearing, you will see. Sidney Powell, the chief, advanced here of some of these fraud narratives. Put in a court filing that no one should have taken her seriously. She was obviously just making an argument. She was obviously engaged in hyperbole.  

Alise [00:41:52] It's really something to just be to your responses. Well, I was just I was just playing the devil's advocate. Like, I was just I was also asking the question.  

Beth [00:42:00] Yeah. And there are things about which we should not just be asking a question. And I think that's the kind of conversation that we're well-suited to have in our households. Are you okay with that? Do you so badly always want to hear from the other side that people can just make things up? That's not okay with me.  

Alise [00:42:16] So as we wrap up here, I think the place that these two big groups of questions, what happens next and do Republicans care converge as we think about midterms and the future of the GOP? And, you know, are we running out of time for these committee hearings with midterms right around the corner? What is the immediate political future of what's happening with this and how? I guess the biggest question is how do midterms play into what's going on here?  

Beth [00:42:43] I think initially the January 6th committee had to be very careful about not having it look like their work was intended to influence the midterm elections. And I think that's still a little bit of a risk, especially when they get in the jabs like Josh Hawley running and and showing that in slow motion.  

Alise [00:43:01] Yeah, that was a little they definitely took a moment to engage in a little. I don't know. I don't know if schadenfreude is the word I was going for. I was thinking maybe not all the way to dirty politics, but it's clear the people on that committee don't really care for Josh Hawley. And so they took a little jab where they could get it, which, you know, I don't care for Josh Hawley, so I'm not like mad about that, but it is that kind of stuff that makes it a little more murky as we approach an election.  

Beth [00:43:27] And it's hard for me to take shots at anybody for making those decisions because I'm not getting death threats as I work on this committee. My family isn't being attacked the way that members of this committee are. So, you know, and I should say to you, I think people ask us about like protection for these witnesses. I have no idea what the security for witnesses looks like.  

Alise [00:43:47] And we shouldn't that is one of those things that we should not know what the security situation is.  

Beth [00:43:51] That's right. But I certainly hope for their safety and worry for their safety. Definitely so. I'm not mad at anybody for doing things like that, but I think that's tricky. I think they're there a little bit, though, in safer territory now because they've told us, like, things just keep happening. We aren't controlling the entirety of the timeline here. We can't control when people come forward, how fast our lawsuits are resolved, etc.. Now the big deadline is the end of the year because if Republicans win control of the House of Representatives, it is almost certain that this committee will be dissolved and almost certain that a newly empowered Republican majority would start investigating the investigators and would just use a shorthand try to Benghazi this whole thing like just make it complicated enough that the public believes something bad happened here. And and don't worry about January six. Let's move on. That would be the goal. Right. And I think, you know, that's a very real concerning possibility that's out there. I think Republicans gaining control of the House of Representatives is a real concerning possibility, independent of January six for lots of reasons, because they're telling us what they're going to do with the committees that they would control once they take power. And it's, in my view, very, very not good. As much as I have complaints about Democratic control of the House of Representatives, it is very, very not good.  

Alise [00:45:23] And we will have so many more conversations about the midterms and what they mean and all of that in the coming months. But yes, I think the salient point is that the end of the year is a looming deadline, and the committee knows that they are very aware that they are on the clock. And so I think that makes their decision to take a break and regroup in some ways even more impressive, because that they know that they likely they likely have a very limited amount of time here. The last question that is probably helpful for us to talk about is how do we keep this from happening again? What steps need to be taken to ensure that we do not see something like January 6th and the surrounding conspiracies take place in our democracy again?  

Beth [00:46:12] The committee will conclude its work with a final report and it will have lots of suggestions about this. In the meantime, I think the work of the committee has undoubtedly influenced the bipartisan group of senators who have come up with a framework for improvements to the Electoral Count Act. That framework is quite good. I was reading the details of it today. It's quite good. We'll talk more about that when Sarah is back because I am interested in her perspective, too. But one of the things it does is raises the threshold for objections to states electoral slates, and that would mean under this framework that you need a full fifth of the House of Representatives and the Senate to have an objection. Wow. That's that's a huge difference. That's a huge difference. And and it goes all the way down to some cybersecurity concerns, like there are two proposals from this bipartisan group, both of which are quite good. And so I am super encouraged. I'll just tell you, I'm an optimist. If if the January six committee came out tomorrow and said, just kidding, we're done. I would say this was a net positive for the country. Telling the truth about what happened is so important. Even if there are unanswered questions, which there always will be. This was so important. The work of this group of senators, so important getting this signed into law before the next election is huge compared to what could have been post January six. I feel very, very encouraged about where we are.  

Alise [00:47:49] I agree. I think there's a lot of reason for optimism here. I think that it is so nice to see people doing their jobs. As you said somewhere recently, it often feels like in our country right now that every crisis we are told we have to work at it and we have to fight for this and get out there and do the work. And it is really nice to see some of our elected politicians doing the work and the work that they we have elected them to do. It is very refreshing to see. That happening as opposed to being told that it all falls back on us, the people. Some of it does fall back on the people, but it's sure nice to see them carrying the load on this.  

Beth [00:48:32] Well, thank you so much to everyone who submitted questions and for all of your engagement around January 6th. If you are looking for links to watch the hearings in full to see our live tweets which give you kind of a record of what unfolded on the hearing, Sarah and Maggie have been putting together great tiktoks of I don't even know how to say that, but Sarah and Maggie now tiktoks about like the highlights from the hearings. We have all of that in one place for you on our Web site. We'll link it in the show notes. We're calling it the January six Study Guide. So everything you might need or want, we hope, will be right there for you. We always end with what's on our minds outside of politics, at least since you are here. This has to be. And Alise is a new mom segment. So how are you doing? How are you feeling? How is baby Oliver. Tell us all the things.  

Alise [00:49:32] That still sounds...weird. It's still...I have these moments from like, oh, I'm someone's mom. That's so really it's it's not a role. That was necessarily one I deeply aspired to in my life. So I have not spent a lot of years of my life thinking about being someone's mom. And then now to be someone's mom, it's very strange. We're good. It's it's a real roller coaster. We have already had and hopefully survived our first child care crisis. So to all of you experiencing that or have experienced that, I just have new levels of empathy for people who are constantly juggling childcare. But we're doing well. I think I am pretty tired. I haven't slept through the night in about three months. But he's he's great. He's a good sleeper. He's a good eater. He's a pretty happy kid. And we're very, very thankful for that.  

Beth [00:50:23] The only time I remember seeing my mom cry while I was growing up was when child care for my sister fell through. It is so stressful to have that moment of thinking. I've got this, figure it out and then it's gone. So I'm glad that you have made it through that first hiccup.  

Alise [00:50:40] Yeah, hopefully we. We had a daycare pull the rug out from under us, which was deeply frustrating. But we have put some pieces together and are going to have some in-home care for the month of August, which is not ideal in some ways, but also is lovely and others. And then he'll start daycare after Labor Day. So we're excited about that and excited to get him in a place where he's going to have some social interaction with people outside of our house, and I'm excited to have the house back to my self again. I told my husband the other day I was like, I have not been alone in this house in months. I miss being alone in this house because I work from home. And so, so much of my normal day to day life is just is just being alone here. And I haven't done that in a long time and I really miss it.  

Beth [00:51:22] I feel that I had about an hour this afternoon where both my girls were out playing with friends, and I sat in my office and worked and I was like, Oh man, school is going to start again. It's such a beautiful thing to just be alone here working. Well, tell me, what is your one thing that you think to yourself? Why didn't anybody tell me this?  

Alise [00:51:41] You know, I just was having a conversation with a friend about this because she had a similar experience. I think we have done such a lovely job emphasizing the fact that Fed is best. And you and I talked about this, you know, when we talked about the formula shortage a couple of months ago, it's so great that we have come a very long way, not all the way, but a very long way in helping parents understand that however you feed your child is fine as long as they're getting fed. I think the next step of that needs to be helping parents figure out if your child is getting fed. It was my experience and my sister's experience and this friend I was speaking to his experience. And so many people that I've talked to have the experience of not producing enough breast milk and not having any idea because they were a first time parent. They didn't know what was normal for a baby, how they should be behaving, should they be this upset all the time? And then all of a sudden something happens, you get some sort of catalyst and you realize, Oh, my child has just been hungry for six weeks. That's why they've been screaming in my face every time they're awake and and coming to that point. And he's fine now, you know, he's fed and he's happy and he's chunking right up. But those first six weeks were really hard because we just didn't even know that he wasn't getting enough to eat. And I've had so many people share that. That was also their experience. And I'm like, Why are we not talking about this? Why are we not talking about how to know if your baby is getting enough to eat? And and my experience, at least, and I know for a lot of people, at least for me, the lactation consultants, the medical professionals that I saw all started from this baseline assumption that, of course, I was going to produce enough milk. Of course. Well, why wouldn't I? And that has just very much not been true for myself and lots of people that that producing enough to feed your baby and keep them growing is not necessarily a reality right out of the gate and and this thing just the more support around helping people figure that out is I spent a lot of time thinking about that in the last few months. So, you know, that's kind of it also is very typical of me that I want to go on like a policy direction with that, right. Of like how do we solve this like systemic problem and not just like, oh, like the funny little noises they make are so cute. I don't know. 

Beth [00:53:51] Well what is, I mean, I know we have lots of people in the audience who are around folks who are becoming new parents. So what has been most helpful to you that other people have done to try to support you in this in this new phase?  

Alise [00:54:04] I think the thing that has been most helpful, people have been wonderful. This audience has been wonderful. There's been so much love and support, emotional and tangible from this audience. I'm so thankful for and also so thankful for, you know, you and. Sarah, though, you created a space where I could have 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, which would've made a huge difference for us. But I think the thing that has consistently been the most helpful if people who want to help just making a decision and helping, just showing up, just saying, hey, I'm bringing Chick-Fil-A to your house on Friday or Hey, I'm going to do this thing. Not expecting me to have to make a decision. The level of decision fatigue as you try to figure out how to care for an infant for the first time is intense. And it's been so wonderful. The people who just show up, you know, I had a friend who just showed up with a whole bin in the first few weeks of snacks and hand sanitizer and lotion. And just like everything that you might need if you were sitting on the couch breastfeeding and wanted something within reach, it was in that bin. And she didn't ask what I needed. She just showed up with a whole bunch of stuff and some of that stuff we never used and we've gifted to other people. And some of it was a lifesaver, but it was just relieving the pressure of having to decide what I needed help with and just doing something.  

Beth [00:55:21] I love that. Well, thank you so much for being here. I'm so happy that you're back.  

Alise [00:55:26] I'm so happy to hear back to I missed being here.  

Beth [00:55:29] Thank you to all of you for watching these hearings, for being supportive of our July schedule, which is not what any of us anticipated it to be this year for supporting our work so that we can try to walk our talk and our company policies and offer paid parental leave and just do our very best by the amazing people who work with us. On Friday, we are planning to share the third episode of our summer series with you, and I desperately hope that that's what we will be doing. That episode is going to be about how the past few years have impacted listeners relationships with churches. We got more feedback about that than any other topic, and it is very much worth listening to whether you consider yourself a person of faith or not. Then next week, Sarah will be back. Yeah, we'll get back to something approximating normal around here. And until then, we just appreciate you all and hope you have the best week available. Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D podcast production. Alise Snapp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:56:39] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lema is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:56:45] Our show is listener supported special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers [00:56:49] Martha Bronitsky, Linda Daniel, Allie Edwards, Janice Elliott, Sarah Greenup, Julie Haller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Emily Holliday, Katie Johnson, Katina Zuganelis Kasling, Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs, Laurie LaDow, Lilly McClure, Emily Neesley, The Pentons, Tawni Peterson, Tracy Puthoff, Sarah Ralph, Jeremy Sequoia, Katy Stigers, Karen True, Onica Ulveling Nick and Alysa Vilelli, Katherine Vollmer, Amy Whited, 

Beth [00:57:26] Jeff Davis, Melinda Johnston, Ashley Thompson, Michelle Wood, Joshua Allen, Morgan McCue, Nicole Berklas, Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.  

Alise [00:57:38] [outake] I, my brain is not quite functioning at the level that it has. Every point in my life 

Beth [00:57:43] It's July Brain - it's just a real thing . 

Alise [00:57:44] Real July brain, a new mom brain, you know, I'm a not all of my synapses are firing at all times these days. But as you said, somewhere recently... Dammit, man, I forgot what I was gonna say.  

Alise [00:57:57] Um, just cut all of that Simeon. 

Maggie PentonComment