New Year News Roundup

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Damar Hamlin Collapses at Bengals-Bills Game

  • Government Spending Package

  • Congressman Elect George Santos

  • House Speaker Vote

  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Addresses Joint Session of Congress

  • Outside of Politics: Holiday Breaks

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EPISODE RESOURCES

UPCOMING EVENTS: RepublicEN Webinar: New Year’s Resolution: Making Progress Amidst Division January 12, 2023 at 8 pm ET

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:06] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:25] Happy New Year, everybody.  

Sarah [00:00:27] Happy New Year.  

Beth [00:00:27] Sarah, I'm so happy to be back with you here.  

Sarah [00:00:30] I love a new year. You know I love a new year. You know I love a fresh start.  

Beth [00:00:34] Well, we don't get to be totally fresh today because there is a lot to catch up on that occurred at the end of December. So we're going to do that. We really appreciate y'all supporting our time off with our families and the time that we take to recharge, but we are back. We are rolling up our sleeves. We want to catch up on some of the big stories that unfolded during that time. So we're going to talk about what happened at the Buffalo Cincinnati football game last night. We're going to talk about what's going on with Congress, about President Zelensky's visit to Congress. And then Outside of Politics, we're going to share the one thing that we watched or read that really met us where we were over the break. So stick around for that.  

Sarah [00:01:09] Before we get started, we wanted to share that you can hear us speak next Thursday. RepublicEn has invited us to speak at a free webinar entitled New Year's Resolution Making Progress Amidst Division. That's going to be January 12th at 8 p.m. Eastern. And you can find the registration link in the show notes.  

Beth [00:01:27] We'll take a short break and we'll be back to talk about all of the news that we missed while we were off. Sarah, there is so much political news that we missed in the end of December, but I don't know if I can get into all of that before processing with you something that happened in a football game. These are words I never thought I would say. Last night, Chad and I had tickets to the Bills Bengals game. Now, I will tell you that we share a set of season tickets with friends, and this in no way represents my commitment to football because if it is a little bit cold or a little bit rainy, Chad is probably taking someone besides me to the football game. And that was our plan for last night because it was going to be a little bit of both, we thought, but we didn't feel good. And so he sold our tickets and we both stayed home. He turned on the game. I fell asleep. Jane came in the room and woke me up. And then I heard the word CPR on the field and I said, "Chad, what is going on?" And I look at the TV and I see an ambulance in the middle of the field in the stadium. 

Sarah [00:02:35] Oh, my goodness.  

Beth [00:02:36]  And so he backs the TV up and shows me what happens. And as everyone now knows, there was just a normal tackle. Damar Hamlin tackles Tee Higgins. It looks like a regular football play, and then he stands up from that and then he immediately goes limp and just falls. And you could see instantly the urgency on the field that this was not a hamstring or a knee or anything like that, that this was incredibly serious. And so they performed CPR on the field. The ambulance comes, he leaves with the ambulance. They report that he's receiving oxygen. The ambulance hangs for a second before departing the stadium so that his mother can join him in the ambulance. His family had been there at the game and they take him off to UC, which fortunately has an excellent reputation for being able to handle extremely urgent matters like this one.  

Sarah [00:03:32] Yeah. Didn't I just hear they treated another football player recently?  

Beth [00:03:35] They did. Several pretty urgent medical incidents have happened in Cincinnati and the city fortunately responds quite well to things like this. So everything just goes to a standstill in the stadium and the players are devastated and horrified. And just in all states of shock and grief, it's obvious the commentators don't know what to do. It's the first time in my life I've heard ESPN commentators acting, like, 'please don't throw it to me; I have no idea what to say.' And they're supposed to resume the game in 5 minutes. And I looked at Chad and I said, "Absolutely not."  A mom just needs to march down on the field and say, no one is playing football today. Everyone is going to go receive love and comfort and support. And that's all. And you could just sense that that recognition was occurring to everybody in slow motion. And so you see the Bengals coach walk over to the Bills coach and they have a conversation. And I looked at Chad and I said, "You know what, I trust these two. I feel like these two have good heads on their shoulders. I feel like these two understand that this game cannot just resume." And it didn't. They took the players to the locker rooms. And then ESPN reports that they're just waiting on a directive from the NFL itself that the game can be postponed and it takes too long. However, what I really wanted to process with you, in addition to just saying how desperately I hope that this young man, this 24-year-old man, recovers well. As we're recording, he's still in critical condition. In addition to saying that, which is the first and the most important thing, I just was really moved by seeing how much we have learned in a short period of time, I think, as a society because inertia is such a powerful force, it is so hard to disrupt the sense that it's Monday Night Football. It's very late in the season. This is a really big game. And for people to in 45 minutes or so get to the right answer which is, one, that the only thing that matters is this young man's health. And also, two, even if a doctor could call them up in a matter of an hour and say, "Actually, he's fine, he's going to be great. Fluke thing, we got it. He's okay," that his teammates cannot go back out and play football now. I was just struck and comforted by the fact that they disrupted the status quo because it needed to be disrupted. And that's a great example and one I did not expect to come from professional football.  

Sarah [00:06:17] My husband and I had a long conversation about this on our morning walk and he was, like, this is a big deal. They would have just gone back to playing-- even the head injury that had already happened. Him being pulled is a big deal. And I didn't give a lot of grace to the NFL in the News Brief this morning because I don't like or care about football, but I recognize its importance as a cultural force, and I can recognize that there has been tremendous movement. To me, the undercurrent that I feel from people's reaction to this and from the coverage of it is the sense of, yes, we've made great progress and is it ever going to be enough? Can we create enough protocols to protect people? Is there any situation, even if our response is great, where we want a 24-year-old to face death for a sport? And I think that that's really, really difficult. I acknowledge the difficulty of the conversation, even though it is not a difficult call for me. And I can acknowledge this because there's not a lot on the line for me. I can see that. That disruption of the status quo, though, made me think of the Richard Rauh email. We have a lot of Richard Rauh fans in the audience, and his theme this year is Prophecy. And he was just talking about we don't talk a lot about prophecy in the Christian faith, even though there's an enormous emphasis on it in the Bible. And he is like that's because prophets do not tell the future, they disrupt the status quo. And that is always a big, heavy lift. I am willing to acknowledge that this was and will continue to be a big deal in the NFL as we see there's huge risk and we have to acknowledge that and we have to build protocols and still keep asking honestly, is that enough? Is that enough? Is it worth it?  

Beth [00:07:58] I'm trying in my own mind to separate the long term football ethics questions from this incident, because we don't know exactly what happened yet. I mean, for me, I'm with you. The cost benefit analysis on football doesn't work.  

Sarah [00:08:11] Well, I want to ask you, because you've been going to these games, have you shifted any in your thinking?  

Beth [00:08:16] No. I always feel deeply conflicted at the games. It is super fun to go to a football game. It is a spectacle. A professional football game is a spectacle. College football game is a spectacle, right?  

Sarah [00:08:26] Or any football game is a spectacle.  

Beth [00:08:28] It's fun to be there. There are some beautiful connections that people make with each other through sports that I don't know if adults will make in other ways in our country-- I really don't. There's some ugliness that comes out, but maybe it's like a safer way for some of that ugliness to come out than in other places too. I value sports. I struggle particularly with football, because I just look at the long term damage to people's bodies and minds and think  how could this work out? So I also recognize that I'm not the best voice as a decision maker in that discussion. So I'm trying to kind of put that in one place and just kind of look at this incident and realize that even if football were not inherently dangerous, even if there is a way to make this game much safer and more sustainable in the long term for players and for the public, there are going to be situations where something terrible happens in every context. And we are so bad typically at saying something terrible has happened and it affects more than just the person it happened to. And I was so glad to see this recognition that something terrible happened here. And yes, he is the very center of it and the focus and where all the care and prayers and love go, but also something terrible happened to all of those people who were on the field with him. I said to Chad, "I'm so glad you're not at this game. I can't imagine what it would be like to be in the stands, watching this unfold, to be powerless to do anything other than witness it quietly." I thought it was very lovely to see one of the Bengals fans who just stayed in the stadium for a long time holding a sign that said prayers for him. And then a whole bunch of Bengals fans held a vigil outside the hospital. I think they responded the best way that they could respond, but what a hard thing.  

[00:10:19] And so just to have that example, if someone collapses at work, maybe we don't just go back to our desks. If something happens in a place you are affected just by virtue of having been there, and for that disruption to be permitted in such a high dollar environment was really compelling to me. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about, it softened me maybe a little bit about Twitter. Because I think part of what helped in that 45 minute or so evolution of they're going to go back to play, some of the commentators are like, how do they do that, how do they get their heads around it? And others were like, they don't, they can't. I think some of what helped get to this decision was the fact that on Twitter so many teams and athletes and high status people (the blue check elite of Twitter) were saying the show should not go on here, the game should not continue. And I think that momentum was really important. Now, you had garbage, of course, on Twitter because we're just people, right? So, of course, there were Twitter celebrities who wanted to make this about vaccines and then a whole chorus of people saying you're the scum of the earth for talking about the vaccine and pushing your agenda.  I mean, we do all the things that we do on the Internet, but the clear momentum was in saying, "The NFL, this is an easy call." I get that it's hard. There are logistics, but they need to shut it down. And then they did. And I thought something really good happened online because of that. So we leave that conversation again with so many prayers for Hamlin and his family and for all the players and all of the people impacted here and hopeful that what we take from it continues to be good and kind to each other in lots of environments where terrible things happen. And we're just going to make a hard turn to Congress because Congress was really busy right before Christmas. Sarah, what would your expectation been about the ability to get spending legislation done before Christmas? It came down to the wire as it does, and I wonder what you thought was going to happen.  

Sarah [00:12:45] Oh, I wasn't worried.  I knew they'd get it passed. This was a very productive Congress. They weren't going to go out without [Inaudible]. I thought, no, they'll get it done. And they did. I was not surprised.  

Beth [00:12:57] What gave me the most comfort in believing they would get it done was hearing so many Senate Republicans seemingly willing to say to reporters that they don't trust the new Republican led House of Representatives to do anything productive on spending, and that every incentive that Senate Republicans had was to get this done by the end of the year. So they did. So we got a giant omnibus spending bill.  

Sarah [00:13:21] Giant is not a big enough word.  

Beth [00:13:24] Lots of agreement by everyone that this is not the way we should do this, but it is how it happened once again. $1.7 trillion. Trillion with a T.  

Sarah [00:13:33] Yeah. And it included lots of stuff that wasn't necessarily spending. We have a ban on TikTok on executive branch agency phones, which is joining a growing trend in state governments where they're banning TikTok on state employee phones. And I was seeing some local governments or municipal governments are taking up banning TikTok on employee phones. That's super interesting. We did get a reform to the Electoral Count Act, just laying it out very clearly that the VP role is ceremonial, and (hallelujah, praise the Lord) raises the threshold to electoral votes 20% of the members of each chamber. So, I mean, just get it done on your way out the door, guys. What a good job.  

Beth [00:14:12] We are going to talk about all of the January 6 related developments next Tuesday, because there is a lot coming out of that committee that we need some time to digest to talk about in real detail. But I think it is so important to connect the work of that committee to this passage of Electoral Count Act reform. If you are a person who said, like, what's going to come of this, what's the point? Well, some legislating came of it. And that's a really big deal and really important.  

Sarah [00:14:36] Yes, I'm excited to have that conversation. But I think the fact that they did this deserves more than one mention. And then, of course, there's just so much money. $772.5 billion for domestic priorities, $858 billion for defense. I want to talk about Ukraine in just a minute and Zelensky's visit to congress. But money for disaster relief, money for capitol security, money for the Violence Against Women Act. I mean, just money, money, money, money, money.  

Beth [00:15:01] Before we talk about Ukraine, just a couple more domestic stories that we wanted to touch on.  

Sarah [00:15:06] Congressional. Yes.  

Beth [00:15:08] Yes, we are recording on Tuesday, January 3rd, as the new House of Representatives is coming in to session, first, for the purpose of electing a new speaker. One of the new members who is supposed to be sworn in today, assuming a speaker can be elected, is George Santos from New York. I just think we have to take a second with George Santos. I don't really even know what to say other than what is happening, but it does need to be said. What is happening?  

Sarah [00:15:40] Well, I think we know George Santos is a compulsive liar. But I think that's a fair objective, pretty neutral conclusion at this point. He lied about everything. He lied about his family. He lied about his job. He lied about his personal life. He lied about his educational history. I mean, he lied about his wealth, lied about everything. I'm not even convinced his name's George at this point. I mean, he's a compulsive liar, obviously.  

Beth [00:16:03] He actually has gone by Anthony and a different [Inaudible] at some point.  

Sarah [00:16:09] No, stop. Stop it.  

Beth [00:16:09] No, it's true. I can't read enough about this. When I read that his Democratic opponent Robert Zimmerman called him the Anna Delvi candidate, I thought, that's it. And I just have read all of it. He has admitted that he embellished his resume. That's his phrase.  

Sarah [00:16:27] Bless.  

Beth [00:16:28] He actually never graduated from college. He only introduced clients to some of these Wall Street firms. He didn't actually work for those firms. He said at one point that he was Jewish and he later told us that he meant Jew-ish because of a maternal grandmother.  

Sarah [00:16:44] No.  

Beth [00:16:44] I mean, it's just there are so many pieces. It looks like he has some criminal exposure in Brazil related to a 2008 incident. And as of this morning, Brazilian authorities have renewed their interest in pursuing that matter.  

Sarah [00:16:58] Well, they didn't know where he was. And they're like, oh, we found you. You're in Congress. Yay, we're going to go investigate you now.  

Beth [00:17:04] I thought this paragraph from The Washington Post really told the story. "He said he is part black. He said he is the grandson of Holocaust survivors. He claimed he helped develop carbon capture technology. He claimed to have worked at companies that never employed him. He claimed to be a graduate of two universities, only to admit that he has no college degree at all. He even said his parents' financial hardship forced him to leave the prestigious Horace Mann School in the Bronx months before he could graduate. But that claim and numerous others have either been shown to be false or lacking evidence by the Washington Post and other news organizations, even by the low standards for truth telling in politics. The scope of Santos's falsehoods has been breathtaking. It has surprised Democrats who researched him and missed so many details, as well as Republicans who vouched for him."  

Sarah [00:17:47] I had a conversation with Nicolas right as this broke, and I said, "This is just a failure of media." Like, this story's great. It should have come out before the election. What the heck? I know these small congressional races are not the bread and butter of coverage, but honestly, I thought between this and the really great story The New York Times did on polling and how media organizations, particularly conservative media organizations, follow polling because it feeds stories and not the nonpartisan polling that's more boring was just like all we needed. Like, okay, well, now we know what we should pay attention to the next electoral cycle, which is, are the candidates lying and what are the non-partisan polls tell us? Whether it's exciting and can draw clicks or not.  

Beth [00:18:29] Local media ran some of this before the election, but it didn't get picked up on television and by greater outlets like ascending the chain. And it's almost like until there is national attention on something, you can't even get your district focused in on it through local media channels. I heard Maggie Haberman talking about this on CNN and she called it part of the death of local media and a result of that, and said that we just don't treat congressional races as priority stories unless they are marquee races. Well, a district in New York that includes part of Long Island and Queens that has been described by its outgoing representative as about 50-50, why is that not a marquee race?  

Sarah [00:19:14] Well, I did opposition research when I worked for Hillary Clinton's 2006 presidential campaign. I was doing it on Democrats because we were in a primary. I can tell you anything you want to know about John Edwards legislative record in North Carolina. And it's just so hard when you're doing that to see the forest through the trees. They missed the Jeremiah Wright story because it's just hard to know. I mean, this is an easier one because he's just lying about everything. But there was clearly like a threshold that got people's attention. And to our previous conversation about the NFL, it does seem that there is a threshold where people will acknowledge there is a right and wrong here. And at first the coverage was the constituents don't care. Now it's like, no, actually they do. And they're, like, you should resign; you lied to us about everything. So that's a little bit encouraging. But I think as far as the Republican Party doing the right thing, with this leadership fight happening probably right now as we're recording, including hilariously which the dispatch pointed out George Santos himself being like Kevin McCarthy is going to win, carved in stone and cashing in. And everybody's like, first of all, that's a metaphor that doesn't make any sense. And second of all, who's going to believe you about anything ever moving forward? I mean, I can't imagine what's going to happen. I will be appalled if he finishes his term without resignation or been removed. But I think it does show a lot of weaknesses in the coverage. And even to what you were saying about the allocation of resources, that was the other conclusion from that polling article. It's like not only did it redirect media coverage the way that we focused on the sexy, bad, incorrect polls, but it also redirected funds where people could have-- maybe Mandela Barnes would have won if people had given more funds. It was close. But these terrible pollsters were like, oh, Ron Johnson's up 10 points and Patty Murray's at risk. And so everything gets shifted around when it shouldn't have been. And I just think it's just one more example of we're not quite all the way on disrupting our electoral coverage in a way that reflects the weaknesses we can all see.  

Beth [00:21:21] And then they're just hard calls because in the opposition research about him, I mean, he provided some of it by saying, like, I went to the January six rally; I have written a check to law firms to help defend some of the January 6 writers. So you think you've got the piece that will captivate the public's attention and maybe you ignore checking that he actually graduated from the place at the time he said. Those are just difficult decisions. I guess I don't want anybody associated with the Democrat's campaign in this race to feel horrible because this is hard and surprising and terrible. So it's more like what lessons can we learn from it than what went wrong here? Because a ton of things went wrong here, including on the Republican side that it was a little bit of an open secret that this guy was super sketchy. And you want the parties to come in and say, let's not have a super sketchy candidate. But the parties don't want to do that, especially as they're really trying to get Kevin McCarthy across the finish line in this speaker's race. So let's talk about Kevin for a second. Again, acknowledging we are recording about around noon on Tuesday, January 3rd. So things could have materially changed by the time you hear this. But as we're recording, the big story is Kevin still doesn't have the votes.  

Sarah [00:22:37] He doesn't have the votes. He's given them everything they could possibly want, which makes his speakership basically powerless. I don't even know why he wants the job. If five people can call a vote of no confidence at any time, you're going to be miserable. What are you doing?  

Beth [00:22:52] Here's what I don't understand. This is a person who has objectively lied to the American public and the press.  

Sarah [00:23:01] Mm-hmm. 

Beth [00:23:02]  Who refused to cooperate with the January 6 investigation in such a graceless way that it even hurt him politically.  

Sarah [00:23:13] Mm-hmm.  

Beth [00:23:14] Not only did it hurt our country, but it hurt him politically. This is a person who went down to Mar-a- Lago to suck back up to Trump the second it looked like he might be on the outs with him, who has promised very significant committee responsibilities to Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has given away the firm in search of this position. And this is who the grown ups in the Republican caucus are trying to push across the finish line. That's what I don't understand. How did the window move so significantly that Kevin McCarthy is like the reasonable consensus choice of the caucus?  

Sarah [00:23:51] How did things move so dramatically that me and Matt Gaetz are on the same side? Where I'm like, that man's making some sense; what happened? Because he's right. Well, how could you trust him? You can't trust him. He will do whatever it takes to stay in power to the detriment of the Republican Party, which I'm not exactly rooting for. It is so insane to me. I think that you're going to see probably Steve Scalise-- and I hope it feels like a betrayal to Kevin McCarthy because I like to see people get what's coming to them. And I'm sure Liz Cheney and I are feeling the same way as far as him feeling a little bit of that betrayal. Although, again, I don't even know. I can't even comprehend what motivates him. I don't understand his complete and total lack of integrity even inside the Republican Party. So I can't fathom a scenario in which we don't have multiple ballots for the first time in 100 years. So it's going to be interesting to watch. My husband just texted me and was like, "Are you watching C-SPAN?" I'm like, "No, keep me updated."  

Beth [00:24:51] I just wonder if they can't get organized for the leadership race, how does anything transpire in an orderly fashion from here?  

Sarah [00:24:58] Well, let me just say that I do not think orderly will be this Congress's word for the year.  

Beth [00:25:04] That's not the word.  

Sarah [00:25:06] It's not going to be it. Yeah, not going to be it.  

Beth [00:25:10] But we need them to be effective, which was underscored in dramatic fashion on December 21st when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke before a joint meeting of Congress. What did you think about this speech, Sarah?  

Sarah [00:25:23] There's a really great write up in the morning of The New York Times about how democracy is on the rise-- you know, all those like democracy is in decline. And my favorite quote was this one expert that was like, look, I'm always the skunk at the garden party. And even I'm willing to admit that particularly the West response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is encouraging. It's really, really encouraging. And I thought it was one more brilliant move and a long list of brilliant strategic decisions that Zelensky has made to come in right as the new Congress is about to take power, right as they're making funding decisions and say this matters. I think it's a brilliant move that they're going after Russians and striking on Russian soil. I mean, I know the history books will be written and it will not be the symbol of a narrative. But it is hard to criticize this man because every move he makes is so strong, and this was just one more. This was just one more.  

Beth [00:26:19] Even at the beginning of this speech when he said the applause were too much for him and said but they are for the people of Ukraine, there is just something that emanates from him that is so populist in a healthy way that is really captivating. I read the transcript of his remarks the day after his speech, and then I actually watched it for the first time yesterday. And I was surprised that what grabbed me when I watched it was the same as what grabbed me when I read the transcript. And it was this section where he talked about how Ukraine has never asked for America to fight this war for them. Let's play a little bit of that.  

Zelenskyy [00:26:57] Ukraine never asked the American soldiers to fight on our land instead of us. I assure you that Ukrainian soldiers can perfectly operate American tanks and planes themselves.  

Beth [00:27:15] I felt like he almost articulated a new foreign policy doctrine or something, Sarah. Even though it's what we've been doing, it is what Biden has been doing in this approach. That we provide money, that we provide weapons, that we provide some training and support, but we don't put our soldiers there. And for Zelinskyy to package that up by saying we can fly the planes; this is our struggle for independence. And also, you are doing more than charity by helping us with that. It is part of a global stability that you're invested in. I just thought it was really compelling. And I can get in my head about should that be our policy everywhere and think through scenarios where that doesn't work at all? But here it does seem to be the right path forward. And I thought he put it to the American public more effectively than I've heard any U.S. policymaker.  

Sarah [00:28:12] Oh, yeah, absolutely. This is a new era. This is showing us a new way to engage. And not just a new way to engage, a new incredibly effective way to engage. And you know what, strike that. Not engage, to defend democracy. Not just engage. Engage is a little too neutral for me. To defend democracy because that's what we are doing. That is what we have done with the invasion of Ukraine. That's what the people of Ukraine have done. They understand that they have the most on the line and that they are also not the only ones with something on the line. And it's like we have all woken up to that and we have found a way to support this fight in a way that has enormous benefits and not zero risk, but less risk than previous modes of engagement. I think that's incredibly encouraging. We don't go back to the old way. This is it. This is the new status quo. And I think that it's just been incredibly encouraging. And I thought at the end of this first year to come here and to give this speech, it just was so good.  

Beth [00:29:22] That new approach, or at least that very contemporary framing of it, showed up several times in the speeches. He talked about how victory and defeat happened first in people's minds, and he opened by saying, "As to the world, we have defeated Russia in people's minds and hearts." And then he talked about how the Russian people are going to have to defeat the Kremlin in their minds and hearts first. And it made me think back to our conversation with Sean McFate about his book The New Rules of War. We had him on probably several years ago now, and I still think about that book all the time and how he really articulated that beautifully. I was also surprised when I watched the speech that there was some laughter in the room and that you could feel some real warmth, particularly, I thought, between him and Speaker Pelosi. I think it meant a lot to him that she came to Ukraine at the height of the conflict. Y And that was encouraging to see, too.  

Sarah [00:30:17] This man is a professional and not just a professional politician. Let's all not forget his experiences.  

Beth [00:30:24] These skills have translated in a way that I never ever would have anticipated. Y  

Sarah [00:30:30] Yeah. Absolutely.  

Beth [00:30:31] A lot more happened. We will process some of those happenings over the next couple of episodes. We really appreciate everyone's support for our break and our opportunity to catch up with each other here. And before we go, we're going to catch up on what we're thinking about Outside of Politics. Sarah, while we were off I know that we both watched a lot, read a lot, participated in a lot of activities with friends and family. I wonder what single thing you want to bring to us today to talk about that really met you where you were through the holidays?  

Sarah [00:31:10] I had a lovely break. And what's important to remember is that I had a white Christmas. My body could have been covered with boils and I still would be here reporting to you that I had a lovely holiday break. But it was just filled with friends and family and a lot of love and a lot of gratitude and a lot of just soaking it up. So on the Thursday after Christmas, when I decided to watch the Kennedy Center Honors-- it really met me where I was at-- the honorees were my beloved George Clooney, Amy Grant, Tania Leone, Gladys Knight and U2. Okay, we started with Gladys Knight and first I thought I'm just going to watch the George Clooney part and watch the Highwomen perform. That's a part I want to take in. But then I just was in it with them and I'm like, you know what? This is where I'm at.  Let's just pour out love, affection and gratitude on each other. Like, that's just the vibe. It's so beautiful. And so they did Gladys Knight. It was incredible. George Clooney's piece was particularly amazing because I have a friend who went to school in Oxford, Mississippi. It's a long story, I'm going to make it short. She encounters George Clooney at a bar. At first, she insults him by asking her to get her a bottle of beer because she thought it was the bartender. Then she says, "I'm from Kentucky." He turns his entire body to her and they talk for 4 hours until 4:00 in the morning. And the best part about the Kennedy Center is that's the set up for his segment, is Julia Roberts coming out with this dress with his face all over it, which was hilarious, and saying George is at peak, George in a bar having a great conversation, and they've built this little bar on the stage.  

[00:32:45] So, of course, I immediately text my friend. I'm like, oh, you're going to die. You're going to die when you see this. So that part his father gives just the most beautiful tribute to him. It just was incredible. And it was funny. Matt Damon was there funny. Then we get to Amy Grant's The Highwomen Sing. So apparently Natalie Henry's mother has been the executive assistant to Amy Grant for 40 years. First of all, if you have an executive assistant for 40 years, that tells you really all you need to know about a person, right? So they perform. It's beautiful. Then BeBe & Cece Winans come out, and it's like I'm healed. They perform this medley. Cece sings some of Elshedai. They invite Brandi Carlile and the Highwomen out afterwards, and Brandi is levitating. Her joy is so palpable to be invited to sing in this. I mean, they have like a choir. It's incredible. I felt my self healed in this segment, and the other ones were great too. Like, U2 was great. It just was all lovely. And I thought, I'm going to watch the Kennedy Center Honors every year. This was a delight. No one was winning anything, they've already had this ceremony at the White House. It's just this beautiful tribute. Garth was there singing, Gladys Knight. I'm just telling you I was healed. It met me where I was at. I was in this very place of let's love on each other and have gratitude for life and what we can contribute. And it just was so awesome.  

Beth [00:34:18] Well, here's what met me where I was. A book about death.  

Sarah [00:34:22] [Laughs]. Oh, man. 

Beth [00:34:26] I am so thrilled that you had such a wonderful break. I will tell you that we had some lovely moments, and on the whole, it was not our year. It was not great this year. Someone was sick pretty much the whole time, except for about three magical days. And it was stressful. And we have, operating under all of this, a profoundly difficult family situation. That is just not my story to tell. I'm not trying to be purposefully vague here, but some stories are just not ours to tell, you know. And I think it would increase suffering for me to talk about it here. So there's just a lot and it was stressful. And I escaped into books for the most part. One of those books was Under The Whispering Door by TJ Klune, which I read because I so loved House in the Cerulean Sea. So I knew I wanted to read his next book. I had no idea what it was about. I just checked it out because it was his love.  

Sarah [00:35:23] Love it.  

Beth [00:35:24] It begins with a 40 something year old, high powered corporate lawyer dropping dead in his office after being horrible to an assistant. I was in from the beginning and then it proceeds to this man observing his own funeral.  

Sarah [00:35:44] Wow.  

Beth [00:35:45] And it follows him through his afterlife experience. And what the book really tried to say was, number one, the afterlife is not this binary situation that we make it out to be in a lot of various attempts to understand it. But two, that there is an opportunity in death to find some peace that you lacked in your life. And there is an opportunity in death to experience some love that you pushed away during life. And it was just exactly what I needed to read over this particular break. And I thought so beautiful. It was not as enchanting as The House in the Cerulean Sea, but it was still beautifully written, extremely imaginative. You read it and you think, I wish I could build worlds like this in my head. So I appreciated the craft of it enormously. But more than that, it was just brilliantly optimistic for a book that's about death and that was healing to me in its way.  

Sarah [00:36:51] Well, that's so interesting because we watched a lot of A Christmas Carol adaptations. We kind of accidentally watched a couple and then we are like, okay, well, we're just going to lean into this. One point Nicholas is like, I don't want to watch another one. And Griffin's, like, commit to the bit dad; we're in it. But reading books like that I think puts you in such a mind space of looking back, especially as we come to an end of the year and starting the new year, and thinking about what the year gave and what the year took. I also read An Alter in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor, and it's definitely going to be one of my most favorite books of all time. It's so, so good. And it helped me put some words on how I felt about 2022, which was hard. I was looking back at what we went through with diabetes, and the overturn of Roe v Wade, and my dog got hit by a car and I thought all these hard things happen and yet I sit here just with nothing but affection for this year.  And I thought, why? But reading that book and even watching the Kennedy Center Honors, even having some hard moments over the break, just feeling like, oh, but this is it. This is just it. Even in death you have this opportunity-- which might be too optimistic of a word, but at least a moment to say all I can do is decide how I'm going to react to this. All I can do is decide what I'm going to take from this. And I think there's something really, really beautiful about that.  

Beth [00:38:28] Did you read the Maureen Dowd piece on Christmas Eve about why Dickinson says it's about why the Christmas Carol has such staying power?  

Sarah [00:38:35] I saw it and I think I opened it and then I never read it.  

Beth [00:38:38] I thought it was really lovely and right on the point of what you just said, basically. And maybe did Amy Grant ever sing that song that goes we believe in God because life is hard and might not get easier? Anyway, not that you have to worry about that.  

Sarah [00:38:51] She did.  

Beth [00:38:52] Let's say she did sing at some point. It was at camp all the time, right? But that to me was kind of the lesson of 2022. I'll put it in the Dave Mathews term. Celebrate we will, because life is short but sweet for certain. Like that's to me what it is. When I was doing my wrap up on 2022, I was realizing that the vast majority of my months were defined by someone's health in 2022.  

Sarah [00:39:15] Wow.  

Beth [00:39:16] And that is probably not going to get easier. That is probably how it's going to be for some period of years at least, and maybe all of those in front of me. And you just have to find a way to be happy and to go on and to find a peace with that. And I would like to find my peace in this life and not hope to put it all on the death side of the equation.  

Sarah [00:39:36] Absolutely.  

Beth [00:39:37] But it was really useful to me to know that that might be a possibility, too.  

Sarah [00:39:42] Well, as we start a new year here at Pantsuit Politics, I hope that's what we do and continue to do here with all of you. You're such a blessing. That's my year for 2023, and our audience is and continues to be a blessing and what we do here together. I feel better already, Beth, after two weeks of trying to sort through all this on my own.  

Beth [00:39:59] Me too. I always miss talking with you when we're not in conversation, so glad to be back. Glad to be back with all of you. We so appreciate you spending time with us. We hope that we honor that time and would love to hear what this conversation sparked for you. Please email us your thoughts at Hello@pantsuitpoliticsshow.com. We will be back with you on Friday with special guest Yair Rosenberg for a wonderful conversation about antisemitism and news coverage and taking a more holistic perspective of Judaism and Jewish culture. Until then, have the best week available to you.  

[00:40:46] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:40:51] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:40:57] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:41:01] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Allie Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handly. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holliday. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karen True. Onika Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Vilelli. Katherine Vollmer. Amy Whited. 

Beth [00:41:36] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McCue. Nicole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.  

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