Biden’s Dilemma: The Economic News is Great. The Polling is Terrible.
TOPICS DISCUSSED
Positive Economic Numbers and Low Consumer Confidence
Should Biden Drop Out of the 2024 Presidential Race?
Outside of Politics: The Holiday Hodgepodge
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EPISODE RESOURCES
Sarah and Beth are booking speaking engagements for 2024 now. Find out how to bring Sarah and Beth to your organization or learn about upcoming events here.
Fed keeps rates unchanged, Powell hedges on possible end of tightening campaign (Reuters)
University of Michigan: Consumer Sentiment (UMCSENT) | FRED | St. Louis Fed
Analysis: Fed meeting revives Treasury bulls after brutal selloff | Reuters
We Are Caught in a Mass Economic Delusion and Something Is Wrong (The Bulwark)
Americans Have Never Been Wealthier & No One is Happy (A Wealth of Common Sense)
Sharp U.S. Hiring Slowdown Signals Cooling Economy Ahead (Wall Street Journal)
Do you know where your kids go every day? (After Babel | Jonathan Haidt)
🌻 Lil Treasures #203: What Mario Lopez Can't Live Without + the Lake Beach (Erin Moon)
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TRANSCRIPT
Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.
Beth [00:00:10] And this is Beth Silvers. Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.
[00:00:14] Music Interlude
Sarah [00:00:34] Thank you so much for joining us here at Pantsuit Politics, where we take a different approach to the news. Today, we're going to talk. You're going to hear, we're going to wonder. We're going to wonder about why the economy is so good. Americans are so sad and mad. Sad and mad. And what that means for the 2024 election. Yes, we are going to talk about those poll numbers from The New York Times. Don't worry. And then Outside of Politics, we're taking an amalgam. We're going to refuse to separate Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and we are going to talk about them together. And important areas of overlap in holiday management, holiday storage, holiday feelings. We've got a lot for you to hear today here at Pantsuit Politics.
[00:01:16] We have a lot all week, because if you are in Louisiana or Mississippi, we'll be speaking in both states this week. We'll be at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana, on Thursday afternoon. We'll be speaking to the Diabetes Coalition of Mississippi Friday morning. Both of these events are open to the public. We would love to see you there. You can find more information in our show notes today. We also want to say this is a hard time for conversation in the world. If your organization is finding particularly with the Israel-Hamas war that you need help, we do in-person events and online events where we really try to allow space for people to feel heard. We try to give everyone actionable language and ideas to move forward. And when we're with an organization in person, it is not about our opinions, it is about helping people stay in relationship with each other through difficult things. So please reach out to Alise if we can be of service to you or your organization during this really difficult time.
Sarah [00:02:16] Up next we’re going to talk about numbers. We're going to talk about economic numbers. We're going to talk about poll numbers.
[00:02:20] Music Interlude.
[00:02:40] We have gotten a lot of economic news in the last week. Of course, we had at the beginning of the month jobs report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that U.S. employers added only 150,000 jobs in October. Now, that's half the number added in September. And it's a little below expectations. And so you would ask yourself, why did the stock market respond so positively to these below expected jobs added to the economy.
Beth [00:03:14] And it is because everything's a little bit weird right now.
Sarah [00:03:16] It's a little weird. It's the upside down.
Beth [00:03:18] And the slowing of the labor market growth indicates that the raising of the interest rate is having the desired effect. Because if everything keeps growing all the time, that is going to lead to more inflation. And so we're looking for that delicate balance of unemployment where we would like it to be, which cannot be too low or too high. I know that we all wish there were just zero unemployment, but that is actually not what we wish.
Sarah [00:03:49] No.
Beth [00:03:49] So unemployment in the right range. Job growth in the right range. Prices in the right range. It's a hard chemistry to try to concoct.
Sarah [00:04:00] We also heard from the Federal Reserve. Beth, maybe you've heard the term soft landing, which is what you just described, and that we spend a lot of time talking about. And the indication was that the Fed is getting close to wrapping up this tightening. And that there would be smaller than expected borrowing from the Treasury. And so the bond market got a little relief. We talked about that on a few episodes, that the interest rate rises, the long term bond yields fall, an inverse to that. But the Fed announced they're going to leave rates unchanged. They're not going to raise rates. Jerome Powell said we're seeing some positive indicators. Now he is not an effusive man. That's not what you want in a Fed chair. He was not hyperbolic in any way, shape or form, but bond markets responded positively. The yields on those long term bonds dropped to their lowest level in three weeks, and we still have economic growth. The U.S. economy is growing at a whopping 4.9%. Beth, I remember during the Trump administration, we would talk about like we can't have 3% forever. Like, it's going to get into 2%. And here we are sitting at almost 5%. That's not a number I even had in my range of possibility as far as economic growth.
Beth [00:05:19] And it has pros and cons, right? There are aspects of that, that are extremely positive especially when you think about the fact that we're still coming out of COVID. And I think that's why you don't see enthusiasm from Jerome Powell, even if he were an enthusiastic person, because it tells you we still have to watch for things overheating in a way that causes inflation to continue to rise.
Sarah [00:05:44] Well, and we're spending. Americans are spending. And I read a really interesting article from Canada that talked about some of the reasons you see economic growth in the U.S. that is really an outlier. Seems like what is happening in the United States that the economy is doing this well? I'm using well in quotation marks because we're going to get to the fact that that's not how people feel about the economy, but that it's growing at such a high rate. And they pointed to two really interesting factors that I think Americans feel and understand, at least one of them. One big thing is that-- and I think we've talked about this on the show before, that particularly in places like Britain and in Canada, they have adjustable rate mortgages at a much, much higher percentage than we do. And so when interest rates rise, that hits them hard. It hits them really, really hard in a way. We sign on 30 year mortgages and it hits people who want to become homeowners hard in the United States, but it doesn't hit people who are already homeowners. I mean, I refinanced during the pandemic. Are you kidding me? Like, it's basically free money. And so I think that that's a big difference with the United States. And then also, the U.S. government is just been on a spending spree. All that once in a lifetime legislation that we talk about a lot on the show, the infrastructure deal, the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, that's a lot of money being pumped into the United States economy.
Beth [00:07:11] In addition to all the money that we did in the Recovery Act is still being spent, that's still out there floating around that people are still making decisions about. Now, some of that is starting to come to an end, which is part of, I think, the tension between the feeling of are things going well or not? But there is still just a lot of money circulating in ways that I don't know that I've experienced before.
Sarah [00:07:33] Here's where we get to the weird part. Okay? Because you sent me a piece from Jonathan last at The Bulwark that's like, do we have some sort of economic delusion? What's going on here? Because I'm 42, for most of my life I grew up post Clinton presidency where the famous phrase-- what was the famous phrase? It's the economy is stupid. When the economy was doing well, Americans were happy. I talked a lot before about that moment. It was like a month after 9/11. And I'll never forget that the top issue for Americans was the economy. And so the popular political understanding was if the economy is doing well-- which I think 4.9% is well. I think these employment numbers can be described as well, like things are going good. People have a lot of money. They're spending money. Americans should be happy. Americans who are mostly concerned with the economy should be happy. And what we have is a just complete inverse. We have a complete opposite reaction. The economy is doing well and Americans are miserable.
Beth [00:08:50] And we'll specifically respond to questions about the economy as the source of that misery, that we have this real gap in perception versus what the numbers say are happening. Even when you ask people pretty specifically what's going on, their responses do not match what we measure is happening. Which tells you that there is a lot behind that, that maybe we don't have measurements to capture.
Sarah [00:09:17] Yeah, and it's like the measurements we've used are broken. So in that article, he talks about two things. He talks about the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which polls small business owners, and they measure the hard indicators like sales, profits, job openings, capital expenditures, and then the soft indicators, which are surveys. How do you actually feel? And it's just a chasm. Usually those numbers track, right? The small business owners feel good when those hard indicators are going well. Well, post-COVID, this chasm opened up and you look at this graph and the hard indicators are going great. And the soft indicators, the attitude of these small business owners is completely detached from the indicators of their bottom line. Then you have this other measurement from I think it was the University of Michigan about consumer sentiment. Again, Chasm opening up used to be dependable. If Americans were spending, consumer sentiment was positive. Well, now we're spending, but we're all happy. We're so sad about the economy. And it's not even these small indicators. It's just it's these big polls. Americans report less confidence than they did at the start of the COVID pandemic. They feel about the economy like they did during the depths of the Great Recession, despite the fact that real median net worth for U.S. households is up like almost 40%.
Beth [00:10:38] On an inflation adjusted basis.
Sarah [00:10:40] Yes. So we have all this money, everything is going well, and people are so mad and sad and pissed off.
Beth [00:10:53] And it is easy to read about this and look at this information and think, well, what is wrong with all of us? I don't feel that way, though, because I feel like a bunch of things are happening here. Beginning with the fact that we are affected by the experience of COVID. I sit on committees and am still stunned by the fact that every meeting COVID comes up in some form. It's just mentally very present. And I think the fact that it's still so present for people, even as we're so fatigued by it and don't want to talk about it anymore [inaudible] sick to death of it, combined with the fact that some of those COVID dollars are starting to dry up, some of the relief that we provided around COVID is going away. The fact that student loan payments are resuming, interest is accruing again, that some of the relief funding that was available for a couple of years is not going to be available going forward. Your mental space is not "Oh, my gosh, there's been so much money out there, and look at how all these indicators are trending." It's "Yikes, I'm not out of this period yet." And I see that the world is moving on. And I'm not sure that we can sustain with the world moving on.
Sarah [00:12:13] And I'm trying to play with my understanding of the world and how it's changed. There's a part of me that's like James Carville is still right. Maybe it's not that it's the economy is stupid, maybe it's that it's the price is stupid. And what really put it together for me, I was listening to The Economist this morning and there was a report on changes in behavior post-COVID, and how in countries that had an easier time managing it, you're seeing a return to pre-COVID levels in the retail and services space. Like in New Zealand, that they're going back to the hair salon, they're traveling more. But the numbers, despite all this reporting we hear about people flooding back to airports and people traveling all that stuff, that in countries like the United States or in places in Europe, probably China I think you'll see this, you haven't seen a return. And they were calling it the hermit era. People have gotten more comfortable staying home and staying secluded and even subconsciously maybe a fear that they can't quite shake off of going out and doing those things. Okay. Well, if you're in a hermit era, what's going to play on your psyche the most? It's prices. And they are very high. This was in an article I read. A pound of baking costs an average of $7.08 in the U.S., 21% more than when Biden took office. The price of coffee beans has risen 33%. A gallon of gas is 72% more expensive. And this comes up all the time in my life. People talk about this all the time. So I think that, yes, we don't live in quarantine anymore, but that experience permanently changed people's behaviors in a way that I think that inflationary pressure is going to play an outsized role in how you feel about the economy.
Beth [00:14:11] And I think reinforcing that hermit era is the fact that when you go out, you are often having experiences that were not as good as the experiences you had before the pandemic. So many service industries are having a very difficult time hiring anyone, which means that when you go in it's slow or the service isn't great or the facility isn't as nice as it used to be. We get more takeout now than we did before the pandemic because we just see that the places are struggling. They're struggling to hire enough people to make dining in a great experience. And so I think some of those factors like-- I'm not avoiding public spaces by any means at this point in my life because of concerns about communicable disease. But I am avoiding some public spaces because I think that's just going to be hard and uncomfortable and why. And I can still support this business with my dollars by just taking it to go.
Sarah [00:15:11] I'm sorry that Taylor Swift is such a good example of so many things. I mean, I apologize to the universe. This woman is so good at her job. I'm sure Beyonce too. Like, people who crack the code, who found a way to not only bring it back, but make it better. Barbie comes to mind. Well, then you've got people back. Then you got people back in that pattern of behavior-- maybe it's not a complete pattern of behavior, but that's not true for all concerts. A lot of people canceled. Things got rearranged. The Chicks canceled. They were sick all the time. Bruce Springsteen canceled. So it's not true for everybody, but the people who figured out how to do that. I think that's true for movies and a lot of places. But yeah, I think you're right. I think it changed people or it became more difficult. And so that inflationary pressure is felt and we don't feel like we're getting anything extra out of it. I thought this was excellent. I felt like The New York Times stole our approach a little bit in this article because there was just this paragraph that was really like, "Let's talk about the emotional processing part of this" that I thought was so good. It was about inflation, obviously. It says inflation also contributes to a sense of powerlessness. Rising prices feel like something done to people rather than a problem they brought on themselves. And short of cutting their spending, individuals cannot do much about inflation. And I thought, is that not the gospel truth? That is so accurate.
Beth [00:16:37] That's the truth. I think we're also just reflecting on the parts of the bargain we've struck as Americans that we don't like. I was sitting with a friend at a church meeting on Sunday and there was some discussion about needing more volunteers, which is a perpetual issue for everybody everywhere, right? You try to do something good in the world, you need more people to help. And my friend leaned over to me and said, "Don't you think that some of this is just COVID?" Like, people did less during COVID. They liked doing less.
Sarah [00:17:07] They liked it.
Beth [00:17:08] And where you can cut out doing more, a lot of people are cutting out doing more. And there aren't many places where we feel like we can cut out doing more because we are so culturally ingrained to our strong work ethic. Our businesses are constantly asking for that strong work ethic. We as parents have a sense that we must be doing everything for the kids all the time. Even worse after COVID because we're like making up to them for what we feel they lost during that period. And so sometimes when I read stories about how unhappy everybody is with the economy, I think, well, I don't know this is about prices or the stock market at all as much as it's about like I don't like things in my life. I don't like that I don't have time to hang out with friends. I don't like that I feel I should be exercising more, but I can't figure out that with my work schedule. I don't like that the prices are higher and I can't do anything about it. I don't like that the country is spending all this money and I'm aware of all this spending, but I don't see the results in my life. I don't like that every time I'm trying to help an organization, all I hear is that everything needs more money. Even when you sit and agree with all the priorities that are being discussed in like a nonprofit meeting or a school board meeting or a church meeting, just hearing like, well, we need more and more and more everywhere is kind of demoralizing. And so that is to me, maybe the sense behind all of it. Just, hey, fundamentally, I'm not good with the society that we have built and everything in me rejects attempts to change it fundamentally. And this is part of what I think is so frustrating for the Biden administration.
Sarah [00:18:54] We're going to get into that. We're going to get into that. I do want to say this before we move on to Biden and the struggle to help Americans through this process. Some of this is everybody spent a lot more money on their houses and made them more comfortable and they just want to be there. Some of this isn't I'm uncomfortable with everything. I'm happy with everything. I think some of this is, I like being in my house. I spent a lot of money during COVID to make my house really great. Now I think that can be a dangerous instinct. I say that as a person who works from home and who spent a lot of time and energy and continue to, to always make my house comfortable and fun and easy to be in. But I do worry not just because of our attitudes about the economy, that this change in behavior is problematic because of the wear and tear on our institutions. I mean, and fundamentally, we all looked around during Covid and it exposed so many of the weaknesses and the problems. Some of the inflationary reality to me is like, well, things weren't as expensive as they should have been. I don't care if we're paying more for gas. I know that is so hard on people's pocketbooks. I know that is an extreme price pressure to so many Americans, and I don't want to downplay that. I don't want to downplay that because I can afford a tank of gas. But gas is expensive. It cost us so much. It cost us to drill the oil. It costs us to process the oil. It costs us. It's not a cheap thing. And I feel that about our food systems. They cost us. A pound of bacon has enormous cost more than even the $7 we're paying for it right now. Even interest rates. I don't think I like what free money did to the economy or to our sense of what things should cost, what things do cost. And so there's a part of me that's like I think the shift of thinking about it as inflation and more thinking about it as investment could be a helpful way to not only think about it as Americans, but maybe even help the Biden administration talk about it.
Beth [00:21:11] I think that's true for those of us who can afford the investment. It's unclear to me when I look at polling averages, who's responding to these polls. The polls reflect what I hear in my communities. But there are different literal and metaphorical classes of problems associated with high prices. And it is unclear to me how much these polls reflect people who cannot afford the tank of gas as things stand. I see in measurements of the success of pandemic era programs that we meaningfully reduced poverty. But meaningfully reducing poverty in the aggregate and on average doesn't reflect everyone's experience. And I can imagine that meaningful reduction in poverty doesn't feel as meaningful because of rising prices. So it's just hard to get out of my own experience in talking about these issues. It resonates completely with me to say there are some things that we just need to invest in and there are some fundamental shifts that have to happen. But I don't want to lose sight of the fact that what is annoying for me or what is even concerning for me when I look towards things like retirement is not the same for everyone. This sunk in a little bit over the weekend. I spent a day with my mom and aunt and we were talking about mortgage rates. And they both remembered the mortgage rates on their very first homes. And those rates were much higher than the rates today. Much, much higher. They would have been delighted to get what you can get today for a new mortgage. So it told me two things. One, that some of this is a matter of expectation and perspective. And we have been living very, very low rates for so long that our expectations have shifted. The window has adjusted. But the other is just we cannot discount how emotional it is. For my mom to remember 40 years later what the mortgage rate on her first home was, it's deeply personal. And I think that's why the politics of it are so complicated.
Sarah [00:23:30] So let's talk about that. Let's talk about that poll from The New York Times and what these economic numbers seem to mean for Biden's reelection chances.
[00:23:36] Music Interlude
[00:23:53] So the emphasis on emotion is very helpful to me, Beth. I'm really giving myself some pep talks around polling. Maybe it's just because I just saw Mean Girls. My favorite line in that musical is "When you're feeling attacked, that's a feeling, not a fact. That I thought, okay, here is the pep talk amongst myself about polls. Polls are excellent data about how people feel. They are not excellent data about who's going to win the election, especially not a year out. But the how people feel part is important, and we should pay attention to that. And so that's what I'm trying to do, instead of just kind of being like, it's so far away, I'm not going to pay attention to polls, I'm going to ignore them. I'm trying to say, what does this say about how people feel? And I do think these polls are very relevant to our discussion about the economy. For those of you who don't know, The New York Times and Siena released a poll that showed Donald Trump up five points, several points in many key states. And it also shows a drop in support among black and Latino voters for Joe Biden, which was a key part of his winning coalition in 2020. And when you scratch at the polls, what you see is a lot of economic emotion surrounding those polls. Nate Cohn wrote something about this poll and he said it shows voters frustration. It doesn't mean they love Donald Trump. They want to vote for Donald Trump. They're trying to express their frustration by saying, "I'll vote for anybody right now. I'm so mad about this economic situation." And that plays out to what you were saying, that means something different for different people. That could be inflation among black voters. It could be with Latino voters. This change in the job market and industry in rural areas, particularly around fossil fuels. So it can mean a lot of different things. But what that's showing us is there's a high, high feeling of frustration with the economy and therefore with Joe Biden.
Beth [00:25:44] And I think, unfortunately, our political class analyzes black voters versus Latino voters versus white college educated, non-college better than they analyze economic brackets. There are many wealthy black voters in the Cincinnati suburbs who I think feel differently about this than very urban, poor black voters. And so I'm trying to do a better job for myself, like stepping back to say which sorting mechanism might give us a clearer picture of what's going on so that we can better message to target address the very real concerns here. I also see in these polls a reflection of the fact that I think for the average person who is not following news and politics constantly, there is just a, like, are you kidding me sense that this election is likely to be Biden versus Trump. I just think people are in a state of disbelief. And I know that time is getting short for that to shift, but it doesn't feel like it's getting short. November 2024 feels like a really long time from now to most people. And so I think if you're being polled on something like Biden versus Trump and you just want to blow off some steam about the way things are, and in the back of your mind you think it can't be Biden versus Trump can it? I don't know what you're trying to say, but I can imagine you're trying to say a number of things other than we want Donald Trump to win the Electoral College by like upwards of 300 votes.
Sarah [00:27:25] Yeah. I mean, I think David Leonhardt did a really good thing. He was talking about what I mentioned before, that America doesn't invest in the way it used to in research and future oriented mindsets for a lot of different reasons. And Americans are worse off for it. It's not just the immediate economic impact of inflationary pressure that Americans are responding to. Our standard of living for a lot of Americans is lower. Our mortality rates are higher. People feel like they work harder. They don't make as much money, and they're dealing with massive problems like particularly drug addiction and overdose deaths that have gotten precipitously worse. Again, when you hear Oliver Anthony singing that song, that's why that song went viral. I work harder and it doesn't go as far. And they're not wrong about that. Even with this current moment when people are flush with cash. When we have a lot of cash, people don't need it explained to them and they shouldn't have to explain it that that cash doesn't go as far as it used to, and not just because of inflation. And so I think that sense of distrust is something I think we talked about a long time ago. How do you convince people these institutions are struggling and we have to pour money and our time. Back to even your volunteering question. We have to leave our houses and go get uncomfortable and invest and take some risk if we want to turn this around. Because what is the alternative? I read this list of Zoomer attitudes from a Zoomer. It was like an interview in Jonathan Haidt newsletter, and it was like, marriage is a waste of time. Religion is a joke. Being an American is embarrassing. Work, I want to quiet quite. Community, I can just hang out with my online friends. Then what are we doing? Okay, so we're just primary identity consumers? Well, that's why people are pissed off, because that's not even a great identity right now, because everything's so expensive.
[00:29:30] So I think if I'm Joe Biden and I say we're still in the long, hard work of restoring the soul of America, that didn't happen in four years. It takes an enormous amount of investment and it takes a belief and a faith that we can do it, that there is a future for America. I believe there is a future for America. I think Joe Biden believes there's a future for America. But that's a tough message coming from an 80-year-old. And I think that's what's really hard and that's the stuff that's hard to ignore. When you have 75% of people saying he is too old, I don't know how the Biden administration thinks about that. And that's why my thinking has even shifted about this recently, because I'm just seeing so many chess pieces inside the Democratic Party moving around in ways that make me think everybody's thinking this number is too high of people who just cannot with an 80-year-old. They want to can, but they cannot.
Beth [00:30:26] I have such a hard time with this because the most rational case I can make to myself about the next election right now-- and again, I am aware this is a case that is compelling to exactly no one. This is just me and the way that I think about things. And I have definitively learned in our eight years of podcasting that I am usually alone. The most rational case that I can make to myself about the next election is that the conditions of the world necessitate continuity. That it is not even about Joe Biden as much as it is about the administration. That this is not a time, even in the next year, it will not be a time when we need hundreds of consequential high level positions to turn over that we need months for people to be confirmed to those positions, that they need months to get up to speed on some of the hardest things that have happened in recent memory across the globe. So in my mind, stability is the right vote, even if I don't love everything that comes with it. And I think that case is so hard because of his age, because you kind of feel like you're taking an awfully big risk in the interest of stability. That's tough. That is really, really tough. And that's where I think, just personally, I wish that a lot of the energy and effort that is being spent right now by the Democratic Party to tell us all that, no, Joe Biden will be fine, would be invested in Vice President Harris. I know that it is an uphill climb for her, but she polls better than he does now. And I think that if people would get good and mad on her behalf, it would connect with a lot of people. All those profiles that came out of her a few weeks ago, I have never felt so defensive of anyone because it seemed to me that she was sitting down with reporters who spent their precious time with the vice president of the United States saying, "Why do you think people don't like you?" It was offensive. And that would connect with so many women. I understand how many women have been in the position of hearing like, gosh, why why are you so, fill in the blank. Why are you not enough this for people? And I kind of wish that there would be some confidence and some energy saying the Biden-Harris administration needs to continue now under the leadership of Vice President Harris with this running mate from this administration. We want to keep this going. We are doing good work and hard work, but we recognize that it's time for a transition in the leadership.
Sarah [00:33:20] I just want everyone to think outside the box. Look at all these economic indicators, Look at these polls. Look at all this traditional political understanding that's upside down, that Republicans are hawks, that the economy is good and people are happy. Okay, so let's just throw some shit at the wall, see what sticks. What if they came out and said Kamala is going to be the president, he's going to be the vice president because we believe in continuity and stability and we want to transition to a new generation of leadership? Because then that sort of solves your lame duck problem. And I understand that in this particular moment in history, because of everything you just articulated, Joe Biden is not exactly anxious to announce to the world that he's a lame duck. Get it? Got it. Makes a lot of sense. It's scary out there. That's not what we want. So just say she's going to be president and he's going to be vice president. I don't care. But something is happening. Look, I've been a Democrat for a long time. I spent a lot of portion of my life working inside the Democratic Party. Gavin Newsom, Pritzker in Illinois, even Dean Philips running. Something is going on. People are moving money around. Gavin Newsom went and met with Xi Jinping. He's debating DeSantis. Something is going on. And I don't know if it's just that everyone's looking at these poll numbers and thinking people do not want Trump and Biden because it's like this really weird game of chicken. The Republicans know that maybe, just maybe, the only person Donald Trump can beat is Joe Biden. And the Biden administration knows that maybe, just maybe, the only person Joe Biden can beat is Donald Trump. And so it's this weird like, well, who's going to pull the trigger first to say, well, that's going to be our president? I do think electorally there is less risk for the Democrats to say we're going to pick the next generation, and for Joe Biden to step back. But I think security wise, politically, that's a much more difficult calculus. Weirdly, on the Republican side, electorally, it's not as easily a calculus for them because they have a base that's so invested in Donald Trump. It's so weird. But for the first time in months-- and I have very little to go on except for my gut and my understanding of Democrats and their ability to move is wanting to keep a secret-- I feel since we're in a polling space here, a mathematical space with polling and economy, I feel like 20 to 35% less confident that Joe Biden is going to be the nominee than I did even a month ago.
Beth [00:35:51] I feel very confused by which part of my brain is doing wishful thinking versus living in the real world. It's part of why I try not to look at these polls and blow them off. I want to be confronted with information that troubles me. Just to be really clear about something that probably doesn't need to be said. It troubles me that any poll would show a race tight with Donald Trump versus just about anyone. That troubles me. I need to confront the information that troubles me, though. So I was thinking this weekend about the same thing like out of the box. I also thought about what if they just switched places? I thought about what if the Republican field so goes down in the early contest that Trump becomes inevitable and they put Nikki Haley on the Democratic ticket. What if the Democrats did the unity ticket concept? Because I do think Nikki Haley would bring in the tent that Democrats need to win the Electoral College. Now, this is also hard because turning out the Democratic base is so different from winning a swing state. And that's a problem that Republicans don't really have to confront in the same way.
Sarah [00:37:03] That's why they lose. It's not that they don't have to confront it. It's just they refuse to. And that's why they keep losing the popular vote.
Beth [00:37:09] That's why they lose the popular vote and still stay extremely competitive in the Electoral College and have a slight advantage some years in the Senate and are able to win the House. I'm glad I don't have to make the decision about any of this. As a voter, I do feel myself thinking the entire country seems to be rejecting what is the most probable outcome at this moment. And that's bad for us. That is collectively bad for us and bad for the American experiment. And surely as Americans, we are innovative enough to figure out how to run an election a year from now with two candidates that more people find broadly acceptable.
Sarah [00:37:57] Well, not to just fully connect this analysis and to turn it into a flat circle of confusion. But maybe it's not just the economics influencing the electoral prospects, but the electoral prospects influencing the way people feel about the world, a.k.a. the economy. Maybe there's just this sense of like, yeah, you're telling me things are going to be fine, but I don't feel that. My family group text somebody sent that dumb restaurant sign that people just fill in. And it was like, has anybody tried unplugging and plug in the United States back in again? And I just want to say I struggle because I see and feel the Malays and also fundamentally reject and not agree with it. I reject it. I think that there are many things going right in America. I don't think we need to unplug it and plug it back in. I think we will survive 2024, even if it is Biden and Trump. I think sometimes you have to hit rock bottom. And baby, that is our rock bottom electorally so that we have a brash, exciting, wonderful new generation of leaders. Maybe that's it, right? I also believe that Trump is showing up in the polls the way he is because people forgot what Donald Trump is like. And in a weird way, it's like this criminal and civil liability is making that possible. I don't know. It's super weird that him being held responsible in this fundamental way is kind of keeping him out of people's peripheral vision. News wise, I don't think that will remain the same, though. I don't think that will continue. Even if we don't get a verdict in Georgia, that is going to be a televised trial. He will absolutely violate some court order and talk out of turn. He's also off his game and saying weird things and misspeaking. He's grumpy. He's angry. That will reveal itself to people as the election gets more coverage and it gets in more people's faces. I agree with the analysis in The New York Times this morning that there is an anti-MAGA majority. I think it will grow the more coverage he gets in 2024. Now, I don't know if that's wishful thinking or me comforting myself, but I do believe a lot of that to be fundamentally true.
Beth [00:40:28] Well, I think Mike Johnson is quite bad for Donald Trump too. Because Mike Johnson, as the speaker, is this very extreme person in ways that the broad majority of Americans disagree with. And I think that the more that reveals itself, the worse it is for Trump. But the problem on the Biden side of things is that his age only goes one direction.
Sarah [00:40:49] Yeah, but so does Trump's.
Beth [00:40:51] So does Trump's. But Joe Biden is not going to be or seem younger a year from now. And there's nothing he can do about that, and that stinks. It also stinks that he ran saying I want to help get things back to normal. But a lot of components of normal are hard after abnormal. It is hard to have interest rates that are more normal after we lived on near zero for so long. It is hard for people to go back to the office after they stayed at home for a while. It is hard to have a president who doesn't communicate a lot after a president who was in our faces 24/7. He has normalized that use of the bully pulpit back to where it was. And people say, well, he seems meek or he seems weak or I don't think he has the energy for the position. And a lot of that is because he's doing what he said he would do. And where he's been transformational, it's in ways that people don't feel the benefits of yet, but they do feel the burdens of or at least the psychological concern about. All of those reasons are the reasons that I would give Joe Biden a very high grade as a one term president, as somebody who came in and said, "I'm just going to do the hard stuff and set it up for next time. I'mma take the fallout and do the hard stuff." Watching his popularity decline after he announced that he would run again, and watching how many people use a lot of words to, in effect, say, "I just think he's too old," I don't know what he does on the other side of this. And that is no disrespect to him as a person or as a president. I'm just trying to really contend with the facts as they exist.
Sarah [00:42:39] Yeah, it's so impossibly unfair. He's doing an exceptional job with this conflict. I know that many progressives are furious with him about his support for Israel, and I don't want to get into that right now. But I think diplomatically, I don't sense any unethical disdain or even disregard. I think him and Anthony Blinken are just weighed down with the responsibility and they are doing the absolute best they can. And I have read about the diplomatic cables. I have read about the DNC emails. I understand that their own employees have taken issue with the decisions they've made, but often that is the sign of leadership. Leadership does not mean everybody agrees with you. It means you follow the decision making, you follow the strategy, you follow the principles even in difficult times.
Beth [00:43:34] And, look, that's true putting the conflict between Israel and Hamas aside. The Biden administration to do that back to normal stabilization governing has led us to the highest domestic oil production ever in October 2023. We produced more oil and gas here in the United States in October 2023 than we ever have before. And they can't tout that as an accomplishment because so much of their base finds that abhorrent in the face of climate change. There are a number of places where they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. And the way you discuss your accomplishments and your record depends entirely on the audience you're speaking to. And people don't like that either. Then it feels like you're being lied to or you're disingenuous with someone. I mean, we've just made running for president pretty tough, to put it lightly.
Sarah [00:44:36] Listen, if Joe Biden was my grandfather. I would say, pop-- I love him so much. I feel that level of warmth and affection for him. And I would say "Don't prove this in an election. You're 80 years old. The benefit of age should tell you that history is the record you care about. History is the record you care about, and it will be kind to you.” I have almost no doubt about that. If nothing else happens, if he messes up from this point forward, I do think history will speak kindly of even one term from Joseph Biden. And I wish he could see that. I wish he could see that. I don't think he's blind. I don't think he is unself aware. I think he rightfully tells himself everything you said about stability. Everything he knows. He is talking to Netanyahu three times a week. He's dealing with Zelensky still. He's worried about-- I can get there. I'm not unsympathetic. I can't fathom the pressure he feels knowing that I am old, and that's why I'm doing such a good job at this. And no one seems to care. I get it. I get it.
Beth [00:45:59] Well, and also I listen to a lot of Bulwark commentary and they would say this whole conversation is fantasy. It's going to be Joe Biden. It's too late to make a change. So I've got to go all in on Joe Biden, because the most important thing is not re-electing Donald Trump. And I agree with that, too. I agree with that, too. The piece I would bring in that I think would also be very present in my mind if I were President Biden or his daughter or granddaughter, is that if he gets out, I do think because Democrats have not rallied around Vice President Harris the way that I think would have been prudent, then it will be an open race. And that is something that gets tough. It gets tough with the money and the timing and the calendar where we are. And I don't know that America is going to be generally more excited about Gavin Newsom or Pritzker or whoever emerges in that wide open race. And I think you have just a total disaster within the Democratic base over a bunch of white guy governors running against Vice President Harris. And so in that regard, how does he balance what these polls say about the entirety of the country versus what the people who are most invested in the political process see and do, and how they will react if he decides to come out of the process?
Sarah [00:47:18] Yeah, it's just hard. I just kind of want to be like, just think outside the box. I respect the Bulwark, but everything is in the upside down. I don't think you can say, like, this is a fantasy-land. Well, yeah. Look at the economic numbers. We live in some sort of weird disconnect fantasy-land in lots of ways. And I am really learning that so many things I learned and understood to be political realities are no longer true. I mean, hell, we had two popes for a while. Why can't we have a president as a vice president? Like that was weird, but we did it. I think we just have to understand and respect that the world is different. That is the thing we have not accepted with the economy. And that's why we're all so angry all the time. And I think the sooner the political class-- and that's what makes me think some of the political class is figuring this out because these chess pieces: moving people, writing checks to the mayors of South Carolina as the governors of Illinois, tells me that some people think the political reality is different now and the rules are different. Because the political reality and the rules before you would never, ever do that, ever. And so, I don't know.
Beth [00:48:34] Well, and I keep thinking about Mike Johnson's ascension to Speaker of the House because it is a genuinely remarkable thing. I do wonder if we are in a climate where you think less about a campaign and more like a product launch. And where it would be an advantage for someone to pop up at the last minute. That's clearly the No Labels calculus. They have floated out there for a while. Perhaps we'll have somebody get in late. And if you think that that's a strategy that could, in any universe, be successful, you're thinking about that like a product launch. And that might be right. Today that might be closer. Then months and months of Iowa State Fair and New Hampshire door to door and then South Carolina and then Super Tuesday, maybe that's right. I don't know. I feel a real sense of humility about this upcoming election because of everything that we've learned over the past couple of years.
Sarah [00:49:31] Well, and so maybe our posture is the posture we take at Godly play, and we say, I wonder.
Beth [00:49:37] I wonder.
Sarah [00:49:39] That's the posture I'm going to try to take around polling. I wonder. I would like to see Americans adopt that posture around the economy. I wonder. So continue to wonder with us here at Pantsuit Politics.
Beth [00:49:53] Let's keep wondering together is how [inaudible].
Sarah [00:49:55] A different approach to the news where we keep wondering together. Next up, we are going to talk about what's on our mind Outside Politics.
[00:50:00] Music Interlude.
[00:50:12] Okay, Beth, I have an idea. What we're going to do on the Outside of Politics is we're going to take, like, an amalgam of the holidays. You wanted to talk about holiday storage, which I think comes with Halloween. We wanted to talk about our Christmas card exchange. And I want to talk about this idea of Thanksgiving versus Christmas, and I want to smush them all together because that is in fact my actual strategy in real life.
Beth [00:50:42] Can you say more about that?
Sarah [00:50:45] Okay. For example, Erin in her email did a poll and she was like, do you protect Thanksgiving at all cost? Do you set it for Christmas the second Halloween is over? But there was a missing third option, which is the one I take, which is both.
Beth [00:51:01] I think both as well.
Sarah [00:51:03] Yeah, it's like breastfeeding and formula feeding, guys. It is a false dichotomy. Okay, we have been told a lie. We have perpetuated that lie that you must choose. And I say no. I currently have in my house gooseberry wreaths and pumpkins. Is someone going to come out and arrest me? No.
Beth [00:51:28] Yes, I both have a room full of wrapped gifts and addressed Christmas cards as well as a balloon display of orange and yellow ready for Thanksgiving.
Sarah [00:51:42] Exactly.
Beth [00:51:43] Why should we limit our joy at a time when life is hard enough?
Sarah [00:51:49] One hundred percent. Now, I will say Halloween is a deadline-esque place in my holiday celebration. I do not mix Halloween and Christmas.
Beth [00:52:03] Correct.
Sarah [00:52:03] But I do think we should embrace Fall as this nice middle ground transition. Fall harvest.
Beth [00:52:15] Well, nature does that. And I think the theme of gratitude easily spans November one to January 5th or so.
Sarah [00:52:27] Yes.
Beth [00:52:28] It is also the case that nothing is going to be normal during this period anyway. You are in a space where the calendar says something different is going on. If you decorate for anything at all, you're decorating in some way. The house isn't normal. The boxes are out for the things that you store the rest of the year. Which is a constant problem for me. I would love to decorate more, but I don't want to store any more stuff.
Sarah [00:52:58] Okay. This is the other part of this conversation that I think is vitally important for humanity. I don't want to be hyperbolic. Okay. I first have to tell you one of my favorite stories. When we bought our house, the one thing I was concerned about is that the attic was finished. It gave me enough bedrooms for my children, but it took away my holiday storage. And I was like, I'm going to have to keep my Christmas in the garage. Which is the worst case scenario for me personally. I don't want to do that. I don't like that idea. I'm not here for it. Okay. I have a lot of Christmas. I'm showing my friend Lacey my new house. We're in our bonus room. There's a closet. There's a cedar closet in there. And she's like, "What's this?" And she finds a door. And Beth, that was like the room of requirement. She finds this little latch in the back of the closet. She opens it up and there is extra finished attic space. Not very much, but just enough to hold all of my holiday decorating.
Beth [00:54:00] I saw you open that door the last time I was at your house. And I don't like to be a person of envy, but I did feel it. I liked just everything about that. The secretiveness of it.
Sarah [00:54:10] It's so secret. You wouldn't know. I didn't know.
Beth [00:54:13] The utility of it.
Sarah [00:54:14] Now, it's on the second floor. That is the only thing I would change. Really, you want your holiday storage on the first floor? But now I have a proliferation of men in my house, so I was like, everybody, get up. We're going to move all this where it goes in mere minutes. So I think the Halloween, Christmas thing for me is the storage situation is a little bit like Jenga in there, right? And so I have to put the majority of the Halloween, not Fall, away. And my family used to get very upset about the whole like, I can't believe you're putting up Christmas before we even had Thanksgiving. And I said to them, "You ungrateful beasts, do you know how much work this is? This is an enormous amount of work." And I used to kill myself to try to get it done because I wanted to enjoy it the max amount of time. So I try to get it up in like one or two days after Thanksgiving. And I was exhausted. And I'm like, I'm not going to do that anymore. I don't owe you people anything. And so now it is a slow trickle. I don't like to put out the Santas too soon. I don't like to mix Santa with the Fall. But the cedar, the garlands, the gooseberries, they can coexist. They can coexist. I think they can coexist. It's a slow trickle.
Beth [00:55:23] I've been thinking about whether I want to go ahead and get my tree out and not decorate it [crosstalk]
Sarah [00:55:28] Oh, I did that.
Beth [00:55:30] We have this calendar from church that suggests something that everyone should name that they're grateful for every day. It's a really fun list. It's things like a song that you're grateful for, a book that you're grateful for.
Sarah [00:55:42] Okay. I'mma need you to send me that list because of my current practice. I'm trying to do unexpected joys and gratitude.
Beth [00:55:48] Yeah, this would be a good prompt for you. I'll do that. And Ellen picked up the calendar and she said, "Oh, this is really fun." And so I thought, well, maybe I should just go ahead and get my tree out and we should hang our responses. And this could be our gratitude tree until Thanksgiving, and then we switch over to our Christmas decorations.
Sarah [00:56:06] Well, the most adorable part of everything you just said is tree. Singular.
Beth [00:56:12] No, I do just have the one tree.
Sarah [00:56:14] You're living a less than life. I don't want to be judgmental. You're living a less than life if you only have one Christmas tree. I have five full sized trees, one of which is 12 feet tall and a couple of mini trees. And yeah, they all go out. They're all sitting around my house, once plugged in on a timer. The other two aren't. Now one of those will be a real tree, so it's not out. You can't put a real tree up at the beginning of November, it will die and catch your house on fire. But the regular sized artificial trees, they're up. Listen, I like a tree with just lights on it. Why shouldn't I have a few weeks with the trees with just lights on it?
Beth [00:56:51] I love that whole journey for you. I have no judgment about it. And I also am not inspired to go get more trees for my house. I'm happy with my situation.
Sarah [00:56:58] Just the one tree upstairs. You have three family rooms. What if you watch a Christmas movie and tragically there is not a Christmas tree in the room you're watching a Christmas movie in?
Beth [00:57:11] Somehow I muddle through. I don't know. I feel the holiday.
Sarah [00:57:16] I don't know about that. I don't know about it. I'm worried and concerned.
Beth [00:57:21] I really enjoy just our one tree. I used to want to have more trees because there was a family in my hometown that had a tree in every room and they were decorated thematically and I loved it. And now that I am the responsible party on that, I'mma pass and just enjoy my one tree.
Sarah [00:57:37] Well, and I will tell you this now. I have a situation that I've had to really strategize around this year. Storage wise, decorating wise, I bought ornaments as souvenirs. What's happening now is they're really adding up on me, guys, because I don't even limit myself on a trip. It's not like I bring one ornament back. If I see an ornament and I like it and I'm out of town, it counts. See what I'm saying? Because ornaments are not expensive. You're talking about like a little $5 here. And then all of a sudden, you come back from a trip and you have like five ornaments and you're like, that's going to add up. And it has added up over time. And I put everything, including my sentimental ornaments, on a real tree, and it's not up for the job. Real trees are beautiful. They don't hold ornaments as well as artificial trees. It's just the truth. Don't DM me. Some I'm having to break them up into themes. It's a good thing I have all these other trees to spread them around on.
Beth [00:58:24] Didn't I solve this problem for you though?
Sarah [00:58:26] You did. Share this idea. It's very good.
Beth [00:58:28] Okay, I said instead of getting ornaments on your trips, get a bookmark. I love having a bookmark from places I visited. They're very small. Again, they are cheap. They do not take up much space in your suitcase at all.
Sarah [00:58:42] Because I love a mug, but they take up a lot of space.
Beth [00:58:45] And you can always buy an ornament from like a tiny, tiny shop. You know what I mean? And I like being in the tiny, tiny shop and buying something.
Sarah [00:58:54] It's a good idea you've had. I've also thought about going back to charm bracelets. I have the most amazing charm bracelet from high school, college in my early twenties. Because charms are easy peasy, teeny tiny. But I don't wear the bracelet. I'm a podcaster. I can't wear a loud bracelet. So that's a fundamental flaw with my charm bracelet plan. But I do really like the bookmark plan. And now we have gone very far afield from holidays, decorating and storage. But that's okay.
Beth [00:59:18] This is the risk of smushing multiple ideas together.
Sarah [00:59:21] That's right. I just got to smush them. But listen, you got to talk about all these ideas together because that matters. This sort of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, And the other place where this really set me free is when I thought about the fact that in Europe, because they don't celebrate Thanksgiving, they get a bunch more Christmas. And I was like, I will not be denied extra additional weeks of Christmas. So I put stuff up in beginning November and it does not come down till epiphany mid-January. Because I just love it. I love it so much.
Beth [00:59:52] Can I tell you about one more thing related to this amalgam? Because I feel like part of what I do poorly is think about Advent. I think about Thanksgiving. I think about Christmas. I struggle thinking about Advent beyond the Advent calendars, which I make sure I get for my people. So I've decided two things this year. The first thing is I want to think about the Christmas cards or the holiday cards, because I do receive cards that are not Christmas cards, but the holiday cards I want to think of as a piece of Advent.
Sarah [01:00:22] Okay. I like where this is going already.
Beth [01:00:23] Mentally I want to make that turn to like this is part of the waiting. Here are pieces of my people coming in, but we are not really celebrating yet. And I think that would be a nice shift. And I would like to reflect more on my cards. I'm trying to think about how I'm going to display them differently so I can really spend time meditating on the cards as they come. The other thing that I'm doing this year for myself as an Advent calendar-- because the truth is I don't want 25 of any one thing. There's just not a thing I like enough to want 25 of it.
Sarah [01:00:56] Well, they're not all like that.
Beth [01:00:58] I know, but I don't really want 25 little things. I just don't.
Sarah [01:01:02] Okay.
Beth [01:01:03] So I'm making myself a poetry advent calendar.
Sarah [01:01:07] I saw that and I do love that idea. I saw it on Instagram when you posted it.
Beth [01:01:11] Yes. A bunch of our listeners have sent me poems, so now I've got poems that I've never read before. I'm trying not to read them as they come in. I'm just copy pasting them into my calendar. It's very hard. I want to read them immediately, but I'm not because I'm saving them. So every day I get to open up a new poem and it's even better because there are poems written by our listeners. So there's like a warmth relationship around it. And I'm really excited about these ideas.
Sarah [01:01:35] Well, let me also recommend to you-- I think I've talked about on the show before-- December Daily from one of our executive producers, Ali Edwards. She's incredible. If you don't follow Ali, listen, I cannot go off on this because it will add another 20 minutes to this podcast and it's already very long. Ali's a genius. Just go look up. Aliedwards.com, you're going to see. But she does this incredible practice called December Daily. This is why Ali is a genius. It could be this whole spectrum. Like, you can be very involved, it can be very light, but it's just every day you're chronicling this time of year, which slows it down, which helps you capture it. Because I was having years where I would just have a couple of pictures from Christmas Day and I'm like I'm spending an enormous amount of energy on this time of year, and I should have more captured memories to show for it. But her emphasis is always on stories too. Like, what story could you capture everyday? These little things that happened during the season that if you don't write them down or if you don't take a picture, if you don't document them, you forget about these little things. Like the way you would decorate the Christmas cookies or the way your kids felt getting the Christmas cards from the mail. Just like those little things. So I think you should look into December Daily. I really do.
Beth [01:02:40] I like that idea.
Sarah [01:02:41] You can just do a journal. Like one year I did a journal, some years I just take one picture. Some years I've had whole entire scrapbook layouts. It just depends. But I love December Daily.
Beth [01:02:51] It's a good idea. I love savoring September. Just that framework made me approach the month in a healthier, happier way. And so I'm really going to work on Advent this year and having a posture about it.
Sarah [01:03:04] Listen, the reality is we're old and we have to find ways to slow down time.
Beth [01:03:07] It's true. I hate how much I feel the cliche, but it's just real.
Sarah [01:03:12] It's the work of being old. And that's fine. I'm not sad. I don't say being old as a pejorative. People always show up in my messages and be like, "Don't say, old lady. You're not old." I'm like, no, no, I'm claiming it. I think I love being an old lady. I'm probably claiming it a little earlier than most people would define me as that, because I think it's the best thing to be in the world is, in fact, an old lady.
Beth [01:03:34] Well, what a gift to enjoy your time so much that you want to slow it down. That's how I feel.
Sarah [01:03:41] Exactly.
Beth [01:03:41] It's a lot.
Sarah [01:03:45] What an episode. We covered a lot of ground here, guys. If you need a nap, it's okay. I think I do. But we did it, and I'm proud of us. And I love hanging out here with all of you. Okay. We do have to wrap up, though. Thank you for being with us today. We hope that today's show was helpful and that you'll share it with someone you love. Don't forget that we would love to see you in Louisiana or Mississippi later this week. We'll be back in your ears on Friday with a wonderful conversation with Jessica Gross of The New York Times about religion and the religious nuns and only in America. And we're sharing a conversation with Vanessa Zoltan about her book, Praying with Jane Eyre, and continuing that conversation about the role of religion or the absence of religion in our lives. So I can't wait to share that episode with all of you. Until then, keep it nuanced, y'all.
[01:04:35] Music Interlude
Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.
Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement.
Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.
Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.
Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family.
Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.