Trump Indicted for Election Fraud

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • The Latest Trump Indictment

  • Outside of Politics: Beth at the Disciples of Christ Conference

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] 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 [00:00:26] Hello and welcome to Pantsuit Politics. We are so glad that you're here. As you know, talking about former President Donald Trump is not our favorite thing to do. But it has felt all summer like special Counsel Jack Smith's office has been very pregnant with a very large baby of an indictment. And we've all just been walking around going, when was that due date again? And Tuesday evening the baby was born. So today we are going to talk about the 45 page four count indictment charging the former president in relation to the 2020 election. And then we'll take a very hard turn by talking about a church conference I attended this week. So we hope you'll stick around for that, whether you are very religious, not at all, or anywhere in the vast universe between.  

Sarah [00:01:06] Before we get started. A reminder that tickets for our Paducah Weekend go on sale to premium members starting on Monday, August seventh. That's this Monday, guys. I know it's hard to keep up with the days of the week right now before school starts. Last week, I asked a friend what day of the week is it? And she said it's July. So just mark your calendars each day. Next week, another tier of our members will get access to purchase tickets and tickets will go on sale to the general public on Monday, August 14th. We are so excited about this weekend. We procured a yoga studio for Beth's special yoga class today. It's going to be great, guys. There's a lot of information about it on our web page and in our shownotes today, so make sure you check that out.  

Beth [00:01:47] Next up, we're going to talk about that indictment.  

[00:01:50] Music Interlude. 

[00:01:59] Sarah, I thought we could begin by covering the indictment itself. But before we do, lest anyone believe that we are uninterested in Hunter Biden, I want you to know we covered it in detail on our premium show More to Say. We would love for you to listen. That is a pay-walled show. But Cynthia speaking my precise love language, wrote that that one episode was worth her $15 for this month. And I am so glad. I really did try to take a lot of care in saying, here's exactly what's happening. But we're not going to do that today because Hunter is neither a current nor former occupant of the White House, and he is not a candidate for the presidency.  

Sarah [00:02:33] Accurate. And an important distinction in my personal estimation.  

Beth [00:02:38] So we will turn our attention to now twice impeached, thrice indicted former President Donald J Trump.  

Sarah [00:02:43]  Thrice indicted.  

Beth [00:02:49] We don't need to spend a lot of time on the facts here because we were here. We saw them, and then we studied them through the January six committee.  

Sarah [00:02:57] I said on the News Brief it feels like somebody wrote a study guide for the January six committee report, only they took out the names, which makes it simpler but also more confusing. Because no one is named precisely in this indictment except for Donald J. Trump.  

Beth [00:03:10] And this streamlined it a lot. There is nothing in this indictment about Proud Boys or Oath Keepers. A whole lot transpired that is not in this indictment. I liked this description from Kim Wehle from the Bulwark. She said it's a play in four acts. We have act one, sowing the seeds of mistrust about the election and pushing on legislators and officials to change their votes. Act two is where we submit those fraudulent slate of electors in seven states. Act three is where we pressure Mike Pence to unilaterally change the results of the election. Act four, and I think this is the most interesting decision made in the indictment, that Trump not incited but exploited the violence that broke out on January six.  

Sarah [00:03:56] Well, and it's act two. It's the fraudulent electors that knocked me right off my seat during the committee reports. I remember vividly where they put the false elector documents up for us to look at. This is what a real one looks like. This is what they submitted. This is what a real one looked like, this is what they had. It took my breath away and I thought I did not understand the depth of conspiracy and fraudulent behavior going on behind the scenes. I really feel like they focused a great deal on Act two as it is.  

Beth [00:04:31] Because that is where you get away from the First Amendment wholly and completely. Jack Smith could have spent the rest of his life in court arguing about incitement under the First Amendment. Instead, he just went to the doing. What did that translate to? And if you need an example about this, if I wrote a bad check-- we used to write the checks, if you remember, to try and send money, if I wrote a check and did not have the money to back it up, and I went in to court about that and said, "But I sincerely believe that I had the money," it wouldn't be a defense. Or I told them I had the money. So I'm protected by the First Amendment. That wouldn't work. There is an act here of fraud in an official proceeding, and I think it was very wise to just tune down all of the noise where this could be extremely controversial and where it might have been worth the fight to just get to what we can prove, what we're sure about.  

Sarah [00:05:29] Before we talk about these players, the main defendant is Donald J. Trump. And the charges are conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy to violate civil rights. I really like this analysis from Rachel Weiner in The Washington Post. She said Conspiracies don't need to be successful to be criminal and perpetrators can be held responsible if they join the conspiracy at any stage. I think that's very important to keep in mind as well.  

Beth [00:06:00] Yeah, you have an overt act in furtherance. We have a lot of crimes that don't have to be seen through to the very end to be criminal, and that's what's going on here. So really factually, the only news we got in the indictment all came from Mike Pence.  

Sarah [00:06:17] Yes.  

Beth [00:06:18] I need to confess that I feel some very hardcore cynicism about the Mike Pence components of the facts here, Sarah.  

Sarah [00:06:26] Okay, say more.  

Beth [00:06:28] Well, Mike Pence had to be compelled to participate in the investigation. If you will recall, he would not cooperate with the January six committee. And when he received a subpoena from the grand jury, he litigated it.  

Sarah [00:06:43] Okay, I remember that.  

Beth [00:06:45] So he had to actually be forced to participate in this investigation. And then he sits for interviews, does whatever he does. He shares the contemporaneous notes he was taking throughout these events. My experience of taking a whole lot of contemporaneous notes is that it is typically because I don't trust something that's happening around me. And in the process of talking to prosecutors, what comes through in this indictment basically gives him a gold star again. And, yes, Mike Pence did the right thing. But to get into the indictment, the fact that Donald Trump said, "Well, you're too honest, Mike," it runs all over me. And, again, I'm thankful that on January six, Mike Pence did what he did. But to be completely uncooperative and then to still get to spin this in a very Mike Pence PR-friendly way, bothers me enormously.  

Sarah [00:07:43] Well, I would say that at this point in the Trump presidency, the contemporaneous notes and distrust were probably well earned. I bet he was taking this contemporaneous notes at the beginning of the Trump presidency. That's the rub for me. Where were you before January 6th? If you see so clearly, and had seen so clearly who this man was up close, how do we get to January six? Because you were the wash of evangelical goodness over that candidacy. You know it. I know it. We all know it. And I think that's what the rub is, is there's just no responsibility for that. And it's still hard to be mad at him. He's still the only candidate that's like, yeah, man, he tried to overthrow our government. That sucks. Don't vote for him. Okay, more credit for that. But it's just a hard pill to swallow. That, yeah, you did the right thing, but you were such a major component in getting us to this point.  

Beth [00:08:51] Well, he's not the only candidate. We do have Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson out there doing their best.  

Sarah [00:08:55] That's true.  

Beth [00:08:56] The other thing, though, is that we have all these Republicans now saying that bringing these charges is election interference because Trump is a candidate. And putting that aside, you know why these charges couldn't be brought sooner? Because Mike Pence was not cooperating. Mike Pence is pivotal to establishing Trump's knowledge and intention. And if you're going to convict somebody of a crime, you have to show intention. And if Mike Pence had come forward sooner, I bet this case would have been brought sooner.  

Sarah [00:09:23] A point of order, Beth. If Mike Pence had participated from the second they called his name, Donald Trump was already a candidate even at that point.  

Beth [00:09:32] Well, it's true. But I also wonder if Mike Pence had participated early on, if the Senate would have had to convict Donald Trump. I mean, part of what upsets me about the timing arguments here is that this would not be an urgent issue if the Senate had done its job. Legal accountability would still need to be there. We would still have to go through what I believe will be the true and fiery hell of this process. I'm not looking forward to a bit of this, but if Mike Pence had from the beginning spoken with the moral clarity that he is asking us to believe is present in him today, then I think the Senate would have been pushed to do what they knew was the right thing to do on January 7th.  

Sarah [00:10:13] It is such a difficult thing to watch the Republican Party respond in the way that they do over and over again. Even all these co-conspirators, which we should probably go through, whose lives are going to be ripped apart because you followed this man who does not care about you, who will throw you under the bus at the first opportunity. And all these candidates running against him and Republican officeholders who know that he has lost every election and has lost the Republican Party seats in every midterm election, still just keeps barreling forward. At this point, I'm like, "Is this some sort of mass hysteria?" I know there's all this polling on the loyalty of the base, but I'm like, "You guys, isn't there a little bit of you that wonders is this a chicken or an egg problem?" If you guys all turn against him, do you think that loyalty will stand? Maybe it will. But are they going to kick you all out at once? I just don't know what is happening?  

Beth [00:11:16] Well, let's do talk about the co-conspirators for a second. They are not identified in the indictment, but there is plenty of detail for us to know who they are. co-conspirator one, none other than formerly America's mayor, Rudy Giuliani. We just had a brief discussion before we started recording about Rudy Giuliani and how something has broken in him. I just don't even know what to say. co-conspirator number two, John Eastman, who wrote a whole bunch of memos. John Eastman, a lawyer who somehow did not understand that some ideas we don't put in writing when we're floating them, kicking them around.  

Sarah [00:11:50] And sign our name too. Right.  

Beth [00:11:51] Co-conspirator number three, who gets the crazy treatment in the indictment is Sidney Powell. Number four is Geoff Clark. He is the guy who tried to become the acting attorney general. This, to me, is one of the most egregious people in the whole story because it is about pure ambition. Number five is Kenneth Chesebro, who I knew was going to end up probably in jail at some point, just from the way Liz Cheney would pronounce his name during the January six hearings. She said Kenneth Chesebro with such disdain, you could tell that she knew that he was sunk.  

Sarah [00:12:28] And I'm with Liz. He's actually one I reserved a lot of my ire for. Because it's just so snarky your desire to violate the law and upend a legal and fair election. Even if you'd been a little more serious about your attempts, I think I might have less disdain for you. But he's doing it and laughing the whole time.  

Beth [00:12:50] And laughing as they actively discuss in writing their knowledge that this will lead to violence.  

Sarah [00:12:58] Yes. And it's illegal. It's mind blowing, really.  

Beth [00:13:02] Then we have co-conspirator number six, who's been the subject of a little bit more debate at this point. The New York Times believes, based on email correspondence referred to in the indictment, that it's Boris Epshteyn, which is a name that might be less familiar to people than others. But he is described as a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors.  

Sarah [00:13:22] There's been a lot of people who are like, it's Ginni Thomas. I'm like, y'all are just reaching--  

Beth [00:13:26] That's the fanfiction side of this.  

Sarah [00:13:28] That's the fanfiction version for sure.  

Beth [00:13:30] So four counts, as you said. I thought we might spend a second on what's not here, Sarah, because Jack Smith did not throw everything at the wall in this indictment. And I also think it's probably important to say for now, because as we've seen in the classified documents case, Jack Smith isn't done. He is trying to move with haste and he is willing to come back and add charges where he sees fit.  

Sarah [00:13:54] Which I appreciate. I think that's the proper strategy. As I have said repeatedly, Jack Smith distinguishes himself with excellence because how else are you going to distinguish yourself if your name is Jack Smith?  

Beth [00:14:07] I think it's always worth remembering that Jack Smith is a political independent who spent his career much of it prosecuting war crimes at The Hague. This is not a Democratic operative.  

Sarah [00:14:19] No.  

Beth [00:14:19] So the January six committee recommended additional charges that are not here, making a false statement, conspiracy to make a false statement, aiding an insurrection. Lots of commentators have suggested that Trump be indicted with incitement to violence on January six and seditious conspiracy. Again, I just think it's worth saying if this were a witch hunt- just to grab a random phrase out of the air- there would have been a lot more charges here.  

Sarah [00:14:46] Yeah, and I think it's hard. Listen, would I like to see [inaudible] conspiracy on this list? I would. Just personally and emotionally I would like that. But I don't have all the facts and neither do all these commentators. Jack Smith has them all. And even though this leans so heavily on everything we learn during the January six committee, that committee in a legal proceeding of this magnitude are very different. And there's still going to be testimony that they could not compel before the January six committee that Jack Smith absolutely can. There will still be more things that we don't know, maybe don't know yet. Maybe we'll learn in the future. And so, I do trust him, even if the longings of my heart are a little bit different.  

Beth [00:15:31] Well, and I just have to remember over and over-- I'm practically writing it on my wall-- the criminal legal system is not built to answer political questions.  

Sarah [00:15:39] Yeah.  

Beth [00:15:40] We just have to keep them separate. I think it's also worth remembering that we have no idea what the game plan is around these co-conspirators who are referred to in the indictment. They could be cooperating. They could be getting pressure to cooperate. Charges against them could be coming down the road. But the election pressure made them go ahead with Trump before they were ready to bring other cases. There are people not referred to in this list of six who may have criminal exposure. Mark Meadows comes to mind..  

Sarah [00:16:09] Right. And there's lots of speculation and analysis that Mark Meadows is cooperating at this point.  

Beth [00:16:13] There are those members of Congress who were integral parts of the Geoff Clark situation. In reality, if we're talking about just the moral case here in the political case, Donald Trump had like a thousand co-conspirators in all of this. It's really bad how many people whose names we know participated in this, and that's not the tip of an iceberg of names that we don't know. But this is what they have focused in on for now.  

Sarah [00:16:41] And I think the other really important component of this that's interesting to talk about, especially because Jack Smith made it so explicit in the indictment, is that there is a First Amendment component that they fully expect him to lean on in his defense. I think he's already telegraphing that he's going to say, "It's just what my attorneys told me to do. Can't be mad at me; that was my attorney's advice." But he says explicitly in the indictment, he had a First Amendment right to lie about the election. He did not have a right to interfere with the processes beyond his reasonable and regular legal system options.  

Beth [00:17:17] I really lingered on those sections of the indictment when I was reading it. Something that I have said several times and will continue to say, it's just a little reminder to myself mostly. We cannot write laws that protect us from people who don't care about the country or who will always prioritize themselves over the integrity of the positions of trust they've been elected to. We just can't. And seeing in black and white in a criminal indictment that we don't have a remedy. A president of the United States has a First Amendment right to lie to us, and we don't have a remedy for that at law. We only have the remedy of deciding that's unacceptable and enforcing accountability at the ballot box. And that is a tough pill to swallow.  

Sarah [00:17:59] It is. It's a tough one. So I thought that was an interesting part of the indictment. The other piece of this that's getting a lot of coverage, it's Judge Tanya Chutkan appointed by President Obama in 2014, confirmed 95 to 0 in the United States Senate. She has been presiding over a lot of January 6th defendants and is known for being particularly harsh in her sentencing. Did I smile a little bit to myself when I read that? I did. No, I don't make any apologies about it. But she said in December 2021, it has to be made clear that trying to stop the peaceful transition of power assaulting law enforcement is going to be met with certain punishment. I like it.  

Beth [00:18:39] I struggle because we don't have a judicial system without confidence that people can go into court and draw any judge and get a fair shake. We don't have a legal system if what commentator after commentator is saying is true. I hate hearing reporters go, "Well, a D.C. jury is going to be a lot harder on him than a Florida jury." Our system doesn't work if that's how it is. People go into juries every day in this country and vote in ways that do not match their partisan affiliation. They do it every day because when you get in the room and you look at the specifics of a case, it compels you again to act on something greater than your personal interests. Every single day that happens. And so, I really am discouraged by the coverage of both Judge Chutkan and Judge Cannon and the fact that every time now we just reflexively go, "Well, here's the president who appointed them," because we think that gives us information about how they're going to handle something. It's more fair to me to say we know how this judge feels about January 6th because she has written extensively about it and had lots of opportunities to opine on it and has imposed sentences. I think that's fair analysis. But I just want to be really careful in how we talk about especially district court judges who are in the trenches of these cases and make so many decisions of consequence that we never hear about in the details and jurors. I just want to operate with more respect for our system than a lot of the first analysis is offering it.  

Sarah [00:20:21] I think this is really tough. I caught on the same annotation you did in the New York Times indictment where they made note of the Washington, D.C. location and the highly Democratic registration in that area. I did not have as visceral a reaction as you did. I thought about why, and I think a couple of things. One, I can't speak for The New York Times. I wonder if this new approach from them and other legacy media operations, it's worse if we don't acknowledge what everyone is thinking. It's worse if we don't say who they're appointed by, so then people have to dig it up and they feel like we've kept something from them. Well, you didn't want us to know that Obama appointed this judge. Like, you didn't want us to know the politics of this judge. Because I think the difficulty of our system is that for years we pretended that neutrality is this instinctual reaction or this baseline. And I don't really believe in neutrality. I don't really think it exists, even with the best judges. I think you're always bringing your very human experience in existence. And I don't really know the path forward, I'll be honest. I know that it undercuts this objectivity and the trust in the system. But I wonder if it's just because we need to do what we do here on Pantsuit Politics and say we're not neutral. This is where we're coming from.  

[00:21:46] There was a great podcast, I don't remember who was doing it, but they were picking at this. They were picking at judges were never neutral. Of course, they're not. They're affected by if they're hungry, what time of the day it is based on how hard of a sentence somebody gets. So how do we deal with that? How do we build trust by acknowledging that and moving forward? And, look, do I think that the January six indictment of Donald Trump is a good place to figure this out? I do not. I do not think this is a great place, but I can see it. If I squint, I can see, well, I do agree that I'd rather you just say it than someone look it up and think you kept it from them. But I also don't want people to think they just make political decisions. And so maybe the answer is to be more upfront and transparent. It's like maybe we need more stories of people who'd say, "I got in there and I thought this is how I would feel based on my politics. And the facts got in front of me and I thought that's not what's going on here." Maybe we just need more transparency around the full and complete process and not just the beginning who appointed them, and the end the verdict.  

Beth [00:22:50] I don't disagree with anything that you said there. What upsets me the most is that we operate without any context for the rest of the system. We take that as the total story about these folks. Even talking about the timing of these trials which we talk about in the media in terms of gaming out the impact on the election, it misses the fact that these charges have been filed in different jurisdictions. Those courts aren't coordinating with one another. Those judges have to manage their own calendars. And on each judge's calendar is a lot of cases-- not about Donald Trump. And a lot of cases where criminal defendants have been waiting months, if not years, to go to trial. And a lot of cases where people are incarcerated while they're awaiting trial.  

Sarah [00:23:35] And they're dealing from backlogs from Covid on top of everything else.  

Beth [00:23:38] That's right. And under-funding and staffing shortages and complexity elsewhere, the system is bigger than Donald Trump. It's bigger even than the 2024 election. And I think that's what bugs me. It's why I really try when I'm covering the Supreme Court, for our listeners, to talk about cases that haven't been written about, because it is important to remember that the Supreme Court decides a lot of stuff that never makes it into the newspaper. And so, I just want to remember as we are taking in this trial-- and it's not the first time we've done this. You and I lived through O.J. Simpson. We have a tendency to really dramatize especially trials. All courtroom drama is captivating for us, where we have a million TV shows about it. And it is such a tiny slice of the overall picture that we're getting. And so when I read, "well, this jury is likely to be less friendly," I think, man, what a disservice to the whole.  

Sarah [00:24:35] Well, and I think it's hard because it is both true that he is a part of a big system and also he is getting special treatment. Do not go tell your conservative relatives he's being treated like everybody else. He isn't and he shouldn't be. He shouldn't be. Of course, we're going to have to treat this differently. It's never happened before. This idea that they're like-- it's really hard because I think the argument that they are targeting him politically is not true. And also, politically, the reality is he will be treated differently because he's a candidate for president and a former president. Both things are true. And you can still have a fair process and a fair outcome with both of those things being true. And I know that is a difficult tension for people to hold. I get it. But that's the situation that Donald Trump and his behavior has put us in from the very beginning, where we have to look at someone who says, "I'm going to do what you tell me I can't do, and I'm not going to apologize for it." And do I think we've quite figured out how to deal with that yet? Not politically, certainly not from the Republican Party. I'm hoping the justice system paves a path where we can say this is how we deal with someone like this politically, legally, culturally, because I don't think we've cracked that nut yet. We have not cracked the nut of someone as famous and powerful and politically impactful as Donald Trump, who just says, f*** it and I'm not going to apologize.  

Beth [00:26:03] I was not going to talk any more about Hunter Biden, but that brings Hunter Biden to mind for me. Because the Republican response to this indictment hinges on what about Hunter Biden? And the idea that we have this two tier system of justice. They are pumping that into the water. Two tier system of justice. Well, that is nowhere more true than it is around Donald Trump. He is going to receive special treatment. He probably will get a faster trial. He will probably get more serious consideration of every single issue he raises than the average defendant. It is also true in my mind that Hunter Biden is not being treated as the average defendant and cannot be, but not the way that they're telling the story.  

Sarah [00:26:48] Yeah.  

Beth [00:26:48] I think Hunter Biden has made a lot of mistakes. Big ones, bad ones, shady ones, greedy ones, some that spring from behavior that's a result of addiction. A lot is going on there. He is certainly not the only child of someone in this power to trade on the family name and to trade on access to power. And if our system were purely neutral, we would have an awful lot of people charged with behaving as an agent for a foreign entity without registering. We would have an awful lot of people charged with tax evasion. We would have an awful lot of people charged with buying a weapon and lying on the form that they completed when they bought it. In a neutral system, a lot more people are going to jail than they presently are. Hunter Biden's case was focused on for five years by a federal prosecutor because his dad happened to be the president.  

Sarah [00:27:47] Yep.  

Beth [00:27:49] If that were to turn to neutral application, I promise there would be children of Republican members of Congress swept up in that net too, and more Democrats as well. That's not a partisan thing. It's a people thing. And you're right. Our system, I don't want to pretend there's something magical about it or neutral- there never is. It is built on discretion and judgment and, yes, politics too often. And also our visceral desire for vengeance and retribution. There's a lot going on in it. So nothing about this will be normal. It is also just important to realize we don't want to break something else in service of Donald Trump.  

Sarah [00:28:32] Well, and I think that goes to how do we talk about this and how do we move about in the world with our loved ones who maybe disagree with us or people in our communities who disagree with us? And we have to stop treating people who support Donald Trump, even to this day, as if there is something broken in their brain for one reason and one reason only, it's not working. We live in a democracy that is a game of persuasion. So if this indictment raises all kinds of anxiety for you about the 2024 election, let's use that in a positive way. Shaming the people who give you anxiety about this election will not persuade a single person. Y'all, we've been trying it since 2016 and before. It doesn't work. I want to do things that work. And so, I hope, pray every day that Republican candidates for president are thinking this way more than just Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christie. I even thought, man, all of all the people who left the Republican Party because of Donald Trump, should they go re register in the primaries, so there is an aspect of reasonableness and that primary is not driven by a base that does seem to be blind in a lot of ways? 

Beth [00:29:49] I'm going to do that. P.S.  

Sarah [00:29:51] Okay. Tell us about that, Beth.  

[00:29:52] Music Interlude.  

Beth [00:30:02] Our deadline in Kentucky to register with the party in order to vote in its primary is December of this year for the May primary that will take place here in Kentucky. I am currently a registered Democrat in Kentucky. Because we have closed primaries, you must register with the party or you cannot vote and you must register in advance. It's not the same day situation. But I thought about where can I do the most good in this upcoming primary? And because of both the presidential election and the state of my local elections, where we don't have Democrats competing to be on the ballot, we're lucky if we have a single Democrat running for every office. We usually do not. I'm going to go in December and change my registration to Republican so that I can participate in the Republican presidential primary.  

Sarah [00:30:45] Do you want to go back to no shouting, no insults, point of nuance?  

Beth [00:30:48] No, I don't. That is not a branding decision. It is a strategic decision.  

Sarah [00:30:52] No, I think you're right. I thought about that. And I've been a Democrat since I was 18 years old.  

Beth [00:30:57] Now, this is the thing. Where I have a sense of fear or anxiety, the best question I can ask myself is what can I do? And, unfortunately, there's not a lot that I can do because I don't know anyone who still loves Donald Trump, who is very interested in what I have to say about him. So what I can do is make donations to try to help some of these candidates who are being honest to get on the debate stage. And I can re-register and I can vote in the primary. And those are the contributions I can make. That is what I can put in the river at this point. And so I'm going to do that.  

Sarah [00:31:30] Can I say something, though? None of us might have a lot of people in our lives that are interested in what we have to say about Donald Trump. But everybody has people in their lives that are interested in what we have to say about them.  

Beth [00:31:46] 100 percent.  

Sarah [00:31:48] About them.  

Beth [00:31:49] Yes.  

Sarah [00:31:50] And that is where we have lost our way. We talk about each other as if we are evil and we are lost causes and we are shameful, hateful, ignorant, violent pieces of garbage. And I'm going to put myself out here a little bit and say that doesn't win elections. And so, if you have anxiety about all the polling that has come out which I hate and I think is stupid because it's August 2023-- but just the same, it's there, it's everywhere, you can't miss it-- then let's just do it differently. Let's just try something different. I mean, we can keep doing this and see what happens. I guess I'm not encouraged by the results so far of our little experiment in political discourse. And I don't want Donald Trump to win the presidential primary. And I certainly don't want Donald Trump to win the presidential election. I just think that the people in our lives who might feel set in stone around Donald Trump, if we could talk to them differently, we might be surprised by how that ultimately upends their feelings about Donald Trump as well.  

Beth [00:33:14] And it's not just the talking, it's the acting. I have more influence through what I do than what I say. Even with the job that I have, what I do and how I treat people and how I interact with them and how they see me participate in groups matters more than anything that I have to say at this point about Trump. He is a known quantity. I saw this writing from Damon Linker about the different responses that Republicans have to the indictment. And he talked about Chris Christie statement, which was all true, that January six is a stain on the country and that Trump will forever be disgraced by what he did that day. And Linker wrote that Chris Christie statement isn't intended to persuade anyone. It's a sermon for the faithful in a dramatically shrunken church, the contours of which almost perfectly match the shape and extent of the Democratic Party electorate. And I think that there is truth in that, and also that it misses how powerful it is when someone in the in-group turns to the in-group and says, we have a problem here. And I think what Chris Christie is doing is offering some permission to other members of the in-group to say what the vast majority of the people at the top of that in-group believe to be true. So I don't want to have a nothing matters posture about this.  

Sarah [00:34:38] Well, and that just brings together a lot of threads. The church part brings together what we're gonna talk about next, which is your visit to your Disciples of Christ Convention and some thought process we've both been having about church. To me, it makes me think of that polling about climate change that Republican's ideas and opinions about climate change, even as they experience extreme weather are hardening. So let's not even talk about 2024. Let's talk about this extra essential threat that we are all facing. And the way we are approaching this conversation is not persuading people. We need to persuade in the face of this threat. And I think that unless we can just break loose and kind of white board it a little bit-- because what calls for a whiteboard moment if not the indictment of a former president, current presidential candidate, for trying to overthrow our government? If that is not a whiteboard moment for American politics, I don't know what is, y'all. I really don't know what is.  

Beth [00:35:37] It is a unique moment in history. It is one that we will continue to talk about. We are going to be discerning as we talk about it to try to figure out how to give you context without playing into the soap opera of it all. And figuring out what this means to us, what we want to put on that whiteboard is a community project that we're going to have to just continue to work on engaging in. Up next, we are going to talk a little bit about the intersection of religion and politics and how we both participate in churches.  

[00:36:08] Music Interlude.  

[00:36:17] I want to say at the beginning here that I hope this conversation is applicable to you, even if you are not a person of faith. We always intend to speak honestly and with particularity about our faiths, but not in a way that excludes anyone from the conversation. So, Sarah, I thought I could give you a couple sentences on what I did over the past few days, and then I feel like there are many directions it could go. So I do need your help in picking a direction. But I am a relatively recent ministry partner of the Disciples of Christ. It is formerly the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ of the United States and Canada) It's a mouthful. And that mouthful is revealing, I think, about the church itself. It tends to be a church that is very specific and careful with language, and that leaves a lot of space for congregations and individuals to have a bunch of questions and their own theological journey. So I found this church in 2016. I had not attended church for a very long time after growing up extremely involved in a Baptist church. I Googled women pastors because I thought if there are women preaching, it'll solve a lot of my other concerns. And I visited an Episcopal church locally which I really loved, but then found my home in Florence Christian Church Disciples of Christ, where I told myself that I was just going to go. Because I watched my parents be so super involved in church that they were making church, not just attending it. So I said, I'm just going to go. And that's all. And now I am the vice chair of the board and an elder and a voting delegate to the General Assembly. So there you are. And that's why I thought maybe we could talk about how this assembly worked on my capacity for enthusiasm, which is a goal of mine. We could talk about how we decide how much to get involved in an organization. We can talk about the politics of it. So you tell me where you want to go.  

Sarah [00:38:16] Well, it's so interesting because you were there reporting back primarily to our team on the political side of what was being discussed. And there was a lot more politics than I expected. It sort of surprised me the depth and breadth of politics at this General Assembly. But I think that's mirrored in a lot of denominations right now. And at the same time, this piece was going around from the Atlantic, the misunderstood reason most people don't go to church. And it's based on these two authors. And this book, The Great De-churching, and all these surveys that they did really asking people, "Why did you stop going to church?" And, yes, there was a proportion of people who stopped going to church because of abuse, because of abuse of power. But there was a large proportion of people who just kind of faded away. It wasn't political. It wasn't this grand fissure. It was, well, I was tired and I had kids and I didn't want to go or I'm working all the time and I didn't want to go and I have such little free time. If a friend calls, I'm going to go meet the friend. And then I don't want to go to church and say, "I didn't come last week because I went to brunch." And I thought, yeah, that's right. That sounds exactly right to me that our communities and our work and our culture is not structured in a way that supports something like going to church.  

And I don't think that people are not going to church because there's not enough politics or the politics aren't right. I think that's a lot of reason people don't go. I think there is a lot of people who are like, "You're not affirming and I cannot be here. You don't support women in leadership and I cannot be here." But I also think that if the community is right and supportive, people are willing to overlook a lot of things like that. And it feels like denominations on both sides of the political aisle are just dialing it up in an attempt to answer that and to meet this de-churching. And it feels like it's coming up a little short. This also aligns with something else we were talking about this week, which is news avoidance, that more and more people are reporting that news is not important to them and they're not going to watch the news. It's like the number has dropped below a majority for the first time. And I thought, that makes sense too. I just feel like that's all related. How we feel about church, how we feel about politics, how we feel about politics in church, how we feel about news, how we feel about each other, all of it, it's just all knitted together in this great big modern mess.  

Beth [00:40:45] I think that's right. The Disciples Church is very justice oriented, which translates to a lot of policymaking. We call them Sense of the Assembly Resolutions, which truly are just symbolic. They just mean these people gathered here at this convention have pronounced this thing. But congregations can still do whatever they want to do. But it's very justice oriented. And I sat there watching all this, trying hard to stay in my spiritual mode instead of in my political analyst mode. And I found that nearly impossible because it was a really fascinating thing to watch. And I did think about exactly what you're saying. If people could drop in on this, would it bring more people back to church? And I think the answer is yes. But would it keep them at church? Absolutely not. Because I think everyone is seeking relationship right now and you cannot use a policy or even a program necessarily to create the kind of meaningful relationships that make people want to regularly go to a place and contribute to that place.  

Because the contribution is required. It was not available to me to just go to church. It just wasn't. If you are going to actually be part of it, you got to be part of it. And that means giving. And most of us are not looking for another place in our lives where we're going to be asked to give money or time or leadership. We're just tapped out. And I think that's a shame. And I think what re-prioritizes it for you is when you find friendship. When you go to brunch after church with a friend because the friend is at church too. If you don't have that friendship at church, you are not going to come back. And I think that that's true about the news. I think people are opting out of news because they find it destructive to their relationships. If knowing what was happening and being informed brought you closer to the people around you, I think that everybody would be all in. But it's the opposite right now.  

Sarah [00:42:52] When we were in London, we attended a Holy Eucharist at Westminster-- just like the Vatican of Anglicans, which is what I am. I agree with everything you said about friendship and community, everything I said about friendship and community. And also, man, some of this has to be about God. We have to show up at church because we want to connect not only with the people around us, which I think is a source of higher power and higher connection, but also explicitly to be in communion with God. And, man, do you feel that sitting in 1000-year-old church with soaring ceilings and a massive choir. My friend Kate and I were there and the second the choir walked down the aisle, we just wept to sit and think, "I'm sitting in this place where for 1000 years people have worshiped is a profound experience." And they weren't just coming together to see their friends, right? They were coming to experience the divine.  

And there's a part of me, even reading that article and thinking about this, I think in an effort to not offend or exclude or to open up, it's like a little bit we've lost that. And I think people want that too. I think they want to feel the divine and they want to feel striving. They want to feel I'm aiming for something. And I don't know how in our modern life how we find that and name that without excluding, without some of the destructive tendencies. I'm not here to defend even the Anglican Church for the last 1000 years. It started with burning people. So not a great history all around those 1000 years, but it's a very human history and I think it continues for a 1000 years because there is a need there somewhere that humans have to connect with each other, to connect with something bigger than themselves. And I truly do not care where you find that. Truly and sincerely do not care what you call it, where you do it, how you worship. Do not care at all. But it is something that you can see, and when it's present and when it's lacking.  

Beth [00:45:12] Yeah, I should say, since I've talked explicitly about the Christian Church Disciples of Christ in the United States and Canada, that it also very explicitly does not care where you find that. It is a very ecumenically-oriented, interfaith-oriented church. We invited people to speak from all different denominations from all over the world. We had empty chairs for people whose visas were denied to come to this thing. It's a whole thing. It is a big, big, big table. A limitless table.  

Sarah [00:45:38] I do want to say it's not even that we don't care, because that is dismissive in a way I don't mean either. I am invested in you finding it wherever you find it. I love that for you. It's not even like do what you do and I don't care. That's not what I mean. I mean, please pursue it. It fills my heart with joy for you to do so wherever that leads you.  

Beth [00:45:56] Yeah. And we would say please sit at the table with us because we all belong here.  

Sarah [00:46:00] Yeah.  

Beth [00:46:01] I just think that getting to that spiritual realm is layered too. This is what the life of Jesus teaches me. That that's layered too.  

Sarah [00:46:12] Right.  

Beth [00:46:12] First, I show you that you belong and I eat with you and I befriend you. And then we connect to that next thing. I sat alone at most of the worship services at this assembly, and it was a very powerful experience-- quite different than being at Westminster. But a very powerful experience even in the Kentucky Convention Center, to be in a service with 3000 people as opposed to the maybe 40 that I am with on a Sunday morning. Very, very different. And very different because so many different styles of worship were represented. One of the ministers I talked about this on a More to Say episode began by saying that she brings her own amen corner because she knows how many of us are the frozen chosen and we don't respond in any way. I loved being in a room where people were talking back and where there was more aliveness. But then you got to be really careful with that because we are such a meta kind of culture. And definitely there are times when I have felt manipulated by the emotion of a church service, manipulated even by the music, manipulated by what felt like a fake aliveness in the room. And so, none of this is easy.  

None of it is perfect. We say every Sunday at my church that we are not a perfect place or a perfect people. And it's true. And I think that what I love about being part of this and why I have taken the steps to go deeper with it is because it's-- and you say this all the time, it's good for me to be in a place where I don't agree with everything. It's good for me to be in a place where things annoy me or go in a different direction than I would take them or take 15 times as long as I feel that they should take or whatever it is. That is the kind of formation and shaping that I think would help us navigate a lot of our political issues. And also it just makes me a better parent and a better friend and a better person and feeds everything else. Well, I thought we could end with something a little hopeful just to demonstrate how wide the spiritual realm is for me. I also listen to Astrology the Week Ahead from Chani Nicholas. And this week she said something that just struck me as exactly right for the week in which we got this very serious indictment of a former president. She said, "Yes, the world is a mess."  

Clip from Astrology of the Week Ahead [00:48:42] “Yes, the world is a mess. Check. What can we do? What solutions do we actually have and how can we collectively move towards them? What solutions are readily available or ones that we can work towards. And let's start at this moment. Let's stay strategic. Let's have some strategy so that we actually do win.”  

Beth [00:49:05] I'm just taking that energy into my week and hope that you all will too. Thank you for being with us today. Please do not forget to head over to our premium channels to get your Hunter Biden fix, to get your tickets for the Paducah Weekend to hear all of the work we do there throughout the week and be part of a really lovely community of folks. We'll be back with you in this feed on Tuesday. Until then, have the best weekend available to you. 

Beth: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director. 

Sarah: Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

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

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. 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. Danny Ozment. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago.
Beth: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.   

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