Joe Biden’s Memory, Mercy Ships, and the Super Bowl

TOPICS DISCUSSED

Special Council Robert Hur’s Report and President Biden’s Response
Mercy Ships with Dr. Mark Shrime
Outside of Politics: The Super Bowl

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.

Sarah [00:00:29] Welcome. We're so glad you're here. There's a lot of news from the weekend to cover, so that's what we're going to be talking about today. We're also going to share a conversation we had with Doctor Shrime of Mercy Ships. Mercy Ships is an organization that uses hospital ships to provide free surgery and medical training in regions where resources are scarce or recently affected by war. A conversation we felt was particularly relevant considering Israel expanding strikes into southern Gaza. Then, of course, Outside of Politics, we're going to talk about the Super Bowl.

Beth [00:00:57] Before we dive in, we'd love for you to rate and review Pantsuit Politics on your favorite podcast player. That helps other people find us and know more about the community that we're building here. It takes less than a minute. We would really appreciate you offering up a fresh rating and review. Thank you so much.

Sarah [00:01:14] All right. Let's talk about Special Counsel Robert Hur, up next.

[00:01:18] Music Interlude.

[00:01:28] Well, Beth, Special Counsel Robert Hur released his report on the investigation into President Biden's handling of classified documents after his service as vice president. The report is getting a lot of attention not because Biden was cleared of all criminal wrongdoing, but because he called Biden, and I quote, "An elderly man with a poor memory and repeatedly made judgments on his mental acuity." Thoughts. Reflections. Ideas.

Beth [00:01:59] Well, I read much of the report over the weekend. In context, that sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory did not feel as harsh as it felt lifted out of context because the report was necessarily talking about the president's intention. Intention is an element of a crime, right? If he committed a crime related to classified documents, he had to intend to commit the crime. And so in context of this executive summary, which 100% says he did not commit crime and the charging decision was not a close call, we wouldn't indict him even if we could indict him under DOJ policy. It was like the cat in the hat. It was like we would not indict him on a train or with a fox or in a box. I mean, in so many ways, it's said this was not a hard decision. And then as you're going down why it's not a hard decision, including factual issues about whether certain documents were ever at his home in Virginia, you get to this part on mental state, and it says a reasonable juror would probably find him as we found him. He's nice. He's easy to talk to, but he doesn't pin down the details. And so it doesn't have that sting in the report that it has in the reporting about the report. Now, I do think that the report later on, way later on like in the two hundreds, talking about the president's inability to recall when his son died, I thought that was too far.

Sarah [00:03:43] Yeah.

Beth [00:03:43] And unnecessary to the conclusions of the report. But some of what the special counsel did here, I understand. I think that it was either done nefariously with a total media savvy or as a prosecutor, without the awareness of the media savvy that needed to accompany such a report. And I don't need to make a judgment about his good or bad faith to say it stings because it hits on something that is a thing.

Sarah [00:04:14] Every time we talk about President Biden, every time we talk about President Biden's age, I'm so careful. In fact, the judgment that I made months ago, is to say, "Look, I just have to trust him. I am not in his body. I am not, and nor will I ever be capable of making judgments about what he can do at his age." It's just not available to me. And so to a certain extent, I just have to trust him when he says I can do it because I'm not unhappy with the results of his presidency. I am not unhappy with his work under any rubric. I'm just not. I'm very happy with this administration. And so I just think I'm so careful. How could you be a prosecutor on either ends of the spectrum, in today, 2024, where you're either nefarious-- which I just guess I have to believe is not the case just to make myself feel better and sleep at night. But also, how do you find yourself on the other end of the spectrum where you don't understand the impact of these statements? And it does seem particularly in the body of the report there is a lot of judgment on something that you were not asked to make judgment on, which is his mental acuity, capacity and memory. You're not a doctor. You're a special prosecutor. You're supposed to tell us if this was criminal activity, which it was not. And so to spend so much time within the report and then to either be, like you said, deliberately ignorant of the impact of calling the current president of the United States running for re-election an elderly man with a poor memory, I don't know, friends. I don't know.

Beth [00:06:02] It's hard because it's not irrelevant. I think there were ways to write this that would have been more neutral, that his recall of the facts was slow or limited, right? [crosstalk]

Sarah [00:06:14] Every deposition of all time. I don't remember, I don't remember. Go watch some of the Trump kids or Trump himself. I don't remember, I don't remember. Can't recall, can't recall.

Beth [00:06:22] Well, and I think that there is a distinction to be made in, I can't recall because I'm an uncooperative witness and I can't recall because I don't recall precisely; and I don't want to say something untrue when I'm under oath. And the report goes to great lengths to say he was cooperative with this investigation. His team voluntarily allowed the FBI to come search his garage. He sat for the long interviews. I thought one of the gratuitous pieces of this report that was helpful to the president was the distinguishing between the Biden case of classified documents and Trump's case of classified documents. There was no reason for this special counsel to make any assessment or characterization of the Trump case whatsoever. And he did. So there's a lot in this report that's really, really good for President Biden, especially as it contrasts with Donald Trump. It's just that this touches the nerve that is the nerve of this election. And, honestly, his recall of dates and even the confusion in his later press conference, that kind of quick recall does not bother me because I, in my 40s, have those moments. A word doesn't come to me. I can't remember exactly when something happened. That's just a feature of age for all of us, and especially for people who are dealing with very weighty, consequential matters that take up a lot of brain space.

Sarah [00:07:52] Yeah. So let's talk about this press conference. He comes out, he's pissed. You can tell. How dare you speak of me. And he was very, very angry that they implied he didn't remember when his son died. And I would have been also livid. And then he took questions, which he doesn't do a lot. And you could tell because that quick recall is fading. That's something he struggles with. And I would think the stress of the job is playing even more on this particular skill. Again, not a doctor, just guessing. And I thought he was asked a question about Israel and Gaza. He responded. He confused Egypt and Mexico. Got the leader right. We got the country name wrong. And I thought a New York Times reporter, the best analysis, which was what's getting missed, is his answer was good.

Audio playback - Joe Biden [00:08:43] As you know, initially the president of Mexico CC did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in. I talked to him. I convinced him to to open the gate. I talked to Bibi to open the gate on the Israeli side. I've been pushing really hard. Really hard to get you monitoring assistance into Gaza. There are a lot of innocent people who are starving. A lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying. It's got to stop. Number one. Number two, I was also in a position that I'm the guy that made the case that we have to do much more to increase the amount of material going in, including fuel, including other items. I've been on the phone with the Qataris. I've been on the phone with Egyptians. I've been on the phone with the Saudis to get as much aid as we possibly can into Gaza.

Sarah [00:09:38] The big picture macro analysis of the role he's playing, what he can and cannot do, and what he has done in this situation, was on point and well articulated. But everybody gets wrapped up in the fact that he confuses Mexico and Egypt. Does anybody think he's actually confused about Mexico and Egypt? I hope not. I mean, I think a substantial number of Americans are motivated by partisan rancor and right wing media, but I don't think that's true. On this podcast all the time I'll-- whole pieces of analysis and have the person wrong, have the country wrong, have the leader wrong, have the leader in the wrong country. It's a big world. And so I think that part, like you said, it's clearly been affected by his age. But I don't think that's the most important part. I mean, I think it's tough because so much of the presidency is perception. We've been talking about this book that we both been reading. We're going have the author on later that gets to this, in particular with foreign policy. And that quick recall, I think, is a part of that, and people's perception of you and perception of your strength. And that's probably why he was so mad and why they did the press conference, which I couldn't tell you if it helped or hurt. But I think that the sense that people are trying to maintain neutrality gets at a bigger picture and a bigger problem, not just with the media coverage, but even I think with the Department of Justice. Which how do you treat both parties the same when one of them is Joe Biden and one of them is Donald Trump? When one person confused Mexico and Egypt and another person said totally and completely unhinged things about our NATO allies and deployed members of our military, I mean, what is the standard here?

Beth [00:11:15] And to go even bigger picture than that, I think that one thing to say about this weekend's events is that we really do live in a remarkable country when our attorney general, who's appointed by the president, can appoint a special counsel to investigate the sitting president. And that special counsel can release a report that says damaging things about the sitting president. They could have even said he committed crime and that President Biden responded, yes, angrily. And, yes, Vice President Harris accused him of partisanship. But they didn't say he was treasonous. They didn't throw him in jail. Robert Hur is not going to have to worry that he's going to be poisoned or murdered by the president of this country. And those are extraordinary things in the history of the world that I don't ever want to take for granted. That this investigation was allowed to proceed and that this report was made public. And, by the way, that Merrick Garland did not characterize this report in any way. He just put it out there. He did not Bill Barr this, there's a lot here that's really healthy and normal and good. And I don't want to lose those big picture things in the small picture things.

Sarah [00:12:27] Well, because it's not only extraordinary in the history of the world, it's extraordinary in the world right now. You have an election in Pakistan where the opposition party gained all these seats and the leader is in jail for a long time. Imran Khan's party gained a lot of seats and he is sitting in jail. The military has an enormous amount of power in that country. It has created lots of chaos. They have elections, but there's hands on the levers, there's foot on the pedals, there's weight in the scales, whatever metaphor you want to use. And that is the average. That is the normal around the globe. What we have here, what you see going on with this report is the exception, not the rule.

Beth [00:13:08] I think the press conference depends entirely on your view of the president going into it, and depends a lot on your own experience with aging. That's what I've really decided. You've come to this place where you said, "I'm not in his body. I don't know." I think I've come to a place where I've realized we cannot argue each other out of how you feel about President Biden's age, because how you feel about his age is a reflection of how you feel about aging yourself, and about the experiences that you've had of people who've aged in your life. I think that he is perfectly capable of answering the kinds of questions that the president has to make decisions about. I don't doubt that. Does that mean that he is what we would wish in a leader? For me, probably not. I did not like in this press conference that he threw his staff under the bus. I don't think that's good leadership. I did not like that he answered questions about Gaza in connection with answering questions about this report. I did not like how he did not really take command of the situation. He did kind of look like during the headlights as the press shouted questions at him. I don't like that his team's strategy is to sort of keep him out of those situations. I think we're at a moment in the world where the American president really needs to be able to clearly communicate to the American people what is at stake in these foreign conflicts and what is America's interests, and what are we doing and why are we doing it? I think we really need that. And I think that his team wants to portray him as a little bit above having to do that kind of conversation with the American people so that he doesn't get into these situations with the press. And I don't love that. But when we come back to the fact that an election is a choice between two paths, if our choices are President Biden, who allows this report to happen and be published independently; and former President Trump, who we know if such a report had been written about him, would have called for this person to be hung. We don't have to guess at that. We know because he's done that about other people. Then for me, that's not a hard choice. However old anyone is, that's not a hard choice.

Sarah [00:15:32] Yeah, and I think that's probably what his team is struggling with. Like I said, it's what the media is struggling with. It's probably what the Department of Justice is struggling with. That you have that exceptional section where they compare him to Trump, who is under criminal indictment for his handling of classified documents actively right now. I hear you say that and I think, yeah, we want his team to put him out there more. But you then articulated three very good reasons why they shouldn't. You didn't like that he looked like a deer in headlights, which I'm not [inaudible] something that they can effect. You didn't like how he took questions about a bunch of other stuff at the same time, which is a hard thing to control if you have total command of the room. I think they're in a tough spot. I don't know how you run against a former president who behaves in the way that Donald Trump does. Who stands up at a rally on Saturday, tells a story about a country in which he basically told a NATO ally, you.

Audio playback - Donald Trump [00:16:25] You got to pay up. They asked me that question. One of the presidents of a big country stood up, said, "Well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us?" I said, "You didn't pay? You are delinquent." He said, "Yes. Let's say that happened." No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.

Sarah [00:16:50] Not only is that stupid and offensive and dangerous, it's also just incorrect. That's not how NATO works. I don't believe that Joe Biden confuses Egypt and Mexico. I do, in fact, believe that Donald Trump refuses to comprehend and then integrate into his brain how NATO works, which is not a country club where you pay dues. It is, in fact, an alliance, which is not something that he is familiar with on the global scale or in his own personal life.

Beth [00:17:22] Yeah, I read this morning that, I think it was Tom Tillis was kind of defending these remarks by blaming Trump's staff for not educating him about how the NATO alliance works.

Sarah [00:17:33] Oh my God, you were president.

Beth [00:17:35] This man has been the president. If he doesn't understand this by now, and this has been a significant issue and a line he's used for a long time. The expenditure of funds by NATO countries is for their own defense. NATO asks countries to spend a certain percentage of their operating budgets on defense. And 11 countries, I think, actually do that, but not all the NATO members do. But, again, this is a situation that's not hypothetical. And to say, yes, I would encourage Russia to do whatever it wants when Russia is actively fighting a land war to take territory, what else is there to say? It is completely irresponsible. It's immoral. It's grotesque. It's willfully ignorant. And it should be just qualifying. And I'll tell you I think, Sarah, so much about how all of this to me comes back to the rot in Congress. I think Robert Hur's report probably bends over backwards to describe in detail fairly straightforward, simplistic matters, because members of Congress are just itching to investigate something new. Because Robert Hur has seen, as the rest of us have seen, the way that the Hunter Biden investigation has been conducted by Congress, the way that they've gone after prosecutors for not going hard enough at Hunter. The way that this Congress is totally incapable of stepping up and providing leadership on world affairs connects, to me, to Trump's statements. I would feel just so much better about this election were it not for the absolute bankruptcy of leadership unfolding in Congress right now. Because then you do have that foundational layer. You do have that foundational layer where you can say, well, Trump would be bad, but the Senate will keep things in check. It doesn't look that way now. Even when good things happen in the Senate, it's like they have to overcome. They have to move mountains to do the most simplistic tasks. And that is what is so unsettling to me right now. It's kind of the problem I've had with Trump since the beginning. I can accept that Trump himself is like what he is. It is really hard for me to accept that all of these other people are acquiescing and facilitating, and part of it too. And if really the American Congress is supportive of these remarks about NATO countries, we are in a world of trouble.

Sarah [00:20:24] Yeah. And I can't believe I'm about to do this, but it did feel like Mitch McConnell was articulating that in the most clear manner I have ever heard him articulate anything, particularly a criticism of his own party, though it's not his party anymore. When you're talking about moral bankruptcy, it is not all of Congress. It is the MAGA party. That is where the rot is. That is where the lack of moral leadership is. So on Super Bowl Sunday, the Senate came in session (pretty rare) to vote for aid, a $95.34 billion package for aid for Ukraine and Israel following months of delay. And when Mitch McConnell was talking about it, he said, "I know it's become quite fashionable in some circles to disregard the global interest we have as a global power to bemoan the responsibilities of global leadership, to limit the commitment that has underpinned the longest drought of great power conflict in human history. This is idle work for idle minds, and it has no place in the United States Senate." He described it as the dimmest and most shortsighted views of our obligations, which I appreciate.

Beth [00:21:29] I appreciate that.

Sarah [00:21:30] And I wish I had heard more of that from him sooner with regards to more things than this. Look, I hate Mitch McConnell, and I don't use hate. I try to stay in the zone of Nancy Pelosi. I try not to use the word hate, but I do hate what this man has wrought. But he is not stupid. What did you think was going to happen? Did you think that you would contain the rot that is Donald Trump to this one space when he's president of the United States, that it wouldn't spread to things like NATO alliances. It's not like he kept this a secret in 2016.

Beth [00:22:01] It's spreading everywhere, too, because when you look at the fact that Mike Gallagher is not going to run for Congress again, rising star.

Sarah [00:22:10] 39 years old. So young.

Beth [00:22:13] Very serious lawmaker from Wisconsin. He was chaired the select committee on Taiwan and China. He's not running again. Cathy McMorris Rodger is not running again. Kay Granger out. Patrick McHenry out. These people who were the leaders in the House not running again because it's miserable to serve in a conference that wants to do nothing but impeach people and investigate people. It's miserable. That's not what people went to Congress to do. The folks that we would want to be there, that's not what they went there to do.

Sarah [00:22:47] Let's fix and say this is what some of them are doing here.

Beth [00:22:50] And you see that it like is spreading everywhere. I read The Morning Today from the New York Times was about how the NRA is falling apart. We know that the Republican Party's fundraising is terrible, to the point that Ronna Romney McDaniel is stepping down. It is all destructive, and he is destructive on every scale. And it just blows my mind that we're here again where we're kind of going, "Well, he's very destructive, but maybe the Democrats need to change course on their nominee." I mean, again, I wish that President Biden had been a one term president. I do. I am concerned about his age, and I do not mock that concern in anyone. If this is the binary choice, it is not a hard choice though.

Sarah [00:23:39] I mean, the rot in the MAGA party is deep. Because he is the MAGA party and he is a rotten human being to the core. I don't mind articulating that about a person I've never met personally. I really don't. I've spent a lot of time reading a lot about Donald Trump and his life and his choices, and feel confident saying that it is rotten. It is rotten, and it only bears bad fruit. And you can see it in a million different places inside the Republican Party. And to pretend that this is some sort of reasonable choice between the two is outrageous. And everybody from the Department of Justice to the New York Times is going to have to figure out a way to articulate that over and over and over again. This man is dangerous and he cannot win. He should not be the party nominee. He is destructive to the party you claim to love, that you claim to be a member of. If you care about the Republican Party at all, you should want nothing to do with Donald Trump.

Beth [00:24:43] And there is still a choice out there. I'm so glad that Nikki Haley hasn't given up. I am so glad that what we talked about a few episodes ago is coming to pass. She is provoking this anger from him and he is dialing up his aggression towards her, and it is revealing of his character. Once again, these remarks about her husband speak for themselves.

Audio playback - Donald Trump [00:25:07] She brought her husband. Where's her husband? Oh, he's away. He's away. What happened to her husband? What happened to her husband? Where is he? He's gone.

Beth [00:25:19] You know what really makes me sad about Nikki Haley, Sarah? I have found myself on several occasions lately as I'm taking in a new story, I think, I wonder what Nikki Haley thinks about this. Because of her experience with the United Nations. I do think that I am craving what an election usually represents. That sort of contest of ideas, the real critique of the incumbent, the back and forth of competing visions, especially on these matters of foreign policy that are so difficult. I want to hear the other argument, and I think she has the experience to make it. And what a luxury it would be to have a Republican nominee where I think, oh, I'm curious about what you have to say about this and what we might learn from that, or what I might find persuasive in it.

Sarah [00:26:07] My friends and I were having a conversation about how what's lacking in our culture right now is not information. We have plenty of that. What's lacking is analysis, and I think presidential contests often provide that. It's not just a bombardment of information. There is a contest of ideas, there is analysis, there is debate. Sometimes they are better than others, sometimes they are deceptive, sometimes they are not actually what matters to Americans. But there is a debate happening. And since the 2016 cycle, because Donald Trump refuses to engage in any real intellectual exercise, there hasn't been a policy debate. There has been, I would say, if I was given an enormous amount of grace, a conversation around some cultural ideas. I mean, this idea that we should be isolationist, this idea that we have gotten ripped off in the world. But those are ideas. These are not policy debates based on any sort of real analysis of the information in front of us. Those are just tapping some feelings people have. And feelings are relevant, but they are not always reality.

Beth [00:27:12] The thing I would add to what's missing, I think analysis is a piece of it for me, but leadership is a piece of it too. I do want someone, anywhere to stand up and say, You may not like this, but this is the right path for it and here's why." And if I could give any advice to the Biden campaign team, it would be to figure out ways for President Biden to showcase that directly to the American people. I think he has provided a lot of leadership on the world stage. The results of that speak for themselves in terms of the way that alliances have come together around these really difficult global issues. The problem is for a person who doesn't pay a lot of attention, you don't feel the benefit of that, because that leadership he's provided has kept things from being worse than they could be. It hasn't made them go away. And I think that he really needs to be able to speak to the low information voter and say, "I know that a lot of what you see in the news right now feels scary. Let me explain exactly what's going on and how we're handling it, and why you can feel confident in our approach." Don't try to convince us that he's younger than he is. His age just is what it is. I don't need to see him on TikTok. I think that's silly. I think it's fine for him to say, yes, I am old. And I think what Joe Biden says about this is right. I am old. Let me tell you why that's an advantage in the world that you're living in right now. And just make that case.

Sarah [00:28:45] The tough thing is, if you want to reach young voters around TikTok, if you want to make that case to young voters, that's where they are. So I don't know if it's silly. I think it's strategic. Whether or not it will be successful, it remains to be seen. But the passive consumption of video on social media far surpasses, particularly with younger generations, anything they're going to get from like a nationwide address. Anything like that, that's just where they're watching. That's where they watch TV. That's where their TV is; on their phones.

Beth [00:29:15] I guess what I mean is I don't need him to do trendy TikTok things. I need him to speak to people and trust us to hear something substantive and real from him in an authentic way.

Sarah [00:29:28] It's a tough challenge. It's definitely a tough challenge. All right. The last bit of news we wanted to address is this weekend, Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will be expanding its military campaign in Rafah, where millions of Palestinian refugees have fled. President Biden and the global community have criticized this move, even with an evacuation plan, because anywhere Palestinians could possibly flee has already been decimated. And this lack of infrastructure, but particularly medical infrastructure, was on our minds when we recently spoke to Doctor Shrime, the International Chief Medical Officer at Mercy Ships, as well as a lecturer in Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. He is the author of Solving for Why: A Surgeon's Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of Purpose. Doctor Shrime spoke with us about how long lasting the impacts of wiping out a country's medical access can be, and how Mercy Ships helps countries rebuild their pipeline and medical professionals more quickly and effectively, while also providing care to countless people in need. We hope you enjoyed this conversation.

[00:30:23] Music Interlude.

Beth [00:30:35] Doctor Shrime, thank you so much for joining us. Will you tell the audience, in your own words, about this really unconventional, transformative way of practicing medicine that you've made your life's work?

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:30:46] Yeah, well, thanks for having me. In a few words. So I started my life as a physician, not because I wanted to be a physician. To be honest, I am the first born son of an immigrant family. So we get three options: doctor, lawyer or failure. And so I chose the doctor side, trained as a physician, did all of my training, went through medical school, residency, fellowship, etc.. I really didn't love it, to be honest. Did not enjoy that at any point, and tried to quit a number of times. Towards the end of my training in my fellowship, I took a year off and spent about six months living in Liberia working on a hospital ship as a surgeon. And I don't love the word life changing, but it was life changing. It literally changed the course of my career. So between 2008 and basically 2018 was a sort of 10 year long shift towards what I really wanted to do, which was work with folks in the most vulnerable of places. And because my training had been as a surgeon, therefore work as a surgeon with patients in some of the world's most vulnerable places. And, yeah, that's how I got to where I am right now. I'm the chief medical officer for that same organization that I worked with back in 2008, an organization called Mercy Ships. We deliver surgery itself, and also education, training and advocacy and research around surgery in the world's most vulnerable nations with the most fragile health systems.

Beth [00:32:13] Can you put some specificity to a hospital ship?

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:32:18] So we have two. One custom built and one that used to be an old rail ferry actually in Denmark, that had been converted into a hospital ship. So there are various sizes, but on each of the ships there's anywhere between 4 to 6 operating rooms, 75 to 150 patient beds. It's really is a ship that is a hospital. So those of us who work on the ship also live on it. It's a village in addition to being a hospital. So we live on the ship. The patients come onto the ship. We obviously screen the patients everywhere in the country that we happen to be in. But the patients come onto the ship for their care. So the surgeries are done on the ship. The post-operative recovery is done on the ship. If you need follow up afterwards, then we take care of that on the ship. Take care of your transportation to the ship. All those sorts of things. So it's really a self-contained unit. And generally we spend about a year in-country. We spent 10 months specifically in-country, two months of maintenance. And we shift countries every year. Occasionally, we will come back to the same country two years back to back, but usually it's a one year cycle. Now, I say that that's when our ships are engaged with the country. But I said earlier that we do surgery. We also do education, training and that sort of stuff. I didn't train to be a surgeon in 10 months. So we we engage with countries for at least five years. A couple of years before the ship is there, ship gets there, and then a couple of years after the ship leaves. And then there are some countries that we've been engaged in for far longer than that, because we have some projects that have really gotten legs, and we really want to keep investing and growing the surgical system in whatever area we happen to be working in that country.

Sarah [00:34:03] How do you begin to decide where to go?

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:34:07] As a ship?

Sarah [00:34:08] Yes.

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:34:09] It's a really good question. It's a multi-step process. We linchpin. We center that process on data. Now, data in the surgical realm, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South and Southeast Asia, but even in the U.S. Surgical data is much sparser than data in other medical realms. But we linchpin it. Publicly available measures of things like how many surgeons are there in the country, how many hospital beds, nurses, etc.. So what is the state of the healthcare system and specifically the surgical care system in the country itself? Our goal is to, as much as we can, target places where those numbers are the lowest. We also have the very real situation of being a hospital ship. So some of the countries in which those health systems or surgical systems are particularly fragile-- also, the ports can't take a ship like ours. So we've also had to balance what is our diplomatic relationship with the country. What is the stability of the government in that country? Has it just undergone a coup? In which case maybe we don't want to sail a big ship into there. So it's like constrained optimization. We try to optimize for the maximum impact that can be had within the constraints of diplomacy and safety and all those other things.

Beth [00:35:29] So you've acquired expertise about health care infrastructure, about diplomacy and its relationship to providing health care and aid. That brings us to Gaza, and I would love to hear you reflect on what the current conflict is doing to the health care infrastructure.

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:35:45] It's been fairly widely reported that the health care system itself-- let's not get into questions of intentionality or not, but it's been very widely reported that the health care system itself has been a casualty of this conflict. The last number I saw over the weekend was nearly 375 health care workers themselves had been killed in this conflict. That is a massively impactful thing to have happened. It's also the tip of the spear in that the infrastructure itself has been damaged, has been targeted, and very specific things like the solar panels on the hospitals have been targeted. So what this does is it is effectively intentional or otherwise actively weakening the health care system in Gaza. And what that means is that when this conflict is over, and there will be a day when this conflict is over, that has knock on definitely generational and potentially irreparable effects on the access to health care for Gazans afterwards. There are four basic domains of having access to care. The care has to be available, so it just has to exist. It has to be safe. You have to be able to access it in time and you have to be able to afford it. So availability, safety, timeliness and affordability. And all four of those are being impacted in the conflict in Gaza. So the fact the hospitals themselves have been destroyed is an availability issue. It is also a timeliness issue. The fact that the road systems have been targeted is a timeliness issue.

[00:37:32] The fact that you decrease the number of providers, places where the provision can happen means supply and demand, means that the cost is going to go up. To say nothing of the fact that cost of transportation is going to go up. And the fact that let's say the water, the suction, the electricity, all those things that you need to provide care safely are also being targeted, means the safety has gone down. So rebuilding a health care system after this, it takes more than simply just saying, okay, we'll just rebuild. They'll put up the walls, they will close off the bomb holes in the hospital walls. The whole kind of enterprise itself has been destabilized by this. The fact also that the people, the health care workers have died in this conflict. Generously, it takes 7 to 10 years to train a surgeon and multiply that by the number of surgeons who have been killed, the number of nurses who have been killed. You've got the simple like it's going to take a while, but then you've also got this sort of chilling effect potentially. Would I want to go into this now that I might be the target of the next time this happens. Once you start lifting the hood, it becomes a much deeper, much more intertwined conversation about what happens to the health care system. And then as a result, what happens to patients after that?

Sarah [00:39:01] Well, not even considering if you're a displaced person, you're in pursuit of this degree, then what happens? Or you want to pursue this degree as a displaced person or this training, how would that even begin? And that's what I want you to speak to. What does this look like in a very concrete manner to a civilian on the ground when the infrastructure is slightly damaged to completely decimated? What does that mean?

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:39:26] So let me tie back to sort of the experience on the hospital ships. As with any NGO, we show before and after pictures of the tumors that we take out, the burn contractures that are fixed, etc.. I work in the tumor side, so that's where I'm going to center this answer. The tumors that we take out are big. Without question, they are big. They're bigger than anything that I saw in my training. And that often leads to almost a feeling of exceptionalism that, oh my gosh, Africa has such horrible diseases. But that's not actually the case. The pathology of the tumors that I'm taking out is no different from the pathology of the tumors that I took out when I was a surgeon in the US. Exactly the same thing. The cells are the same. The difference is that if you or I noticed a lump in our face, we would be in the doctor's chair within the next week or two. And if we needed surgery, we would be in the operating room two weeks after that. Whereas, some of my patients literally have the tumor growing on their face for 30 years before they finally have access to any... And so when we talk about availability, time, and safety and affordability, all of those things are what that means is my patients-- and I very much suspect this is what's going to happen afterwards in Gazan patients. It's not like they are not going to know that the tumor is there, that they need X, Y and Z. It's that they will not have access to it. And as a result, as we say in medicine, the presentation will be later. They will present way later in their disease course than you or I would because we have access to present earlier.

Beth [00:41:07] I want to go back to the medical professionals for a moment because I know that you do some moral injury work, and we've talked about moral injury on the podcast, but it's been a while. So I'll just say for our listeners, moral injury is this idea that there's a very specific pain that accompanies not being able to live according to your own ethical code. And I think about that as you describe the attacks on the solar panels, for example, that if you are working in a hospital setting and you don't have the tools to do what you could do and you want to do for a patient in front of you, I would just love to hear you talk a little bit about how that affects health care providers.

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:41:48] Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. Moral injury is a topic that's gotten a lot of interest in the healthcare system in the US more recently, and especially around the Covid pandemic. That's when really we started talking a lot more about moral injury. It's not that moral injury didn't exist before Covid. It just got a lot more evident. As you said, moral injury happens when basically our work is asking us to do work that is against our values. So we're feeling this injury to our morals from this. And I'll be honest, when I speak to physician groups, this is a common thing that comes up. Just in the US healthcare system. We can dive into that, but moral injury is a part of what physicians-- at least what they're telling me is what physicians are experiencing in the US as well. But I think you're 100% correct in identifying that there's that almost despair of, like, I know how to do your surgery. I know how to do this. I am trained to do this. I want to do this, but I simply can't because there's another sort of intellectual framework around access, which is the space, the staff, the stuff and the systems. So I'm the staff who knows how to do this, but I don't have the staff or the space to do it or the systems in place to support me. And therefore, I'm going to have to watch you as a patient suffer, because I cannot do the thing that I have been trained to do. And as 100%, that's going to be an outworking of what's happened in Gaza. Really interesting.

[00:43:34] Going back to the Covid pandemic, if you look at what happened to medical school admissions in the Covid pandemic, you saw a massive increase in medical school admissions, something like 16% increase year on year between 2020 and 2021. It was called the Fauci effect. And it's this idea that those of us who are helpers want to help. So Covid happened, and oh my gosh, I am a college student. Not sure what I want to do. I can do something about this. I can be of use. 2020 to 2021, 16% increase. 2021 to 2022, 14% year on year decrease. Because the idea of what am I getting myself into? Look at how doctors are being treated and maligned and all this sort of stuff that is moral injury. That is undergraduates applying to medical school realizing, oh gosh, if I walk down this road, I'm putting myself at risk. And there are associations, correlations between moral injury and PTSD and depression. And we saw it in Covid. After the first wave, 1 in 5 clinicians met clinical criteria for PTSD. And we saw physicians running away from the health care system in the US and Covid exactly because of this. In 2021 alone, 117,000 physicians left the workforce. I am convinced that it's because of this disconnect between what we want to do, what brought us into medicine in the first place, and the reality of operating in that system. That is going to face the Palestinian physician at the back end of this conflict. It is absolutely going to face the person who is already in the medical system and the person who's considering entering the medical system after this conflict is over.

Sarah [00:45:36] So what do you see as the role of the international community of NGOs, of the UN? So we know that this is a massive problem, not just for the medical personnel on the ground, not just for the civilians on the ground, but for anybody concerned with this region of the world, for anybody interested in the rebuilding efforts.? What is the role of the international community when we look at a situation like this?

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:46:00] It's going to be a delicate balance. It's an unfortunate dichotomy, and I don't think it should be, but it's been dichotomised. There's this dichotomy that people talk about between what we call relief and what we call development. Relief is the understanding that after this conflict, there are going to be hundreds of thousands of patients who need care, who are not able to access it during the conflict. So there is an unmet burden of disease right now on day one after the conflict that needs to be taken care of, because not to find a point on it, if you don't take care of these patients, they will suffer and or die. And I hate to be so dramatic about it, but there is an unmet burden of disease that needs to be dealt with. And so that's relief. That's dealing with the current burden of disease that exists at the end of this conflict. The dichotomisation happens because there has been over the last few decades, a recognition that if the international community focuses only on relief, we will take care of the current burden of disease at the price of dependency. And I'm so glad that you asked this question, because this is a risk with the destruction of the health care system in Gaza. One of the risks when I said it could be a permanent destruction is because what could happen, what has happened in Haiti, for example, what can happen after this is the health care system in Gaza itself becomes absolutely permanently dependent on the international community and never rebuilds itself.

[00:47:29] So the flip side of that is development. Is to say, okay, there is a burden of disease right now, but if we don't go upstream and figure out the access, affordability and safety, etc., then the line will never stop. And there will always be this burden of disease. So we must go upstream and figure this out. And in the public health global health conversation, those two are sometimes pitted against each other. They shouldn't be. The answer is both. There is an unmet burden of disease that will exist on day one, which we must help deal with because the healthcare system has been destroyed. At the same time, if we only do that, then we also lead to dependency. There's a quote that I turn to all the time from Desmond Tutu, that says at some point we need to stop and just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in in the first place. What I like about that quote is that that tension between relief and development is in there. But he uses the word just. At some point we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. So we need to pull people out of the river because they have been knocked into the river by this conflict, and also figure out how to help Gaza rebuild in such a way that Gaza is rebuilt and the health care system is rebuilt, and not we as the international community can come in as some heroes to fix it. Does that make sense?

Beth [00:48:53] It does. And I think that's a great way for us to sort of wrap up. I would love to hear from your Mercy Ships work, what works? Because that seems to be your model, right? The cavalry comes, the ship comes for a year, and you do what you can do. But then the goal, I would assume, is that the ship not be needed again. So what is really critical to that model being successful that could be applied in Gaza?

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:49:17] I think that's exactly it. It's both. And one of the things that I really like about Mercy Ships-- I wrote a book a couple of years ago called Solving for Why, and I say this in there. What I like about the way that our approach is, is that we kind of stay above that relief development fray. We say, cool, let's do both. Let's sail the ship in for 10 months. Let's do the surgeries that are actively, acutely there. But let's not pretend that it's our only engagement with the country. Let's take the time to engage with the country, to ask the country, basically, what is it that we can do to help? One of the unfortunate side effects-- and global health as a whole has this tension-- it's that we think we know better, ignoring the fact that our health care system in the US that has its own issues. But we somehow think that we know better how to run a health care system. So we come in and we're like, okay, this is what we're to do for you. That's not the case. That's not what should happen. How would the health care system in the US or the UK develop? Instead, it is as an international community, as an NGO that works in surgery in sub-Saharan Africa, which part of your surgical system can we come alongside you, can we accompany you in developing? Leaving the agency with the countries that we are in, the countries that host us, understanding that they are hosting us and not the other way around. So similarly, it would be that sort of approach, that sort of accompaniment, that sort of come alongside approach to development, that as far as we know, from all the research that has happened, that's the way that it would lead to rebuilding in Gaza that will be permanent and sustained.

Beth [00:51:02] What does that coming alongside mean? Does that mean recommendations about what to build and where to put it and what specialties to offer? Can you give me some specifics on that?

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:51:12] Yes, I will give you one particular specific. So one of our ships right now is in Sierra Leone. And we are engaged with Sierra Leone for at least the next five years. And as always, potentially longer. The Sierra Leonean Ministry of Health, when asked which part of your surgical system would you like us to help you work on? They said anesthesia. I forget, there's like two fully trained, specialty level trained anesthesiologists in the country, and it has got like 15 nurse anesthetists in the country. Not enough. So they have said to us, can you help us with this nurse anesthesia cadre of people? Can we get that cadre of people bigger? And we said, of course, yes. One of our other ships is headed to Madagascar, and the Malagasy Minister of Health is interested in the surgical cadre of folks. And so the answer then is not, okay, we figured out anesthesia in Sierra Leone; we are therefore doing anesthesia in Madagascar. The answer is we particularly focus on education. So where can we bring our expertise and education to which part of your healthcare system that you need? So that sort of partnership. Does that answer your question?

Beth [00:52:32] I think so, yes. And I am just really curious about how that effort can unfold successfully in Gaza when it's an available time for that to happen.

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:52:42] Yeah. And it is that framework of space, staff, stuff, and systems. No one international body does all of them. So international body, they're really people who are really interested in the infrastructure development. Great. Those folks need to partner with other folks who are really interested in the staff, who need to partner with other folks who are interested in rebuilding the supply chain. Medicine is super complex. It is more than the doctor and the nurse and the patient. It is everything, the entire ecosystem that supports them. Some countries have a coordinating function in which they say, okay, this NGO who focuses on education is going to coordinate with this NGO who focuses on infrastructure. And that sort of coordination, whether it's done centrally by the country itself or whether it's done by the NGOs, it's the only way that can happen.

Beth [00:53:34] Well, Doctor Shrime, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us and for all the work that you do in the world. And I'll continue to hope that all of the different organizations that are going to be necessary to this effort can provide both the relief and the restoration that's needed here.

Dr. Mark Shrime [00:53:50] Yeah. Well, thank you all for having me. It's been great talking to you.

Sarah [00:54:02] Thank you to Doctor Shrime for joining us. Beth, there was a football game this weekend. Did you hear?

Beth [00:54:08] I watched it.

Sarah [00:54:09] I did too. I watched all of it. I watched the entire game. And my criticism of football remains. There's too much waiting. We get, like, 15 seconds of activity and we got to wait for everybody line up again, and then they fall down. And then we got to wait for them to stand up and line up again. And they fall down. Especially that first quarter. It was boring. I said what I said.

Beth [00:54:30] Well, I'm a baseball fan, so I can't be critical of the pace of football, but I did think the first half was slow and not super enjoyable. But I enjoyed the commercials a lot. I thought the commercials were pretty good this year.

Sarah [00:54:44] Well, I would like that we leave Jesus out of it.

Beth [00:54:48] Agreed.

Sarah [00:54:48] I do not like the Jesus commercials. I did not enjoy the AI images of people who should be hating each other washing each other's feet. It was overly wrought and dumb, and I don't think Jesus wanted to be a part of that. I don't speak for Jesus often, but I feel confident in this one. I loved the Dunkin Donuts ad so much I have trouble articulating. Now, have you followed this entire storyline in the Duncan's ad?

Beth [00:55:19] No. I don't think.

Sarah [00:55:19] This is a journey, and this is an epic three part story.

Beth [00:55:23] Oh, is it? I mean, I just enjoy Matt Damon from the Good Will Hunting era tremendously. So I appreciated that.

Sarah [00:55:31] And he made a reference. How about them donuts? Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Hilarious. Okay, so last year, Ben was in the Drive-Thru. Remember? He was taking people's orders.

Beth [00:55:40] Okay.

Sarah [00:55:41] In the Dunkin Donuts drive through. Okay. Then J. Lo comes through and she's like, "What are you doing?" And he was like, I mean, I just... Very cute. Hilarious. Then there's the second part where he's like, look, she came to my work. I need to come to her work. She came and showed up and everybody thinks I'm miserable. It's hilarious. Then so this is how we get to him and Jack Harlow in the car being like, "I got to go. I got to prove myself on her territory. She came to the drive thru with me. I got to come to the studio prepared with my Dunkin Donuts performance with Tom Brady." Who I don't usually like, but there is a hilarious outtake where they're throwing the football through a Dunkin Donut that everyone should go watch. Highly enjoyable. Just when he's like, "When I told you I'd do anything for you. This is what I meant."

Beth [00:56:29] That's the thing. I struggled to hang with all of that because I'm not a Ben Affleck fan. It's just not my thing.

Sarah [00:56:35] How? I don't understand. They are a pair, Beth. They are a pair. They go together. You can't love one and not love the other. They are a pair.

Beth [00:56:42] I think that Ben brings out the best in Matt and I appreciate that. But I'm not going to follow Ben alone. You know what I mean?

Sarah [00:56:48] Oh, I will.

Beth [00:56:49] Don't care about Ben and his individual career or Ben and J-Lo. I'm happy for them.

Sarah [00:56:53] [Crosstalk] All good things for them. Love them. And they love each other, Beth. They're really in love.

Beth [00:56:57] I'm thrilled for them. It's just not my jam. I want to talk about the Christopher Walken commercial, which I thought was hilarious. All the impressions, the bad impressions of Christopher Walken, I thought that was so good. I love that he was down for that. When you're able to laugh at yourself, you're ranking up high on my list.

Sarah [00:57:14] Exactly. And then, of course, we had the Beyonce Verizon ad where at the end she dropped the new music. Well, I went right to Spotify, but it was a slow trickle because then she released a couple images of herself. Then we got two new songs that have a very country vibe because she's been wearing that cowboy hat. She wore it at the Grammys. The cowboy hat's been out there. I did feel that a Super Bowl ad was a more appropriate place to launch new music. I said what I said.

Beth [00:57:41] I thought this was great. I mean, she is an artist. She knows how to do this. She knows how to make you excited. She knows how to build anticipation. She knows how to seize a moment. And she did it all flawlessly. That's her vibe. Always her vibe.

Sarah [00:57:55] Love it. So very excited. She's got new music coming out in March. Okay, then we had the halftime show with Usher; 12 songs he ran through. What do you think?

Beth [00:58:06] I enjoyed the spectacle of it a lot. So Ellen is my eight year old daughter. She sat with me to watch this. She had never heard of Usher. I wasn't sure what this was going to be. When he comes in with the circus like atmosphere and the marching band, I was like, he came to play. This is a halftime show. I dig it. And she said, "This is so fun to watch." Like she didn't need the nostalgia for it to be great. And I think that is the mark of a good Super Bowl halftime show, right? Where if you're in it for the nostalgia, you get what you came for. But if you don't know it, you can also be impressed. And I thought he pulled it off.

Sarah [00:58:42] Well, look, the bar was high. Does everybody remember when Rihanna was literally in the sky last year? I haven't really stopped thinking about it since.

Beth [00:58:49] While she was pregnant.

Sarah [00:58:51] While she was pregnant, which also gave me a little anxiety. I wanted to put the pregnant lady back on the ground. That was incredible. That's a tough act to follow. And I'm going to be honest, I thought it started a little slow. We were yawning in my living room. I was like, well, I need some energy because we had the performers, but it was a very tight camera and the songs weren't very fast. And then he sang with Alicia Keys, which was very slow, lots of R&B. Look, Usher is stupid talented. That's not even up for debate. He can dance, he can sing, he can do it all. Okay, but that first part where like, when is the fun going to start? And then the roller skates got my attention. I don't think we've had roller skates during a halftime show, and I liked that a great deal. I thought that was very, very fun. And then we got into the big club hits. That part was really fun, but I thought it was a little unsteady. It was a little uneven in the beginning, but I thought we finished strong.

Beth [00:59:41] I disagree, I thought it built very well and I love a marching band. He had me with the marching band. Also, Usher just has the appeal. I mean, the way that man sings and moves. My favorite meme that I saw last night was like last year Rihanna was pregnant at halftime; this year we're all pregnant at halftime. That was pretty good.

Sarah [01:00:02] I like it. Okay, so we come out from the half scores: 10, three, 13. [Inaudible] The 49ers were up. Felix was rooting for the 49ers. He was very invested. It was a very emotional second half because we went into overtime. Ultimately, the Kansas City Chiefs pulled it out 25 to 22. This is their third Super Bowl in five years. Only the second Super Bowl to go into overtime. And they got their second Super Bowl ring. And they wrote and they wrote.

Beth [01:00:37] Well, Maggie said it right. So she texted us if it's close near the end, the Chiefs will win because that's Patrick Mahomes super power. And that's correct. That man just wants to win football games. And when he decides he wants to win a football game, he will run it himself and he will do it. He will figure it out

Sarah [01:00:53] I was like, fine. I will just fight.

Beth [01:00:55] Yes.

Sarah [01:00:56] Get of my way. I'll just take it down the field.

Beth [01:00:58] And he did. And it's really fun to watch and it's hard to be mad at him. He's a good quarterback.

Sarah [01:01:05] Well, but it was interesting because I read what Maggie and Nicholas. And they put some data that his stats on these moments is not as high as you think it would. So I don't know if he just does it at the right moment when everybody's watching, but he did. He pulled it out. It was very exciting. I root for the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes not because I love dynasties, but because I just want it to be somebody besides the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. I really dislike Tom Brady, even though he did shine in that Dunkin Donuts ad. I don't like him. I would like someone else. Patrick Mahomes has a while-- I mean not that long. So Tom Brady has seven Super Bowl rings and now Mahomes has three. But he is 28 years old. That's the part that gets me about him 28 years old.

Beth [01:01:54] Well, they're already talking about next year. I mean he has a lot of football left in him that's for sure.

Sarah [01:01:58] Yes. They stood up there, which oh my gosh, I did not know his children's names were Sterling and Bronze. That's okay. Okay.

Beth [01:02:06] You can have one talent and it doesn't speak to everything. You know what I'm saying?

Sarah [01:02:11] Fair enough. Okay, so we made it this far. Now it is time to talk about Travis and Taylor. She made it there. She landed. There was an announcement that went out. Taylor has landed in Las Vegas. Just made it for the Super Bowl. She was there with Blake Lively. I thought Ryan Reynolds tweeted about did everybody see the Deadpool trailer? Also, does anybody know where my wife is? Because that's Ryan Reynolds. Can he just tell a joke? Can they tell a joke? So cute, so charming.

Beth [01:02:33] They seem so happy. Her hair, I love Blake Lively's hair so much.

Sarah [01:02:37] Beautiful.

Beth [01:02:37] I stared at her hair for most of the game.

Sarah [01:02:39] So we're up there with Blake. We're up there with Ice Spice.

Beth [01:02:42] Yes. Who seems not to know much about football.

Sarah [01:02:43] Lana Del Rey made it into the box. Yep. No, doesn't know much about football. That's okay. No judgment for me, obviously.

Beth [01:02:49] I loved the 87 necklace. I loved the 87 on the boots. I like Taylor's commitment to the jewelry to represent-- I think it's fun. I enjoy all of it. And there's just not a piece of it that I don't enjoy.

Sarah [01:03:01] My favorite was when there was a meme where it was like, she is also drinking every time she comes up on the jumbotron. And they showed her a couple of times. She'd look up, she'd see herself, she'd pick up a drink, she'd toss it back, which I thought was hilarious. My son's teacher assigned them the task of counting how many times they show Taylor Swift. I believe during the game it was six, including post game was a little higher. But within the confines of just the game, it was six. Now, what I noticed is they showed her when he was playing. If he wasn't playing, they couldn't justify showing her. They showed him sitting on the sidelines.

Beth [01:03:34] Chad said that really like one of these streaming services should have just had it split screen, the game half screen, Taylor's box half the screen. And I think that's correct. And we should just go with that. We should lean all the way in with this.

Sarah [01:03:46] We could have seen her introduce Paul McCartney to Travis's dad. What a universe we live in. But I was rooting for him. Felix was devastated. He wept. He was so upset that the 49ers lost. And I really wanted the Chiefs to win. And I told him, I was like, "Look, these two people are having very good years, Felix." This is some big energy, as the case may be. It's going to be hard to get in the way of Taylor Swift right now. The universe is on her side. All these 13 [inaudible], 49ers. I don't even believe in numerology, but just get out of the way, buddy. Just prepare yourselves. I think they're going to win.

Beth [01:04:24] Some forms of success have a momentum, and those two have the momentum right now. But what I am most excited for is that he's done now and he can go dance at her shows. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for him to be the cheerleader now, and I feel like we're going to get that and it's going to be so fun.

Sarah [01:04:43] I'm looking for him to shave that beard. First of all, I appreciate that it was some sort of playoff whatever. Fine. Let's trim it up. Trav, I want you to trim it up a little bit. I just told Nicholas, I'm like, "Can you imagine? Can you just for a moment think you've won your second Super Bowl in a row? You going up to $1 million suite with your girlfriend who's Time's Person of the Year and just won album of the year last week. Last week. What is happening?" Sometimes it felt like we were in a timeline where they were just throwing all the worst things and it was a simulation, and now it feels like we're in a timeline where they're just like, how ridiculous can we make this?

Beth [01:05:24] It is really fun to watch, and I have to remind myself that he's not my boyfriend. I don't have to like everything about him. Like I don't like his temper. I'll say it.

Sarah [01:05:32] That was not acceptable behavior.

Beth [01:05:34] I did not like the shoving of Andy Reid. I don't like it when he's thrown the helmet in the past.

Sarah [01:05:38] No, sir.

Beth [01:05:39] And if I were Taylor, I would need him to take the sunglasses off indoors. I don't like it. It's ridiculous. And I could not kiss him with the sunglasses on inside. But you know what? It's not my relationship. It's fine.

Sarah [01:05:53] I think there's a clubbing atmosphere you and I would be amateurs at, that sunglasses inside might be a more comprehensive part of.

Beth [01:06:02] Listen, worse than amateur. I understand that this is a scene that I am not meant for.

Sarah [01:06:08] I don't think I've been clubbing. Maybe in law school a couple times. I think maybe qualified. I don't know, probably stretch.

Beth [01:06:14] It's fine. I'm just saying again for me, I would need the sunglasses to come off. They aren't clubbing people either. Look at the two, they're going to be playing Scrabble soon. There's such jokes. I love that about them, I really do. And I just think the sunglasses inside is too much. But you know what? I'm thrilled for them. I'm so happy. They look so happy. It looks very natural to me. All of the people here were like, this is a PR stunt. Please revise. Look at them. They look thrilled.

Sarah [01:06:41] When he's like, hey, girl, put it in my veins. When she ran up to him and he was like, hey. I don't know if he said, hey, girl. There was a girly draw that happened that I really adored.

Beth [01:06:54] He was like, "Come here, girl."

Sarah [01:06:55] Come here girl. Yeah. Even better. Love that one. I loved it. And I love the club. Though what kills me about the clubbing is there is more footage than just at the Super Bowl after party of him dancing his face off to You Belong to Me. I'm like, why that one? Why is that the cheesiest of all? And even her, there's a picture of her like okay. it's so cheesy. Like do it in game. That's the sexy club song you should be dancing to with her there. Why? Why you belong to me, Killa Trav. Why?

Beth [01:07:28] I just think he's a simple man. If it's for me, it tracks for me. I think it has to be weird for her to hear that song remix for a club setting. But whatever I like how goofy he is. Listen, the imperfections in it make it all the more real to me. I also think it's a beautiful thing how his mom has embraced Taylor. All the pictures of them together, they just look delighted.

Sarah [01:07:53] Holding hands.

Sarah [01:07:55] And Scott was there, decked out in all his Chiefs gear that I do feel bad for the Philly fans. They got Jason Kelsey and Scott Swift, hardcore Philly people up there just fully decked out in Chiefs [crosstalk].

Beth [01:08:10] But Kylie comes through with her refusal to wear anything Chiefs and I think it's a beautiful thing. She seems great. Of all the people, she's the one that I'm like, I think we could be friends. I think you're pretty great.

Sarah [01:08:22] I love it, I enjoyed it. That's probably the first Super Bowl I've literally watched all the games. I was just invested in Travis, but it worked. If it is a psych up, it worked. Guys, I was already going to vote for Joe Biden, but the NFL got me. At the same time. I've really been convinced now by the listener who said we have channeled the tribal warfare in a healthier way. Instead of watching it through the lens of, like, this is so dangerous, I was watching it through the lens of, like, how dangerous could this be? And how hard they've worked to make it safer. I'm trying to sort of flip the lens through which I look at it, and that helped. Whether it's ethical or true or not, couldn't tell you. But I thought, okay, there is a way to look at this and say, like, look at how we've channeled this. Even him, the hottest temper moment was him being mean to Andy Reid, at which point I think he's probably apologized and gotten in big trouble over. It's not like he harmed him. I was trying to really kind of flip the script, so it worked. The Travis-Taylor storyline, who thought it would lead here. But here we are. We hope you enjoy the Super Bowl as much as we did, along with the rest of the Swifties. Even if you were there for the commercials, still so much to enjoy together, which we need more of an American life, I maintain. And we love it when you come here and process all of that with us. Thanks for being with us. We hope you have the best Valentine's Day available to you tomorrow. The best Valentine for us would be if you could write and review the show, or share it with your friends and family, if you haven't already. We'll be back in your ears on Friday, and until then, keep it nuanced y'all.

[01:10:01] 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. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. 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. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family.

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

Maggie PentonFebruary 13, 2024Comment