Taylor Swift, Barbara Walters, and Life Under the Spotlight

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Complimenting Both Sides: Mike Johnson Got It Done

  • Susan Page on Barbara Walters

  • Outside of Politics: The Tortured Poets Department

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EPISODE RESOURCES

Pantsuit Politics Slow Book Club Reading of Democracy in America

US House Passes Foreign Aid Packages on a Bipartisan Basis

The Rulebreaker with Susan Page

Taylor Swift and The Tortured Poets Department

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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] We're so glad you're joining us today. We have a great episode for you, one of our very favorite guests, Susan Page, Washington, D.C., Bureau Chief for USA Today and author, is back to talk about her latest book comes out today, The Rule Breaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters. I was thinking about this, Beth. I feel like Susan Page should get some sort of special jacket, like when you've hosted SNL the most, because I think she might be our most frequent guest.  

Beth [00:00:56] That could be. She's got to be up there with, like, Kerry Boyd Anderson on our foreign policy expert.  

Sarah [00:01:02] Yes.  

Beth [00:01:02] We should have jackets made. Little robes. I think that's a good idea.  

Sarah [00:01:06] Yes. I think we should make those. We're also going to talk about the new funding package that just passed through the House of Representatives. And of course, Outside of politics, one Miss Taylor Allison Swift, has a new album is called the Tortured Poets Department. Maybe you heard something about it.  

Beth [00:01:23] It's quite long.  

Sarah [00:01:24] It's long. It's an anthology. It's two albums, 31 songs. So we're going to talk about all those things today.  

Beth [00:01:32] And before we do, we want to remind you that this week on our premium channels, we're returning to something long material there as well. Alexis de Tocqueville's classic, Democracy in America. We are doing a slow read along of it this year because even from a view nearly 200 years in the making, Alexis de Tocqueville has a lot to say about what American democracy looks like in 2024. We put our first conversation about it in this feed last week, but our next conversation will be exclusively available on our premium channels this Friday. We would love for you to join us there as a premium member or, as like as we like to call it, a member of the Spice Cabinet. And you can do that through either Patreon or Apple Podcast subscriptions. All the info that you need to do that is in our show notes for every single episode.  

Sarah [00:02:12] Up next, we're going to say nice things about the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.  

[00:02:17] Music Interlude.  

[00:02:27] Beth, I warmed up on the News Brief. I said nice things about him on the News Brief. It was not impossible, but a little difficult.  

Beth [00:02:34] I watched, I thought you did a really nice job.  

Sarah [00:02:36] But, I mean, he just deserves it. He got this massive package across the finish line and this is really important. It's really, really important. And I also felt good because we were right. We said we think somebody put Mike Johnson in the room and scared the crap out of him. And it turns out that is in fact what happened. He met with the CIA director who walked him through the intelligence, and he was like, oh, this is wildly important. I want to be viewed properly by the history that's going to be written about the United States and their stance on the war in Ukraine and decided, okay, we need to give them this aid promptly. Well, promptly has come and gone, I guess, but we do need to get this aid to them.  

Beth [00:03:20] On one hand, it is globally mortifying that it has taken us this long and been this difficult to get here. But on the other hand--  

Sarah [00:03:29] I don't like the words globally mortifying together. It makes me sad.  

Beth [00:03:33] The most precise way I can think of to describe it.  

Sarah [00:03:35] No, it's right, it's just sad.  

Beth [00:03:37] But on the other hand, it is a tremendous thing to receive new information and change your mind.  

Sarah [00:03:42] Yes.  

Beth [00:03:43] To do that at the highest levels of government with this level of pressure surrounding you, to say to people you were once on the same page with, "We were wrong, guys, and we need to behave differently," and to actively pressure them. So I give him a lot of credit for this. I thought that he was really rolling the dice in a very sensitive situation by separating these bills. Turned out to be it a very good way to get this done and honestly, a good model. I think there's a lot more accountability and transparency in single issue packages that you vote on. So I really applaud him and I'm glad that this got done. And I hope the Senate takes it up and gets it to President Biden quickly.  

Sarah [00:04:28] Yeah, they're supposed to take it out today. But I think they're going to pass the Tik Tok Ban in the Senate. And then the president's going to sign it. And then Biden is going to have a year to sell Tik Tok. And I wasn't really ready. I was prepared for the Senate to stall. And I don't think that's going to happen.  

Beth [00:04:42] It's so interesting that President Biden's comment about this has been, "If they send it to me, I'll sign it." He's he's sort of like, "I cannot say a whole lot about this. It is an election year, and this is really tough for me electorally. But if that's what you all decide to do in order to do these extremely history changing aid packages, okay."  

Sarah [00:05:05]  Yeah. I don't know how it's going to shake out, but I know it's worth the gamble to get this aid to Ukraine. They are struggling. They need it desperately. The best thing I read was a foreign policy expert saying it's not too late. And I thought, thank God, because I was really worried it might be too late.  

Beth [00:05:21] When you read even cursory details about what these numbers mean, where they came from, what they're intended to do, it's hard to celebrate the passage of legislation that funds the making of weapons. Just on a spiritual like moral level, that's hard. But so much of this is for defensive weapons. It truly is just to allow people to hold their positions. And in Ukraine, when you read about what we're replacing that has run out and how many people have died because they ran out of certain artillery that we could be replacing, it's really tough. And I am glad that Mike Johnson has gotten the picture because can you imagine? Like being the speaker of the House who held this up for your colleagues, most of whom, if we put you under a lie detector, you would tell us you really don't respect. And then Russia not only triumphs in Ukraine, but moves into Poland or another Baltic state, and something happens that activates NATO Article 1, and suddenly American troops are involved. And you trace all that back to how you handled this legislation. I think somebody got through to him and I'm so glad they did.  

Sarah [00:06:45] Well, and it's just tough because this is basically a lot of money. It's like a $95 billion package, but 50 billion of that is just paying for things to replenish what we've used up here. And this is going to get spent down quick. We're going to be having this conversation again very soon because we stalled. And so it's going to be more expensive in the end. I think JD Vance is mildly convincing about this, except he ignores the fact that the more we stall, the more expensive it gets.  

Beth [00:07:15] And to the point about the money being spent here, another ethically dicey but very pragmatic side of it is that a lot of these weapons are manufactured here. There are American workers and American companies where this money gets spent and enriches communities, including in the districts of people who voted against this. The politics of it are very complicated. And I try to remember for myself. Honestly, I took a lesson from Mike Johnson this week because I thought we talk about foreign policy all the time. It feels like we have a lot of information, and what we really have is the same information repackaged a million different ways, but the most compelling information we don't get to see as a voting public and I don't get to see it as a political podcaster. And I just have to remember that.  

Sarah [00:08:06] Well, I thought about that with the Israel's retaliatory strike against Iran and how the white House didn't comment. Nobody said anything. Everybody was, like, just walk back quietly. Let's all move on and hope this doesn't spike. But that's not because there aren't things happening and being said. The silence is an indication of how much is being said that we don't know about, that people are worried about. Diplomacy is not like a talk show. Like it just can't all happen out loud in some view format-- since we're going to talk about Barbara Walters in a minute. That's not how it works. And when people are so, so sure of something as it relates to a foreign conflict, I just think, how could you be so confident? And, look, he not only changed his mind about this, but he did this in the face of complicated politics and a threat to his job. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, now Paul Gosar, are thinking they're going to build some support over this recess and they're going to come back and they're going to file a motion to vacate. And I guess we'll have to see what happens. I cannot fathom that they would do that. I mean, the off the record quotes from Republicans are like, who's going to come next? Nobody wants this job. Nobody.  

Beth [00:09:26] And a number of Democrats are saying, look, I disagree with Mike Johnson on almost everything, but he should not be punished for doing the right thing.  

Sarah [00:09:35] Yeah.  

Beth [00:09:36] We should not be a body held hostage by another ludicrous feud among Republicans, about how they want to get organized. We should just keep things as they are through the end of this term. We'll have an election, and then we'll figure it out again. And I think that is the mature posture to have about this.  

Sarah [00:09:53] Yeah. I mean, look, I know I'm a Democrat. I'm not exactly neutral on this, but I feel like the mature strategy the whole time has been the Democratic Party. Hats off to Hakeem Jeffries, who in the face of some real conflict within our coalition about Israel and Palestine, has held the minority together. And anything that has happened in this Congress has happened because the Democrats are so well led and well organized. And I really want that to show up in the election results. I want consequences for the Republican Party, for this chaos that has happened over this Congress.  

Beth [00:10:28] It's hard that some of the more esoteric, procedural things really demonstrate that maturity and that discipline, because those can't break through.  

Sarah [00:10:37] Yeah.  

Beth [00:10:38] But the fact that Democrats in the Rules Committee helped get this legislation to the floor at all, republicans weren't going to let this get to the floor at all. They were going to use the Rules Committee to block it from getting to the floor. And Democrats breaking a precedent from always-- like the minority party on the Rules Committee has never bailed the majority out like this. But at the moment it became clear that Speaker Johnson was for real on this, and that they were going to be able to get it across the finish line in a bipartisan way, those members on that committee stepped up and did something that their colleagues in the past have never done. That's a really big deal, and I hope somebody finds a way to cut effective commercials around that. I'm glad it's not my job.  

Sarah [00:11:25] Yeah.  

Beth [00:11:26] But it moves me that people are seeing it's an extraordinary time and it demands extraordinary things of us.  

Sarah [00:11:31] Okay. But what are we going to do if the Senate passes a ban on TikTok like for real, because I don't know what's going to happen.  

Beth [00:11:38] Help me understand the locus of your angst about that.  

Sarah [00:11:43] I just straight up didn't think it was going to happen. And I think now all of a sudden the criticisms are very loud in my ear that it's a dangerous precedent to set, to get involved in a private company like this. But also of the Mike Johnson posture. They are hearing scary things if this is worth them doing because it's going to be really unpopular. I'm worried about what it will do to the diplomatic relationship between the United States and China, which seems to be making teeny tiny amounts of progress. And I feel like this is going to blow it up. And I don't know, talk about something that we've never done before. I mean, I guess that's not true. It's not like with utilities and stuff didn't force people to sell off. And it's just feels very different.  

Beth [00:12:31] So I am really interested in the judicial side of this because you know that it'll go be fought in the court system.  

Sarah [00:12:39] Good point.  

Beth [00:12:40] And there will be a request to enjoin it while that gets sorted out.  

Sarah [00:12:46] Right. 

Beth [00:12:47] That will come at a time when the Supreme Court justices are, like, really talking amongst themselves in opinions related to other orders about the scope of injunctions, the scope of what they can do while a trial gets worked out. So we could be years away from even saying to ByteDance you have to do this, depending on how the court system handles it.  

Sarah [00:13:11] I bet that's what the Biden campaign is counting on.  

Beth [00:13:13] I bet they are, too. I share your concern about the diplomatic relationship with China. I'm really happy to see the pandas coming. I think there are some inroads being made, and I think we're much better off with a warmer relationship. Not a warm one, but warmer than it's been there. I also am concerned about what this being in the judicial system will do to our First Amendment doctrine, because I think there's a lot of room for this to be one of those hard cases that makes very bad law. So, yeah, it's risky, but a lot of the people driving this know that and still think it's worth the risk.  

Sarah [00:13:51] I know. That's what I keep telling myself. I keep telling myself like they have more intelligence than I do. If they think this is worth the risk, that it is politically really important. And then there's also this voice in my head that's like, just let it become a shitty product nobody wants to be on anymore. That's the safest path. But then I think, no, this gets us to a place where we can really, hopefully have a conversation and educate ourselves about the power of these algorithms and the power of the information gathered about all of us, and how that can be used by a foreign adversary. I don't know. It just all makes me very nervous.  

Beth [00:14:27] And then if I can just add to this pile of feelings about it, there is a piece of me that thinks it's a really good thing for our Congress to stand up to the public and say, "I know you like this. I know it's unpopular, but sometimes we have to lead and do what we think is right, even if it's not popular." I would love for us to have found that sentiment like eight years or so ago, but I'll take it and I would like to see more of it.  

Sarah [00:14:52] But I also think I totally agree. And then I think, is there no other way to get at our problems with this and to address our concerns besides forcing them to sell? Surely, that's not true.  

Beth [00:15:05] I wonder if that question would be viewed differently five years ago. I wonder if that is the best option today because we waited so long, even knowing that there were problems from the beginning? They waited so long it got so big and now what do you do?  

Sarah [00:15:25] Yeah, I've just got some, like, too big to fail energy. But that's like a failure in other areas. Not forcing them to sell is not the solution to to my "I'm terrified because it's such a big platform already."  

Beth [00:15:37] I think that it's so big, and that popularity ballooned at the same time that AI is just like taking off. And those two things collided in ways that maybe people should have foreseen but didn't-- or did, but not members of Congress. I don't know. There's a lot going on here, which is what makes it so thorny. At the end of the day, I would absolutely cast a yes vote on this legislation. I think that's probably the right thing to do. I don't know what I would do if I were a judge hearing the challenges to it.  

Sarah [00:16:09] Yeah, I thought I was and then it looks like they're actually going to pass it. Now I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I would vote yes if I actually was forced to, but it looks like that's what's going to happen today as this episode comes out. Is this all these bills perhaps could be rolled up into one vote in the Senate to get it to the president quicker. And so legislation that requires ByteDance to sell TikTok could be a reality by the time you're listening to this episode. If only we had Barbara Walters here to sit down with the CEO of ByteDance and ask him the hard, hard questions. That would be helpful right now. But alas, Barbara Walters is no longer with us. But Susan Page's new memoir examining the life and times of the iconic, legendary, groundbreaking, role breaking television journalist, is here to talk about her book. Up next, Susan Page.  

[00:17:01] Music Interlude.  

[00:17:08] Susan Page, welcome back to Pantsuit Politics. You're one of the OGs. You've been on this podcast a lot of times.  

Susan Page [00:17:14] It's such fun. Thanks for inviting me back.  

Sarah [00:17:16] Well, I don't know if it's me and I'm just a huge dork or you're just that brilliant of a writer. I mean, I know that second part is true, but you are like my Colleen Hoover. I'm like, when's the next book coming out? I'm page turning it. These biographies are so like-- I don't know. I'm just in it. I don't know another author where I'm like, when's the next one coming out? I mean, I harassed you about the subject. I was like, when are you going to tell us the new one? I'm ready for who we're writing about next.  

Susan Page [00:17:42] So first of all, you are a dork regardless of your views of my book. And second, look, the book is just out April 23rd. Let's give it a moment in the spotlight.  

Sarah [00:17:54] No, no, I wasn't going to ask you. I just mean last time I was, like, you got to tell me. You got to tell me. Because I do want to know why did you pick Barbara Walters? Because she's a little bit different. Less overtly political, for sure, than Nancy Pelosi or Barbara Bush.  

Susan Page [00:18:08] But you know what they have in common? All members of the silent generation, all born at a time when they had zero expectations that anyone would ever want to write a biography of them, and all of them just hugely consequential. So in that way they seem pretty different, but they're of a piece. That's why the subtitle of this book is The Life and Times of Barbara Walters, because the times plays a big part in her story.  

Beth [00:18:38] It was so striking to me to read that her mother never drove. That detail situates it in time in a way that I don't know that anything else could. So she was such a game changer in her industry, in part because of that background. The timing is a piece of it, but also her family history is a piece of it. For people who don't know anything about Barbara Walters, Sarah said when we were just chatting about it, for our age group, she just was. We didn't see her ascent. She just was Barbara Walters. Can you do a little thumbnail sketch of her childhood for us?  

Susan Page [00:19:10] What a bizarre childhood she had. I mean, really, her father was Lou Walters, who was one of the great impresarios of his generation. He created the Latin Quarter of the nightclub in New York. He hung out with the biggest Hollywood stars. But he was a gambler, and he would make $1 million and lose $1 million playing Gin Rummy more than once, over and over again. So they would find themselves living in a penthouse overlooking Central Park, and then they'd be in a one bedroom rental in Miami. And I think this is not really a recipe for stability in adulthood when you have a childhood like that. So her father, this huge figure but flawed, her mother always unhappy, and her older sister developmentally disabled, and this is the world in which she lived. A world in which Milton Berle would put her on his lap and tell jokes, but where she would never be confident that the good times today would be around tomorrow.  

Sarah [00:20:14] And you talk a lot about her father through the lens of her three marriages. She potentially had two marriages, but she in fact had three marriages. And the second and third husband had that pursuit of excitement and the gambling sort of mentality. But what I was thinking about, especially when you were talking about the get, how she would pursue these interviews, it's almost like she channeled that too. She just channeled it in a really, productive way that didn't involve money. But I remember you quoted somebody saying she'd get this amazing interview, and then it was it was never enough. Like it was always on to the next one. And I thought, well, she was her father's daughter too. Not just in the men she associated with, but the way she relentlessly pursued these exciting interviews and these "gets".  

Susan Page [00:21:00] And in a way, her father had this remarkable gut for what people would be interested in. That's why he was so successful as a nightclub owner. And that's one reason she was so successful as an interviewer in that way very much her father's daughter. She worried she was too much like her father, that he was never content. He was never satisfied. Today's fortune was never good enough. You ought to gamble it on tomorrow's fortune. And when she made this big leap when she went from NBC's Today Show, where she was the first woman co-anchor of a morning show, to become co-anchor of the ABC Evening news, a job no woman had ever held, and she flopped. She was worried she'd repeated her father's mistake, that she had lost everything in pursuit of a prize that was just too big.  

Beth [00:21:48] I loved the connection that you drew between her childhood around lots of unsavory figures, and her willingness to sit down with brutal dictators, murderers, to go places that a lot of other journalists wouldn't go.  

Susan Page [00:22:05] And to be comfortable with them. She was drawn to powerful men with a dark side. And part of that was her childhood. When she was in elementary school and they were living on Palm Island of Miami, her best friend was a guy who was known as the King of the Bootleggers. He had recently been released from prison. He had a racetrack. He would drive little Barbara and his car to the racetrack. She would sit outside because she couldn't legally go into the racetrack, and he would place bets for her. And this was her best friend for a year. This is a woman who was not put off, for someone was rumored to be tied to the mob. Because if you were running a nightclub in New York at the time, you were dealing with people who were rumored to be part of the mob. One of her best lifelong friends was Roy Cohn, who was that notorious lawyer.  

Sarah [00:22:58] I did not see that part coming. Did not see it coming.  

Susan Page [00:23:01] They met when she was 25. Even though he was a closeted gay man, he repeatedly proposed to her, and she came close at times to accepting. For a time she didn't, I think, know that he was gay. When her father got into legal trouble, he was an infamous fixer, he got her father's indictment to disappear. It just went away. Who knows how. And when she wanted to adopt a child, he facilitated the private adoption. They were very close. They were very good friends. And you know what? She remembered that when he was at the end of his life dying of AIDS, and facing disbarment proceedings, she was one of the few friends willing to testify on his behalf.  

Sarah [00:23:49] Her and Donald Trump.  

Susan Page [00:23:50] Her and Donald Trump.  

Sarah [00:23:51] I kept thinking as I was reading this, I'm like, man, I think Susan and Maggie Haberman need to get together with their books side by side, because it's a real portrait of New York City. And there's so much overlap between Barbara Walters and Donald Trump. Not just that she interviewed him several times, but the Roy Cohn connection, the circles they ran in the pursuit-- I thought it was so brilliant that she got him to articulate, "I really just want to run for president. I want to be president." There were just so many similarities.  

Susan Page [00:24:23] They swam in the same sea there in New York and that part of New York society. And they were both enormously transactional. So it was useful to Barbara to have a relationship with Donald Trump. She would interview him, he would make connections for her. It was useful for Donald Trump to have ties to Barbara Walters. Before he was running for president, he was one of the most frequent guests on The View. And the producer of The View told me that they would have a spot open up and they needed some guest and they'd call Trump, and Trump would come over and do gags, do skits and stuff. He was part of The View family. And one former executive at ABC told me that there was some discomfort at ABC because they felt like they were giving Donald Trump a platform that gave him stature that he otherwise would not have had.  

Sarah [00:25:21] Which is true. Definitely true. They did that.  

Beth [00:25:25] What made me think of Maggie Haberman while I was reading your book was how Barbara got all of this criticism for that access, the coziness with people, her willingness to travel in their circles. And I feel like Maggie Haberman has taken some of that flak too. And I just wonder, especially given your other job, not being a distinguished biographer, what do you take from the way that Barbara Walters did journalism?  

Susan Page [00:25:55] So it's not exactly the way I do journalism. And she faced a lot of skepticism from people who are sometimes called capital J journalists. So those are people who go to journalism school and they think of journalism as a priesthood. I would be one of those people. She had a broader view of journalism, like a broader view of who was worth interviewing. She interviewed presidents and prime ministers, but she was also very interested in interviewing murderers and Hollywood stars. Anybody who was interesting, she was up for interviewing. She had a coziness with the people she was interviewing. But I think it's fair to question. It's a phenomenon that is not foreign to Washington journalism either. And it's something I think you need to be very cautious about.  

Sarah [00:26:42] Well, and there's this paradox though, right? Because, on one hand, she has this very Trumpian approach to public relations, right? She spins the story. She calls up her pal Sydney Smith. She gets in front of it. And also she was so good, whether it was a government leader or a celebrity or a murderer, at pushing them past those stories. I don't know if it's because she understood it personally what it was like. She knew the rules of the game and so she knew how to say, "No, no, I've talked to your bankers, Donald Trump. Don't try that with me." She's very good at seeing through the PR-- for a better term-- bullshit that she in fact perpetuated about herself.  

Susan Page [00:27:27] That's such a good point because it was really rare that Barbara Walters didn't ask the toughest possible questions. And that's true. Whoever she was interviewing. It was like when she asked Vladimir Putin if he'd ever ordered somebody killed.  

Sarah [00:27:41] I do not have the Cojones to do that. I'm just telling you right now, I cannot imagine what it be like to be in a room with him. That's terrifying.  

Susan Page [00:27:48] And she wanted to ask the question that viewers were thinking, "Here's the question I really want to know the answer to." She would spend hours before a big interview trying to figure out what that question was and how to ask it so it would get answered.  

Beth [00:28:08] I wondered, reading especially about her preparation, whether she was really motivated by her own fascination or by what she knew would make for good television. The exposure Sarah and I have had to TV news, we always walk away saying people who are on television doing news desperately want to be on television. You have to desperately want this to do it. And so I wonder if you think she was a particularly curious person, or if it was just all about what she knew would propel her and the ratings and the network forward.  

Susan Page [00:28:44] So maybe both things can be true, that she was really curious about a variety of things. Endlessly curious. But she also loved to be on TV, and she especially loved to be on TV, getting bigger ratings than anybody else. And that was part of the appeal, too. Toward the end of the time she was doing interviews, she had, I think, some second thoughts. She gave up being on 2020 and lamented the fact that for her last interview, she had been offered an interview with President George W Bush. And she'd been offered an interview with a woman who had had sex with her high school student in her class, and was coming out and was going to marry him. And the network said, do the ex-felon who's getting out of prison. Don't do the president. And number one, she did what they said. And it probably got bigger ratings than the president would have. But she didn't like that fact.  

Sarah [00:29:49] Well, it's so interesting because I think you see this singular focus in the interviewing and the pursuit of the ratings. I thought it's so fascinating the way her View co-host talked about how she would just flip a switch the cameras come on. And even if you go back to that very first time she was on the today show, coming back from the Paris fashion show, I was really struck by her comfort level in front of the camera and her charisma. You go back and watch some of those like 50s, 60s TV shows and you're like, this feels like I'm watching another planet. They're just so stilted. It's very different than the pace of conversation that we're used to. But that's not true of her first appearance on the Today Show back in the early 60s. She is fluid, she is comfortable. She sounds like if you were talking to somebody right now who just gotten back to Paris, and I was so impressed by that. And was it just inherent? Was it she found her place like her father found his place at a Gin Rummy table or at the head of some big show that, like, that's what clicked for her? But people around her used that language all the time that a switch was flipped and that was it. It's almost like that was the real Barbara Walters because she struggled in her personal life.  

Susan Page [00:31:08] She was never more alive than when she was on TV. She was never more confident than when she was on TV. And she loved being on TV, and she would get off TV and be instantly deflated or anxious. But when she was on TV, she was in charge. She had a big personality, she knew what she was doing and she would get off TV, and in her personal life she was pretty hopeless. She knew what to do on TV. It was like she became alive when the lights went on. She did not know how to handle her personal life.  

Beth [00:31:46] I expected to read this book taking all kinds of notes from Barbara Walters, because I do admire those interviews that she did that I grew up watching. And I took a few notes. I loved the scene that you describe of her telling a party guest to never explain that she's exhausted, no one cares. That was fantastic. I loved all the detail about the way she prepared, but those final chapters of her life were so depressing to me. And I would just love to know how it felt to you after having invested all this energy in getting through her story, what it was like to talk with people about those final days.  

Susan Page [00:32:23] So she was an incredible ground breaker, a woman of real achievement. She made journalism easier for me and every other woman who followed her, especially women on TV. But she was sad. I asked 100 people who knew her if she was happy. And two of them said she was happy and the other 98 said various things about she was proud and she loved the fame and the fortune. But happy or content? No. She had three marriages, three divorces. She had one daughter from whom she was estranged, although they eventually reconciled. She had some close friends, but at the end of her life she pushed away even most of her closest friends. She lived in a fabulous Fifth Avenue apartment with a paid chief of staff, paid caregivers and her former makeup artist. She started to refuse to let even her best friends visit her because she was in a wheelchair. She was losing some of her cognitive function and she knew that. And so for years, she was this lonely, isolated figure. And how poignant for someone who had been at the center of conversation for decades and suddenly to be in a place of such solitude and silence.  

Sarah [00:33:45] Well, I did notice we got an advance copy that didn't have any photos in it, but I in fact have a copy of Audition. Susan, a signed copy. I met Barbara Walters when she came to DC and got a signed copy of her memoir, Audition. And now I will tell you. In her personal life, Joshua Walters, her dog, features very prominently but does not come up in your book.  

Susan Page [00:34:04] Yeah, no, that's true. Cha-Cha, I found not an important part of her biography.  

Sarah [00:34:08] She did. There's like six pictures of Cha-Cha on that book.  

Susan Page [00:34:11] So what was it like getting her autograph? Did you stand in line?  

Sarah [00:34:14] Yes, yes, there was a line. She was very warm. But exactly what you said, she's smaller than you thought she was because she was such a big presence on TV. But I remember just those lines, they put the little post-it notes, so you go right to the spot. And she was very complimentary. Thank you for coming. And she signed my book and I went on. And I pulled it out and looked at it when I finished your book and thought, oh, I have pictures I can look at of the Latin Quarter. But it's fascinating, the photo section of her book, there's probably two sections that are about 10 pages, and each section there's like two pages of family photos, and the rest are all photos of interviews.  

Susan Page [00:34:52] Yeah. Well, I hope you'll get a copy of the final version of the book because we do have lots of pictures in there. And the pictures of her with all the presidents, that's an amazing run. The pictures of her with her husbands-- I mean, all of it-- are are so interesting. The great thing about her memoir, which I read and reread-- It's falling apart now, my copy of it-- is she told a lot of things she hadn't disclosed before, like her father's suicide attempt when she was 28 years old. The other thing that was interesting was she lied about a bunch of things. And so I would come across something and say, "Oh, I don't think that's right." And go back and research it didn't find that she had just totally misrepresented something that she for some reason, found embarrassing. She shaved two years off her age.  

Sarah [00:35:42] Oh my gosh.  

Susan Page [00:35:44] And she minimized her ambitions. Her early career, she portrayed it in her memoir as this happy thing happened and I just happened to get this other job. And wasn't I lucky that this happened? After doing this research, I know she worked relentlessly for everything she got and she pushed open every door. Nobody opened any of those doors for her.  

Beth [00:36:12] I was so sad that you didn't get to interview her. But the more I read, the more I wondered if it would have been awfully complicated to interview her knowing what an unreliable narrator of her own story she is.  

Susan Page [00:36:24] Well, I would always opt to interview somebody. So I when I started the book, she was already in a failing health. She knew I was working on the book. It's not an authorized biography, but she didn't throw up any obstacles. She didn't tell friends and family members not to talk to me. She didn't tell them they should talk to me, but she didn't tell them not to, which I appreciated. I sort of felt after I wish I could have interviewed her. After watching 100,000 interviews of Barbara Walters and footage of Barbara Walters interviewing other people, I got to say, I feel like I know her. I mean, for like two years she's been running around in my head. And so I'm grateful that that she lived out loud. She talked a lot. And she talked to other people about their lives. But she talked about her own life a lot too, and that was helpful.  

Sarah [00:37:16] So if you could wave a magic wand and get an honest answer from Barbara Walters at the end of her life, and you asked her, can you have it all? Do you have any regrets? What do you think she would say?  

Susan Page [00:37:32] She would definitely say, you can't have it all. And I think the question is-- the standard line when you get to the end of your life. Remember Barbara Bush's famous commencement address where she said, "At the end of your life, you're not going to say, I wish I had spent more time in a courtroom suing people. You're going to say, I wish I had spent more time with the people I love." And Barbara Walters, when she was not at the end of her life, at the peak of her career, she said the opposite. This was to a crowd in L.A., she said, "Children grow up and move away. But your fame and your fortune, that's forever." So at that point in her life, she would have said, no regrets. I chose the work. But I wonder if at the end of her life she still would have said that.  

Beth [00:38:22] Well, Sarah mentioned Cha-Cha not making your book. I would love to hear about the cutting room floor for this book. I have to imagine that selecting particular stories, particular quotes to include was incredibly challenging.  

Susan Page [00:38:37] It's really the big job, right? I'm supposed to clear out stuff so you don't have to. The book is pretty long the way it is. [Inaudible]. So sorry Cha-Cha.  

Sarah [00:38:48] Poor Cha-Cha.  

Susan Page [00:38:49] Poor Cha-Cha. Maybe he gets his own biography [inaudible] head biographer. I remember in memoir she has a picture of Cha-Cha in sunglasses, right?  

Sarah [00:38:58] Oh, yeah. He's got little reading glasses on her.  

Susan Page [00:39:00] Yeah. That's great.  

Sarah [00:39:01] Sitting at her desk.  

Susan Page [00:39:04]  I had 100 stories about her competition with Diane Sawyer. I used 50 of them. I used the 50 best. You choose the ones that are most illuminating. So that's a process you go through. And really you don't want the unedited version of anyone's life. Unless maybe it's your own.  

Sarah [00:39:23] Well, I just think about your other two books. I have the story of Barbara Bush sitting down and writing her way into a position on abortion. I tell that story all the time from the Nancy Pelosi biography quote, "We're not here to take holy pictures." Beth and I talk about that all the time. Those are my two standard Susan biography stories. But I don't know if I have one for this one. I felt like she was interesting and she was incredible at her job. But I don't know if I got a lot of wisdom from her choices. I might be telling that Betty Davis when they make fun of you, that's when you're on the way to being a legend. That might be my standard one from this year. But I wonder if you felt like that, if you felt like there wasn't that wisdom that I really did feel was present from Barbara Bush and Nancy Pelosi.  

Susan Page [00:40:13] This isn't exactly wisdom, but there was a pivot. I think there was a pivot in Barbara Walters life, and that was her father's suicide attempt. And you try to think about with Barbara Walters, the question is, what gave her the drive to do something that no woman had ever done before in the face of just enormous scorn and sexism? And what did that was when her mother called her one Saturday morning in New York and said, "Your father's taken all his pills. I can't wake him up." And so Barbara goes over to the hotel where she-- 

Sarah [00:40:54] Didn't call the ambulance and called Barbara.  

Susan Page [00:40:56] Called Barbara. So Barbara goes over there and he's taken all his sleeping pills. His nightclub is about to go out of business. Barbara calls the ambulance. Barbara rides in the ambulance to the hospital. Barbara stays with her father at the hospital. And by the end of that Saturday, Barbara's life has turned around. She's 28 years old, she doesn't have a real job. She just got her first divorce. She's crashing with a friend from school. Suddenly she feels responsible for her father who recovered her, her unhappy mother, her disabled sister. And that was what drove her to the end of her days.  

Sarah [00:41:41] Wow.  

Beth [00:41:42] The story that will stick with me from this book is really coming more through Jackie than Barbara. When you write about Jackie seeing Barbara hospitalized and looking at her mother in a totally different way than she had before, that really hit me. I've always had a wonderful relationship with my mom. We've never been to estranged. Nothing like their dynamic. But it really connected with me that when you see a parent in such a fragile state, something changes almost physically for you and how you understand them and yourself. And I thought that was such a beautiful moment and like really a gift to the two of them, to have that warmth about their relationship memorialized in this way.  

Susan Page [00:42:25] I've also got a picture that her daughter Jackie took during that hospitalization of her mother when her mother had the heart surgery. And it's a picture in which a million tubes coming out of Barbara Walters arms. And she's in a hospital bed and she's reading a New York Times, and I believe there's a phone on her hospital. She is at the most vulnerable she has been maybe in her life, but she's still reading the New York Times.  

Sarah [00:42:53] So I have to know. Did you get anything from that auction they just had of all her clothes and everything?  

Susan Page [00:42:59] I did not. Did you guys bid on stuff?  

Sarah [00:43:04] I looked at it after it was already over, and I was sad because I might have been on [inaudible]. She had some amazing things.  

Susan Page [00:43:09] She did have some beautiful things. I did not bid on her items.  

Sarah [00:43:13] You should have done that.  

Susan Page [00:43:15] But.. Her apartment I think is still on the market. So if you're interested.  

Sarah [00:43:18] Yeah, I'm sure. I bet it's affordable too.  

Susan Page [00:43:22] Yeah. And quite a quite a view.  

Sarah [00:43:25] Yeah.  

Beth [00:43:25] Susan, I've seen that the book is already generating some headlines especially because of the affair that she had with a U.S. senator. When I saw those headlines, I thought, I wonder how Susan feels about this being the thing that's out there before the book comes out. I'm thrilled for you that there are headlines about the book before it comes out. As an author, that's wonderful. But I wondered if there was a story in there that you thought, I hope people write about this. I hope this really gets people's attention.  

Susan Page [00:43:55] Well, I hope people get the sense of her as a person with three dimensions because she wasn't just somebody who had three failed marriages. She was also this groundbreaking woman. And she wasn't just this prominent TV broadcaster who helped redefine what you could do on TV news. She was also this figure who struggled with feeling content or confident or that things were enough. I hope the three dimensions of her come across, that'd be what I hope. The affair with Edward Brooke, the senator from Massachusetts, is really illustrative of the choices that she made. She said it was a love affair of her life. They had an affair for about two years. He said he would leave his wife. He was married. Leave his wife to be with her. Roy Cohn and others-- but particularly Roy Cohn-- warned her that if it was revealed publicly that she had an affair with a married man, a senator who was also a black man, that it would be the end of her career. And so she gave him up.  

Sarah [00:45:06] Well, I don't think anybody is as gifted as you as portraying that dimensionality. And so I will not ask you, but I will make you promise to tell us when you have decided who the next subject is. But you have to tell us first, because I'm invested. I'll be there. Again, I'll be in line for the very first copy.  

Susan Page [00:45:23] Well, you have to tell me who you would want to read a biography of.  

Sarah [00:45:26] I know you asked us that last time and I still don't have a good answer. Because I think the other thing that connects Barbara Bush and Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Walters is that there's this sense of they are everywhere and you feel like you know them, but you really know that deep down you do not know them at all. And there is a part of me that feels that way about Dolly Parton. I think that we think we know Dolly Parton, but we do not know Dolly Parton really at all.  

Susan Page [00:45:55] I love Dolly Parton. I would love to read that book. You guys should write it.   

Beth [00:46:00] Well, the book is such a page turner. I read it in a couple of days. It was wonderful. It reads like fiction, but then you get to go to your phone and watch the interview that has just been referred to. So it's a fantastic experience. And we're so glad that you sent us a copy and we're willing to come chat with us again.  

Susan Page [00:46:19] Well, I'm so glad to be back with you. Thank you very much.  

[00:46:22] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:46:31] Thank you so much to Susan for coming back on Pantsuit Politics and talking with us about her biography of Barbara Walters. Now it is time, Beth. It is time to talk about Taylor Swift. I read an article that said, is it possible be neutral on Taylor Swift? Do you think it's possible to be neutral on Taylor Swift?  

Beth [00:46:50] I think the closest I can get to neutrality is to say at the outset, music is subjective. It's tough to watch people level criticisms that feel personal and to receive any critique personally about Taylor Swift. And so I try to hold for myself. I can really like Taylor Swift and not love every song on this album, or even not love the album, because music is subjective.  

Sarah [00:47:15] Well, here is just a little thing I'd like to say at the start of this conversation about Tortured Poets Department. My friend Kate, who's who I went to the store with, was like, "I can't decode it. I don't know who it's about. I don't know what's going on." And I said, "Hey, you know what? I love, love Cheryl Crow song Strong Enough, and I have absolutely no clue who she wrote it about. And it doesn't matter." And it never mattered. We don't have to know what every song is about. And I think that's a thing if she didn't start it, she perfected it. And I feel like I hear in this album that she regrets that. I don't know what all of Olivia Rodrigo's songs are about. I would sure as I like to know who vampire's about. We were at the Indigo Girls, and Amy has a song called Yield where it sounds like a celebrity who rejected her basically. She talks about a green room. All of those words, just tell me now, and I'm like, man, I would like to know who this is about. But I don't and I won't probably ever. And it's like, I don't know, maybe that was a better way.  

Beth [00:48:23] My favorite Taylor Swift album by a lot is Folklore, and I think part of it is because she explicitly says, there are a lot of characters here. And I think good art is often an amalgamation. It's not about one person, it's about the feelings that you felt. And sometimes those are hooked to one relationship, but sometimes they're a compilation of hard feelings. And you can see that in some of the songs, even with all the decoding.  

Sarah [00:48:48] Yeah.  

Beth [00:48:49] This versus this guy, this versus that guy. I enjoy this album a lot more when I center it on her relationship with the fan base. When I think of this as a really interesting combination of fan service and fan scolding and making peace with the fact that Taylor Swift has extremely intense feelings about men and extremely intense feelings about her career, and her fans have extremely intense feelings about her. And there was a moment in time when all that clashed, and she's working that out. I think that's interesting and much more interesting than Joe or Matty or Travis in any of the particular lines.  

Sarah [00:49:31] Yeah, no, I totally agree. I love nothing more than hearing famous people talk about their fame. I might be the only person on planet Earth who wants to hear celebrities dig deep in a self-reflective way about what it's like to be famous, but I do. I think it's interesting, and I think that when she really got pushing back and it's my good name to destroy if I want to; you don't have ownership over my life or my relationship choices, she's right. She doesn't owe anyone anything. I don't care how much she paid for the concert ticket. That's not how this works. And I think good for her. I love Who's Afraid of Little Old Me, and that is an angry song. That's a song that's like, get out of my face, please. And she's got to exercise some of that. I want her to exercise it through songwriting, not through more self-destructive choices.  

Beth [00:50:23] I've seen many Twitter threads, Instagram posts from fans saying, this album is not about us. She had to make it for her. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure it is about us. Pretty sure. I'm pretty sure it's directly about us. And the sense that she had to make this to get past Maddie and Joe so she can be with Travis, that does not ring true to me. What rings true to me is that she had to make this so she does not continue on the Eras tour resentfully. I feel like she needed to say to the audience, we have gotten out of range here in terms of what's healthy and okay for me, and I need to tell you. And I think that's why all of the closure messages are wrapped around it. I'm good now. I got it out. I'm in a healthy place again. I'm excited to get back out there and do what I love to do, and I do love to do it, and I do love you. But I needed you to know this. And I really respect that.  

Sarah [00:51:19] Yeah. I always think the choices about the little like vignettes that play on your phone while you're listening to a song on Spotify. And so when I Can Do With a Broken Heart came up and it's just Eras tour footage, I was like, “Oof, just stop.” Like those close up. She wiped a tear here. She did this. I'm like, would you enjoy that? Would you enjoy that level of surveillance and decoding around everything you do? I think about that precious moment with Justin Bieber where he was like, "This is my house. Can you leave? I live here, I'm a real person." And it's just this weird paradox that the more she exposes and the more vulnerable she is and the more transparent she is, it's like the more she becomes a character. Which I think is what she's trying to do is like, no, I'm real. Please stop turning me into something that I'm not. And it's so hard.  

Beth [00:52:15] And I see that thread even through the songs that feel most like breakup songs. For example, my daughter Jane's favorite song is Down Bad.  

Sarah [00:52:24] It's so good and so catchy.  

Beth [00:52:27] There are a lot of F-bombs in Down Bad for your 13-year-old to love it, but we just are where we are. I cannot shield her from the cultural juggernaut that is Taylor Swift, or the F-word for that matter. So we've listened to it a lot, and I keep coming back to crying at the gym.  

Sarah [00:52:43] Crying at the gym.  

Beth [00:52:45] I do not believe that line is in there as a relatable Taylor's just like you crying at the gym over the boys. I see that and then think about the fact that her publicist, Terry Payne, who does nothing unintentionally, has made sure we all understand what her workout routine is for the tour. And then they put in her Fortnight edit for YouTube the footage of her working out. And I think crying at the gym is just like, I Can Do it With a Broken Heart. It's like I continue to work my butt off constantly no matter what is going on and you people could not give me a teeny bit of space to work out some feelings that I've apparently had for someone for a long time. And that's not fair.  

Sarah [00:53:29] Yeah. I thought that the relationship with Matt Healy was less serious than it was because, you know what? I don't know Taylor Swift, I just don't. And so when that all happened, I thought, man, I felt bad enough for her that she just couldn't date casually without people being so caught up in all of this, much less that she really cared about him and felt like I have to choose between my fans and this person. And, look, I am not defending Matt Healy. We also don't know him. There's also a person that none of us know. He's a real live human being. Maybe he's an asshole. Maybe he's not. Maybe he's a racist. But we don't know him, and she did. And she had to listen to a fan base decide for her, knowing that they never met him.  

Beth [00:54:21] Because I can't talk about her without talking about Folklore, that's how much I love it, it interested me how many times and in different intonations in Tortured Poet songs, I think she's revealing that he was the inspiration for The One. And I love that song, The One.  

Sarah [00:54:39] That's a great song.  

Beth [00:54:40] But the way she kind of lingers on The One in a few of the songs that are pretty clearly about Maddie, I just think it's like another reveal, which is that fan service that she doesn't have to do. But then wrapped in your sanctimonious soliloquies that I'll never see are not going to change the destiny here. And I think that's all really good. I just imagined Princess Katherine of Wales turning this on and cranking it up.  

Sarah [00:55:07] I think she could find some real solace in this album.  

Beth [00:55:10] Yes. And Beyonce, and probably Hillary Clinton. There are lots of people. And what's brilliant is that that's true for those people at that level of fame. But also I listen to I Can Do It With a Broken Heart and it took me right back to college. I thought, this is entirely how I felt during college in one song. And that's the gift that she really has, that marrying of the specific and the universal. I also think in The Black Dog, when she takes we forgot to turn our location services off and old habits die screaming together, like, that's beautiful. And that's what I really love here.  

Sarah [00:55:49] Well, and I just think it's a gift and a curse because it really does create this situation where people think that they know her, and that has made her incredibly wealthy and one of the most famous people on planet Earth. And also when she has that line about something, like, you would go crazy if you grew up in my asylum-- or something along those lines; and Griffin was like, oh, please. And I'm like, no, don't do that. It would be awful. You have no idea. It would be crazy making to have no privacy, to have no real freedom of movement. I'm so glad her and Travis are like, "I want to go to Coachella," but still you can watch these videos and it's just a sea of people holding their phones up over them. Probably 100 or more phones just on them. Again, I've written about that in our second book, like, the first fight I ever had with my husband was about whether or not you should feel sorry for famous people or not, but I do. I'm sorry, I do. I just don't think we fully comprehend what that must be like.  

Beth [00:56:54] At minimum, she and Travis are creating a new set of expectations that they will be out like that and that we will, every couple of weeks or so, have new photos of them together and new videos of them together, and that it will be filled with PDA, because what if we saw them not holding hands now? Would the whole internet speculate that they're breaking up? So I think that the way she uses asylum, prison, prison, cage, all those metaphors repeatedly throughout this album tell you that there are many layers to her recognizing that she's the monster on the hill and there's not anything she can do about it. So that leads me to the question I've been dying to ask you. We have not talked about this. Do you think it's too long? Do you think there are too many songs here?  

Sarah [00:57:37] No. It's 2024, make your own playlist. Eliminate the songs you don't want to listen to. I think that's funny. Like, we're just so free as far as how we can listen and the ways in which we can listen. And it just seems silly that you would be caught up in how long the album is like, it's not a job. Like there's no legal requirement for you to listen to the whole thing from beginning to end.  

Beth [00:58:01] I have struggled with my reaction to this because the first time I listened to it, I thought, this needs an editor. There's too much here. There's a lot that I would leave on the cutting room floor. If I were new to her music, this would not bring me in. I'd be like, this is fine, but it's probably not for me. I also recognize that she has this insatiable fan base who shout more-- as she tells us-- all the time, and that it is easy for me to go make my own playlist as I did. I made a playlist called Sonnet of 14 songs that I think are really, really good from this album, and that's what I'm going to listen to now.  

Sarah [00:58:39] I love it.  

Beth [00:58:39] And that that was easy and simple. And what a win for me and for Taylor. I have struggled with that question because I think it could musically be a lot stronger if some of the lesser works were cut out, but also it's her record and she can say what she wants to say.  

Sarah [00:58:59] I think it's how she copes. I just think the insatiable songwriting is-- I don't even know how much it is about her fans. I think it's just about how she copes. When she stood on that stage and was like, "Thank you for letting me continue to do this. I love it so much." She really, really loves songwriting, that is clear. And I think the fame is so different from the actual creative expression. She says in the video for Fortnight, that the four different pieces of the video represent everything she's trying to say in the album. And I mean, she starts chained to a bed, upside down on the ceiling. I did really, really love the casting of Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles from Dead Poets Society. That was A plus for stars. I loved it, but I think she has to. So there's a part of me that's like, do we think that's good? Do we think that's okay? But, again, I don't know. That's a question probably for her friends and family to ask of her, not of me.  

Beth [01:00:00] Yeah. If I were in her friends and family group, the question I would have is not, is it healthy for you to need to do this to cope? Because I think we all have our own things like this. It would be, what would it mean if you wrote the song and didn't publish it? What would it mean if they stopped making the TikToks about your life and stop surrounding you with cameras everywhere you went. I think if I were her, that is the carousel that I would go through constantly. Could I handle it if it went away? Can I handle it if it's here? Do I get to live my life if it's here? But would I have a life at all if it weren't here? I think that would be really, really sad and hard.  

Sarah [01:00:43] We were rewatching The Sopranos with Griffin, and we just watched an episode from the first season called Boca, where Tony Soprano finds out that Meadow's soccer coach has abused one of her teammates. And you're like, oh dear, the soccer coach is not long for this world, but he doesn't. They turn him into the police. He doesn't do anything. He's like fallen down drunk at the end of the episode. And he's like, I didn't hurt anybody. And there's this great moment with Doctor Melfi [sp] where she's like, why do you feel it's on you to do this, to fix it, to get justice, to solve this? Why do you think you have to do it? Why is that you that has to do it? And when you said that about her, I'm like, yeah, do you have to? And I'm sure there is a lot of songs she wrote. Lord, I think she's written six songs a day at this point. God knows what her output is like. But this sense of like, what if you didn't talk about the relationship? What if you didn't like? I'm simultaneously so excited that she gave us a little Travis inside and some Travis songs. And then I was worried because I really want them to make it. He's had a bad time. I thought, if I was her, I would think, "Will I have something to say if I'm in a happy relationship?" I mean, I guess she was with Joe for six years and she had a lot of creative input and output. But where do you get to the point where you're like, what makes this me? What makes this good? Could it be about something else? I mean, she's a good enough songwriter. I have said before, I said a long time ago, back in the when I was in law school. I'm just ready for her to, like, write about something different. To your point about Evermore and where she was doing the characters like, I cannot wait till Taylor Swift writes a song about being a mom. Bring it to me. That sounds like it's going to be great. So I don't know. But, again, I don't know her. I don't know her. I like this album. There are a lot of songs on it that have stuck in my head that I've already listened to several times. There's a lot of songs that I feel sound like some of her late country stuff. It feels a little like country to me, country pop, I would say, has that sort of melodic similarity. But I also kind of I'm a team Jack Antonoff. I love the 80s, the synthesizers and like all that stuff. I think it's the best. I love to listen to it.  

Beth [01:02:57] I really like the country roots that you can hear in like But Daddy I Love Him. I love that. That's my favorite on the album. I think it's the most courageous. I think she vocally sounds great when she's in that country mode. I like it when she sings out. I don't love the synthesizer breathy vibe forever and ever, amen. I think that was interesting when she was experimenting with that. I would love her to do like a Ben Folds bring me a full orchestra, because I think she could really stand up to that. I really want her next album to involve instruments that don't get plugged into a wall. And whether that's just full acoustic or she could do Taylor Swift and a big band sound, I would be here for it. Bring some horns out, whatever. I would like to sonically hear some new things. And I'm not trashing Jack or Aaron. That's the thing that I worry about. People get so defensive. No, they're geniuses. Yeah they are. They've done things that I can't even fathom. I've never written a song. It's got to be incredible to come to a page with nothing on it and walk away with something like Anti-Hero. Incredible. I would just like to hear some more instruments because I think she is vocally up for it. There's a lot about Taylor Swift. Like she's a songwriter, but her vocals aren't met. I don't think so. I don't think she's Beyonce or Adele or Jennifer Hudson.  

Sarah [01:04:15] Or Brandi Carlile.  

Beth [01:04:17] Or Brandi Carlile. That's right. But I think she has a beautiful voice that has gotten much stronger over the course of her career. She has really worked her register, so I like it when she sings out. And some of the angry songs on this album bring out more of that voice in her, and I'm here for that.  

Sarah [01:04:33] So I think we're thumbs up. Yeah.  

Beth [01:04:36] Yes, I like it. I don't hate it. I don't even dislike it. It's not my favorite of her work, and I have significantly cut down what I want to go back to. But I like it. 

Sarah [01:04:46]  Yeah, I agree, I really like it. I've been listening to it all the way through. I do kind of fade towards the end of the second album.  

Beth [01:04:52] I don't need the name songs.  

Sarah [01:04:54] Yeah, and I hate to say I don't know what they're about, but I don't need to know who they are about. But I don't really even understand what they're about. Like the Paul and the--  

Beth [01:05:01] Peter and Robert Peter.  

Sarah [01:05:03] Who are we talking? What's happening?  

Beth [01:05:05] I don't need any of those.  

Sarah [01:05:06] Yeah, I agree. Towards the end I was like, oh, you're losing me.  

Beth [01:05:10] So what's your favorite song on the album?  

Sarah [01:05:14] That's really hard. I agree with Jane. I think that Down Bad is a bop. But I really like So Long London. But I think my favorite probably is Who's Afraid of Little Old Me? I really like it. I really like her pushing. And, well, I do think those along with So High School are like the most fun to listen to. But I think Clara Bow is such a great reflection. I don't know if I'm going to listen to it a lot, but I got to it I was like, oh girl, you did it. That is like one of the best reflections on celebrity and particularly celebrity as a woman. I was just like wanting to stand up and get a standing ovation.  

Beth [01:05:56] I thought Clara Bow is really brilliantly done. Very tightly constructed.  

Sarah [01:05:59] Yes. [Inaudible] she doesn't have enough edge. I was like, oh, it's so good.  

Beth [01:06:05] I also prefer the kind of class of songs that are like directly taking the fandom on. I'm very into those. I struggle with So Long London because I listen to it-- I think it's lovely. And I think she handles her relationship with Jo with a lot of grace here, and that's nice. I mean, he collaborated on some of her music. They did have something special. And I think it's nice that this isn't just a take him apart album, but I listen to So Long London and I think this is great. And I would rather listen to All Too well every day of the week if I'm in this kind of space. She's been so prolific that so many of her songs, I hear it and I think, well, that sounds like a lot like Willow and Willow's a better song than this. You know what I mean? That's really tough. So it's unfair to constantly want new things from her, but also it has to be pretty new if it's going to measure up against what she's already created.  

Sarah [01:07:02] What is all the Florida stuff about? I don't know what all of that is about. Fortnight is growing on me. The more I listen to it, the more I like it. But I still don't know what we're talking about with all the Florida stuff. And I love Florence. I love Florence.  

Beth [01:07:17] She has an incredible voice, Florence does.  

Sarah [01:07:19] She really does. But I don't know what we're talking about with all this Florida stuff.  

Beth [01:07:24] I have tried to do some research on this and I don't feel more well-informed, honestly, because there are a lot of different theories about where she might be going with this. I know it's controversial. Musically, I don't like that song. The bang, bang, bang,, bang bang, to me does not work. That same technique I think works great after old habits die screaming in the black dog. But I think it's weird in this song. I don't understand all the exclamation points in the title. I'm with the New York Times reviewer who wrote, Florida is one hell of a drug. If you say so. I don't relate to Florida.  

Sarah [01:07:59]  Yeah, and those are the songs where I'm like, am I so well trained that I have to have this hook and understand what we're talking about? Because I don't feel that. Brandi Carlile has all kinds of songs where I'm like, what is the song about? What are we talking about? But with her, it's like, I can't find my way into it. It's like I'm so well trained to, like, find my way into it by understanding exactly what she's talking about that I can't break loose, even though I think that is what she is respectfully asking of us in many parts of this album.  

Beth [01:08:30] Maybe I can't be fair in assessing myself on this, but I think I just don't like that song. I don't think it's that I don't understand it, I think I just don't like it. And that's okay.  

Sarah [01:08:39] It doesn't stick in your head. There's just some songs that you hear it once and you find yourself singing the chorus. Like, I think So High School the chorus is catchy as hell. The way that the sort of back and forth in the rhyming, it's such an earworm. And not just because I think it was on a [inaudible] song, because it's about Killa Trav. But I did read the most hilarious thing in Glamor, where they were sharing their group chat and somebody said-- they were like quoting Travis. And it was like, I don't know what revelry means, babe, but it's a great song. I don't believe that about Killa Trav. I do not believe that he said dum dum. I don't know him either, but I still thought it was funny.  

Beth [01:09:16] If I loved Killa Trav on a personal level, I would not feel awesome about, "You know how to ball, I know Aristotle." That wouldn't hit me right.  

Sarah [01:09:25] I'm telling you guys, I think it's just the rhyming.  

Beth [01:09:28] The other song that I think is both, like, sticks in your head and you know exactly what it's about that I really love is The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. I think that is another like the universal and the particular coming together. Because when she says, "Were you writing a book?" that sounds so true to me. And also you can think of a thousand instances in your life where somebody floats in and out and you think, were you just trying to hurt me? What was this? What was the point of any of this? And so I think that one is phenomenal.  

Sarah [01:10:02] You know what it is? We've been talking about this too long, but I'm glad because I think I've had a breakthrough. She's talking about the particular, but because she shared so much about the particular and because she's so connected to her fans and she's so vulnerable, she's so transparent in a certain way, it's like that becomes universal because we think we know. We think that we're feeling it for her because we think we know her. She has pushed the particular so far with her that it becomes universal to her fans, and they think it's them and they understand, and they're feeling the things that she feels. I love all those reels that are like, "Me listening to this album as a happily married woman." What of my life experience being with Nicholas Holland since I was 19 years old should connect with Taylor Swift life experience? Nothing. Zero. Zero points, guys. And so it's like, that's what it is though, because you know so much about her. Her particular becomes your universal.  

Beth [01:11:00] I think there is a lot of truth in that. I also think I haven't had a breakup in a long time, but it doesn't take long for me to tap back into those feelings.  

Sarah [01:11:10] I mean, I also love Olivia Rodrigo. What do I share with her? Nothing. But damn, that girl can write a breakup song.  

Beth [01:11:17] Lots of art that doesn't mirror my current life experience moves me. And that's true for all of us, right? And I think some of it is our past experiences. I think some of it could be like just we are made of stars, right? Floating around in us somewhere is a connection to that, even if we aren't going through it right now or haven't in our lifetimes. Not to get too woo woo. Any criticism that I have of Taylor Swift's music is not coming from a place of like, oh, grow up. That's not how I feel about it at all. Not at all. And I really dislike the sort of professional media critique that because she is such a stellar businesswoman and a billionaire and in her 30s now, we should be beyond the breakup song. I don't think that's fair or true. We all read novelist who write the same love story in 60 different ways, and we can't wait for the next version of it to come out. Like, these are universal human emotions that she's mining and giving us words around that are so precise that they sting. And I love that. My critiques of her are more musically based. And my Florida critique highlights how hard what I'm kind of asking her to do is because that song, sonically, is the most different from everything else on the album, and I don't like it. So I want her to experiment and do different things, but then I want to like them too. And I'm one of all the world's fans of her. So it's hard where she is.  

Sarah [01:12:53] Well I do think the thing that she talks about that's particular but connects with me most universally, it's just being how she's treated as a woman. For my money, the best lyric that Taylor Swift has ever written is-- and I'm going to cry for syncing it. "When everyone believes you, what's that like?" Like, what's that like? Every time I listen to it, I'm like, you got it. You did it. You captured it. All of it in two sentences. Give you all the Grammys as far as I'm concerned. And I think there's this perception that, well, she's rich and famous, so she shouldn't get to speak of the frustration of how she's treated because she gets to be rich and famous. And I reject that. I find it enormously insightful and comforting. And as a woman who's obviously not as rich and famous as Taylor Swift, but in a universe of comparability when she talks about that stuff and I think, yes, it is frustrating when people think they know, even if you're not famous. Because it's social media, don't we all have a little bit of that where people are watching you and deciding if you're living your life correctly or not correctly? I think that everybody-- unless you've managed somehow to never be on social media-- feels a little bit of that. And particularly as a woman, that's why we all like the Barbie soliloquy. Like it's just never enough. It's never enough. I break up, I stay together, I'm in love, I share, I don't share, it's never good enough.  

Beth [01:14:24] And for me, that's enough of a political statement from her.  

Sarah [01:14:27] Yes.  

Beth [01:14:29] I don't think that she or anyone else has an obligation to push past what she feels she's here to create. It cannot all be on the shoulders of Taylor Swift or Beyonce or anyone else. Even Jeff Bezos who I put in a whole different category because he's not giving the world art. But I think that there is a sense that when you have a lot, you have a lot of responsibility. But I think working that responsibility out is up to you. Don't commit tax crimes. And do your thing as ethically and with as much integrity as you think you can do it. And that's all I can hold these folks to. And that's that's where I think this album is so brilliant in saying like, enough you guys, enough. I love this thing that we do together, but it has to have some constraints on it.  

Sarah [01:15:24] Yeah, I agree. That's why I think I like it because she's talking about something that I think is the most interesting, which is this fan relationship. And so even if I don't love every song on it, I think there are some bops. I think Jane is right that Down Bad is one of them.  

Beth [01:15:39] Jane loves Down Bad.  

Sarah [01:15:40] It's a good song. It's a really, really good song. And so it's a good thing because we're probably all going to be singing along to these songs for a very long time.  

Beth [01:15:49] Can I say one more thing? Because since I've mentioned Jane, it would really hurt Ellen to not be mentioned here. Ellen's favorite song is My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.  

Sarah [01:15:58] I think that song is a very hooky song. Again, that's actually should have been on my list because it is another one I can not stop singing.  

Beth [01:16:04] I think it's really good. I also think it's more interesting when I think of the boy as the fandom versus any individual man, and I think it works on both levels, and that's part of what makes it such a good song. Ellen has good taste. She really does.  

Sarah [01:16:18] I just think to the musicality that, ooo-oh, is so good. It's so catchy. It's so good. I love it so much.  

Beth [01:16:26] You can imagine singing it in a crowd, which is good.  

Sarah [01:16:30] We're all going to be singing I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, I can tell you that one right now.  

Beth [01:16:34] I cannot wait to see what she does with the Eras tour because you know she gets bored. She's not going to just keep it the same way.  

Sarah [01:16:41] I know, I'm really jealous. And I'm considering how many things I want to mortgage to try to see it again and maybe see the changes. Is she going to put some of this music on here? It's so tempting.  

Beth [01:16:57] What a big deal it is that the people who work with her all seem to love her when she works this hard and pushes this hard and changes things up, and does the surprise song and springs that on her dancers. Like for Post Malone, who basically just got to be a backup singer in Fortnight.. 

Sarah [01:17:13] What is Post Malone doing right that he's on Beyoncé and her album?  

Beth [01:17:17] I know. The theory that I heard best was on the podcast Alise recommended to me, Every Single Album, where they said he must just be a good hang. People just seem to like him. And I buy that.  

Sarah [01:17:29] Okay, that seems fair. Now, actually, since we're just going to keep talking about this forever-- which is fine. I think it's fine. It seems to be what the internet is interested in.  

Beth [01:17:37] It's consistent with this album. Just keep going until you're out of things to say.  

[01:17:41] That's exactly right. Okay, so stay with me here. I saw Amy Grant over the weekend.  

Beth [01:17:47] I love Amy Grant.  

Sarah [01:17:48] I love Amy Grant, and everybody says that. Everybody says Amy Grants the nicest because this is what made me think about it. This is always what I say about Oprah and Hillary. Do you think people would work for them for 25 plus years if they were hell on wheels? No, they would not. Same thing said about Amy Grant. Natalie Hemby of the Highwomen, her mother has been Amy Grant's assistant for like 40 years or something. Bananas!  

Beth [01:18:13] I did not know that. What a fun fact.  

Sarah [01:18:14] Yes, she she said that at the Kennedy Center Honors. She's like while they were there singing and she introduced them, and she said that. It put some places pieces together for me. I also just think you're a Christian singer, you get divorced, you come out of that, you're going to be wiser. That's just the long short of things. Okay, all that to say she was so charming during the concert banter. She talked a lot. Everything she said was authentic. I don't know if she says the same thing every show, but if she does, you can't tell. Like, it was just earnest and lovely. Just the word I just kept coming back to was charming. She was just so charming. And you, look, I am a real big fan. I'm just very invested in concert banter because that's the only thing that's unique, right? Like, you're going to hear that maybe they have bring a guest out, maybe they do a cover, but you probably could find that cover on YouTube afterwards. You know what I mean? Like, just how they interact with you is so important to me. And it's just because I think that, to me, feels like you're actually getting to know them like Brandi Carlile. Good concert banter, always tells a different story. Because I saw her twice on that tour. The last one she did, she told different stories. She's so charming, she's funny. And I'm just going to say it, Taylor Swift has a lot of room to improve here. Her concert banter, not a plus. There's no banter. It's all highly rehearsed. Now, she's doing so many songs, but so is Garth Brooks, and he has good banter. I think that the banter is something she could work on just a little bit, in my personal estimation.  

Beth [01:19:55] That makes sense to me. I haven't seen her yet, so I can't speak to that.  

Sarah [01:19:58] But you have because you've seen the movie and it's the same.  

Beth [01:20:01] I think Adele is incredible at this.  

Sarah [01:20:03] So good. She's the best. She should be a stand up comic. That's how good she is.  

Beth [01:20:08] Well, and I love her security. The way that, like, if she starts a song-- have you seen the clip of her forgetting the words?  

Sarah [01:20:16] No.  

Beth  [01:20:17] She's just like, "I forgot the words." And then she looks at her band and she's like, "Stop. That is not going to do. We're going to start over. I'm going to get the words in my head. We're going to start over." The confidence it take to do that, I just think she's the best. I think she's so fun. And live, she's like that too. She's just hilarious. I totally agree that Garth Brooks is created this. I'm seeing him in October. I'm so excited to see him again. Yeah, you're right, that is a skill and it is hard. And I imagine that it's even harder when you have so many elements happening on stage, like she does with Eras. It's not just her and the band, it's a lot of moving parts.  

Sarah [01:20:54] Yes. I will give her a lot of grace to the point where she's moving in, they're handing their guitar and it's so tightly choreographed. She goes off on a tangent. I can't imagine how many pieces are going to-- I get it, I get it, I'm not mad. And I like her rehearsed stuff. I like when she kissed her bicep and said, I feel powerful. I dug it. Maybe not this tour, but I would love to see a more stripped down tour where she just gets to banter because I do think she's very insightful and I think she is funny in interviews and smart. But yeah. Adele did that whole thing about "My belt is too tight. I want to take it off, but don't lose it. It's worth like $15,000." I died. I thought it was so funny. It made me laugh so hard.  

Beth [01:21:35] I think that's my hope for Taylor Swift, that she can come off the mountain a little bit so that she can do a show where she's just on the stage again with instruments. I think that would be fun. Maybe some cellos and violins, whatever. And she gets to chat with the audience, and she gets to walk out and go to dinner without a million cameras in her face. I thought it was so poignant in I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, that one, two, three, four that keeps circling around in the background and the references to hitting her marks, and just you can see how tightly constructed everything is in her tour and in her life. And I'm glad for her and I applaud her. What a remarkable person, artist, businesswoman, industry disruptor, all the flowers to her forever. Amazing. And I hope that she gets to turn 40 and do whatever she damn well pleases.  

Sarah [01:22:32] Yeah, I agree. That's what we want for you, Taylor Allison Swift. That's what we want for you. Okay, do we do it? Do we run the Holly anthology out?  

Beth [01:22:40] I mean, we could probably do three hours on it, but not today, right?  

Sarah [01:22:44] I will say to end it up, I did love that last line, "And now the story is no longer mine." I mean, now come on.  

Beth [01:22:51] I like that it doesn't really resolve musically, but it resolves energetically like that acceptance. So it was fan service, fan scolding, fan service, fan scolding, acknowledgment, appreciation, acceptance. Beautiful.  

Sarah [01:23:04] Yeah. Love it. All right. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you guys probably have some thoughts on not just the albums, but everything we've just said over the last like half an hour talking about it. So I'm so excited to hear from all of you. We will be in the comments. We love to hear your emails. And, of course, we will be back in your ears on Friday. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.  

[01:23:28] 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. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. 

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

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