Harris-Walz, Project 2025, and The Olympics
TOPICS DISCUSSED
2024 Presidential Race
Project 2025
Outside of Politics: The Olympics
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EPISODE RESOURCES
Be sure to join the Spice Cabinet, our Premium Community on Patreon or Apple Podcast Subscriptions for Beth’s More to Say mini-series on Project 2025, Sarah and Beth’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention, our Democracy in America Book Club, and our August 29 Spicy Live!
Project 2025
Project 2025 (The Heritage Foundation)
Project 2025 Collection (Beth’s mini-series on Pantsuit Politics Premium)
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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.
[00:00:29] We're so glad you're here. We have lots to talk about today. First, we'll discuss Vice President Harris's selection of Minnesota’s Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, and the state of the presidential race in general. It's crunch time. It's go time. Lot's happening there.
Sarah [00:00:43] Beth, Donald Trump is having a no good, very bad time.
Beth [00:00:45] It's been tough for him. We're going to get into that. We've lots to say. Then we'll stay with the presidential race but narrow our focus at the request of very, very many of you. Today we are going to talk about project 2025.
Sarah [00:00:56] Womp, womp.
Beth [00:00:57] And then Outside of Politics, but just a smidge, we'll end by chatting about the Summer Olympics.
Sarah [00:01:04] Our show has always been powered by listener support, and that is increasingly true as advertising in the podcast industry is in a state of what I will generously call major flux. So we would love for you to join our premium community to support the work we do here for free twice a week, but also because we feel like we do some of our best work there. So we're going to talk about project 2025 today for like, I don't know, 20-30 minutes. Obviously, that's not going to cover the depth of a 900-page document. Lucky for all of you, Beth has produced six parts mini-series about project 2025 that dropped yesterday on our premium channels. We dropped it all at once so you can binge it or pass it out over time, but there's a lot of depth there. That's what we produce on our premium feed.
[00:01:53] And everything in our archives is available to our premium subscribers. So it wouldn't work for us to sort of tear out our archives because all these More to Says, especially the ones that Beth produces around foreign policy, they bubble up. They become relevant again. And it's nice to have that institutional knowledge that you can go and search and think, I want to know more about Yemen. What's going on in Yemen, who are the Houthis? You can go find a More to Say about that. So that's the type of content that's available on our premium channels. And we would love to see you there, especially next week.
Beth [00:02:28] Because next week we'll be covering the DNC live from Chicago. We're also continuing our slow read of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. On August 29th, we'll have our quarterly Spicy Live event. So for $15 a month, you get all of that, plus Sarah's Good Morning, Monday through Thursday, including the Thursday Good News, which is a crowd favorite, and as Sarah said, access to our full archive. So you can find us on Patreon.com as Pantsuit Politics, or use the link in the show notes to sign up.
Sarah [00:02:54] I just want to add we are fully credentialed for the convention this year. That's not happened before and we're very excited. And so, we're going to be probably doing live drops, News Briefs together. A lot of our convention coverage is going to be on our premium channel. We're going to be there all week, Sunday through Thursday. There's going to be a lot. We're talking to lieutenant governors. We're talking to senators. We're going to be on the floor experiencing the speeches, giving you our perspective. So there is going to be a lot of content on our premium channels. So if you're sad that now that the death party has turned into a dance party, you won't be at the convention, don't worry, we will. We'll be there and we'll be bringing you all the vibe. So if you want to feel like you're a part of it all, go hit up our premium channel.
Beth [00:03:37] Next up, we have our ticket set. Let's talk about Harris-Walz versus Trump-Vance.
[00:03:41] Music Interlude.
[00:03:49] This accelerated pace of the presidential contest, which I like and endorse and would like to continue for the rest of time, means that Vice President Harris's choice of Tim Walz as her running mate feels like old news now. But Sarah, we want to take a second and just check in on that. How are you feeling about Tim Walz?
Sarah [00:04:07] I adore him. I think that he is the sweetest of sweeties and such a breath of fresh air on so many fronts. I love that he's not a lawyer. I love that he's the first non-lawyer on a Democratic ticket since Jimmy Carter. I love his military experience. I really love his teaching experience. I want to hear all about his lunchroom duty and his class on Holocaust studies. I love that he doesn't own a single stock. The financial profile of this man is endlessly fascinating to me, and I think he's fun on the stump. I like to watch him speak. I like the way the crowd reacts to him. It feels to me like he is knitting some things back together just emotionally for lots of people. And I'm just delighted. I am delighted. Can I get enough of these two? I mean, can you even with them at the Mexican restaurant where he doesn't like spice and she was like, picante is black pepper to him? I could not. I cannot with these two. But everybody was like, let's put them on hot ones. Guys, I don't think we can. She should go on hot ones, but I would worry about Tim on hot ones. I don't think that's a good idea. Just putting that on the record now.
Beth [00:05:26] I don't know where to go from hot ones. I will say I am enjoying the lighter tone for sure. He was my third choice on my list. I'm kind of mid on him as a pick, but I like their chemistry a lot. I've been really interested in reading some of the sort of Politico back story about how the campaign is being staffed, and this shift from the Biden focus on Trump as dangerous. And this is a moment of choosing for America and this sort of heavy existential feel to kind of a return to the Obama playbook. Some of the old Obama team coming into the campaign. And it sounds like it has been her decision to pivot away from a campaign that is about dark, scary America will end if we don't win, to a more hopeful, forward thinking, happy version of campaigning. And I am thrilled about that.
Sarah [00:06:23] Yeah, there's been so many times in the coverage over the last few weeks that I will hear people stick to old arguments, sort of parrot a lot of what you were hearing even before Biden dropped out. And I keep thinking, guys, you got to rip up anything you were thinking before. They seem to have moved on from the double haters, which makes sense. This obsession with the people who hated both candidates, that number is falling through the floor. Nobody's a double hater anymore. But there still seems to be this framework at looking at looking at the race through either policy or a referendum on the candidates themselves. Like, well, if it's about policy, Kamala's going to lose on crime and immigration. And if it's on the candidates, Trump's going to lose because nobody likes him. And I just think that is a binary that does not see with clear eyes the reality before us. Because I don't really think that's where we are anymore.
[00:07:23] I think Obama is a closer analogy to like, this isn't about just her; it's not even about just Trump; it's about the future. Americans like elections about the future. You can't have a winning campaign strategy about the future when you have someone who's running for the third time. And it's been in our faces since 2015, okay? So to me there's still like some lag. Even Nate Silvers, who have an enormous amount of respect for, some of his analysis, I'm like, you're behind. You're lagging. Everybody's like buffering. I feel like the campaign analysis is buffering. And they have not caught up to the fact that everything is different. Everything is different. The crowds have. The rallies have. Everybody on the ground in Arizona and in Michigan is saying something is different. But it feels like the framework through which so many pundits are looking at this race is not quite caught up yet.
Beth [00:08:25] I think a lot of that is about generational change. So you and I are 1981 babies, as we talked about before, which means we really sit on the line between Gen X and millennials. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz really sit on the line between baby boomers and Gen X. And we were in the silent generation, so this has been an enormous transition. And I think you really see that. I think you see Gen X kind of has this vibe anyway, but they really are bridging a generational gap. They are exciting young people, but they don't seem young and foolish. They don't seem inexperienced.
[00:09:10] I think the way that she has been pretty tough on protesters at her rallies in a light way, but serious. She can also say to older people I have this; I've got some authority about me and some confidence and seasoning. They're just a really good age to do this. This is a really good place in life to be taking on these jobs. And I think that that is what penetrates those double haters. Not that they are going to treat these two like celebrities the way that a lot of the internet does. And not that they're on board with every policy, but that they're looking at them and saying, okay, this seems rational. This seems reasonable to me. We can all live with this, and that's great. That's the best we can hope for in a country this big.
Sarah [00:09:56] Yeah, I'm living the intergenerational reaction to these two in my own home. Because when she had that moment at the rally in Michigan where she shut down the protesters.
Audo Clip- Kamala Harris [00:10:07] He intends to cut Social Security and Medicare. He intends to surrender our fight against the climate crisis, and he intends to end the Affordable Care Act. You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I'm speaking. [Applause].
Sarah [00:10:29] Griffin and I got in a big, big, big, big fight about it where I was like, no, that's what she needs to do. And he was mad. And he felt like it was really dismissive of the protesters. And there was a lot of pushback from the pro-Palestinian side even though she had met at the greet line with the organizers of the uncommitted voting campaign in Michigan. I thought it was really interesting a few days later, she got the same protest and she took a different approach.
Audo Clip- Kamala Harris [00:10:55] We know him by Governor, but you'll soon get to know his wife when to whom-- you know what? Hold on a second. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Everybody, hold on, hold on, hold on. Here's the thing. We are all in here together. I'm told, an extraordinary number of folks who are here together because we love our country. We're here to fight for our democracy, [applause] which includes respecting the voices that I think that we are hearing from... And let me just say this on topic of what I think I'm hearing over there. Let me just speak to that for a moment, and then I'm going to get back to the business at hand. [Applause]. So let me say, I have been clear: now is the time to get a ceasefire deal and get the hostage deal done. [Applause].
Sarah [00:12:01] And it was fascinating to watch all these people on Twitter say this means more to me than anything. I don't need her to be perfect, but I need you to be responsive. And it did feel responsive to me that she heard that critique of you shut them down, and people need to feel heard and was able to sort of pivot ever so slightly so that everybody-- I got what I wanted the first time. Griffin got what he wanted the second time. And I just am endlessly impressed at this campaign's ability to adapt and respond quickly.
Beth [00:12:31] It's not surprising that I viewed that moment differently than your 15-year-old son. I think it was important for her to demonstrate that she's not a lightweight, and she did that. I think the laughing Kamala thing from Trump has fallen pretty flat anyway, but it falls even flatter when you see those moments of her showing that she is not going to be intimidated by anyone on the international stage. And that's the hardest thing, I think, for the first woman president to convince voters of. I've even listened to some focus groups with women saying, "I worry about a woman president because of the ability to stand up to people on the international stage." And so, those opportunities that she has to show toughness in the mix, I think it's great that she seizes them. And then that she says she's multi-dimensional because she can pivot, she can adapt. So I think she's handling it really well. Harder times on the Trump side of the ledger.
Sarah [00:13:27] He's so sad. He's mad, but mad is a secondary emotion. And I think he's sad because he thought he was going to waltz right back into the white House with Joe Biden as his opponent. I loved the moment in Ezra Klein's interview with Nancy Pelosi, where he said, "A Republican operative said, we just never thought he'd give it up." I just think there's so much there. There's like a whole epic novel in that. They could not conceive of a reality in which Joe Biden stepped down from the candidacy because they've been held hostage by this man for almost a decade. And so, he's just struggling. He thought he was going to have Joe. He doesn't. And he cannot let go of the unfairness of that. And the crowd size. Beth, the crowd size is upsetting him greatly.
Beth [00:14:22] Let me add to that list. I totally agree with both of those points. I also think the stakes have changed for him, because the Supreme Court did him such a solid. I think if you gave Trump and his legal team like Marvel movie level truth serum, they would tell you they never would have imagined what they got from the Supreme Court around the immunity decision. I think all of those "Oh, gosh, Trump is being so much more disciplined this time; they've really got him on message," I think that was fear. I think he was really concerned about his personal liberty. I think he worried about going to jail. And I don't think he's worried about that now. I think he's right to not be worried about it now because the legal woes haven't gone away, but the Supreme Court has bought him so much time and so much less gravity in the charges that I think all of the things that were keeping him in a range that was working have disappeared. And so, you get that at the same time, practically in a matter of months, with Biden dropping out, with the assassination attempt, with this hacking from it looks like the Iranian government or their agents. It's probably sinking in for Trump that the Iranian government is a foe unlike any he's ever faced, and they will pursue him, I think, till the end of time about his order to assassinate Soleimani. Psychologically, that's a lot for anybody. That's a lot of change for him in a very short time. And so I think he's just way, way off his game right now.
Sarah [00:16:07] Well, the only thing I wonder about is I feel looking back over this year, the tightest control he had that that shook me, that I did not expect and surprised me, was how he was able to sit back in the beginning of July and let Democrats fight about Biden. And that's post Supreme Court. He should have understood his sort of changed liability by that point. And to me that was like-- I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I do wonder if he just had Covid. Because there were some mumblings that maybe he just had Covid and that's why he disappeared for 10 days. So there's a part of me that's like, well, that's the most unTrump-like behavior I've seen. It's when he really was able to just sit back and let them fight it out. And so, I don't know if it was fear of like, oh no, we don't actually want him to get in the race.
[00:17:00] But me and Tim Miller are on the same page of this. I never believed for one hot second that this was some highly professional outfit that had all this control and all this was paying attention to things, and he was a different kind. I certainly never believed he was different post assassination or otherwise, because he is who he is. But I really never believed that the campaign was that different either. The only difference right now is that he hasn't fired everybody by July, which he has done in the previous two campaigns. That could happen by the end of August. Maybe it'll just happen a little bit later. But it's the same song different verse. Same song, different verse. He doesn't like to be losing. He's lashing out with these racist attacks. He's not going to be able to strategically attack her.
[00:17:48] I was talking with Griffin this morning and I thought, again, could not agree with you more on the timeline. This is beautiful. America, let's just keep our death grip on this. Let's refuse to allow anything different for this 100-day sprint. I love it so much. But I was telling Griffin, this is again what I was saying about the lag and analysis. I keep thinking like, well, dang, we're going to do the convention. We're going to do the Lumbee Labor Day. We have September and October. Could we have an October surprise? It's like I told Griffin, I'm like, "An October surprise is based on the idea that people are either really baked in and exhausted by this point, or are just now paying attention." And that's just not true, right? That's not what it's going to be this time.
[00:18:37] Everybody got their attention taken in July and August with this massive change. And it's not like they're bored at this point in October. Again, I think this is true of the polling where they're like-- I've been meaning to ask you about this because it's bugged me so much that so many analysis adopted the framework of the Trump campaign that this was a "honeymoon". And I'm like, y'all, that's not what this is. This polling is lagging. What is actually happening. I don't want to curse it. I am a believer in the woo woo energy of things. But I don't think that we're just going to level off and it's going to be this real fight to the finishing close. I'm sorry, I just don't. That's not what I see. That's not what my gut tells me at this point. I think all these indicators are lagging and that we are seeing a very dramatic change in the rise that will most likely just grow over the next few weeks. I could be wrong.
Beth [00:19:33] I agree with you about that, and I sincerely hope that we turn out to be right on this, because I think that the second most important thing about this election, other than Trump not winning it, is that it be a clear, decisive result.
Sarah [00:19:47] Just a beating. I want a beating, Beth. I want it to be brutal.
Beth [00:19:51] I just wanted to be clear, because he will talk about being cheated out of it again anyway. There will already be all of these conspiracy theories, incentives. We will have some kind of national strangeness after the election, but the more decisive it is, the more quickly that can die down. And I really hope for that for the sake of the country. The other thing that I think is increasingly possible, is that the down ballot starts to look a lot different than we thought it was going to. I think that she will have some tailwinds that will be really helpful here that haven't shown up yet, but that are coming, especially the way that they are working for it. I mean, we went from almost no campaigning to them jet setting across this country, a different city every single day, bringing out the party. People who didn't want to be seen with Biden can't wait to get on stage with these two. I think it really changes the tenor of things.
[00:20:54] And the other thing that I want to make sure we talk about for a quick second that adds to this, is that congressional Democrats have been really responsible in the wake of the things that have been happening with Trump. And I specifically am so glad that there was no fight about the need for a bipartisan task force to examine the Secret Service failures at his rally. We couldn't get a bipartisan vote on a task force related to January 6th, a storming of our Capitol. Republicans would not vote for it. Democrats in Congress did not hesitate to say, absolutely, this cannot happen to Donald Trump or anybody else. I hope they'll take the same posture about this hacking. Because the American president, whoever that person is, and whatever decisions that person has made and the wisdom or not of those decisions, we cannot have a foreign adversary personally pursuing that human for the rest of their lives. We have got to protect the office from that kind of aggression.
[00:21:58] And I hope that Democrats will continue to show, yes, we are about good governance. We aren't just partizan knife fighters. We aren't just against Donald Trump or out to get him. I think that responsibility they're demonstrating in Congress, combined with this enthusiasm and work on the trail, could really change the results that we've been expecting for a couple of years now to see in November in Congress. Another factor I think that will really help here, especially with independent voters, swing voters, is the way that both Harris and Walz are now shutting down the lock him up chants at the rallies. Again, they're doing it with lightness but also with authority. I hate lock him up as a chant. I hate it. I hate lock her up. I think that is not what we're about here in the United States. And to hear them say we have to focus on beating him. That's the power we have. The courts will sort out the rest. That is correct and it's honorable, and I'm thrilled to see it.
Audo Clip- Kamala Harris [00:23:04] Hold on, hold on, hold on. You know what? Here's the thing, the courts are going to handle that. We're going to beat him in November. [Applause]. You know what? The courts are going to handle that part of it. What we're going to do is beat him in November. Hold on, hold on. This campaign, our campaign is not just a fight against Donald Trump. Our campaign, this campaign is a fight for the future. [Applause].
Beth [00:23:35] So that's the big picture of the race as it stands today. A strangely potent factor in the discussion about this race has been project 2025, a large project put together by the Heritage Foundation think tank. So we're going to talk about that next.
[00:23:53] Music Interlude.
[00:24:01] Sarah, every time we've talked about project 2025 in our team meetings, we both have been like, I don't really want to talk about that. So I thought we should start out with why? What is it about project 2025 that has been off-putting or not of interest to you?
Sarah [00:24:18] I think it was a boogeyman. I think that you can write anything you want on paper. You can put, as my husband so crudely put it, your conservative wet dreams in a list as much as you'd like but that doesn't mean anything. I understand the concern that people have, but I guess I didn't want to talk about it because none of it is surprising to me. It wasn't surprising to me the plans they had. It wasn't surprising to me how much Christian nationalism is woven through all of this. And so I didn't feel the need to sort of take it down because I don't think it's new. I just think they put it on paper. But none of it sounded interesting, unique, or for that matter, strategically possible. I think it makes for good headlines and attacks, but as far as an in-depth, nuanced conversation, that seemed difficult.
Beth [00:25:29] If I say it like this, "A bunch of conservative organizations have put together recommendations for a new Republican president," okay, that sounds normal. I think that's what think tanks exist to do. That's what advocacy organizations exist to do. To say to leaders, here's what we would like from you. I also never had confidence that a Trump administration would be organized and disciplined enough to execute on a complex plan of any variety, or that he could stay focused long enough and keep people in the top jobs long enough to get there. So I've never been worried about it. I see online people saying this is terrifying. I just don't feel terrified. I'm aware that there are people in this country who have a very different vision for what the country's supposed to be than I do. And I'm aware that that some of that is worrying. If they consolidate enough power, as they did in the Supreme Court to overturn Roe versus Wade, there can be really bad consequences of that. As a matter of electoral politics, though, I just don't think that enough people are going to engage with this document on a meaningful level for it to be that important. I did not anticipate that the good branding of project 2025 would kind of take off and allow that boogeyman to serve Democrats in the way that it has.
Sarah [00:26:56] And that's it, right? That's it. So as much as I think the framework around the 2024 presidential election has changed, my framework for understanding Donald Trump and this MAGA party has never changed, which is they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Overconfidence is forever the name of the game with this group of people. And anyone with a lick of political acumen would say you don't put all this on paper in a 900-page document so people can cherry pick stuff to attack you with. It's like doing the oppo research for you. It's saying, here's all this stuff that's extreme and radical. And you can find lots of it over 900 pages and put it in ads and freak people out. I mean, it's such a rookie mistake because I don't know who this was for. I think maybe it was just to justify to donors at the Heritage Foundation that they were doing good work as a think tank. That's the best I can come up with because it's not a strategic document. It has a long list of things, but it doesn't say how you're going to achieve any of those. It's not a governing philosophy to convince America that the MAGA Republicans have a future vision that is motivating, empowering, encouraging at all. So it's not a political strategy. It's not a governing strategy. It's not much of a philosophy. Again, all it is, is a long list of things that make it very easy for your political opponents. It's like giving them a menu. Here, what would you like to pick from to paint us as radicals?
Beth [00:28:57] So I feel like I've lived this document for two weeks now. I've read it all. I've tried to summarize it for listeners. I totally agree with you that it is an orchard for cherry picking. Engaging with this document in good faith is really time consuming, and not in the interest of anyone in an election season. I tried to really go through and say, I'm going to put aside who's proposing it and just look at these ideas and say, what do I agree with? What do I disagree with? What do I not have enough information about? From that perspective, I read it as a document that was created to build a MAGA movement without Donald Trump. I think this was for a DeSantis administration. I think much more important than this document itself, is the database being built to hire people into the executive branch of government. They wanted to recruit a new conservative team because their view of how to get this wishlist accomplished is through loyal personnel.
[00:29:57] It is through flooding the executive branch with political appointees who are on board with the conservative agenda. And I think they also narrowly focused on the executive branch. If we got a full conservative vision, we would have heard more about the courts and about Congress. Not a lot about legislating here. This is not about legislative policy. It's not about what state legislatures do. That probably saved them from putting even more extreme things in the document to be cherry picked from. But it is about saying, okay, if we have a new commander in chief who really wants to systematically remake the government and can get enough people in positions to do that, what's the call to action within each department of government?
Sarah [00:30:46] Yeah. As I listened to your whole series, I still think the document reveals more about what they don't know than what they want to get accomplished. Listen, I'm a macro thinker. I love to zoom out. It's my favorite thinking exercise. But the more I listen to you run through every department, here's what they want to do with the SEC and here's what they want to do the FEC and all these people that participated this. At the same time, I was listening to a lot of conversations with Nancy Pelosi about her new book, the Art of Power. I thought, you guys still don't get it. You just don't get it because I think she's right. They don't want to govern-- maybe it's not that they don't want to govern, but a governing vision. She's really big on you got to know your why. You got to know your why.
[00:31:43] And as I listened you know to a lot of their request of this laundry list, I still never heard of why, except for we hate Democrats approach to climate change and we hate Democrats approach to DEI and wokeism. But that is not a why; not you guys is not a why; you guys do it bad. We want to do it different. It's just not a why. Because it's not even consistent to the why that I sort of grew up understanding about the Republican Party, which is give it to the state. They don't want to give it to the States. They want to give it to the States they like. it's really not small government. It's not cutting spending. And really, I don't think those are highly motivating-wise either, if I'm being honest. And so, as I kept listening to this list it's like some of it's in better faith than the rest. I agree with your perception that where they had pieces where there were debates, that's interesting.
[00:32:38] Many of these authors were engaging with in good faith and more experienced than others. Fine. But it's like, again, why? What are you doing? What do you want? What is the vision of America that you have except for run through with Christian nationalism and traditional family values, which not only do I think is wrong, just as far as where America is and where it's going, I think it's a losing strategy. I don't think there are enough Americans that agree with you on that. And so there just wasn't anything in here except for some interesting policy proposals that to me takes the MAGA movement past Trump. Because there's no there-there; it's all built on him. And this document, I think, to the personnel part, even if you did that, guys, even if DeSantis-- let's just recreate another time machine. Let's have a time machine. DeSantis is the candidate. He wins. He gets in. You fill all these positions. It's still not going to be what you think it's going to be. It's still not going to happen.
[00:33:47] The problem with the Trump administration was, of course, a lack of expertise and a slow footedness in filling these positions and filling them with the wrong people. But that's not all of it. That wasn't the sole problem. And there's just blinders; total and complete blinders to what governing takes, what you need to do in a democracy to sell that governing vision to the American people. I don't know. I I wasn't impressed, Beth. I was impressed with your effort getting through this document. But that's the only thing I was impressed with.
Beth [00:34:20] I appreciate that. It was it was a lot of work. Here's how I would try to articulate the vision. It's tough because the document is so weighed down by anger. And it did feel heavily edited to me in that respect. Like you had experts in their fields, people who love policy and love thinking about policy, writing, writing, writing, and then maybe an editor comes in and says, well, we haven't owned the libs enough yet in this chapter. Because there would be really jarring tone switches away from a thoughtful, even if I disagreed with that analysis too, and aren't those other guys the worst? So if I try to set aside the anger about anything related to diversity and inclusion, anything related to Covid management, there are still a lot of anger about masking here. If I set aside anything related to a very particular form of Christian vision for what a person's life ought to be like.
[00:35:28] The rest, I would say, is a vision of government that is limited to a robust national defense and that national defense in a more isolationist way. That we are built up with the most powerful military on Earth that we rarely deploy, but that everyone understands could be deployed at any moment to devastating effect for anyone who wishes to do us harm. So government principally as about national security, and secondarily about guarding the economy, and thirdly operated in a way that they believe would be more responsive to voters. So the schedule F of it all that a number of people have been concerned about, justifiably, since that concept started being discussed by the Trump administration, is essentially a vision that every arm of the executive branch of government should have political actors driving the bus instead of career people who have a different vision than whatever president just got elected. And I think that if you work in government, you're going to have really strong feelings about that. And if you don't, I think it's easy for your feelings about that to lean in a very partizan direction.
[00:36:54] Well, if if Democrats were finding resistance from actors in executive branch agencies, I think Democrats would say, no, we should put more political appointees in there to drive the president's agenda. And since Republicans have in their past few presidencies found that resistance from career people, they're saying we need more political folks in those positions. And I think that's an argument worth having. It's just an argument that's really hard to present as a vision when for the vast majority of the public, this reads like alphabet soup. There are too many agencies. What those agencies do is opaque. It is complex and most people just want it to work. And they want it to work well enough that it doesn't get in their way, and they only get mad about it when it becomes an obstacle. So it's hard for that to be a compelling vision. But that's how I would articulate the affirmative vision that they have for what government is and what it does.
Sarah [00:37:52] I just think the problem is you can't put the anger aside. Like, who's going to do all the goodwill you just did to bury out from be the anger? Because you can't present an affirmative vision of what the United States should do to defend against its enemies, particularly abroad, because everything out of your mouth is that the real enemies are Democrats. So you can't talk about China. You certainly can't talk about the national defense when you completely ignore Russia. So it's just so unconvincing. And I think it's like this weird paradox where they're trying to go macro, but they don't have a macro argument. They don't have a "This is what the United States is for". I don't agree with everything Heather Cox Richardson writes, but I think what she's really good at is articulating over and over again that what they want to do is dial it back to before FDR. They don't like that vision. They don't like the vision that came out from the New Deal. They certainly don't like the vision from the Johnson administration, and they just want to roll it all the way back.
[00:39:01] And it's like Make America Great Again worked a little bit because that's what they want to do. They want to go backwards. They want to roll back Medicare and Medicaid, and they want to roll back this big government that I think you're right, most people just want to work. They don't hate it; they just want it to work. It's like with the ACA, they don't have another idea. The idea just can't be no, smaller or less better. That's not a convincing argument to people. And if you don't get that, if there's no philosophy that you can easily articulate-- I mean, Harris and Walz are easily articulating we want better for you and your kids. We want to care for every American. I think care is probably the easiest word to articulate when you're talking about the Democratic Party's vision. And I think maybe for a long time in my life security was the easiest articulated vision from the Republican Party. And I hear good ideas. That whole section on the military, those people care.
[00:40:07] I think there's so much room. It's not like everyone saying everything in the federal government is firing all cylinders and is the most efficient option out there. But if you want to whiteboard a lot of the federal government and get it better and get it more efficient, you have to have a why. Nancy Pelosi's right about that. What's the why? And the why cannot be anti-wokeism. No one gives a shit. That's not motivating to people. And listening to all that list, like like I said, it wasn't that they were all bad ideas. It wasn't that every author was operating in bad faith. But 900 pages, all your work, all that listing and I still don't hear a why. I just don't. I still don't hear a why. Because even after if you put aside everything that they can't get off their freaking minds that they're obsessed with, there are giant, gaping holes. Your approach to national security is all about China and you ignore Russia. And your approach to the economy really doesn't articulate a vision for Americans, it just articulates what you think is wrong right now. I don't know.
Beth [00:41:17] I disagree with some of this. So when you say the vision for Democrats is care, I think what makes me saddest about this document-- and that is the principal emotion I felt going through this. I felt really sad. Because I do think there are some good things in here, and I do think there are good approaches in here. And I think we desperately need a party that says sometimes less is care. Sometimes care is in pulling back on the constraints that we place in front of businesses or farms or the way people spend their money. Sometimes care is additive and sometimes it's subtractive, and we need a party to make that argument and to build that out. I think there is a lot of care expressed in portions of this document. The problem is it's so busy being angry and leaving out so many people that it's hard to feel an overwhelming sense of care, because it feels like you only care about a very small subgroup of the United States.
[00:42:17] It makes me sad because if the Republican Party could be a party that cares about everybody in the United States and advances policies that say sometimes less government is a form of care, I think we would all be better off for that. Not for that to win the day, but for that healthy back and forth to be there. That's what is so missing right now. The healthy back and forth. The healthy back and forth on that has to take place within the Democratic caucus in the Senate, basically. Can we get to 60 votes or not? Because we have some Democratic senators who are there as the voice of saying, maybe this is too much. Maybe that's too far. Maybe less would be a better act of care here. But to say everybody cares and we express that in different forms, that's great for us as a nation; it's just too bad that it's stuck with this exclusionary ethos wrapped around it.
Sarah [00:43:16] Yeah, I think there are members of the Republican Party that can do that. They're not in this document. And I don't anticipate the Republican Party breaking free of the MAGA movement even if Donald Trump loses in November. And that's sucks. But losing does not seem to have shifted the trajectory of the party at all over the last 9 to 10 years. The reason I think Tim Walz is such a great pick, it's why I'm enjoying every moment of him on the stump, is because I do think that Midwest populism is more of that. It's care, but care doesn't always have to be more. I think there is a lot of mind your own business. Let people make their money. I loved the Axios write up of the contrast between Warren Buffett's wealth and Tim Walz financial portfolio or lack thereof. That you do have to have people making a lot of money paying taxes to get to a place where you're a Tim Walz with no property, no taxes, no financial portfolio to speak of. Because I do think there's this balance and that's available.
[00:44:24] And, of course, I would love a healthy party. I think you can look at places like California. You can look at places like New York City, you can look at countries like Japan and see that single party rule isn't great, that you need a contest of ideas. And I hope that there are up and comers inside the conservative movement that are coming up with these. But you know what I told Nicholas? I said after I listened to the whole series, I thought, man, this is just like William F. Buckley. It's just the same crap. It's just the same. Like, you don't take us seriously and we have good ideas, but mainly our good ideas are that your ideas are bad. And I just really wish the conservative movement could break free of that. I haven't seen it in my life. I haven't seen it. I feel like the most radical change that has come inside the Republican Party and conservative ideology over the course of my 43 years is Donald Trump. And that is not a compliment.
Beth [00:45:28] I don't think it's all the same crap. I mean, there's a lot about space in this document. There are forward looking things here. And I do think some of the people who worked on this worked in good faith. It's an interesting document because it was done by so many people and organizations. So there are parts of it where they don't really reach a conclusion, they just acknowledge that things are influx. The antitrust section to me was one of the more fascinating parts of it, because they were kind of like, I don't know, tech is hard because it's definitely being run by just a couple of companies and those companies are intrusive in the extreme, but Americans seem to like it. And most of our antitrust tools are about pricing, and most people receive those services for free, or at least in terms of dollars they're free. So we don't really know how to deal with this. And I thought that is where some of the best work was here, accepting the state as it has been built post New Deal and saying, what does a conservative vision look like if this can't all be dismantled?
[00:46:35] There were many chapters that were like, we don't think this agency should exist but that's probably impossible because Congress would have to be on board. And too many conflicting congressional committees have jurisdiction here. This would take too much. We can't tear this down. So what do we do with it? I think those are good questions and good thought exercises. I guess, for me, it would be disappointing to me for every bit of this to be written off as the same old crap. Because at least it is about ideas instead of people. At least this is not about well Donald Trump is the answer to everything. Or electing a conservative president is the answer to everything. Or just being against the squad and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer is the answer to everything.
[00:47:22] This was encouraging to me in that for all of its toxicity-- and it is there-- I hate the thought of single moms reading this document, or LGBTQ people reading this document, especially the parents of trans kids. There are things here that are hurtful and toxic and mean. There is also the seed I hope other of a future for this party that is more about ideas. And some of those ideas I think could find a lot of bipartisan agreement. And so that's why as overwhelming of an exercise as it was to try to read this and try to parse it out, I'm glad I did it because it had been a while since I had really engaged with, okay, what would a conservative version of this look like? And I think that's worthwhile.
Sarah [00:48:16] I think if I could gather up whoever's idea this was and I guess all the authors and I could just put them in a zoom (including the dude that got fired for being a part of this) I would say, look, again, I understand that some of the authors engaged in good faith. I didn't disagree with every single idea listed especially because this was running through your filter where you were giving them a lot of benefit of the doubt and trying to dig past the anger, which I think is truckloads more than most people would do. I would say I'm happy you're trying on ideas. My fear is that the political fallout from this document will freeze any of that momentum in its place. But let's hope it doesn't. I think I would say you're still a little too far downstream. You have skipped a lot of the really important work to do here. You still are missing philosophy. Well, William F Buckley is obviously not my favorite, but I think he did some of that. He said, what's our why?
[00:49:31] Not to go back to Nancy Pelosi, but I really wish they'd started with that. I wish they'd said like, let's pick all these people who disagree, let's put them in a room, let's not debate the specifics of the SEC or the Navy, or food stamps, let's say, what is our vision? I hate mission statement work. It's not for me. I'm bad at it. I don't love it, but I think they could use some of that. I think they could use like let's get six different generations along this political spectrum. Let's get in a room and say, if we're articulating the conservative vision for America for the presidential race in 2034 to the American populace, what does that look like? Let's articulate it in a positive form and see where it goes from there. Because I'm afraid that the political fallout, this will just freeze any of this idea talk. And it'll go back to-- although, I don't know. I mean, they did that. They did that when they lost with Mitt Romney. They said, this is where we're losing. This is what's going wrong. And there was no follow up and we ended up with Trump. I don't know. I'm just not feeling particularly hopeful here.
Beth [00:50:46] Why do you think it has become politically toxic? I think that Trump himself is super annoyed that he ever has to address questions about this. Certainly the campaign has said how dare you. It will be Trump's presidency, not the Heritage Foundation's presidency. He'll do what he wants. And that's why I've never been worried about this, because I've always believed Trump will do what he wants, and that will change moment to moment. From the beginning of our show, we have talked about the importance of government being a car that is always driving. That we need people to be the accelerator, to say we need more government action here, and we need people to be the brakes to pull it back. And we don't need parties that slam on both at the same time. There's got to be a little give and take here, and that's what I'm always looking for.
[00:51:28] Even if the party became my dreams for what it could be, even if I were in charge of that mission statement, I don't know that it would ever be a mission statement that you'd be excited about. Because I think that there is an aspect of we exist to be the brakes on some ideas. We exist because we believe that people in their communities, in their families, should not have obstacles imposed on them that make it harder to live as they would like to, define success as they would like to, pursue a good life as they define it. That's not a sexy mission, right? And it's not the mission that they have today. The animating principles today are not about people having the freedom to make those decisions for themselves. But if it became what I want from a conservative party, it would be a party of breaks. It would be a slowdown government party. And that's never going to be a why that makes you stand up and cheer and that's okay.
Sarah [00:52:35] I think that's not true. I think that that is an exciting vision of a type. You just have to be able to sell it. I'm not mad at that. What I think is missing inside the Republican Party is whatever is the next version of conservative politics. And I don't know if that's what that will be. God, I hate to hold him up as an idea because I find him mostly to be despicable. I think Josh Hawley is getting close. That he's saying in the same way the Democratic Party. Can sometimes get stuck in FDR and Lyndon Johnson's vision, the Conservative Party is sort of stuck in Buckley's vision. We're well into a new century. And I think Obama shook us loose as much as he could and hopefully we'll continue that good next version of the vision. And I can see glimmers of that with people like Hawley. Just like you will see a little flash of like they see it. They see a different future, particularly, I think, around and articulable vision of government's role with regards to technology.
[00:53:51] And, look, I think sometimes Josh Hawley and his like are further along on that path in the Democratic Party. I mean that as a compliment because it is one. So the truth is you and I are 43. We're stuck in that 20th century vision as much as anybody else is. It'll be the next generation that sort of breaks it wide open and says, no, you're thinking about this upside down and inside out. We want to go in a totally different direction. And I don't know if maybe that will look like breaks, maybe that will look like-- I don't know, I'd use a car analogy if I understood in any way, shape or form how the combustion engine works, which I don't. But do you see what I'm saying? I think there's a little there. We're still stuck. Like, it'll be interesting to see if some new generation of conservative thinkers say, I have an exciting vision. And it's going to be in a different universe of possibility that you and I can't sit here and think about right now, even after going through this document.
Beth [00:54:48] Yeah, and I sure hope it's not the Hawley direction because that's not breaks. That's not breaks. That is a very big government approach. This document is a very big government approach. There are in this document strains of old school conservatives, but not much. It's not a bunch of Reagan alums here. There are a couple, but this is a document assembled by people who are much further down that populist path. They don't cut Social Security. They don't make meaningful reforms to Medicare and Medicaid here. If you did everything in this document, you would spend more money and a lot more money every single year in perpetuity. I don't see a version of this that even in the long term, after you get the restructuring done, I don't think you end up saving money through these proposals. And I don't think saving money is what government should be about. I don't think a party's entire why should be that we spend less money. But I do think there is an absence of that sense that sometimes less is better from government in the Josh Hawley way of thinking. That is just government being bigger and more intrusive on different topics than Democrats ones.
Sarah [00:56:03] Well, I think when I get a glimmer of Hawley that I'm like, oh, where I'm like, Elizabeth Warren, oh, maybe we could work together. It's the acknowledgment that when you scale back government response, it just allows a rise in corporate power that really nobody likes. And so, we have to find a balance. You don't want big government, fine, but you don't want big Corp either. And so, let's figure out the balance. Look, Josh Hawley is not a dumb guy. He's not my favorite, but he's not stupid. And when you get someone like Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren in the same room and they say, okay, neither of us are happy here; what would this look like? Then you get the brakes and gas. I think, honestly, that would be appealing to both of us because they're far enough apart in other ways that they're not just going to roll through and it's not going to just be a giant government response.
[00:56:55] I think there's some populism there, absolutely. But, listen, I ain't opposed to all populism, okay? I live in the town of Alben Barkley. I'm not opposed to all populism, but I do think you need breaks in a way you probably could get if you could get the visions of Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley in a room and say, okay, what are we looking for here? Because I think the truth is-- and the sooner both parties figure this out the better-- is that most Americans are in agreement with Hawley and Warren on this. They don't like it. You go to a barbecue, you go to a pool, you get started, people don't like how big government is and they don't like how big corporations are. They get a sense that there are all those mergers and acquisitions we said not too much government, let's just let everybody merge and get bigger and bigger and bigger. And they don't love the results.
Beth [00:57:44] I don't know that we don't love the results today, but I think we correctly don't love the results in terms of where that could go. I mean, we don't love the results, but we do support the results with our dollars. Like we do shop with giant corporations.
Sarah [00:57:59] Because we don't have a choice.
Beth [00:58:01] And we are happy that a package can be delivered tomorrow morning that I ordered yesterday. We like some of their results. What I think the kind of next generation of people leading government have to think about is that the corporate titans are not content with being corporate titans. They also want to have space colonies. They also want to have private security firms that start to feel like militaries. That we are entering a world where the nation state has a ton of competition coming from the titans of industry. And I think that's where some of those populist instincts that I normally have very little sympathy for are correct. And again, that's interesting. Diving into that, that's good stuff. If project 2025 could be a springboard for that kind of discussion, that's a win.
Sarah [00:58:56] Well, and I think that's why the portion of this document that's about the military is the most engaging, because there is a why there. Very well articulated, very easy for all of us to understand and see clearly, which is to protect America's national security interests. And I think the authors of those different pieces that could clearly say, like, we all know it's changed. We all know war has changed. We all know our influence abroad and our ability to control situations like Israel and Palestine is not what it used to be. If it ever was that, or if we were just fooling ourselves the whole damn time anyway. And so, that's what Griffin and I get into all the time. He's like, we just need to do this. And I'm like, that's not how this is going to work. We can't just do anything anywhere, ever. Never really were able to do that. And I think that it's interesting that the progressive left in so many ways has not spent decades critiquing this type of American all-encompassing power and now wants to use it when they want to use it. Sounds a little bit like parts of project 2025. We want the states to do what they can do unless we don't like what they're doing.
Beth [01:00:09] Well, there's a lot more. We could spend a lot of time here, but good news we have spent a lot of time on project 2025. So if you are interested in learning more, the six-part series is up on our premium channels right now for everyone and that $15 a month level. I would love to hear your thoughts and your questions and what you're thinking more about. And we're going to move on now to our palate cleanser as we end the episode talking about the Olympics.
[01:00:30] Music Interlude.
[01:00:39] Sarah, you have hinted several times that you have some important things on your mind that you want to express about the Olympics.
Sarah [01:00:46] Yeah, I take it back. I used to not like the Olympics. Y'all convinced me. Paris convinced me. I mean, it was a good place for me to experience a change of devotion. I love Paris. It's one of my most favorite places on earth. They seem to have figured out generally how to make it easy to watch the Olympics. Peacock seems to be like a big winner of this Olympics. Viewership is up 76%, so it was easy for me to watch the things I wanted to watch. It caught me at a good moment when I'm ready to be patriotic again. I never stopped being patriotic. I don't put that on the record. But I just hate it because it's cringe and you were supposed to be patriotic, but I was patriotic the whole time, damn it!
[01:01:28] So I just really enjoy the patriotism, but also the global participation. I just thought it was a delight. I don't think I was alone. I think everybody was delighted by these Olympics. They were just good. There was just I think a lot of pent-up energy from Tokyo getting delayed and not being really no crowds. All those problems from the pandemic. And I loved all of it. I loved the memes. I love the tweets. I love the highlights. I loved that we got so many medals. I loved Snoop Dogg. I even liked Marie Antoinette holding her head on the balcony of the concierge and opening ceremonies. I even liked Tom cruise. I don't even like Tom cruise. I do now. I loved it all. Go, America!
Beth [01:02:18] I think the investment in Snoop Dogg really paid off for NBC. That was a good call. Whoever did that, that was a really good call.
Sarah [01:02:24] Because he's a treasure, Beth. He's a national treasure. He's a national treasure.
Beth [01:02:29] I really enjoyed the Olympics, too. And I felt like some of the really good vibes around this Olympics are evidence that so many reform efforts have been happening in sports. I saw someone tweet and I wish I could remember. I should have saved it. She posted a picture of an Olympics gymnastics teams from the 80s and the current women on the team. Their bodies look different. They look healthier now than they did then. And there has been so much uncovered about abuses and scandal. You can just tell that sports are in a time of transition, and a lot of it's getting healthier. I felt like there were fewer people just breaking down in agony in this Olympics when things didn't go right, and a lot more celebration when they did. The U.S. men's gymnastics team, that looks like a blast. That looks like a frat party on the road. They looked like they're living their best lives there. They just felt like less tension and more celebration here. And I thought that made it so much fun to watch.
Sarah [01:03:28] Yeah, I mean, Simone Biles being the Goat and just winning us so many gold medals, coming off like a mental health challenge, articulating, like, this is for me. This isn't for anybody else. My therapist [inaudible] so many of these battles. Like, there was definitely a mental health shift and just a joyousness among the athletes participating, being there. Even the moments that were hard or that went badly, I agree, it didn't feel like the end of the world. It just felt like it didn't go our way this time. Maybe it'll go away next time. And I just thought that that was really beautiful. I think I hadn't thought of until very close to the closing ceremonies, until I saw somebody point out this perspective, which is there was no gambling. No gambling ads, no preponderance of everywhere DraftKings, DraftKings, DraftKings.
[01:04:25] And I thought, oh, that's an interesting perspective, that this is something that's sort of subsumed our sports environment in the US, and that this was just a break for this. This isn't about anybody making money. This is about the joy of competition. This is about the pursuit of excellence, which I've always been a little cynical about around the Olympics. And this felt different to me. It did really feel like this isn't about sponsorships and Wheaties boxes. And this is about the pursuit of excellence, both individually, as a team, as a nation.
Beth [01:05:03] I mean, I do still think it's a lot about money. I think there's a lot of money tied up here, but I think that it felt more joyous because you know that people in a lot of different sports are going to get some of that money now. And you saw in the advertising itself an interest in the Paralympics and interest in athletes in sports that we don't typically see, and a much more diverse group of people getting those sponsorship deals. It just had a more abundance flavor to the money than the scarcity in the past, I think. And that, to me, is what made it feel so much lighter.
Sarah [01:05:38] We didn't get this at the top of the show where we were talking about the state of the presidential, but been such an ongoing conversation about Harrison Wall sort of reclaiming patriotism. I don't think it is an accident that the vibe is shifting alongside this Olympics. And I thought so often when we talk about patriotism, I list these things. I have my go to lists. That we did the Americans with Disabilities Act. I love Paris. Go try to navigate Paris with a wheelchair and come and talk to me about disability access in America or the National Park Service or all these different things. And then I was watching the Olympics and watching these rallies, and I thought, oh, man, it's just America. We are such a beautifully diverse country. And you see it on full display during the Olympics.
[01:06:35] And even just like Flavor Flav sponsoring the women's volleyball team or whatever the case may be like, it's just-- and Snoop Dogg and Katie Ledecky and everybody from someone who's like a sharpshooter in their spare time to LeBron James. And it's just gorgeous. We are a gorgeous, amazing, beautiful populace and I love being a member of it. I love being an American and I just do. I travel a lot. I wouldn't live anywhere else. And I just thought it was so fun to get wrapped up in all of that. And the handoff to LA has got me so excited. I got to give a shout out to my friend Dave, who produced that delight on a beach. Oh my God, I wish I'd been there. Got me so, so excited about Los Angeles and having it in America again. I mean, are you kidding me? We all love Snoop Dogg in Paris. Y'all know where Snoop Dogg is from? Oh my God, I cannot even.
Beth [01:07:49] I do want to give a high five to Flavor Flav if I can, because there's this controversy surrounding Jordan Chiles, the American gymnast who may have her bronze medal taken away from her. I saw right before we sat down to record the Flavor Flav was like, I’m going to make you a bronze clock to wear around your neck. And I thought, I love this.
Sarah [01:08:04] I would take that! I would take that over the medal. Forget it.
Beth [01:08:08] I felt like I saw American athletes being incredibly supportive of the rest of the world during these games, too, and I really felt proud about that. There are still problems. IOC still has its issues. I worry, I do still, about the impact on cities of bringing the games. It's positive, but it has its downside too. I don't think these athletes should be sleeping on cardboard beds. I still wish we would have a permanent facility for the Olympics in Greece, and different countries could host there. I think that would be a lot better. That said, I loved watching Tom cruise on his bike with the flag making his way to LA. I was so excited for Mayor Karen Bass. That had to feel amazing to accept that flag and to accept that hand off. It's a good reminder that nothing is pure, and you can still find so much enjoyment in it, and it can still lift so many people up and bring so many people together. And I do think it cements this direction that our best hope as Americans of finding each other again is through sports. Sports and music. We get real really excited about those two things.
Sarah [01:09:14] Well, I used to be into your proposal, but now with Paris, Los Angeles' goal is to make a profit. And you know what? I believe in them. I believe that if a place can figure out how to have the Olympics for the third time and turn a profit, it is Los Angeles, California. I just think there is something special. Again, I love Paris. I love the French. And so, it clearly imbibed them with this sense of like, we want to show you what's great about us. I love the New York Times headline that's like Paris, Uncharacteristically Giddy, Bids Au Revoir to the Olympics. I was like, yes, I want more places around the globe to be uncharacteristically giddy at their chance to show the world what is great about their place. I love that.
[01:10:00] I loved every minute of it. I even loved the opening ceremony controversy because, first of all, the opening ceremony was deeply weird and deeply French in a way that filled my heart with joy I can be both things. I can be patriotic and love America. I can cry when Simone Biles gets her, like, 200th gold medal, and also cry when her and Jordan Chiles bow down to the Brazilian gold medalist. I loved all of it. I thought it was so beautiful. And I think there is something about letting other people have their place in the sun, other places in the world. I just think it's great. I just loved it. I thought it was so great. And I didn't even watch that much. It's not like I was like Alise with Peacock on in the background every day, all day, and I still loved it.
Beth [01:10:52] We have a little bit of Olympicing [sic] left to do in our household, because we did a draft where each of us took two countries. No one was allowed to choose the US.
Sarah [01:11:00] Because we're winners.
Beth [01:11:01] We took two countries. Person who won the overall medal count gets to choose a family dinner night out. Where are we going? What are we eating? And it's been very competitive. You want to get your children interested in what's going on with the Olympics? This is the way to do it, apparently. We go out to dinner fairly regularly, but this was like a big prize in everyone's mind. So, Chad won because he took China. And I told him I hope it was worth the expense of his soul. Jane is really aggravated because Great Britain was just behind. Who got France? Ellen took France.
Sarah [01:11:32] I think there was something about it being there, man. They went for it. I don't remember ever France being this close to the medal count, but maybe I'm wrong.
Beth [01:11:38] That French swimmer was so much fun to watch. We watched a lot of swimming because my girls swim and it was really, really fun.
Sarah [01:11:45] And you can keep the Olympic spirit going in your family too, even after the draft, because the Paralympics start on August 28th. So tune in for that.
Beth [01:11:52] Thank you all very much for joining us today for this extended conversation about the Olympics. Don't forget to head over to our Patreon so that you get our extensive coverage of project 2025, and you get the DNC next week. We're continuing to run our Cameo sale right now. It has been so much fun sending words of encouragement to teachers and students. We would love to say hi to your friends and loved ones who are heading back to school. So you can find that in our shownotes. The link for Cameo is there. We'll be back with you on Friday for the last episode in our summer reboot of The Nuanced Life, and it's a good one that you're not going to want to miss. Until then, have the best week available to you.
[01:12:27] 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. Emily Helen Olson. 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. 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. Genny Francis. Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen. The Munene Family. Ashley Rene. Michelle Palacios.
Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.