Busy Phillipps, Cornell Belcher & Roben Farzad

world of celebrity has changed. But first we have NPRS Robin fars Odd. Welcome to Fast Politics. Robin, thank you, thank you for having me on again. I think you guys are making a mistake. I see Nancy Pelosi, Brian Stelter and then wait for it or something. What happened? Well, it's a different and uh, we have all different people talking about all different things. Sure, and you know the truth is, we need to talk about that job's report. And as much as I love, you know, Nancy Pelosi,

she's not well. I mean, actually should be great to talk about it too, But I would love to talk to you about those jobs numbers last week because they were kind of blockbuster. It just blew everybody away. I mean, we at all. You know, in psychological terms, the self fulfilling prophecy of recession. It was supposed to be faded complete and then you just have a number that just blows all estimates out of the water. Now, obviously that's great and the White House can run victory laps around it.

Not that you need a much lower unemployment rate than where we are now. I mean vsa V the lowis since ninety nine. But the flip side of that is that you know, Jerome Powell and the Fed are going to become much more cautious about keeping rates where they are. They're going to go ever higher because they did a half point. So they're still anxiety, right, I mean, the problem is there is this push and pull, right, there's an anxiety about the economy getting too hot and that

encouraging inflation. So the Fed, whenever they're good economic numbers, there's immediately this anxiety that the Fed is going to raise rates. In a perfect world, you could have a soft landing where it's not too hot, not too cold. I think you know, when Jerome Powell puts his head down on the pillow at night. He imagined is as a scenario of maybe three percent inflation and four and a half percent unemployment if there were a knee trade off.

I'm not sure it works that way. At least. We look back to the early eighties and Paul Wolker, you have to crash the economy and send it into a deep procession, indeed, to kill inflation the kinds that we saw of double digits forty years ago, and the concern was that this FED would have to do the same thing. Maybe, just maybe it won't have to. Oh interesting, I mean, where do you think this goes? Now? My mind has been on something that I think no one in either

party really wants to mention much. Is we talk about the FED taking interest rates to zero, but how often do we talk about p p P. And the excess is in the profligacy of p p P. I think that so much money was pumped into the economy with no questions asked, and many small and medium sized businesses still have that some of that money stockpiled in their cash and that's why it's so hard to kill inflation.

I think that, combined with zero percent interest rate policy and all the fear of missing out in the pandemic has led to this just really long, deep inflation that we're feeling. And we're still way too high for comfort. I think the FED wants to get to two percent, and we're maybe at three times that right now. And the question is how much do we have to exact pain on the economy in terms of interest rate hikes until the economy cries uncle and says, all right, you've

got me, that's enough, leave me alone. Yeah, that is really good question. I think. So it was half a million, a little more than half a million. The expectation was about half of that, right, I think half of that a little less than half of that. It completely blew everybody away, and you saw the stock market sell off initially and afterwards like, maybe it's not bad because we

can have this idea of a soft landing. Maybe the Fed will have one or two quarter point hikes left in it, and then we'll get to what's called you know, terminal interest rate level. What does that mean? That sounds bad for you? Unhealthy? Yeah? The peak level where we get interest rates at this time is it five and a half percent? Is a five and a quarter percent?

I mean again, we were at zero interest rate policy, and they had to hike by so many chunky increments last year that I think the market just wants to have an endgame insight. So I want to talk to you about that for a second, because one of the consequences of these higher interest rates is that it kills the home buying market. Yes, but I guess arguably the home buying market got so out of control and it's

still out of control for first time buyers. I mean, there was so much speculation and FOMO and people suddenly fetishizing housing. We were staying at home. We're like, no, I'm not going to downsize. In fact, I'm going to put an addition on an office in al Cove, and I'm gonna buy a vacation home and buy something in Aspen in South Florida on Coral Gables, And that is really crowded out. And this is almost sounds like a trope. I mean millennial buyers, younger buyers who have no hope

of kind of hitting the ask. You know, housing prices were up I think during the pandemic by and this was supposed to buy design. I think if Powell had a lever and he could attack housing and some of the super hot areas of the economy. He would do it, but as you know, it's a blunt instrument fed rate hikes and it takes it could take everything down with it. Right, we have these two paradoxes. We have tight employment, right so almost full employment were you know, which drives wages higher,

which needs to happen. And then we have these higher interest rates which drives housing costs lower, which needs to happen. But the process of going through it is quite painful. But you don't have unanimity out there of you know, wages need to go higher. You might say that from a kind of a quality and income and standard of

living perspective. But if you talk to the Chamber of Commerce, of the Club for growth by people like you have restaurant people, in hospitality people and and airline people complaining that people don't even show up for job interviews, much less take the jobs. And that is inflationary. And maybe we were deluding ourselves for fifty years that we were able to pay people seven dollars an hour and get away with it and pocket the rest is profit or

reinvested back into the business. Yeah, and and maybe that's bad not paying people living wage. It is, but what is the equilibrium? I know, the Club for Growth might

not say that. Yeah, but you're gonna see a lot of residue, a lot of the detritus, detritus of this um pandemic you walk into, Like the Einstein's near me used to be just the thriving place where all the parents would meet after drop off or during pick up, and they completely got rid of their interior dining room area because it's strictly become a pickup indoor dash operation.

Because they just don't have the staff. There's no way people can clean the tables, provision customers, sweep the floors, all of that excess space, all of the Starbucks that are contorting to move to kind of a drive through model. How permanent is this? If businesses just try to automate and do so much more with less. Yes, you can only take a three and a half percent unemployment rate for granted, for so long? Right, all right, right, I mean it is, it's just a lot of really interested

in paradoxes. Ultimately, I just don't know, Yeah, I don't know. You know, when I was at Business Week after two thousand and eight, everybody was asking about the new normal. What is normal when we're we at an equilibrium and when you talk to people that tell you there was never a normal. It's not like a point in time in history where things were not too hot, not too cold. It was a peace time thing. There was a peace dividend. We weren't speculating. The FED wasn't an interest rate policy,

you know, zero interest rate. There wasn't a Cuban missile crisis, or there's always something that's kind of out of whack. And now we're really experiencing inflation and supply chain disruption and a reluctant workforce that is in no rush to go back. With unemployment shoots up to eight percent, I think that would expose very different motivations and people very eager to go back and collect the check. But for the time being, you know, you're seeing so many openings

for every avid job taker. It's it's pretty disconcerting even to the feed. Interesting. Um, so what are you watching now? I don't know. I mean that we're we're kind of in this. Everybody thought going into this year, if you pulled people, uh, you know, around Christmas or Hanaker Thanksgiving, that recession was was kind of guaranteed. I wonder where commodity prices go. I wondered the extent to which Europe can heal in the wake of you know, Russia, Ukraine,

emerging markets. I do watch the FED. I don't fetishize over it. I follow the markets. I feel like um inflation is a part of life again, at least in my investing and and you know, business journalism career. I have never truly experienced it. There's always been this cry wolf of inflation. And do prices really go down again? They say they're sticky upwards. Are you're going to see

menu prices fall? Are you going to see you know, right now, there's a big battle for the soul of tipping wherever you go to a cafe and they flipped the iPad around. Is that gonna subside once you win? And if you see unemployment go up. I just think there are a lot of coat tails of this pandemic and the many disruptions that we're still trying to to separate and pick up the pieces of. And I know I mixed three thousand metaphors there, but that's just my style. I want to ask you about e VS and you

on and Twitter because we have to. That's a mandatory question. You on has not killed Twitter, but he has not killed it with Twitter, right, He's happy just to keep servicing the debt on this thing. I mean, what do you see? What do you think? How much money can you throw at this? He already paid way too much for it, and he fired half the staff. We saw maybe some of the wheels come off again last night. Did you see yesterday what was happening where you tried

to host tweets? And it said do you've tweeted too many times? I was like, I've tweeted thrice? What he got against me? You know, I'm afraid of these kind of these eyes of of sa Ron looking at me whatever I tweet. I want to say something sassy, but I don't want to get banned because you know, I need that nectar. So I don't know what he's doing.

I know that whatever his net worth was before he bought this two hundred billion dollars, even if he has to liquidate Tesla stock to do this, I think just to prove a point, he keeps throwing good money after bad and I just don't get it. I don't see the business emerging out of this. I don't see the return on investment. It's just a shiny babble for a man with a massive ego, As if it isn't hard enough to do Tesla and SpaceX and kind of be the Steve Jobs of his age, he had to go

in and buy Twitter. You had to be a big shot, did you. As long as he's happy losing money, there's not going to be a day when the dead comes back. I mean to consider his equity, disposure and everything else. He can take out the debt at lower levels and retire some of the banks and the others who were who right now probably have remorse for putting into this club deal, and he could take them out just for just for the sake of saying I have it now.

If you were a true cold eyed investor, you'd want to be taking them out at a discount so you could sell it back at let's say a hundred percent or whatever it is. There's no evidence that this business has been improved. If anything, all of tech has been impaired since he first came in and had this dance with them I think in April of two. So I don't see what the upshot is for him. Just to

let all these different characters back onto Twitter. Maybe, just maybe it doesn't matter when you're that rich, if you know you're marked down by thirty or forty billion dollars, what does it matter to you? Are you gonna Are you gonna eat less? Are you gonna shed any of your homes? Are you gonna do less of this? But for a while at least it really ticked off test La shareholders because he was he was taking his eye

off the test le bawl. So now are Tesla share shareholders less ad and why the stock is back up after it created? I think it had a good report. But again, you know how much of this stuff, how much of it, how much of of Elon Musk is tweeting about Twitter versus Tesla, which is his cordetting and SpaceX. I think that is the concern. And honestly, Twitter, for as sticky as it is for all of us, it

was never a great business. It was never making anywhere near what meta, Facebook and Google and Apple were doing. And I don't know how you reinvent that into a good business. There was this idea, maybe you could turn it into a mega app and it could have payments and photos sharing and everything into it. But I'm not all that sure anybody could have pulled it off. But then again, he didn't have to come in and bid so much for it to leave him no room for maneuver.

So you know, you break it, you buy it, you own it. But I just want to keep going with this for a minute. Doesn't Tesla seem like largely overvalued considering that now a lot of that ev technology is I mean, if you could buy a Tepslo, you could buy a Chevy Vault, right, yeah, but the Tesla is far preferable. I mean, you know, back back, you remember

the Geo Metro, the Chevy Vault, everything. I think the airport where I live has a little signed by the parking garage says you are not allowed to park a Chevy Bolt in here because it's a fire risk. I mean, that's the worst kind of advertising for general motors ever. Wait, is it a fire risk? There was something that happened with their batteries and a fire risk that they had to have in a recall. Tesla is still worth seven

hundred billion dollars. It's perceived to have a six or seven year head start ahead of all of the legacy car makers. It's not like you were ever settling if you bought a Tesla. It wasn't like a Geo Metro or a you Go. It's an elite car, and it feels like you're still settling with some of these other vehicles. I think Ford has made enormous strides with its Mustang. There's still a war for for range. You're seeing Rivan. Some of the giant pickup trucks come out for it.

But it's still a perception of kind of you know, Dr Pepper versus Mr pib if you will, I understand the idea of that it's a premium product, but the valuation is so high, and also Tesla's and its own problems with spontaneous fires. So I mean, isn't there a world where Mercedes just starts making e v s and then Tesla goes away. I mean, I'm just this is I'm just pushing because it is such an expensive company. True, they call it the innovator's dilemma. Why didn't Microsoft invent

the first smartphone? Why didn't Microsoft ce mobile coming? Why didn't Sony, the parent of the Walkman, invent the iPod? And can you expect these guys who have a hundred years of addiction to the internal combustion engine and the fossil fuel industrial complex and their supply chains to overnight just kind of shift to a vehicle like a Tesla, which has far fewer parts, which is software and battery intensive.

That's culturally just not in their blood. And they can advertise about it as much as they want on the super Bowl, but again they're not the ones. I mean, how many Sony products do you have in your house right now versus Apple products right right? It's an innovator's dilemma,

and it's a self disruptor's dilemma. They can advertise about it, but I'm sure if you get a bunch of beers into the CEOs of Ford and GM and and the other one which is called Stalantis, is is what's left of Chrysler, which merged with some you know, European carmakers, they would much rather stretch out there one way by selling as many ginormous gas guzzlers as possible. Right now.

I mean, you're advertising on the Super Bowl about the electric future, but you can't get enough of Ford f one fifty sales or these GM super SUVs or suburbans that are put together out of Arlington, Texas, and that's just brutally hard to disrupt. That's your profit center, and Wall Street is judging you heavily un quarter to quarter profitability, where Tesla's mostly getting a pass because it has this charismatic CEO that has what they called with with Steve Jobs,

how to reality distortion force Field. So I think there's an asymmetry to it, to be honest, what I mean, I I just I think you're giving a lot too much credit. The market's giving him too much credit. Ford plus GM combined is worth a little over a hundred

billion dollars. Tesla is worth seven hundred billion dollars. Every short seller has been trying to short it for forever, and the market is paying for some sort of future that the Big three, the Big two and a half are not able to convince the market to pay up for right now. I agree with you. If they can come up, and someone could come up with a killer app Like I got a six hundred mile range car. You're gonna lust after it. People are gonna love it,

just gonna pull up at the Oscars and everything. It's gonna be amazing. And I could sell it for thirty five or forty grand profitably, then you would see Tesla stock fall. If Apple came out suddenly that that the following morning and said we're gonna have the Apple EV you're gonna see all these fanboys and fangirls flock into it, and Tesla stock will fall. Until then, Tesla is the

industry standard for EV. It has at least a five year head start, and for a while people were paying up more than a trillion dollars in market value for that. A lot of that sold off last year when Musk was distracted with Twitter. Right, yeah, I mean I don't. I mean that's where we are so interesting. Will you please come back? I love it, and in fact I have I have a new jingle for you if you guys, you know, if your producer wants to excerpt and use it,

I will charge royalties or anything. So wait for it. Three to one jong jong jong jong yo. No it's not gonna work. No, that's going to get the cutely getting the cut. I thought you you know what cut it? You? You always a delight and you must come back. Thank you. Cornell Belcher as President of Brilliant Corners Research and Strategies and an MSNBC political analyst. Welcome to Fast Politics, Cornell Belcher.

I you have to say it really fast. I wanted to have you on for a number reasons besides being a fan, but almosto because you did a video the other day, which is something that's actually quite close to my heart, which is why the media, right wing, mainstream everybody, uh, continues to be horrendous to the first female black East Indian vice president ever, the highest level of woman has

ever gotten in American government. Like you clearly were moved by something, and I wanted to ask you about that.

But but you know, it's not even just the the just the mainstream and well, and I put the right, you know, aside, because they're a hate echo chamber, but but it's also those on the left who are also falling, falling into these these sexiest tropes and certainly treating the vice president in a way the first woman vice president away that they absolutely didn't treat any man in and ask questions of the vice president, this vice president and

demands of this vice president that they just didn't make of any of the the the over twenty years of men who said in this position, no, I mean that is the thing that I have been so shocked by. It just strikes me. And I mean liberals, conservatives, everyone, you know, you know what they say. I mean, the thing that I've heard so much since I've interviewed her and had her on this podcast and also written about it from anyffair is that, Um, they'll say. I can't

put my finger on it. I just don't like her. We'll see. That's the thing. Okay, Look, it is fair. It is completely fair and inbound to question policy initiatives. And Okay, I disagree with the Biden administration on a policy initiative. And the vice president was out talking about this policy initiative. But understand, she's the vice president. It's not like these are her policy and so her job is to support and so I talked about it and

and and my video. The job device president is to be the man beside the man, and for unfortunately it has been for overturning years, the man beside the man, and to smile and to dote on and to support and then help him try and unfortunately it has always been at him to help him try to sell and move his policies. That's basically a job. But now in the media, they're criticizing her for not showing leadership, you know,

in spaces that where the president isn't right. They want her to be out in front on certain on issues, and why isn't she out in front on this, and why isn't she talking about this? And one of them criticize her for not showing that the world that she is ready to be leader of the party, much less the United States. And I'm going, oh my god, that's not the job of the president the vice president to leave the administration to be a leader on any of

these things. The job is back to back up the president. And so this criticism that's coming towards her about how she's not out in front on X, Y and Z sort of liberal issues that so many of them want her so so so many of them want her to be out in front on is you know, to me, it's a double standard that you certainly didn't see them

calling out when Biden was president. I can't recall a time where they were going, oh my god, I wish Biden were out in front on X Y and Z issue, you know, all right, that is the like the real question here, and especially because during early days of this presidency.

She was accused of calling the strengths remember that, yes, on the right, you know, And I understand in a diabolical political way, I understand what the right was trying to do when they were trying to call her sort of the puppet master, like this old guy who's not in control. And it's easy to vilify her because one again, sexism is real in America. It's easy to vilify the woman, and particularly a woman of color, right, and it is easy to sort of vilify her and play into all

these race tropes and and sexism tropes around her. So I get it from the right, and I understand it from the right. I don't approve it from right, but I do understand everyone right because that's how they rile up their base, right. It is that it is this dark, evil, uh, scary mean woman who we got to watch out for. Right, this is the you know, it's the scary, scary black person.

I get that, that's that's historical. But what I don't get is is it from the left and and it and it goes to me it sort of speaks to how even on the left there is implicit gender bias that we just have to call out because there are folks on the left who are criticizing her for things like, you know, not showing leader ship, not smiling enough, right, And again those are never critiques that they've made of men over the last two d plus years, because it's

not the job of the vice president to be out in front and lead. No. I mean that is it's such an important issue, and I think that until we are willing to talk about it, we will continually make this mistake as a country. And I think, like I think about this a lot because you know, in the UK, Margaret Thatcher thirty years ago more. I mean, and we in America just cannot break this misogyny that is preventing us from letting female politicians really lead. No, I think

that's right, and that's such a good point. And you point out most of the Western democracies have had and quite frankly, any of those when when you think of India, etcetera. I mean even in Asia. You know, most of the modern democracies have had women leader. But why is it that this still escapes us here? And I think when you look at the way the double standard that applied to the first woman to reach this high office and the first woman of color to do it, I think

you begin to understand it. And even sort of in Hillary's run. You know, some of the coverage of Hillary, whether it be talking about her hair or how she was dressed, it is such an overt double standard, and I think we've got to call it out and we've got to make it not okay for them to treat women differently than how they treat men, or they're going

to continue to do it. And that was that was my major point is to put is it put so at least the mainstream media on notice, is that we are going to start calling this out because if we don't call it out, you're going to continue to do it. A lot of like straight news reporters were furious about the k Hive, right. They were really mad that there were people on the internet defending the vice president and that she had these super fans. They were really, really mad.

But the reality is that you know, Bernie had them. You know, there are a lot of politicians have super fans. I mean Trump had, you know, super fans like you can't believe. And the fact that this particular group was demonized, I think does speak to this larger issue of she is held to a completely different standard than male politicians are. Yeah, and it makes it more difficult for women to rise

in these positions because of this double standard. When you look at how difficult it has been for women to rise, particularly in politics, and I look, and I was watching this this video the other day about the great Nancy Pelosi. You know, who's going down is the greatest you know, speaker in modern American history. There was all of twenty three women in Congress when when Nancy Pelosi arrived there,

and there's a lot more now. But look, even now, there's not enough representation, not enough women representatives in Congress and certainly not in the in the Senate. And again, I think what we're seeing level and at the vice president is an attribute of this gender bias that makes it so difficult for women to get a hit in politics and had access to power. So last week we

had Nancy Pelosi on this podcast. You know, my parents are that age, and I know how fragile people in their eighties are, so you know, I was sort of just horrified and even shocked that the family thought said that he was going to make a full recovery, because when you're at that age, you don't really know if you'll ever you know what I mean. But she said that the thing that got her the most upset was she really worried that women were not going to run

because they were worried about their families. Well, yes, and there is a culture, unfortunately, there is a culture of violence broadly in this country that is second to none. And let look and look, that's just faction. And and we're going to pretend that there's also not a culture

of political violence in this country. As I was reading Stokely Cartermichael's biography of of Stokely, and and we at this section where where they talk about King's assassination and how deeply, you know, painful it was for for Stokely, and how he saw Hope, you know, slipping away, and it talked about how Robert Kennedy talked about the violence that had that he had seen, you know, taken his brother and the violence had taken King, and of course

just months later Robert would be killed himself. Right, So just so we we try to shove it under the road, but there's such a history of violence in this country. And and look, the we know that the members of Congress are under more assault now than they have been in the past, sort of more threats coming in against them and in the past. And it's sort of the

bullying society that I think. You know, if you are if you are a woman, and particularly if you're a mom with with with with a family, you do have to take that in consideration when you think about putting yourself in your family out there in the public spotlight and out there in the public arena, because there are vulnerabilities. Yeah, and I just I don't know, I just it is such a real problem. And I mean, you know, we've only had eleven African American senators, only two female African

American senators. You know, we have lived in this country where there just is not a fair representation. I want to ask you, what do you think about the South Carolina primary move I actually like it and look and as someone who worked for you know, both of the you know, the Obama campaign, I have a fondness for Iowa New Hampshire. It is very reflective of an old

style politic, especially in Iowa the CAUCUSUS. I think it's also fair to say that we need more diversity upfront and the primaries, and we need you know, more states that are reflective of of how the country looks and reflective of of of some of some of the broader issues beyond beyond sort of these sort of smaller states

and more more agricultural states. I do think that's fair, but I also understand why Iowa New Hampshire want to hold on to their very right But I think you know, when you put when you put Southfrolina and you put you know, Michigan, sort of these these bigger, more diverse states and these in Georgia and these more you know, industrial states, I think it does help candidate who's going to be quite frankly able to speak to a broader

swath of the general actor. I think it prepares them more to speak to and reach and win abroad us wall of the general electric that Iowa New Hampshire. But again I respected great respect for Hampshire. But I think it was the right move for the for for the party to do. I want to ask you about Biden's polling because this is something that gainst me, well, I

just don't understand, I truly believe. I know you saw this Washington Post ABC poll that came out earlier in the week I saw it and thought, this can't be right. So there was an ABC Washington Post poll that basically showed his approval rating being it showed that no one in the world wants to match up between Trump and Biden, and then it's sort of put together a kind of

false equivalency of Biden and Trump. That is my hot take. Um, I mean, I thought it was wrong, and I wondered why, and again, like we both saw the same pretty excellent State of the Union speech last night, and I just want to know, are the polls wrong? Are we wrong? I mean what I mean, do you buy that his

popularity numbers are this? We're often looking for the wrong things and polls, and we're looking for polls to do something that that polls can't do because we want polls to be crystal balls, because because we Americans always want to know the future. That's not a job of a poll. So you take the information that's in a poll that's actionable and you should act on it. Look the in Washington Post they are pretty darn good posters. Like there's there's a lot of public polls that that are that

are that aren't very good. But but the Post is is usually pretty good. But that said, look what do I take from that pole. I take from that poll that there is a large swath of Americans, the majority of Americans, I think was of Americans or more who have no idea what the president has done. I think for a lot of US insiders who pay attention to politics, a lot who read the newspaper or read online political articles,

you know, several times a day. And you know, my Twitter feed is full of smart people like you and other reporters and what have you. It's easy for us to understand that this president has been transformative in the legislative way, the lights of which we probably haven't seen since LBJ. When you look at the legislation that they were remarkably able to move in just two years and

a very tightly divided Congress, it is remarkable. It is a political experience and political gravitas on the part of the President, Pelosi and Schumer that should go down in history. I mean, for how many years have we heard presidents talk about an infrastructure bill and none of them are able to actually get it done. And they got it done with a fifty fiftist but sent it. So what they've been able to do is fairly remarkable. But the American public they don't know it, they have no context

for it, and all they hear is negative news. So I'm gonna say thought, as I want to put this in context of two things. One is I really do when I do focus groups and listening to Americans around the country, there is a disconnect with Washington because they see the fighting and the negativism and the division, and what I hear from them is they tune it out. They don't want to pay attention to it because it's always bad or sad news and it's always just fighting.

So they actually don't have a real grounding and understanding of the tremendous work that President Buying has put in on his behalf and his accomplishments. Because when you get six percent of people saying that they don't think he's done anything, when he's been one of the most accomplished presidents since l B J. That's a real problem, right,

and it's actionable. And when you see the president and vice president and members of the cabinet spread out like today, like the presidents of the Wisconsin, the vice presidents in Georgia, and that you've got cabinet members out all the parts of country, talking about infrastructure, talking about climate change right, and talking about their legislation. They've got this information and they're and they're acting on it. But the second piece of this I want to point out is that the

Republicans are crazy like like they're crazy like foxes. And what I mean by that is they all this negativism, all this division, all this ugliness they constantly drive. It's for purpose. It is to grow that cynicism about politics. It is to grow this ideal that Washington is broken and nothing can get done, and so I can just

tune out, and that's how they win. And I gotta tell you right now, it is a real problem that so many Americans are tuning out, and so many Americans don't really understand what's happening in Washington, and that they're cynical about Washington and think Washington is broken and the President isn't doing anything. And in that context, that's how Republicans win. Thanks for now, all right, Thanks for having me.

I appreciate it. I know you, our dear listeners, are very busy and you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of pieces of pundentry each week and This is why every week I put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics. If you enjoy the podcast, you will love having this in your inbox every Friday. So sign up at Fast Politics pod dot com and click the tab to join our mailing list. That's Fast Politics pod dot com. Busy Phillips is an actress and

activist and host of Busy is Doing Her Best. Welcome to Fast Politics, Busy. Hey, how are you. We're good, very excited to have you. Thank you. We're just talking. You are a podcast host, among other things, and one of the things I really have been wanting to talk to you about for a long long time is your work, your advocacy work around abortion. And I was curious. You know, you come from acting. There's often like a lot of

pressure for actors not to be political. I mean, I don't know if you came up in that world that way, but did you feel that, Oh yeah, no, honey. I came up in the world where I was like, you know, if you didn't do the maximum hot one hundred, you weren't going to have a film career, you know what I mean. Like that was like I was definitely shut up and hit your mark. And you're expendable and don't make waves. And if a guy on set tells you that they jacked off to you last night, you gotta

laugh and keep going with your day. So no, I definitely was of the era that taking like real political stands isn't a safe thing to do, especially as a woman in the industry. You know, I think that just collectively that as the all of the tides started turning. I was always a person that was politically active and

motivated behind the scenes. I mean, I threw my own fundraisers in my twenties with my friends for different candidates, and I remember going to see Barack Obama speak when he was running for senator, paid to go to some fundraiser in Los Angeles to see this new superstar of the party, and always like gave money to Planned Parenthood, but never was going to be vocal about the fact that I had had an abortion when I was fifteen years old, or that bodily autonomy is you know, all right,

and then we all that we all deserve, you know. Again, Also though it's the same, I'm gen X. I guess I'm on the younger side. I guess of gen X, right, I'm forty four and Jesse is forty five. I'm forty three. Guys, we're in a row, okay. You know, by design, our generation was told that row was safe, that this work

had been done. And you know, I was very busy building my career in Los Angeles and traveling for work, and I wasn't Also, you know, this is like before the twenty four news cycle, and then even when it started, we didn't get the you know, trap laws that were passing in different states and the slow but sure chipping away at the rights. I mean, I just want to get back to this for a second, because I do think. I so we're the same age, older than you are,

but we'll just pretend we're the same age. We're all in high school at the same time, exactly. Yes, But you know, when I came up, I mean, I think for actresses, there was a real feeling that you weren't supposed to talk about politics, and you know this whole men's magazine thing, which you know, I was writing in magazines back then, and there were these men's magazines. And it's funny because I was watching like an old episode of thirty Rock and they were so disgustingly misogynistic. I

mean to the point where I mean just terrific. You don't know to tell me. I mean, you know, I was there, I was in one and it was like I was like a holdout. I didn't want to do it. And I'm not kidding you when I say I had a general meeting with the head of casting at a big, huge studio. I was on Dawson's Creek at the time, and I wanted a film career, like I wanted to do movies, and at the very least I wanted to

do another TV show. When Dawson's Creek was over, and the head of casting at this studio pulled out multiple issues of Maximum, f h M and Stuff magazine and said to me, look, I'll be honest with you. At every executive, every person making creative decisions and signing off, you know, they send me these lists, so these girls, and they say, let's get her in a movie? When

can we put her in? If you don't do one of these, you know, you're just you're effectively you know, you might not have of the upper hand of of a woman that does. He probably didn't say woman. You know, and I was twenty one and I'm like, Okay, I guess I'll like put on some a bathing suit and crawl around on the floor of a studio for a couple hours, and it's like horrifying in retrospect, you know that. I mean, that's also why I love being on Girls BYBA too, because we get to skewer that so very

specific time um and culture. But you know, I think that, yeah, no one wanted to hear what my views were, no, and so I do think it's very brave. So what explain to me the thinking of when you came out and told the story? Also fifteen? I mean, I got sober when I was nineteen, so I relate to having like a very complicated teenage hood. But to come forward with that story is particularly brave. So how did you

make the decision to do it? Well, I actually knew that it was always something I wanted to do, talk about come forward with, and after sort of the advent of social media and my own Instagram becoming very popular my Instagram stories, I finally got a book deal, which

is what I literally had always wanted. I had always wanted to write a book, and part of it was that I thought that that was where I was going to best be able to tell that version of a story as opposed to talking to a reporter about it in stuff magazine like can you imagine? Can you even imagine? Right? No, No, I remember and Gear and I mean they were just they were just one was worse in the next. Yes,

they were all terrible. So I knew that that was the opportunity that I was going to take in order to talk about my pregnancy and abortion at age fifteen. You know, and my late night talk show that was on the E network for about a year almost was coming out. It coincided with my book coming out. Everything was happening all at once, like as as it does in these things. And I was actually very surprised when my book came out that the story about my abortion

didn't get much traction. And writing a memoir is a certain kind of therapy, and hell yes, and then releasing it into the world as another that no one can prepare you for. I had sort of, I don't know, I feel like I had really prepared myself for a lot of negative responses to the abortion story, and then all anyone wanted to talk about was like James Franco, my relationship from freaks and geeks. I'm sorry, I mean that like really hurts. And also I am sorry. I

mean it's like it was not last on me. You know. The point that I was making in the entire book was just about my experience as a woman growing up at this particular time in history, and then being in the entertainment industry during this time in history being asked about James Franco. Literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of headlines about my book my memoir are about James Franco. Amazing, just like, well, there you go.

You can't win, you can't win even still. But then you know, because I had the talk show, you know, this is when en was when these like you know, they started really testing the waters. After you know, they've gone as far as they could go with these trap laws, and they started passing the extreme abortion bills in different states, and Ohio was one of them. And and you grew up in Ohio, Georgia, No no, no. I I grew

up in Arizona, which had had their owners. Yes, ship show of a of a pre statehood band is what they reinstituted for a minute in Arizona. But thankfully that crazy woman didn't win. And it is carry like I didn't want to say her name. I was like literally not saying her name on her bost like Baltimore, right, don't say it she is. I don't want her to

like be famous. I don't want her to have name recognition. No, she's horrible, but no. It was when Georgia passed their extreme abortion band and also coupled that with a story that came out from Ohio about a child. No I remember that story, Yeah, not the one that the Republicans accused people of making up. This is a different one. This is and the child was my child's age, And all I could think was like, oh my god, that's a little kid, Like that's a little little little kid.

What's happening. I reached out to like friends of mine who had been like very active in the pro choice space over the years and that I knew a little bit from that space, and asked them what they thought about me talking about my abortion on my show. You know, it's like what we say, right, like representation matters for moments, like for cultural moments like this, And so we made the decision. My showrunner, Casey, my friend who I do my podcast with Casey, and I made the decision. I

talked to a bunch of people. I talked to Center for reuper Rights and Planned Parenthood and you know, uh, they roll and just got everyone sort of take on what they feel felt in that moment was an important piece of the messaging, you know. And then we kind of like zeroed in on making it not too long, because you know, Lord knows men can talk for twenty five minutes about something, but we felt like we should

keep it under two. And the point that I really wanted to get across is that if you think this isn't going to affect you, it has already. You are friends with people, you know, people that need this is an essential part of health care and being a person and controlling your own life and making decisions that are best for you and your family, not because a politician arbitrarily has decided it goes against his religious beliefs and whatever. I mean, we can, you know, we can get into

the whole history of that anyway. Were you shocked at the response? I was definitely like prepared for the worst, and what I got instead was absolutely the greatest. And I've never felt better. I mean, Okay, not hyperbolically. If I only had that talk show for this re in and that is enough, that was it. That was everything to me. And sometimes I actually think about that because the fact that I even did it and had this

idea and wanted to do it was so weird. And there is a part of me that thinks, like, oh, you had to do it so that you could do this in this moment, because after you know, it was a real moment in the in the movement, and like in terms of getting people to pay attention and realize what's happening with the extreme abortion bands and of course mant people you know, did not take it seriously or didn't think it would happen to their state or for any number of it never thought Rowe was gonna solve

and also just destigmatizing being able to say, oh, yeah, I had an abortion as well. I mean I had friends who literally didn't know that the d n c s that they had were abortions and that's still true. Oh my god. People getting people to understand that is wild. Yeah. I just wrote Peace a couple of weeks ago, and it was inspired by talking to Rob and Marty. I don't know if you know her, she wrote the post

row hand. She runs a women's health center in Alabama, and we were talking about, you know, now they can't do abortions there, but they do maternal fetal health and they do early stage pregnancy stuff. And she was telling me she has all these people who have miscarriages and they can't get the treatment from miscarriages, and they never put it together, you know, they never put it together. No,

they never did. I had a discussion with a friend who had had a lot of fertility issues and had had many miscarriages and then because of that had to have the aftercare which is considered and all of these places where abortion is effectively illegal to be abortion and they will not do it. They won't do it. And

my friend was like arguing with me. She's like, no, that's it's not that's not what it's I'm like, honey, I literally I'm like on the board of these things now, Like I know, I get the emails that aren't just like you donate money emails. I get like the real

emails from these people. They're not They're denying women care and regardless you know, of whether it's a choice or medically necessary or rape or incest or like, you know, qualifying this has only done exactly what the men and the readers of the you know, anti choice movement want to do, which is make that some some are morally better than others. Like you don't get to beat You're not the arbiter of that. That's not for you to decide.

That is for me and my doctor, my god, my partners, my parents, and stay out of it, stay out of my body. Dude. Yeah, no, no, I agree, And I think that's a really important point. I also, do you think this idea of sharing our experience to help others and you know, I say this is someone who's sober like is really profound and useful. Yes. And also I am a person who holds space for friends and people who I don't know who it's re traumatizing for them,

and they don't want to do it. They don't want to share whatever the experience, whether it's a sexual assault or their abortion or their you know, miscarriage and abortion care after. People have all kinds of feelings about things. But I do know from my own personal experience that sharing my story about my abortion freed me from holding a shame that I didn't even know I was still holding onto Yeah. Oh, I believe that that's really interesting and I think it is important. I mean, I definitely

feel that way about sharing my sobriety. You know, I really do get more from sharing it than of people do,

If that makes any sense. It does make sense. And I think that part of the piece of the conversation that keeps coming up and then getting missed and then coming up again is this is this empathy piece, and that for us to be able politically or otherwise exist in this states, these states, very disparate states, with lots of different people, with lots of different views, we have to be able to hold a bunch of truths at

one time. And it's not something that political news and you know, pundits and like how everything is, you know, politics, how everything is turned into like this sort of game show in our culture. It's not something that is encouraged

in our society right now. But it is the only thing that ever crosses party lines and bridges people together, which is just empathy, the and storytelling and sharing between each other so that you can understand and by the way, you don't even have to understand, but you can at least get a sense of someone else's humanity. Busy Phillips, thank you so much for joining us. Oh my gosh, thank you. It was so nice to talk to you. Jesse Cannon, Molly john Fast. I heard you were at

some fancy dinner last night. I was at a congressional media dinner, and at this dinner was a person who supposedly hates the media and does not care what they think and things they are all liars and cheaters, get showed up to a thing where they're going to smooze with the media. Sounds like them. And her name is Marjorie Taylor Space Laser's Green. I think it's really important that we in the mainstream media make a concerted effort to launder the career of a woman who came to

power on Q and on and anti Semitism. And while she has nice stresses and can go to parties and look like every reasonable person, she's not a reasonable person and she should not be laundered, and we cannot treat her like a normal congress person. And so as she is on her rehabilitation tour, I say this is our moment of gray. Do not help rehabilitate Marjorie Taylor Green. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds

and politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.