Pod Save America - "We believe Christine Blasey Ford."

Episode Date: September 28, 2018

Jon, Dan, and Erin Ryan discuss the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Then Katie Couric talks to Jon about her new podcast documentary that reflects on the tenth anniversary of her famous interviews with Sarah Palin.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. I'm Erin Ryan. Later in the pod, you'll hear my interview with Katie Couric, who's got a new podcast documentary reflecting on the interview she did with Sarah Palin 10 years ago. Oh, and that was the craziest thing that happened. So, a few other quick housekeeping things before we get into the news. On Pod Save the World this week, Tommy chatted with The Atlantic's Natasha Bertrand

about the uncertainty over Rod Rosenstein's tenure in the Trump administration. I have a plug here for Hysteria, but Erin, you're here. I'm here. What's on Hysteria this week? So we had to record Hysteria on Wednesday, which was before the madness of today.

But one thing that was cool about this week is that we were able to highlight four really exciting female candidates instead of dwelling on the super dark news. So we got to talk about Lucy McBath, Gina Ortiz-Jones, a couple other candidates you might be excited about. Between now and the election, we'll probably be highlighting women that are running, especially in flippable districts, especially young women, women of color, and women running with nontraditional backstories. That's excellent. Trying to keep it light. Something hopeful.

Yeah. Also, everyone, tickets are now available for the shows that we will be doing for our HBO special, which will be in Miami. Erin will be with us in Miami. Yay. Austin, Philadelphia, and Irvine. And so you can check out this website, www.theblacklistnyc.com slash PSA. Check that out for tickets to the HBO shows. Okay. We are recording this, um, during the,

uh, Kavanaugh Ford hearing today. And, um, we were recording this basically right after lindsey graham lost his mind um during during the questioning of judge brett kavanaugh um so that's in the second half of the hearing and then we decided we've been watching it's 2 p.m now 2 30 p.m now on thursday we've been watching this since 7 a.m all three of us have been in the office watching this with everyone else i think just to start what an awful day um it is probably the craziest political event i have witnessed since trump won the election. I don't know. At least that's how I feel right now. I guess let's start with initial reactions of Dr. Blasey Ford's testimony and questioning, and then we can move on to Kavanaugh. Erin, what were your initial reactions watching Dr. Christine Blasey Ford this morning? Well, I think that a lot of women watching this kind of went through similar series of emotions that I went through.

It's incredibly difficult as a woman to watch this unfold over and over again, to look at another round of headlines that have to do with sexual assault, to watch another woman basically have to kind of dissect herself in front of the world to prove what happened to her happened to her. A lot of friends of mine texted me this morning saying they were getting emotional watching. This was very difficult for them. I felt watching her that she was incredibly brave in ways that I couldn't imagine being brave. Her voice wavered, but she kept it together. She was very straightforward and fact-based. She acted in a way that is unfortunately like the standard that women who try to make a point,

who try to be believed, need to adhere to. Men like Lindsey Graham, like you mentioned, can throw tantrums and scream into the camera and complain and whine, and that's totally fine because they're men and they have gravitas. But the pressure on Ford was a lot higher than it would be on a man because women need to act more rational and calm in order to be thought of as as rational and calm as a man. So I was I was really impressed with her, her composure, calmness or calm and but i was also very uh upset by the fact that we had to revisit those issues again as women yet again yeah i thought the same

thing about her bravery like i you know i i found myself teary through watching the testimony and watching her statement and i was like and i'm not like, I can't imagine what she's going through right now, what she was going through and how she kept it together the whole time. And she was so poised and so forceful and her, uh, and, and incredible in her testimony. Uh, Dan, what did you think? I agree with that. It, you cannot be a rational person and watch her put herself before the nation and give that testimony about this incredibly traumatic experience that happened to her and believe that this is part of some sort of democratic plot to unseat Brett Kavanaugh or tilt the Supreme Court. I think it was, I mean, obviously her testimony was incredibly compelling. And, but's also it just was sad because this is like this is such an incredibly serious thing.

And we live in a political world where one of our parties is incapable of acting with the seriousness and the compassion and the empathy that you would expect in this situation or would hope for in this situation. in this situation or would hope for in this situation. Yeah. I keep, kept thinking like after listening to her testimony, um, and listening to her after everyone questioned her, like it just comes back to you either believe her account or you don't. And if you don't believe it, you should ask yourself why, why, what, why would she put herself through what she had to put herself through today? Why would she put her family through that? What did she have to gain? What incentive did she have to do this today? Yeah, that's something I was thinking a lot about.

And I was thinking it's sort of a kind of, it's a different version of a thing that women go through a lot, I think. It's a different version of a thing that women go through a lot, I think. When a woman is, in a lot of cases, when she's sexually assaulted or victimized by a guy, that's something that sticks with her for the rest of her life, you know? Dr. Ford has obviously been thinking about this thing that happened to her when she was a teenager since it happened. Like, to the extent that it impacted remodeling that she was doing on her home after she'd been married decades later. And that's that's the thing that's like women carry this with them forever. And one thing that I was thinking just as the day went on is, is that, you know, Brett Kavanaugh has performed believing that he didn't do this.

Like he he has performed believing that this thing happened to her, but he maybe doesn't remember. I just think that it's sort of the way that it's happened for a lot of women is that something will happen to them, and it'll be something they think about every day for the rest of their lives, and then the guy just doesn't have to live with it. He just doesn't think about it. It goes away for him.

I think that says as much about the situation as anything is that the most traumatic experience of Dr. Blasey Ford's life is something that Brett Kavanaugh doesn't even remember. Could just be any other Saturday night or Friday night in his high school career. And it's, I think it's a microcosm of what we're dealing with in this country on these issues. The level of detail in her testimony, you mentioned the front door, you know, and she said that when they were remodeling their home, she wanted to have two front doors. And she, you know, got in a fight with her husband about this and other people who were working on the house and no one could understand why she wanted the second door. And that's how she ended up when

she was in couples therapy with her husband, bringing up the incident for the first time. You have her bring this up in 2012 in a therapy session. You have four sworn statements from friends of hers that she brought this up with them over the years. And then we found it, you know, as we learned today, she brought this up to her representatives before Kavanaugh was nominated for the court. I think I saw Chris Hayes tweet about this, but he was saying basically she was trying to do the White House's vetting for them. And she said a couple times during that testimony, I was hoping, I was praying they would go for an equally qualified conservative nominee for the court and not Kavanaugh. And when I thought that they weren't going to do that, when I was worried about it, I started coming forward because I thought he might end up being the one. So like none of that, none of that points to the fact that she might have made this up somehow.

Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. A lot of times when we talk about sexual assault, people say that women lie about it. And you know, I think that if people are fucked up enough to sexually assault each other, there are people that would be fucked up enough to lie about it and you know i think that if people are fucked up enough to sexually assault each other there are people that would be fucked up enough to lie about it but here's the way that i think that most of the lies around sexual assault happen if you're a woman that has had it happen to you you have to lie about it so that you can get through the rest of your life you have to lie about how big of a deal it was to you you have to lie about your ability to overcome it without intervention. And I think men who do it lie about it too.

They lie about it so they can tell themselves that they're the sort of person who doesn't rape people. They need to rewrite history as it's happening. We've talked about this on Hysteria. A lot of, you know, some of my co-hosts have had interactions with men that were definitely not okay, where a man tried to over okay, where a man tried to

overpower you or a man tried to do something to you that wasn't okay. And in my case, at least, the guy who tried to do it to me reached out to me years later to like friend request me on Facebook and was like, hey, how's it going? It's been so great to see your success. Like, to me, that was me witnessing him trying to pretend that that hadn't happened. And I think that that is the biggest lie around sexual assault, people needing to pretend that it didn't happen so that they can believe what they believe about what kind of person they are. And Brett Kavanaugh clearly has an idea of what kind of person he is. He's the captain of the basketball team. He got into Yale. He went to parties and just had a good time. He drank a lot of beer. He's not the kind of person who ruined someone's life. He needs to not believe he's that person.

And we'll get to sort of his side of this whole hearing later. But you could sort of tell you could tell that in his anger and his testimony to write that in his mind. He's like and he kept saying this over and over, I've been through so many FBI investigations. I've been so public for so long. I've gotten this far. I'm a good father. I'm a basketball coach. And you can tell he genuinely believes all those things to be true.

And it's possible that all those things are true and he still sexually assaulted Dr. Blasey Ford. You know, like I think he's trying to set up the situation. The Republicans are like, oh, everyone's trying to paint this guy as an evil monster his whole life, and he's not. He's this good guy. But it seems like it's much more complicated than that. It's absolutely. Or could be. Because people are more complicated than that.

Because here's the thing. People can evolve and people can change. And people can behave in ways that are abhorrent when they're under the influence of alcohol or drugs. And as they mature, they can move away from being the sort of person who would do that kind of thing. But I also think that it would be less difficult for me to accept if Brett Kavanaugh were the sort of person who believed in those qualities from other people. His judicial record, for example, doesn't in any way support the idea that people deserve redemption for

mistakes they made when they were teenagers. You know, he was a person who on the D.C. Circuit pushed for an undocumented teen to not be able to obtain an abortion after she had met all the legal requirements set forth by Texas law. You know, the GOP is the party of mandatory minimum sentencing for underage drug offenders. The GOP is the party of mandating pregnant teens carry pregnancies to term. I just don't, I think that if Kavanaugh in any way exhibited the forgiveness that he wants the world to give him now, that would be something that would maybe move me a little bit, but he hasn't. Yeah, he's incapable of experiencing any divergence from his personal narrative about himself.

And there's been zero self-examination about any mistakes he has made in his life. Either just even beyond this specific allegation, just about being an asshole 17 year old, which many 17 year olds can be being obnoxious to other people drinking too much and just ed every single time he refuses to acknowledge any fault on himself which raises real questions about his larger denials because if you lie about the small things repeatedly it suggests that you would also lie about the big things yeah we were all of course texting about this all day and anna marie cox was saying um catchable lies that's what he keeps he was saying, catchable lies. That's what he keeps, he keeps telling these catchable lies. And that is the story of the entire confirmation process with him from beginning to end, whether it's about, and we've said this a million times

on this podcast, whether it's about, you know, receiving stolen documents during that hearing, whether it's his opening statement about how, you know, Trump has never consulted more people for any position ever. And today, small things in his yearbook, right? Like it's just all these little lies that are easily proven false that he keeps telling, which tells you that there is a credibility issue at stake here. There's two people here. There's Dr. Ford and there's Brett Kavanaugh. Brett Kavanaugh has been caught in dozens of lies already, big and small, and she has not been. So the Republicans had an Arizona prosecutor named Rachel Mitchell handle the questions for the Republicans to Dr. Ford because they didn't like the, understandably, optics of, what is it, 11 men on the Judiciary Committee, 11 Republican men questioning Dr. Ford?

The Republicans have never had a woman on the Judiciary Committee in the hundreds of years of Judiciary Committees. That's correct. So they had an Arizona prosecutor named Rachel Mitchell who, you know, her background is in prosecuting sex crimes. She handled the questions for Dr. Ford. What did we think of that? How did that go? Well, it depends on what you're interested in getting out of this hearing. If you're interested in her prosecuting a woman who says that she experienced sexual assault in the same way that she would prosecute someone accused of sexual assault, then you didn't get what you wanted.

I saw people on Twitter saying that she essentially subjected Dr. Ford to a standard intake, like a standard series of intake questions that you would ask a sexual assault survivor, but just in five-minute chunks interrupted by Democratic grandstanding and speeches for the most part. So it was a really bizarre kind of construction for this entire thing. I think that it seemed that she didn't really know the facts of the case that she was dealing with, that she asked questions that that betrayed a lack of knowledge. And I also think that by the end, she kind of knew that she'd fucked up. And she asked Dr. Ford if, you know, she can acknowledge that this is a weird foreman. Dr. Ford was like, yeah.

And I saw a lot of Republicans were pretty mad about it. I don't think that they were satisfied that she did their bidding for them. Yeah, I think it was a very poorly conceived plan that was executed even more poorly. You're right. She seemed to have less knowledge of the facts than the average Twitter user who's been following this closely. of the facts than the average Twitter user who's been following this closely. And where she seemed to have the most knowledge and most interest was not about what happened to Dr. Ford and whether Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge did this, but to defend the Republicans on the process of when the hearing was going to be and when she was in contact with Dianne Feinstein,

that she was much more interested in whether what reporter she talked to or when she sent a letter or who paid for her polygraph, none of which is relevant to what may or may not have happened. And that kind of gives away the game for what the Republicans were actually after. That's what I took from it too, is that the Republican case here is they don't want to say that Dr. Ford is a liar. So their case is she is a victim, as is Brett Kavanaugh, of a Democratic smear campaign. That is the line that they're going with, because therefore, then they don't have to say that she's a liar, but they can infer that and say that it's the Democrats' fault. And it seemed as though Rachel Mitchell's questions were trying to support that narrative by saying, who paid for the polygraph test? Well, Dr. Ford's lawyers paid for the polygraph test,

as is standard, as both of the lawyers said during the hearing. And then there was you said you had a fear of flying. And yet here you are. And the fear of flying was supposed to delay the hearing. And so their big thing is they're making a case that the hearing was delayed and that that's just a Democratic strategy to delay, delay, delay. And so she was trying to prove that that like and she was oh well you fly on vacations all the time and it was fucking absurd yeah and they were getting really hung up on process questions like they were they were shaking their fists especially

during the intermissions because the only people we got to see question for directly was was mitchell we didn't get to see the actual rage of the republicans although that would have been you know what i think i would have walked slowly into the sea if I would have had to watch that all morning. This was hard enough. And but but one of the things that she that they were saying is just they're so mad about, you know, this isn't the proper procedure. This is this. And my my main point about this is that if you found serious, serious, serious misbehavior among a nominee for the highest court in the land, it doesn't really matter how you found out that information.

Like I was saying earlier, if someone walked by my apartment building and saw flames coming out of my bedroom window and broke in and saved my cat, and I walked by and I was like, wait, how'd you get my apartment building? Put the cat back in there. Who paid for your Uber over to the apartment building?

Did George Soros make you keys? That's ridiculous. I think that it's in America's best interest to be aware of all of the skeletons in the closets of people that are nominated to be Supreme Court justices. And to be angry about the process is egregious. Yeah. And it's also, Brett Kavanaugh does not have a right to be on the Supreme Court. Right. The standard of whether you get a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land is not beyond a reasonable doubt. It is a job interview. And it is the Senate's responsibility

to ensure that they put someone on the court who, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is not a person who, when engaged in these sorts of things, exceeds his right, Brett Kavanaugh's right, to be on the court. And the amount of entitlement that Republicans and Brett Kavanaugh himself have had about this role is, Frank, is disgusting, really. Yeah. I mean, I... Go ahead. Oh, no, I was just going to say, though, watching him kind of react with aggression to being questioned and being so emotionally volatile volatile during his portion of the hearing sort of made me it reminded me very much of like a you know an 80s teen bully and our president is kind of in that model too

like it's it's a sort of overly emotional reactive man who can't handle anything but getting exactly what he wants all the time and And that's what I was seeing today. Who's that guy who plays all the teen bullies, Johnny Zepka or whatever from Karate Kid? Sweep the leg, Johnny. As I was watching it, I couldn't help but think over and over again, today never had to happen. They could have replaced him at any moment with an equally conservative right-wing judge and still achieve their goals and if they didn't want to do that they could have conducted an

more intense fbi background investigation they could have had mark judge testify and you could you could see this sort of on the face of rachel mitchell the prosecutor at the very end of that moment you were just talking about aaron when she's talking to ford at the very end, at that moment you were just talking about, Aaron, when she's talking to Ford at the very end. And she's basically saying, like, as you know, this is not the process we usually use to talk to someone who makes a sexual assault allegation. We usually talk to someone in private. We do this. We do this. Basically, she's saying this is not the process I would have chosen.

But here I am and here you are because all of these fucking assholes couldn't give up the fact that they want Brett Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court more than anyone else. Couldn't find anyone else besides Brett Kavanaugh to do that. I mean, the whole thing is, you're exactly right. The whole thing is so wild because, look, let's be honest. I would love it if there was a world where Kavanaugh lost a vote and then Democrats took the Senate and we would one day get that Supreme Court seat. That is most likely not going to happen. Regardless of whether Kavanaugh lost a vote and then Democrats took the Senate and we would one day get that Supreme Court seat. That is most likely not going to happen. Regardless of whether Kavanaugh withdraws, whether he loses, Republicans have the ability,

because they control the Senate, to put someone just as conservative, maybe more conservative in some ways, than Brett Kavanaugh on the court. So it's not about that. And what I think is so troubling is that this has become, to confirm Kavanaugh or not confirm Kavanaugh, it's become this Republican litmus test, which is really just sort of a test of the sort of like toxic masculinity about it, which is we have to jam him through because if not, we will show weakness. We must own the libs. We must show the women. You know, it's like Jack Perciviak, whatever that guy's name is, tweeted today. Today's the end of feminism.

There is something that is very, when this is all said and done, there is something that is going to have really long lasting effects. very negative way on how people view discussions of gender in society about sexual assault, because it's polarizing it around where, and this is what happens when you have someone like Trump as president, is to believe the victims is somehow to have a slight on the president. So Republicans have to take the other side, whether it's Brett Kavanaugh, Roy Moore, Rob Porter, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, whoever else is that you have to take the other side, whether it's Brett Kavanaugh, Roy Moore, Rob Porter, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, whoever else is that you have to side with the man. And that it's somehow those are your Republican bona fides in the in this day and age. And that's going to matter for a very long time, whether Brett Kavanaugh is on the court or not. And first of all, feminism

is not dead. If anything, this is a lot of people's superhero origin story. In 1992, more women ran for office after the Anita Hill. In 1992, more women ran for office after the Anita Hill hearings, more women ran for office than ever before. After Donald Trump was elected president, more women, so many women ran for office or started running through office through Emily's List and other vote drafting or organizations like that, that it was massive. It was massive. And women are doing a lot of the work on the ground. Women are doing a lot of organizing. Every single time we do a live show, there are so many women now one step away from the supreme court that that could chip away at row but that doesn't mean that women are going to

stop fighting feminism is women standing up for themselves and and continuing to fight and if jack probiotic or whatever this fucking woman believes that that that women are that easy to put down like we've been giving birth without anesthesia for thousands of years. We can withstand one more day of this. We can withstand one more year of this because we're going to and we always have.

And, like, I don't want to be like Pollyanna because I don't think Pollyanna said fuck as much as I do. But I just, I can't be discouraged by this.

Like, it sucked. Today sucked, but I can't feel discouraged by this because the only option is to try to find ways to pick out the good from this. And I think that there's kernels of it. testifying and actually during her testimony to a lot of not the super crazy Republicans, but a lot of like, you know, the never Trump Republicans who've been saying over the last couple of weeks, like, oh, even though we don't like Trump, this whole this smear job

against Kavanaugh, this is really rallying all the Republicans back to the party. And a lot of them were saying, oh, no, she's very credible. I think the nomination's dead. This is bad. Fox, Chris Wallace was saying this is a disaster for the Republicans. So the immediate reaction after Dr. Ford finished testifying was this was a disaster for the Republicans. And I kind of thought to myself at that moment, all right, everyone hold this in their minds right now. kind of thought to myself at that moment all right everyone hold this in their minds right now because everything in our society for the last however many years now has been like you know it

goes down the memory hole in 10 minutes because everything goes so fast and we have like collective amnesia as a country um and then sure enough uh brett kavanaugh steps up to testify and just starts yelling, angry, outraged, crying. What is everyone's first reactions about the Kavanaugh 45 minute opening statement that he delivered? We're exchanging like, well, you're going to go first. Why don't you go first? I wanted to know why he was yelling at me. I mean, it was everything that you would tell him not to do in a normal world, right? Where you want to show, even while you are arguing for your own innocence, you want to show some empathy for Dr. Ford, to which he showed none. You want to show some respect for

the process, that these are legitimate questions that you should answer if you're going to be given the privilege to be in the Supreme Court. He showed none. He seemed angry and entitled, which is the exact thing you shouldn't do unless you have an audience of one. And that is the angry, entitled man in chief. I thought the punditry whiplash kind of betrayed a pervasive double standard that men and women face in their behavior. If the roles were reversed and the temperaments were reversed, if Kavanaugh had gone first and been just kind of emotional but steadfast throughout his testimony. And then what if Dr. Ford got up there and started yelling?

No, and Dr. Ford is a white woman. If Dr. Ford were any race but white, she would have been completely turned into a political cartoon by Fox News within minutes. She would have been a meme that Don Jr. was sharing on his Instagram within minutes. I think what's important about, it is an audience of one on one hand, but on the other hand, it's an audience of like four. And two of those four are women, Collins and Murkowski. Now, as a woman, I can't speak for every woman, but I can say that when a man yells at me, I don't really take kindly to that.

I'm not really one who responds well to feeling like an emotional and unstable man is screaming, especially if I'm trying to decide whether or not that emotional and unstable man deserves to have a lifetime appointment to a high court. So I think that his yelling, my reaction was like, Jesus Christ, dude, I realize you've been through a hard time and I feel deeply for his wife and his children. What they're going through is horrible and totally not their fault. But his emotional outburst to me betrayed his unfitness for the court even more than his judicial record did. Yeah. What about temperament? What about, you know, the quality that you need for to be a judge at all? That was right out the window. Also, it sort of betrayed him as a partisan hack, too. I mean, he went after Democrats. I'm watching this unfold and he's yelling.

He's yelling about the Democratic hit job and the left. He said that this is he floated a conspiracy that this whole thing is revenge against him for what he did to the Clintons. I mean, nobody on the left is that defensive of the Clintons. Right. Exactly. It's fine. We're not we're not worried about it. And I just thought to myself, like, this is supposed to be a nonpartisan, objective judge. I'm terrified of him on the court. I never wanted him on the court in the first place. I didn't like it. But, like, he was, the fact that he was so nakedly partisan and angry to me was just like, and look, I don't think, and some people say, well, you'd be really angry, too, if you were falsely accused.

Okay, well, Brett Kavanaugh has been accused now for a while now, all right? And he was on Fox News and sat for a very long interview just a couple days ago. And he sat there and just mumbled talking points, the same talking points over and over again. If he was falsely accused then, he didn't show even a hint of emotion. And then just as a coincidence between then and today, we see all these reports that, oh, Trump is upset that he didn't show anger. Trump is upset that he wasn't fighting for himself. Republicans want him to fight harder. And so then he comes in today and sits down and just fucking uncorks. So like, do we really, I thought he was more playing an angry guy than actually being angry. Yeah. I used to work on a, like a comedy clip show where we had people kind of in a room reacting to clips.

It was called Best Week Ever. Yeah. And sometimes you'd be in there. I was a writer. And I'd be in the room with people that were just not having a good day. And you would just see the actor get more and more unraveled. And watching Brett Kavanaugh today

kind of reminded me of being in the studio with someone who just wasn't keeping it together and was just getting more and more. And it's like, can you give it to me with more energy? And then they give you the line and it's like, ooh, that does not sound like a way a human would talk about anything. It just seemed like he was performing outrage, but also that some of his outrage was channeled

from his feeling sorry for himself. And entitled. Right. It was like an entitled anger. Yeah, it's got it's a specific look it's like an 80s teen bully face that he that he has like he pushed himself back from his chair especially when senator klobuchar was talking to him he when he reciprocally asked her if she'd ever blacked out from drinking like she's the one being confirmed to the senate right now popping off like that in a really that was so rude i wanted to send him to the principal's office like that's just it was extremely rude and uncalled for and

you know it sucks if he believes himself to be falsely or if he's playing somebody who's been falsely accused then of course he's going to be angry but to be like now have you like sassily it just it was not a good look. Well, that was to the point about his inability to cope with the kind of kid he was or the kind of things he's done in his life. That was when he got the most angry, when they asked him these very specific questions about drinking too much in high school and the things he did. And the obvious thing that a lot of people would say who did things they weren't proud of in high school would be, I'd made some mistakes and I've changed, but he refuses to say that. He originally tried to argue when Senator Whitehouse asked him about being the ralphing at Beach Week, that that had

something to do with a weak stomach as opposed to drinking a lot of beer. I mean, the whole, it just, it's, every time he opens his mouth, he further undermines his credibility. And in a if we were living in an irrational world where you were making a judgment where he had, he really does have to prove to everyone in the Senate, the people who matter, who are going to decide whether he gets a job in the Supreme Court, decide that we definitely believe him over Dr. Ford. That is what the choice is, because this is a job interview. him over Dr. Ford. That is what the choice is because this is a job interview. If you were interviewing someone to work at a company or an office and you were faced with allegations like these, credible allegations, if you had heard from someone, if someone like Dr. Ford called you and said, this applicant who wants this job at your company did this, and they've said this to you and used their name publicly, you would not hire that person. This is not the standard

of whether Brett Kavanaugh goes to jail or not. His life is not ruined. If he does not get this Supreme Court seat, you know what he does? He goes back to his lifetime appointment on the second highest court in the land. Like, cry me a river. With Merrick Garland.

With Merrick Garland. Yeah. And look, you know, he got emotional when he was talking about his daughter and his family. And I don't doubt that that emotion was real. Like, I'm sure he's very upset what his family has had to go through. I think he's also not quite reckoning with the fact that what his responsibility was in putting his family through some of this. But it's like, I don't, I don't doubt the fact that he was upset about what his daughters had to go through or that it was a real emotion when he was talking

about his dad. Again, I just think that he has not come to terms with this thing that he has done or at least his general behavior. Even like you said, Dan, even his general behavior when he was in high school, where clearly we know from accounts from Mark Judge, from what he wrote in the yearbook, that he drank a lot from his freshman year roommate in college who said he was incoherently and belligerently drunk all the time. If the view of the right is two things, one, that Dr. Ford is part of a left wing conspiracy to derail Kavanaugh's confirmation and that Judge Kavanaugh deeply believes in his innocence. There are a couple of things that people have to reckon with. One, John, as you said, she originally raised these concerns before he was nominated. Right.

In the hopes that Trump would nominate someone else. Second, if Kavanaugh and the Republicans truly believe beyond a shadow of a doubt in his innocence, then they would do two things. They would have asked for an FBI investigation, which may not be conclusive, but you could possibly learn a lot more. And two, they would have had Mark Judge testify under oath as the other person who is alleged to have been in the room. Those are the two, that is what you would do. If you want to clear your name and show everyone that you were innocent, those are the things you would do. And they refuse to do those two things, which raises a lot of questions. And not only do they refuse

to do those two things, but when questioned today, repeatedly, Brett Kavanaugh refused to allow those things to happen. In fact, so far, who knows what his moments have been like since we've been recording, but so far in the trial, his worst moments were when Dick Durbin, Senator Durbin, continually questioned him. Okay, why wouldn't you have an FBI investigation? Open up the FBI investigation again. Bring Mark Judgen to testify. And he dissembled. He, you know, tried to change the topic.

And he went over and over again. Yeah, Dick Durbin had a really good day. We're on a big group text for hysteria. And I texted Big Dick Energy to the whole. And then that a really good day. We're on a big group text for hysteria, and I texted big dick energy to the whole. And then that got a good reaction, so I tweeted it. That's exactly how we operate the Positive America text chain. Just doing a little workshopping of that. One really telling kind of contrast between the two testimonies

was when Dr. Ford testified and she was discussing her female friend who was at the party with her, she mentioned that her friend is now facing health problems and is taking care of herself. And she did it in this really empathetic way that was like, I'm glad that she's spending time focusing on her health, blah, blah, blah, blah. When Kavanaugh was testifying and they brought up Mark Judge, he immediately did this weird thing that weird thing that people who are trying to deflect the conversation do, which is where they take the most sympathetic thing about the person and accuse you of exploiting that or attacking them because of it. So the Mark Judge thing was like, you're going to attack somebody with an addiction. You're going to attack somebody with

a disease. And all they were doing was questioning him about a book that Mark Judge wrote about his time partying with some guy named Bart O'Kavanaugh that was definitely not Brett Kavanaugh. And it's just that to me is a tell of somebody who is defensive and lying. It was so naked to me. And the contrast between him and Dr. Ford was really stark. And again, I mean, talk about like what new information, what new facts do we learn from the hearing? Dr. Ford testified that she saw Mark Judge again six to eight weeks after the incident. She saw him in a safe way because he was working in a safe way.

And his face went white when he saw her. And he didn't really want to look at her. He wouldn't really want to talk to her. And then sure enough, someone from the Washington Post was able to corroborate that. And she was like, well, I don't know when he actually worked at that job, but if I knew when he worked at that Safeway, I would be able to tell you when that happened for sure. Sure enough, in his book, someone from the Washington Post found that he worked at that Safeway in the summer of 1982 when this their Aunt Lydia to question Dr. Ford, and they just started questioning Judge Kavanaugh themselves, I thought what was really interesting is that they would all kind of realize that they were kind of getting toward, maybe we should have an FBI investigation,

and then they would back off of it. There were a few instances where I was like, oh, they're asking for more information. You know how to get more information? It would be to investigate. uh brett kavanaugh was super defensive about the fbi's role and what the fbi does but i i thought that the republicans kept backing themselves into a corner whether that matters or not really comes down to a handful of people that aren't in this room right now but i thought it was a telling moment and the fucking calendar too we don't want him going through the calendar and he's like first of all first of all we never drank on weeknights we didn't drink on weeknights because we all worked

during the summer so we didn't drink on weeknights um on the calendar it has one night uh in early july where he said with um mark judge and pj and someone else at timmy's house for quote skis which meant brewskis um and it was a weeknight. I don't know why you're assuming that, John. Maybe they were watching an alpine competition. You don't know. He was the captain of the ski team. It's like his own calendar refutes his contention

that he didn't drink on the weeknights. I mean, it's just easily catchable lies. I think that another important point that I think got glossed over is the Republicans keep saying, and Kavanaugh said over and over again that statements from the other people who were at the party that Christine Ford discusses have refuted her account. And that is not true. That is absolutely not true. They say they do not remember such a party.

And as Christine Ford said in her testimony, they probably don't because it was like any other party except for her because she was assaulted. And I'm not as old as Brett Kavanaugh. And if you were to ask me about a specific party in high school that was just like any other party, I wouldn't remember that party. And so when they go around saying that her account has been refuted, that is a lie. It is an absolute lie. And that is it's, and that is getting glossed over the media coverage and how, and how it's been discussed in the hearing. So let's talk about the reaction after Kavanaugh or during the Kavanaugh portion of the hearings, which we're still in. A lot of Republicans suddenly changed their minds and are now saying, oh, he's, he's very credible. You know, now we're standing with Brett,

the White House, you know, there was, there's reporting from the White House, people with White House sources saying Trump loves this. Trump said this is why I picked the guy. White House people are saying we love it. Don Jr. asshole's been tweeting how great Kavanaugh's being. And then there's other people who said, by the way, Kavanaugh being this outraged and angry will play well with a lot of the Republican base, which is a take I knew was coming and we're going to contend with and could be correct. Right. I mean, I don't I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of angry white men out there who said, yeah, that's that's my guy. there was a poll that came out this week from Marist and PBS NewsHour and NPR that found that more than 60% of men who are Republicans believe that Dr. Ford is lying. And so I think that,

yeah. And also I've seen the line, you know, publicly men discussing it from the right, saying like, this could happen to you. This could happen to your son. This could happen to you this could happen to your son this could happen to your neighbor and by this could happen they mean a woman could say that they assaulted them right which is patently false we have a very recent historical example of a man a male man if a non-female person being being nominated to be a supreme Court justice and flying through with some Democratic votes, with no sexual assault allegations. That's because Neil Gorsuch apparently didn't sexually assault anybody. Is that Georgetown Prep alumni, Neil Gorsuch? That is.

Went to the same high school. Was not over at the House for Skis that night, though. And guess what? Trump was still president then, And we were angrier about that Supreme Court seat because that was the stolen Supreme Court seat that Merrick Garland should have had. So if anyone was going to whip up some false allegation of sexual assault, Neil Gorsuch would have been a much more likely target for Democrats. Yeah, I mean, maybe. And I'm just this is a wild theory here. But maybe women just don't go around

making shit up when it comes to sexual assault. Maybe this is something that is very serious and that women have seen countless examples of women who have publicly said that their survivors be just raked through the coals. Maybe it's not something that anybody would lie about because the stakes are too high. Right. When you have to sit during testimony in front of the entire world, live on national television, and testify about this under penalty of perjury. Maybe that's not something that you just go do. I mean, again, I just keep coming back to, it is correct that we may never know exactly what happened that night in 1982, but Dr. Blasey Ford has absolutely no incentive to lie about this.

And Brett Kavanaugh has every single incentive to lie about what happened. That is what we know. And we also know that he has been caught in many, many small and big lies throughout this entire process. And she has been nothing but credible. I agree. And I also think that before I'd really seen Judge Kavanaugh speak publicly, all I knew was some of his judicial history because of the case with the undocumented teenager. But I'd never seen him in public. I'd never seen him speak.

And the more I am exposed to the sort of person he seems to be and the sort of person he collapses into when he's subjected to any form of pressure at all, the more I think, you you know even if he's not guilty of sexual assault this is not a person that i would want on the supreme court i don't want him be smirching the sacred bench that my goddess ruth bader ginsburg sits on and my goddess sonia sotomayor and elena kagan i don't want him where he doesn't deserve the same job that those women have he just doesn't he doesn't have the temperament and if a woman acted like that she would not even be under consideration. I wouldn't fucking hire him for anything. What job are you

I don't want to work with. Wall puncher. I don't want to work with that guy. He seems like a dick. Man, he's just like yelling and screaming all the time. I mean, that goes to the difference in how men and women can respond in situations like this because if you're Brett Kavanaugh and you believe you're innocent, you are

rightfully angry at the Democratic Senators for saying you're Brett Kavanaugh and you believe you're innocent, you are rightfully angry at the Democratic senators for saying you're guilty. But Christine Blasey Ford has just as much right to be angry at these Republicans who have accused her of being a liar, and not just a liar, basically a partisan con woman who would go before the nation, make up a story about this incredibly traumatic thing to derail a confirmation and ever right to be angry and no ability to be angry. Because just imagine how the world would have seen. And then the idea that, to your point about how the Republicans responded to Kavanaugh's response and that Trump is happy about it, which is clear because

the higher up you go on the asshole index, the more Trump likes you. Right. That is very true. So what do we think happens now? It does seem like we've come full circle and we're right back to where we were politically at the beginning of this hearing, which is many Republicans, if not most Republicans, if not all Republicans in the Senate, we don't know, are behind Kavanaugh. Lindsey Graham screamed at the end of his temper tantrum when he totally lost it, that I will vote for you. And not only will Lindsey Graham vote for him, but Lindsey Graham basically then threatened his colleagues and said, if anyone votes against this guy, you are, you know, saying that you like this kind of destructive politics

and it's the worst thing I've ever seen in politics, blah, blah, blah. So we have a lot of Republicans and Trump in the White House rallying behind Kavanaugh. We have the Democrats very much against the nomination. And I guess are we down to Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake, perhaps? Anyone else? Well, first of all all if I were a senator and Lindsey Graham

was like vote against your conscience and everything decent in you otherwise I'm going to get I'm going to come after you I'd be like I'll take my chances I think I can

I'm pretty sure that most of the women in the Senate can take Lindsey Graham especially Maisie Hirono has been a real hero during this whole process and I'm you know I'm pretty sure she could she could take Lindsey Graham in a fight if not just especially Maisie Hirono has been a real hero during this whole process. And I,

I'm, you know, I, I'm pretty sure she could, she could take Lindsey Graham in a fight if not, if not just through her cunning. But I, I think that,

you know, like I was saying before, I think that we need to be realistic about what's going to happen with the court. And Dan, you touched on this earlier. Like if it's not Kavanaugh, it's going to be somebody else who's going to be committed to conservative judicial principles like overturning Roe. And I think that what needs to happen now is that between now and Election Day, everybody who listens to this needs to make sure that they're registered to vote and that everybody that they know and care about is registered to vote.

Everybody that they know and care about is registered to vote. And they need to make sure that they're engaged on a local level because, you know, we've neglected the local level for a while. I think that we need to just let's let's assume the worst. Let's assume the worst, but keep the faith and and try to carry on as best we can until we get through November. What do you think, Dan? I mean, you're right. We're right back to where we started in the sense that a handful of people would decide whether Brett Kavanaugh sits on the court. And none of them are in this room, which is probably a mistake. But I do think that having heard Dr. Ford on national television, which I think, I imagine when the ratings come out about how many people watch this on cable and streaming or whatever else,

it's going to be pretty huge. I think this, I think this will be a moment people remember for a long time. And I think whatever else happens with the Kavanaugh vote, the politics around this and what this moment means are altered is whether if they had just jammed this vote through without ever having heard her speak. Yeah. And I think as far as the outcome sort of leads, no matter what outcome there is, it leads to what Aaron said, which is if this nomination falls because two Republicans vote against him. I do think it's true that the Republican base will be angrier, possibly more energized to vote in November. And that's going to require us to work even harder.

And if this nomination goes through and he gets on the court, then we're going to have to keep working, keep fighting, keep registering people to vote and just fucking eliminate this party electorally in November as best we can.

So either way, we're going to be in a big fight here because, you know, and it's either, either it goes through because Susan Collins and Murkowski and Flake just say, you know, we found her credible. But at the same time, we don't want to prosecute this innocent man and ruin his life for this. And so we want to have this cake. But on the other hand, we want to eat it too. Or they stand up and say, you no i found her credible and we can

we can i mean i don't understand why this is a politically dangerous thing for collins murkowski or flake especially flake who's fucking retiring to say like i'm a good conservative i want a good conservative judge on this court we should nominate amy barrett tomorrow or thomas hardeman tomorrow and get this person through by November. And so we still have our political goal of getting conservative justice on. And we might never know what exactly happened there, but she came forward and was incredibly credible today and powerful. And so I have to vote against this nomination. What's the downside of that politically? That's true. I mean, being kicked up, being voted off the island. Yeah. I mean, not being invited to lunch with

Lindsey Graham. He seems like so pleasant. I think that, you know, if my rights are going to be taken away, I would prefer they were taken away by somebody who doesn't have a history of sexual assault allegations. Yeah. The dumbest discussion on Twitter, which is saying a lot, but it's about what the politics of this, right? Is, does this mean that it's going to excite women to vote more? Does this mean it's going to excite the Trump base who wasn't paying attention to midterms? No one knows. No one knows.

We have no idea. It's particularly not the people talking about it. No. Because usually it's based on, I got this tweet from this never Trump or Republican with three followers and a Russian surname who said that now they were going to vote for, I don't know, the guy running against Heidi Heitkamp or whatever. And those are dumb discussions. We all decide whether the politics are good or bad. We decide whether Democrats will come out better no matter what happens here,

or Republicans come out better, as Aaron said, by voting the other lindsey graham thing i noticed as i was watching him i recently watched the hbo plug hbo uh movie about anita hill and i was watching them thinking one day there will be a movie about this and lindsey graham is going to come off as a gigantic asshole i i think i eagerly await that day not be funny not just in that movie i thought i thought this is how lindsey graham is going to be remembered this is like his i mean the that outburst that he had right before we came in here was like nothing i had seen and he is i don't i mean a lot of people are speculating like is he auditioning to be the next attorney general is he auditioning to be the next secretary of? Is he auditioning to be the next secretary of defense? I hope whatever job Lindsey Graham is excited about

is worth what he has done to his legacy and his integrity and his name over these last couple of weeks with this nomination. Lindsey Graham is one of the great weather vanes in American politics. When Barack Obama first got elected and we got in office in 2009, Lindsey Graham was in and out of the West Wing six

times a week because he was going to work with us on closing Gitmo, passing comprehensive immigration reform, climate change. He was going to be the lead sponsor of a cap and trade bill. And as soon as he saw Republicans starting to go down in primaries because of Tea Party, he went far to the right. And what he's looking at right now, because I believe he's up in 2020, he just watched his close friend, Mark Sanford, Republican congressman, lose a primary because Trump got mad at him. So he's going to crawl as far into Trump's lap as he possibly can to win that primary. He is a person who loves

being on Sunday shows and being in office. And the politics and the principle are sort of irrelevant to that. Yeah, he's a great example. And this is another thing we talked about in hysteria this week. Plug. He's a great example of like what happens when nerds get power, like they just will not relinquish it. They just hold on white knuckled. And he the fact that he was working with Obama or trying to work with Obama on bipartisan climate bills and is now screaming about how, in a way, Dr. Ford is as much a victim as Brett Kavanaugh here, which he said twice today, once in an intermission in Ford's testimony, and I guess it got the reaction that he wanted. So he said it when he was questioning Kavanaugh. I think that the fact that he went from that to the

screaming man is a testament to his kind of Eddie Haskell-ness. He's just kind of a person that'll go where the power is. And he's exactly the sort of person that shouldn't be in Washington. Also threatened Democrats. He said, if this is the new norm, you better watch out for your nominees. Which I guess is like, we'll be leveling false allegations of sexual assault against you. If he believes that these are false, which he clearly does. And he also said that I feel ambushed.

Lindsey Graham is the victim today. Phrasing. Phrasing. Earlier this week, McConnell used the phrase plow through. They're going to plow through this. And Brett Kavanaugh was talking about it. He's just never going to give up. You guys tried really hard to stop me, but I'm never going to. It's like, guys, think about the context of what you're talking about right now.

And I know it's not funny, but it kind of is because I need to find something to laugh at right now. They are so like Tobias Fungay bad at picking appropriate words and discussing sexual assault. On that note. Yes. So everyone, no matter what, VoteSaveAmerica.com. Go register. Go get your friends registered. I mean only we've been saying this every day on every single issue and every incident since trump won the only way we're going to solve this is at the ballot box um so everyone go do that and um when we come back we will have my interview with katie current On the pod today, we have our friend of the pod who was on last year,

one of our best guests on Pod Save America, Katie Couric. Katie, welcome back to the pod. Hi, John. Thank you so much. And, you know, last time you had me on someone, I think one of you called me a badass. And I had somebody from a card company actually make me badass cards. I have a bunch of cards that say Katie Couric and under it, it says badass. So thank you so much for that because I have some beautiful new calling cards, which I don't use often enough.

You are welcome. And also it is a very apt title. You are a badass. So that's- Well, thank you. I'm glad someone made cards for that. Thank you very much. So we wanted to talk to you because you're launching this month

a two-part documentary about the interviews you did with Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential election. It's called The Palin Interviews 10 Years Later. Why did you think this was a good moment to go back and explore the conversations you had with Palin a decade ago? Obviously, anniversaries are a good time for that. But what was your thinking in producing this podcast? Well, you know, they were pretty impactful interviews, certainly for me professionally,

I think in terms of political interviews, I think many people remember them. John's cab drivers still say to me, thank you for that Sarah Palin interview, or they'll start talking about it and I'll say you're welcome, depending on their point of view. But, you know, I think it was such an important moment during the course of that campaign. Such an important moment during the course of that campaign. And Brian Goldsmith, who was my political producer at CBS News at the time and is now my podcast partner in crime, we started thinking about it and saying, gosh, that was a decade ago. How did she set the scene for Donald Trump? What was it like behind the scenes? And so we interviewed all the key players. Obviously, we asked Governor Palin if she was

interested in participating. She wasn't. But we talked to Steve Schmidt. We talked to Nicole Wallace. We talked to Frank Luntz, who was at the RNC when she gave that incredible speech accepting her party's nomination. I don't know if you remember, John, how I mean, she was on fire that night. And I think it did give the Obama team a little bit of pause. David Axelrod says it didn't. And that, as usual, per usual, then Senator Obama was sort of like, let's see how she does in a month, because this is a lot of hard work. It's taken me six months to get up to speed. six months to get up to speed. But we talked to David Axelrod about it and Mike Murphy and Michael Steele. And so this is kind of like game change on steroids. We're really taking listeners behind the scenes and what was going on in my head and the heads of everybody at CBS Evening News when we were getting ready to do it and after we had finished them. news when we were getting ready to do it and after we had finished them. So Axelrod was definitely right about what Obama said in response. I remember him saying,

let's see what happens in a month after that speech. I don't know, maybe Ax wasn't that worried about the speech. I was worried when she gave that speech at the convention. I remember feeling- So tell me, I should have interviewed you because, you know, David was like, ho-hum, la-di-da. But when you saw her, I mean, it must have made you feel slightly trepidatious about what impact she was going to have on the campaign. Yeah, because, look, I remember when she was announced and I thought, you know, who is this person? And, you know, I was very confused about, you know, why she was selected. And so I didn't quite get it. And then I remember seeing that speech at the convention. and I was very confused about why she was selected and so I didn't quite get it.

And then I remember seeing that speech at the convention and I mean, it's funny, today we'd call it trolling. We didn't really call it trolling back then, but she had so many lines in that convention speech that were sort of just designed to perfectly needle Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in general. Oh, and she said she was mayor of Wasilla, which was kind of like a community organizer. And then everybody sort of booed. And then she said, but with real responsibilities.

Right, right. And I just thought it was a speech that could work, you know. And she was also, she was sunny in disposition when she gave that speech too. Right. And she was also she was sunny in disposition when she gave that speech, too. And so she could she delivered a lot of really tough hits on Obama, but she did it with a smile. And she sort of she sort of like looked like she was enjoying herself, you know, which I don't think we'd ever quite seen anything like her, you know, in terms of her, you know, her style, her appearance, her relatability with a lot of American women at that moment in time. You know, having a son that was serving in Iraq. I mean, everything seemed to kind of touch on these sort of intangible qualities that could be quite appealing to a lot of the electorate, right? Right. Oh, for sure. And so I sort of had that concern, basically, because then she had a lot

of those rallies, which were very successful, and a lot of people turned out, and suddenly McCain was getting all these huge crowds. And I had the concern basically until, and I can remember exactly where I was in the campaign headquarters in Chicago, watching your interview with her. And then, you know, that's when most of us said, oh, I guess Obama was right. Well, what did you think? I'm curious, because when you watch those interviews, what struck you about them? I was struck by the fact that she was just, I'd never seen someone running for such a high office or really any office, um, seem so unprepared just on the basics of almost anything. Um, and so like we were, I mean, we were so shocked in the headquarters that you could hear

the gasps from all of us as we watched this. It wasn't even like anyone was like cheering or happy yet. We were just, we were shocked that she couldn't answer a lot of these basic questions. I guess my question for you is how did you prepare for those conversations? Like when you, when you were going into those interviews, did you have a certain goal in mind? Like what made you think that you wanted to get it and ask questions that got to sort of her basic preparedness for the office, her basic knowledge about politics and news and current events? I think both Brian and I, we really worked for like three or four days on these questions and read everything. And I mean, we really, really tried to come up with questions that would be illuminating for the electorate, that would indicate her ability to be a critical thinker, her knowledge of public policy, and really her accumulated knowledge through the years of sort of the arc of history, if you will, and kind of understanding some really important issues.

We interviewed her after she had visited a number of leaders at the UN, world leaders. And, you know, it just felt like she just was trying so hard to pronounce Ahmadinejad correctly, you know, and that she had talked to all these leaders. But the financial crisis was sort of front and center. So obviously, we had to ask her a lot of questions about the economy and all kinds of things. And, you know, I think she was just very simply out of her depth. Now, I also believe her way of speaking, her kind of unusual kind of cadence and the way she expressed herself, I think it made it even worse in a way. But because she just had, as you recall, a strange way, a certain jargon that felt different and strange, I think, to the people watching or listening to her.

But I think we wanted to cover everything from soup to nuts, if we could. The first was focused on foreign policy and the economy because of news events. And the second was really focused on domestic policy. And we just crafted our questions that would really – I mean, I think President Obama would have talked for four hours, right, if we had asked him the same questions and sort of had an intellectual deliberation as he was answering those questions. But for her, I think it was just – I think the concepts were really difficult to grasp. And, you know, honestly, in fairness, as President Obama told David Axelrod, even the most intelligent person who's familiar with public policy, it takes a long time to get up to speed on so many of these issues. I mean, I couldn't have answered many of those questions really intelligently and fluently. I mean, I didn't have the background on every one of those issues.

But I think it just underscored how ill-prepared she was. And during our podcast, Nicole Wallace talked about the fact that, you know, she hadn't kept up with public policy. She just wasn't interested in public policy. And therein, you know, was the problem. What do you remember about your mindset from the interview itself? Were there moments during the conversation where you remember getting thrown off guard at all by where the conversation ended up going? Did you sort of change plans in the middle of the interview based on anything that she said? Not really. You know, you asked me how I prepared and I did call a number of people on both sides of the aisle because I was curious, like, what did they want to know? What did they think was

important for viewers to hear? You know, so I would talk to Richard Haass about foreign policy and about Iran. I talked to Sam Nunn, just because I'm a big fan of Sam Nunn's about biological weapons, because that's an area of expertise for him. I talked to Madeleine Albright, and a number of others. And I think it was Madeleine Albright who gave me the best piece of advice. She said, just let her talk. So I resisted the temptation to rescue her. And you know, when you're doing an interview, especially, I think on television, for some reason, you, especially live television, so this was taped, so it wasn't as bad, but there's this impulse to jump in if there's dead air and to fill it.

jump in if there's dead air and to fill it. But I basically did, I resisted that temptation and just let her talk. And as a result, the more she talked, the more I think it became apparent that, you know, she just wasn't that well versed on a number of these issues. So I thought that was super helpful. And similarly, I also tried, I don't know if you remember, John, I'm sure you do, how Charlie Gibson was criticized for putting his glasses at the end of his nose. And, you know, you realize on television, it's such a visual medium that body language, facial expressions, sometimes, you know, it's a Rorschach test for a lot of people and they can project their own anger feelings onto you. So it was really important for me to be completely without expression.

So I didn't look at her askance. I didn't look at her critically. almost Parkinsonian affect on my face. So that I knew that her supporters would blame me if she had a poor performance. And I didn't want that to happen. And actually, after the interview was over, there were very, very few Republicans. It started to bubble up as she said that I asked her gotcha questions. But very few Republicans were critical of my questions or the way I conducted that interview or those interviews. Yeah, I remember that is that you didn't you didn't interject really at all. You did. You know, you really did sort of give her the space to really do the damage, which is like, I guess what you said was sort of your strategy.

And I was struck by the fact that it wasn't just, it wasn't like you were quizzing her about obscure foreign policy matters. You know, I mean, the question, one of the questions that really got her was, you know, what do you read? Right. That's the one that everyone remembers because it played on a loop on cable news. And I always find found that kind of perplexing because there were so many policy questions in there. And I I still don't quite maybe you can help me

understand why that so captured the public imagination and got so much attention. I think it's because there's a lot of Americans who could identify with someone, even though that person is running for vice president, not knowing a specific policy answer to, you know, whether it's a foreign policy topic or domestic policy topic, because, you know, most people are casual news observers and they pay attention to policy somewhat, but they're not, you know, they don't know details exactly. But most people do think if you ask them, oh, what do you read? They'd come up with, you know, an answer fairly quickly or at least not sort of dissemble like she did.

You know, I mean, like you said, it was it wasn't just that her answers didn't make her seem prepared. It wasn't just that her answers didn't make her seem prepared. It's that partly because of her style of conversation, she just sort of and the fact that you didn't sort of interrupt or save her, meaning that she just had all this space to just kind of, you know, garble a front of me. And when I asked her for specifics, I still, for the life of me, don't understand why she just didn't come up with something, especially because we saw her reading the New York Times on her campaign plane that morning. Maybe she didn't want to say she read the New York Times. Maybe she thought that would get her in trouble with the base. And she could have said, I mean, I really asked her what she read on a regular basis that helped shape her worldview before she was tapped. And I actually asked that question because, you know, I found her ideology to be so, you know, specific. And she seemed to be, you know, very conservative in her views of the world. And I just wanted to know, like, she could have said, you know, the Bible helped shape my political

views. She could have said, you know, William F. Buckley. I mean, I don't know. Or she could have said, you know, Katie, it's really from being in Alaska and reading every Alaska newspaper every day because these are my constituents and this is what I've learned. You know, anything. She could not seem to sort of finesse her way out of that question. And I think what it indicated to some people was that she had this significant lack of intellectual curiosity. And I think that's probably what was so off-putting that not only that, but then she couldn't sort of think on her feet and come up with something, you know, that would answer that question.

But she was really annoyed with me at that point. I think she just wanted me out of her line of vision at that point. And she said, you know, she said, people in Alaska read. And befuddling. If I ever run into her, which I probably won't, and we actually maybe had a few glasses of wine, I'd like to ask her why she answered that way. Yeah, I would love to know that. So a lot of people have said, and I believe this as well, that Palin, her candidacy sort of paved the way for a Donald Trump. I can't help but think that if, you know, Donald Trump has given so many interviews where it is clear he doesn't know what he's talking about, that he's not really prepared, that he doesn't have any kind of grasp on policy, domestic or foreign. And yet, even though he's given these interviews,

the impact hasn't been what it was when you conducted these interviews with Palin back then. Why do you think that is? Do you think that the media has changed? Do you think the American public has changed? Has politics changed since then? I think there's a whole host of reasons. Has politics changed since then? I think there's a whole host of reasons. You know, I think that the anti-intellectual sentiment, you know, the death of expertise and what we've seen in Brexit and all around the world, people mistrusting, you know, the elite, academics, etc. wasn't at such a fever pitch back then, 10 years ago. I think it was starting to bubble up. So I think that's one reason that people feel that maybe that makes them feel like the president is closer to them in terms of how he sees the world. He's not a snob. He's not this overeducated Ivy League elitist.

I think maybe there's partially that. You know, I think if a female did that, even today, I think she would be judged much more harshly because I do think, and I'd like to hear your views on this, that women are still held to different standards. There was a study done by a number of California political scientists that said coverage of Ferraro and Palin that was more negative. They had more questions about so-called work-life balance. There was a preoccupation with their appearance.

And so you wonder if that might come into play even now, certainly, I wonder if that might come into play even now, certainly, if it were a woman making these mistakes or showing this lack of knowledge or even making these outrageous statements that seem to be so readily forgiven by Donald Trump's hardcore supporters. And I think the media landscape has changed. I think, sadly, President Trump has been very effective with this mantra of fake news. And, you know, I try not to even use that term because it's so offensive to me in terms of how he tars everyone with this brush and this moniker. And I think it has permeated into the culture in a way. So I think that if I were doing this interview today, it would be easy for Donald Trump supporters to dismiss it as fake news or it was edited and it wasn't fair. Because people are watching only the outlets that reflect their own views back at them. As my friend Nicole Seligman says, they're looking for affirmation, not information. So you can wall yourself off from so much news these days that, you know, I think it could be just dismissed out of hand if people ever watched it in the first place.

So I think all these factors kind of come to bear on when you when you think about how things have changed. I totally agree with that. I think sort of the partisanship in, you know, the way that people sort of the media bubbles, especially on the right, obviously. And so, of course, a lot of conservative supporters just, you know, they would automatically attack the interviewer and not the person like Trump who wasn't getting the questions right. It's interesting. I was going to tell you, John, that I was talking to a friend of mine who's a cancer scientist because I just finished this Stand Up to Cancer telecast. And so I got to spend a lot of time with scientists. And he lives in Charleston, South Carolina. And I said,

you know, how do people in the very red state of South Carolina feel about President Trump? And he said, well, the tariff stuff is really hurting some, you know, the local economy, and they're upset about that. And I said, well, what about some of the other things, reporting about things he's done? And who knows what was happening that week, but I must have raised something. And he said, they don't believe a lot of it. They say it's fake news. Yeah. They don't believe it unless they actually feel it in their own lives or see it in their own lives, you know, which is one reason, like you said, why the tariff issues actually had an impact. I do think, I wonder if there's another issue too. And I also think, by the way, what you

said about sexism is absolutely right. I think there are different standards for women who run for office and men who run for office. And I think that is a big reason why the Palin interview was more impactful than a similar interview with Trump. The only other thing I wonder is, and I'd love to hear what you think about this as a journalist and as someone who's interviewed so many people in your career. I think that today a lot of people, a lot of journalists, when they interview Trump, they sort of have a set of questions and topics that they want to get to. And so and Trump knows that. And so when they ask one question and he starts dissembling or garbling on and not really answering the question, they know they have what, like seven or eight minutes. And so they quickly move on to the next topic.

But I've noticed that the interviews that are most successful in terms of sort of exposing Trump's lack of knowledge or preparedness or the fact that he lies quite often are those interviewers who sort of throw away the script and stay on that one topic and go at him again and again and again. And I wonder if you've noticed that too, or sort of how would you prepare for an interview with Donald Trump sort of today, knowing what you know about what his strategy is like during interviews? I mean, I think I would appeal, gosh, I haven't really thought of this because I haven't had an opportunity, but I think I would appeal to sort of his behavior and try to understand. His behavior is grossly inappropriate at times and how he's changed the office and the presidency. that didn't put him on his heels, but in a way that I expressed real interest, almost like a

therapist, I might go that route. Because I think if you present him with facts or figures, he'll just present you with his own facts and figures, right? They'll become null and void. So, you know, They'll become null and void. So, you know, I would just like to understand more about the way he's operating and the way he sees his responsibility as the president of the United States. antagonistic that I feel that sometimes interviewers don't have an opportunity or don't choose to be a little more artful with how they unpack an issue. If someone makes an assertion, instead of saying they're wrong, I'd like to really get them to explain why they're making that assertion and on what basis. But they never get a chance to kind of have an opportunity to try to explain themselves and to go a few steps, a few inches deeper into any particular issue. And a well prepared interviewer should, in my opinion, be able to dig a little deeper instead of just focus

on the boxing match, if you will. Yeah. And that's sort of a function of just the way the media has changed over the years, too, because now, you know, there's like eight heads in little boxes on television, all yelling at each other all at once. And it becomes much more difficult to have a longer conversation. They think people are tuning in for the fight and maybe they are, you know, like who won, who got the better of that person. But for me, it's, it's frustrating and unsatisfying because I don't want to see who got the better of them. You know, who had the pithier comeback? I want to actually understand why they say the things they say and why they think the things

they think. That's interesting. Katie Couric, thank you so much for coming back on Pod Save America. It's so fun to talk to you, John. And when is the documentary out? It's out Thursday.

Excellent. And it's actually two parts. The first part is kind of the build up to the interviews and some of our experiences. Brian and I did it together, for me conducting, him preparing and witnessing it. And then the second part is sort of how she was treated in terms of her gender and how she diverged from John McCain in terms of her campaign style and rhetoric. diverged from John McCain in terms of her campaign style and rhetoric and really how she paved the way with the lamestream media demonizing the free press in this country,

which, you know, I know you agree is just a terrible thing to do and so undemocratic and very ill-advised in my view. So it's sort of like how she paved the way for President Trump and what's happening in today's political landscape. Documentary is called The Palin Interviews 10 Years Later. I am very excited to listen to this. I can't wait for it to come out. So we'll be taking a listen. Everyone else, take a listen. And thank you katie for uh for joining us okay thanks so much john thanks again to katie couric for joining us uh thanks erin and dan for being here on this shitty day i've been here for so long so erin thought she was coming in the

morning for a quick recording 10 a.m then i'll go to my real work, and then nope. You've just been sitting in the office staring at this thing all day. Welcome to our job. Yeah, exactly. Watch, cable, and tweet. All right, everyone. We'll see you next week. Bye.