The Daily Beast Podcast - This 80s Song Helped Gabby Giffords Speak After Getting Shot

Episode Date: July 17, 2022

Filmmakers behind the new documentary “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down,” Julie Cohen and Betsy West, tell New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast in this bonus episode about the former Congresswoman’s RBG socks, music she loves, and what she’s up to now—including some of the things Gabby has taken up recently, like playing the French horn, as well as the adorable scenes in the documentary that show Gabby support her husband, Mark Kelly, and how she has worked to overcome her aphasia to give nearly flawless speeches. Plus! Molly and Andy Levy listen to clips of more dumb Republicans like “walking Facebook post” Sarah Palin and John Bolton, who recently told on himself in a CNN clip. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objective. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart, conversations with the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. Hello, and welcome to another Sunday bonus episode of The New Abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here. Today, we have an extra special show. We're going to talk to the Oscar-nominated filmmakers Julie Cohen and Betsy West, who of course in the past directed RGB, but have a new movie called Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down, and we're going to talk to them all about it as it opens nationwide this week.

But first, let's have some fun. You guys ready to listen to some clips. Sure. Why not? I'm excited. I'm excited. Nothing like going into the week with all the enthusiasm after this beautiful week we've had. Okay, one Sarah Palin, Mr. Trump held a rally for her.

She had some thoughts. I don't know how deep they are, but we got to get into them. This is life-changing. What's coming up here in the midterms, the change that are needed. And it's no longer. Democrat versus Republican. This is all about control versus freedom. It's versus E virtual battle.

They use the Plandemic as an example in order to achieve a goal of controlling you. Didn't work. Yeah. A million people dead. That was no plan, man. That was just Demic. She's not wrong. She's wrong about the pandemic, but she is right.

It is, I'm now fully on the, this is good versus evil. She just doesn't realize she's on the evil side. And I am really tired of hearing people talk about freedom who would have wanted a 10-year-old girl who was raped to be forced to carry a fetus to term. So maybe shut up about freedom because you don't care about it. I would like to add one last thing. she really is just a fucking moron. Like, every time she talks, you think, like, there have been people in the Republican Party

where I have thought, like, this person is truly a fucking moron. Louis Gomer, Lauren Bopert, who else? Andy Biggs. Andy Biggs, I was just going to say. Right? Clay Higgins. I mean, where you think, like, this person, actually, I think Clay Higgins is smart and evil,

but there have been people where you thought, like, this person is just a fucking moron. But she really is, like, one of the dumbest people, I think, in American politics. And she's been stupid over decade. I can never remember that Republican operative that said, she's one of the folks, and that's the problem. And she proves it by talking about a fucking, that pandemic movie that she obviously saw linked on Facebook and watched it.

God. I mean, that's what she is. She's a walking Facebook post. Yeah, that's the dead on truth. Except she existed before Facebook. I know. No, I know. I know.

Yeah, I guess true. Okay, well, on the other side of the Republican Party, we of course have the braids of the operation, which sometimes look like a walrus. I have, of course, talking about John Bolton, and he decided to tell on himself this week. It's not he the advice and keep shopping around until you end up with this group of misfits with Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell. Is he just not capable of hearing no? Well, when it comes to his personal advantage, the answer is he doesn't listen to. anybody else. But I think it's also important to understand, while nothing Donald Trump did

after the election in connection with the lie about the election fraud, none of it is defensible. None of it is defensible. It's also a mistake, as some people have said, including on the committee, the commentators, that somehow this was a carefully planned coup d'etat aimed at the Constitution. That's not the way Donald Trump does things. It's rambling from one half vast idea. to another, one plan that falls through and another comes up. That's what he was doing, as I say, none of it defensible. But you have to understand the nature of what the problem of Donald Trump is. He's to use a Star Wars metaphor, a disturbance in the force.

And it's not an attack on our democracy. It's Donald Trump looking out for Donald Trump. It's a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. I don't know that I agree with you, to be fair with all due respect. one doesn't have to be brilliant to attempt a coup. I disagree with that. As somebody who has helped planned coup d'etat, not here, but other places,

it takes a lot of work. And that's not what he did. It was just stumbling around from one idea to another. Ultimately, he did unleash the rioters at the Capitol. As to that, there's no doubt. But not overthrow the Constitution to buy more time to throw the matter back to the states to try and redo the issue.

And if you don't believe that, you're going to overreact. And I think that's a real risk for the committee, which has done a lot of good work, mostly when the witnesses testify, not when the members are opining. It is invariably the case that when you go too far trying to prove your case, you undermine it. And I think you've got to give credit to the intelligence of the American people to listen to the witnesses and let them come to the conclusion. And I think the fellow who had actually gone into the Capitol who said today that he had blinders on and he was too loyal to one person, that is the central point. Yeah, no, it's something, and it was, as I think Laura Coat said, or somebody said earlier, an offering.

I am in Europe, so I was watching this on CNN International at the wrong time. And I was watching it, and I thought, did he just say I planned coup d'etat? And I thought, no, he didn't say that. I must be very tired. And then I took to Twitter and I said, did John Bol and just say, I've planned coup d'etat? And it was like, it's the Henry Kissinger school of, and by the way, then there were people on Twitter who are like law people or FBI people who are like, yeah, he never planned a coup d'etat. Again, like, oh, because you know, because you plan the coup d'etat. And again, we all know that the.

American CIA has done terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible crimes. Very likely recently. I mean, nobody here is under any illusions. But again, I mean, Jesus fucking grace. I can't stop laughing at this. And I know it's technically not funny to plan coups. Speak for yourself. Just the way he said it was just, you know, well, I disagree.

As someone who has planned coup d'etat. You have to be smart to play a kutri-a-kine. Oh, my God. What a perfect John Bolton answer, though. I don't know if he has or not. Just like, this is funny to me, and I know it shouldn't be, so don't, you don't have to send me hateful tweets. I mean, it was good that Tapper came back and was like, what the fuck, man. I can see doing an interview and, like, getting a little distance from it being like, wait, what?

Like, did he really just? And it is one of those things where it's like, as an interviewer, It's terrible to have to go back and ask because, like, the truth is, you know, he's never going to say. There's no world in which he goes, yeah, now I want to confess all the shit I've done. And you know, he's, like, kind of a liar anyway. So, but you have to ask because it's an unbelievable thing for someone to say on television. And so he sort of tries to circle back, which I thought was valiant. And John is delighted because all he wants is attention.

And then he says in a chuckle, well, you know, Jake, I, could never confess to the terrible humanitarian crimes I may or may not have committed. I mean, again, it was like full-on re-moment. It was incredible. And also, I agree that as an interviewer, you're like, well, he's never going to say where. But on the other hand, you wouldn't expect him to actually say that he planned any of them. So who the hell knows? It's true. So, yeah, you got to ask, because maybe he will just say the specifics. But, I mean, that to me is what makes it so funny. It's like he was offended at the idea that

someone dumb could plan a coup because that reflects badly on him as a smart person. So it's just funny to me. He was just, he was so offended. Yeah. He was very offended. Yes. Not great. As friend of the podcast, Rick Wilson coined everything Trump touches dies.

But I would like to offer a little offshoot of that, which is also that everyone who hangs out with Trump and some of these people were the most careful people ever sometimes. all of a sudden start telling on themselves the way Trump does all the damn time. Right. Yeah, that's for sure true. It gives you brainworms. Yeah. Speaking of those brain worms, we were on vacation last week, so we missed out on just the chef's kiss of congressional speeches by one representative, Debbie Lesko.

So I have to dig it out of the vaults because... I think it happened like the day... It literally happened like the day we went on vacation. Yeah, because we were texting about it and you were like, oh, my God. No, I even took to a rare Twitter appearance to say how sad I was. We weren't going to do this. Yeah, I just want to say one thing about Representative Lasco, who is really a fucking first-class moron.

And in fact, someone who covers her, a local reporter said something the effect of, like, this is not even in the top ten stupidest thing she's ever said. So meditate on that while you listen. From Arizona is recognized for two minutes. Thank you, Representative Jordan. I rise in opposition to H.R. 2377. I have five grandchildren. I would do anything, anything, to protect my five grandchildren,

including as a last resort, shooting them if I had to, to protect the lives of my grandchildren. Democrat bills that we've heard this week want to take away my right, My right to protect my grandchildren. They want to take away the rights of law-abiding citizens to protect their own children and grandchildren and wives and brothers and sisters. So your right to shoot your grandchildren.

Yeah, I'm confused here. This is a woman who loves her grandchildren and will do anything for them. And you all are making fun of her? What am I missing here? Exactly. I mean, look, the right to kill your... own grandchildren. Actually, I'm going to tell you something, it's not a right. It's still actually murder. The people who would have you believe that a six-week last July is a fully grown

human also will have you believe that you can shoot your own grandchildren. And Democrats should not prevent that. Let's just be clear. She misspoke, obviously. And I don't know. You You don't know that. I mean, that's the thing. It's like, with all these Republicans, they're like, well, she obviously misspoke. Like, maybe she wanted to kill her grandchildren. I don't think she wanted to shoot her grandchildren to protect them. Let's not give her the benefit of the doubt here.

I mean, I am not going to give any of these Republican congresspeople. By the way, I've heard her say a lot of fucked up shit over the years. And I did not realize she was old enough to have grandchildren. That's all I have to say. That's your big city ways right there, Biz. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Julie Cohen and Betsy West are the Oscar-dominated filmmakers behind the movie Gabby Giffords won't back down.

Welcome to the new abnormal, Betsy. Thank you, Molly. It's great to be here. And Julie. Thanks so much. It's really good to be here. Let's talk about Gabby Giffords. You guys have done other political documentaries. How did you get to the story of Congresswoman Giffords? You know, we were almost set up, I'd say, on a blind date with Gabby by a, a producer named Lisa Earstbomber, who became one of the producers of this film and had known Gabby for quite a few years and thought that she would be a good subject for a documentary. Lisa reached out to us and said, hey, would you be interested in doing a Zoom with Gabby Giffords and her husband, then not yet a senator, Mark Kelly. We said for sure. What was the experience like? I mean,

you had, did you know, you knew the story because everyone knows the story because it is like such an important American story and also now more and more common occurrence. But were you surprised by what you learned and what and the differences between what you knew and what you actually knew when you got going with the documentary? Yes, we knew the outlines of the story, like many Americans, were totally shocked with the shooting in Tucson that so severely wounded then Congresswoman Gabby Giffords killed six people, injured, 12 others. I mean, it was just one of those shocking events, but I have to say that we didn't really know a whole lot about what next. We knew she'd survived and that Gabby was an advocate against

gun violence. I have to say that Zoom call that Julie referred to, which happened very early on in the pandemic, so we sort of weren't used to Zoom calls at that time. That Zoom call was pretty amazing and was really the reason why we so much wanted to make the film, because Gabby, despite her problems, despite having aphasia, is just an extraordinary communicator and so funny and just so engaging. And her husband also told us on that Zoom that he had recorded much of her recovery, which of course for documentary filmmakers, there's video, really? And we get her hands on it. That little Zoom call led to, you know, this amazing two years of following her around and making the film. Yeah, Gabby's opening gambit on the Zoom was to like lift her foot,

stick it right in the camera of the Zoom to show us that she was wearing RBG socks. Kind of, you know, some of the concerns we had like, oh, is this someone we, you know, that we understand has some issues communicating? Is she going to like really, will it work as the central character? And is this story, you know, because yes, it's about gun violence. Like, is the story going to be too much of a downer or too depressing? That's really not our thing. We'd prefer to have films that have some upbeatness, some rom-com date movie potential. And I think all those concerns were just completely allayed by Gabby's, like, sparkling, hilarious, always singing personality. So explain to me about her aphasia from the shooting. Gabby was shot point blank.

in the head right into her language center. So she had a very grueling recovery from this. I mean, you know, at one point, you know, she was completely in a coma when she came out of the coma. She couldn't talk. She couldn't even follow instructions particularly. So she goes from there to slowly coming back and learning how to talk again. The film shows this process and also how the kind of heroic speech pathologists worked with Gabby to accessed words and used often music to do that because it turns out that in the brain, the language center is located on the left side, I guess in the front of the frontal lobe. I'm not a brain expert, but that's about as much as I know. But there are music centers all over the brain. And that's why speech pathologists emphasize

music. Luckily, Gabby's a very musical person, had been, you know, in Annie and high school and just loves to sing. And that was a very effective way for her to start coming back and relearning how to sing and how to talk. Yeah, there's some pretty incredible footage from early on in Gabby's rehabilitation in a hospital in Houston where she's with a nurse and a speech pathologist, like, you know, in these early days of really struggling to regain any language. And she's just like belting out, girls just want to have fun. It's so unexpected. Like you wouldn't think that somebody at this point, you know, like maybe three or four weeks into their recovery from this, you know, terrible traumatic brain injury is going to not only want to be singing, but singing kind of like fun 80s pop songs.

But that's just that's just Gabby. That's who this person is. Did you also cover Mark Kelly's Senate run too, right? Because that was happening at the same time. Yeah, that was actually some of the first filming that we did in the fall of 2020, went down to Tucson and filmed Gabby campaigning for her husband, basically trained as an astronaut, but over the years had done a lot of public speaking. And, you know, as he said, he started to see that things weren't going the way he wanted them to go in the country.

And he thought, hey, maybe I can do something about this. he learned a lot from Gabby how to be an effective politician. And she played a big role in going out and supporting him and speaking in favor of him and doing campaign ads. We had the opportunity to follow all of that. I've heard her speak before with him. He really did devote himself just completely to her care for a number of years. And then he decided to run for Senate. What is his journey like?

Because it seems very relevant. He was a big part of this story, albeit kind of in a supporting role the way we see it. Betsy and I like to think that we are our films are feminist love stories, and this one for sure fits that mold. He was someone whose career was absolutely ascendant, naval officer, and an astronaut, not just an astronaut, but a space shuttle commander for two space shuttle flights, who decided at a certain point that his wife's care needed so much attention that having those full-time demanding jobs, wasn't going to work for a bit. So he took on, you know, the caregiver role, a big issue in our society because there's not enough support for caregivers. And the reason there isn't enough support for caregivers is that caregivers are usually women. For a guy, not to mention sort of a guy in the more macho mold of someone who's an astronaut and a, you know, a Navy pilot to make

caregiving like central to his wife. Like there's something really, really beautiful about it. and being able to watch it both historically from some of those early videotapes of the two of them together, but even now, just the way this couple relates to each other is really, I don't know, I think it's a pretty good model of what a modern feminist marriage can look like. No, I mean, it does seem like that. I mean, how was it for her when he ran for Senate? Gabby was all in. I think she is extremely proud of Mark, wanted to help him.

You know, you don't get the sense from Gabby ever that she really looks back and says, oh, that should be me. I mean, she talks about, and they both talk about it pretty openly. He says, hey, in a sense, I'm taking her place. And the reason why he's taking her place is because a horrible thing happened. And she was shot and her political career was sideline, totally. But you have the real feeling that they've accepted this. they've moved on and she jumped into his campaign pretty joyously. Now that he's a senator, you know, one of our favorite scenes in the movie is after he was

elected, he was going to be giving his maiden speech in the Senate. And Gabby just, you know, he's going to practice before Gabby and she is sitting there listening to him and, you know, in a kind of wifely way, correcting him, giving him nice suggestions. And, you know, I think it's a scene that any married couple can relate to of a wife trying to, you know, steer her husband in the right direction. And his reaction to that is just quite adorable. So, you know, I don't think she feels bad about it at all. I think she's just so proud of him. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty indicative of her character because, you know, that had been, we had wondered about that, too.

Like, is she going to feel jealous? or uncomfortable, or is it going to be like a reminder of this painful situation that, like, her star was so on the rise as a politician, something we actually hadn't been so aware of before we started this film and started doing research and talking to President Obama and others about what the future hopes the Democratic Party had for Gabby Giffords. But like her whole gestalt towards the tragedy that happened to her is, and, and, And actually her whole personality generally before and after the injury is just like, you know, looking at the most, looking at things in the most positive possible way.

And she really seemed to, you know, joining her on the campaign trail with him as we did. She really actually seemed to enjoy herself. And like, she's definitely his strongest advocate. Like when she comes out at the stage, like people just go wild to introduce him. And I think, you know, I think he enjoyed that. But I think she does like a spotlight and like a crowd. And so I think the whole thing was a lot more positive than we had anticipated. How is her recovery going?

I mean, she seems like she has a pretty full life now. She has a very full life, very active. She's really devoted to taking care of herself. She rides her recumbent bike every morning really early because it's hot in Arizona. She goes out really early, rides that bike. She goes yoga. She plays the French horn. You know, she recently was bot mitzvahed. So she does a lot of things for herself. Plus, she is the head of the Giffords organization, which is, you know, one of the most effective of the anti-gun violence groups in the country that has really grown up in the wake of Sandy Hook, which, you know, was a big turning point for her. So she has that part of her life. And she does speech therapy. Every week she's working with her speech pathologist, Dr. Fabby, Her

Hersh, they have an amazing relationship because it's an ongoing struggle. Fabi, who's in the film quite a bit, explains to us, you know, that it's tiring for her to access words. It takes a lot of effort. And yet, you know, we've seen her give extraordinary speeches so moving. I mean, if she has the opportunity to practice something, she can really deliver. You know, she does seem to have incremental improvements. But I think it's, you know, it's always going to, ephasia will always be with Gabby. And she's accepted that. And she just works to do the best that she can. Can you explain how the ephasia affects her? Yeah. Basically, you know, the way she describes it is the words are in her brain. She just, it's a struggle to get them out. And you can really see that when you're

with her. She can, she absorbs everything being said to her and everything that she reads as well, but getting words out, whether it's in writing or verbally, is a struggle. It's almost like a chess game. She can do it, but it takes time. Like when she has something that she really wants to say, she'll look straight at it. She'll say like, oh, and then it takes a minute. And then she is almost like grabbing the words. You can almost feel her like she's reaching for them and trying to get the, you know, go through again, this is like where our lack of like, you know, neuro-linguistic expertise may make our language not perfect on this. But it's almost as if the path from her brain through her mouth has obstacles that make it challenging. And a sentence is more difficult

for her than an individual word. She'll often throw, like, you know, when we're talking about the Zoom call where we first met, she'll sometimes just like yell out, like RBG socks. Like, She just doesn't, it's articles that are so difficult. You know, the A's and the little connector words are tricky. She gives speeches, and the way she does that is working on what she wants to say and then working with her speech therapist over a period of weeks to memorize a speech. She is an incredible memory. So once she knows a speech, she can give a two-minute speech cold with no notes or know anything,

but it just takes memorization. Will that ever get better for her? I think she has improved in her ability to give speeches. But as I said, I mean, again, we're not doctors. Right, right. We don't know for sure. But I think Gabby has accepted this, this is something that she is going to have to work on, probably for the rest of her life.

She has improved. She'll continue to improve. But communication is always going to be extra work for Gabby and harder than for most of us who were not, after all, shot at the point blank range. the brain. I mean, it's a pretty serious, the fact that she survived it is astounding. The fact that she's come as far as she has as kind of a testament, both to the skilled doctors and speech pathologists she's worked with, but just from her own, just unbelievable will to keep pushing forward and to keep working on those skills every single day. What an amazing story. What are you guys going to do

next. Yeah. You know, I don't know, we are looking into a couple of good stories and, you know, gee, big surprise. They involve consequential women, but we're not exactly sure. Thank you so much. This was great. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics,

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