The Jordan Harbinger Show - 75: Barbara Boxer | The Thrill of the Fight Back

Episode Date: July 31, 2018

Barbara Boxer (@BarbaraBoxer) served as a United States Senator for California from 1993 to 2017 and in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 1993. She is the co-host (with Nicole Boxer) of podcast Fight Back, and author of The Art of Tough: Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life. What We Discuss with Barbara Boxer: The life experiences that fueled Barbara's involvement in politics with the passion of an activist. How to get tough when the odds are stacked against you and you just want to quit. The concept of courage -- how it develops and how to summon it when you really need it. How to seek common ground and get things done when it seems like you're never going to see eye to eye with your colleagues. How Barbara really feels about the relentless attention of her social media trolls. And much more... Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Full show notes and resources can be found here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored in part by Conspiruality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling new age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy mad yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspiruality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

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Find Conspirality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. I'm here with my producer, Jason DePhilippo. In today's conversation, we're speaking with former Senator Barbara Boxer, 24 years as a senator for California,

also a decade in the House of Representatives. She's also the host of Fight Back with Barbara and Nicole Boxer on Podcast 1. I gotta give her credit, she's done a whole heck of a lot in her time, Jason. The Art of Tough is her book, fearlessly facing politics and life. And so long career in government, known affectionately, I'm sure, as a pain in the you know what by a lot of guys in government because she is really stuck up for what she's believed in.

She's known for her passion on the issues. And let me tell you, she's got plenty of that. She was one of the original ladies fighting upward in what was and still largely is a man's world here in politics and government. Today, we'll discuss how to get tough when the odds are stacked against you and you just want to quit. We'll discover how to seek common ground when it seems like you're never going to see eye to eye with those around you enough to get anything done. And we'll explore the concept of courage, how it develops, and how to summon it when you really need it. There's plenty more like this in the episode as well. She's just a lovely person.

I don't care what your politics are. You're going to want to give Barbara Boxer a hug after this. And of course, as usual, we've got the worksheets for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of the key takeaways here from Barb Boxer, that link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. All right. Here's Barbara Boxer. I found it funny that your first election, your slogan was Barbara Boxer gives a damn. So even back then, actually carrying was like a differentiator.

Yeah. I mean, it was so interesting. First of all, it scared me to death. As I thought back on taking such a risk with a slogan using the word damn. Yeah. Oh, my God. Today you couldn't get away with it. But what happened was I had a very hard primary race with a wonderful woman.

And she and I were very much alike on the issues. But we had a different style. You know, I was more, shall we say, activist. Okay. And she was more slow and deliberate. And Ronald Reagan was president. And he was destroying the environment. He was against the ERA and all those takeaway women's right to choose and all that kind of thing.

And so my campaign manager came in and he said, do you know, Barbie? He said, I have an idea. I said, what is it? He said, Louise, she was my opponent. She gives a darn. But Barbara, you give a damn. And I said, that's true. But then, when we saw it up on a poster, I panicked.

But we did it. You panicked? And we went. Well, I was nervous. I thought, did I go too far? But I've always told people who I am. And it's always worked well. Where did the caring come from for you?

As most of us, we learn our values as kids. Yeah. And I mean, I grew up in New York in the inner city. And certain things I absolutely remember my mother, more than anything, my mother, who never graduated from high school. My mother would say, if she saw me staring at somebody who may have had a disability, never stare, honey. Do you know what that feels like for that person? Never stare. and she was stern about it.

And those kind of values about being outrage if somebody did say something mean about somebody else. I mean, all of that just, it comes from the childhood years, really. I know you saw Jackie Robinson play baseball, and that made quite the impression on you in your book as well. Oh, God, yes. When I sat down to write the book, you know, your memoirs, which, by the way, I hope everyone will do it. it doesn't matter how old you are. You have a story to tell, and you have many stories to tell. You know, I realized that, of course, given my age, I had lived through so many unbelievable times. You know, World War II, the Holocaust, the 50s, the fight for equal rights by African Americans,

then for women, the environment, and on and on, and all those things which are baked into my worldview and how I saw life. And I always had this sense of outrage inside me. And it was interesting that you probe that because I always said, if I lose that, I'm just going to stop doing, you know, my work, which I'm still doing, by the way, even though I'm not in the Senate. I still have the outrage. I pour it out on my podcasts and my guests help me deal with it.

But to me, there's right and wrong. Now, Jackie Robinson, my father, would take me to the games, my dad. And he was the only one of nine kids born in America. So baseball was really the American thing to do. You know, this was going to make our family really American. So I became a baseball fan. And he said, I want you to watch number 42 Jackie Robinson. I will. And he said, he's an amazing player. I said, yeah, I know. God, he looked at the stance, look the way he runs, how he steals. And just all the energy just wrap. up in his body. You could see when he played. And my dad said, no, he's more than that. He said,

people boo him and spit at him. And I said, why? Why would they do that to Jackie? And it still brings tears to me. And he said, because he's a Negro, which is the way you defined people who are African American then. And at that moment, I thought, how stupid is that? It's stupid. And racism is so stupid. And you know, you could say it in much more eloquent terms, which of course I had to learn how to do, being a United States senator. But that was what I learned at that young age. And then when I was 10 and I went to Florida with my mother, and I also write about this in my memoir, which is called The Art of Tough, I got up to give somebody a seat in the bus in Florida, in Miami in 1950. And somebody happened to be African-American women, and she gave me a look as if, what are you doing, getting me in trouble?

And she marched the back. And my mother, again, not educated, just had the best heart in the world and the best values. She said, honey, don't offer her your seat. I said, well, why not? You always taught me when I saw someone older. So she must have been, you know, 50 the time. And I was 10. She said, this is Florida.

and this is the South and there's segregation. What? What does that mean? Well, they say black people have to go to the back of the bus. And I was so upset. And she said, do you want to go to the back of the bus? I said, yes. And so we did.

And we stood. And my mother rubbed my neck, which is what she did when she saw it was concerned. And I looked at the woman, and she kind of looked away. and look, that's how you learn your values and how proud I was in later years when I sat down to write the book about my mother, who really took a chance in a way because, you know, my father was the educated one. She had worked so that he could go to college and then he went to law school, but she had the values, you know. If you start crying, I'm going to start crying. No, I can't help it.

It just brings back so much emotion. And that's why what's happening today when I see how. how much my mother and my father meant to me, everything. And 99% of us know that and have had that. Some of us don't have the good fortune. I don't know the statistics maybe more than that don't have it. But the thought about being separated from your parents is like cutting off your arm or your leg. It's no different.

It's very apropos right now. I assume that's why you brought that up right now because we're looking at it. at this literally today in the news yesterday all week, this has been the biggest issue. It's been quite confusing because I'll read something that's like, oh, this isn't even happening. And then I'll read another source that's like, if Jeff Sessions is talking about it, then he's admitting it, then I don't think we have to look too far. I mean, it's clearly this is really happening.

So there's a lot of dialogue that says, oh, all these kids, they came on their own. and it's just not true. It seems very traumatizing. And as a country, a lot of people, even ultra-conservative people, seem to be quite outraged by this because nobody wants to see kids traumatized. Collateral damage, especially when it's completely avoidable like this, is not acceptable to our values as a country, speaking of values. It has nothing to do with politics.

You're right. I mean, it's the basic building blocks of a society. and when you rip children away from their parents. But, you know, the only reason it's confusing is, frankly, in my view, you know, and I have an opinion, that's why I have a podcast called Fight Back, that I do with my daughter, that explores these issues in depth. But basically what you have is a circumstance where people are fleeing from South American, Central America, they're fleeing some of the most horrific violence perpetrated on them by the gang,

sometimes there's abuse by, say, a husband toward a child and a mother. And so in our nation of laws, we do have a law that says if you make it to U.S. soil, you can apply for asylum. If you're a phony and it's not so, you know, a judge will throw you back out and that's it. So these people are coming over seeking asylum. and for the first time ever, their children are being torn out of their arms. Now, this is different from minor children coming over on their own. That's a whole other thing that happens.

But this is a mother or a father bringing a child and seeking asylum. And so they've grabbed the kids away instead of keeping them together. This really, in a time of such political divisiveness, This seems to be an issue that reached a vast majority of people, and they're saying, no, no, no, no, no. This is inhumane. Yeah, I think a lot of people are having their Jackie Robinson moment kind of right now where they're thinking, all right, maybe I don't love the idea of all this. Maybe this is causing a lot of problems, but really we're going to scrape the bottom of our sort of moral barrel on this one. You know, here's the other thing.

If you were to ask a question of your audience, how many of you come from immigrant ancestors? Unless you have a huge Native American audience, which you might. I might. I don't know. You could. Not on our survey so far. Okay. So if you don't have any Native Americans listening.

It's close to 100%. If you don't, it's 100%. So let's be clear here. There has to be, and I think there is, a vast majority of, our nation who say, this is wrong. Frankly, if we don't have that, then we're all in trouble, in my view. Because we'll have lost the idea of America. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, former Senator Barbara Boxer.

Stick around and we'll get right back to Barbara after these important messages from our sponsors. Thanks for supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash advertisers. We're rebuilding the show from scratch, so a nice rating and review in iTunes, or your podcast player of choice would really help us out. It only takes a minute or two, and if you want some tips on how to do that, just head on over to jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe.

Now let's hear some more from Barbara Boxer. When you travel more, which I assume you travel a ton, but when you travel more, when I started traveling, I started to think much differently because when you get people who really don't agree with you because they don't have any dog in the patriotism fight for the United States, you start to feel a little bit not quite guilty, but you start to look at yourself in a different mirror that's a little more maybe honest than the one you have hanging on the wall at home. And you start to go, oh, this isn't okay.

And we're kind of the only people that think that this is okay, depending on what it could be any type of behavior at all. Yes. And I think this is one of those things where people look at us and we can't say, well, look at all we've done for you. And they're like, what are you talking about? You know, you're doing all these other things inside your own country. It's really hard to call out other countries on their behavior, North Korea, Libya, Syria. They can just go, well, look at this other crap. Oh, and they do.

And they do. And they did at Charlottesville. So, you know, for the leader of the free world, that's what our country has been, to rip kids away from their families, maybe forever, and visit that type of trauma. on little babies, this is, no, this can't hold. Well, I don't think it's, hopefully it's not going to happen for very long because there's a lot of pressure on that. I'd love to go back to, we can talk about this all day, but you'll discuss it more on fight back with your, with your daughter, which I think is kind of a cool idea.

I hope my kids want to do shows with me at someday. Oh, could I just say for you and your wife, it's the best thing because after they get older and they think, well, my parents, they're all right. They're all right. They're not a bunch of you. If they work with you, they have to call you. Oh, yeah. They have to stay in touch.

I always kid my kids. I say, thank God we do this together because I do some projects with my son and my daughter. And I feel, oh, my life is so full because it's wonderful. You're not the last thing on that. You're a day-to-day thing, not just to call my mom now. Or at least a couple of times a week thing. You went from stockbroker to senator, which seems like a really big pivot. And when I was drafting this question based on your book, I thought, oh, well, Stockbroker, back then, yeah, that must have been mostly a man's job at the time.

And then now I realize, I think every job was probably a man's job at that time. Every job except Secretary, nurse, let's see, what else? Teacher. Yeah. That was pretty much the choice. when I, well, I didn't go from stockbroker to center. I had 10 years in the House of Representatives and six years on the board of supervisors. I should have said to government.

I did pivot. But I pivoted for a very good reason. You know, I always was interested in economics. And my dad was always interested in the stock market. And so I decided to be an economics major in college. I loved it so much. And I was going to go to business school. And I said, you know what?

I'll just go to Wall Street, get a job. it's going to be great. So I go to Wall Street. I'm, this is, I give you the year. It was 1962. Okay. So I go and I walk in the door of a very big old line firm and I say, hi, I want to, I was married at the time. I got married at 21. I said, and my husband was going to law school and I had to support him. So I said, hi, I've got my economics degree. I got a very good grade in school. I'm ready. I'm very interested. And I have have a bunch of people who would like to open up accounts, small, but it would be great. And they said, women don't do that.

Swear to God. It wasn't even disguised. Wow. It was, women don't do that. I said, well, what do you mean? Women don't do. Well, no. Every single firm on Wall Street has what they call customers men.

That's what it was called. To be a stock broker, you had to be a customer's man. And women don't do that. And I said, well, really, I have to pass the test. Can I at least sit in on the training and pass the test? No. No, you can't. Oh, wow.

Now, that is shocking. But what is more shocking is I accepted it. Sure, yeah. It's not like I even thought about it. I just came home and I said to my husband, I have to study for the test on my own because they don't let women in. And we didn't even weren't shocked. That's the worst part of it. I'm the biggest feminist.

It didn't start then, trust me. So then I studied, and I passed the test on my own. In the meantime, I was working basically as an assistant to a woman who was an expert in municipal bonds, and she put out a newsletter every week on Wall Street called the Municipal Bond Blue Report. It was kind of Xerox on blue paper. And no one knew she was. was a she because she signed at

E.E. Cook. And it was Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook, but E.E. Cook. Everyone thought she was a man. And she was kind of a hippie. And she didn't really care either. She just wanted to get it out there.

So they kept her under wraps that she was a woman. I was an assistant to her. And I learned so much at her side. And I passed the test. So once I passed the test, I went to the boss. I said, I have great news. Can I have my own?

little business on the side while I work for Elizabeth. And he said, no. Oh, gosh. So then I really got mad. And then I went out and I finally found a place where I could be an assistant to one of the partners and have a business on the side. But this is nuts. And that's why when you ask where the passion comes from, it comes from my own lens.

I saw what they did to black people on the bus and to Jackie Robbins. I saw what they did. To me, a woman, all I wanted to do is help the company get customers. Right. Yeah. So, you know, when you see all that, you know, and you see the oil spills that happened in the deadbirds, when you see, you know, kids being mistreated, all of that adds up to passion, I would hope, in most of us. And to me, it led me then to pivot. I pivoted when I decided to run for office because of the war in Vietnam, because that was. by then I had two kids. I thought the world, that the war would never end.

It took a long time and a lot of lives. So I said, I don't want to do this Wall Street thing. I want to do something bigger. So I got involved supporting other candidates, blah, blah, blah. Then I ran for office. The rest is history. Yeah. Well, the first time you ran, though, you didn't think you had a chance, right?

Weren't you going to quit? Well, the first time I ran for the Senate, I did quit for 24 hours. But no one knew it, but my family. And they hijacked the whole quitting thing and said, my daughter in particular said, you can't do this, mom, just because you're embarrassed about your checks, because they had this big quote unquote scandal where there was a bank at the House of Representatives. But it really wasn't a bank. It was kind of like they just kept your checks.

I can't describe it. It was just, it became a scandal because they had no overdraft protection. So they would pay you, I wouldn't pay any attention to my checkbook, which I hate to tell you, was one of my big faults, but I admit it. I would get paid. Then I thought I got paid on the first. I never looked at anything. It was terrible. Don't follow what I'm saying any of the listeners, please, this is bad.

And then I would write all my checks, and I thought everything was fine. What I didn't know is the bank was so behind. They didn't really credit me until the fifth or the sixth. Well, by then I'd written my rent, my this, my mother's check, whatever I had to do to help family. And I wound up with these overdrafts, which were then covered in my next paycheck. But no one ever told you until the scandal broke. I was so humiliated. So basically, you just looked like you were writing bad checks all over San Francisco.

It was horrible. What happened was I never wrote a bad check that was always covered. Oh, okay. But I didn't pay overdraft protection with the scandal to the bank. Oh, I got you. And that is scandalous, but I never knew because I didn't pay. Let's be clear, this is not my forte. I was focused on other things.

I was so embarrassed. How I ever got elected, I don't know. But what I did was I was totally honest with the people, and I said, here's the deal. I admit it. I didn't pay enough attention to my checkbook. I admit it. I have no excuse. However, take a pat, because in those years didn't have tablets, take a yellow pad and put a

line down the center. And on the left side say bad things about Barber Boxer. And on the right side say, believe me, you can say, did not pay enough attention to her checkbook, was embarrassed by the scandal, cleared of any wrongdoing on the right side of the paper, which I was. And then what I've done for kids, what I've done for the environment, what I've done for health care, what I've done for housing, blah, blah, blah. And I hope that exercise will say, okay, I'll vote. for her. She's sure not perfect. And there's a lesson in that in life. You got to own up to your stupid mistakes, and we all make them dumb. None of us is perfect, least of all me. And one of the lines I had as this thing went on is, you know, I admitted I wasn't good with my checkbook. I was

sloppy and my closets are not neat either. You know, definitely have things that aren't perfect. But on the bright side, I always was in this for the the right reasons to make life better for people. I think you probably had to stand up for yourself a lot. And a lot of the examples that I've read in old news stories and in your book, The Art of Tough, when I was researching you and prepping for this show, was you do recall your mother's advice all the time. What did she say sometimes you have to tell someone to go to hell?

But do it in such a nice way that they'll say thank you. How does that work in politics? I'll tell you how it works. Let's say you're on the floor of the Senate. And let's say it's this immigration debate that we just talked about. And let's say the guy on the other side or the gal is standing up and defending separation of families. Now, you could do, you could stand up there and say in debate, the senator on the other side of the aisle, you know, is spewing lies in venom and, you know, how can he sleep at night? You could do that.

And sometimes you have to. The other way to do it is say, look, I know my friend on the other side of the aisle. I know what a good father he is. I know that he'd do anything for his kid. I've seen him. I've seen him protect his kids. I know he talks about it. He shows me pictures of his child all the time.

So therefore, there's just a disconnect here with my friend. That in the other hand, where he would hold his child to his chest and not let anyone harm him, he's allowing someone else to lose their child. Why? Just because they come from a different country. Come on. There's got to be some common grant. That's telling someone to go to hell.

And hopefully he'll say, thank you so much for telling people what a good dad. That's one example. You mentioned also in the book that men don't easily give up, which I think is largely true. But women kind of take it personally and they tend to back off a little bit more. I was surprised to read that in The Art of Tough because I thought, well, okay, you don't really seem to do that. Is this something you notice just throughout long political? career? Let me tell you what happened after I lost my first race for county supervisor. So this goes very young. I was in my 30s. And I came very, very close. It was

heartbreaking because the big issue then was the environment. Back then it was the environment. It was the environment at those early stages, yes, in our county. And also after school care, there were a couple of other things. But mostly it was protecting the environment because a county supervisor draws the county-wide plan, and there were moves to really destroy the part of the county that was near the ocean. And it was very important to push forward so that that wouldn't happen, and we'd preserve that area and not overdevelop it so that people could see its beauty. And it still is, by the way, quite beautiful. Yeah, Marin County. So it's quite beautiful. But it took a lot of fighting, a lot of planning. And so I lost that race, and I was despondent. And, you know, because

I really wanted to make a difference. And by the way, after I did that, I was offered a job to help a local Congressman John Burton, and that was terrific. So it all turned out fine. But at the moment, I don't want to be a Pollyanna and tell you, oh, I said, I don't take it personally. I did take it personally. It was so sad because at the end of the day, the other guy got more votes. So even though I had won the primary, I came out first. In the general, I lost by a little bit.

So the bottom line of the story is I read an article in Ms. Magazine at the time, and it talked about all of this. I think I'd discuss it in my book how if you look at Abe Lincoln, if you look at Richard Nixon, if you look at all the men who went to very high levels, they lost maybe twice, three times, four times, and it didn't impact their confidence in being able to try again. But that women took it personally. And the reason I mention it is, you know, when you do these podcasts like you do, when you give people thoughts and ideas about how to incorporate these ideas in their lives, you make a difference.

This magazine made a difference. It said, don't give up. You know, you may have been a woman who, A, or a woman and people are prejudiced, B, that will get better in time. B, you may be ahead of the curve with your issues. You may be, you know, way ahead of where people are. and they need to catch up with you, don't give up. Now, I read that and I thought, okay, I can do it. I can do it one more time.

I wasn't going to lose twice and keep going because that's a little bit crazy, but some people could. So I learned then not to take things personally and how to develop a thick skin. I still have people trolling me all over Twitter, you can't believe. And it cracks me up. And people say, how does it make you feel? And I say, relevant, keep it coming. keep it coming. I don't care about that. And the way I view, you know, life in the political world or

anywhere out in the public, whether it's you doing what you do or me doing what I do, giving speeches, you know, getting out there, supporting candidates, being very bold about what I think. You know, I just think that if you're not making a difference, no one will, A, even care. And so if you have a bunch of people who are after you. You must be still effective. That's kind of how I look at it. Last point I'd make on this for women who are listening to your show. There were a group of psychologists who did a little study on women in the House of Representatives in the years when we were only like 28 out of 435, and I was there. And what did we have in common was we had what she called inner applause. What's inner applause? It's instant. It's.

you, even though people could be booing you in a room. And I've been there, and I've been booed, believe me, plenty of times. You got kind of smile, because inside you feel, I'm doing the right thing. And it comes from your parents. It comes from your family, my husband, my children, my grandchildren, my supporters. It comes from that circle, your teachers, your, whoever you rely on. And that inner applause is good regardless of what you do because somebody's always going to try to shut you up or shut you down. I don't care what you do, even if it's at the office, you know, meeting. So instead of taking it personally have that in, what do you call it? Inner applause.

Inner applause. You feel it inside. I like that. Isn't it nice? I think it's good to have that internal locus of control instead of giving it to the Twitter trolls. That's a way better way to put it. Yeah. Inner applause works too.

It's easier to remember. That's for sure. We'll be right back with more of our amazing interview from former Senator Barbara Boxer after these brief messages from our sponsors. Thanks again for supporting the show. Checking out the sponsors is what keeps us on the air. And for a list of all the discount codes and links, visit jordanharbinger.com slash advertisers. And if you have an Amazon Alexa, check out our Alexa skill.

You can get clips from previous shows in your daily briefing. It's completely free. So just go to jordanharbinger.com slash Alexa or search for Jordan Harbinger in the Alexa app. Now back to the show with the amazing Barbara Boxer. You're known for getting along with people on the other side of the aisle. How do you recommend people do that, whether it's politics or any other field? A lot of people can't do that. Well, it kind of comes from my mom again.

If you don't agree with someone, it's not right to let things go by if they said something that offended you. But if you really want to have a relationship and there are differences, and it doesn't have to be political differences, it could be. any kind of difference, right? What I found, if a person is close to you in proximity, let's say we were just friends and we were having a big disagreement. And I didn't want to lose our friendship, but this was a pretty important point. Don't do something that's going to cut off the relationship. That's not a good idea. And I'll give you an example. I give speeches all over the country. CAA is my agent and I go out and I speak to young groups. I speak to people

interested in health care, lots of different things. And in this time of politics that is so divisive, I'll always have a young person, you know, maybe age 25, 26, 22, raise their hand. What is it? I almost know what they're going to say. Senator, I don't know how to talk to my father. Oh, yeah. I can't talk to my mother.

I can't talk to my grandpa. What should I do? And I say, don't give up. don't give up you go over to them you put your hand on their shoulder because this is not worth losing love forever so and you say look grandpa i know how you feel and i know i can't change your mind but i want you to respect how i feel because you live through different years i live through different years so why don't we decide this just to make it so that we can see each other and keep loving each other.

A, let's avoid hot button issues. But if we want to go there, let's do it in a setting where we have certain rules. And let's not let it break up our family. But grandpa, I'm not going to change how I feel about this or that, you know. That's kind of how you can do it. It doesn't always work. It could still be traumatic. But it beats losing contact with people that you love deep down inside.

It also sounds like you're playing a little bit of the long game instead of the short game. So knowing that you're going to be together with your colleagues in the Senate, for example, for years and years, it's just not worth the day. You can win the battle and lose the war. Without a doubt, and to take it even further, because the Senate is such a strange place, one person in the Senate can really screw you up and put a hold on one of your bills forever. If you step over that line, there's actually a rule in the Senate that you can't call another Senator a certain name. Once I said about Jesse Helms, he was against a woman because she was a lesbian. And she was the first lesbian nominated for a sub-cabinet position, but she needed confirmation

as Assistant Secretary for Housing. Roberta Actenberg, she was a very public person. And she's terrific. She still is terrific. She was a member of the Board of Supervisors. And he called her off the floor of the Senate, that damn lesbian. So I went down on the floor of the Senate and tried to stick with the rules and I read into the record an editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle that called Jesse Helms out

and was not polite to Jesse Helms and they made me take down my words. They said, I said, I didn't say it. I was just reading the news. As my friend Will Durst, the comedian says, can't do it. So I couldn't do it. Yeah, yeah, they want to close that loophole.

But regardless of that, you are also well known for being able to persuade instead of just convince. And one of the examples, I can't remember if this is from your book or just from news articles, but you held up something like a, it was like a toilet seed or a pot or something, coffee maker is like $7,600. Right. And this was the, hey, we're wasting a lot of money in government. That's one thing. But if you hold up a toilet seat and you said this was $700.

It was a coffee pot. A coffee pot. $7,600 or something or $7. It was ridiculous. Whatever it was, it was ridiculous. It was a picture of a coffee pot that they were putting in a cargo plane, and you could have bought her for a few bucks, and here it was, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

And the reason was they weren't bidding out the contracts for the spare parts. They were doing it all from a single source contractor. So, yes, I was able to convince my colleagues. This was a waste of money. and we got a fixed and we've saved billions because of it. So I think there are ways to find the common ground without losing your core center of who you are. And that's key in life, I think.

You know, find the common ground with the person and it feels good, you know, to make that incremental progress. Do you generally use those kinds of visual persuasion or something like that instead of saying, look at the spreadsheet with all these numbers on it. We're getting killed here? I was kind of known as the true. chart lady. We had a few of us who used charts. And there was a guy, Ken Conrad, great guy,

great senator, brilliant on the finance side. He became the master of the chart. And a picture is worth a thousand words, just tying it back to this horrific refugee crisis we were struggling through. The photo that the photographer took of this little child in a red sweater, it's become an iconic photo. This child looking at her mom, baby, two and a half, half, three years old, looking at her mother being patted down, and they wouldn't let the mother hold a child. And the child knows something is rotten and is crying. I mean, so yes, that photo, you can use those in politics. You can use those in life. You can use those to convince people. A picture's worth of a thousand words. It's colloquialism, but it's truism.

If you could change one thing about the modern political system, what would it be? Because it does seem like it's so hard to get anything done. But then again, maybe it's supposed to be hard to make sweeping changes in a government that controls the lives of 300 million people just locally in the United States. What's happening is people are going into their corners and they're not meeting in the middle. And I think one of the reasons that has happened is the money in politics, the big money. You always have to have some money in politics. But it's a battle that, I don't think we will win, maybe years and years and years out. But the reason is that people get the money from the special interests,

and then they're so afraid they'll lose their reelection, they don't want to talk to you unless they're carrying out, you know, the philosophy and the desires of these wealthy donors. That would be one obvious change to make. The system itself just unfortunately doesn't work well. The redistricting doesn't work right. I would secondly take away redistricting from all these legislatures. It's gerrymandering type things.

It's gerrymandered. These seats are gerrymandered. And in California, we changed it where we have totally objective, honorable people, a commission without any politics drawing the lines. And I think that's another thing if we did that. Now, obviously for Senate, you run statewide. that doesn't matter. But for the House and all the other state lines, it would be better to have those drawn objectively. So that with the guidelines we have set forth where you have to respect, you know, minority populations,

you have to make sure you give them enough power, et cetera, et cetera. But those are the two things, getting rid of the gerrymandering and getting rid of the big money. I think it would go a long way to making people accountable to the people as opposed to the special interest. When you were a kid, I don't know how old you were, but you stabbed a kid named Albert with a pencil. Oh, I surely did. Yeah. Have you, I mean, I know you've learned to channel your anger differently since then. How do you channel your anger instead of just becoming enraged by everything?

Because it would be easy, especially in your position, to be like, what the heck's going on here? Everybody's crazy. Where's my pencil? Right. Right. Well, again, my mother came into it. She taught me after I lost control. this kid was just chasing me all over the place.

I stabbed them. Then later, I had such anxiety and pain about it and fear that I had really killed him or something. I mean, I talked about it the book. It's a funny part of the book, but it's a great lesson. You pay for anger. You pay a big price for anger because you don't know where it's actually going to lead. You could hurt someone physically. Not me.

I'm too little to do that, but you could. you could hurt someone mentally so that you know you went over the line. You could hurt someone in so many ways. So anger is terrible. Now, having said that, it's all so natural. And it's also appropriate in certain circumstances to get angry. So I'm not a shrink, but the way I deal with things is when I feel anger, I will deal with the anger, but not outside my family. I guess It was Rachel Maddo who once had a period on her show where she said, talk me down, you know, and just talk me down. And then lay out a way to deal with it in a smart, smart way. So it's really a question of, you know, getting control because when you're out of control, you don't do well.

I'm sorry. You're on tilt, yeah. You just don't do well. I mean, maybe for a moment you feel good. But at the end of the day, you haven't changed anything. you haven't solved anything. And then, so you take that anger and then you dissect it, you know, why and what, and then have a plan on how you're going to deal with the problem.

You go rational first, talk yourself down or have someone else talk about you. I'm not saying I'm rational first. If somebody says something horrible on the phone to me, let's just say, I won't scream back at them. I'll just say something calmly. And then when I hang up the phone, you know, I'll go for it. I'll call a best friend. I'll grab my husband who now is, we've been married 56 years.

Can you believe that? And he, yeah, I know. I say we both deserve that. Congratulations. But, you know, am I, I'm, I'm crazy? Am I, you know, because he's very fair. And he always gives me good advice. And he'll say, no, you're right.

Or I'll say, no, you're wrong. And I'll say, well, why am I wrong? And I'll get mad at him for a while. And then he'll, you know. Yeah. But you definitely have to deal with the anger. Why did you get angry? And then do something about it, but do the right thing and think it through.

It's hard. Yeah. It's not easy. I'm not saying it's easy. And by the way, if something happens and you must act, if you see somebody hurting somebody in front of you, you don't have time to talk yourself down. I saw something in the supermarket. One of the managers, it was talking so badly to a. a mentally challenged employee who's, you know, they have, it's a wonderful program where they work in the supermarket,

bagging, and started to be raiding this woman who is at least 60 years old. And she was berating hers, you're not supposed to wear those shoes here. You can't. You could trip and then we'll have to pay the price. And, you know, they're not tied. Well, obviously the woman has a hard time tying shoes. And I went over to her and I said, what's happening? over there. Can you tell me? She had no idea who I was a senator. And she said, oh, I'm very worried

that she could hurt herself. And I said, well, I was wondering because the way you were talking with her, I think you frightened her. You didn't mean to frighten her. And I was very, very calm. And I've been inside my heart was beating because I have a brother-in-law who's mentally challenged and I know. And he worked in a supermarket once. So I was budding in without doubt. And she could have told me off. She didn't because I was calm, but she knew that I knew. And I think that may have changed her attitude about doing that to this woman, at least on the floor of the store. I don't know what happens in the back of the store.

Sure. So I'm not saying you just never do anything at the moment, but think it through. Yeah. I think that's important to remember. I myself definitely often need to take a breath. And then, of course, Jen, I do the same thing as you. Am I right about this? No.

Well, you know what? I came to you for support. So I'm going to go sulk in my room now. I know, of course. Yeah. Well, guys tend to do that more than women. Yeah, I think you're right. Although I have to admit, I'm not the best at criticism.

Just ask my family. They'll say, mom, no. You always get the last word. Yeah. I suppose that's probably the case often enough. What advice would you give someone who wants to make social change in this country. It can't be easy, especially now. Okay. Well, we need it especially now. Yeah. So if you're out there and you're thinking of making social change, this is the moment.

You know, you don't get into something when everything is going fine, when it's not smooth. So if something touches you inside, this is the driving force to make you authentic. It's driving force and to keep you at it. And, you know, again, as we discussed, if you're trying to make social change, you're going to run into people who don't want to make social change, who like the status quo, who are going to try to shut you down and shut you up. And what you have to have is that inner applause that maybe you get for listening to this show or, you know, other things that you do to know, that you have to be true to yourself. And, you know, a lot of, when I speak to young audiences, young people and say, I want to be a senator like you, or I want to be president, or I said,

don't want to be something, want to do something. You tell them, women don't do that. If you want to, sure, very cute. If you want to do something, that's great. Don't start by I want to be something. Because if you want to do something, you'll be something, you know. But if you start from a place of, I want to be a senator, no one's going to follow you there. Why would they?

Because you have to look at them and say, I'm running. for office because when this happened, it broke my heart. And I looked around and I thought, you know, I don't see a lot of people giving up their life for this, but I'm going to. And whether that leads you to a classroom first or to a nonprofit first or to working for a candidate, there's so many ways to get there to the place where eventually people will say, how about you? You ought to be the one to be our face, you know? But it takes determination. Where does that determination come from for you? I mean, you were early on to the women's movement.

No. The beginning was 18 and I wasn't even born. Okay. So like the women's suffrage movement or something like that. Yeah, thank you very much. But I stood on those shoulders. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's interesting that you said that because the women's movement

before it actually came into modern times, which you're right was the 60s and the 70s. really was a lonely, hard road. And I don't think it's actually appreciated enough. We don't have enough time to go into it all. But I would say suffragettes were spat upon. They were forced fed in jail. They were arrested by a Democratic president named Woodrow Wilson who said he was their friend. But then he had World War I and he said, I don't have time for you.

And the women said, excuse us, it's our sons. Yeah. I get the chills when I tell us. answer. So if you go there, what you'll see is the fight was unbelievable. And women waited in line, you know, after African American men. They waited in line and then they got the vote. So we didn't get the vote till the 20th century. And men of property were voting in the 1700s. It's been a long, hard climb just to get the vote. Forget about it. And then after the war, in the war years of World War II, women proved that they could work in all these places.

But after the war, society said and literally said, women go back to the house. You cannot work. There's too many jobs for the men. And if you want to work, there's something wrong with you. And women were given, I'm not kidding. Pills, if they wanted to work. What were the pills? Anti-anxiety pills.

Oh, they had, I didn't even know they had those back then. Yeah. You have too much energy. It's called Valley of the Dolls. They was written about that years ago. And so, yes, they gave you those pills. I can't remember the names of those pills. Anyway, everyone listening knows those pills to calm you down.

So bottom line, honestly, this is what happened to women. So then when women started to wake up in the 60s, after the happy days of the 50s, and say, you know what, it's great. If women want to stay home with kids and they've fulfilled, this is good. But if women want to go to the workplace to help their families, they ought to be able to. And it started. And I was a young, it's, again, the matter of. of time and place. I was fortunate that at that period of time, I was a newly wed. I had done my

thing on Wall Street, gotten shunned. So I knew when they were saying these things that they were telling the truth that there was so much prejudice. And I started to watch it, watch it, watch it. And then I started to get very involved in National Women's Political Caucus, NOW, you know, all of that kind of thing. The right to choose, a woman's right to choose in the early 70s became an issue, 1973 was Ruby Vue Wade. So I got caught up in it all. I already had my family, and my motivation for getting into office was, I get these two little kids, and I want the world to be okay. I don't want Vietnam War. I don't want any war. I don't want, you know, the oceans to be despoiled. I don't want my daughter not to have equal opportunity.

So it kind of is the values of the family that I experienced just being a young man. mom and my experience of being, you know, harassed and other things. I was fortunate. I lost the one race, but after then I won every race ever since, 11 races. And if you count all the primaries, like 24 races, primaries and generals. So I was on my feet as a successful leader in the women's movement, the environmental movement, the peace movement already in the 70s. What keeps you going now? You don't need to keep working. What the heck? Oh, God. You're right. I don't. Thank you for reminding you. What keeps me going is I'm still outraged inside. You know, I told you that in the beginning of the show. The sense of outrage that you feel when things are not going right. So I'm doing my work in different venues. I'm helping other people through my political action committee called Pact for Change. And everyone can find out about it just by going up to barberboxer.com. And I'm helping people. I'm going to not only raising money. but going to the districts if they want me to to help them.

The podcast is great, the speechifying. I've debated Carl Rove, who is a leader of the Republican Party. One time, we're going to do another one in San Antonio soon. I've debated Newt Gingrich twice. So I'm still out there with my voice. I do a lot of MSNBC. And the podcast, as you know, it's a great opportunity to talk to people who are still in the arena, whether it's in politics or in writing.

I had one great interview with E.J. Dion, who's a very famous political columnist. The thing I want to do with the podcast, and I know you know what you want to do, you know what drove you, my thing was, first of all, doing it with my daughter so we have a generational gap. So we can have our disagreements and we do our little sparring in the beginning. And then I get to interview people that I just respect and admire. Either their senators, former senators, you know, members of the press, actors, comedians, whoever they are. And it's a chance for people listening to see what my life was like when I was a senator and had all these people helping me, you know, when I had thoughts and ideas. So, and then my daughter, she's been featuring Hot Race of the Week, who's running.

So it's the only mother-daughter political podcast that I know of. Yeah, I think you might be right there. I don't know how the mother-daughter political podcast genre is quite small. Well, you know, it's very small, yes. And so we've risen to the top immediately. Congratulations on that. Yeah. Barbara, thank you so much.

Thank you. I've enjoyed it so very much. Thanks. Well, there we go. I'm waiting for the inevitable negative review like, oh, wang, you had someone on whom I disagree with politically and I didn't really listen to the episode, but I wanted to write something about it. So I'm bracing myself for that.

But I think no matter what side of the aisle you're on, you got to come. kind of respect somebody who has dug in their heels and fought for what they believed in for so long. I met Barbara back in 1996 because I worked with her son Doug. And then again, right when Barack Obama announced that he was running for president. And she is just an amazing person, just so personal. But you can tell, you do not want to mess with Barbara at all. I mean, she's a tough cookie, for sure. Yeah, you can really tell that she isn't. And she's also very sweet. So I think she's got got really good soft skills, which is why one reason why she's such a great fit for the show, because clearly anybody who's had that long of a career, that's successful of a career,

knows how to navigate pretty much every sort of situation that you might imagine coming at you, especially in a world where they're like, all right, honey, take a seat, you know, that kind of situation that she dealt with for, I'm sure, the majority of her political career. So she's got the appropriate mixture of tough and sweet, which is, was really nice to see and experience up close and personal. Great big thank you to Barbara Boxer. Her book title is The Art of Tough, Fearlessly Facing Politics and Life.

And it was a fun read to see how she was kind of raised and in a dichotomy that she had to deal with the whole time. If you enjoyed this one, don't forget to thank Barbara on Twitter. And tweet at me your number one takeaway from Barbara Boxer. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. And don't forget, if you want to learn how to apply everything you heard from Barbara Boxer,

Make sure you go grab the worksheets also in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. This episode was produced and edited by Jason DePhilippo. Show notes by Robert Fogarty. Booking, Back Office, and Last Minute Miracles by Jen Harbinger. And I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be in every episode.

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