Midterms, Media, and Mental Health with Jon Favreau

The midterms are approaching, so we brought in one of our favorite political podcasters/voices of reason, Jon Favreau of Pod Save America, to chat with Ashley. They chat about what’s at stake in this election, which party votes more and why, races to watch/donate to, actual change we could see in the country based on the outcome, and Jon’s hopeful outlook. They also discuss staying sane in the current political climate, from how to digest the news without raging, to social media boundaries, to having friends and family members with different values and how/when to talk to them. Also in the discussion – the unexpected commonality between Obama and Tr*mp, who Jon is excited about for a 2028 presidential run, what the left needs to correct, and lastly, Jon’s Dating Hack and Dating Wack. Before the interview, we chat about our favorite/scariest Halloween decorations we’ve seen this year (with visuals), and Ashley shares a chaotic Walmart shopping experience. Enjoy! Follow Jon on Instagram @jfavs, listen to Pod Save America and Offline with Jon Favreau, and learn more about Crooked Con at https://crooked.com/events/. Follow us on Instagram @girlsgottaeatpodcast, Ashley @ashhess, and Rayna @rayna.greenberg. Visit girlsgottaeat.com for more. Thank you to our partners this week: Hinge: Download the dating app designed to be deleted. Skims: Shop our favorite loungewear and pajamas at https://skims.com. Noom: Start a GLP-1 program for $39 and have it delivered in as little as 7 days at https://noom.com. Quince: Get free shipping and 365-day returns on your next order at https://quince.com/gge + app-exclusive offers when you download the app. Smile Set: Get 35% off at https://smileset.com/gge. Columbia: Get your hands on an Amaze Puff Jacket at https://columbia.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  Who are you into presidential run on the left?

• 0:05Speaker 01

  For a while, I was like, no one is jumping out at me. And I was really, and now.

• 0:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  This podcast is a Dear Media production.

• 0:30Rayna Greenberg?

  Hi, guys.

• 0:31Ashley Hesseltine?

  Hi, guys.

• 0:32Rayna Greenberg?

  Welcome back to another episode of Girls Gotta Eat.

• 0:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  Welcome back. Oh, this is gonna be a different style. Episode. I'm glad to be reunited with you.

• 0:42Rayna Greenberg?

  Thank God.

• 0:43Ashley Hesseltine?

  I just did my solo interview with Jon Favreau of Pod Save America, not of Swingers, just to clear it up for Raina. And Raina, it was going great. I mean, I was had a panic attack when I was introducing him, because I don't do that. And you wrote the intro for me. And then at the end, I did our outro and like, no one said, like, have a good week. And I was like, oh, my God. And I said, Jon, you have to say, bye, guys. Like, it was like this, that was really smooth until the very end, where I was like, oh, no, I need her for this.

• 1:13Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah. Well, so if you guys don't know yet, Ashley did her first interview without me ever. So I've only had two episodes solo.

• 1:21Ashley Hesseltine?

  No, I did with Shoshon.

• 1:23Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, but that was just different. That's family. Andrew Collin is also family. I did two episodes of Andrew Collin without you. And the history of this podcast, you've done one without me, right? With your Shoshon. But this is

• 1:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:34Rayna Greenberg?

  the first time, like, a stranger has been on the show solo with us.

• 1:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  And I went to their studio. You guys will see, you got to watch this on Spotify or YouTube, they have this very cool newsroom setup. Like, I went to Crooked Media. It was like, in, you know, the motherland of democracy in LA, I would say.

• 1:52Rayna Greenberg?

  How did it feel to co-host without me?

• 1:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  I mean, it would have been so weird to do an interview about something dating, sex, relationship related with without you. But it felt really normal and natural for me to talk politics with him. Wait, there's a little dating at the end. Like, he has some fun stuff to say about meeting his wife in DC. And the DC girlies, you're gonna really like, like, the end of this. It was good. I just, I'm excited for you guys to hear it. I feel like at parts, it was just a therapy session for me, being like, Jon, please tell me it's gonna be okay. And just, we, you know, we vented a little bit, but I, he is a hopeful take on everything and realistic. And he's, you know, brilliant. And he is, doesn't hold back. You know, I asked him, like, who do you want to be president

• 2:37Ashley Hesseltine?

  in 2028? You know, who do you like? And who don't you like? And he just, he's not a politician. He's a podcaster. And, you know, obviously, media founder, he can say whatever he feels, like we get to do. So it was really great.

• 2:51Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay, good. Well, I'm really excited to listen. You like, literally just walked in the door. So I don't really know anything about this. So I'm excited to listen. So much happened while you were like, in this interview. I mean, Lena Dunham announced that, like, Girls is coming back for five episodes. And I was like, Ashley, I need to talk to Ashley about this. I can't believe this is happening. I just like, lost on it. Also, like, the new White House Press Secretary gave her first press conference. And I was like, has this person ever held a microphone before in their life? And I was just like, I can't believe I can't talk to Ashley about this, like, right this second.

• 3:19Ashley Hesseltine?

  I know. Well, we'll probably have to deep dive in some of this for the snack for this Thursday. Hopefully, it's not too dated. But yeah, a lot, a lot went down while I was in that room.

• 3:28Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay. Well, we can thank our partners, and then we'll get into it.

• 3:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 3:31Rayna Greenberg?

  Thank you to Hinge. Download the dating app designed to be deleted. And Skims, shop our favorite loungewear and pajamas at skims.com. And Noom, start a GLP1 program for $39 and have it delivered in as little as seven days at noom.com.

• 3:45Ashley Hesseltine?

  And thank you to Quince. Get free shipping and 365 day returns on your next order at quince.com/gge. And app exclusive offers when you download the app. And Smile Set, get 35% off at smileset.com/gge. And Columbia, get your hands on an Amaze Puff Jacket at columbia.com. Okay, I mean, October 19, we are in the thick of Halloween season.

• 4:09Rayna Greenberg?

  I love it.

• 4:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm so excited. Really doing a big this Halloween. Three parties I'm going to. But I'll talk more about it, maybe next week.

• 4:17Rayna Greenberg?

  Have you told me what your costumes are gonna be?

• 4:19Ashley Hesseltine?

  We don't really totally know. Um, okay.

• 4:23Rayna Greenberg?

  Are you gonna do couples costumes?

• 4:25Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, we are. We're going to three parties.

• 4:28Rayna Greenberg?

  Three together. Okay. And are you gonna do couples costumes for all three of them?

• 4:31Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, I think two parties will be in one night on Halloween night. So we'll wear the same. So I think we are gonna do two different costumes. I mean, Shoshon wants to wear his fucking hot dog.

• 4:39Rayna Greenberg?

  Just, you gotta let him cook.

• 4:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  The next week on the snack, we'll talk about that 2026 costume.

• 4:43Rayna Greenberg?

  Who wore a cheeseburger? Was it Katy Perry?

• 4:45Ashley Hesseltine?

  That sounds right. But not for Halloween, just for, just for a red carpet?

• 4:50Rayna Greenberg?

  I think she was the Met Gala.

• 4:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  No, no, stop. Here you go again. This is like Casey Anthony on Dancing with the Stars.

• 4:57Rayna Greenberg?

  As soon as you said, this is just like, I knew exactly what you were gonna say.

• 5:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  No, I think it was for VMAs, or it was a live performance. Yeah. Oh, no.

• 5:05Rayna Greenberg?

  Am I right?

• 5:08Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm sorry. I, yeah, it says, you're right. It says she wore the hamburger to the 2019 Met Gala. Raina, no.

• 5:14Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 5:16Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 5:18Rayna Greenberg?

  Because I, there was like, a video of her having to take it off to go to the bathroom that was awesome.

• 5:22Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, she started the night in like, a chandelier dress. I remember memeing that year, because that was camp. That was the best Met Gala theme of all time was camp. That was like, my favorite year. I'll never forget it. I have the memes. They're on my highlights. If you guys want to dig deep and find them. But then, yeah, I guess she changed. And then there was a spiral bathroom moment with Jennifer Lopez. But yeah, the chandelier was the early part of the night. And then she changed into the burger for the after-party. I'm glad that you recalled that.

• 5:49Rayna Greenberg?

  That was years before we even started the snack, which is crazy. I feel like my, like, pop culture knowledge was not what it is today, back then.

• 5:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 5:57Rayna Greenberg?

  But I'm like, loving Halloween and like spooky season here. I am constantly fascinated by New York City Halloween decorations. Because like, I, okay, I just sent you like, a whole, like, album of Halloween. Yeah, you can look at them. I, all I want you to try to think about as you look through these is, who has the space for this volume of decorations in New York City? Like,

• 6:21Ashley Hesseltine?

  You, they have storage units. I mean, this is like, our next door neighbor here. Her house is insane. And it's all full-size animatronics in the house. It's like, a full-blown haunted house next door. And they have a big house, like, but she has a storage unit for her Halloween. Like, Halloween people get it done. And they keep this stuff off-site.

• 6:37Rayna Greenberg?

  You think New York City people who live in like, tiny, one-bedroom apartments, people are living in like, 600 square feet for $10,000 a month. You think those people have storage units on top of this?

• 6:47Ashley Hesseltine?

  Full-size, yeah, Raina, this 10-foot skeleton, that has to be a storage unit. Where do you think it is? In the kids' room? The kids' bedroom? It's in the office?

• 6:54Rayna Greenberg?

  I sent you one where there's, there's a building that has like, eight windows, and there's skeletons hanging off of every single window.

• 7:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like, do you think they go, like, the owner of the building goes like apartment to apartment and asks permission to hang the skeletons out the window? Like, well, Where were you? This could be a rich family that has the whole building. Like, they could just live in that brownstone.

• 7:13Rayna Greenberg?

  All the West Village. These, I just sent you the West Village, that construction site, this construction company has skeletons.

• 7:19Ashley Hesseltine?

  My vibe is that one family owns that whole brownstone, and they get to do whatever they want with the skeletons climbing up it. This is wild. I am impressed. And I do feel like New Yorkers take it there. Like, it's edgy. It's really scary. Like, we live in a more family neighborhood. We went on a walk the other night to look at the decorations. And I'll just look at the video I sent you.

• 7:44Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay.

• 7:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's like, there's a lot of family stuff. It feels very family-friendly. And then people get political in California.

• 7:52Rayna Greenberg?

  Wait, so it's like, voter box?

• 7:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  Voting. Yeah, I feel like this is very on trend with the episode today.

• 7:58Rayna Greenberg?

  But RIP bigotry.

• 8:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes. I loved it. Real political statements.

• 8:05Rayna Greenberg?

  Halloween with a message. Wow.

• 8:07Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes. So that's really the vibe. I feel like New York is like, some of the decorations, the intent is to traumatize you. And LA, it's really to encourage you to vote.

• 8:17Rayna Greenberg?

  I actually think you're totally right. I have seen stuff. There are like, mechanical ones. There's a few lawns or fronts, like, stuff is moving. And I'm like, aren't children terrified of this? And you know that I am chasing the high at all times of October 2024. When I walked by the building, it's on Bedford and Christopher, and there were six windows, and each one of them had a body hanging from the window. A giant, full-size, mummified body hanging out of the window on a string. They're all strung up by their feet, upside down.

• 8:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes.

• 8:45Rayna Greenberg?

  And I'm chasing this high every, like, I wonder if there was like, a city ordinance, like, served to these people, like, hey, you can't have this. In public, there's bodies hanging off of your building.

• 8:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, it's just a weird time, too, you know?

• 8:58Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah.

• 8:58Ashley Hesseltine?

  So let me send you this one, because there, I want to give us a little more credit. There was one, I grabbed Shoshon's leg and gasped, because it was, well, I'm just, I want you to watch it. It's a video. And then I want, because we'll, we'll play all these on the screen. This is a good time to watch, you guys.

• 9:12Rayna Greenberg?

  Oh my God, there's a child in the yard.

• 9:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes.

• 9:15Rayna Greenberg?

  That would scare the shit out of me.

• 9:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  A child like mannequin staring at a gravestone. Raina, is that not terrifying?

• 9:22Rayna Greenberg?

  No, nothing is scarier than kids. No, this is terrifying.

• 9:25Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm like a fake kid on the lawn staring and like staring in a graveyard.

• 9:30Rayna Greenberg?

  I'm gonna have nightmares.

• 9:31Ashley Hesseltine?

  The way I gasped, like grabbed Shashank and he was like, Ashley, relax. I'm like, okay, what? That's really twisted.

• 9:37Rayna Greenberg?

  No, kids are fucking scary. Okay. You've crossed the line with children. I'll take bodies hanging out of a window, but a child standing in a graveyard?

• 9:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes.

• 9:45Rayna Greenberg?

  Would you ever be a Halloween decoration person?

• 9:47Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, a hundred percent. I've said this before. I like last year. I think last year I posted on my story, like when I finally had my forever home, this is what I'm doing because it was all Beetlejuice, the whole front yard. And so this year I was like, I want to see the Beetlejuice house and see what they did this year, or maybe they do Beetlejuice every year. I don't know. So we find the house, no decorations yet. And we look in the window, we can see in their window, they're watching Fox News. I was like, I thought those people, I thought I looked up to them.

• 10:16Rayna Greenberg?

  I thought you guys were cool. I thought you were one of us.

• 10:20Ashley Hesseltine?

  Shashank was like, ew, they're watching Fox News. I was like, not the Beetlejuice house. So yeah, I mean, I would so be into that.

• 10:27Rayna Greenberg?

  I've been seeing a lot of blow up decorations. So people do blow them up and collapse. And I feel like you're a Halloween decor person or a Christmas decor person. Maybe this year I'll get a Christmas tree. Maybe my first year finally with a Christmas tree. Every year I'm threatened to get one. Maybe finally I do it this year.

• 10:41Ashley Hesseltine?

  I think that'd be really nice. Just even like a small one. Just even you could do a small fake one.

• 10:45Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay.

• 10:46Ashley Hesseltine?

  Um, okay. Can I tell you something that has been going on in my life?

• 10:50Rayna Greenberg?

  No.

• 10:50Ashley Hesseltine?

  So I have been curious about Walmart fashion for a minute now.

• 10:58Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay.

• 10:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Ever since honestly, we posted that clip about how Target has gone so far downhill. And did you ever, did you read the comments? That clip did really well. And people were like, Walmart's where it's at. Like Walmart's the new Target. Cause you know, Target did used to have like fashionable clothes and all the collabs. And everybody's like, it's Walmart now. And I'm like, no shade, but I've never thought of Walmart like that.

• 11:20Rayna Greenberg?

  It used to be Target for sure.

• 11:22Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like I just, you know, I haven't shopped there in a really long time. And so I saw on Kate Kennedy's Instagram story, some clips she posted and it was like a some stylist, some renowned stylist talking about how Walmart had the perfect white button down. And then Kate posted, she was like, what's going on at Walmart? Cause I, she was like, something about these dupe jeans. They're these $620 jeans. The brand is K H A I T E.

• 11:49Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, their purses are like a thousand dollars. Yeah.

• 11:51Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. So the $600 jeans, Kendall Jenner, Rihanna, they've worn these jeans. Walmart has a $30 dupe. And they're like hard to find. So I get on Walmart and I'm like, I'm finding this perfect white button down or the button down. I get the last pair of jeans in my size that they're called like the, the scoop is the brand stovepipe jean. They're mostly sold out. I was able to get like the lighter wash, which I didn't love. I was able to get the last pair of the lighter wash in a four. So I order that. I get another pair of pants that looked really cute. Walmart's like, it'll arrive tomorrow, all of it. I was like, okay. I think much about it. So I'm like, all of it tomorrow? Okay. Where's it coming from? And then the text messages start. Raina, over the course of the next 24 hours, I received 14 texts from Walmart.

• 12:36Rayna Greenberg?

  About what?

• 12:37Ashley Hesseltine?

  About my three items, like just all the shipping updates, like word, I swear to God, like when brands do this, they're not the only one that does it. Other brands that were named nameless because one of them is a partner of this show. It's crazy. It's like your crazy ex. It's like, I love you. I miss you. I'm outside. Like I swear they're just like every step of the way. They have to text you about it. They called me. I was at the concert. They needed the gate code. Like someone, like a courier called me. Yeah. So this was Friday night. I ordered this Saturday. I'm at the concert. Somebody's calling me a courier. We're here from Walmart. I'm like, what is going on? I text them the gate code. So I get home and on my doorstep is the first pair of pants, not the jeans, in a Walmart bag, a shopping bag, like.

• 13:21Rayna Greenberg?

  They sent an Instacart shopper to Walmart for you.

• 13:24Ashley Hesseltine?

  What's happening? They're just couriering it from a store. That's their overnight shipping?

• 13:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  So.

• 13:34Rayna Greenberg?

  Also they call you, they're like, hi, this is the least expensive thing that you've ever bought. So we just thought we'd call you to say we're here.

• 13:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  So I get the first pair of pants. I really do like them. They're very cute. And then the other two items, the shirt and the jeans, they're late. So 17,000 more texts about being late. So they show up on Sunday and I get an email that the rest of the order has arrived, allegedly. I go outside on the doorstep. The shirt has arrived in a regular shipping bag, no shopping bag. So that came normally. And I open it. The shirt's nice. I really do like the shirt. It's like US Polo Association, whatever. And that's the brand. People think it's like polo, but it's not. It's like, you know, knock off polo, no jeans. But they said they arrived. So I check the email. There's the photo, the delivery confirmation photo.

• 14:23Ashley Hesseltine?

  And it's a photo of a Walmart bag, again, jeans in it, I assume, outside of some house. That's not mine. So I'm like.

• 14:32Rayna Greenberg?

  They took your one of a kind, hard to get jeans to someone else's house?

• 14:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  So Raina, I'm like, where are these jeans? Because normally I would just email back, boop, boop, boop, and get a refund. This, these weren't delivered to me. I don't live here. I don't know where they are. I don't know where they could be. But this was the last fucking pair. Like this is the last pair. So I'm like, I'm heading down the streets. I'm going to find these jeans and I kind of recognized the house, sort of, I thought. I was like, am I making this up? Whatever. It was this blue house. I was like, I feel like I kind of recognize it. I walk outside, look down the street. There it is. All the way down the street, this blue house. I hoof it down there. What if someone grabs it? So I run down to this blue house. I jumped their gate.

• 15:12Rayna Greenberg?

  Raina, I jumped the gate. You jumped the gate for Walmart jeans?

• 15:16Ashley Hesseltine?

  It was a low gate, but I was like, I'm not gonna ring your thing.

• 15:19Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah.

• 15:20Ashley Hesseltine?

  I straddled the gate. I jumped. I, I broke in.

• 15:23Rayna Greenberg?

  I would have not been able to get over it.

• 15:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  So there's the shopping bag. So I got the shopping bag. I come home and Shashank's on the couch. He's like, you did that. You went on a journey and found your jeans. And I got all my stuff. 80,000 texts later, a trip around the block.

• 15:39Rayna Greenberg?

  How was it?

• 15:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  Different deliveries. Everything's great. The jeans are good. I mean, listen, they're $30. Like they're not going to feel super luxury. Like I also, I have nice jeans. I have Alice in the movie. I have Paige. I mostly wear Levi's. Like I'm not like a super high end luxury denim girly. Like I usually stick to Levi's and they don't, you know, they don't even feel like that. They just feel like a cheaper denim, but they look good. And I think they're a pretty good dupe. Like signature black enamel button, which I love. And the button down is great. And then the other pants are really great too. The other pants are kind of funky. They're like printed and they're like, kind of, I don't know how to describe the, the cut, but they're, uh, I don't know. So watch this space for my Walmart haul and that's what's going on at Walmart.

• 16:23Ashley Hesseltine?

  But do not sign up for texts and just know that they might start dropping stuff at your house in a Walmart bag.

• 16:29Rayna Greenberg?

  You have really changed since I left. Um, dude, did you start playing basketball yet? I mean, you play basketball and you shop at Walmart. You threatened to pull a basketball, shop at Walmart. You host this show by yourself.

• 16:42Ashley Hesseltine?

  Those are the three things.

• 16:44Rayna Greenberg?

  I was like, is there anything else? Just hang out with your husband all the time?

• 16:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  If I'm playing basketball and shopping at Walmart, just like middle school. Faded glory. And they think Kate Kennedy posted, she was like, what is going on at Walmart? Cause like her, like me, also feels like you remember Walmart from the faded glory days. And like the clothes weren't that cool. And that was like their main brand, you know?

• 17:05Rayna Greenberg?

  I don't think we ever shopped there. We were a Target family.

• 17:07Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay. Well, we didn't get a Target till my senior year in high school. So we got a Walmart and a Sam's and that was huge.

• 17:15Rayna Greenberg?

  Oh, Sam's. My dad exclusively shops at Costco. That's where his entire wardrobe comes from. I think you cross the threshold as like a 70 year old man and that's just where your wardrobe. Does your dad shop at Costco?

• 17:25Ashley Hesseltine?

  We don't, we're not, we don't have memberships. There's not one close enough by, like where my parents live. They probably still do have a Sam's Club membership. I'm not sure, but the Costco's like upstate. Like it's not close by.

• 17:38Rayna Greenberg?

  I just, I feel like we would shop there if it was an option.

• 17:41Ashley Hesseltine?

  A hundred percent. But well, maybe you can get your dad to get him like a pair of jeans for Christmas. That's what you should get my dad for Christmas this year is a pair of Costco.

• 17:47Rayna Greenberg?

  Jeans.

• 17:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  You're not like a shop for your dad. Kirkland Signature.

• 17:50Rayna Greenberg?

  Kirkland brand. Uh huh.

• 17:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  I used to say Kirkland Signature Jeans in a bit. It just came back to me.

• 17:56Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay. Well, um, we are going to get into the interview, but first we are just going to thank our partners. Thank you to Hinge. Truly, I think our favorite dating app, mine and Ashley. I mean, we love how.

• 18:08Ashley Hesseltine?

  I know.

• 18:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's the only one I even down my radar. I mean, not anymore, but you know, like it's the only one worth being on.

• 18:20Rayna Greenberg?

  If you're married, it's the only one Ashley would consider being on. No, I just, I love the app. It is so easy to use and you upload your photos. But I think the most frightening part of dating apps is how do I open up a conversation with somebody? And how do I engage? And Hinge is the app that facilitates that the most. So I think it's just like you, you build up this thing in your head. Like, how am I going to start a conversation with somebody? And they have so many prompts that allow you to talk to somebody and open up a conversation and just start like developing this like crazy, how we, how we met story. And it takes the guessing game out of like, what do I say next? Because you can upload all these photos and lay captions on those as well. But you can talk about all the things that make you unique. And Ashley and I have seen a million dating profiles over the years.

• 19:01Rayna Greenberg?

  And anything that shows off your personality and your uniqueness and gives somebody something to talk to you about and ask you questions about is always a good idea. Anything that sets you apart is just a great way to initiate a conversation on a dating app. But just in general, Hinge is really committed to making it easy, making dating intentional, getting you off the app, getting you onto a date and creating a dating app that is designed to be deleted. So if you are interested in meeting somebody and you want to date intentionally, Hinge is a great way to do that. So download the app right now and get out there and meet some good people.

• 19:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay. And then when you find your person on Hinge and you bring them home and get in those sheets, make sure they are Quince. We are loving Quince for everything. Raina, get your Christmas tree on Quince. You know, they sell them.

• 19:45Rayna Greenberg?

  Great idea.

• 19:46Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's a great idea. So you can get, of course, your fall wardrobe, your winter sweaters and your shoes, accessories, jewelry, luggage, everything. But we want to tell you about the bedding because it is incredible quality. It feels so, so good. So Quince makes hotel quality bedding using premium natural materials designed for lasting comfort. Their 100% European linen is woven from premium flax and gets softer with every wash, while their organic cotton bedding is breathable, incredibly soft and made for everyday comfort. I have the silk pillowcases. So I've talked about this before and I sleep on silk pillowcases. I think it's done wonders for my hair.

• 20:21Rayna Greenberg?

  And I love all that they offer for home. So, I mean, truly anything you want is on this website, but their home stuff is great. I've gotten great sheets there. I've gotten great stuff for my kitchen. They even have furniture. It's great to gift people. Sheets and bedding are probably like my number one, like holiday gifting idea, blankets, things like that.

• 20:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. And the pillowcases are great, too. Like anybody who's on a hair journey or not, I mean, I love these and they're cheaper than their competitors for the 100% mulberry silk, which is what you need, not satin. They're real silk. They're really great for you. So check it, everything out. Everything in Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. So you're just getting the best quality possible at prices you can afford and really upgrade your nighttime routine with their bedding. You can make your bed your favorite place to be this season with Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Girls Gotta Eat. It's the best way to support our show.

• 21:17Rayna Greenberg?

  And if you guys are interested in trying out a GLP-1, if you've ever been curious, I have used GLP-1s in the past. I had really positive experiences with them. But I think the fear, which is what I always say is, you know, can I get off them? And have I established the right type of habits in my life to allow myself to get off of them if I ever want to at some point? And Noom is really the first and only platform I've ever found to get GLP-1s that combined weight loss with behavioral change. So their app is fantastic. When you sign up for Noom, they're going to start helping you figure out how to grocery shop, what to cook, how to exercise, how to incorporate these changes in your life. And unlike short-term GLP-1 program providers, Noom pairs GLP-1 medication with behavioral

• 21:58Rayna Greenberg?

  tools to help you kind of build sustainable habits and activate lasting success in your life. And for me, it wasn't just about losing weight. It was about controlling the food noise. It was about developing better habits. And I like to be hungry. I like to go out to eat and eat with all my friends and crave food and still be eating three meals a day. And for me, it wasn't about like, let's just lose the weight. But then you start worrying like, how do I ever get off of something like this? So they have really designed a program around kickstarting weight loss with healthy habits. And I love that they combine both and they have a psychology-based, science-backed program that'll combine the GLP-1s with behavioral change. You can look at daily lessons on the app and there's food logging as well so that you can really track your progress.

• 22:41Rayna Greenberg?

  The Noom GLP-1 program starts at $39 and is delivered to your door in as little as seven days. You can start your GLP-1 journey today at noom.com. That's N-O-O-M.com. Noom, lose for keeps. Initial one month subscription from $39 plus tax and $99 plus tax per month thereafter. Cost of medication is not included. Final pricing depends upon program selection. Okay, let's get into the first solo interview on this podcast. Let's get into it.

• 23:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, guys, we are so excited to be joined by the co-founder of Crooked Media and co-host of Pod Save America, who previously served as President Barack Obama's Director of Speech Writing and became the second youngest chief presidential speechwriter in White House history. He also hosts Offline with Jon Favreau and The Wilderness and is the co-author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Democracy or Else: How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps. With the midterms just two weeks away, we're thrilled to have him here with us. Please welcome to Girls Gotta Eat, Jon Favreau.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 23:41Ashley Hesseltine?

  I never do that. I'm, my heart is pounding. That's Raina's job for nine years.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  To do the intro?

• 23:47Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes, I don't do it. I do the outro. So I don't even know what's about to happen. But I'm so glad to be here. I was just telling you, we don't do this a lot.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  No, I appreciate you coming here.

• 23:57Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Save me a trip somewhere.

• 24:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  So how are you feeling? Just general wellness check today.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  I feel great.

• 24:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  I feel good about the midterms.

• 24:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  You do?

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, good.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  I don't, I mean, we can start talking about 2028. I don't feel as, I don't feel bad, but I feel much more uncertain.

• 24:18Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  About the presidential. But I think, I mean, here's my thought on the midterms. If Democrats cannot win in this political environment, which is the worst political environment for Donald Trump and the Republican Party since Trump has, you know, walked down that fucking escalator.

• 24:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  If we can't do that, then like everyone should just pack it in and go home.

• 24:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay. Well, I didn't want to get into this right up top, but so you believe that we're going to have a free and fair election? You want to believe?

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:50Ashley Hesseltine?

  With Elon Musk's $300 million, like all the things, like you still believe in our democracy enough that we're going to have a midterm election?

• 24:58Speaker 01

  I think we're, we're going to have an election. Let's get into what the problems could be. Because it's not that I trust Donald Trump or the federal government at this point.

• 25:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  I just have a lot of trust.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. But there's, states run elections. It's very hard for the federal government to interfere with state-run elections and the courts, even the Supreme Court has sort of said that as well. I worry more on the back end of like, let's say if James Tellerico.

• 25:27Ashley Hesseltine?

  Tellerfrico?

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Tellerfrico, right. If he, if he leaves his mental hospital in Ohio and somehow wins the election by like, you know, 10,000 votes.

• 25:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  And Greg Abbott is the governor and it's a Republican state. Does he try to fool with the certification of the election on the back? Like that kind of stuff? Yeah, that could happen. I worry about that. But we're going to have an election.

• 25:51Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay. I'm glad you said that. Cause I find myself in these, they're ramping up all the violence and all the ICE and all the things to enact martial law so we don't have an election. Now, how, is that a valid concern? Or do you not really get bogged down with those types of like theories?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  I don't get bogged down with that. I mean, there's a couple of reasons why I don't. And one, I just, I do trust, again, it's hard to, for people to hear this because everyone's like, well, this Supreme Court is like pretty right wing. But just seeing the decisions they have handed down about sort of election interference in the Trump era.

• 26:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  On that kind of stuff, I feel like the court's going to be good. I think that Trump is, here's, here's the other thing.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  He doesn't care as much about the midterms as when he's on the ballot.

• 26:43Ashley Hesseltine?

  That's so true.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  You know, and so.

• 26:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  I don't know these people.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  A bunch of Republicans losing, like I'm sure he wouldn't be, he's not going to be happy.

• 26:49Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  But he's just going to blame them and say like, I did everything I could and that's their problem.

• 26:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  Totally.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  When Trump's on the ballot, everything works out great, you know? So that, just if you don't trust Trump, you can at least think that. And the other big reason that I don't worry about this is because I can't control it. We have a whole bunch of lawyers. The lawyers are out there.

• 27:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  We have election officials, everyone's sort of monitoring this. They're going to do what they can do. And I always, when people say this to me, I'm always like, well, what would you, if you knew that we weren't going to have free and fair elections or if you knew that he was going to declare martial law or try to do something like that, what would you do differently versus if you knew for sure he wasn't going to try those things?

• 27:33Ashley Hesseltine?

  Sure.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  And the answer is like, there's not much difference. If you're a lawyer, if you have someone who's like getting cases ready or monitoring polling locations and all that kind of stuff, then yeah, then you have some things to do and to prepare for. But for most of us, and for me, all I can do is talk about the midterms, try to get people involved, try to get people voting, try to give people the best information they can, and then hope for the best.

• 27:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, great.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  That's where, that's where I've.

• 27:58Ashley Hesseltine?

  I like this.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  That's where I've landed after many years.

• 28:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  Starting this on a hopeful note.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Many years of doing this.

• 28:02Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, great. This is more of a therapy session for me.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 28:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, we're going to circle back to it. I do want to ask you a few burning questions that are hot topics on Girls Gotta Eat.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 28:09Ashley Hesseltine?

  So number one, do you think Mitch McConnell is alive?

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 28:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  Or is it like a Weekend of Bernie situation?

• 28:18Speaker 01

  I think he's alive. I think he's not well.

• 28:20Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay. Do you think it's elder abuse?

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think it's the first time there's been elder, and I don't even think it's a partisan thing, like Dianne Feinstein hung on a little too long.

• 28:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  So this is not the first time this has happened in the United States Senate, which is unfortunate. But I think, yeah, I think he's hanging on until the end of his term.

• 28:39Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, your team alive? That's not a corpse.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Do I think he's like, you know, just making a lot of interesting points in the Republican caucus meeting? No, I don't.

• 28:50Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Do I think he can do much more than like?

• 28:53Ashley Hesseltine?

  The thumbs, was the thumbs up real?

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there was like a, it was like sort of a peace sign.

• 28:57Ashley Hesseltine?

  I thought.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Which is not something that Mitch McConnell was known to be giving peace signs.

• 29:01Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right, like a Gen Z, like, eh, like, people were sending it to me and I was like, that's an AI.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  That was real, that was a real video.

• 29:07Ashley Hesseltine?

  Peace sign was real. Okay, my next burning question.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:09Ashley Hesseltine?

  Do you think Trump is always in a diaper?

• 29:12Ashley Hesseltine?

  And my follow up question, you don't?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  He's a huge diaper-y ass.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  I feel that's just the ass.

• 29:18Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like a super.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  I think that's just all him.

• 29:20Ashley Hesseltine?

  You think he's caked up like that?

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Not that I've ever wanted to think, thank you for putting that image in my mind, but yeah, no, I think.

• 29:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  People behind him are always.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  He's just a large man.

• 29:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  Haven't you seen clips of people behind him, standing behind him, like, he's there smelling, like, I think he's, my theory is that he's not ever been potty trained.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Sure, maybe.

• 29:39Ashley Hesseltine?

  And he's shitting his pants at all times. This is my personal theory.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  When you think about those faces of the people behind him.

• 29:45Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Think of all the things that Trump says and does that could lead you to make that face, and it is infinite.

• 29:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right. Yeah, it was in particular at a funeral, was it? What funeral would it have been? Lindsey Graham, maybe?

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:01Ashley Hesseltine?

  Someone was like, he was, he was about to throw up.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Like a secret service behind him, or someone behind him, and they thought.

• 30:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, we're not aligned quite yet. My third question is.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  I'm not ruling anything out, of course, but I just, I'm telling you my opinion.

• 30:14Ashley Hesseltine?

  Do you have Obama's number and could we FaceTime him?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  We can, I, uh, no, we cannot FaceTime him. But I could, I could contact him if I needed to.

• 30:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, let me know. I'll stay late. Okay, so, yeah, I mean, those are my three burning questions. Thank you for answering them. I'm a little upset we can't FaceTime Obama, but that's fine. Okay, so you feel hopeful about the midterm elections?

• 30:40Speaker 01

  I do.

• 30:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  And just in general, with the current state of the country, and you are someone who cares about it, you were someone who is mostly consumed by politics for work, how do you stay sane, know what to digest?

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  Take care of your own mental health, you have a family, I mean, how do you, you do it?

• 30:59Speaker 01

  It is an ongoing journey, let me tell you. I just took Twitter off of my phone.

• 31:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  On Sunday, I've done this before.

• 31:07Ashley Hesseltine?

  Twitter, same.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  I, yeah. Cause I was like, I, I could tell it was getting to be election season, like, the final sprint, because I found myself checking Twitter constantly for no good reason.

• 31:21Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  And I was like, what information am I looking for? What information would I find on this fucking app that would somehow bring me peace or, or make me think that I'm in control of what's going to happen? And the answer is nothing.

• 31:35Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  And I wanted to be present with my family and my children this weekend, and I was like, I am done. I am not doing this. I'm getting it off the phone, not even getting off the home screen, I'm deleting the app. When I'm sitting at my laptop, I can look at Twitter then. So these are the kind of, it's kind of, when I said it's an ongoing process, I, to stay sane, I am trying to check in with myself and be like, what do you need this news for?

• 31:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  What are you actually looking for?

• 32:02Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Do you need it for your job to be better informed, or are you just sort of doom scrolling? Or just, you know, anxious about something like?

• 32:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  There's no need for that.

• 32:13Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like, what am I looking for?

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  And I do the same thing on Threads or on TikTok or on Instagram, less on TikTok, on Instagram. And you feel when you're like, okay, but I did just get like a weird dopamine hit from something that made me feel better about the state of the world. And then I'm like, is that what we're looking for? Like, it's like drinking or binge eating, like, it is a really addictive thing that you have to control.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. And instead, when I'm not on it all the time, like, I have an offline interview that I'm preparing for, this other podcast I do for this Friday, and the person I'm talking to just wrote a book, and I was like, instead of scrolling through Twitter, I will read this book. And you know what? It's a great book.

• 32:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  And it made me thought, and it like, that, that brought me some calm.

• 32:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  And then, when I wake up in the morning, then I dive into the morning tip sheets and the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and Politico, and I'm like, all right, what are the top stories? What might we be talking about on the many pods that we do here? And make sure I'm informed about all of that, but also give myself time to, like, come up with my own take, as opposed to just like reading all the different takes online, and that usually helps a bit more.

• 33:25Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  And I try to think, I think because I am, like, you know, an activist strategist staffer at heart, I read the news with an eye towards, okay, if I'm going to be talking about this on the pod, what kind of information could I give someone that could help them convince someone in their life to go vote for the first time, vote for a Democrat when they weren't going to vote for a Democrat before? Um, or just, you know, persuade people to think or act differently, which is the purpose of politics.

• 33:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right. Have you changed over the course of the last decade with how you speak to people and try to convince them, people that are living in a different reality?

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Yes, I have. When I was in the White House, when I was working for Obama, I was very good about, I think because it was my job as speechwriter, but I was good about trying to figure out how to persuade people.

• 34:16Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  And empathy for people who don't think like you and you're trying, but there was also an element then, because back then, it's not like, you know, all the White House staffers had Twitter accounts and were public, like, you weren't supposed to be that public. And so I sort of have like bottled up all these thoughts and takes of my own. And so then I left the White House in 2013, and I think the first several years I spent on social media was like, now I'm going to uncork and say what I really think and yell, you know, all that kind of, and then after a while, I'm like, all right, to what end is this? Am I doing this?

• 34:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Like, so that people who already agree with me can be like, yes, like, retweet, great. And I started, I think, moving back towards the mindset I had when I was in the White House, which is the purpose of doing this, if there's any purpose, is to try to convince people to do something they weren't going to do. And that can be, you know, change their political views, like, from left to, you know, from right to left, or it can be to change their views from what I do doesn't matter to, actually, I do want to vote, or I do want to join a campaign, or volunteer, or donate, right? And so I, I've tried to figure out what is going to be most useful uh, in terms of getting someone to participate in politics who wasn't going to participate.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  And, you know, that's why we, we have Let's Save America, which we started, which is sort of the arm of crooked media that gets people involved and gets people donating and all that kind of good stuff.

• 35:43Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's tough. I used to be a lot more inflammatory, and I realized I'm not drawing anyone in. I'm actually pushing them away from whatever my cause may be. But I still dabble, because I'm, I still have to be like, you guys are fucking idiots, you know?

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, because we're humans, you sometimes you just get angry. Same, same with me. I mean, anyone who's listening to this and follows me, they're like, okay, buddy, you're still like yelling about shit. It's like, you know, I am, because sometimes I can't help it.

• 36:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right, exactly. So, this is a loaded question, but what is at stake in the midterms for, not someone that's completely uninformed, we can start at ground zero, but

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  what do you feel is at stake and could change with a blue wave?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  All right, so if Democrats win the House, which I think is very likely.

• 36:27Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Feel very good about that.

• 36:29Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, great.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Um, then Donald Trump will never sign another piece of legislation, never pass another law, as long as he's president, unless somehow a bunch of Democrats agree.

• 36:39Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Which, if they did, it would probably be a piece of legislation that was fine.

• 36:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  But, yeah, so, so his legislative agenda is dead, uh, if the Democrats win the House. If we win the Senate, then Sam Alito decides to retire, Clarence Thomas decides to retire, then there will not be a Donald Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice to fill those seats, which is huge. I do worry that if we don't win the Senate, which I, I think we are favorites to win the Senate, but I would not say huge favorites. Like, I feel good about the midterms, but if it turns out the day after the midterms, we won the House and came like a seat shy in the Senate, I won't be shocked, because it's close. But if we don't win the Senate, then I can see Alito retiring next year, uh, maybe even Thomas, and then Donald Trump has two Supreme Court seats

• 37:29Speaker 01

  that he's going to replace those two old guys with, you know, 20 something year old fucking crazy right-wing MAGA people. So that's, those are the stakes.

• 37:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  And that's, that, that means we're waiting a long time, uh, because then we've got, Roberts is young, Amy Coney Barrett's young.

• 37:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Kavanaugh's young, and then if you get two more young ones, then you've got five young Supreme Court justices. That could be like 30 years of that.

• 37:57Ashley Hesseltine?

  Do the lifetime terms there make you feel insane?

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like, I think they, it lives rent-free in my head. I think that our Constitution things, it's held up pretty well. We have a pretty decent system for having it be hundreds of years old.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:12Ashley Hesseltine?

  And that, that might be the fatal flaw.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  It's creaking, it's creaking under the weight of all this many hundred years. Yeah, no, and I don't know that, um, look, back then, when they had like lifetime limits in the Supreme Court, you know, life expectancy was not what it is today either, so it wasn't, they, I don't think the founders had visioned someone would sit on the court for 40, 50 years.

• 38:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  And Mitch McConnell would be, they'd be rolling his corpse onto the Senate floor.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I would love, I would love to do term limits on the Supreme Court.

• 38:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. Okay, what are the polls predicting? I mean, you're, overall, you just kind of say you think House, probably not Senate, but like, what are we seeing that feels positive? That we have to really worry about, I mean, kind of overall?

• 38:52Speaker 01

  I mean, so polls are polls, and so it's always tough to, um, fall in love with any good poll. But even if you take the polls away and you look at special elections that we've had since Trump was sworn in for a second term, if you look at the off-year elections in 2025, if you look at, um, even.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  The primary voting, right? Democrats outvoted Republicans in these primaries. And like, each one of these data points on their own is not enough to like, feel great about a blue wave. But basically, all of the different factors and measures that you would wanna see align for a blue wave have aligned for a blue wave. That even if you put the polls aside. And also, again, like, Donald Trump or his party have never been on the ballot in the Trump era when gas prices are this high, when inflation is this bad.

• 39:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  There's so much violence and...

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, the challenge with politics in the Trump era has been the people who are paying close attention to politics are very unhappy. Most of the country is not paying close attention to politics. And so, they change their political views or their political behavior based on how they feel and how their lives are going. And unfortunately, for all of us who were trying to, you know, beat Trump earlier, in the first Trump term, we all thought he was pretty bad. And I think he was pretty bad.

• 40:19Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  But most people were like, yeah, I think he's kind of an asshole, but like,

• 40:23Ashley Hesseltine?

  My life's okay?

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, my life's okay.

• 40:24Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, yeah, fair.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Economy's good. I don't see ice in the streets.

• 40:27Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  I'm not paying crazy amounts for, you know, groceries because he started a trade war. Like, things are mostly fine.

• 40:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  I yearn for Trump 1.0. The golden days. Also, there was somewhat competent people around him. I mean, you know, I think that's obviously what people, critical thinkers, were so afraid of with the second term. Like, that's all gone off the table.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Sure enough, sure enough. But yeah, no, so I think we haven't gone through an election cycle where people are this pissed off.

• 40:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Who don't really pay close attention to politics.

• 40:58Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's just that they are in a cult. I mean, I don't even really say that to be funny. Like, if you really, you're in a cult, your mind has been brainwashed, or you just are that racist that like, your life is terrible, but you can still punch down on a person of color, an immigrant, or something like that. And that's how you get your kicks. Like, that's really the only answer because your lives are terrible.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  For some of his base.

• 41:23Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  I think the reason he won in 2024 is there was a significant group of...

• 41:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  Did he?

• 41:31Speaker 01

  2024? Yes, he did.

• 41:35Ashley Hesseltine?

  Don't you feel like they've admitted that, okay, you know what?

• 41:37Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 41:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm not gonna go on this road.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Don't worry, he won, he won in 2024.

• 41:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, okay.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  But, young people, Latinos, some black men, younger black men. So, there were a group of voters in 2024.

• 41:50Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right, yeah.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Who just hadn't voted for Trump before. And were like, you know what? Because they were upset about the economy under Biden, they were upset about inflation. Which, again, not Joe Biden's fault, COVID's fault.

• 42:04Ashley Hesseltine?

  I just...

• 42:05Speaker 01

  We are all dealing...

• 42:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's like, people just forgot the shit sandwich that Joe Biden was handed.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Also because no one wants to remember the pandemic.

• 42:12Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Right? We all have like PTSD from that. And so, people were like, well, I remember Trump won, and I think he's... I remember a voter in a focus group, and Sarah Longwell does focus groups all the time. She's at the Bulwark. And I always remember this because she'd said it throughout 2024. This voter was like, you know what? I think I'm gonna vote for Trump again. Why? Well, you know what? I think he's an asshole, but I'm just gonna mute the TV and not watch him for four years and not listen to anything he said, and just enjoy the Trump economy. And so, there was that. And I think all those people now are like, no, fuck this.

• 42:47Ashley Hesseltine?

  Of course.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  I'm done.

• 42:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  But I do see how you can get there, where you're like, you know, it's my 2017 and my 2018 and my 2019 were a lot better than this present day 2022, 2023. Like, if that's really all you're basing on without any other critical thinking, like, I guess I do see how you get there.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  And it is, it is people's lives. I mean, like, you know, I saw this happen here in LA during the mayoral race with the, all the people who were like flirting with voting for Spencer Pratt. And I was like, oh, wait, wait, what?

• 43:22Ashley Hesseltine?

  No.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  What?

• 43:23Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, we have to take this seriously.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  But people, you know, people are living their lives. And if suddenly, they see a bunch of crime on their street, or their kids are going to school, and there's, you know, homelessness in their neighborhood, or a fire happens, and suddenly, they feel helpless because no one in the city is responding. Like, it doesn't matter what party they are or what party the people in power. They're gonna vote them out and vote in people who tell you that like, this shit is fucked and I'm gonna fix it.

• 43:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  And you don't have to be, you know...

• 43:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  Coherent.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, or you don't have to be like in a cult, right? Like, you don't have to be, well, you don't have to be like a, you know, Trump voter. The people, like, you don't have to have any specific thing wrong with you. You just be a person who's pissed off.

• 44:08Ashley Hesseltine?

  Totally.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  You know?

• 44:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  And in terms of voter suppression, are you seeing the administration, MAGA, Republicans, whatever you wanna call them, really try? Like, are you...

• 44:21Speaker 01

  I mean, they have tried. They have just, you know, their mail-in executive order, mail-in voting executive order that was going to limit mail-in voting was struck down by the Supreme Court. Because they just haven't been able to succeed. Now, like, everyone's worried about ICE agents at the polls. Maybe, but I actually think if a bunch of federal agents are running around the polls, like, that's going to, I think that's gonna cause a backlash. Like, I think people are gonna be like crawling over glass to get to the polls.

• 44:51Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  In this election. ICE agents be damned.

• 44:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  I know. That's my big thing.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  I know.

• 44:57Ashley Hesseltine?

  I get too, like, worked up about, like, if you were to ask me my biggest thing of this presidency, like, that's the thing that like, has, you know, I've...

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Same.

• 45:04Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, so...

• 45:05Speaker 01

  It has kept me up at night.

• 45:07Ashley Hesseltine?

  But, I mean, do you feel like we are being, not us, but Americans groomed to accept this violence and just desensitize? Like, this was all part of the plan? I mean, I know a lot of this was outlined in Project 2025. I go crazy when I think about the document was available publicly, and this was all part of the plan. But I think that's, I'm kind of asking and you, and also kind of venting, like, I feel like the violence on our streets is just really warping us to accept. I mean, even what we, I think we just saw someone get beat up at a rally. Like, all of those little things, I mean, just in general, violence against women, and we're seeing with Cornell, like, all the things this amalgamation is making us just accept violence.

• 45:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  And we've seen this play out before.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  I would doubt that it was an intentional plan because these idiots.

• 45:58Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  They don't put a lot of thought into these things. But it's certainly the outcome.

• 46:02Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  And I don't know if it's just them. I think it's just like the culture we live in now. And I think it's the fact that politics is largely mediated through these social media platforms where we are only seeing the worst of each other. And I do worry that it dehumanizes us and desensitizes us to violence. And like, if you look through history, that is what's happened to societies before. And it doesn't have to be someone's master evil plan. It can be a bunch of people in power who are careless, reckless, selfish.

• 46:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  And like the violence.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Narcissist, and like the violence, and believe, as, certainly as Stephen Miller believes, and some of these guys, that we are in a survival of the fittest world. And so, it's, we are governed by strength and force and power. And, you know, democracy is for pussies. That's basically their, their view of the whole thing.

• 46:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right, and that's what's so scary in a Pete Hegseth who thinks he's playing Call of Duty with the country. And like, he wants us to watch the execution, like, he wants that.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like, that's what's so scary. Like, we're not built the same.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  No, the government is inviting us to be spectators to the death of a human being.

• 47:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  But you can't go to a drag show or watch Miss Rachel.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 47:18Ashley Hesseltine?

  And these books aren't available in the library. Like, I feel crazy.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. I worry about that the most because it is, it's more of a gradual thing. But it's also why, no matter how dark it gets and frustrating it gets, I think I keep banging my head against the wall and doing this. Because if we all just give up, then it's gonna get worse faster.

• 47:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  They will.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  And the only thing you can do, like, with the time you have here, is to just fight back. And know that like, we've gone through periods like this before, and the pendulum swings in a very bad direction, and then it swings back. And it doesn't swing back on its own. It swings back because people are like, I'm not gonna deal with this anymore.

• 48:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right. I just say I want, I just wanna survive it. I, I know, it sounds so bleak. I just want me and my husband and my family and my friends, I just wanna survive it.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like, we will get through it, and, you know, that's really, that's dark. But do Democrats typically go out more on a midterm election? Like, in the last 10 years because Trump's not on the ballot? Like, I find hope in that because I feel like...

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Do we go out, do we what?

• 48:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  Go out to vote more.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, oh, yes, in a way. What happened in, there was this like, there's been a realignment of voting coalitions in the Trump era. Where, for a while, the sort of wealthiest and most college-educated voters were Republican, and Democrats won with the working class.

• 48:49Ashley Hesseltine?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 48:49Speaker 01

  And then it started shifting, it started shifting...

• 48:51Ashley Hesseltine?

  Sounds like you're lying.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  It started, yeah, right. It started shifting as far back as the Clinton era. And there grew this professional class of voters who suddenly became more socially liberal. Now, they're also more economically liberal. But we've basically switched. And so, the Democratic coalition is...

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Highly educated, very engaged voters.

• 49:12Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  And the Republican coalition is like non-college educated, lower income voters. Now, that's race. It's also, but so it's white voters. Um, and Latinos now are becoming more like white voters in the sense that there's a college, non-college divide that just, that explains the Latinos that were losing to the Republican Party. And it's starting to happen with black voters, though, with there because there's such a tradition of civil rights in the Democratic Party, it's taken longer.

• 49:42Ashley Hesseltine?

  Hmm.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  And so in a presidential election, everyone shows up, or at least the most voters show up.

• 49:47Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Because.

• 49:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  That's the Super Bowl.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and people who don't pay attention to politics and who are not college educated or like, they all come to the polls and they are Trump voters. And that's why Trump has done better. And in the midterms, you get a smaller electorate, and so the smaller electorate is better for

• 50:02Ashley Hesseltine?

  Totally. I feel like we saw this with the last midterms.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  This red wave that was supposed to happen.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  We do even better.

• 50:09Ashley Hesseltine?

  Totally. Club a special election. That's my thing.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Is it great that high turnout no longer helps Democrats? No, it's not great. We, we are going to need to expand the coalition to win back voters who show up in presidential elections, or else we will be screwed.

• 50:25Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  Which is why, when you asked me at the beginning, like, do I feel great about the midterms? I do, but the real challenge is taking back the White House in 2028.

• 50:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  And for that, we have a lot of work to do.

• 50:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. Okay, let's, we'll start day by day.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. Yeah, we don't have to worry about that now.

• 50:40Ashley Hesseltine?

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• 50:59Rayna Greenberg?

  Because I had given my Columbia Amaze Puff jacket as a gift, I swear to our friend Meghan, who went to the game with you. I was like, I don't have an extra one, I can't go.

• 51:08Ashley Hesseltine?

  I know. So, I wore my long Amaze Puff in the dark stone color. It's kind of like an ivory off-white. And the way I was so warm at that game, so this is the long, I mean, it comes down some, ankles for Raina, more like mid-calf for me, but it kept me so warm. It's like being in a sleeping bag, but it's cozy and cute, and it just looked so good. So, I have one that I'm getting this year, and I'm gonna get it in their new color, the Sedona Sage, which is much more for the Eagles. So, when we go to the Eagles game, probably again in December, I'm gonna have the Amaze Puff now in like a more Eagles green type of color. I'm so excited, they have that as a new color, they have this mineral pink, this really like pretty pale light pink color, and then the collegiate navy matte. The navy one is so stunning.

• 51:52Ashley Hesseltine?

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• 52:37Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's tough on cold, soft on you.

• 52:40Rayna Greenberg?

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• 53:23Rayna Greenberg?

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• 53:44Ashley Hesseltine?

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• 54:27Ashley Hesseltine?

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• 55:12Ashley Hesseltine?

  make sure you're good to go?

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Honestly, if you go to Vote Save America, it's a one-stop shop, everything is there, you can check your registration.

• 55:18Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, yeah, great.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  You can look for links to get registered if you, if you're not. You can figure out if you wanna volunteer some of your time, if you're in a swing state or swing district, we'll give you plenty of work to do, even if you're not, we can connect you with someone who will give you work. And then also, um, if you wanna donate, instead of just, because everyone's getting spammed with all these texts like donate, donate, donate emails, it's terrible.

• 55:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  This is the thing that would turn me Republican.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Yes, I know, it's crazy.

• 55:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's got to stop.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  And so, we have like a Senate fund and a House fund, where we make sure we only have the most competitive races that actually need money the most, and we sort of like switch races in and out to make sure that like, it's the best bang for your buck.

• 55:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, so what are you, like, name a few now, what are you into? What are you guys?

• 56:00Speaker 01

  What are we?

• 56:01Ashley Hesseltine?

  What are your, the top three favorite races?

• 56:03Speaker 01

  I mean, I think if I was donating in the Senate, I, Maine, Michigan.

• 56:09Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Texas.

• 56:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Iowa, Ohio, for sure.

• 56:13Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Uh, Alaska, and those, that's about, that's about the list. Georgia, North Carolina, I think John Ossoff and Roy Cooper have a lot of money, I think they're good. I think we're, yeah, me too.

• 56:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  I think they're doing great, so I don't think, I wouldn't donate there. And then in the House, it's hard to know what the most competitive ones are at any given moment, but we have a crooked dozen of, uh, 12 Republicans that we're really trying to, to beat, so, check it out.

• 56:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay. I'm just, I'm so obsessed with Texas, and like, what's going on with James Tellerico? And I was like a Jasmine Crockett fan, so I was upset, but then the Chris Brown stuff, I'm like, what happened? Like, it's my biggest disappointments of the year, John.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  He's great, though.

• 56:53Ashley Hesseltine?

  Chris Brown?

• 56:54Speaker 01

  No, Tellerico.

• 56:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, Tellerico.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Tellerico, no, I'm not, I'm not a.

• 56:57Ashley Hesseltine?

  No. So, she really lost me with that, but.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  It was very weird.

• 57:02Ashley Hesseltine?

  It was such a weird choice.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  I don't understand that.

• 57:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  I mean, you're, she's horny, I guess. But it's like, you could've gotten the lap dance without giving him the Congressional Award, Jasmine. Anyway, but I really have come around on James Tellerico, and he is what we need. I, you know, a white, Christian man.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  He's a good person.

• 57:24Ashley Hesseltine?

  To win the right people over.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  You know, like, of course, I want women and all the things, but it's just like, that's bridging the gap.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, we need more genuine people in politics who are, uh, running because they actually wanna help, and they're trying their best, and they're not perfect people, and they haven't lived perfect lives, but also, they actually are trying really hard.

• 57:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  And, um, and just wanna connect with people on that level. And I do see that, like, ideology aside, a lot of, um, you know, from the center on, over to the left, like, the people who are sort of standing out are younger, millennial, even now Gen Z, people have gotten into politics and are just, haven't grown up in the, in the trenches of like, political warfare for the last like 30 years, and are like, ready for something new, and to offer people something new.

• 58:16Ashley Hesseltine?

  Totally.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  And also, the way that they've experienced politics is in a much more authentic way, because they're, you know, whether it's like social media, I mean, there's all the bad sides of social media, but for a lot of these folks, they just, they can talk to people like normal human beings, which to me is the most important, uh, quality you can have as a politician.

• 58:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Seems crazy to say, but like, yeah, talking like a normal human being is, um, it's in high demand and short supply.

• 58:42Ashley Hesseltine?

  And I was just here for the right reasons. I don't think-

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Here for the right reasons.

• 58:46Ashley Hesseltine?

  I was like an OG Barney girl and it was the first political rally I ever went to in Atlanta. And I think I felt an authenticity with him. And you don't see it with a lot of people, even on the left, you know, where someone really doesn't seem like they're in it for the right reasons. And I feel like you know it when you see it.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Bernie's an interesting case too, because when people think authenticity, sometimes they think like, well, you need like a great personal story and you need to be sort of emotional and I want someone who would in spot, you know, and I sat with Bernie, interviewed him a couple of times. I love Bernie. And you'll try to ask him like a personal question or two and he's like, no.

• 59:25Ashley Hesseltine?

  That's my boundary.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  He's like, no, I'm just gonna talk about my policies that I want to talk about. And it works because when you're talking to him, you're like, this is what he believes.

• 59:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  He's one track mind and he's just pissed.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Right. And he's not going to tell you about like the person he met and on the, he's just being like, no, this is, this is what I believe. And if you agree with me, great. And if not, that's okay too.

• 59:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right. I just, I feel that it stems from this anger of this isn't right. We don't have to live like this. And I'm gonna die trying and I really just respect it and I'll like defend him to the death. And I just feel like we don't have many of those politicians.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  It's a confidence in what you believe and what you're doing that also has a certain fearlessness to it. And like, I remember when Obama ran, we were running against Hillary in the primary and she was beating us by a lot at one point. And Obama sort of gathered the whole campaign around and he was like, look, if I lose this primary, like I will happily endorse Hillary. I will do everything I can to make her president. And then I will go home to my wife and kids in Chicago and live a happy life. Because like, I want this job.

• 1:00:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  And I think I would be the best candidate to be president, but I don't need this.

• 1:00:49Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm really laughing that like Obama not winning, he's like, whoo, like what a relief, you know, like I don't really want this anyway. Who would want this job? But you know, you're, you should do it. Like I feel like about this, even with jobs like journalists, it's like you are called to do it. It may be thankless. It may not be high paying, but like God bless the people that do these jobs just because of the genuine desire and like, I'm the person for the job.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Yes. And but like, because that was Obama's mindset, he took risks-

• 1:01:21Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  That other politicians don't take because he's like-

• 1:01:23Ashley Hesseltine?

  I don't want it that bad.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  I mean, after we, after he gave that, the speech on race, after his like, you know, pastor made the incendiary remarks and all that. And he gave a very honest speech about race in America that, you know, I helped him write, but he wrote the parts that I could never have written. Like, you know, I can no more disown my white grandmother, or I can no more disown Reverend Wright than I can my white grandmother who used to say racist things once in a while. Like, I would never write that for him.

• 1:01:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  But I remember, I remember after that speech, he called me and he was like, uh, so I did that. I think it went well. I have no idea if I can get elected president saying what I did about race and being that honest. But I also know that if I was too afraid to say it, I don't really deserve to be president and I don't deserve the job. And so like, why not say what I believe?

• 1:02:12Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  And I think that that's Bernie. I mean, I hate to say that, but that is Donald Trump, right? And so-

• 1:02:20Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like, I don't even want to do this.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  And so you have to, you have to run like you're not afraid of losing.

• 1:02:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right. And like, take a big swing, take risks and don't play it safe. And I swear, Trump, when he took the stage, winning a second term, he looked just as confused as us. And he looked furious because he needs to win. He thinks he's a winner. Obviously the biggest loser that's ever been in this country. But he really looked like, I don't know if I want to do this and he doesn't.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  No, he doesn't.

• 1:02:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  He doesn't want to do this.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  He just wants to do home reno.

• 1:02:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, and golf.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  And make some money in golf. And shit his pants. Yeah, I guess. And, uh, yeah, and just, just be, be loved or think that he's loved.

• 1:03:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay. So I want to talk to you about accountability. And I think you guys had a recent episode about just P T H S and accountability. And what can congressional oversight accomplish and where are its limits? I guess is the first question. And in your personal opinion, do you think that we will ever have a version of the Nuremberg trials? For all these things that have happened with, with ICE, with the detainment centers, you know, with all of that. I mean, say as much as you want. That's a kind of a low question.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  So the limits of oversight are, um, you know, we don't have, we won't have a super majority to get an impeachment conviction for Trump or any of the cabinet secretaries. Um, we could try, but I think everyone should go in knowing that we don't have the, you know, you need two thirds of the senate to convict. So there's that. Um, I think that oversight can expose information that hasn't been exposed. So that the public can understand what's going on and you get hearings and you get documents and you get witnesses. So there's, there's all that. But I also think everyone should be prepared for Donald Trump giving everyone a pardon that has ever worked for him.

• 1:04:16Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Before he leaves office.

• 1:04:18Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  And now that's federal pardons and this could be tested in court, right? But like, unfortunately, you were talking about the things the founders didn't exactly get right. Along with the lifetime appointments in the Supreme Court, the pardon power being unconditional and that sweeping is, I think, a huge problem.

• 1:04:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  Sure.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  Because I, I do worry that he'll pardon everyone and then they, you know, you state, if they commit state crimes, you could see like-

• 1:04:46Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  State attorneys general bringing some of these people up on charges if they have, you know, violated state laws. But otherwise I think it's gonna be hard. And I think that sucks.

• 1:04:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  It's not that I think that the next president should spend a ton of time, like relitigating the last four years. Cause I think as much as some of us would like that, that's not what most of the country wants. But I, I do think it's important to have some measure of accountability so that it doesn't happen again. I guess where I would go is making sure there, anytime there were norms that Trump violated or traditions or just things, the way they were done. I'd put a law in there going forward.

• 1:05:23Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Uh, instead of just like, well, this is how it's done, but and then no one has ever done it like this. And we've just sort of relied on all of us realizing that like decorum says, you know,

• 1:05:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Anything that's a norm, I would, I would try to pass legislation so that it's an actual law.

• 1:05:37Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  That's what I would do going forward because I do think it's going to be, you know, if he, if he does do sweeping pardons, I think it's gonna be hard.

• 1:05:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  Is there a limit on pardons? Can it be thousands?

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  No limit. At least that's not with the constitution. It's just like the, the pardon power is-

• 1:05:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like it could be anyone who was an ICE agent, if he really wanted to, was going down a dark road. But you know, I just, I, it is really disheartening to think that people have lost their lives. You know, and children have been traumatized forever and we don't know what's going on inside these centers. And this is the stuff that keeps me up at night.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Yep. I think in some of the ICE stuff, you know, there's state investigations already going on into some of the ICE stuff. I also think there's civil lawsuits that they're not gonna, you know, so like, I think there's measures of accountability. Federal criminal liability is the one that I worry.

• 1:06:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  Got it. Okay. So get them on the state level. Okay. And in terms of just information consumption, because again, this is something that just like consumes me. Like when Alex Preddy was shot, I just, that's all my, that was my weekend. Like I couldn't do anything else. My husband and I took a trip to Laguna Beach. We were trying to enjoy ourselves and I like had to leave a restaurant in tears. Like, how do you compartmentalize and I guess even digest information so you're not constantly raging or sad, you know, like do you?

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  I try to control the controllables. I try to respond to information thinking, okay, is this something I can do something about?

• 1:07:01Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  Or is this something that's just gonna spin me out?

• 1:07:04Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Um, so I try to do that. But I also, I think it's important to let yourself feel some of this.

• 1:07:12Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  Because I don't want to compartmentalize so much that it just sort of bounces off.

• 1:07:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, that's the desensitization. That's the point, whether it's intentional or not.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  Funny, I was just watching the, uh, I got it. I got an advanced screener of the, the Elon documentary.

• 1:07:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  That just came out.

• 1:07:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, that he was trying to block.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, the one that he's been trying to block. Yeah. Alex Gibney's doc and it's four hours long.

• 1:07:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  I love all these docs.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  Um, but it was intense.

• 1:07:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  And so I'm watching it all and I'm getting like angry and angry, angry watching it. And then it wasn't until like the last hour, they get to shutting down USAID. And which along with ICE is another, you know, thing I'll remember from the second term forever. And I also, you know, our godmother of our child was at USAID. And so watching her go through it all was tough and we're close with Samantha Power, um, who ran USAID because she worked in the Obama administration. And at some point in the doc, they're talking about all the people who died because of this and they interviewed Samantha. And I didn't, like, I haven't seen her do an interview since she was, left USAID. And she starts talking about the kids they could have saved and she broke down-

• 1:08:22Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  During the interview and I'm watching this and I like cried for like the first time in, I, I don't know how long about politics. But it was just like, it's sort of like, it builds up, you know, after a while, because you can only deal with so much of it. Until suddenly you're like, oh no, I'm a human and this is awful.

• 1:08:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  You have to go through the day. You have to, you have a child, you know, like you have to-

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so every once in a while it does hit.

• 1:08:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  And then you're like, okay, well, I'm gonna have a little bit of a cry and then I'll go back to just scrolling and yelling.

• 1:08:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, what, what are your thoughts on meaningful activism? Like, how can someone start? Small, I mean, obviously, vote and use your right to vote. But how can people actually feel like they're doing something? Do you have tips for that?

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think getting involved in local politics helps. I think even if you care more about national politics, but you want to be involved in your own community, that helps. I think, you know, we are getting to the point now where knocking on random doors and calling people is it's tough to get an answer. You can still do it. You know, we were in Austin for the coordinated campaign there, Talarico, everyone else, Gina Inahosa, and we, you know, knocked on doors for an afternoon in Austin. You know, a lot of people aren't home. Some people don't want to hear from you, but some people are like, yeah, I'm going to vote. Thanks. How do I, where do I vote? And how do I help get help making a plan? And you're like, if you can talk to one person like that in two hours.

• 1:09:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  That's still something.

• 1:09:42Ashley Hesseltine?

  Somebody, yeah.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  And, but I also think you can be very persuasive in your own social networks.

• 1:09:47Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  And so the question we always get is like, what do I do about the uncle that's the Trump voter? It's like, well, at some point, maybe don't talk to the uncle about politics. But maybe you have a cousin or a friend who has voted in the past, but is now feeling like, why does my vote even matter? And maybe you can convince them. And maybe you can say, hey, did you see this? What do they care about? What issues do they care about?

• 1:10:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Hey, did you see this piece? Have you thought about whether you're going to vote? And maybe if you actually get involved this time, like you could make a difference. It could matter in your life. So I do think like getting involved in your own social circles and social network and seeing if everyone has a plan to vote, seeing if they're going to vote, seeing if they can persuade other people. Like, that is a way to feel useful without doing the whole, how am I going to convince the Trump voter in my life thing?

• 1:10:37Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right. Yeah, I guess some people you just never will.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:10:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  So.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  And that's okay.

• 1:10:41Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  I have plenty of relatives who are Trump voters and, yeah.

• 1:10:46Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm so sorry. I don't have any.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  I don't have a ton, but I have, I have one family where like the, one of my relatives is like, like my aunt is a Trump voter and like, and her grandson is like so far to the left that like thinks the Democrats are all bad too.

• 1:11:07Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  So I got, and I'm like, you know what? I can't talk to either of them about politics that much. Like, I'm just going to talk to them about other things.

• 1:11:13Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  And we're going to, and I'm like, why? I'm not going to, you know, I've known my aunt for my whole life. What am I going to convince her now? What's, what's the point in arguing about politics?

• 1:11:22Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. I mean, but it's like, that's why people, people are desperate with this question. What am I supposed to do? I mean, this is my parents, you know, and just in general, disagreeing about politics or I don't do politics. I love this quote that's like, well, maybe they're going to do you.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:35Ashley Hesseltine?

  You know, like, so.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  They are.

• 1:11:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  But you posted something and I remember resharing it of if you're not speaking out now, like now is the time, essentially. And so we've come to such an inflection point. This is not 2017, 2022. Like, this is so different. So people are obviously having such a much harder time with it and people are losing friends and not going home for the holidays. And so I just curious of.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:03Ashley Hesseltine?

  How you navigate a fundamentally different value system for someone in your life.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  And, and I have plenty of people in my life like this as well. If you're someone who maybe at the beginning of the Trump era, you got involved, but then 10 years later, 10 years into this, you're either exhausted or you're like, I don't want to speak out. You speak out and someone yells at you and you get in trouble and like, what if I say the wrong thing? Then I would think to yourself, actually, this is a moment to speak out because the stakes are extremely high and don't worry about saying the wrong thing. There's, there's plenty of other people talking. You can amplify their voices. You can talk to the people in your own life if you don't want to be posting to a whole, you know, publicly about a whole bunch of people.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  But like, there's strength in numbers and the more people who speak out, it might not seem like it makes the biggest difference, but it does.

• 1:12:57Ashley Hesseltine?

  It does.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Make the biggest difference.

• 1:12:58Ashley Hesseltine?

  I think people notice.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  People notice.

• 1:13:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, now I wanted to talk, I didn't plan on talking about this with you, but I want to talk about the left and where they go wrong and the policing. And, you know, I have such a problem with this and just, there is this purity politics of it all. I have such a huge problem with this. I mean, this is obviously you see it scrolling social media and you're like, you're supposed to be, we're supposed to be on the same team here. I, this is an aside, but an example is just with what happened with Cornell and this whole, I saw this whole side of TikTok or threads or whatever, like, don't call them the Cornell seven. I'm like, let people call them whatever they want if they're speaking out against this. Like the language policing and you didn't say this right, you didn't do this right and the infighting between the left and this just hurts us so much. This is our problem.

• 1:13:45Ashley Hesseltine?

  I feel like this is our core wound.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  It is. You know, I haven't, I haven't talked about the Cornell case, partly because I'm like, this is a, I don't know all the details.

• 1:13:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  I'm not at the school. I'm not like, I, I know what I see online, but what? We're not, I'm not going to go by what I see online. And so then someone said, well, then, you know, don't you, well, if, if you care about the issue, then if you're at another college or you're in a community or you have kids or you are, you know, like, deal with it in your own life and your own community in a way where you're sitting down with people face to face and having these discussions that can be difficult discussions. But there's not a lot of benefit to yelling about it with each other online.

• 1:14:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  I know.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Because like I do this with politics because at the end of the day, someone's going to go vote for something. But like, we're waiting on the corner. Like, we're going to wait for an investigation. Maybe it'll turn up something, maybe it won't. We don't know what's going to happen. I just saw today the Cornell is going to like redo all of their policies. And so they're getting rid of fraternity parties and they're now going to be sexual assault investigations. So like, they have taken a step, right? And did they take a step because there was public pressure? Yes. Is public pressure good? Absolutely. But it goes beyond public pressure when people are like arguing with each other about a case that is not in their life and in their community, that they have nothing to do with, but they're trying to like win an argument online. And you could say this about any number of issues.

• 1:15:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  And sometimes I get involved when I shouldn't get involved. But like, I always try to remind myself, like, is the outcome of this argument going to lead to some kind of a change or contribute to a change? That it has a tangible outcome? And if yes, then like, maybe I can push. But if no, what am I doing screaming about this?

• 1:15:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  Sure.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  And also what am I doing? Like, people come to these issues with varying levels of knowledge and they are maybe not as tuned in as you. Maybe they are in a, they probably are in a different information ecosystem than you. So they have been exposed to information that is different than yours. And so if you think they're wrong or you think they said the wrong thing, then what is the best way to convince them of that? Is it to yell at them? Is it to tell them that they don't belong in your party?

• 1:15:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  Or in your movement? Or is it to say like, hey, I hear that you said that and it doesn't, I don't, not sure I agree, but I want to know where you're coming from. And then maybe we can have common ground.

• 1:16:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right. But even to your point, like you saying you haven't really discussed it, I, I don't know. Have you gotten messages? You don't care about it. You know, like, we just have this mob mentality about everything.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Ashley Hesseltine?

  Not just politics, Kelly Clarkson right now, you know, with the bird. And like, it's just a mob mentality, which I'm obsessed with, by the way. But I, I've gotten this too, what the things I choose to discuss. I'm like, I'm on the right side of history and I'm staying the course and I'm making an impact where I think that I can. And I cannot tackle every terrible thing that happens in every community, in every country.

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:42Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm, I'm kind of focused on the US. And that's people come for me and for everybody. You haven't talked enough about what's going on in whatever country. I'm not going to name names and get people riled up. But it's just like, I am hyper focused on the shit show where I live. And that's where I feel like I can make an impact with my podcast and my platform. And so I really have such a problem with this from our own quote unquote side.

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:17:08Ashley Hesseltine?

  When it comes to left.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  Politics is addition. Like, you, it's unsimple to say, but like, you win elections and like, the purpose of politics is to build power so that you can use that power to change things. Right? For people. And the way that we have things set up here is that you build that power by bringing more people together and having a bigger coalition than the other side.

• 1:17:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  And there is no universe in which you're going to build a coalition that is a majority coalition with everyone that believes what you believe. That's just not the case. It's never how it's been in this country.

• 1:17:42Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  It's never how it's been in any country in the history of the world.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  So the idea that everyone has to have your exact positions, and now people will say, yes, but on this issue, this is the non-negotiable issue. Well, sure, everyone has a non-negotiable issue. That's why they're, that's why you believe in it so deeply.

• 1:17:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  But sometimes you're going to have to have people in your tent that believe things that you don't believe.

• 1:18:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  And it is useful for them to vote the way you want them to vote. And then if they somehow take power for that issue that you disagree with them on, then you can fight them on that.

• 1:18:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right. Totally. I totally agree. I mean, and I, I just, I, I'm like, what has happened to us? Because I just think back to pre-Trump and I lived in Atlanta and I just know so many of the people I was hanging around with, but not my best core friends. We all knew where we were aligned, pre-Trump even, you know, with our value system. But like, probably a dinner with half the table on a, you know, Friday night, people were Republicans and it didn't matter. It, it didn't, I didn't, it didn't come up. They, they voted for Mitt Romney. I didn't care.

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:18:50Ashley Hesseltine?

  You know, like, I, that's the scariest part of what we've become in the past 10 years and the social media has just amplified it so much more. And so I get, I get worked up about this stuff, even when I see it in the Taylor Swift community. I'm like, just leave her alone. Aren't you supposed to be a fan? Like, I swear, sometimes I get too invested in other things that remind me of the political system.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Because it's all, I mean, but it is, it is.

• 1:19:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  Connected.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  It is almost a hundred percent online.

• 1:19:14Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  And that is the thing, because you can, I have talked to Republicans in real life. I've talked to people who are further to the left than me in real life, who are activists, organizers, people who are in politics. And nine times out of 10, they are always more pragmatic, even if they are ideologically way further than me to the left or right, they are still more pragmatic than the discussion online.

• 1:19:41Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes.

• 1:19:41Speaker 01

  Especially if, if you have, if you work on a campaign or if you've worked for a cause or an organization and you have had to go around and convince people to take an action. Who might not agree with you. It doesn't matter what you believe, you are going to naturally be more pragmatic because you've had that experience of what it takes to convince someone. And you don't have to have that experience online.

• 1:20:03Ashley Hesseltine?

  You're so, I mean, yeah, everybody has an online personality and a real life personality.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:20:08Ashley Hesseltine?

  So, since we're talking about online, what are you feeling about the bot farms being bombed? Do you, have you seen a difference? Have you noticed?

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  I haven't noticed a difference, but I've, I've noticed people posting about a difference.

• 1:20:20Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  Which is not totally surprising to me.

• 1:20:22Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  Because it's real. The bot farms are real. Now, the, the bot farms aren't on their own, making everything awful, but they are an amplification tool.

• 1:20:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  Exactly.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  Which is what social media is anyway.

• 1:20:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  So it's, I think it's a net positive.

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, let's get rid of all the bot farms.

• 1:20:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  The hero we need, who saw this coming?

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  Look, there is a, you know, if someone would only buy Twitter back from Elon Musk, or some of the, you know, you could, you could have a lot of these social platforms that are not algorithmically juiced, that do not have the for you feeds.

• 1:20:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  Um, that it's just about who you're following. And, you know, you take away the quote tweet, I mean, there's like a couple of things you could do that would make it a much better, it would make it perfect, but it would make it a much better experience for people.

• 1:21:07Ashley Hesseltine?

  I get really fired up about this, just with Instagram specifically, like you should have to verify your identity in some way. You can, two seconds, you can create a new account. You could have a bunch per email address, like just, there's one extra layer they could just snap their fingers and do that would make it so much better and make people less bullied and safer. I mean, the meanest things I've ever read about myself online are for some of them, no avatar, no following, this is a fake account.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:21:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  They could so easily do anything, like, why am I having more verification to shop on an online store?

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  Two factor verification to buy a pair of jeans.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:21:43Ashley Hesseltine?

  But you can create an Instagram account and start bullying people.

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:47Ashley Hesseltine?

  You know?

• 1:21:48Speaker 01

  It's bad. It's bad. And I've noticed it too, where, I used to think Instagram was like the friendly place.

• 1:21:53Ashley Hesseltine?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  Because I remember Instagram from, like, it was, this is where my friends and family and I would share pictures. And now it's like, because when I took Twitter off my phone, it's like, I gotta scroll something. And I was like scrolling Instagram, I'm like, ah, it's so much crap. And it feels like another version of Twitter now.

• 1:22:09Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  Because it's just feeding you stuff. I'm like, I didn't want any of this. I'm not following any of these people.

• 1:22:14Ashley Hesseltine?

  It just depends on who it gets served to. Like, I, I'll have a clip even from our podcast, and it's all fun and games, and all the girlies are in there and hyping me. And I posted this thing recently about this revenge I got on this guy that goes to me, and it was so fun. It was such a good day, and then I don't know what happened. The men infiltrated it, and I'm just getting slut shamed, and she's lying. It's crazy.

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 1:22:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  And you feel it, it's like, I know when it's happening, I'll see the nastiest comment from some guy. I'm like, I'm going viral. Like, it's, it's so sad that something is popping off, and you're like, and now I'm about to get bullied off the internet. So.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  My wife Emily will always say, like, when I'm in like a Twitter fight, she can tell because I'm quiet.

• 1:22:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  And she can see like my jaw going in the house, and she's, and then sometimes she'll be like, oh, she'll look at Twitter and she'll be like, I knew he was in a fight.

• 1:22:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  They know, of course they know. Do you read the comments? Like, do you read comments on Pod Save, Vote Save, any sort of clips?

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Not generally.

• 1:23:02Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  Once in a while, but not generally. And what I've done on Twitter is I only get notifications from people who I follow. So if I go to notifications, the only comments are from people who I've chosen to follow.

• 1:23:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  Self-care.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  So I don't, don't read it.

• 1:23:18Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, one more burning question, and then I promise we'll, we'll wrap up. Who are you into presidential run on the left?

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  For a while, I was like, to be honest, no one is jumping out at me. And I was really, and now I really do like John Ossoff.

• 1:23:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  But I don't know if he's gonna, I don't know if he's gonna run.

• 1:23:41Ashley Hesseltine?

  Is that?

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  And gotta see a lot more, because he's in a senate race now, and a presidential race is a whole different beast.

• 1:23:47Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  But, um, I think he's got promise, we'll see. I think Pete Buttigieg is very smart. Love Pete.

• 1:23:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  He's the, he's the best.

• 1:23:56Speaker 01

  I think AOC is one of the better communicators in our party.

• 1:23:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 1:24:00Speaker 01

  But, you know, hard, harder for someone on the left, but we'll see. If anyone could do it on the left, it's her.

• 1:24:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  And then, you know, beyond that, I'm still waiting. If Ossoff doesn't run, or maybe they both run, but Raphael Warnock in Georgia, the other senator, is also wonderful.

• 1:24:16Ashley Hesseltine?

  Georgia politics, man. I mean, I lived there for 11 years, and it just wasn't this spicy. And I don't, is that the best state to watch?

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 1:24:25Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's fun.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  It might be.

• 1:24:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  It might be. So, yeah, you know, all the, I'm, I'm.

• 1:24:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  What do you feel about Gavin Newsom?

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  I love Gavin. As a, uh, like, as our governor, and I've gotten to know him. I think it's tough for anyone from California to run for national office. I think about Gavin, I think about Kamala Harris.

• 1:24:43Ashley Hesseltine?

  Because we're just like too successful, we're just like, with the biggest economy, everything, everything is beautiful. It feels like we're on vacation every day to, oh, California. I just, I'm so, I get so far about the hate for California.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  I think a lot of it is unwarranted. I think some of it is like, states where there is democratic governance, super majorities in a legislature, democratic governor, and then there are still problems with housing, prices, home, like, people are just gonna be like, what the fuck? This is, you know? And like every far-left liberal thing that people complain about.

• 1:25:18Ashley Hesseltine?

  I know.

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  Has happened in California.

• 1:25:20Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's just, there's.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  And this is like Newsom aside, Kamala, like whoever, whoever runs from.

• 1:25:24Ashley Hesseltine?

  I get it, but I, God, I've, I've listened to a podcast of him, I think it was on Rachel Lindsay's podcast, talk about how impressive California actually is, that the stuff that no one talks about, and it's like.

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  He does do, he gives, he gives the best case.

• 1:25:37Ashley Hesseltine?

  But we know the bad stuff too. You know, there's so much that we have good going on that red states could never, could literally never.

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  Also, it's the, you know, fifth largest economy in the world.

• 1:25:47Ashley Hesseltine?

  Of course.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  And so, it's hard to govern California. That's what.

• 1:25:50Ashley Hesseltine?

  I, I agree.

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a beast. It's not like governing a smaller state.

• 1:25:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  I don't know how he's doing it.

• 1:25:55Speaker 01

  It's like governing the country.

• 1:25:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's like being the president of 50 states.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not, it's not easy.

• 1:26:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's, shouldn't be a job.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:26:02Ashley Hesseltine?

  Um, I'm ready to succeed. Uh, okay, so did they prep you on this segment that we were gonna do, the dating?

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  No, but I know that you guys do it, and so I started thinking.

• 1:26:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  And then, my, honestly, my first thought was, I have not dated in 12 years.

• 1:26:16Ashley Hesseltine?

  This can be within your marriage.

• 1:26:17Speaker 01

  More, actually, 15 years.

• 1:26:19Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, so we're doing Dating Hack and Dating Wack. Yeah, so the Dating Hack, it can be in your marriage, or it can be something that worked with your wife early on, something like unconventional, maybe, did you have any moves? Like, what, did you, would you talk about Obama on a first date? You know, like, I don't know.

• 1:26:37Speaker 01

  I did, I did talk about Obama.

• 1:26:39Ashley Hesseltine?

  Work for Obama should be your Dating Hack. A hundred percent.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  Well, because, yeah, it was very funny. We met at a bar in DC.

• 1:26:45Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  And it was like Georgetown Glover Park area, which is like more of a Republican, it was like a Republican area bar. So Emily thought, Emily was like, oh, I work for, I'm interning for a senator, but you probably wouldn't like him.

• 1:26:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  And I'm like, oh, well, she's like from Ohio. And I was like, oh, Rob Portman? This is how dorky it was.

• 1:27:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  She's like, no, Sherrod Brown. I'm like, oh. I'm like, well, I work in the White House. She's like, you do? I was like, yeah. So that was how we, that was, that was how we first connected.

• 1:27:16Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  Assuming the other one was a Republican.

• 1:27:19Ashley Hesseltine?

  Really? That's so funny.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:27:22Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, I like that.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  We both presented a little Republican at that bar in DC.

• 1:27:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  You know what?

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  I would not say that was a Dating Hack, though.

• 1:27:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  Present Republican, everybody.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  My Dating Hack was always, and this worked out with Emily as well, which was like, the first date, I always find very easy.

• 1:27:37Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  Because you find out everything about the other person, and they find out everything about you, and you're just like, you're telling your life story. The second date is always the real, the really tough date. And so for second dates, let's go out with friends. Her friends, my friends, but let's have like a big group, we're hanging out. And if you can hang with my friends, if I can hang with your friends, and everyone's laughing, have a good time, then that, that bridges the first date to second date problem, which is always, if you just do like a quiet dinner for the second date after the first date. Then it's like, well, I've done all my material on the first date, so now what are we gonna do? So that was my Dating Hack.

• 1:28:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's really great. And we have interviewed all the experts in the dating world over the last eight years. And I think of Esther Perel talking about, you want to see someone in their element, you know, a second date that might feel early to some people for a group hang, it's not.

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:28:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  You know, meet somewhere where they're at, see how they are in their real life.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:28:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  And rather than just staying across from them at, at a dinner.

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Then that is, Emily hung out with all of us.

• 1:28:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  On the second date.

• 1:28:37Ashley Hesseltine?

  I love this.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  She was like, these friends are funny. And sure enough.

• 1:28:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  My God, yeah, were they bad friends? Or no friends?

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Or no friend.

• 1:28:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  We just watched I Love You Man recently, have you seen, like, Paul Rudd and Jason Segel? Okay, do you have a Dating Wack, something you just?

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  This is another, this is like a DC thing too, so maybe it's not everywhere, but people who are too self-serious. I just, I can't.

• 1:28:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:59Speaker 01

  Like, I want to know that someone can be self-deprecating from the jump.

• 1:29:03Ashley Hesseltine?

  Immediately.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  I try to be that, right? And I'm like, and this is not like, you can take politics seriously. You can take your job seriously. You can take anything seriously. Just don't take yourself seriously.

• 1:29:13Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  And people in DC tend to take themselves really seriously. And I can't handle, like, you gotta be able to joke around.

• 1:29:20Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, I had a friend recently, just, she had to break up with a guy over this. It wasn't, I don't know, he was a grown man. He was 40 years old. That's how he was. He's got to find the right person for him.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Right, and yeah, there will be a good, a right person for you.

• 1:29:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like, he couldn't make fun of her. Like, he couldn't be self-deprecating himself. Like, she was just like, there's so much else good here. He's a nice guy. He's tall and hot and has a job and a home, you know? And he just couldn't get there. And he's not going to at that age. And he'll need to find the person who wants to post an inspirational quote on Instagram, not ironically. And that'll be the right match for him.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Dating sounds brutal these days. I, I, like, I met Emily right as, like, the apps were starting to take, it was like, I think Tinder was like the next year or something. So I never did dating apps.

• 1:30:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  Do that, yeah.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Boy, am I glad.

• 1:30:08Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, it's traumatizing. And I will say-

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  Because I have plenty of friends who have, and I've sat with them through it, but it's like, it sounds rough.

• 1:30:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  We have toured all over, and DC is one of our favorite places to do shows. And we've done a lot of shows there, and the great theaters there, the Warner, the Lincoln. Like, we just really love to see the DC improv. Like, it's really such a great place for comedy. And we would ask people what it's like to date in your city all over. We did every major city in America when we were on the specific tour. That was like one of our segments. And people would write in, and we would crowdsourcer on Instagram. And it was so much fun, because it was so specific to the city. People felt really seen. DC was the most specific. DC was one of the most fun cities to shit on, because it was just the politics of it all.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  Hi, nice to meet you. What do you do?

• 1:30:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  I was just gonna say that. That's exactly what everyone said. I think we would play it on stage of how we got hundreds of comments, like, what do you do? So what do you do? So what do you do, right out of the gate?

• 1:31:05Speaker 01

  High school cafeteria, DC. That's what it is. And it's funny, I like, I went to a very small high school, graduated 100 people, went to a pretty small college, and then I went to DC. And I'm like, is there anything out there but places where you know everyone and then have to ask everyone? Like, it's crazy. And then I remember when I moved to Chicago for the Obama campaign from DC, and I went out to bars in Chicago, and I'm like, whoa, people here are so nice? And they talk about things that are not just politics? And you can just have conversations with people. What a great city.

• 1:31:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  Totally. Yeah, DC is a totally different animal.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  I'm from, I'm from Boston, and I always think Chicago's a friendlier, friendlier than Boston.

• 1:31:46Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, so my husband's from Boston.

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  Okay. Where in Boston?

• 1:31:50Ashley Hesseltine?

  He grew up in Woburn.

• 1:31:52Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. That's where my grandparents are from.

• 1:31:53Ashley Hesseltine?

  Really?

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  Where?

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  I'm from Reddick.

• 1:31:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, really?

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  Which is like, yeah, for a couple, couple towns away. And we would go to Woburn all the time.

• 1:31:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, my god.

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  My grandmother's house was there.

• 1:32:02Ashley Hesseltine?

  That's so funny.

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:03Ashley Hesseltine?

  We, we love Boston, and Chicago, best city to date in, where women will actually even say it. Because women rarely say their city is good to date in. It's tough.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:14Ashley Hesseltine?

  So, New York, LA, tied for first worst. Then we probably have a DC. And then the better ones are Chicago, Boston. It's more Chicago, Austin, Denver. Denver used to be Menver, not so much anymore. People don't hate Nashville that much.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:32:35Ashley Hesseltine?

  Minneapolis is pretty good. We hear good things, but Chicago's in the top slot.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:39Ashley Hesseltine?

  Florida, bad.

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 1:32:43Speaker 01

  No, thank you.

• 1:32:43Ashley Hesseltine?

  Philly, weird. But go Birds. Okay. Well, this was so wonderful.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  This was great.

• 1:32:49Ashley Hesseltine?

  I kept you too long, but, um-

• 1:32:50Speaker 01

  No, this was fun.

• 1:32:51Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, again, we don't do this a lot, so this was really special. And I'm glad you're feeling hopeful about the midterms. And can you tell everybody about CrookedCon?

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  Yes. So, right after the midterms, in DC, the greatest place to date. We are having-

• 1:33:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  If you're single.

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  We are having our second annual CrookedCon, where we're gonna just have all kinds of, the better politicians, strategists, organizers, everyone's gonna gather. We did this, this is our second year doing it. Last year, it was like a wild success. And we're gonna have like, two days of live shows, conversations, panels, where you get to meet people, you get to break down what just happened in the election. And then we're sort of kicking off the debate for 2028. And, uh, yeah, so we're gonna be November 5th through 7th, if you go to crookedcon.com, you can get tickets. And, uh, Pod Save America live show, Love or Leave It live show, Strict Scrutiny, all the, Still Counting, all of our, all your favorite shows. And we'd love to come hang and, and hang out with you.

• 1:33:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  I gotta say, this is a good place to find a like-minded person.

• 1:33:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 1:33:53Ashley Hesseltine?

  So, go there to date.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  That's a great place to date.

• 1:33:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because then, it's also like, you just pop in and out, you know? So you don't have to be, it's not like the DC culture is, a lot of people fly in for it.

• 1:34:03Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, I know. I have some friends from New York going.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  Oh, great.

• 1:34:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. So, I have a friend who is very starstruck that I'm here today. Like, she's just like, oh, my god. Like, she would, like, she wants to work for you guys, basically, you know? I will. And then follow you, Pod Save America, Vote Save America.

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, JFab is on Instagram, JohnFab is on Twitter, and subscribe to our Pod Save America YouTube channel. And offline, I also do this podcast offline.

• 1:34:25Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes. Okay, got it. And you guys know where to find us, girlsgottaeat.com, Girls Gotta Eat Podcast on Instagram and TikTok. I'm Ash Hess on Instagram and TikTok. Raina, who is not here, but you saw her up top, is Rayna Greenberg, rainagreenberg.com for her tour tickets. You can watch full video on Spotify and YouTube. Make sure you're registered to vote, all the things. And we will see you Thursday. This is where Raina says, "Bye, guys." And now I'm just all thrown off. Can you say, "Bye, guys"?

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  Bye, guys.

• 1:35:15Speaker 03

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