April 6, 2022 • 40 mins
For our season finale, Hillary welcomes Saturday Night Live’s Emmy Award-winning sketch comedian Kate McKinnon to the show. In her first ever appearance on a podcast, Kate and Hillary compare notes on their recent bouts with COVID-19. Then Kate talks about how she’s parlayed her social anxiety into a wildly successful career in comedy; the CGI tigers on the set of the Peacock series Joe vs. Carole (in which she plays animal rights activist Carole Baskin); and how she develops her character impressions of everyone from Justin Bieber to Jeff Sessions, and, of course, Hillary.
Then, with Kate’s help, Hillary answers listener questions on everything from her goals during her time as U.S. Senator for New York to her favorite desserts.
You can read a full transcript HERE.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Hillary Clinton and this is You and Me Both.
On this week's episode, I get to do one of
my favorite things, answering questions sent in by our listeners.
We've heard from so many of you. From Anita down
in Florida, Hello, I watched the whole podcast. I now
(00:25):
know what a podcast is. To Kyle out in California. Hey, Hilary,
it's Kyle Bockfunk supporter. Maybe you'll run again one day,
maybe not. Don't blame you if you want the rift.
We got emails from people across the United States and beyond,
from Australia to Germany Romania, with questions on everything from
(00:47):
my time in the Senate to my favorite desserts to
the quality of the sheets and pillows in the White House. Now,
as promised, I'm answering your questions with the help of
a very special guest. It took some doing because we
both have really busy schedules, but I'm so excited today
to have joining me Saturday Night Lives One and Only
(01:12):
Kate McKinnon. Kate joined the SNL cast back in and
since then she's become an Emmy award winning audience favorite
with all of her quirky characters and of course, her
incredible impersonations everybody from Ellen Degenerous to Jeff Sessions, from
(01:34):
Lindsay Graham to Elizabeth Warren, Angela Merkle, Rudy Giuliani and
yes me and You've also seen Kate on the big screen,
including in the all women remake of Ghostbusters. She's currently
starring in Joe Versus Carol, a drama series from Peacock
(01:56):
based on the Netflix true crime commentary series Tiger King. I.
Oh my gosh, Oh my goodness. I am thrilled to
see you. I'm so happy you're doing this. I'm so happy.
I'm scared of podcasts, but I like yours and this
(02:19):
one it's nice. So we're just gonna be really easy. Okay,
before we start, where's your cat? Um there? Say hello
to the secretary Nini, Say hello, how old is that
little creature? He is thirteen and a teenager? You know
he's getting tattoos and he's drinking. You gotta watch those
(02:40):
teenagers all the time. Yeah, I mean, look at the
wonderful life you have. What is the what is wrong
with you? Look at who your mother is. You should
be so proud. I'm so fun. You don't even know
how fun I am. It is so great to see
you again, and I just want to dive right in
(03:02):
to talk with truly one of my my favorite people. So, Kate,
you and I have a lot in common. You've played me,
so I know we do. But we also just got
over COVID and you did. Yes, Oh gosh, you're dodging
it for you know, two years. Thankfully. I came down
with a really mild case, but I was so tired.
(03:24):
I was so tired. That was like the only thing
that I experienced. Wow, yeah, that's good. Good for you,
But you're okay. I got a bad what felt like
a flu, and now I feel like I am a
crumpled piece of paper drifting on the wind um. I
(03:44):
have no agency, I have no vitals. You know, I'm
you need a vacation, my friend. I don't well, I
don't know if that would do it. I feel, I feel,
you know, I think it's more the crumbling of the
host World War two order that's making my brain feel
a little disorganized. But I think that's actually what happened
(04:06):
to me. I think my immune system had been great
until Ukraine and then it just crumpled um And so
here we are. But we're fighting our way back and
that's to be I guess appreciated. And you have a
new show out, Joe. First is Carol. Now, honestly, you
played Carol Baskin and I know you love your cat.
(04:27):
But how was it like loving those big cats? I mean,
what was that like? Well, she had made a public
request to not utilize big cats during the production, which um,
I found very important because her whole thing is we
should be interacting with these animals at all, they should
only be in the wild. So I was happy that
(04:48):
we were able to c g I all the cats.
So when there was a cat on screen, it was
actually just a very emotive great Dane. Some of the
best actors in the world I found are great Danes.
Oh my god, the pathos on those big great Dane faces. Yes, well,
you know you have been really just such an incredible
(05:13):
inspiration and I don't know, just a great spirit Kate
and me, I don't know about that. Well, I mean
just I'm just talking as a fan, so you know
you can dismiss it and discount it. But when did
you first get interested in comedy and sketch comedy. Okay, So,
(05:34):
as you may or cannot tell, I was an odd child,
very very deeply shy and quiet. I don't know if
you can relate, maybe not, but I was extraordinarily quiet,
and people were always wondering what's in there? What is
she thinking? And I felt always just too scared to
(05:58):
speak in my own voice, and so I started to
appropriate the voices of others and speak in British accents
and speak as little weird characters and quote lines from
movies and stuff. And I felt it so much easier
to get any volume in my voice at all if
(06:19):
I was doing a voice in quotes and that, you know,
lad my kindergarten teacher to call my mother and then say,
we don't know if she's understanding the difference between fiction
and reality because I was so often speaking in film quotes. Anyway,
(06:39):
you know, I'm saying too much here, But the point
is it became a like, I mean, it's a coping
mechanism clearly for social anxiety. And then and then I
just like spun it into a career magically, so that's great. Yeah,
I mean I really admire that. And I read that
your father first introduced you to Saturday Night Live when
you were what My mother and my father both were
(07:01):
big SNL fans, and they would walk around the house
quoting Mr Bill and tunes as the Driving Cat and
the land Shark, and I thought these were just American
idioms to go, Oh, no, you know all these quotes.
They were My parents both very, very funny, So it
sort of was just like a household currency. Yeah, well,
(07:24):
your sister didn't, isn't your sister. My sister is a
comedian and we've done a bunch of projects together and
that's just the greatest thing in the world because we
still share a sense of humor and not everyone. But
but at what point did you think I could make
(07:45):
a living at this, I could be a professional actor comedian.
Only after booking my first job. I had never considered
it as a way of life. I thought, I'm too
much of a capricorn um. I don't that astrology is
real except that it's always correct and I so I'm very,
(08:06):
very deeply practical. And so I booked my first job,
which was on a show called The Big a Sketch Show,
and then I thought, well, okay, I'll give it a
whirl because I've already booked this job, but it's not
going to work out. And then for a long time
it didn't. And then I thought, I'll go to farm
school and I'll you know, that's fine, and then I
(08:30):
was hired at Saturday Night Live and so I continued then,
but it's always sort of touch and go. Yeah, and
did you try out for SNL? I mean I hear
about these really infamous tryouts that conducted sounds terrifying. It
is it's a tribunal um in the dark. Well, you
(08:51):
know you've testified it congressionally. Yeah, you're fine. I think
you've passed some fine guys. But you got the gig.
I didn't, so you know, that's only a big difference,
Thank Gossie. Yeah, I mean I watched the hearings I've
watched you was that sort of like an SNL audition?
(09:13):
Is that is? That was at the comparable experience? Now?
Years seemed he seemed a hourse. So what what year
was it that you started on SNL. It was two
thousand eleven and I had moved to Los Angeles to
do a showcase and I thought, Okay, this is my
last ditch effort as a comedian, I'll do this showcase
(09:33):
and then I'll come home and I'll fake your something
else out and I'll be fine. And but I always knew,
you know, Saturday Night Live is is so important to
me as a comedian because it's really the only place
that people are doing character comedy, the kind of comedy
I love. But also as an American, it's like it's
like our collective way of processing so many things. And
(09:55):
for so many years I got my news from Saturday
Night Live, so it always meant everything to me. And
in the back of my mind, I was like, well,
I'll never get on the show, but I it is
my dream and I should at least try my darkness
to at least audition. And then I got that chance
(10:16):
after many years of doing comedy and a basement, And yeah,
it was scary, but I I had prepared as much
as I possibly could prepare for something I usually wing stuff.
But I was like, if I don't, I need to
do everything I possibly can or I won't be able
(10:36):
to live with myself afterwards. Did you do impersonations when
you tried out or did the impersonating? You know, everybody
literally from Justin Bieber to jet sessions to me, which
we'll get to in a minute. Um, did you do
impersonations before SNL or was that something that happened while
you were there? I did, Um, I learned a lot
(10:56):
more about what goes into an impression inside of the
pressure cooker of SNL. But I had always been doing impressions.
I just think that a person's voice is, for me
somehow the key to their inner struggles. UM. I feel
that like I can listen to someone's voice and understand
(11:19):
what they want and what's getting in the way, which is,
to me, the foundational blocks of any character, even a
sketch character. Um. And other people understand it through physicality
or through what they say or their hair or whatever.
For me, it's just my way in is always someone's voice.
(11:40):
And so I've always loved impressions because you can just
listen to someone and I feel like I understand them,
or I have a theory about them. And what is
a character really but a theory about how best to live,
or a theory about what happens if you live a
certain way. No, I like that. I mean it is
(12:02):
interesting how you get into a different character, or how
you even try to understand somebody if you're not an
actor like you are, and when you start thinking about
how you're going to try to portray somebody, do you
listen to their voice? Is that how you try to
capture it? Yes? I listened to hours and hours of
YouTube footage. I don't know how anyone produced a sketch
(12:23):
show before YouTube. I mean I think they were in
there with VCRs copying news reports. That must have been impossible,
But I yes, I listened to hours and I try
to come up with again just what what they want
and what's blocking them, which are usually two disparate elements
(12:44):
of their persona. That tension and that juxtaposition is what
makes a character. For instance, I've played Angela Merkel and
I thought, well, how am I gonna what am I
going to latch onto about this? I don't speak German,
I wish I did. Um what a gorgeous language with
its many many noun cases, but I wanted to capture
(13:06):
something about her, and to me, what was the juxtaposition
there that was interesting was that she's this like staunch
German politician and yet there's almost a I saw a
glimmer of like a girlish longing and insecurity and sweetness
underneath that, and that tension is what I just sort
(13:27):
of like me and the writer who wrote it just
sort of like spun up into a sketch. That's so
interesting because I know her and you did. That's a
very good capture. Oh yeah, and because when I have
spent personal time, private time with her, she's funny, she's unguarded,
she is a good storyteller, she is very effusive, and
(13:53):
then you know she does have to put on the
I'm the leader of my country, uh look and go forward.
But yeah, you really captured that. That's great. But you
have to be almost an acute psychologist to do what
you do, because you've got to find something to hold
on too. I mean you do somebody like Jeff Sessions.
Oh my gosh, I mean what do you hang on too?
(14:13):
I mean, what is there that you're going to be
able to find relatable, let alone you know, humorous. It
really requires some some in depth thinking, right for I mean,
for that one, I just I disagreed so vehemently with
everything that he was doing and and thought. But to me,
(14:34):
he seemed like a perfectly jovial person, like a filled
with effervescent um puckish joy, and I thought, well, that's
an interesting tension. I hate what this guy's doing, and
yet I think I would like him if if I
(14:55):
didn't know his politics. He's a sort of there's something
impat and boy like about him that I that I
responded to, and that to me was an interesting tension.
Are there people on your list that you want to
impersonate at any time in the future somebody that pops
into mind. Politicians are definitely my favorite, because there's always
(15:18):
and maybe you can attest to this, there's always layers
built in because someone's the persona that any politician presents.
I'm guessing, you know, correct, is not what is underneath.
Um is something that's constructed, and there's always comedic tension
to be mined there between someone's persona and their private life. Well,
(15:41):
obviously I saw that when you portrayed me Um, you know,
I thought it was pretty brilliant, and I loved doing
that scene with you where I was val the bartender.
That was the best known of my life. I had
so much fun. I was just so taken by the
whole experience because even though I on on s and
now I think once before, but it was some years
(16:03):
prior being there that time, and having you know, a
whole scene where you and I were doing it together,
and then going up to Lauren's office while you talked
about how it was going and what the you know,
changes were needed. I found that fascinating. I loved that
so much because we had talked about you know, I
remember watching with absolute joy when you came on with
(16:28):
Amy Poehler, and we talked about doing something like that,
and then our writers Chris Kelly and Sara Schneider, who
are brilliant, We're like, no, it should be a more conversational,
less presentational thing. What if you guys did a scene
together And I thought, yeah, great, And then you were
so funny and you so embodying the character of Val
(16:52):
the Bartender. Yeah, you know, I mean, yeah, have me back.
I mean, you know, the Bartender has lots to talk
about right now. I mean, there's so much going on.
He man, you know, let's discuss the world. I have
to say. I also, along with you know, millions of
other people, was just really knocked out by your singing
(17:17):
Hallelujah that first episode after the election, and you know,
I didn't know whether I'd ever get a chance to
thank you or to certainly do it in a you know,
public way. But that was an incredible performance and it
was so meaningful to me. How did that even come together?
How how did you all decide to do that? Well?
(17:40):
Thank you first of all? That means a lot. And
we were we had bandied a few things about. We
were all so broken. I know, for me, that was
the biggest heartbreak of my life. I've than my father
dying when I was a teenager. I was so you know,
and Leonard Cohen had passed that week, and my uh
(18:04):
same the same writer friends, Chris Kelly and Sara Schneider
had sent along this verse of Hallelujah that I had
never heard of, about even when things go wrong, standing
before the Lord of Song with nothing on your tongue
but Hallelujah. And I thought, oh, that's what this moment
calls for, if we can muster it, and I wanted to.
(18:29):
It just came from a very personal place of wanting
to commiserate and provide some shred of something to people
who were devastated, and I knew it was going to
not sit well with people who weren't and I just
had to, you know, I just I had to share
how I felt. It was like a very primitive just
(18:51):
wanting to connect with my countrymen in that moment, and
and also on some level with you. I mean, I
didn't figure you'd be watching, but I wanted to say
something that I thought you might say, and I thought
maybe you, in your infinite strength, might offer some ray
(19:16):
of hope. At that moment, I wanted to just give
people a hug. Basically, Yeah, yeah, it was. It felt
like a big hug. And you know, people still come
up and cry with me or around me, and so
it just had such a huge impact on so many people.
(19:41):
We're taking a quick break, stay with us. You know,
you've said, and I've heard you and other interviews and
read that you have a lot of eclectic interest, which
I relate to. I mean, you do everything from I
(20:02):
do because I'm so I'm interested in so many odds
and ends, and you're interested in astrophysics, music theory, the
history of the Silk Road, which I really relate to.
So what are you interested in these days? What what
you know? What's catching your attention? Well, other things that
are in my fancy right now mostly have to do
with survival, and I think you can understand why I've
(20:25):
become very interested suddenly in plant science, farming, growing food, plumbing,
heating and cooling systems, um, construction, things like that. Um,
I'm good. I'm a prepper. Now I'm will be going
to my bunker. And I got your barker picked out.
I made you know where it is. I drive every
(20:47):
weekend to look for it. Yeah. Yeah, don't worry, don't
worry about Just let me know in case I need
a bunker. You know, you always need a spare bunker.
You never know what's going to happen. Well, as you know,
we set aside some time in the last episode of
the season to answer some listener questions, and you've graciously
agreed to come along for the ride on this, and
(21:10):
so let's get started. See what people have on their minds. Kate,
Oh my goodness. Okay, So I have these printed out
and I will read them to you and you would
answer them as yourself. Okay, not not as Val the bartender,
but as Or or take on your alter ego. But
(21:30):
get the shirt please and the name to otherwise we
won't understand what's going on. Okay, this is from Melinda.
Dear Madam, Secretary or as you are now in my
head Hilly Billy, which I think it's so great. I
am a voracious reader, as I know you are. I
have you to thank for introducing me to Louise Penny,
who's entire of I've now devoured, including State of Terror,
(21:53):
which was excellent. My question to you is this, what
have you been reading lately and what would you recommend?
Great question. Well, because I did have COVID and was
down for a week, I caught up on some of
my favorite historic fiction kind of series. So I read
the latest Donna Leone Great Mysteries set in Venice if
(22:16):
you have not discovered those. I read the latest Charles Todd,
set in nineteen twenties after World War One England, very good.
And then I've recently discovered the historical novels by Sharon K. Penman.
I'm reading her series about King Henry and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
(22:42):
Very interesting, not only well done, but really engrossing. So
those are some of the things I'm reading. What happens
don't tell me? Okay, here we have a question from
Craig flicking Er. What are your thoughts on the State
of Attack. We find on the lg ME too plus
community with Florida's Don't Say Gay bill passing seventeen in
(23:05):
Texas with its anti transagenda, I can't help but wonder
how this plays into the midterm elections. Oh my gosh it.
First of all, it's profoundly outraging and deeply sad that
you have people in positions of power in our country
who are more interested in undermining and opposing the rights
(23:32):
of individuals than they are in bringing people together. And
I think people have to stand up to it. And
the idea don't say gay. I mean I think people
should go around, you know, saying gay all the time.
Anything we can do to puncture the hypocrisy and the
cruelty that lies behind this, we need to be doing. Uh.
(23:54):
So that's um, you know, my hope. And and do
it with comedy, do it with political action. And you
mentioned the mid terms, and let me just say, please
please turn out and vote. You know, the hypocrites and
the hate mongers win when people don't vote. So that
would be my plea as we move forward in this year,
(24:17):
let's say it now together on three one to three
gay gay gay gay. Okay. This is from Pie or
her email handle is a griffin door equestrian girl. That's
a good one. Hello, Hillary and Mry guest. It's me Hello.
(24:39):
I have two questions. I hope that's okay. One, what
are some of your favorite songs and artists? My favorites
are Joanne and Born to Die, Lady Gaga, Lana del Ray,
Taylor Swift, and Nate Lewis. And do you have any
pets and how are they doing? Well? Let's start with
the easy question on pets. Yes, we have dogs. We
(25:02):
have a labradoodle named Mazie and we have a toy
poodle named Tally short for Tallula. Uh. They're both getting
up in years, but they still are full of personality
and incredibly fun to be around. Now asked to songs.
I like your question, and I like what you said
(25:23):
about some of your favorites. So here's what I'm currently doing.
You know, I've always loved from the time I was,
you know, literally a teenager up until now, I've always
loved listening to women's voices, you know, women like Carol
King and Judy Collins and Joan Bayaz and Joni Mitchell.
I mean, they were really formative. So now fast forward,
(25:48):
a very long time. I am listening to a lot
of the really famous young women. So I love I
love Lady Gaga. I love her both as a performed
her and a singer. I just really also like her sensibility.
I mean, just in the last week, the way that
she was with Liliza Manelli at the ill fated infamous Oscars,
(26:12):
she ended that with such a note of grace, which
was well needed. Um at the Grammys, which I was watching,
you know, she came and carried the train of a
skirt for someone who was having trouble because of crutches.
So I like Lady Gaga. I really like Adele. I
listened to everything Adele does. Um, I'm listening to a
(26:34):
lot of Taylor Swift, and I really like Taylor Swift.
I like her storytelling. I'm getting really into Taylor Swift.
I'm starting to listen to Billie Eilish. I think her
talent is so multifaceted, everything from you know, James Bond
to ballads and all in between. So I'm just I'm
I'm kind of educating myself, if that makes sense to you,
(26:56):
trying to hear and listen and learn about this new
wonderful generation of wonderful women singers. Wow, bless you. How
about you, Kate? Who do you listen to these days?
I stick? I just I stick with songs that I
learned in college. And that's it. Either that I don't
like to try new foods. Okay, that's not true. I
(27:18):
do like to try new foods, which leads us into
our next question from Kathy Lee. I think you've said
that your favorite job was being the U S Senator
from New York for eight years. Can you talk about
a couple of issues? Okay, so the food part comes later.
Can you talk about a couple of issues that you
worked on that we're most meaningful to you or events
(27:40):
they're most memorable that are not related to the nine
eleven tragedy. Yeah. Well, obviously not eleven was the overwhelming experience,
but then the after effects of N eleven, trying to
get healthcare for the first responders and the emergency workers
and fighting that battle for years, um, trying to make
(28:02):
sure that you know, victims and their families got compensation
because of the horrific losses that they experienced, and then rebuilding, rebuilding,
you know, Lower Manhattan. I spent a lot of time
putting together legislation and deals to help get that started.
I also spent a lot of time on healthcare, as
(28:24):
you might guess, because worked really hard and been part
of getting health care for kids. But then there were
so many other issues, and one that I worked a
lot on was trying to make sure that drug companies
didn't just treat children like small adults when they came
to doing drug trials, because they're not small adults and
(28:47):
they need, you know, really special attention. As we're seeing
now with the COVID vaccines, which have been literally miraculous
for children under five, they're not quite getting it right.
It seems to be safe, but not that effect. And
so frankly, the work that I did back when I
was a senator is absolutely instrumental and how they're trying
to figure out, you know, what are the right doses
(29:09):
and what's safe and what works for kids with vaccines.
I spent you know, a lot of time on environmental issues, uh,
something I care deeply about and I just don't want
to see our rules and regulations turned back. We fought
hard to get clean water and clean air, and by God,
those should be everybody's birthright. Well, bless you for that
(29:32):
because I drank a gallon of New York City tap
water a day and it's good. It's the best water
in the world. It's such good water. And you know,
I just would add, Kate, because you've raised one of
my favorite issues in New York City's tap water. Look
at why it's so good in part because a hundred
and fifty years ago or so, people who ran New
(29:54):
York City and New York State made the decision to
buy up land upstay eat which had waterways, and to
create a reservoir system and then to protect it all
these years, and it's been one of the most important
piece of legislation I think passed in certainly New York
and maybe even the country because New York City water
(30:16):
is still very lightly, if at all, filtered, because it
has been kept so pure from the sources. So if
you plan ahead and you do the right things, it
has a long term you know, positive effects. Amen and
kathe Lee also asks and this I want to know,
can you share a favorite dish or dessert from five
(30:36):
different places that you've traveled, because you've traveled every part
of this world. Oh my god, you know they have
to do five, But you know, I'm curious. Yeah, I mean, okay, look,
I I adore dessert. Let's start there, Okay, I mean,
let's not be let's let's not pretend like I don't
(30:56):
adore dessert, because I do. And I would have to say,
anywhere you go in Italy, whether it is gelato of
every flavor, or Tierra Masou or any other incredible Italian dessert,
c'm in right. If you go to France, anything chocolate,
(31:17):
I don't know why it is what my go to is.
If you go to I will say Armenia, where I
have been twice, I had the best fruit for dessert
I think I've ever had in my life. Apricots, peaches, cherries.
(31:38):
I don't know why. I don't know why they were
so delicious, but I just absolutely adored them. So those
are just some of my favorites from my travels. You
heard it here first, folks, Stone fruits from the caucusus
the best We'll be right back, all right. And from
(32:07):
leslie E in Oregon. Pretty much everyone I know wrote
to you after you quote unquote lost in It was
somehow comforting for us, and we hoped in some small
way to lift you up and also to thank you
for your courage and leadership. But how did it feel?
Could you bear to read any of that mail? And
(32:27):
did it help? Well? Yes, it helped a lot. And
I tried to answer every one of them, and I
don't know, I hope I answered yours and your friends
because it meant the world to me. You know. I
got such heartfelt letters, and they came from people of
all ages, all kinds of formats, some you know, pictures
(32:51):
that little kids did for me, some heartrending long handwritten letters,
some very smart, typed formal letters but with a impact
to them. I got thousands and thousands and they will
all end up in the library somewhere at some point.
(33:11):
What was so moving to me were that the people
who were writing me after that election were people who
really paid attention. They didn't just dip in and out
of the campaign. They paid attention to what the candidates
were saying, and they paid attention to what I was saying,
and so their feelings were really rooted in an understanding
(33:32):
of what I was not only saying, but what I
intended to try to do. And that was particularly meaningful
to me. Okay, unless, but not least, we have two
voicemails here's one of them. Hi, Hillary, my name is Leah.
I'm from Brooklyn. My question for you is were the
beds in the White House comfortable? Thanks? Leah. They were
(33:57):
very comfortable. And I have to tell you that the
mattress in the White House was so comfortable that, you know,
when we moved, since the White House would provide a
new mattress for our successor, we said can we take
the mattress with us? And they said sure, we're just
going to throw it away otherwise. So literally we had
(34:17):
that mattress for twenty years. In fact, Leah, we have
just bought a new mattress. It was that comfortable for
that long. Okay, great, and here's one more. Hi, Secretary Clinton.
My name is Sophie and I am in Virginia, and
my question is more about your personal daily routines. I
(34:38):
think for many of us, and certainly you, the past
six years have felt like one trauma after another, and
I think many of us are grappling with how we
spend our time day to day in order to keep
hope and to keep optimism going well for ourselves but
also the people who are around us. I love to
(35:01):
walk a lot, I love to read but I'm wondering
if there are other things that you personally do and
that you're committed to to keep yourself feeling hopeful. Thank you, Oh, Sophie. Yeah,
I know that that's a really common feeling and I
feel it myself, so I really relate to your question.
(35:23):
Here's what I have done and it really helps me
a lot. One is spend a lot of time outdoors.
I try to go for a walk, and I try
to go to a place like a park, um preserve
some woods, just anything to kind of break my routine
and try to walk for an hour. I highly recommend it.
(35:45):
You know, there's a concept in Japanese called forest bathing,
which I love the concept of where you are just
immersed in nature. So hiking, walking, biking, anything that gets
you outdoors. I'm a huge supporter of that. Secondly, I
like to spend time with, you know, people that are
(36:06):
positive and have positive energy, because there's so much that
drags you down these days. So spending time with people
that I like and admire, people who are old friends
and new friends. I'm very grateful for that. As a grandmother,
I've spent a lot of time with my grandchildren. I
have a seven year old granddaughter and a five and
(36:29):
two and a half year old grandson to three all
together and they are constantly, you know, just little engines
of positivity. I also try to read and watch things
that make me laugh, make me smile, make me think,
but don't depress me, because you know, I'm not tuning
into all of the meanness and the anger. Um. I
(36:53):
read about it, which I can handle better than watching it,
and then I use my social media to speak out
again instant. I'm angry beyond words about Ukraine and what
Russia and Putin are doing, and so I'm trying to
be helpful there, but I'm trying not to let it
totally consume me. So I don't know if that's helpful, Sophie,
but that's how I try to deal with a lot
(37:15):
of the stuff that we're all living with. Gosh, you know,
I love you. I'll say it, you know, as a
public figure and as a person. You know, you watch
that many hours of footage of someone and you feel
like you. I feel like you're my best friend. I
(37:38):
know that you don't feel me necessarily, but I you know,
I feel like I really got to understand and adore
you on a very personal level, and it has just
been the absolute honor of my life to have any
proximity to you at all, And so thank you for
(38:01):
having me on this podcast and for being my vell.
Thank you so much for doing this Kate, and right
back at you, and let's go out and have some
dessert sometime. Okay, great. You won't find Kate on social media,
but you can find her on this season of Saturday
(38:23):
Night Live, which wraps up later this month, and on
the Peacock drama series Joe Versus Carol and I want
to give a big thank you to all of you
who called or wrote in with your questions for this episode.
I so appreciate hearing from each and every one of you.
I wish we had the time to answer all of
(38:43):
your questions. And that, my friends, is it for this
season of You and Me Both. We'll be back in
a few months, but in the meantime, we've got lots
of great conversations you can go back and listen to,
including another round of listener questions I answered with help
from James Cordon. You and Me Both is brought to
(39:08):
you by I Heart Radio. We're produced by Julie Subran
Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo, with help from Huma Aberdeen,
Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Brianna Johnson, Nick Merrill, Laura Olan,
Lona Vlmorrow, and Benita Zaman. Our engineer is Zack McNeice
(39:31):
and original music is by Forest Gray. If you like
you and me both, please tell someone else about it.
And if you're not already a subscriber, what are you
waiting for? You can subscribe to you and me both
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. Let's keep taking
(39:54):
care of ourselves, each other, and our democracy, and I'll
see you when we come back.
You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Hillary Clinton and this is You and Me Both.
On this week's episode, I get to do one of
my favorite things, answering questions sent in by our listeners.
We've heard from so many of you. From Anita down
in Florida, Hello, I watched the whole podcast. I now
(00:25):
know what a podcast is. To Kyle out in California. Hey, Hilary,
it's Kyle Bockfunk supporter. Maybe you'll run again one day,
maybe not. Don't blame you if you want the rift.
We got emails from people across the United States and beyond,
from Australia to Germany Romania, with questions on everything from
(00:47):
my time in the Senate to my favorite desserts to
the quality of the sheets and pillows in the White House. Now,
as promised, I'm answering your questions with the help of
a very special guest. It took some doing because we
both have really busy schedules, but I'm so excited today
to have joining me Saturday Night Lives One and Only
(01:12):
Kate McKinnon. Kate joined the SNL cast back in and
since then she's become an Emmy award winning audience favorite
with all of her quirky characters and of course, her
incredible impersonations everybody from Ellen Degenerous to Jeff Sessions, from
(01:34):
Lindsay Graham to Elizabeth Warren, Angela Merkle, Rudy Giuliani and
yes me and You've also seen Kate on the big screen,
including in the all women remake of Ghostbusters. She's currently
starring in Joe Versus Carol, a drama series from Peacock
(01:56):
based on the Netflix true crime commentary series Tiger King. I.
Oh my gosh, Oh my goodness. I am thrilled to
see you. I'm so happy you're doing this. I'm so happy.
I'm scared of podcasts, but I like yours and this
(02:19):
one it's nice. So we're just gonna be really easy. Okay,
before we start, where's your cat? Um there? Say hello
to the secretary Nini, Say hello, how old is that
little creature? He is thirteen and a teenager? You know
he's getting tattoos and he's drinking. You gotta watch those
(02:40):
teenagers all the time. Yeah, I mean, look at the
wonderful life you have. What is the what is wrong
with you? Look at who your mother is. You should
be so proud. I'm so fun. You don't even know
how fun I am. It is so great to see
you again, and I just want to dive right in
(03:02):
to talk with truly one of my my favorite people. So, Kate,
you and I have a lot in common. You've played me,
so I know we do. But we also just got
over COVID and you did. Yes, Oh gosh, you're dodging
it for you know, two years. Thankfully. I came down
with a really mild case, but I was so tired.
(03:24):
I was so tired. That was like the only thing
that I experienced. Wow, yeah, that's good. Good for you,
But you're okay. I got a bad what felt like
a flu, and now I feel like I am a
crumpled piece of paper drifting on the wind um. I
(03:44):
have no agency, I have no vitals. You know, I'm
you need a vacation, my friend. I don't well, I
don't know if that would do it. I feel, I feel,
you know, I think it's more the crumbling of the
host World War two order that's making my brain feel
a little disorganized. But I think that's actually what happened
(04:06):
to me. I think my immune system had been great
until Ukraine and then it just crumpled um And so
here we are. But we're fighting our way back and
that's to be I guess appreciated. And you have a
new show out, Joe. First is Carol. Now, honestly, you
played Carol Baskin and I know you love your cat.
(04:27):
But how was it like loving those big cats? I mean,
what was that like? Well, she had made a public
request to not utilize big cats during the production, which um,
I found very important because her whole thing is we
should be interacting with these animals at all, they should
only be in the wild. So I was happy that
(04:48):
we were able to c g I all the cats.
So when there was a cat on screen, it was
actually just a very emotive great Dane. Some of the
best actors in the world I found are great Danes.
Oh my god, the pathos on those big great Dane faces. Yes, well,
you know you have been really just such an incredible
(05:13):
inspiration and I don't know, just a great spirit Kate
and me, I don't know about that. Well, I mean
just I'm just talking as a fan, so you know
you can dismiss it and discount it. But when did
you first get interested in comedy and sketch comedy. Okay, So,
(05:34):
as you may or cannot tell, I was an odd child,
very very deeply shy and quiet. I don't know if
you can relate, maybe not, but I was extraordinarily quiet,
and people were always wondering what's in there? What is
she thinking? And I felt always just too scared to
(05:58):
speak in my own voice, and so I started to
appropriate the voices of others and speak in British accents
and speak as little weird characters and quote lines from
movies and stuff. And I felt it so much easier
to get any volume in my voice at all if
(06:19):
I was doing a voice in quotes and that, you know,
lad my kindergarten teacher to call my mother and then say,
we don't know if she's understanding the difference between fiction
and reality because I was so often speaking in film quotes. Anyway,
(06:39):
you know, I'm saying too much here, But the point
is it became a like, I mean, it's a coping
mechanism clearly for social anxiety. And then and then I
just like spun it into a career magically, so that's great. Yeah,
I mean I really admire that. And I read that
your father first introduced you to Saturday Night Live when
you were what My mother and my father both were
(07:01):
big SNL fans, and they would walk around the house
quoting Mr Bill and tunes as the Driving Cat and
the land Shark, and I thought these were just American
idioms to go, Oh, no, you know all these quotes.
They were My parents both very, very funny, So it
sort of was just like a household currency. Yeah, well,
(07:24):
your sister didn't, isn't your sister. My sister is a
comedian and we've done a bunch of projects together and
that's just the greatest thing in the world because we
still share a sense of humor and not everyone. But
but at what point did you think I could make
(07:45):
a living at this, I could be a professional actor comedian.
Only after booking my first job. I had never considered
it as a way of life. I thought, I'm too
much of a capricorn um. I don't that astrology is
real except that it's always correct and I so I'm very,
(08:06):
very deeply practical. And so I booked my first job,
which was on a show called The Big a Sketch Show,
and then I thought, well, okay, I'll give it a
whirl because I've already booked this job, but it's not
going to work out. And then for a long time
it didn't. And then I thought, I'll go to farm
school and I'll you know, that's fine, and then I
(08:30):
was hired at Saturday Night Live and so I continued then,
but it's always sort of touch and go. Yeah, and
did you try out for SNL? I mean I hear
about these really infamous tryouts that conducted sounds terrifying. It
is it's a tribunal um in the dark. Well, you
(08:51):
know you've testified it congressionally. Yeah, you're fine. I think
you've passed some fine guys. But you got the gig.
I didn't, so you know, that's only a big difference,
Thank Gossie. Yeah, I mean I watched the hearings I've
watched you was that sort of like an SNL audition?
(09:13):
Is that is? That was at the comparable experience? Now?
Years seemed he seemed a hourse. So what what year
was it that you started on SNL. It was two
thousand eleven and I had moved to Los Angeles to
do a showcase and I thought, Okay, this is my
last ditch effort as a comedian, I'll do this showcase
(09:33):
and then I'll come home and I'll fake your something
else out and I'll be fine. And but I always knew,
you know, Saturday Night Live is is so important to
me as a comedian because it's really the only place
that people are doing character comedy, the kind of comedy
I love. But also as an American, it's like it's
like our collective way of processing so many things. And
(09:55):
for so many years I got my news from Saturday
Night Live, so it always meant everything to me. And
in the back of my mind, I was like, well,
I'll never get on the show, but I it is
my dream and I should at least try my darkness
to at least audition. And then I got that chance
(10:16):
after many years of doing comedy and a basement, And yeah,
it was scary, but I I had prepared as much
as I possibly could prepare for something I usually wing stuff.
But I was like, if I don't, I need to
do everything I possibly can or I won't be able
(10:36):
to live with myself afterwards. Did you do impersonations when
you tried out or did the impersonating? You know, everybody
literally from Justin Bieber to jet sessions to me, which
we'll get to in a minute. Um, did you do
impersonations before SNL or was that something that happened while
you were there? I did, Um, I learned a lot
(10:56):
more about what goes into an impression inside of the
pressure cooker of SNL. But I had always been doing impressions.
I just think that a person's voice is, for me
somehow the key to their inner struggles. UM. I feel
that like I can listen to someone's voice and understand
(11:19):
what they want and what's getting in the way, which is,
to me, the foundational blocks of any character, even a
sketch character. Um. And other people understand it through physicality
or through what they say or their hair or whatever.
For me, it's just my way in is always someone's voice.
(11:40):
And so I've always loved impressions because you can just
listen to someone and I feel like I understand them,
or I have a theory about them. And what is
a character really but a theory about how best to live,
or a theory about what happens if you live a
certain way. No, I like that. I mean it is
(12:02):
interesting how you get into a different character, or how
you even try to understand somebody if you're not an
actor like you are, and when you start thinking about
how you're going to try to portray somebody, do you
listen to their voice? Is that how you try to
capture it? Yes? I listened to hours and hours of
YouTube footage. I don't know how anyone produced a sketch
(12:23):
show before YouTube. I mean I think they were in
there with VCRs copying news reports. That must have been impossible,
But I yes, I listened to hours and I try
to come up with again just what what they want
and what's blocking them, which are usually two disparate elements
(12:44):
of their persona. That tension and that juxtaposition is what
makes a character. For instance, I've played Angela Merkel and
I thought, well, how am I gonna what am I
going to latch onto about this? I don't speak German,
I wish I did. Um what a gorgeous language with
its many many noun cases, but I wanted to capture
(13:06):
something about her, and to me, what was the juxtaposition
there that was interesting was that she's this like staunch
German politician and yet there's almost a I saw a
glimmer of like a girlish longing and insecurity and sweetness
underneath that, and that tension is what I just sort
(13:27):
of like me and the writer who wrote it just
sort of like spun up into a sketch. That's so
interesting because I know her and you did. That's a
very good capture. Oh yeah, and because when I have
spent personal time, private time with her, she's funny, she's unguarded,
she is a good storyteller, she is very effusive, and
(13:53):
then you know she does have to put on the
I'm the leader of my country, uh look and go forward.
But yeah, you really captured that. That's great. But you
have to be almost an acute psychologist to do what
you do, because you've got to find something to hold
on too. I mean you do somebody like Jeff Sessions.
Oh my gosh, I mean what do you hang on too?
(14:13):
I mean, what is there that you're going to be
able to find relatable, let alone you know, humorous. It
really requires some some in depth thinking, right for I mean,
for that one, I just I disagreed so vehemently with
everything that he was doing and and thought. But to me,
(14:34):
he seemed like a perfectly jovial person, like a filled
with effervescent um puckish joy, and I thought, well, that's
an interesting tension. I hate what this guy's doing, and
yet I think I would like him if if I
(14:55):
didn't know his politics. He's a sort of there's something
impat and boy like about him that I that I
responded to, and that to me was an interesting tension.
Are there people on your list that you want to
impersonate at any time in the future somebody that pops
into mind. Politicians are definitely my favorite, because there's always
(15:18):
and maybe you can attest to this, there's always layers
built in because someone's the persona that any politician presents.
I'm guessing, you know, correct, is not what is underneath.
Um is something that's constructed, and there's always comedic tension
to be mined there between someone's persona and their private life. Well,
(15:41):
obviously I saw that when you portrayed me Um, you know,
I thought it was pretty brilliant, and I loved doing
that scene with you where I was val the bartender.
That was the best known of my life. I had
so much fun. I was just so taken by the
whole experience because even though I on on s and
now I think once before, but it was some years
(16:03):
prior being there that time, and having you know, a
whole scene where you and I were doing it together,
and then going up to Lauren's office while you talked
about how it was going and what the you know,
changes were needed. I found that fascinating. I loved that
so much because we had talked about you know, I
remember watching with absolute joy when you came on with
(16:28):
Amy Poehler, and we talked about doing something like that,
and then our writers Chris Kelly and Sara Schneider, who
are brilliant, We're like, no, it should be a more conversational,
less presentational thing. What if you guys did a scene
together And I thought, yeah, great, And then you were
so funny and you so embodying the character of Val
(16:52):
the Bartender. Yeah, you know, I mean, yeah, have me back.
I mean, you know, the Bartender has lots to talk
about right now. I mean, there's so much going on.
He man, you know, let's discuss the world. I have
to say. I also, along with you know, millions of
other people, was just really knocked out by your singing
(17:17):
Hallelujah that first episode after the election, and you know,
I didn't know whether I'd ever get a chance to
thank you or to certainly do it in a you know,
public way. But that was an incredible performance and it
was so meaningful to me. How did that even come together?
How how did you all decide to do that? Well?
(17:40):
Thank you first of all? That means a lot. And
we were we had bandied a few things about. We
were all so broken. I know, for me, that was
the biggest heartbreak of my life. I've than my father
dying when I was a teenager. I was so you know,
and Leonard Cohen had passed that week, and my uh
(18:04):
same the same writer friends, Chris Kelly and Sara Schneider
had sent along this verse of Hallelujah that I had
never heard of, about even when things go wrong, standing
before the Lord of Song with nothing on your tongue
but Hallelujah. And I thought, oh, that's what this moment
calls for, if we can muster it, and I wanted to.
(18:29):
It just came from a very personal place of wanting
to commiserate and provide some shred of something to people
who were devastated, and I knew it was going to
not sit well with people who weren't and I just
had to, you know, I just I had to share
how I felt. It was like a very primitive just
(18:51):
wanting to connect with my countrymen in that moment, and
and also on some level with you. I mean, I
didn't figure you'd be watching, but I wanted to say
something that I thought you might say, and I thought
maybe you, in your infinite strength, might offer some ray
(19:16):
of hope. At that moment, I wanted to just give
people a hug. Basically, Yeah, yeah, it was. It felt
like a big hug. And you know, people still come
up and cry with me or around me, and so
it just had such a huge impact on so many people.
(19:41):
We're taking a quick break, stay with us. You know,
you've said, and I've heard you and other interviews and
read that you have a lot of eclectic interest, which
I relate to. I mean, you do everything from I
(20:02):
do because I'm so I'm interested in so many odds
and ends, and you're interested in astrophysics, music theory, the
history of the Silk Road, which I really relate to.
So what are you interested in these days? What what
you know? What's catching your attention? Well, other things that
are in my fancy right now mostly have to do
with survival, and I think you can understand why I've
(20:25):
become very interested suddenly in plant science, farming, growing food, plumbing,
heating and cooling systems, um, construction, things like that. Um,
I'm good. I'm a prepper. Now I'm will be going
to my bunker. And I got your barker picked out.
I made you know where it is. I drive every
(20:47):
weekend to look for it. Yeah. Yeah, don't worry, don't
worry about Just let me know in case I need
a bunker. You know, you always need a spare bunker.
You never know what's going to happen. Well, as you know,
we set aside some time in the last episode of
the season to answer some listener questions, and you've graciously
agreed to come along for the ride on this, and
(21:10):
so let's get started. See what people have on their minds. Kate,
Oh my goodness. Okay, So I have these printed out
and I will read them to you and you would
answer them as yourself. Okay, not not as Val the bartender,
but as Or or take on your alter ego. But
(21:30):
get the shirt please and the name to otherwise we
won't understand what's going on. Okay, this is from Melinda.
Dear Madam, Secretary or as you are now in my
head Hilly Billy, which I think it's so great. I
am a voracious reader, as I know you are. I
have you to thank for introducing me to Louise Penny,
who's entire of I've now devoured, including State of Terror,
(21:53):
which was excellent. My question to you is this, what
have you been reading lately and what would you recommend?
Great question. Well, because I did have COVID and was
down for a week, I caught up on some of
my favorite historic fiction kind of series. So I read
the latest Donna Leone Great Mysteries set in Venice if
(22:16):
you have not discovered those. I read the latest Charles Todd,
set in nineteen twenties after World War One England, very good.
And then I've recently discovered the historical novels by Sharon K. Penman.
I'm reading her series about King Henry and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
(22:42):
Very interesting, not only well done, but really engrossing. So
those are some of the things I'm reading. What happens
don't tell me? Okay, here we have a question from
Craig flicking Er. What are your thoughts on the State
of Attack. We find on the lg ME too plus
community with Florida's Don't Say Gay bill passing seventeen in
(23:05):
Texas with its anti transagenda, I can't help but wonder
how this plays into the midterm elections. Oh my gosh it.
First of all, it's profoundly outraging and deeply sad that
you have people in positions of power in our country
who are more interested in undermining and opposing the rights
(23:32):
of individuals than they are in bringing people together. And
I think people have to stand up to it. And
the idea don't say gay. I mean I think people
should go around, you know, saying gay all the time.
Anything we can do to puncture the hypocrisy and the
cruelty that lies behind this, we need to be doing. Uh.
(23:54):
So that's um, you know, my hope. And and do
it with comedy, do it with political action. And you
mentioned the mid terms, and let me just say, please
please turn out and vote. You know, the hypocrites and
the hate mongers win when people don't vote. So that
would be my plea as we move forward in this year,
(24:17):
let's say it now together on three one to three
gay gay gay gay. Okay. This is from Pie or
her email handle is a griffin door equestrian girl. That's
a good one. Hello, Hillary and Mry guest. It's me Hello.
(24:39):
I have two questions. I hope that's okay. One, what
are some of your favorite songs and artists? My favorites
are Joanne and Born to Die, Lady Gaga, Lana del Ray,
Taylor Swift, and Nate Lewis. And do you have any
pets and how are they doing? Well? Let's start with
the easy question on pets. Yes, we have dogs. We
(25:02):
have a labradoodle named Mazie and we have a toy
poodle named Tally short for Tallula. Uh. They're both getting
up in years, but they still are full of personality
and incredibly fun to be around. Now asked to songs.
I like your question, and I like what you said
(25:23):
about some of your favorites. So here's what I'm currently doing.
You know, I've always loved from the time I was,
you know, literally a teenager up until now, I've always
loved listening to women's voices, you know, women like Carol
King and Judy Collins and Joan Bayaz and Joni Mitchell.
I mean, they were really formative. So now fast forward,
(25:48):
a very long time. I am listening to a lot
of the really famous young women. So I love I
love Lady Gaga. I love her both as a performed
her and a singer. I just really also like her sensibility.
I mean, just in the last week, the way that
she was with Liliza Manelli at the ill fated infamous Oscars,
(26:12):
she ended that with such a note of grace, which
was well needed. Um at the Grammys, which I was watching,
you know, she came and carried the train of a
skirt for someone who was having trouble because of crutches.
So I like Lady Gaga. I really like Adele. I
listened to everything Adele does. Um, I'm listening to a
(26:34):
lot of Taylor Swift, and I really like Taylor Swift.
I like her storytelling. I'm getting really into Taylor Swift.
I'm starting to listen to Billie Eilish. I think her
talent is so multifaceted, everything from you know, James Bond
to ballads and all in between. So I'm just I'm
I'm kind of educating myself, if that makes sense to you,
(26:56):
trying to hear and listen and learn about this new
wonderful generation of wonderful women singers. Wow, bless you. How
about you, Kate? Who do you listen to these days?
I stick? I just I stick with songs that I
learned in college. And that's it. Either that I don't
like to try new foods. Okay, that's not true. I
(27:18):
do like to try new foods, which leads us into
our next question from Kathy Lee. I think you've said
that your favorite job was being the U S Senator
from New York for eight years. Can you talk about
a couple of issues? Okay, so the food part comes later.
Can you talk about a couple of issues that you
worked on that we're most meaningful to you or events
(27:40):
they're most memorable that are not related to the nine
eleven tragedy. Yeah. Well, obviously not eleven was the overwhelming experience,
but then the after effects of N eleven, trying to
get healthcare for the first responders and the emergency workers
and fighting that battle for years, um, trying to make
(28:02):
sure that you know, victims and their families got compensation
because of the horrific losses that they experienced, and then rebuilding, rebuilding,
you know, Lower Manhattan. I spent a lot of time
putting together legislation and deals to help get that started.
I also spent a lot of time on healthcare, as
(28:24):
you might guess, because worked really hard and been part
of getting health care for kids. But then there were
so many other issues, and one that I worked a
lot on was trying to make sure that drug companies
didn't just treat children like small adults when they came
to doing drug trials, because they're not small adults and
(28:47):
they need, you know, really special attention. As we're seeing
now with the COVID vaccines, which have been literally miraculous
for children under five, they're not quite getting it right.
It seems to be safe, but not that effect. And
so frankly, the work that I did back when I
was a senator is absolutely instrumental and how they're trying
to figure out, you know, what are the right doses
(29:09):
and what's safe and what works for kids with vaccines.
I spent you know, a lot of time on environmental issues, uh,
something I care deeply about and I just don't want
to see our rules and regulations turned back. We fought
hard to get clean water and clean air, and by God,
those should be everybody's birthright. Well, bless you for that
(29:32):
because I drank a gallon of New York City tap
water a day and it's good. It's the best water
in the world. It's such good water. And you know,
I just would add, Kate, because you've raised one of
my favorite issues in New York City's tap water. Look
at why it's so good in part because a hundred
and fifty years ago or so, people who ran New
(29:54):
York City and New York State made the decision to
buy up land upstay eat which had waterways, and to
create a reservoir system and then to protect it all
these years, and it's been one of the most important
piece of legislation I think passed in certainly New York
and maybe even the country because New York City water
(30:16):
is still very lightly, if at all, filtered, because it
has been kept so pure from the sources. So if
you plan ahead and you do the right things, it
has a long term you know, positive effects. Amen and
kathe Lee also asks and this I want to know,
can you share a favorite dish or dessert from five
(30:36):
different places that you've traveled, because you've traveled every part
of this world. Oh my god, you know they have
to do five, But you know, I'm curious. Yeah, I mean, okay, look,
I I adore dessert. Let's start there, Okay, I mean,
let's not be let's let's not pretend like I don't
(30:56):
adore dessert, because I do. And I would have to say,
anywhere you go in Italy, whether it is gelato of
every flavor, or Tierra Masou or any other incredible Italian dessert,
c'm in right. If you go to France, anything chocolate,
(31:17):
I don't know why it is what my go to is.
If you go to I will say Armenia, where I
have been twice, I had the best fruit for dessert
I think I've ever had in my life. Apricots, peaches, cherries.
(31:38):
I don't know why. I don't know why they were
so delicious, but I just absolutely adored them. So those
are just some of my favorites from my travels. You
heard it here first, folks, Stone fruits from the caucusus
the best We'll be right back, all right. And from
(32:07):
leslie E in Oregon. Pretty much everyone I know wrote
to you after you quote unquote lost in It was
somehow comforting for us, and we hoped in some small
way to lift you up and also to thank you
for your courage and leadership. But how did it feel?
Could you bear to read any of that mail? And
(32:27):
did it help? Well? Yes, it helped a lot. And
I tried to answer every one of them, and I
don't know, I hope I answered yours and your friends
because it meant the world to me. You know. I
got such heartfelt letters, and they came from people of
all ages, all kinds of formats, some you know, pictures
(32:51):
that little kids did for me, some heartrending long handwritten letters,
some very smart, typed formal letters but with a impact
to them. I got thousands and thousands and they will
all end up in the library somewhere at some point.
(33:11):
What was so moving to me were that the people
who were writing me after that election were people who
really paid attention. They didn't just dip in and out
of the campaign. They paid attention to what the candidates
were saying, and they paid attention to what I was saying,
and so their feelings were really rooted in an understanding
(33:32):
of what I was not only saying, but what I
intended to try to do. And that was particularly meaningful
to me. Okay, unless, but not least, we have two
voicemails here's one of them. Hi, Hillary, my name is Leah.
I'm from Brooklyn. My question for you is were the
beds in the White House comfortable? Thanks? Leah. They were
(33:57):
very comfortable. And I have to tell you that the
mattress in the White House was so comfortable that, you know,
when we moved, since the White House would provide a
new mattress for our successor, we said can we take
the mattress with us? And they said sure, we're just
going to throw it away otherwise. So literally we had
(34:17):
that mattress for twenty years. In fact, Leah, we have
just bought a new mattress. It was that comfortable for
that long. Okay, great, and here's one more. Hi, Secretary Clinton.
My name is Sophie and I am in Virginia, and
my question is more about your personal daily routines. I
(34:38):
think for many of us, and certainly you, the past
six years have felt like one trauma after another, and
I think many of us are grappling with how we
spend our time day to day in order to keep
hope and to keep optimism going well for ourselves but
also the people who are around us. I love to
(35:01):
walk a lot, I love to read but I'm wondering
if there are other things that you personally do and
that you're committed to to keep yourself feeling hopeful. Thank you, Oh, Sophie. Yeah,
I know that that's a really common feeling and I
feel it myself, so I really relate to your question.
(35:23):
Here's what I have done and it really helps me
a lot. One is spend a lot of time outdoors.
I try to go for a walk, and I try
to go to a place like a park, um preserve
some woods, just anything to kind of break my routine
and try to walk for an hour. I highly recommend it.
(35:45):
You know, there's a concept in Japanese called forest bathing,
which I love the concept of where you are just
immersed in nature. So hiking, walking, biking, anything that gets
you outdoors. I'm a huge supporter of that. Secondly, I
like to spend time with, you know, people that are
(36:06):
positive and have positive energy, because there's so much that
drags you down these days. So spending time with people
that I like and admire, people who are old friends
and new friends. I'm very grateful for that. As a grandmother,
I've spent a lot of time with my grandchildren. I
have a seven year old granddaughter and a five and
(36:29):
two and a half year old grandson to three all
together and they are constantly, you know, just little engines
of positivity. I also try to read and watch things
that make me laugh, make me smile, make me think,
but don't depress me, because you know, I'm not tuning
into all of the meanness and the anger. Um. I
(36:53):
read about it, which I can handle better than watching it,
and then I use my social media to speak out
again instant. I'm angry beyond words about Ukraine and what
Russia and Putin are doing, and so I'm trying to
be helpful there, but I'm trying not to let it
totally consume me. So I don't know if that's helpful, Sophie,
but that's how I try to deal with a lot
(37:15):
of the stuff that we're all living with. Gosh, you know,
I love you. I'll say it, you know, as a
public figure and as a person. You know, you watch
that many hours of footage of someone and you feel
like you. I feel like you're my best friend. I
(37:38):
know that you don't feel me necessarily, but I you know,
I feel like I really got to understand and adore
you on a very personal level, and it has just
been the absolute honor of my life to have any
proximity to you at all, And so thank you for
(38:01):
having me on this podcast and for being my vell.
Thank you so much for doing this Kate, and right
back at you, and let's go out and have some
dessert sometime. Okay, great. You won't find Kate on social media,
but you can find her on this season of Saturday
(38:23):
Night Live, which wraps up later this month, and on
the Peacock drama series Joe Versus Carol and I want
to give a big thank you to all of you
who called or wrote in with your questions for this episode.
I so appreciate hearing from each and every one of you.
I wish we had the time to answer all of
(38:43):
your questions. And that, my friends, is it for this
season of You and Me Both. We'll be back in
a few months, but in the meantime, we've got lots
of great conversations you can go back and listen to,
including another round of listener questions I answered with help
from James Cordon. You and Me Both is brought to
(39:08):
you by I Heart Radio. We're produced by Julie Subran
Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo, with help from Huma Aberdeen,
Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Brianna Johnson, Nick Merrill, Laura Olan,
Lona Vlmorrow, and Benita Zaman. Our engineer is Zack McNeice
(39:31):
and original music is by Forest Gray. If you like
you and me both, please tell someone else about it.
And if you're not already a subscriber, what are you
waiting for? You can subscribe to you and me both
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. Let's keep taking
(39:54):
care of ourselves, each other, and our democracy, and I'll
see you when we come back.
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