March 9, 2021 • 50 mins
American politics have long served as inspiration for movies, plays, and especially television -- from fictional shows like “The West Wing” to late-night comedy shows. For a lot of people, those shows have become a major source of information when it comes to our government, political system, and the state of the world.
In this episode, we hear from three people who have been front and center in bringing politics into our living rooms and beyond. Hillary talks with Samantha Bee, host of the comedy show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, which tackles under-reported but hugely important stories in the news with biting humor. Then, Hillary is joined by Kerry Washington, star of the Emmy-award winning show Scandal, to talk about how no one—not even Olivia Pope—holds as much power as ordinary citizens do when it comes to bringing about political change. Lastly, Hillary talks to Alec Baldwin, who has finally been released from his stint playing Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live.
Samantha Bee is a comedian and the host of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee on TBS. She was previously the longest-serving correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She also hosts the podcast Full Release with Samantha Bee.
Kerry Washington is an actress, producer, and director known for her role as Washington fixer Olivia Pope in ABC’s Scandal, and as Anita Hill in the HBO political thriller Confirmation, both of which have garnered her numerous awards. She recently served as an executive producer on The Fight, a documentary film revolving around the legal battles of ACLU lawyers during the Trump administration. Washington is also a dedicated advocate on behalf of racial justice, voting rights, and more.
Alec Baldwin is an actor and writer who starred as Jack Donaghy in NBC’s 30 Rock and frequently portrayed Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live. He has written three books: A Promise to Ourselves; his memoir, Nevertheless; and, with Kurt Andersen, the Donald Trump parody You Can’t Spell America Without Me. Alec is also the host of the iHeart Radio podcast Here’s the Thing.
Read a full transcript here.
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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.
American politics has long served as inspiration for movies, plays,
and especially television, from shows like The West Wing, Madam Secretary,
or Veep, all of which I really enjoyed, to late
(00:23):
night comedy shows, and for a lot of people, shows
like those have become a major source of information when
it comes to our government, our political system, and even
the state of the world. You know. In fact, when
I was Secretary of State and I was visiting Myanmar
formerly Burma, and I went to their first gathering of
(00:45):
people who were part of their parliament congress, I was
told that a lot of them had learned about politics,
you know, not from reading books, but watching The West Wing.
So this has a big impact on how people think
about politics and government, and that's why I wanted to
explore all of it on today's show. So I'll be
talking to three people known for playing politics on TV
(01:09):
because they have played politicians or talked about politicians, and
it's clear their influence extends well beyond their audience. We'll
hear from Carrie Washington, who is every bit as much
of a political Powerhouse as her fictional character Olivia Pope
(01:32):
on Scandal, and I'll be talking to Alec Baldwin, who
has finally been able to retire from playing Donald Trump
on Saturday Night Live. But first, I am so delighted
to be speaking with Samantha By. Like a lot of people,
I first started watching Samantha By during her time as
(01:52):
a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and
in she started her own show, Full Front Told with
Samantha By on TBS. I really like her biting, hilarious
interviews and commentaries on topics that don't get nearly enough
coverage in the usual news cycle, you know, ones like
(02:14):
voting rights, or women's health or the importance of reigning
in big tech. These days, Samantha, her husband, and her
three kids are waiting out the pandemic in New York City,
and I am so happy to have her on this podcast. Hello, Hello,
oh Samantha, I'm so happy to see you. I am thrilled.
(02:37):
How are you and your family holding up under the pandemic? Well,
thank you for asking. I don't know. Well, let's talk
about it two years from now and see where we
are mentally. I mean I'm very grateful nobody in our
immediate circle was ill. I think we're all like, emotionally
(02:57):
in the same place everyone else is in. We're so
ready for this to be over and try to get
back to something resembling quote normal life. My kids are
in the New York City public school system, and they
have not been in school for so long. You know,
my eldest daughter occasionally will go for a very socially distant,
(03:18):
cold weather masked walk with her friends. But all of
my young son's friends are immuno compromised in some way,
or they live with an elderly relative, so he hasn't
seen another boy his age since March last year. I mean,
it's crazy. That is so hard. I think you're right
(03:39):
on point in saying that we're not going to know
for a couple of years what all of the costs are.
We obviously know now more than five hundred thousands people
have died, which is not to even mention the probably
hundreds of thousands more people who died and was never
attributed to COVID, and the millions of millions and millions
(03:59):
of millions of people who got so ill and disrupted
their lives and their work and they're everything. It's so
it's devastating, and it's one of those I'm incandescitely angry about. Yeah,
well you're good at incandescent anger. I know throughout the pandemic,
you've you've continued to, you know, try to do the show.
(04:21):
I guess you were off for a while, but then
you came back. Yes, well we didn't actually take that
much time off. We took only really one show off
of the calendar. Wow, Because well, I was born in
Canada and I was raised there, and I am, if
nothing else, very pragmatic, Like I have a staff of
about sixty five to seventy people, and for that reason,
(04:44):
and my husband and I really wanted to get the
show back on the air as fast as possible, just
to put like a point of focus on our own week,
but also on the weeks of all the people who
work at Full Frontal. Just to have one thing to do,
to have one thing to be able to say, like,
I have a mission this week, I thought would be
really critical. So we worked so hard to get the
(05:07):
show up and in action as quickly as possible. You know,
it's such a typical hard working woman's commitment to say
I'm going back, I'll multitask, I'll be there very much. So, yeah,
very much like doing this podcast. You know, we took
a little break where it started a little later. I'm like, great,
I'm gonna go do the dishes, like exactly. You're always
(05:29):
there's never really a moment where you just sit and
stare into space. You know, your show, it's it's almost
hard to believe now started during the election cycle. I remembered, well,
and honestly, I don't know how someone with your intelligence
and point of view really got through the last four
(05:52):
years because you had to cope with this you know
phenomenon Donald Trump. I don't know how any of us
really made it through, to be perfectly honest, yourself especially,
I don't know how we did it. I don't know.
I don't think that we ever got used to it.
It wasn't what we wanted. I definitely, you know, I
(06:16):
deflected this question a lot, which was like, but aren't
you secretly happy because it gives you so much to
talk about on your show? And I was like, trust me,
there's lots to talk about other than this person. And
so you know now that we're trying to build the
show without the looming specter of that person and that
(06:37):
administration lurching behind us the way that he lurched behind
you on the stage. You know, we have a full
slate of stories that we're doing. There's lots to cover,
there's so many stones to overturn, and and we're approaching
it really joyfully. Oh that's good. Clearly a lot of
people get their news from all kinds of sources, but
(07:00):
one of the sources is comedy shows like yours, and
you regularly on like some tackle serious issues that you
clearly feel a sense of urgency about. You tackle family separation,
you know, me to equal pay and and lots more.
And how do you balance that? I think difficult role
(07:20):
of being both a source of comedy and a source
of information. First of all, I have an incredible team
and a lot of bona fide journalists on my team,
and a really strong adherence to research, commitment to getting
the story straight. Actually, I have a brain that doesn't
remember names. Like, if you ask me who my biggest
(07:41):
influences are, I can never remember the right person, and
then two hours later I go, oh my god, it
was her the whole time. I never am so bad
at that, But I actually was really trying to pin
it down the other day and I was like, right,
it's like my show is like this weird intersection of
like sixty minutes segments that I really love, and also
(08:05):
Jon Stewart, you know, and my years at the Daily Show,
but also Howard Stern. Like those three influences, if combined,
have a love of news and a real love of
great journalism from my early childhood, honestly, and I also
love comedy, and so the intersection of those worlds it's
(08:26):
just the sweet spot where I like to live. Tell
me about one of the episodes you're most proud of. Well,
as I've stated, I can't ever remember anything that I've
ever really done, I would say that one of the
episodes I'm most proud of relates to you. I think
I'm very proud that we made an episode the day
after the election, And believe me, it took a lot
(08:48):
because we were destroyed, um shocked, up hauled. I mean, like,
who am I talking to right now? But it was
obviously was an earthquake, and then we were expected to
go and make jokes, and we had this loon drop
planned and we had Lizzo was on a private jet
to the studio to sing an awesome song about feeling great.
(09:09):
We were all peers and retreating into our turtlenecks, and
people on staff with family members in Iran, We're like,
I'm never going to see my family again. Like so,
I'm really proud that we dusted it off and did
a show. I'm proud of our show about family separation
and multiple shows. I'm proud of our coverage of the
(09:33):
Me Too movement. I'm really proud of the people that
I work with. They're just great. Well. But it also
I think added to this whole sense of protecting democracy,
protecting the vulnerable and the marginalized, standing up to all
these forces that came out from under all the rocks
(09:53):
that were kicked over, and perhaps on a more shallow note,
it is also nice, well, okay, on an shallow note,
I'm happy to have planted a flag in history and
said I'm on this side. This is where we stand,
and we think this is an abomination and we're just
gonna park it right here, and we're just going to
keep saying that until it's over. And this is the
(10:14):
shallow part. I'm really happy to be on the correct
side of Ted Cruise. Yes, we've gone hard on Ted
Cruise over the years on the show, and it feels
great to be so right. Sometimes you just have to
bathe in that golden glow. Yeah, you've earned a place
there and you should just keep under that bright light
(10:35):
of vindication. But the other thing you've done, which of
course I pay particular attention to, is you've been quite
brave and stepping up and saying, wait a minute, it's
not just what the politicians are doing. It's the way
the media covers what they're doing. But when you go
after the media, of which you are a part, how
(10:57):
does that work out? You actually have to be very
thoughtful about it. We're a part of the media ecosystem,
and we can't make everyone in the media mad at us,
or then they won't cover our show. So that's a
really serious part of our internal conversations. It's like, how
do we talk about Facebook when we're promoting our show
(11:18):
on Facebook? And ultimately, we have taken really I think
we've taken really big swings, and I'm proud that we
stick to our guns. I definitely experienced. You know, I
can't believe I'm bringing it up because they don't often
choose to bring it up. But when I had my
biggest controversy when I used a slur against Ivanka Trump,
(11:40):
I really had a moment where I just I felt
like I walked through fire. I felt like I walked
over hot coals and came out on the other side
with a deep understanding of how a big story can
just be totally obfuscated by a small medium moment of
a lady calling another lady a bad thing when what
(12:01):
we were really talking about was family separation, Like, the
story became what I had said versus the story that
I was trying to cover, And for about a week,
the story in the media was what a shame that,
you know, the use of the slur took away from
that story about family separation. What a shame. And I
was like, you're the media, that's right, you're supposed to
(12:24):
cover the other thing. That's not myum a comedy lady, like,
I don't want to talk about this. It's not comedic.
Where our hearts are broken right now, it's your job
to go, oh, that was a thing, But what was
she really talking? Right, we should be focusing on family
separation seven until it's remedied. But you know what happened
to you as you just described, it shows part of
(12:46):
a much bigger pattern, which is how easy it is
to deflect the so called mainstream media away from underlying stories.
They're so easily distracted. We see it all the time.
And there was a public appetite too for that kind
of distraction. I mean, I do worry that we all
maybe have the attention span of goldfish. It's really really
(13:09):
hard work to stay focused on stories that no one
wants to talk about. Well, is there some story looking
back now four years ago that you thought is the
most important, untold or undertold story from the Trump era? Yes?
I mean the answer is yes, times ten thousand. His
international business dealings is just a story that did not
(13:31):
grip people. You know, Adam Davidson was doing like incredible
reporting at The New Yorker about his business ties in
Azerbaijan and internationally that are fascinating, and just a ball
of tangled wire to unferral his tax dealings, his relationships
(13:51):
to known money launderers, like all of those stories just
nothing stuck. I agree with you, But when thinking about
these last four years as you've chronicled them, I think
it's important to ask how close do you think we
came to really losing our democracy to you know, seeing
changes that we're almost becoming irreversible. I think we came
(14:17):
much too close to another Trump victory. Honestly, when as
I say it out loud as we're talking about it,
I did start to sweat. There is an enormous number
of people who said yes to more of that, and
that I find so scary and so daunting. So I
(14:38):
think we came really close, and I think we are
still close. Listen, I think people are generally and I
still say this after five years of doing the show.
They think people are generally good. We're a nation of
really great people. We can do it, but it takes
so much work, and so does I do worry a
(14:59):
little bit that we're going to kind of come out
of the pandemic into the roaring twenties again and being
really loosen, we're great colors and Peppy's leaves and start
partying and kind of forget about the underlying meat on
the bone of keeping this work going. I think you're
so right to point that out, because that's what happened
(15:20):
after the so called Spanish Flu. We went into the
nineteen twenties, the Roaring nineteen twenties, and I mean, I
want people to roar again, the economy to roar again.
But I do want people, as you rightly say, Samantha,
to think about what we went through. I can't thank
you enough for what you do all the time. You
really try to help us all understand better what we're
(15:44):
going through. Well, the feeling is very mutual, my friend.
I hope your kids get to have a play date sometimes.
I hope they get to go back to school sometime.
The same for your grandkids. I hope they get to
meet other kids. Happy novel. They're all like a bunch
of little you know, Martian aliens coming to gather for
the first time. You're just going to play the mirror game.
What are you? What are you? Where have you been? Oh? Samantha,
(16:07):
thank you so much and please keep going. We need you.
Thank you. You can catch Samantha Wednesday nights on TBS,
and you can also hear from her on her podcast
Full Release with Samantha B. Now I'm getting to talk
(16:30):
to Carrie Washington. She's an actor, producer, director. She runs
her own production company called Simpson Street. I first became
aware of her certainly on Scandal, literally couldn't take my
eyes off of her because of her grace and her
power on the screen and in real life. She's a
(16:52):
dedicated advocate on behalf of racial justice, voting rights, democracy,
and so much more. So. Welcome. I'm so happy you're
with us, Carrie, Thank you, thank you so much for
having me. I want to talk about your amazing career
and the fabulous roles you've played, but I want to
start on the activism side, because I think you and
(17:14):
I share a sense of urgency. Last year, you joined
the Black Voices for Black just As Fund as a
co chair, and you ended up helping to distribute over
one and a half million dollars to black leaders fighting
for a more fair, equitable, anti racist America. What does
(17:35):
that work mean to you. I'm really proud to be
a co chair for the fund because one of my superpowers,
because of how lucky I've been in my career, is
that people pay attention to the things I'm doing or saying,
whether I like it or not, whether you know, whether
it's like pop Rozzi following me around when I'm pregnant
or whatever it is. For some reason, I have eyeballs
(17:57):
on me at times, and so to be able to
shift the as eyeballs and resources to activists on the
ground who are doing the day to day work of
ending racism, working towards equity, working towards liberation for all people.
I'm so passionate about that. I wanted to talk to
you not only because of you know, the great roles
you've played and your success, but because you feel so
(18:20):
deeply that this work is critical to your life, the
lives of your children, and to our country. Yeah. We
produced a project this year at Simpson Street called The Fight.
It's a documentary about the a c l U. I
think this film is the thing I'm most proud of
in my career today, which is so funny because it's
the one project where I'm not on camera right, but
(18:43):
it's um. I love this film so much because we
had unprecedented access into the a c l U. And
I don't have to tell you the a c l
U has sued every administration in the last one years. Democrat, Republican,
doesn't matter. They are invested in defending the human rights
of all people. And so we got to be the
trenches with these lawyers and get to know them. For
(19:03):
the superheroes that they are defending justice, but also we
got to go home with them, so we got to
see them, you know, trying to keep their kids quiet
while they're on a zoom call and losing, you know,
being afraid that they're not going to be able to
hear the Supreme Court decision because they can't find their
charger for their cell phone. Right Like, we got to
to just see them as everyday people. And one of
(19:24):
the things that we really like to do at the
company is figure out how to upend otherness. Right Like,
there is this paradigm and culture that a certain kind
of person is the hero of the story, the hero
of of our legends are sort of shared cultural stories,
and that there are other people who get to play
supporting roles and characters. And traditionally women have been in
(19:47):
the supporting role, and people of color have been in
the supporting role, the wife, the best friend, and that
the heroes have been you know, straight white, cis gender men.
And so we really like the idea of up ending
that idea that each of us is at the center
of our own story in real life and in our
shared narratives. Well, you really upended a lot of those,
(20:07):
uh preconceptions. With Scandal, where you played Olivia Pope, everyone
knows that alter ego a powerful black woman with a
prominent position in Washington, and I think you really helped
to change the entertainment world and the discussion about whose
(20:30):
story is worth telling. And although this was a fictional character,
it was still something that gripped the imagination of millions
of people looking back on that. How do you feel
about Olivia Pope and Scandal now? You know, I think
a lot about the history of Scandal now that I'm
out of it. I think when I was in it,
(20:51):
it was such a whirlwind. You know, it's hard to
have perspective about these big historic moments while they're unfolding.
But you know, when when our show for aired, people
talked about how much of a quote unquote risk it
was for the network to center a black woman as
the lead of a network drama. And it hadn't happened
in I think thirty eight years at the time, almost
(21:13):
forty years, and I was in my early thirties, so
in my lifetime, I hadn't seen it. And I just
remember the pressure, the pressure, the expectations of like you
have to succeed. I felt like, if our show didn't
make it, it would be another forty years before a
woman of color. You yeah, you, I felt it. But
(21:35):
what was thrilling was not because we were so great.
We worked really hard on that show, but because audiences
showed up. Audiences turned on their televisions, they recorded us
on their DVR, they talked about us on social media.
We became a success, which allowed for other women of color.
Panco Chopra had to show. Viola Davis had a show
and made history winning the Emmy, like you know, Empire,
(21:58):
all of these other show was that centered black women
because suddenly it wasn't a risk, Suddenly we were approven
deal exactly. It changed the landscape of who we believe
deserves to be at the center of stories on network television. Well,
when you're talking about how long it had been, I
couldn't help but think about Cecily Tyson, who we just
(22:19):
recently lost, and she was someone who I admired from
a distance. I remember Sounder. I remember Miss Jane Pittman
and Miss Jane Pittman was a one hour long TV movie.
I think, yeah, exactly, and I remember when I saw
it all those years ago, probably before you were born.
(22:40):
I was so struck by how what should have been
a breakthrough back then, you know, kind of went silent,
and then it had to be done all over again.
And one of the challenges will be making sure it
doesn't revert back. I just love her. I won't even
say loved. I love her so so so much. I
(23:02):
have all these connections to her. She was at my
baby shower from my Isabel. She and Diane Carroll Um
and Jane Fonda, all my kind of like Hollywood goddess
mentors um. But I was born on the night of
the last episode of Roots. Oh my gosh. That funny.
And I know that because my dad was not in
(23:24):
the delivery room. He was in the waiting room with
the nurses watching the final episode of My mother was like,
where is everybody? It's a very famous story in our family.
We're taking a quick break. Stay with us. You know.
(23:48):
You have taken on so many roles, but one very
moving performance was when you played Anita Hill in the
movie Confirmation about her incredibly brave testimony during Clarence Thomas's
confirmation hearings in did you meet her when you were
making the movie? I did tell me about that. She
(24:11):
was so generous with sharing her experience with me, and
I'll be forever grateful because it's a real responsibility. I mean,
it's funny. Cecily Tyson talked about this a lot, the
responsibility of sort of playing characters with dignity, and with
Anita Hill, there's no way not to. She's such a
(24:34):
person of grace and elegance, and even her fierce courage
came cloaked in her elegant dignity at all times. So
I really I loved having the opportunity to play her.
But I also really loved producing that material right because
it allowed me to have a real voice at the
(24:55):
table about what her experience was like as a black woman,
to make sure that there was authent the city there.
And also she and I had a great laugh because
when I shot that scene of the Senate hearing, I
got to experience what she felt of being this black
woman facing a sea of powerful white men sitting above her,
(25:17):
looking down on her, just like attacking her with questions
at times. The twist from what she did and what
I did thirty years later was that now all of
those white men were actually working for me, and so
I got to sort of live in the emotional tumult
(25:39):
that she experienced. But when we called cut, I was
in charge, and we we really sort of laughed about
how wonderful that was that I could honor her in
that way. Well, you're so right about that elegant dignity.
She withstood such a brutal, consistent attack on her character
(26:01):
and her veracity, and you know, it did trigger a reaction,
you know, the women of the House marched over to
the Senate. Changes were made, women were elected. But I
could not help thinking about her during the Brett Kavanaugh
confirmation hearings because I thought about how controlled and careful
(26:23):
she had been when she was being attacked. And then
we saw Christine blazie Ford feeling, you know, very pained
because they wouldn't believe her, and I thought, you know,
these two women decades apart, telling their truth in their
own way, and they're both being disrespected. I really thought
(26:44):
a lot about Anita Hill, Professor Hill, in that moment too,
because the attack on her, just like the attack on
Christine Blasie Ford, was concocted so that Clarence Thomas, who
I went to lost gool with, I have known a
very long time. Wow. And the reactions that he and
(27:06):
Kavanaugh both had were deliberately absolutely intended to spark indignation
and outrage. I mean, the whole thing was just, you know,
heartbreaking to me, because you know, you'd hope that things
would have changed more than they did, given how brave
you know, those women were to come forward to do
(27:29):
what they thought of as you know, their duty. Yeah.
I spoke to Anita a lot in that period. I
remember calling her and checking on her, and one of
the things that I thought a lot about was, these
are the moments that invite us to realize that we
don't get to check out right, these are the moments
that pull us back in. We don't get to act
(27:50):
like this is ancient history, exactly that misogyny is ancient history.
And also these moments provide us with an opportunity to
see that there are systems in place, that this is
not about personalities, This is not about individuals, This is systematic.
I just think it's so important for us to to
(28:11):
hold that and to somehow like to somehow keep working
for change, right, to somehow keep saying yes, well. I
also think there has to be a way of using storytelling,
which is what you're an expert at in helping us
craft a news story that welcomes everybody in. But people
(28:34):
have to be willing to ask hard questions of themselves
and you know, of their own view of reality. And
of course that's become infinitely harder because of social media,
which traps people in these very divided, you know, Fox realities.
How would you even think about that, because you're a storyteller,
(28:55):
you're a producer of stories. How would we try to
think of a broader basis for such a an effort.
I think a big part of it is again inviting
people to understand that they are the hero of their story,
(29:16):
because I think we get involved, even in politics, maybe
especially in politics, in this hero worship where we place
the power for change in the hand of this person
that we have idolized, and we expect other people to
fix our problems, and so our stories get corrupted by
(29:37):
the idea that we don't have agency, that people that
look like us, walk like us, talk like us, are
in fact us, that we can't make the change. I mean,
I remember waking up the morning after the election in
and my social media was flooded with Olivia Pope. You
have to fix this, Olivia, I wish you could to day. Yeah,
(30:00):
me too. At the time, saved the day, and I
remember thinking like, oh, this is actually part of the problem, right,
because so many people sat out because somebody else was
supposed to do the work. Somebody else was going to vote,
somebody else was going to knock on doors, somebody else
was going to make it better. And I remember thinking like, Okay,
(30:23):
how do I and it really sort of galvanized my activism.
How do I get people to understand that Olivia Pope
is not a real person, that that you, each person,
each one of you that just tweeted that you have
infinitely more power than Olivia Pope because you can vote,
you can volunteer, you can fill out your senses, you
(30:45):
can actually make a difference in your community. And so
getting our stories to be rooted in the idea of
our power as people to impact our communities positively, I
think that is really import and yes, we need great leaders,
but I think our greatest leaders are the ones who
look back to us and say, I'm here to represent you.
(31:07):
The power is yours, I am your voice. Just that
like constant willingness to center the people and to make
the people the solution instead of those small number of heroes.
I agree with that completely. You know, for months after
that election, I had a steady stream of people, mostly
(31:30):
young women, coming up and apologizing, often bursting into tears.
I didn't know you needed my vote. I didn't know
you needed my help. I felt like I was I
was supposed to be giving absolution. It was the strangest experience.
But out of that, at least we saw first and
and then we saw again in I think the number
(31:52):
of people who understood that they did have not only
an opportunity but a responsibility for me. Really, in the
advocacy and activism space, it's so much is about centering
other heroes, right, like centering not centering myself. Like even
on the campaign trail, not saying like you should vote
(32:13):
for Biden and Harris because I'm Carrie Washington, and I
tell you to know, like, it's not about that. It's like,
you have the power as a community to transform your community.
Look at these candidates and look at how much better
they will be for you. It has nothing to do
with me. I'm here to be a conduit too, and
for you to understand your power for you to know
(32:33):
that you're so much more powerful than Olivia Pope. That's
what I'm here to share with you. I know because
I was her, and she does not have your power.
She really doesn't carry Washington. I am just so grateful
to know you, and you've got so much more to
do ahead of you. It's very exciting for me to
(32:53):
have this chance to talk with you. Thank you so much,
Thank you so much. What an honor and delay. You
can keep up with Carrie's acting and her activism on
social media, and I highly recommend the documentary she produced,
(33:13):
called The Fight, which is streaming online in lots of places.
Go to Fight the film dot com to check it out.
I can't talk about politics on TV without talking about
what is like to see myself portrayed on Saturday Night Live.
I can't say that I've enjoyed every part of it,
(33:36):
but I certainly have admired the extraordinary abilities of the
actors who have portrayed me, most recently the terrific Kate McKinnon,
and opposite her, of course, was my next guest, Alec Baldwin,
masterfully playing a role he never imagined he'd be stuck
(33:56):
with for four years and for this he blamed s
n l's legendary producer, Lauren Michaels. But he also played
another Republican character, Jack Donneghee opposite Tina Fey on Thirty Rock.
In real life, he's a proud Democrat. He's lent his
voice and his energy and talents to countless political causes
(34:20):
and candidates over the years. How are you doing, Alec?
Are you holding up? I'm good, but I'm intimidated as
always because what could I possibly talk to you about politics?
What could I possibly say to you? This is like
Joe Namath throwing a football with a four year old.
Maybe the four year old was I don't know, Tom Brady,
who knows right future? A budding star. Well, first of all,
(34:43):
you have a lot to say about a lot of things.
I know that because we've had the chance to talk before.
But it's so interesting for me to hear your perspective
about where we are today versus where we were a year,
two year, three years ago, because know, you gave voice,
gave life to a couple of different characters whose politics
(35:06):
you don't agree with at all. And it's not just Trump,
it's you know, Jack Donneghie and you know, how did
this become your specialty? Oh god, I needed a job
and they paid me. I'll play any woman to play.
I mean, I mean, I'll find a way. But when
I think about the Trump thing on S and L,
and it's so ironic to talk to you, of all
(35:27):
people that you know, Lawrence said to me, it's only
gonna be two shows. We you know who's gonna win,
and it's only gonna be two shows. And I thought, okay,
I can. I can bite the bullet and and endure
this for two shows. So it's election night two thousand
and sixteen, and my wife and I are watching the
TV and and finally we go to bed. We just
can't take any and we fall asleep, and three o'clock
(35:49):
in the morning rolls around. I wake up and I go,
he won. And my wife rolled up and goes, oh
god no, And then she rolled over and went back
to bed, and I sat there and I went, Now
I got to play this character for the next four
were years. Knowing Lauren, he'd be like, come on them,
he was here first call it like four o'clock in
the morning, right right right now, he's he's he's going
(36:10):
to bed at four o'clock in the morning with his schedule.
But I think the point that I always think about
is that people say to me, you know, what was
the point in your mind, like why did you do this?
Because it wasn't about money or anything. I said that
it's one thing if people have reversals, they make mistakes,
and you attack them. There are Republican candidates that I
(36:30):
have admired in some sense. Romney was a successful businessman.
I might not agree with some of his policies. McCain
was somebody I could agree with. I mean, there are
Republicans that if they won, I could have lived with.
But when this guy came and you're a New Yorker
and you knew what he was and wasn't, what I
thought was there's people who you will never change their mind.
There's people who don't ever need to change their mind,
(36:52):
and that group in the middle. We thought if we
kept doing it. At least in my mind, I thought,
if I kept doing it, one year goes by, two
years goes by, and they go, well, I thought he
would change, adapt and become better at the job. And
what we reminded them of us, he's not changing, he's
not growing. Every human being, as you know, better than
I'll ever know every man thus far who's in that job.
(37:14):
What a journey of growth exactly to be the president
of the United States. That we talk about what you
see and learn. So when he came along and we
kept giving it to him, it was to remind people
that he isn't changing. There's a benefit of the doubt
we gave him, and he's already gone past the statute
of limitations on that. But given what a rabid, obsessive
(37:35):
TV watcher he is, I thought also, you know, maybe
there was a tiny sliver of self recognition, but no,
there is not a smidgeon of self awareness. I don't
think people would send me framed cartoons, you know, not
not many, but a handful of them. And my favorite
one was one of them where the guy and the
women are watching Trump and they go, boy, that Alec
(37:58):
Baldwin is amazing, and the other person goes, that's Trump.
You know, it's funny that someone told me that some
of the things you might want to cover are the
representation of the presidency in the media. And for me
and I date myself, I am rounding the corner here
towards sixty three years al and but but the representation
(38:23):
of the presidency has and I'll pick two examples of
someone overwhelmed, be leaguered, exhausted, and yet still maintaining that
core of integrity and ethical primacy that that role demands.
I always think of Frederick marchin Seven Days in May,
and he played the president as this so exhausted and
(38:46):
enervated by the job, and all these bad things were
happening around him, and yet he maintained his dignity. And
I also think of, in a much more almost sci
fi esque surreal tableau, was Henry Fonda in Fail Safe.
And now he had to maintain his cool in that chamber.
He's the president. People are counting on you to not
(39:08):
act the way other average men might act or women
if you were bated in this way, so that whenever
the presidency is portrayed as someone with a preternatural emotional
steel and will and faith. But you know, it's so
interesting you mentioned that, Alec, because you know, as a
woman running for president, I grew up with the same movies.
(39:30):
I grew up with the same images of real presidents
who had to withstand tremendous pressure. Whether you know it
was Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis, or you know,
looking at what Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford went through
all the way up into you know, modern times with
George W. Bush after nine eleven. And you know, my
understanding of the presidency is exactly as you describe it.
(39:52):
And I write in my book what happened when you
know Trump is baiting me and leering at me in
the seck in debate, and I'm sitting there thinking, Okay,
do I turn around and really take him up? Or
do I maintain that calm and that dignity, because that's
what presidents do. But in today's world, the entertainment factor,
(40:14):
the so called you know, authenticity, which often to me
is really a miss you know, nomer, because what you're
seeing in our meltdowns and nastiness and mean spiritedness, if
we look at you know, somebody like Trump, how do
you maintain it? You know, the presidency obviously has a
very unique place in your life. To say the least.
(40:35):
I remember a woman I spoke to who shall remain nameless,
who was adjacent to the Biden campaign. We spoke on
the phone about something, and I took the opportunity. I
lunged for the opportunity to say to her, can I
tell you what I think he should do? Can I
go offer you my unsolicited advice? And she was very kind,
she should go for it, please and I and I said,
just tell him, just you know, it's his to lose.
(40:57):
Don't take the bait. Let Trump be um. And I
really mean this. I want to say, be more like her.
In the debate where you did mainta You were standing there,
like you said, Tom Brady in the pocket, I'm gonna
throw this ball into the end zone. You didn't let
him get to you. That's always the better choice. I
want to loop back with what we were talking about
earlier because I want to ask you something about comedy
(41:18):
and about sn L in particular. I appreciated your depiction
of Trump. Do you think actually doing what you did
and what SNL does, making terrible people sort of more
palatable to the general public kind of helps them in
(41:39):
a way. I've heard that many times, many times, that
what we did only softened the impact of how bad
they were. But you know, Lord Michaels is someone who
has steered a show. They're rounding the corner now, towards
fifty years of being on the air. Isn't that astonishing?
Now the show they found a way with all of
(42:00):
the digital and online platforms and everything to bring the
show to an audience that's almost larger than ever. There
was a larger audience at the heyday, the Friends and
Seinfeld era of TV watching, and then it went down
and now it's back up to where. You know, when
I was doing the debates and McKinnon played you, he
(42:23):
played the Jaws music and I was coming up behind.
When the Jaws music is playing the debate one of
my favorites, one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
We're doing that, and uh, you know, but Lauren is
someone who knows that he has two constituents to serve,
the people that own the company and his audience and
his staff and writers. And there are lines that he
(42:43):
has asked to cross all the time that he will
not cross. There are things people pitch. I've pitched things
which he said there and said to me, maybe not
because he doesn't want the show to become just outrageous
or a bully pulpit. It's an entertainment program. And the
one thing that we were criticized for but I was
nonetheless the most satisfied with it, and I took the
(43:03):
greatest pleasure from which is what we said were verbatim
transcripts of what he had said. You couldn't criticize this
and say we imagine it was a fantasy. He said it,
he did it, and we would just do that, and
I forever I'm grateful for that, because we didn't cross
with any bounds. Everything was in the whalm of reality.
But you're right, there are some people who we rallied
(43:27):
the troops on the other side, we rallied our opposition.
They would sit there and they were like, you know,
if I was dying in the desert and Alec Baldwin
gave me a canteen, I'd rather die than dream from
now like Baldwin's canteen. There is that group. Let's talk
for a second about thirty Rock and about the character
you play, Jack Donneghie, which you were brilliant at and
(43:47):
you know, the boss to the Tina Fey character Liz Lemon,
and the way you portrayed Donnaghie is that you know,
you were a Reagan Republican who was going to Reagan
when you died well. I viewed Donna g as what
we used to call when I was younger, a Rockefeller Republican,
which it really wasn't about social issues. Men can go
ahead and marry each other, and uh, I don't have
(44:10):
any opinions about other social issues like a woman's right
to choose and so forth. He's a Rockefeller Republican, which
means there's no problem you can have in this life
that can't be solved by making more money. And I
would really appreciate it if the government in every week
just got out of the way. I mean, I want
lower taxes and less regulations of my business, and I'm fine.
(44:31):
There was a scene I'm on a balcony, I'm on
a terrace with Tina, and of course the Donaghee character
was all Robert Carla Cantina. I didn't write it. They're
the geniuses here and I'm on a balcony with a
glass of wine and Tina says, I'm working so hard
and I don't know what e's gonna happen in my life.
She goes, I'm getting older now. Pretty soon, no one's
gonna want to even see me naked. And I don't
flinch and I have a drink in my hand, and
(44:52):
I go, will you make enough money you pay someone
to see you? And that is donneghese philosophy. Who as
long as we're making a lot of money, what do
you care? Money solves everything? But that description of that
scene and his philosophy. I ran across that in this
last election. I mean you did too. You know, you
grew up with people on Long Island who said to you, right, look,
(45:14):
I can't stand the guy, you know, I think he's
over the top, etcetera, etcetera. But hey, I'm doing well.
You know, the business is doing well. He got my taxes.
I don't care what else he does. Right that, that
is a real but but you know more of you
and your husband know more about this than anybody you're
out here where there are some obviously a lot of
privileged people. I guess from time to time their attitude was,
(45:36):
I'm not voting for Trump. I just can't vote for Biden. Yeah,
I just would not vote for it. You're gonna raise
my taxes, You're gonna raise my capital gains. I can't
stand Trump. I'm gonna hold my nose, but I'll never
vote for a never, never we'll be right back. We
(46:03):
do have to keep laughing. I mean, part of what
I worry about is that the stuff that's happening in
the country right now is deadly serious, and we know
how divided we are, and it's a kind of contradiction.
And I'd love your insight into this and what role
comedy and theater and and and your work as an
(46:26):
actor could bring in trying to shine a light on
some common ground. Is there a way for people to
begin talking to each other again in a useful way?
I think now that Trump has gone yes, because Trump
was something we could not set that aside. There are
people that have had they won. I had profound differences
of opinion with them, but I could have bitten the
(46:47):
bullet and a few months goes by and you accept,
and you also know that we get back to that
idea of that person growing in the job. George W.
Bush grew with the job. Who would have thought, especially
if you're in there two terms, what it are to
be able to change and expand your mind and your
humanity And with Trump, none of that. So we had
no choice. It was truly our civic duty to resist
(47:08):
him and to underline what he was doing. Now that
he's gone, we might not solve every problem, but we
have a chance. With Biden and Harrass, we have a chance.
Is there anybody currently on the political scene that you
would want to, you know, play or in some way
convey an image of I want to get away from
the comedy thing now. I really want to kind of
scrape that coat of paint off me and go do
(47:31):
I've got some dramatic things lined up. I think right now,
where I'm kind of setting my lane I'm getting back
into is working with the United Nations the Environmental Program.
Because you know, there's institutions that you sit there and
you want to criticize them. The post office is a
good example. I used to say to myself, why don't
(47:51):
FedEx and ups just by the post office? And then
you thought to yourself, oh god, if we made the
post office a business, how many people would get hurt?
So I got off that idea. I have a sense
of some institutions and if I'm critical of them, I
realized to some degree, I don't fully understand how they
really work and their importance. And one of those that
I have abundant faith and I've always been so honored
(48:14):
to be invited to the party is the United Nations,
and I'm really going to go full born now into
my un EP work. We're going off to Norway, We're
going off to Scotland for the Global Conference. My wife
and I are really going to commit to showing up
for these events to support the work of the United
Nations Environmental Program. Good for you. Environmentalism is my new
(48:35):
big thing yet that I'm going back to more of that. Yea.
Let me just say to you as we close, and
that is you and you hear this from your friends,
and you hear this from your supporters and fans all
the time. Democrat in the White House, Republican in the
White House, COVID, no COVID. We need to hear your
voice giving your measured opinion of all these things. Please
don't stop doing these shows. Okay I won't, and let's
(48:58):
keep the conversation going. Thank you. You can hear more
from Alec on his podcast. Here's the thing. Thanks for
joining us. If you have a favorite version of politics
on TV, send us a note at You and Me
(49:18):
Both pod at gmail dot com because we love hearing
from you. You and Me Both is brought to you
by my Heart Radio. We're produced by Julie Subran, Kathleen
Russo and Lauren Peterson, with help from Juma Aberdeen, Nicky
E tour, Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Brianna Johnson, Nick Merrill,
(49:42):
Rob Russo and Lona vl Moro. Our engineer is Zack
McNeice and the 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
(50:05):
or wherever you get your podcasts. See you next week.
You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio,
I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is You and Me Both.
American politics has long served as inspiration for movies, plays,
and especially television, from shows like The West Wing, Madam Secretary,
or Veep, all of which I really enjoyed, to late
(00:23):
night comedy shows, and for a lot of people, shows
like those have become a major source of information when
it comes to our government, our political system, and even
the state of the world. You know. In fact, when
I was Secretary of State and I was visiting Myanmar
formerly Burma, and I went to their first gathering of
(00:45):
people who were part of their parliament congress, I was
told that a lot of them had learned about politics,
you know, not from reading books, but watching The West Wing.
So this has a big impact on how people think
about politics and government, and that's why I wanted to
explore all of it on today's show. So I'll be
talking to three people known for playing politics on TV
(01:09):
because they have played politicians or talked about politicians, and
it's clear their influence extends well beyond their audience. We'll
hear from Carrie Washington, who is every bit as much
of a political Powerhouse as her fictional character Olivia Pope
(01:32):
on Scandal, and I'll be talking to Alec Baldwin, who
has finally been able to retire from playing Donald Trump
on Saturday Night Live. But first, I am so delighted
to be speaking with Samantha By. Like a lot of people,
I first started watching Samantha By during her time as
(01:52):
a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and
in she started her own show, Full Front Told with
Samantha By on TBS. I really like her biting, hilarious
interviews and commentaries on topics that don't get nearly enough
coverage in the usual news cycle, you know, ones like
(02:14):
voting rights, or women's health or the importance of reigning
in big tech. These days, Samantha, her husband, and her
three kids are waiting out the pandemic in New York City,
and I am so happy to have her on this podcast. Hello, Hello,
oh Samantha, I'm so happy to see you. I am thrilled.
(02:37):
How are you and your family holding up under the pandemic? Well,
thank you for asking. I don't know. Well, let's talk
about it two years from now and see where we
are mentally. I mean I'm very grateful nobody in our
immediate circle was ill. I think we're all like, emotionally
(02:57):
in the same place everyone else is in. We're so
ready for this to be over and try to get
back to something resembling quote normal life. My kids are
in the New York City public school system, and they
have not been in school for so long. You know,
my eldest daughter occasionally will go for a very socially distant,
(03:18):
cold weather masked walk with her friends. But all of
my young son's friends are immuno compromised in some way,
or they live with an elderly relative, so he hasn't
seen another boy his age since March last year. I mean,
it's crazy. That is so hard. I think you're right
(03:39):
on point in saying that we're not going to know
for a couple of years what all of the costs are.
We obviously know now more than five hundred thousands people
have died, which is not to even mention the probably
hundreds of thousands more people who died and was never
attributed to COVID, and the millions of millions and millions
(03:59):
of millions of people who got so ill and disrupted
their lives and their work and they're everything. It's so
it's devastating, and it's one of those I'm incandescitely angry about. Yeah,
well you're good at incandescent anger. I know throughout the pandemic,
you've you've continued to, you know, try to do the show.
(04:21):
I guess you were off for a while, but then
you came back. Yes, well we didn't actually take that
much time off. We took only really one show off
of the calendar. Wow, Because well, I was born in
Canada and I was raised there, and I am, if
nothing else, very pragmatic, Like I have a staff of
about sixty five to seventy people, and for that reason,
(04:44):
and my husband and I really wanted to get the
show back on the air as fast as possible, just
to put like a point of focus on our own week,
but also on the weeks of all the people who
work at Full Frontal. Just to have one thing to do,
to have one thing to be able to say, like,
I have a mission this week, I thought would be
really critical. So we worked so hard to get the
(05:07):
show up and in action as quickly as possible. You know,
it's such a typical hard working woman's commitment to say
I'm going back, I'll multitask, I'll be there very much. So, yeah,
very much like doing this podcast. You know, we took
a little break where it started a little later. I'm like, great,
I'm gonna go do the dishes, like exactly. You're always
(05:29):
there's never really a moment where you just sit and
stare into space. You know, your show, it's it's almost
hard to believe now started during the election cycle. I remembered, well,
and honestly, I don't know how someone with your intelligence
and point of view really got through the last four
(05:52):
years because you had to cope with this you know
phenomenon Donald Trump. I don't know how any of us
really made it through, to be perfectly honest, yourself especially,
I don't know how we did it. I don't know.
I don't think that we ever got used to it.
It wasn't what we wanted. I definitely, you know, I
(06:16):
deflected this question a lot, which was like, but aren't
you secretly happy because it gives you so much to
talk about on your show? And I was like, trust me,
there's lots to talk about other than this person. And
so you know now that we're trying to build the
show without the looming specter of that person and that
(06:37):
administration lurching behind us the way that he lurched behind
you on the stage. You know, we have a full
slate of stories that we're doing. There's lots to cover,
there's so many stones to overturn, and and we're approaching
it really joyfully. Oh that's good. Clearly a lot of
people get their news from all kinds of sources, but
(07:00):
one of the sources is comedy shows like yours, and
you regularly on like some tackle serious issues that you
clearly feel a sense of urgency about. You tackle family separation,
you know, me to equal pay and and lots more.
And how do you balance that? I think difficult role
(07:20):
of being both a source of comedy and a source
of information. First of all, I have an incredible team
and a lot of bona fide journalists on my team,
and a really strong adherence to research, commitment to getting
the story straight. Actually, I have a brain that doesn't
remember names. Like, if you ask me who my biggest
(07:41):
influences are, I can never remember the right person, and
then two hours later I go, oh my god, it
was her the whole time. I never am so bad
at that, But I actually was really trying to pin
it down the other day and I was like, right,
it's like my show is like this weird intersection of
like sixty minutes segments that I really love, and also
(08:05):
Jon Stewart, you know, and my years at the Daily Show,
but also Howard Stern. Like those three influences, if combined,
have a love of news and a real love of
great journalism from my early childhood, honestly, and I also
love comedy, and so the intersection of those worlds it's
(08:26):
just the sweet spot where I like to live. Tell
me about one of the episodes you're most proud of. Well,
as I've stated, I can't ever remember anything that I've
ever really done, I would say that one of the
episodes I'm most proud of relates to you. I think
I'm very proud that we made an episode the day
after the election, And believe me, it took a lot
(08:48):
because we were destroyed, um shocked, up hauled. I mean, like,
who am I talking to right now? But it was
obviously was an earthquake, and then we were expected to
go and make jokes, and we had this loon drop
planned and we had Lizzo was on a private jet
to the studio to sing an awesome song about feeling great.
(09:09):
We were all peers and retreating into our turtlenecks, and
people on staff with family members in Iran, We're like,
I'm never going to see my family again. Like so,
I'm really proud that we dusted it off and did
a show. I'm proud of our show about family separation
and multiple shows. I'm proud of our coverage of the
(09:33):
Me Too movement. I'm really proud of the people that
I work with. They're just great. Well. But it also
I think added to this whole sense of protecting democracy,
protecting the vulnerable and the marginalized, standing up to all
these forces that came out from under all the rocks
(09:53):
that were kicked over, and perhaps on a more shallow note,
it is also nice, well, okay, on an shallow note,
I'm happy to have planted a flag in history and
said I'm on this side. This is where we stand,
and we think this is an abomination and we're just
gonna park it right here, and we're just going to
keep saying that until it's over. And this is the
(10:14):
shallow part. I'm really happy to be on the correct
side of Ted Cruise. Yes, we've gone hard on Ted
Cruise over the years on the show, and it feels
great to be so right. Sometimes you just have to
bathe in that golden glow. Yeah, you've earned a place
there and you should just keep under that bright light
(10:35):
of vindication. But the other thing you've done, which of
course I pay particular attention to, is you've been quite
brave and stepping up and saying, wait a minute, it's
not just what the politicians are doing. It's the way
the media covers what they're doing. But when you go
after the media, of which you are a part, how
(10:57):
does that work out? You actually have to be very
thoughtful about it. We're a part of the media ecosystem,
and we can't make everyone in the media mad at us,
or then they won't cover our show. So that's a
really serious part of our internal conversations. It's like, how
do we talk about Facebook when we're promoting our show
(11:18):
on Facebook? And ultimately, we have taken really I think
we've taken really big swings, and I'm proud that we
stick to our guns. I definitely experienced. You know, I
can't believe I'm bringing it up because they don't often
choose to bring it up. But when I had my
biggest controversy when I used a slur against Ivanka Trump,
(11:40):
I really had a moment where I just I felt
like I walked through fire. I felt like I walked
over hot coals and came out on the other side
with a deep understanding of how a big story can
just be totally obfuscated by a small medium moment of
a lady calling another lady a bad thing when what
(12:01):
we were really talking about was family separation, Like, the
story became what I had said versus the story that
I was trying to cover, And for about a week,
the story in the media was what a shame that,
you know, the use of the slur took away from
that story about family separation. What a shame. And I
was like, you're the media, that's right, you're supposed to
(12:24):
cover the other thing. That's not myum a comedy lady, like,
I don't want to talk about this. It's not comedic.
Where our hearts are broken right now, it's your job
to go, oh, that was a thing, But what was
she really talking? Right, we should be focusing on family
separation seven until it's remedied. But you know what happened
to you as you just described, it shows part of
(12:46):
a much bigger pattern, which is how easy it is
to deflect the so called mainstream media away from underlying stories.
They're so easily distracted. We see it all the time.
And there was a public appetite too for that kind
of distraction. I mean, I do worry that we all
maybe have the attention span of goldfish. It's really really
(13:09):
hard work to stay focused on stories that no one
wants to talk about. Well, is there some story looking
back now four years ago that you thought is the
most important, untold or undertold story from the Trump era? Yes?
I mean the answer is yes, times ten thousand. His
international business dealings is just a story that did not
(13:31):
grip people. You know, Adam Davidson was doing like incredible
reporting at The New Yorker about his business ties in
Azerbaijan and internationally that are fascinating, and just a ball
of tangled wire to unferral his tax dealings, his relationships
(13:51):
to known money launderers, like all of those stories just
nothing stuck. I agree with you, But when thinking about
these last four years as you've chronicled them, I think
it's important to ask how close do you think we
came to really losing our democracy to you know, seeing
changes that we're almost becoming irreversible. I think we came
(14:17):
much too close to another Trump victory. Honestly, when as
I say it out loud as we're talking about it,
I did start to sweat. There is an enormous number
of people who said yes to more of that, and
that I find so scary and so daunting. So I
(14:38):
think we came really close, and I think we are
still close. Listen, I think people are generally and I
still say this after five years of doing the show.
They think people are generally good. We're a nation of
really great people. We can do it, but it takes
so much work, and so does I do worry a
(14:59):
little bit that we're going to kind of come out
of the pandemic into the roaring twenties again and being
really loosen, we're great colors and Peppy's leaves and start
partying and kind of forget about the underlying meat on
the bone of keeping this work going. I think you're
so right to point that out, because that's what happened
(15:20):
after the so called Spanish Flu. We went into the
nineteen twenties, the Roaring nineteen twenties, and I mean, I
want people to roar again, the economy to roar again.
But I do want people, as you rightly say, Samantha,
to think about what we went through. I can't thank
you enough for what you do all the time. You
really try to help us all understand better what we're
(15:44):
going through. Well, the feeling is very mutual, my friend.
I hope your kids get to have a play date sometimes.
I hope they get to go back to school sometime.
The same for your grandkids. I hope they get to
meet other kids. Happy novel. They're all like a bunch
of little you know, Martian aliens coming to gather for
the first time. You're just going to play the mirror game.
What are you? What are you? Where have you been? Oh? Samantha,
(16:07):
thank you so much and please keep going. We need you.
Thank you. You can catch Samantha Wednesday nights on TBS,
and you can also hear from her on her podcast
Full Release with Samantha B. Now I'm getting to talk
(16:30):
to Carrie Washington. She's an actor, producer, director. She runs
her own production company called Simpson Street. I first became
aware of her certainly on Scandal, literally couldn't take my
eyes off of her because of her grace and her
power on the screen and in real life. She's a
(16:52):
dedicated advocate on behalf of racial justice, voting rights, democracy,
and so much more. So. Welcome. I'm so happy you're
with us, Carrie, Thank you, thank you so much for
having me. I want to talk about your amazing career
and the fabulous roles you've played, but I want to
start on the activism side, because I think you and
(17:14):
I share a sense of urgency. Last year, you joined
the Black Voices for Black just As Fund as a
co chair, and you ended up helping to distribute over
one and a half million dollars to black leaders fighting
for a more fair, equitable, anti racist America. What does
(17:35):
that work mean to you. I'm really proud to be
a co chair for the fund because one of my superpowers,
because of how lucky I've been in my career, is
that people pay attention to the things I'm doing or saying,
whether I like it or not, whether you know, whether
it's like pop Rozzi following me around when I'm pregnant
or whatever it is. For some reason, I have eyeballs
(17:57):
on me at times, and so to be able to
shift the as eyeballs and resources to activists on the
ground who are doing the day to day work of
ending racism, working towards equity, working towards liberation for all people.
I'm so passionate about that. I wanted to talk to
you not only because of you know, the great roles
you've played and your success, but because you feel so
(18:20):
deeply that this work is critical to your life, the
lives of your children, and to our country. Yeah. We
produced a project this year at Simpson Street called The Fight.
It's a documentary about the a c l U. I
think this film is the thing I'm most proud of
in my career today, which is so funny because it's
the one project where I'm not on camera right, but
(18:43):
it's um. I love this film so much because we
had unprecedented access into the a c l U. And
I don't have to tell you the a c l
U has sued every administration in the last one years. Democrat, Republican,
doesn't matter. They are invested in defending the human rights
of all people. And so we got to be the
trenches with these lawyers and get to know them. For
(19:03):
the superheroes that they are defending justice, but also we
got to go home with them, so we got to
see them, you know, trying to keep their kids quiet
while they're on a zoom call and losing, you know,
being afraid that they're not going to be able to
hear the Supreme Court decision because they can't find their
charger for their cell phone. Right Like, we got to
to just see them as everyday people. And one of
(19:24):
the things that we really like to do at the
company is figure out how to upend otherness. Right Like,
there is this paradigm and culture that a certain kind
of person is the hero of the story, the hero
of of our legends are sort of shared cultural stories,
and that there are other people who get to play
supporting roles and characters. And traditionally women have been in
(19:47):
the supporting role, and people of color have been in
the supporting role, the wife, the best friend, and that
the heroes have been you know, straight white, cis gender men.
And so we really like the idea of up ending
that idea that each of us is at the center
of our own story in real life and in our
shared narratives. Well, you really upended a lot of those,
(20:07):
uh preconceptions. With Scandal, where you played Olivia Pope, everyone
knows that alter ego a powerful black woman with a
prominent position in Washington, and I think you really helped
to change the entertainment world and the discussion about whose
(20:30):
story is worth telling. And although this was a fictional character,
it was still something that gripped the imagination of millions
of people looking back on that. How do you feel
about Olivia Pope and Scandal now? You know, I think
a lot about the history of Scandal now that I'm
out of it. I think when I was in it,
(20:51):
it was such a whirlwind. You know, it's hard to
have perspective about these big historic moments while they're unfolding.
But you know, when when our show for aired, people
talked about how much of a quote unquote risk it
was for the network to center a black woman as
the lead of a network drama. And it hadn't happened
in I think thirty eight years at the time, almost
(21:13):
forty years, and I was in my early thirties, so
in my lifetime, I hadn't seen it. And I just
remember the pressure, the pressure, the expectations of like you
have to succeed. I felt like, if our show didn't
make it, it would be another forty years before a
woman of color. You yeah, you, I felt it. But
(21:35):
what was thrilling was not because we were so great.
We worked really hard on that show, but because audiences
showed up. Audiences turned on their televisions, they recorded us
on their DVR, they talked about us on social media.
We became a success, which allowed for other women of color.
Panco Chopra had to show. Viola Davis had a show
and made history winning the Emmy, like you know, Empire,
(21:58):
all of these other show was that centered black women
because suddenly it wasn't a risk, Suddenly we were approven
deal exactly. It changed the landscape of who we believe
deserves to be at the center of stories on network television. Well,
when you're talking about how long it had been, I
couldn't help but think about Cecily Tyson, who we just
(22:19):
recently lost, and she was someone who I admired from
a distance. I remember Sounder. I remember Miss Jane Pittman
and Miss Jane Pittman was a one hour long TV movie.
I think, yeah, exactly, and I remember when I saw
it all those years ago, probably before you were born.
(22:40):
I was so struck by how what should have been
a breakthrough back then, you know, kind of went silent,
and then it had to be done all over again.
And one of the challenges will be making sure it
doesn't revert back. I just love her. I won't even
say loved. I love her so so so much. I
(23:02):
have all these connections to her. She was at my
baby shower from my Isabel. She and Diane Carroll Um
and Jane Fonda, all my kind of like Hollywood goddess
mentors um. But I was born on the night of
the last episode of Roots. Oh my gosh. That funny.
And I know that because my dad was not in
(23:24):
the delivery room. He was in the waiting room with
the nurses watching the final episode of My mother was like,
where is everybody? It's a very famous story in our family.
We're taking a quick break. Stay with us. You know.
(23:48):
You have taken on so many roles, but one very
moving performance was when you played Anita Hill in the
movie Confirmation about her incredibly brave testimony during Clarence Thomas's
confirmation hearings in did you meet her when you were
making the movie? I did tell me about that. She
(24:11):
was so generous with sharing her experience with me, and
I'll be forever grateful because it's a real responsibility. I mean,
it's funny. Cecily Tyson talked about this a lot, the
responsibility of sort of playing characters with dignity, and with
Anita Hill, there's no way not to. She's such a
(24:34):
person of grace and elegance, and even her fierce courage
came cloaked in her elegant dignity at all times. So
I really I loved having the opportunity to play her.
But I also really loved producing that material right because
it allowed me to have a real voice at the
(24:55):
table about what her experience was like as a black woman,
to make sure that there was authent the city there.
And also she and I had a great laugh because
when I shot that scene of the Senate hearing, I
got to experience what she felt of being this black
woman facing a sea of powerful white men sitting above her,
(25:17):
looking down on her, just like attacking her with questions
at times. The twist from what she did and what
I did thirty years later was that now all of
those white men were actually working for me, and so
I got to sort of live in the emotional tumult
(25:39):
that she experienced. But when we called cut, I was
in charge, and we we really sort of laughed about
how wonderful that was that I could honor her in
that way. Well, you're so right about that elegant dignity.
She withstood such a brutal, consistent attack on her character
(26:01):
and her veracity, and you know, it did trigger a reaction,
you know, the women of the House marched over to
the Senate. Changes were made, women were elected. But I
could not help thinking about her during the Brett Kavanaugh
confirmation hearings because I thought about how controlled and careful
(26:23):
she had been when she was being attacked. And then
we saw Christine blazie Ford feeling, you know, very pained
because they wouldn't believe her, and I thought, you know,
these two women decades apart, telling their truth in their
own way, and they're both being disrespected. I really thought
(26:44):
a lot about Anita Hill, Professor Hill, in that moment too,
because the attack on her, just like the attack on
Christine Blasie Ford, was concocted so that Clarence Thomas, who
I went to lost gool with, I have known a
very long time. Wow. And the reactions that he and
(27:06):
Kavanaugh both had were deliberately absolutely intended to spark indignation
and outrage. I mean, the whole thing was just, you know,
heartbreaking to me, because you know, you'd hope that things
would have changed more than they did, given how brave
you know, those women were to come forward to do
(27:29):
what they thought of as you know, their duty. Yeah.
I spoke to Anita a lot in that period. I
remember calling her and checking on her, and one of
the things that I thought a lot about was, these
are the moments that invite us to realize that we
don't get to check out right, these are the moments
that pull us back in. We don't get to act
(27:50):
like this is ancient history, exactly that misogyny is ancient history.
And also these moments provide us with an opportunity to
see that there are systems in place, that this is
not about personalities, This is not about individuals, This is systematic.
I just think it's so important for us to to
(28:11):
hold that and to somehow like to somehow keep working
for change, right, to somehow keep saying yes, well. I
also think there has to be a way of using storytelling,
which is what you're an expert at in helping us
craft a news story that welcomes everybody in. But people
(28:34):
have to be willing to ask hard questions of themselves
and you know, of their own view of reality. And
of course that's become infinitely harder because of social media,
which traps people in these very divided, you know, Fox realities.
How would you even think about that, because you're a storyteller,
(28:55):
you're a producer of stories. How would we try to
think of a broader basis for such a an effort.
I think a big part of it is again inviting
people to understand that they are the hero of their story,
(29:16):
because I think we get involved, even in politics, maybe
especially in politics, in this hero worship where we place
the power for change in the hand of this person
that we have idolized, and we expect other people to
fix our problems, and so our stories get corrupted by
(29:37):
the idea that we don't have agency, that people that
look like us, walk like us, talk like us, are
in fact us, that we can't make the change. I mean,
I remember waking up the morning after the election in
and my social media was flooded with Olivia Pope. You
have to fix this, Olivia, I wish you could to day. Yeah,
(30:00):
me too. At the time, saved the day, and I
remember thinking like, oh, this is actually part of the problem, right,
because so many people sat out because somebody else was
supposed to do the work. Somebody else was going to vote,
somebody else was going to knock on doors, somebody else
was going to make it better. And I remember thinking like, Okay,
(30:23):
how do I and it really sort of galvanized my activism.
How do I get people to understand that Olivia Pope
is not a real person, that that you, each person,
each one of you that just tweeted that you have
infinitely more power than Olivia Pope because you can vote,
you can volunteer, you can fill out your senses, you
(30:45):
can actually make a difference in your community. And so
getting our stories to be rooted in the idea of
our power as people to impact our communities positively, I
think that is really import and yes, we need great leaders,
but I think our greatest leaders are the ones who
look back to us and say, I'm here to represent you.
(31:07):
The power is yours, I am your voice. Just that
like constant willingness to center the people and to make
the people the solution instead of those small number of heroes.
I agree with that completely. You know, for months after
that election, I had a steady stream of people, mostly
(31:30):
young women, coming up and apologizing, often bursting into tears.
I didn't know you needed my vote. I didn't know
you needed my help. I felt like I was I
was supposed to be giving absolution. It was the strangest experience.
But out of that, at least we saw first and
and then we saw again in I think the number
(31:52):
of people who understood that they did have not only
an opportunity but a responsibility for me. Really, in the
advocacy and activism space, it's so much is about centering
other heroes, right, like centering not centering myself. Like even
on the campaign trail, not saying like you should vote
(32:13):
for Biden and Harris because I'm Carrie Washington, and I
tell you to know, like, it's not about that. It's like,
you have the power as a community to transform your community.
Look at these candidates and look at how much better
they will be for you. It has nothing to do
with me. I'm here to be a conduit too, and
for you to understand your power for you to know
(32:33):
that you're so much more powerful than Olivia Pope. That's
what I'm here to share with you. I know because
I was her, and she does not have your power.
She really doesn't carry Washington. I am just so grateful
to know you, and you've got so much more to
do ahead of you. It's very exciting for me to
(32:53):
have this chance to talk with you. Thank you so much,
Thank you so much. What an honor and delay. You
can keep up with Carrie's acting and her activism on
social media, and I highly recommend the documentary she produced,
(33:13):
called The Fight, which is streaming online in lots of places.
Go to Fight the film dot com to check it out.
I can't talk about politics on TV without talking about
what is like to see myself portrayed on Saturday Night Live.
I can't say that I've enjoyed every part of it,
(33:36):
but I certainly have admired the extraordinary abilities of the
actors who have portrayed me, most recently the terrific Kate McKinnon,
and opposite her, of course, was my next guest, Alec Baldwin,
masterfully playing a role he never imagined he'd be stuck
(33:56):
with for four years and for this he blamed s
n l's legendary producer, Lauren Michaels. But he also played
another Republican character, Jack Donneghee opposite Tina Fey on Thirty Rock.
In real life, he's a proud Democrat. He's lent his
voice and his energy and talents to countless political causes
(34:20):
and candidates over the years. How are you doing, Alec?
Are you holding up? I'm good, but I'm intimidated as
always because what could I possibly talk to you about politics?
What could I possibly say to you? This is like
Joe Namath throwing a football with a four year old.
Maybe the four year old was I don't know, Tom Brady,
who knows right future? A budding star. Well, first of all,
(34:43):
you have a lot to say about a lot of things.
I know that because we've had the chance to talk before.
But it's so interesting for me to hear your perspective
about where we are today versus where we were a year,
two year, three years ago, because know, you gave voice,
gave life to a couple of different characters whose politics
(35:06):
you don't agree with at all. And it's not just Trump,
it's you know, Jack Donneghie and you know, how did
this become your specialty? Oh god, I needed a job
and they paid me. I'll play any woman to play.
I mean, I mean, I'll find a way. But when
I think about the Trump thing on S and L,
and it's so ironic to talk to you, of all
(35:27):
people that you know, Lawrence said to me, it's only
gonna be two shows. We you know who's gonna win,
and it's only gonna be two shows. And I thought, okay,
I can. I can bite the bullet and and endure
this for two shows. So it's election night two thousand
and sixteen, and my wife and I are watching the
TV and and finally we go to bed. We just
can't take any and we fall asleep, and three o'clock
(35:49):
in the morning rolls around. I wake up and I go,
he won. And my wife rolled up and goes, oh
god no, And then she rolled over and went back
to bed, and I sat there and I went, Now
I got to play this character for the next four
were years. Knowing Lauren, he'd be like, come on them,
he was here first call it like four o'clock in
the morning, right right right now, he's he's he's going
(36:10):
to bed at four o'clock in the morning with his schedule.
But I think the point that I always think about
is that people say to me, you know, what was
the point in your mind, like why did you do this?
Because it wasn't about money or anything. I said that
it's one thing if people have reversals, they make mistakes,
and you attack them. There are Republican candidates that I
(36:30):
have admired in some sense. Romney was a successful businessman.
I might not agree with some of his policies. McCain
was somebody I could agree with. I mean, there are
Republicans that if they won, I could have lived with.
But when this guy came and you're a New Yorker
and you knew what he was and wasn't, what I
thought was there's people who you will never change their mind.
There's people who don't ever need to change their mind,
(36:52):
and that group in the middle. We thought if we
kept doing it. At least in my mind, I thought,
if I kept doing it, one year goes by, two
years goes by, and they go, well, I thought he
would change, adapt and become better at the job. And
what we reminded them of us, he's not changing, he's
not growing. Every human being, as you know, better than
I'll ever know every man thus far who's in that job.
(37:14):
What a journey of growth exactly to be the president
of the United States. That we talk about what you
see and learn. So when he came along and we
kept giving it to him, it was to remind people
that he isn't changing. There's a benefit of the doubt
we gave him, and he's already gone past the statute
of limitations on that. But given what a rabid, obsessive
(37:35):
TV watcher he is, I thought also, you know, maybe
there was a tiny sliver of self recognition, but no,
there is not a smidgeon of self awareness. I don't
think people would send me framed cartoons, you know, not
not many, but a handful of them. And my favorite
one was one of them where the guy and the
women are watching Trump and they go, boy, that Alec
(37:58):
Baldwin is amazing, and the other person goes, that's Trump.
You know, it's funny that someone told me that some
of the things you might want to cover are the
representation of the presidency in the media. And for me
and I date myself, I am rounding the corner here
towards sixty three years al and but but the representation
(38:23):
of the presidency has and I'll pick two examples of
someone overwhelmed, be leaguered, exhausted, and yet still maintaining that
core of integrity and ethical primacy that that role demands.
I always think of Frederick marchin Seven Days in May,
and he played the president as this so exhausted and
(38:46):
enervated by the job, and all these bad things were
happening around him, and yet he maintained his dignity. And
I also think of, in a much more almost sci
fi esque surreal tableau, was Henry Fonda in Fail Safe.
And now he had to maintain his cool in that chamber.
He's the president. People are counting on you to not
(39:08):
act the way other average men might act or women
if you were bated in this way, so that whenever
the presidency is portrayed as someone with a preternatural emotional
steel and will and faith. But you know, it's so
interesting you mentioned that, Alec, because you know, as a
woman running for president, I grew up with the same movies.
(39:30):
I grew up with the same images of real presidents
who had to withstand tremendous pressure. Whether you know it
was Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis, or you know,
looking at what Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford went through
all the way up into you know, modern times with
George W. Bush after nine eleven. And you know, my
understanding of the presidency is exactly as you describe it.
(39:52):
And I write in my book what happened when you
know Trump is baiting me and leering at me in
the seck in debate, and I'm sitting there thinking, Okay,
do I turn around and really take him up? Or
do I maintain that calm and that dignity, because that's
what presidents do. But in today's world, the entertainment factor,
(40:14):
the so called you know, authenticity, which often to me
is really a miss you know, nomer, because what you're
seeing in our meltdowns and nastiness and mean spiritedness, if
we look at you know, somebody like Trump, how do
you maintain it? You know, the presidency obviously has a
very unique place in your life. To say the least.
(40:35):
I remember a woman I spoke to who shall remain nameless,
who was adjacent to the Biden campaign. We spoke on
the phone about something, and I took the opportunity. I
lunged for the opportunity to say to her, can I
tell you what I think he should do? Can I
go offer you my unsolicited advice? And she was very kind,
she should go for it, please and I and I said,
just tell him, just you know, it's his to lose.
(40:57):
Don't take the bait. Let Trump be um. And I
really mean this. I want to say, be more like her.
In the debate where you did mainta You were standing there,
like you said, Tom Brady in the pocket, I'm gonna
throw this ball into the end zone. You didn't let
him get to you. That's always the better choice. I
want to loop back with what we were talking about
earlier because I want to ask you something about comedy
(41:18):
and about sn L in particular. I appreciated your depiction
of Trump. Do you think actually doing what you did
and what SNL does, making terrible people sort of more
palatable to the general public kind of helps them in
(41:39):
a way. I've heard that many times, many times, that
what we did only softened the impact of how bad
they were. But you know, Lord Michaels is someone who
has steered a show. They're rounding the corner now, towards
fifty years of being on the air. Isn't that astonishing?
Now the show they found a way with all of
(42:00):
the digital and online platforms and everything to bring the
show to an audience that's almost larger than ever. There
was a larger audience at the heyday, the Friends and
Seinfeld era of TV watching, and then it went down
and now it's back up to where. You know, when
I was doing the debates and McKinnon played you, he
(42:23):
played the Jaws music and I was coming up behind.
When the Jaws music is playing the debate one of
my favorites, one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
We're doing that, and uh, you know, but Lauren is
someone who knows that he has two constituents to serve,
the people that own the company and his audience and
his staff and writers. And there are lines that he
(42:43):
has asked to cross all the time that he will
not cross. There are things people pitch. I've pitched things
which he said there and said to me, maybe not
because he doesn't want the show to become just outrageous
or a bully pulpit. It's an entertainment program. And the
one thing that we were criticized for but I was
nonetheless the most satisfied with it, and I took the
(43:03):
greatest pleasure from which is what we said were verbatim
transcripts of what he had said. You couldn't criticize this
and say we imagine it was a fantasy. He said it,
he did it, and we would just do that, and
I forever I'm grateful for that, because we didn't cross
with any bounds. Everything was in the whalm of reality.
But you're right, there are some people who we rallied
(43:27):
the troops on the other side, we rallied our opposition.
They would sit there and they were like, you know,
if I was dying in the desert and Alec Baldwin
gave me a canteen, I'd rather die than dream from
now like Baldwin's canteen. There is that group. Let's talk
for a second about thirty Rock and about the character
you play, Jack Donneghie, which you were brilliant at and
(43:47):
you know, the boss to the Tina Fey character Liz Lemon,
and the way you portrayed Donnaghie is that you know,
you were a Reagan Republican who was going to Reagan
when you died well. I viewed Donna g as what
we used to call when I was younger, a Rockefeller Republican,
which it really wasn't about social issues. Men can go
ahead and marry each other, and uh, I don't have
(44:10):
any opinions about other social issues like a woman's right
to choose and so forth. He's a Rockefeller Republican, which
means there's no problem you can have in this life
that can't be solved by making more money. And I
would really appreciate it if the government in every week
just got out of the way. I mean, I want
lower taxes and less regulations of my business, and I'm fine.
(44:31):
There was a scene I'm on a balcony, I'm on
a terrace with Tina, and of course the Donaghee character
was all Robert Carla Cantina. I didn't write it. They're
the geniuses here and I'm on a balcony with a
glass of wine and Tina says, I'm working so hard
and I don't know what e's gonna happen in my life.
She goes, I'm getting older now. Pretty soon, no one's
gonna want to even see me naked. And I don't
flinch and I have a drink in my hand, and
(44:52):
I go, will you make enough money you pay someone
to see you? And that is donneghese philosophy. Who as
long as we're making a lot of money, what do
you care? Money solves everything? But that description of that
scene and his philosophy. I ran across that in this
last election. I mean you did too. You know, you
grew up with people on Long Island who said to you, right, look,
(45:14):
I can't stand the guy, you know, I think he's
over the top, etcetera, etcetera. But hey, I'm doing well.
You know, the business is doing well. He got my taxes.
I don't care what else he does. Right that, that
is a real but but you know more of you
and your husband know more about this than anybody you're
out here where there are some obviously a lot of
privileged people. I guess from time to time their attitude was,
(45:36):
I'm not voting for Trump. I just can't vote for Biden. Yeah,
I just would not vote for it. You're gonna raise
my taxes, You're gonna raise my capital gains. I can't
stand Trump. I'm gonna hold my nose, but I'll never
vote for a never, never we'll be right back. We
(46:03):
do have to keep laughing. I mean, part of what
I worry about is that the stuff that's happening in
the country right now is deadly serious, and we know
how divided we are, and it's a kind of contradiction.
And I'd love your insight into this and what role
comedy and theater and and and your work as an
(46:26):
actor could bring in trying to shine a light on
some common ground. Is there a way for people to
begin talking to each other again in a useful way?
I think now that Trump has gone yes, because Trump
was something we could not set that aside. There are
people that have had they won. I had profound differences
of opinion with them, but I could have bitten the
(46:47):
bullet and a few months goes by and you accept,
and you also know that we get back to that
idea of that person growing in the job. George W.
Bush grew with the job. Who would have thought, especially
if you're in there two terms, what it are to
be able to change and expand your mind and your
humanity And with Trump, none of that. So we had
no choice. It was truly our civic duty to resist
(47:08):
him and to underline what he was doing. Now that
he's gone, we might not solve every problem, but we
have a chance. With Biden and Harrass, we have a chance.
Is there anybody currently on the political scene that you
would want to, you know, play or in some way
convey an image of I want to get away from
the comedy thing now. I really want to kind of
scrape that coat of paint off me and go do
(47:31):
I've got some dramatic things lined up. I think right now,
where I'm kind of setting my lane I'm getting back
into is working with the United Nations the Environmental Program.
Because you know, there's institutions that you sit there and
you want to criticize them. The post office is a
good example. I used to say to myself, why don't
(47:51):
FedEx and ups just by the post office? And then
you thought to yourself, oh god, if we made the
post office a business, how many people would get hurt?
So I got off that idea. I have a sense
of some institutions and if I'm critical of them, I
realized to some degree, I don't fully understand how they
really work and their importance. And one of those that
I have abundant faith and I've always been so honored
(48:14):
to be invited to the party is the United Nations,
and I'm really going to go full born now into
my un EP work. We're going off to Norway, We're
going off to Scotland for the Global Conference. My wife
and I are really going to commit to showing up
for these events to support the work of the United
Nations Environmental Program. Good for you. Environmentalism is my new
(48:35):
big thing yet that I'm going back to more of that. Yea.
Let me just say to you as we close, and
that is you and you hear this from your friends,
and you hear this from your supporters and fans all
the time. Democrat in the White House, Republican in the
White House, COVID, no COVID. We need to hear your
voice giving your measured opinion of all these things. Please
don't stop doing these shows. Okay I won't, and let's
(48:58):
keep the conversation going. Thank you. You can hear more
from Alec on his podcast. Here's the thing. Thanks for
joining us. If you have a favorite version of politics
on TV, send us a note at You and Me
(49:18):
Both pod at gmail dot com because we love hearing
from you. You and Me Both is brought to you
by my Heart Radio. We're produced by Julie Subran, Kathleen
Russo and Lauren Peterson, with help from Juma Aberdeen, Nicky
E tour, Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Brianna Johnson, Nick Merrill,
(49:42):
Rob Russo and Lona vl Moro. Our engineer is Zack
McNeice and the 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
(50:05):
or wherever you get your podcasts. See you next week.
Host
Hillary Clinton
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