836: The Big Rethink
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Prologue: Prologue
Ira Glass
For three weeks, Joe Biden said as forcefully as a human being possibly could say that he would not step down. And for three weeks, it was this agonizing drip, drip, drip of people trying to get him to reconsider and of voters around the country wondering if he was going to reconsider.
Fed by a steady stream of daily news stories that read tea leaves and applied electron microscopes to the tiniest scraps of evidence, looking for any minuscule signs indicating that maybe it could happen, maybe Biden would rethink things. Democrats wondering what it might take to change Biden's mind.
Meanwhile, over in the other half of the country, in red-state America, at the Republican National Convention, people who had changed their minds and reconsidered firmly held convictions were a big part of the festivities. Donald Trump picked his vice president, a man who once said about him, "My god, what an idiot," JD Vance. Nikki Haley, who had once called Trump unhinged, and other former Trump rivals, people who once seemed like they hated Trump and spoken out against him, took the stage to show how they'd reconsidered.
And even Trump himself, the centerpiece of the whole thing, seemed to be presenting himself as a changed man, somebody who had reconsidered who he wants to be in the wake of his near assassination. He presented a notably gentler, uniter-not-divider side of himself. All this reconsideration, of course, was in the service of getting the swing voters of the swing states to do some reconsideration of their own about who they might be picking for president this fall.
I sometimes feel like the rarest thing in the world is to witness somebody actually changing their mind. You know what I mean? Changing their mind about something big, some fundamental belief. I mean, I know it happens, right? Most of us know people who are never going to have kids who decide they're going to go for it, or Democrats who became Republicans, pro-lifers who switched to pro-choicers.
When it happens, it's a seismic thing. And that point of transition, when you're flipping from one way of seeing things to the new way, that is a weird, awkward thing to live through.
And so today on our show, in this moment when Joe Biden seems to have reconsidered some of his most deeply held ideas about himself and his chances in this election, we have stories of people rethinking some big, basic beliefs that they've taken for granted, trying on a new attitude toward the world. And we watch how that goes for them. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.
Act One: Fate of the Union
Ira Glass
Act one, Fate of the Union. Of all the people who'd rethought their feelings about Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week, there was one guest for whom the rethink has been especially dramatic, and that's Sean O'Brien. A lifelong Democrat from Massachusetts, Sean O'Brien is the head of the Teamsters Union. 1.3 million truck drivers, rail, air, all transportation, delivery workers, lots of jobs, they endorsed Biden in 2020.
And Sean O'Brien was at the RNC to give a speech-- a big speech, actually, the keynote speech on the first night of the convention. I should say, the Teamsters Union president hasn't spoken at the RNC ever before in the entire history of the union, because-- maybe this is obvious-- Republicans have been the party of big business and generally pretty opposed to organized labor. Zoe Chace tells how this played out.
Zoe Chace
Here's how weird it is that this guy, Sean O'Brien, is at the RNC in the first place. President Biden, a Democrat, calls himself the most pro-union president in history. There's reasons. He bailed out union pensions. The Teamsters were pushing for that. All his major infrastructure bills have included money and benefits specifically for unions. He walked a picket line with the United Auto Workers. He gave his first 2020 campaign speech from a Teamsters Hall.
Donald Trump has a record, too, as a Republican president, of rolling back regulations that protected unions, appointing Supreme Court justices who ruled against unions, and of course, hiring non-union workers when he was a real estate developer, notoriously stiffing his workers out of overtime. Both of them talk about loving American workers, obviously. That's politics. But their policies are very different.
So when Teamsters President Sean O'Brien showed up at the Republican Convention this week, he felt like an outsider right away. Or maybe he wanted to make the point that he was an outsider right away.
Sean O'Brien
So I'm backstage. And the rehearsal the night before, we came in, and they just wanted to show us the setup of the stage. So--
Zoe Chace
They're telling Sean how to walk across the stage to the podium. He's going to be the keynote speaker on night one.
Sean O'Brien
And so they said, no, you got to do a dogleg right when you come out of the stage and come down. But the gentleman said, you know golf? You know how you do a dogleg right? I said, look, in my business, if you're a good golfer, you're a bad representative. I don't golf. So he says, just make, like, a little arc.
Zoe Chace
He's like, it was a bad example. OK.
Sean O'Brien
So here I am, hopefully delivering the most powerful speech for American workers. And I'm debating what a dogleg is with the person. So it actually-- it was typical to my nature. I get distracted and start talking to him about how union officials shouldn't golf because they should be out working.
Zoe Chace
Sean O'Brien seems to be here to walk a fine line, basically, with Republicans. He's like, look, this is a major prime-time slot where you don't expect to hear from us, where we get to talk to people who aren't usually listening. He describes his mission as enlightening the Republican National Convention on how important workers and unions are to this country, and maybe make some new political allies.
He's been on this charm offensive with Republicans for months. He went to Mar-a-Lago. He met with Trump, took a thumbs-up picture with him. He's been meeting with Republican senators, including hard-line conservative Josh Hawley, who ended up walking union picket lines.
O'Brien told me, we have a really diverse union in all the ways, including politically. A big chunk of his membership supports Trump, and he's here partly for them. But some of organized labor is not happy with him at all. It's hard to overstate. Appalled, enraged, apoplectic, horrified. A vice president of the Teamsters Union publicly called it unconscionable.
Rick Smith
So as I think of O'Brien going to the RNC and doing his song and dance, I got to go, what's the message? What's he going to say?
Zoe Chace
This is Rick Smith's radio show. He's a 35-year Teamster, a truck driver. He thinks O'Brien's just going to be part of the Trump campaign's long-running political theater of being a party for blue-collar workers without making any actual policy that helps those workers. To him, it's like, what's O'Brien going to get for this?
Rick Smith
The reality is is Sean O'Brien is going to be their whipping boy. They are going to use him and my Teamsters Union as their hood ornament as they drive their anti-union policy truck right over the top of working people. And the reality is is Sean O'Brien is going to be their dancing show pony, whether he wants to be or not.
And they're going to ride him until election day, because what they understand, what Trump understands, what the RNC gets by giving him this platform, is a lot of his members vote for Republicans. This is making it OK. This is going, yeah, don't worry about your job. Don't worry about any of that stuff. It's OK. It's fine.
Zoe Chace
So to see how this song and dance goes over, I pick my spot way up high in the stands and sit with some delegates. I find Todd Gilman, this delegate from Michigan I know, and make him watch Sean O'Brien's speech with me. Todd's retired, a Navy vet. He was in a union decades ago. He got involved with the Republican Party just a few years ago. And he's organizing a county commissioner race now. We're chatting.
Zoe Chace
How's that going, those races or those campaigns?
Todd Gillman
I think they're going good.
Zoe Chace
Yeah?
Todd Gillman
Yeah.
Zoe Chace
Todd has never heard of Sean O'Brien and does not care about him, it seems. All he knows about Teamsters is, where did the mafia bury Jimmy Hoffa's body? We're waiting for O'Brien's spot in the lineup when, suddenly, an unannounced guest appears.
Zoe Chace
Oh, Trump's here.
Todd Gillman
He's in the building.
Zoe Chace
Trump himself, not scheduled to speak, shows up on screen with a dramatically bandaged ear. It's the first night of the convention, our first time seeing him, and his first time in public since the assassination attempt. The crowd is losing it, the cameras following him down the hall toward the convention room like he's a fighter headed into the ring.
Zoe Chace
Oh, look at his ear.
Todd Gillman
He might be coming out. Your Teamster guy might not be talking.
Zoe Chace
The crowd is jonesing for Trump, but Trump does not take the stage. He sits in the audience. And instead, the guy who appears on stage is--
Todd Gillman
Lee Greenwood?
Zoe Chace
Country singer.
Todd Gillman
He's going to play "Proud to Be an American." And then--
Zoe Chace
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
"Proud to Be an American" is Trump's theme song this campaign. It's generally a signal he's about to take the stage. Only this time, the singer himself is here live, giving a sort of impromptu prayer benediction as images of Trump waving and grimacing appear on screen, turning the white-swaddled ear from side to side.
Lee Greenwood
As Donald Trump turned his head just slightly that the bullet missed him just enough to save his life to be the next president of the United States.
Zoe Chace
The crowd sings "Proud to Be an American" with enthusiasm, then chants for Trump.
[CHANTING "WE WANT TRUMP"]
But Trump still does not take the stage. Instead, this random guy limps out and stands there, one of the many regular Americans on the program who feel hurt by Biden's policies. He's dubbed onscreen as a grandfather. You've got to feel for him. The crowd is chanting, we want Trump, right into his face. Then another rando with the same story of not being able to afford stuff. Then Amber Rose-- how to describe-- model and influencer talks about seeing the light and voting Republican.
Todd Gillman
Oh, she does have a forehead tattoo.
Zoe Chace
Overall, the vibes are way off. Trump's still in the room. People are clamoring for him to speak. And then finally, the last speaker of the night, instead of Trump, it's the president of the Teamsters Union, the outsider guy, the person who doesn't necessarily belong here.
Todd Gillman
Is this the mob boss?
Zoe Chace
There he is.
Todd Gillman
This is the mob boss?
Zoe Chace
All right, now, you pay attention. Tell me what you think.
Todd Gillman
He's probably a mob boss if he's a Teamsters president.
Zoe Chace
Clearly, O'Brien has some assumptions about union bosses to overcome with this crowd.
Sean O'Brien
Greetings, delegates and guests. I'm Sean O'Brien, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Zoe Chace
OK, big applause. And it just gets bigger.
Sean O'Brien
And I think we all can agree, whether people like him or they don't like him, in light of what happened to him on Saturday, he has proven to be one tough SOB.
Zoe Chace
Biggest applause line of the night by far, like the catharsis of waiting for Trump is satisfied by this, a line that Sean will tell me he came up with right then, wasn't on the teleprompter. He was just feeling it. My Michigan delegate, Todd, is cheering, along with his military buddy, Bob, from Wisconsin. Bob leans over.
Bob
This is huge. I mean, you've got all these different people that voted for Joe Biden-- and their families did-- coming out here and speaking. This could turn out to be a total butt-kicking in November.
Zoe Chace
Now, the Teamsters are not endorsing Trump tonight. Sean O'Brien has been quite clear about that. But Bob from Wisconsin is just hearing the Teamsters throw their weight behind Trump. He's not paying close attention to the specifics of what Sean is saying, really. And as it goes on, the speech does get much more specific and much less Republican Convention-sounding, basically. He throws long-standing Republican allies, mainstays of the party, under the bus.
Sean O'Brien
But for a century, major employers have waged a war against labor by forming corporate unions of their own. We need to call the Chamber of Commerce and the business roundtables what they are. They are unions for big business. And here's another fact.
Zoe Chace
You think that's right?
Todd Gillman
Yeah, he's right. I never thought of it that way, but he's 100% correct.
Zoe Chace
He talks about major American companies, not as great examples of entrepreneurship, like at a typical Republican Convention, but as great examples of corporate greed.
Sean O'Brien
Companies like Amazon are bigger than most national economies. Amazon is valued over $2 trillion. What is sickening is that Amazon has abandoned any national allegiance. Amazon's sole focus is on lining its own pockets.
Zoe Chace
People are like, am I with this? Companies are bad? It's a little awkward. But then O'Brien pulls out a magic word that sells in this room.
Sean O'Brien
Remember, elites have no party. Elites have no nation. Their loyalty is to the balance sheet and the stock price at the expense of the American worker.
Todd Gillman
I love this guy.
Bob
I can't stand Amazon.
Todd Gillman
Yeah, I love this guy.
Bob
Yep.
Zoe Chace
At some point, the crowd seems to hear themselves cheering wildly for organized labor and against corporatists. And it does get a little more strained-feeling in the room.
Sean O'Brien
There are no consequences for the company, only the worker.
Zoe Chace
Right to work! Right to work! Someone is heckling the Teamster president kind of wonkily by screaming out the name of a policy that Teamsters hate. Right to work is a shot directly into the heart of unions' ability to organize. It's at the very center of Republican labor policy.
Right to work allows workers to work in a union shop without having to pay union dues. Advocates of the policy say workers should get to choose what they want. Unions hate it because they say workers then get the benefits of the contract without paying for it. It undercuts their power. There's over 150 Republicans co-sponsoring right-to-work bills in Congress right now. Trump has said he supports right to work.
Sean O'Brien continues to slam big business. And I'm almost expecting him to talk about Bernie's millionaires and billionaires. The applause in the room is getting weaker.
Sean O'Brien
These companies offer no real health insurance, no retirement benefits, no pay leave, relying on underfunded public assistance. And who foots the bill? The individual taxpayer. The biggest recipients of welfare in this country are corporations. And this is real corruption. We must put workers first.
Zoe Chace
By the end of the speech, Todd's feeling about this guy he'd never heard of before--
Todd Gillman
He's knocking it out of the park. I'm glad I stuck around and listened to him. Thanks.
Zoe Chace
When I talked to O'Brien after the speech, in the lobby of the grand Pfister Hotel, I wanted to know if he felt what I was feeling, about the awkwardness in the room, the uncertain silence, when he started wailing on the Chamber of Commerce and big American companies.
Zoe Chace
Did you feel a feeling in the room like this is going over weird?
Sean O'Brien
Not at all. Not at all. I mean, I felt real comfortable. I knew that-- it's like anything else. If you're in a crowd and someone's talking about a situation and you may think you are the subject of it or you may think that pertains to you, it may be a little bit more uncomfortable for them than it was for me.
Zoe Chace
Overall, he feels pretty great about the speech. He got his message out. He thinks that now, he'll get calls from Republican legislators who weren't meeting with him before. Like, there's this one Senate bill right now that the big unions are really fighting for. It's called the PRO Act, Protecting the Right to Organize Act.
Zoe Chace
It's all Democrats. There's not a single Republican signer onto that bill.
Sean O'Brien
Not yet. Not yet, but we're working on it.
Zoe Chace
Do you think you got some people--
Sean O'Brien
Well, the bill that's currently there.
Zoe Chace
Right.
Sean O'Brien
Right. So if you know you're not going to get support-- it's not going to pass-- wouldn't it make sense to figure out what could pass bipartisan?
Zoe Chace
Yeah. So do you think you got people in that room to reconsider?
Sean O'Brien
I know that for a fact.
Zoe Chace
How do you know?
Sean O'Brien
Because I've had the conversations.
Zoe Chace
Can you give me an example?
Sean O'Brien
I cannot, but stay tuned.
Zoe Chace
Now, the very next day, the Teamsters announced there was a new co-sponsor of the House version of the bill, a third Republican House member from Oregon. Because of the speech? We don't know.
Rick Smith, the 35-year Teamster with the radio show, watched the convention, watched the speech from his union president, and I called him afterwards.
Rick Smith
I fear he did everything that I thought he was going to do, because, look, I don't think anybody remembers what he says tomorrow other than, Trump's a tough SOB. There may be a quote, but what they're going to remember is he was there for Donald Trump.
Zoe Chace
Rick saw Sean's speech as just another piece of the political theater playing out at the RNC, more working man cosplay, like Trump's selection of JD Vance as vice president, in his opinion. Sean O'Brien praised Vance in his speech. Vance's brand is kind of made-in-America economic populism. He famously walked a UAW picket line in Toledo.
Rick Smith
I go back to this idea that there are Republicans that support labor. JD Vance walked a picket line. Yeah, OK, he walked the picket line. But he doesn't support workers' right to organize. And I know he'll give on something here or there. But ultimately, this is a guy who's not a friend of labor.
And it seems simple to me. These are the people who are going to put the final nail in the coffin of the labor movement. And I think he gave them the kind of fodder that they can use. It's like handing an ax murderer an ax and then being surprised. What does Trump always say about a snake biting you because a snake is a snake, right?
Zoe Chace
Yeah, it's the snake's nature.
Rick Smith
Right, and this is-- that's these people's nature.
Zoe Chace
O'Brien's response is, maybe the snake is changing. We can make them change. Parties change. You can't get things done if that's your uncompromising approach.
Sean O'Brien
I mean, look, you look at the Democratic Party 20 years ago as compared to now, I think we can all agree there's been significant change. Conversely, you look at the Republican Party 20 years ago and look at it today, I mean, there's been significant change.
Zoe Chace
But you don't have to go back 20 years in this case, with this election. You can look at the Biden administration and the Trump administration. And one is more pro-labor than the other.
Sean O'Brien
There's no doubt about that. And I can speak to that all day long. I mean, President Biden fixed pensions, brought a lot of work, passed the CHIPS Act, infrastructure bill, all that stuff. There's no doubt. But that doesn't mean that we can't work with anybody else that doesn't have the same labor record. And maybe they can-- obviously, if they have the opportunity, they can do good things for working people as well.
Zoe Chace
This sounds either wickedly pragmatic or hopelessly naive. But however much the Democrats and Joe Biden have done for organized labor, the Democrats could definitely lose in November. And Trump, who was sitting right across the hall from O'Brien up on stage performing, watching him closely with that martyred ear, he might be the guy he'll have to negotiate with.
Ira Glass
Zoe Chace is a producer on our show.
Act Two: Out on a Limb
Ira Glass
Act two, Out on a Limb. You know who July hasn't been so great for? The Democratic politicians who were out front before anybody, publicly calling for President Biden to drop out of the election.
Out of 260 Democrats who sit in the House and Senate, only 21 stepped forward, 20 from the House of Representatives and one senator, for the first three weeks after the presidential debate. No Democratic governors. No former presidents. But this small group called for Biden to drop out, hoping an army was going to form behind them. Then a week passed, then another week, and the battalions did not show up. They hung out there by themselves.
Finally, at the end of this week, we heard about big names in the party, Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, behind the scenes, urging the president to step aside. With that cover, going into the weekend, the number of elected lawmakers started edging up very slowly. And finally, of course, Joe Biden bowed out of the race. But it took over three weeks for things to get to this point.
So what was it like for the people who stuck their necks out and waited? Well, Congressman Seth Moulton agreed to talk to me about all that. He's a Democrat from Massachusetts, a rising star in the party, had a brief presidential run himself in 2020, a former Marine who served four tours in Iraq. In fact, he led a platoon in the first company to enter Baghdad.
Years ago, he did a memorable interview on our program about this interpreter who he worked with and got close to in Iraq who ended up coming to the States and living in Moulton's childhood home with his parents. Basically, he became part of their family while waiting to get asylum because of all the death threats against him for collaborating with Americans.
Joe Biden took an interest in Seth Moulton back when Moulton first ran for Congress in 2014, when Biden was vice president. Biden went to Massachusetts to do a rally endorsing him. And they rode in a car together, where Moulton says the vice president offered him half of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And he was not sure if you're supposed to say no to that offer from the vice president. So he said yes.
Moulton's age and his military experience, Moulton says Biden's told him a few times he reminds him of his son, Beau. Moulton and I spoke this past Monday, July 15. He told me the story of turning his back on Joe Biden starts, of course, on debate night.
Seth Moulton
Well, I think, like most Americans, I felt the debate was an unmitigated disaster for President Biden. I mean, we all remember the times he couldn't keep his train of thought. He lost his place. He seemed incoherent. I thought one of the most remarkable moments was when he literally took our best issue, abortion, and pivoted immediately to our worst issue, immigration. I mean, you almost couldn't make it up.
Ira Glass
I want to ask you a question that I worry might be a little awkward for you to answer. And I hope you can answer it honestly. The side of President Biden that we all saw on television that night during the debate-- you're in DC. You hear a lot of things, I'm sure. Had you seen that side of him before that night? Had you heard about that side of him before that night? Is that something people talk about?
Seth Moulton
Yes. Yes, it is. I've seen the president fairly regularly as a member of Congress, although it does feel like his staff is hiding him far more than they used to. But I've seen a dramatic change, in particular over the last several months. I saw him at the White House Christmas Ball. And he looked older and frailer. But he was excited to see me, quickly recounted things we've done together or whatnot.
Then I saw him, most recently, just a few weeks ago in Normandy, for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. He was speaking with a small group of us. And the change was pretty dramatic.
Ira Glass
How so?
Seth Moulton
Well, it was more like the things that we saw in the debate. Not that bad, but more in that direction.
Ira Glass
Like him having a hard time summoning the words for things?
Seth Moulton
Yeah, more like that, yes. But as someone who's been a very long-time Joe Biden fan, as someone who's admired him, as someone who's been a mentee of his, it was hard to see. And it was concerning, to the point where, although I don't think there's a single American who expected what we saw the night of that debate, I wasn't entirely surprised.
So when we came back to the House floor the next day, everyone was sharing the same view. I didn't speak to anyone who thought it was OK other than Speaker Pelosi, who just said, well, I don't know that we can judge a campaign by one debate. But I really felt she had to say that.
Party leaders are in a little bit different position. But all of us in the rank and file thought it was a total disaster. And I think most of us were clear that the only way forward for Democrats to have a chance in this election is to get a new nominee at the top of the ticket.
Ira Glass
Over the next few days, Moulton says, he tried to call everybody he knew in the White House, anybody close to the inner circle, to express his concerns about the president's performance and the path ahead.
Seth Moulton
I made a lot of phone calls. And I got nothing in response. Now, I'm not offended by that. I don't want to come across as thinking that the White House should return my phone calls. But given the circumstances, you'd expect some low-level aide to just give me a call and say, we've heard your concerns. Here's what we're doing about them. But it was just a wall of silence.
Ira Glass
What did that say to you?
Seth Moulton
It said to me that they're not taking this seriously. We needed to hear a new plan. And first, you just simply need to hear that they're being honest about the situation at hand. But I wasn't hearing any of that.
When I came home to Massachusetts, I held a Zoom meeting with a lot of local Democratic officials. And these are people who tend to be very establishment players. They want to stick with the status quo, by and large. So I expected the majority of them to be in favor of Biden remaining on the ticket. I'd say it was about 80% in favor of his stepping aside. That was powerful as well.
Ira Glass
It's five days after the debate before the first Democratic lawmaker calls for Biden to step down. A day later, a second one does. That same night, Moulton releases a very polite, pretty hedgey statement saying, "I have grave concerns about President Biden's ability to defeat Donald Trump," and then going on to say if the president can't demonstrate that he can do a better job prosecuting the case against Trump, quote, "We should have all viable options on the table." So that goes out.
Seth Moulton
But then later that night, I showed my statement to a friend who was visiting, a Marine. And this great friend of mine, who I trust for advice, he read it, and he said, what are you trying to say? I said, well, I'm basically saying that he should step aside.
And he said, well, then why don't you just say it, Seth? And I gave him this long explanation for why being polite was the appropriate thing to do here and actually more likely to result in mission accomplishment. Let's be respectful of the president and push him gently in the right position, not be so explicit.
But I thought about it a lot that night. And I woke up thinking about it the next morning. And I decided, if I honestly think he should step aside, then you know what? I should just say it. And so the next morning on the one interview I did, a local NPR station--
Ira Glass
WBUR.
Seth Moulton
When we were talking about the statement, I just simply added those few words. He should step aside.
Ira Glass
And with that, Seth Moulton became the third Democrat to demand the president step down. He told me he didn't expect tons of his colleagues to join him and follow suit, even though so many of them agreed that Biden should step aside. That's just how Congress works, he says. He's in other situations where his colleagues agree on important stuff behind the scenes but don't take a public stand.
Seth Moulton
I didn't, frankly, expect a lot of people to jump right in with me. But I mean, I'm sorry to admit that.
Ira Glass
And so what happened? Watching the news, I really wondered if, for somebody like you, if after making a statement like that-- you're walking through the halls of Congress. You're going down to the floor. Are you, like, a pariah? Are people not meeting your eye? What's it like?
Seth Moulton
Well, it was interesting. I was very curious what would happen the first time I came back to Washington and walked out onto the House floor for votes that evening. And it did seem like people were just avoiding me, like they didn't want to be caught in a conversation. But it was totally different as soon as I walked into the cloakroom, in other words, away from the reporters and the TV cameras. And people had a lot of nice things to say.
Ira Glass
He says he did try to lobby some of his colleagues, told him they should come forward publicly also. And a few did. But generally, most did not. And why not? Fear, best as he can tell. They were scared of ticking off the president and his team, of going against the Democratic establishment, of sticking their necks out.
That fear is not entirely unreasonable. Michigan Congresswoman Hillary Scholten was kicked out of a Democratic Party planning meeting to coordinate get-out-the-vote efforts because, Politico reported, the Michigan State Democratic Party didn't like the fact that she called on President Biden to step down.
Moulton told me the main time he heard anybody make any kind of principled argument against speaking out was at a meeting of the Democratic caucus. This is Democratic members of the House. They met 12 days after the debate to discuss Biden.
Seth Moulton
People who were concerned about the chaos or supposed chaos of what might come next, the people who were unsure whether this should go directly to Vice President Harris or should be some sort of open mini-primary, as James Carville and Jim Clyburn have suggested.
Ira Glass
Moulton spoke at that meeting. And afterwards, he says, colleagues who were not sticking their necks out publicly continued to tell him that they liked what he was saying and doing in public.
Ira Glass
Do you feel impatient or frustrated with them?
Seth Moulton
Yes. Yes. I mean, I'll be honest. Look, I know people have very different political backgrounds and constituencies to represent. I know some people are hearing more folks back home who just want Biden to stay in the race. At least, I'm guessing that they do.
Ira Glass
And what is your read of the politics of this? Like, you're in a safe Democratic district or a pretty safe Democratic district. Is this good for you politically? Like, calls and emails and texts and stuff to your office, are they mostly people supporting you, coming out and saying this about the president?
Seth Moulton
Interestingly, the calls and messages we've received from people in the district are very supportive. It's just, thank you for saying what we all saw. But there seems to be some kind of organized campaign nationally to attack me, because a lot of the messages on social media, on Twitter, and to our office that come from outside the district have been highly critical.
Ira Glass
Wait, wait. Do you think it's possible that your own party or your own president is organizing people to yell at you online?
Seth Moulton
I mean, that's pretty standard practice, I think. I don't know if that's exactly what's happening right now, or it's just self-organizing groups, or even Twitter bots. I mean, I don't really know. We haven't spent a lot of time digging into it.
Ira Glass
For a lot of us reading news reports during the three weeks before President Biden dropped out, as the days rolled on and President Biden kept insisting that he didn't think he lost any ground in the race and he wasn't going to listen to anybody but himself on this, the chances of him actually leaving the race seemed to get more and more remote.
But this past Monday, Congressman Moulton told me that from where he sat, the whole thing was still very much an open question, even after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and that photo with his fist in the air.
Seth Moulton
I mean, look, from my narrow perspective, and the phone calls I've received, it's intensified calls for President Biden to step aside. It's going to be even harder for Democrats to win after that attempted assassination. And so how do we increase pressure on the White House?
Ira Glass
I understand that you were on a phone call that President Biden was on this weekend. What can you say about that?
Seth Moulton
It was a Zoom meeting. And he was speaking with the new Democratic coalition. And well, there were a few dozen of us on with him. And I'm not going to share details of a confidential meeting. But I'll just say that it was discouraging. It left me feeling affirmed of my position and felt like things are bad and getting worse. I mean, this was not a high-stakes debate. This was just a low-stakes conversation with a bunch of fellow Democrats. But it didn't go terribly well for the president.
Ira Glass
How so?
Seth Moulton
It just seemed like he's not taking our concerns seriously, making a lot of excuses, on the one hand, citing polls that say he's doing better while dismissing all the bad polls by saying polls don't matter, and just continuing to refuse to answer this question about, how are you going to turn things around, sir?
Ira Glass
So as we record this, it's Monday, July 15. 19 members of Congress and one senator are with you, basically, in total, calling for President Biden to step down. And then the rest of the Democratic Party elected officials are on the other side. How is that feeling?
Seth Moulton
Well, first of all, that's just not an accurate characterization. 19 plus 1 are public. The majority are with me. And so therefore, how does it feel? It feels frustrating.
Ira Glass
Can I ask you, are you in a sort of a perverse situation, where, when you watch the president now on TV, you're sort of hoping for him to slip up? Like, if he slips up more, it'll speed--
Seth Moulton
No. No, no no.
Ira Glass
--him on the path towards having to step down?
Seth Moulton
It's an interesting question. No, I'm not hoping the president will slip up. But I am hoping that something happens to push him over the edge, just to make him realize, to face reality here.
I think it's important to say, Ira, that I genuinely love Joe Biden. He's been a great mentor to me. He's consistently given me great advice. I have nothing but good things to say about Joe Biden.
Ira Glass
Is there some moment between you that especially stands out or you think captures what it's like being-- or what it was like in the past between you and him?
Seth Moulton
President Biden used to have me over for breakfast when he was vice president. We'd sit at his residence. And of course, breakfast was always scheduled for about an hour and it would go for close to three. And he would regale me with stories from his time in the Senate and the lessons that he's learned about politics over the years.
I'd ask very serious questions, pose situations where I needed advice. And he genuinely took me under his wing. It felt like he was invested in me personally. Now, there are hundreds of people in politics who know Joe Biden better than I. I'm still relatively new to this whole thing. But I like him a lot. I could tell that he cared.
Ira Glass
Knowing him to the degree that you do, are you surprised that he won't give up?
Seth Moulton
He's incredibly tenacious. But I also know he's dedicated to our country. And there's a well-worn phrase in the Marines that they try to drill into you day after day in training, which is, it's not about you.
And that's my fundamental message to President Biden today, is, sir, this is not about you. You're an amazing president. You've been an incredible senator. You've done so much for the United States of America. And now, the best thing you can do is to step aside and give us just a little bit better chance at defeating Donald Trump and winning this election.
Ira Glass
Congressman Seth Moulton from Massachusetts. Again, we spoke on Monday, well before the president decided to step down.
Coming up, typing with your pinkies, how it has the power to make you rethink everything about your own sister. We have a true-life example. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program, The Big Rethink, stories of people reconsidering something fundamental about themselves and the way they see themselves and what happens next. We've arrived at Act Three of our show.
Act Three: Anything You Can Do I Can Do Backwards
Ira Glass
Act three, Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Backwards. OK, so in this time of country-defining decisions, we close our show out today with yet another story of critical import about two sisters and their pinkies, a story Elna Baker stumbled on.
Elna Baker
I was chatting with a friend of a friend, Zoe Kushlefsky, at a bar when she casually mentioned she was about to attempt to break the world record for speed typing the alphabet using only her pinkies. It took me a minute to process. There's a world record for typing with your pinkies? How do you even know that's a thing? Where does that idea even come from? And that's when Zoe said--
Zoe Kushlefsky
My sister. I stole it.
Elna Baker
Sisters-- so twisted, right? My sister has something, and I want to take it from her. Here's how it all started. One day, Zoe's sister, Eliza, texted her this. "LOL, I don't know if you heard, but I broke a world record tonight, fastest time typing the alphabet backwards with my pinky fingers. LOL, I did it in 6.31 seconds. And the record is 9.65.
Zoe Kushlefsky
My next texts were, "LOL, what? That's so bizarre and cool. Bet I can do it in 6:30. I'm going to ruin your night."
Elna Baker
Wow. So it was sort of instantaneous, your desire to take this record from her?
Zoe Kushlefsky
Yeah, I guess so. And I was joking, but it was coming from a true place of, I really do bet I could do it. Like, should I? No, I shouldn't. Unless--
Elna Baker
So Zoe opens her laptop and gives it a try, starts typing the alphabet backwards with her pinkies. She's not great, but she's improving rapidly and live-texting Eliza as she gets better.
Zoe Kushlefsky
And she said, "If you keep practicing, I bet you can get it." And I said, "I think I could, too, but I would feel like an asshole, LOL." She said, "They have the same one for alphabet forwards. The record is 5.7 seconds." And I said, "With pinkies? That would be kind of sick if I got forwards and you got backwards, LOL." Got to throw the LOL in there to soften it, as always.
Elna Baker
Zoe, right then and there, decided that she would go for trying to beat the record for typing the alphabet with your pinkies forward, like she's not dethroning her sister and taking her record.
Zoe Kushlefsky
Because to me, that was a way to just ever so slightly sidestep the idea of coming for her gig.
Elna Baker
And did you think that was going to work? Did you think that was believable?
Zoe Kushlefsky
No.
Elna Baker
There's a specific kind of mind game endemic to sisterhood. And I want to use this stupid pinky thing to examine that, how something so small can blow up because of deep stuff from the past. Like in Zoe's case, from her perspective, Eliza has always been upstaging her. They're both just a few years out of college, but Eliza is already a software engineer with a high-paying job. Zoe's a nanny. Eliza travels the world. Zoe binge watches Vanderpump Rules.
And Eliza's always racking up some new achievement. Like, she only came up with the idea to break the world record because she needed something to do after running her first half marathon, whereas Zoe feels left behind in life. She moved to LA to become a TV writer but hasn't had the confidence to try yet.
And this leads me to the second thing you need to know. The day Zoe got the text from Eliza, it was a big day for Zoe. Just that afternoon, she had finished four months of treatment in a super intense eating disorder program.
Zoe Kushlefsky
Like, I'm talking eating all my meals in the company of a therapist, basically, or a nutritionist. And now, I was like, OK, now it's time to work myself back into the real world.
Elna Baker
Does it feel like she's rubbing her life in your face?
Zoe Kushlefsky
Yes. I mean, for a few good minutes, I was-- I was just kind of like, this was my-- like, I felt really proud of myself for getting through treatment. I felt like I had just kind of had my own accomplishment.
Elna Baker
And that's when-- record scratch-- she got the text from Eliza, and photos. Eliza was surrounded by friends. Everyone's raising their pinkies and celebrating.
Zoe Kushlefsky
And I'm sitting alone on my couch. No one is around me. I'm just sitting, kind of stewing in my own emotions. So I was a little bit-- yeah, I was a little bitter. I was like, doesn't she know it's my last day of treatment? Like, doesn't she know how horrible the timing of this is? I just was bitter. I was just like, congratulate me. This isn't-- this is my moment. This was supposed to be my thing.
Elna Baker
So Zoe finds a typing speed website that can time her and starts rage-typing with her pinkies. To give you an idea of how absurd this looks, hold up your pinkies like Dr. Evil and try to type anything. Now try to do it faster. Now faster. Now repeat that for months. Insane, right? But Zoe became completely fixated on winning.
Zoe and Eliza are stepsisters. When Zoe was eight, her dad met Eliza's mom. And within a couple years, he lived with Eliza's mom and Eliza. Zoe would visit every other weekend. Zoe was already self-conscious about her weight. Her dad was always on her about it. And right away, she started comparing her body to Eliza's.
Zoe Kushlefsky
Eliza, it always just seems to come naturally to. She was always athletic. She ran track. I felt like Eliza was the daughter that my dad dreamed of.
Elna Baker
For dessert, he might serve Zoe fruit, while Eliza got pie. There'd be little critical comments. Zoe's dad had been fat, lost weight his senior year of high school, and felt like it made life so much easier. He thought he was helping Zoe, but now sees how wrong-headed all that was.
But as a teenager, Zoe decided that since Eliza was thin and got good grades and everything seemed easy for her, that Eliza was the favorite, and she was more of a burden. All these past wounds ready to rip open with one ill-timed text.
Zoe Kushlefsky
All this from a pinky world record. It is all connected, but it is pretty wild that all this stuff is coming up.
Elna Baker
Six months go by, and Zoe's getting faster by the millisecond. Early on, she double-checks with Eliza. Are you sure you're OK with this? And Eliza's like, yeah, sure. So Zoe trains on. Finally, she's ready to go for it.
To officially break the record, Zoe has to video her attempt to break the record and send it into Guinness. And so on the day of her first attempt, she invited friends over.
Zoe Kushlefsky
I wore sweatbands around my head and my wrists because it was, like, my athletic, Olympian event.
Elna Baker
Like, your Rocky moment.
Zoe Kushlefsky
Yeah, it was fully my Rocky moment. And I should have gotten tiny little sweatbands for my pinkies. That was a missed opportunity. I did my little slate, where I say, my name is Zoe Kushlefsky.
Hi, my name is Zoe Kushlefsky.
I'm here in Los Angeles.
I'm in Los Angeles, California. I am attempting to break the record for the fastest time to type the alphabet with the little fingers. Oh, and I'm here with my witnesses, Rebekah Kochan--
Rebekah Kochan
Woo!
Zoe Kushlefsky
--and Ben Ligouri.
Rebekah Kochan
Yay.
Ben Ligouri
Yay.
Elna Baker
Zoe goes up to her computer, holds her hands in the air, cracks her knuckles, and wiggles her fingers, warms up her pinkies.
Zoe Kushlefsky
OK.
Rebekah Kochan
I'm in position.
Zoe Kushlefsky
Great. OK. Are we ready? OK. 3, 2, 1, go. Done.
Rebekah Kochan
You got it?
Zoe Kushlefsky
I got it.
Elna Baker
4.6 seconds. The record to beat was 5.12. After a few months, Guinness writes her back. She was now the Guinness World Records' time holder. Zoe calls up Eliza to tell her the good news. She let me sit in and record.
Zoe Kushlefsky
So, yeah, I got the record. How do you feel about that?
Eliza
I'm excited for you.
Zoe Kushlefsky
Thank you.
Eliza
Yeah.
Elna Baker
Eliza congratulates her, but also says--
Eliza
For me, I'm really over the whole record thing, to be honest. For me, it was-- like, it's almost been-- what-- like, nine months now since I did it? And so I'm very over it. I'm just excited for you. I don't really care anymore, from my perspective. I did what I set out to do.
So for me, it was just, yeah, something fun to do. And so it doesn't really matter to me anymore, all the specifics. I don't know. It just depends what it meant to you. I think it could have been-- it was different for you. But for me, I mean, it wore off a while ago. So it passed pretty quickly for me. But for you, it might be different.
Zoe Kushlefsky
True, true.
Elna Baker
I felt like I could hear Zoe deflating on the call. She went from cheering and laughing to being ashamed for even caring. This was such a sister counterattack. She seemed so harsh. But when I sat down with Eliza to talk about it, she was warm, self-deprecating.
Eliza
I come in frazzled. My hands have a little ketchup on them.
Elna Baker
So I played the call for her and just asked her, what was up with that?
Elna Baker
How do you think you sound in this?
Eliza
Not great. I mean, I think I sound defensive and upset.
Elna Baker
Defensive?
Eliza
I think so. I'm like, I don't even really care. But for you, it's different. Oh, this matters to you, but it doesn't matter to me. For you, it's good.
Elna Baker
Here's the thing. Eliza knew Zoe was recording her. And in good sister fashion, she'd said she was OK with it, but she wasn't really. So she was flustered and uncomfortable. And she had other feelings, too. This itch Zoe has to take her down, Eliza's noticed, and it doesn't feel great. If you look at the story from her perspective, Eliza breaks a world record. And when she first texts her sister, hey, I did this cool thing. Zoe's response is, fuck your thing.
Eliza
And I guess I was just like, why is her first response to compete with me and one-up me? And I was just like, instead of being happy for me, she saw it as this competition. And her first response was, I can do it better. This is this cool thing that I tried to achieve. And now you're trying to beat it.
Elna Baker
Yeah, why are you coming after me?
Eliza
Yeah. And I think it's the fact that her first text after was, I bet I can do it faster.
Elna Baker
Right, she didn't even say congratulations first.
Eliza
Yeah. So then it's like, if that's where this is coming from, that feels hurtful. The entire way it was phrased was just doing it better than me.
Elna Baker
Eliza didn't say any of this to Zoe, though. She felt like it was a dumb thing to get her feelings hurt over. So instead, she texted Zoe, I dare you. Eliza says, Zoe always trying to one-up her this way-- Eliza doesn't get it.
Elna Baker
You personally have never felt like you've been competing with Zoe?
Eliza
Not competing. To me, it's not even comparable. I've always admired the fact that she's out in LA, living her dreams. And it's just that she is in a very different career path. But I always think everything she is doing there is amazing. And she's married. And she has a house.
Elna Baker
Yes, Zoe is married. She lives in a nice house. She and her wife have a great relationship. Eliza hasn't yet checked off those big life boxes. She's also, Eliza told me, the performer of the family, the one who upstages her. Plus, Zoe's the oldest. She's actually the big sister. Eliza's like, you win.
Eliza
I felt like she set the tone. Like, she was player one on the Wii. She had to go to the bathroom first when we got home from the car ride. Like, not in any resentful way, just in like a, that was the pecking order. You're the oldest sibling. Like, that felt right. And I think she even said to me, too. I think she said she feels like there's a point where it flipped. And to her, I felt more like the older sister.
But that never happened for me. I've always seen her as the older sister. I still look up to her a lot. I think I still really like to get her approval. I don't know if she said. But actually, someone made a comment about that recently in our family, that I like to get her approval. So to me, I've always looked up to her and admired her, and I still do.
Elna Baker
She told me she had no idea that the day she texted Zoe about her world record was the day Zoe ended treatment. And Zoe never said anything. And she also had no idea that from the time they were kids, Zoe felt inferior to her.
Eliza
Yeah, that's shocking to me.
Elna Baker
Shocking?
Eliza
Yeah. I mean, I just don't see myself in that role. Like, wow. Like, she's doing so much better. I didn't realize she felt like that.
Elna Baker
Eliza says that growing up, she had no idea Zoe thought Eliza was the favorite, the daughter their dad really wanted. She never noticed that she got dessert and Zoe got fruit.
Eliza
I mean, it makes me sad to think that. Some of that, I think, especially now that we're older, I'm very aware of. But I definitely, again, wasn't as a child. And it makes me sad to think of Zoe going through all that and feeling very alone and me having no idea. Like, that is so isolating.
Elna Baker
But then I also see it from your perspective, because it sort of has nothing to do with you.
Eliza
But it does-- like, I don't see it from my perspective. It does have to do with me, I mean, even if it doesn't directly. Like, I wish I could have been there for her and-- yeah, I don't know why I wasn't. Like, I don't know, just being younger and just not seeing these things. And maybe it's not something that I was primed to think about. So I wasn't even noticing.
Elna Baker
Since this whole pinky record thing, for the first time, Zoe and Eliza have started talking about all this, directly. They called each other, compared notes. Zoe was like, oops, I didn't say congratulations after you got your record, did I? And Eliza was like, I had no idea you thought my job was cool.
And Zoe, who in one sentence will say she admires Eliza and in the next say she's jealous, has realized that they're two sides of the same coin, and how she feels about Eliza in any given moment has everything to do with how she feels about herself. And she's being more generous with her. It all looks different now, to both of them.
Ira Glass
Elna Baker, she's the cohost of the podcast Pretty Sure I Can Fly with Johnny Knoxville. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Her story was produced by Lilly Sullivan and edited by Nadia Reiman.
Credits
Ira Glass
Well, our program was produced today by Susan Burton and Dana Chivvis and edited by Laura Starecheski. The people who put our show together today include Chris Benderev, Jendayi Bonds, Sean Cole, Michael Comite, Aviva DeKornfeld, Emmanuel Dzotsi, Hany Hawasly, Henry Larson, Tobin Low, Katherine Rae Mondo, Ryan Rumery, Alix Spiegel, Ike Sriskandarajah, Frances Swanson, Christopher Swetala, Matt Tierney, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu.
Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emanuele Barry. Special thanks today to everybody at WUWM, especially David Lee and Ele Ellis. Also thanks to Ben Terris, Mike Elk with PayDay Report, Mike Pesca, Sarah McCammon, Don Gonyea, Jonathan Weisman, and Paula Moura.
Our website, thisamericanlife.org. If you're looking for something to listen to during a long drive during this holiday summer or while you're waiting for planes to fly, you can stream from our archive of over 800 episodes for absolutely free. Free, did you hear me? thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.
Thanks, as always, to our program's cofounder, Mr. Torey Malatia. When he's in Washington, DC, he actually goes to the same yoga class that Joe Biden does. But the teacher is so overbearing. Torey keeps having to tell her--
Torey Malatia
Let's be respectful of the president and push him gently in the right position.
Ira Glass
I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.