Impeachment and the Scamnadian Prime Minister

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10/18/19 - Life on the road, impeachment inches forward, and are vitamins for real? Plus, we talk to one of our favorite writers, Sarah Hagi, about Scamnadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And, an apology for a fatphobic comment in last week's episode.

Transcript below.

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Spotify.

CREDITS

Producer: Gina Delvac

Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman

Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn

Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.

Associate Producer: Jordan Bailey

Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed

Merch Director: Caroline Knowles

Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci

Design Assistant: Brijae Morris

Ad sales: Midroll

LINKS

Come see us at the Bentzen Ball in Washington, D.C, Sat, 10/26. Use LYLAS for $15 off when you buy two tickets.

Giuliani backed by Fraud Guarantee

The first season of Slow Burn has great context for the slow grind of impeaching a president

Justin Trudeau’s love of costumes was always a red flag

Follow Sarah Hagi @geekylonglegs

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TRANSCRIPT: IMPEACHMENT AND THE SCAMNDIAN PRIME MINISTER

[Ads]

(0:45)

Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend!

Ann: A podcast for long-distances besties everywhere.

Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.

Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman. On today's agenda we're talking about life on the road, impeachment, and the Scamnadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.

[Theme Song]

(1:30)

Aminatou: Hello!

Ann: Hello, hello, hello. You sound very upbeat today.

Aminatou: You know I've been taking my Vitamin B shots so I am -- in fact I am very upbeat today.

Ann: Wow. Like, you know, celebrity on world tour levels of energy.

Aminatou: Yo, or like recovering cancer patient energy. [Laughs]

Ann: The everyday demands on the life of a recovering cancer patient and then also someone playing arena shows do not feel that off to me.

Aminatou: Yo.

Ann: Like that feels like a comparable situation. [Laughs]

Aminatou: It's so real! But, you know, I really have to give a shout-out to the B-12 shots. I used to think that that was all a scam. It turns out that it is not a scam at all.

Ann: I feel like if you're going so far as to get an IV of something or inject something it will have a profound effect on your body, like it's probably not a scam.

Aminatou: If you have any kind of vitamin deficiency you should probably address it. [Laughs] When it's like that I'm sure that it would make anyone feel better.

Ann: I know. But vitamins, I feel like vitamins have such a bad name. They have like a real Whole Foods scammer reputation in my mind where like vitamins and supplements in general -- and even though I know that they're not all scams I'm just like how do I know this really has vitamins in it? How do I know this isn't just a gummy bear you put in a bottle for 20 dollars instead of 3, you know?

Aminatou: [Laughs] That's so real. There are vitamins that I think are real and there are vitamins where I'm like what does -- is this even a thing? And I definitely grew up in a house where my father was obsessed with B-complex, like I don't know why. I don't fully remember why but he was like obsessed with us taking our B-complex. So Vitamin B is a vitamin I believe in. C I believe in. A and E for skincare purposes. But any time I hear anything else I'm like what is this supplement actually doing to you?

Ann: So basically if it's not one of the first five letters of the alphabet you do not acknowledge it? [Laughs]

Aminatou: Right, I don't. But then, you know, but then everybody be having those calcium deficiencies and Vitamin D because they don't get any sun. The whole thing is weird.

Ann: Okay, well Vitamin D is not just a sun situation; it's also like bone health and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, this is like a  . . .

Aminatou: See? See? See? This is how it starts. [Laughs]

Ann: This is how it starts. Also this is how we become -- like turned to as sources for vitamins and supplements when like truly I'm like I don't even know if I believe in them so we should not talk about things.

(3:55)

Aminatou: This is not medical advice. This is not medical advice!

Ann: Oh my god, yeah.

Aminatou: I'm also like don't you think -- sorry, not to belabor the point about this -- the reason I feel I don't understand vitamin deficiencies is that I firmly believe that this is something the government should just be taking care of, you know? I'm like why do . . .

Ann: Like we should all get vitamin packets?

Aminatou: Right, or it should be in our water or the bread or something. I'm like just sneak it in. Just sneak it in places. We need it.

Ann: Right, you did it with high-fructose corn syrup, you can do it with vitamins. [Laughs] You put it everywhere, yeah.

Aminatou: Right. Just like put it in everything so that the people aren't dying because they forgot to eat a fruit.

Ann: Oh my god, I . . .

Aminatou: I just -- I'm going to run on a platform of this. I'm like everyone will get their vitamins like this.

Ann: I have to say it's no coincidence that we are going deep on vitamins when we are at the tail end of a fall tour. I'm just going to point that out that the bodies of Team CYG have like -- have been in better shape and maybe that is why we're talking about vitamins. [Laughs]

Aminatou: Yeah, but like touring is fun. It's hard on the bod for sure and also it's hard to be away from your own bed and your comforts but I have to say it's worth it because it's fun. It's actually fun.

Ann: Yeah. And so those of you who are playing along at home we're done with four dates on the fall tour. We've been the lovely people of Toronto, Detroit, Denver, and Austin already and had a really great time. I mean for as much as we complain about being on a plane and kind of how exhausting it is to move around the time we actually spend onstage or actually doing the thing we traveled to do is very, very fun and rewarding. Or maybe that's just the vitamin supplements talking.

Aminatou: [Laughs] It's all that zinc you're putting up your nose. No, it is actually really fun. It's just always funny to me because, you know, we do this show at home and it's a very small operation so meeting people always reminds me that oh, it's not just you and me and Gina and Jordan and Carli. So I'm just like oh, there are other people. I'm always very surprised at how emotional that makes me because I don't -- I'm like who is listening to this show? A lot of people it turns out.

(6:10)

Ann: [Laughs] A lot of great people. I mean, okay, so by way of upcoming -- there's one date left on the tour. We're coming to Washington, D.C., the city where it all began for you and me. Wow, didn't mean to remind that.

Aminatou: [Laughs]

Ann: Oh Saturday, October 26th.

Aminatou: A-wooh!

Ann: I know. And it's part of the Benson Ball which is Tig Notaro's comedy friendship podcast fest and there are so many other amazing people who are performing as part of this festival. Like for example on the day of our show is -- it's also the same day as Tig Notaro's performing and Roxanne Gay is speaking. I mean it's like heavy hitters all around.

(6:50)

So yeah, so anyway there are still tickets left for our show. You can get them at callyourgirlfriend.com/tour. And I think this last show, it's going to be a little different. We're going to be a little bit more off-the-cuff and a little bit more conversational and really just hang out and I'm excited to do that.

Aminatou: We're bringing wine back onstage. That's what's happening, so . . .

Ann: The Stay Hydrated tour is over. We are dehydrating. [Laughter]

Aminatou: We are dehydrating. But also yeah, the idea of just doing a shooting the shit kind of CYG episode is very exciting to me so I am looking forward to it.

Ann: Right. I mean normally we try to take advantage of the fact that we are onstage and we have a screen behind us and so we can show some visuals or talk about things that often don't make sense to talk about on the podcast and so we have a lot of fun with that on tour. But we're going full audio traditional for this D.C. show and just hanging out.

(7:48)

Aminatou: If you want to come see us in D.C. you can find tickets at callyourgirlfriend.com/tour. And because you're listening to us right now we're also going to give you some fun discount codes. If you use code BFF you get $5 off an individual ticket and if you use code LYLAS you get $15 off two tickets, so pretty much it's like buy one, get one half off. So bring a friend, come hang out with us. We're literally telling you how to do it on the cheap. I'm excited about this.

Ann: I love it.

Aminatou: A-wooh!

Ann: [Laughs] What is with the howls?

Aminatou: [Laughs] Can you tell I was listening to . . .

Ann: To She Wolf?

Aminatou: To She Wolf earlier today.

Ann: Oh my god.

Aminatou: A-wooh!

Ann: Okay, I have to look up what year She Wolf was.

Aminatou: It has to be 2009 right?

Ann: I mean yes, it was 2009. It was a time, it was a place. Wow, Shakira.

Aminatou: This video is so disturbing for so many reasons. Like the message of this song is bad but the howling is good.

Ann: I mean, okay, there's also like the lines in the song where she says "Nocturnal teachers are not so prudent. The moon's my teacher, I'm her student."

Aminatou: Yes! [Laughter] Also my favorite thing about this is I'm pretty sure in 2009 you laughed about that exact same thing with me so . . .

Ann: I have loved that line for ten years clearly.

Aminatou: Actually my favorite line in this song is where she goes -- she's like "S.O.S. she's in disguise." I'm like yeah, you're dressed like a she-wolf. Like why are you . . . [Laughs] Why are you telling me this? This video makes no sense but the a-woohs make me very happy.

Ann: [Laughs]

Aminatou: This is generally how I interact with all of Shakira's body of work. I'm like what? Then one thing makes me happy.

Ann: You mean guttural howls?

Aminatou: A-wooh! [Laughter]

Ann: Please, please make that your voicemail message.

(9:55)

Aminatou: Done and done. Ugh.

Ann: Ugh. Road life entails for us like a real combination. There are like -- now we've traveled enough as a group that there are certain not even traditions that have developed but we just have ways of being on the road together. And I would say one person walking to the grocery store to buy snacks and fizzy water, like whoever needs to walk the most when we land, silent disco in the airport where everyone has their headphones in. We are not people who are fully in conversation every moment of the travel experience. What else?

Aminatou: That is actually my favorite thing about our traveling is how much the minute on a travel day everybody just powers down. You just like feel it. You're like okay, there's no talking but there's so much love here and we love each other so much that we're not talking so thank you.

Ann: I mean alone together is one of my love languages so I love it. Like parallel play, yes.

Aminatou: It is. [Laughter] And then watching everyone in their headphones dance. You're right, that's good. A lot of like trying to navigate bad airport signage together also makes me LOL.

Ann: Ugh, bad airport design. Yeah.

Aminatou: Bad airport design. We figured out a cozy way to do this so I'm actually very happy with how we travel.

Ann: Yeah, and there is also an intimacy there, like we are not exactly traveling like a band full of sweaty musicians on the road or something. But I'm just like you know, we know a lot about each other's bodies after touring together. That is also true.

Aminatou: We do. We do. Ugh, man, um, maybe one day we'll have a van. Maybe one day we will.

Ann: Oh my god, I mean . . .

Aminatou: As I say that I'm shuddering. No, this is a bad idea.

Ann: I mean Gina would be an amazing lead singer but that is where this family's musical talents come to a hard stop.

Aminatou: [Laughs] You don't like my a-wooh?

Ann: Okay, you could be a backup howler. I am not even on -- I could be the manager of you and Gina's a capella group. Like that is really about as far as we could go. [Laughs]

Aminatou: Oh my god, screaming. Well one of the things that also kind of drives me a little batty actually when we're on the road, and this is just -- it's like an all-travel thing, it's like when you're not in your routine -- reading the news somehow is very hard for me when I'm not . . . that's not the head space that I'm in. So I always feel when I'm traveling that I have no clue what's going on.

Ann: Same.

(12:18)

Aminatou: And also this time going to Canada, like seeing our news from a different perspective, that's also like LOL. But mostly I just get really stressed out that I'm not -- I don't have a good system for taking in information. So like taking in the impeachment story from not being home was very fascinating because on one hand we were like oh, shit, impeachment! And the memes were lit. It was really fun. But at the same time you're like oh, this is actually moving very slowly and it's not breaking news that is getting addressed that day.

Ann: I guess we can try to talk about it now. I'm like impeachment, the slowest-moving glimmer of hope for justice is how I feel about it. It's just like basically grinding into beginning, like slowly, slowly. I was reading some New York Times newsletter today that was like "The fast-moving impeachment inquiry." And I was like maybe to you. This does not feel fast to me.

Aminatou: I've been waiting for this impeachment inquiry since, you know, day one of this presidency so it is not moving fast.

Ann: Right. I have stray body hairs longer than like, you know, the wait for . . .

Aminatou: [Laughs]

Ann: The wait for this, yeah.

Aminatou: Forget the actual -- the bad person that we're impeaching. I have so many questions about oh, what is impeachment? How does it work? What's going on here? And so I think just from a nerd perspective, like a news nerd perspective and a political nerd perspective, that's also exciting. There's a little bit of like I loathe the fact that I'm excited about it because I'm like oh great, now we're all going to get to learn all over again about how impeachment works. Love it.

(13:55)

Ann: I feel like the thing that comes up with any overarching impeachment conversation is like yeah, but the Senate isn't going to go for it right? Or oh, it's all cosmetic and the reason Nancy Pelosi was so hesitant is she thinks it's going to backfire electorally. And it's just like oh, okay, so at some point it took members of your own party tapping you on the shoulder and saying "We don't care if it's going to backfire electorally. This is a thing we have a moral obligation to do." I guess I'm saying I'm interested in the kind of overarching ways people try to construct the impeachment narrative in a way that I might not be able to see if I had been watching every headline unfold in real-time if we hadn't been on tour.

Aminatou: Right. You know, just because it's not a prudent political move which I think also that's a debatable construct anyway to start with.

Ann: Totally.

Aminatou: Maybe the constitution still matters and maybe having principles still matters and maybe it is important to hold people accountable to the bad things that they do regardless of whether that means you are personally going to get re-elected again. So, you know, like let's talk about it.

Ann: Yeah, completely. There's a part of me that the fact that this -- at least the kind of Ukraine thread of the story began with Trump trying to take down Biden. And I'm just like wow, is this the only thing that Ivanka's dad and I agree about is we really just want Joe Biden out of this race at any cost?

Aminatou: [Laughs]

Ann: Like truly not to really search for points of similarity here because no. But the fact that like this story is about people who have been around in politics for a long time being called out for, you know, helping to secure some legal but questionable favors for the people in their families is like wow, this is not an inquiry that popped up when we were all protesting because of your immigration policies which P.S. have not changed. This is something that has to do with this kind of ongoing corrupt legacy that has not changed one iota in decades.

(16:00)

Aminatou: Right. Whew, a word. An actual word.

Ann: Yeah.

Aminatou: It's also just like exposing so much of, you know, the thing that everybody I think suspects who is a civilian is that our political actors do not have good and pure motives whoever they are.

Ann: Wait, are you saying the scam is in fact structural? Is that what you're saying?

Aminatou: Wow! Wow, wow, wow. Put it on a hat. Wow, wow, wow. Wow, wow. Um, or a-wooh as my girl Shakira Shakira would say. And so I don't know, that is . . . that's definitely concerning to me, you know? Because I don't want to be someone who is always cynical about politicians. People get into public life to do good things or whatever but at the same time is that what you're in it for or are you like -- you just want to be president? Like you're trying to have . . . this is a way to have power and deploy power. Which is not always bad but I do think is something you should think about all the time.

But in moments like these when it is obviously in the interest of the people to have our politicians held accountable, to watch other politicians make political arguments for why that's not an expedient thing to do is very irritating.

Ann: Right. [Sighs] The other side effect of this which we talked about a little bit on tour is the chilling experience of reading transcripts of Rudy Giuliani text messages.

Aminatou: [Laughs]

Ann: I don't know, there's something about catching up and seeing some of the documentation that has become public about these shady dealings with Ukraine and being like oh wow, this is like -- these are actual people who are communicating. I don't know. And I don't even say that in terms of it having a humanizing effect but it has that . . . do you remember The Smoking Gun, that website from an Internet ago?

Aminatou: Yes, yes.

(18:04)

Ann: Which was like we're publishing, you know, the actual legal documents or like the tour riders or the actual transcripts from certain things. That's kind of how it felt to me. And maybe I'm a documents nerd but on a level of seeing where the inquiry's going to go, even if it doesn't lead to this horrible president leaving office, it's sort of like I am both pre-sickened and fascinated, can't look away by the internal correspondence and documents that are going to come out as a result of the inquiry.

Aminatou: Right. I just hope that it all matters because a thing that is very true in this presidency but I think that was a place that we were hurdling towards anyway and this presidency is just a symptom of that, is that we're really coming to a place where facts just don't matter and nobody has shame anymore. Facts don't matter and bad actors just keep on doing bad things and nobody is holding them accountable.

It's so interesting to watch. It's just interesting to me to watch this Giuliani thing happen, the president himself being called out on the fact that maybe he is in a quid pro quo situation with the Ukraine and then go on camera and perpetuate the quid pro quo. [Laughs]

Ann: Extend it to China right? Like yeah.

Aminatou: Then extend it somewhere else. You know, and I'm like nobody . . . am I the only one that is weirded out by all of this? Nothing matters and nobody cares. It's just this feeling of I'm feeling overwhelmingly like . . . like that feeling you have when you're maybe a teenager, maybe you're a little younger, and you've been really taught to trust authority and then you watch people in authority just be complete buffoons and you're like oh, nobody is good and nobody is righteous. Like what's going on here? I am having that feeling all over again. It's like do I want to see everyone who's implicated here be dealt with and whatever? Absolutely.

(20:02)

But the thing I keep thinking about is how this is the kind of stuff -- the genie you can't put back in the bottle. Now everyone is misbehaving. And so what is going to stop even a Democrat from doing -- from pulling these kinds of antics? Because the thing with Joe Biden, as much as I, you know, I would also like to see him not here, a thing that is true is during the Obama administration his son was a lobbyist. And that's something we all agreed was fine if they had minimum disclosures. Was that really fine for the time? Probably not which is why we're dealing with it in this completely different, awful way right now.

And so I just don't ever want to have this skepticism for people who politically disagree with me. I'm just seeing a lot of this -- the behavior of people in power clinging on to their power, that's something that doesn't have a political party.

Ann: I do agree with that and at the same time I think about people who make the argument that -- and I'm going to paraphrase -- that it would be like essentially easier for Democrats if every Democrat just fell in lockstep behind whoever was in charge of the party and there was no dissent and no argument about like the moral right thing to do in the way all of these never Trump people have just fully fallen in line behind Trump and Mitch McConnell who are like -- you know, that's why he can be openly proposing a quid pro quo with China even as he's under investigation because of Ukraine. It's because people in his own party are like "We don't care" right?

And I do think that at least for the time being on like a party-wide level there is one party that is not fully in lockstep. And I'm like yeah, that's annoying when we're trying to get things done for sure. [Laughs] I don't always love it. But like at the end of the day I'm like I see that as a benefit. Like I don't want to be affiliated with people who are like we do what we do -- we do what we have to do to prop up the person at the head of our party because that's the only way this works and all fall in line. And maybe that's a fundamental . . . you know, maybe I'm not a team player is what I'm getting at. [Laughs] But I'm not.

(22:08)

Aminatou: Yeah, that's a no from me dawg, you know what I'm saying?

Ann: Yeah, exactly.

Aminatou: Um, can I tell you the best part of this entire thing though? Which I'm always happy when there's a moment of levity like this in serious news for me. So notable bad person Rudy Giuliani was paid half a million dollars by these Ukrainian American -- basically like a henchman, like his company paid Rudy Giuliani half a million dollars. This is my translation of the news. I was like tell me what this man does, but I was like henchman is the right word here. Essentially to meddle in US foreign relations for the president. But Ann, guess what the company that paid him was called.

Ann: Tell me.

Aminatou: Fraud Guarantee.

Ann: No!

Aminatou: What an amazing name!

Ann: [Laughs] I'm screaming. Um, what?

Aminatou: I was like did I invent this? What? Also why is my LLC not called Fraud Guarantee? It's amazing.

Ann: It's Fraud Guarantee Trumps re-election slogan? Like I really . . .

Aminatou: [Laughs]

Ann: Wow. Let's hope they haven't trademarked that because it would be apt.

Aminatou: This is too good. It's too good. The biggest regret of my life is that I don't have a check for $500,000, you know, signed by Fraud Guarantee. It's too on-the-nose. Everything is too on-the-nose.

Ann: Ugh, I don't have anything else to say about this except that it's still moving too slowly for me and I don't appreciate parties in lockstep. Those are my only takeaways about impeachment at the end of the day.

Aminatou: Oh my god.

Ann: Is everyone's bad and I still don't appreciate parties in lockstep.

(23:40)

Aminatou: Well here is like one plug that I will make about impeachment, uh, is that you . . . it's a very fascinating, you know, like constitutional process we have and so that's exciting to learn about. But if you want to listen to a podcast about impeachment you should listen to Slow Burn Season 1. That is all about the Nixon impeachment almost proceeding basically. And the reason that I go back to that is that's when I realized that oh, all of this shit takes too much time. Nothing is fast.

Ann: So much time.

Aminatou: Nothing is fast. So it's like read up about Nixon. Uh, Slow Burn is great, like all seasons. I was like okay, there's historical context to this. And also instead of freaking out about the news learn about history.

Ann: Wow, hot tip. Hot tip.

Aminatou: Hot tip always. Always.

Ann: Ugh, let's take a break.

Aminatou: A-wooh! [Laughs]

[Ads]

(27:38)

Aminatou: So I will say that one true delight of the Stay Hydrated tour is that we got to go to Toronto which is . . . 

Ann: Churanno.

Aminatou: Churanno.

Ann: Churanno.

Aminatou: Uh, Toronto was amazing. The Toronto audience was beautiful.

Ann: We love Canada.

Aminatou: You know, something that will bring me endless delight until the day I die is that we got to be there at the heart of the Trudeau blackface scandal.

Ann: I'm glad someone is taking some delight in that. [Laughs]

Aminatou: Ann, I am only taking delight in it in the sense that from the beginning of this podcast I have been a skeptical Trudeau watcher. People try to give me shit for it because they're like he's handsome. He looks like a Disney prince. He's whatever. And I was like no, you cannot trust that man. Those chickens all came home to roost.

Ann: I actually am inspired right now to go to the CYG inbox and find a defense of Trudeau email from several years ago because we got many. Here's an email from 2017 which I -- we had a long segment about Trudeau is a scammer in an episode back in the fall of 2017. We received an email from a polite and I would say maybe slightly disgruntled Canadian listener who wrote "I just had to chime in on Justin Trudeau the scam artist. Listen, we know. We know. Deep, deep down we all know and most of us don't care. We probably will be heartbroken one day. We know how Trudeaumania turned out in the '80s but right now we don't care. Here's why. We just got out of a very bad long-term relationship with Steven Harper. I can't begin to summarize the damage this man did to us. I just deleted two paragraphs trying to explain it. That's not what we're actually talking about here. Just understand we were hurt and hurt bad. We lost our mojo, we want it back, and now we have Justin."

Aminatou: [Laughs]

Ann: I'm like that is like some amazing context. Also just thank you. Thank you listeners. Some amazing context for -- I mean we did also get a lot of emails that were like "Thank you for calling him a scammer." Like Canadians being like "Why are Americans obsessed with him?" I mean for context American media at the time, I think we talked about this on the show, was just heart eye emojis over the moon about Trudeau. Like putting him on the cover of Rolling Stone with a headline like "Why can't he be our president?" Ridiculous.

Aminatou: Because he's Canadian! Read the constitution.

(30:05)

Ann: Anyway, so just some context for the last time we talked about it. And then it was really something to be able to discuss the current mess that he finds himself in, you know, in a room full of Canadians who have been emailing us about this for years.

Aminatou: And what a mess it is. You know, blackface will never cease to amaze me in the sense that not that I understand why people, you know, in historical times did it -- like or I'm excusing it, it was bad forever -- but the idea of a modern human being just, you know, like shopping for blackface, doing it as like a part of a costume, ruining their sheets and the clothing and, you know, like putting whatever in the sink, it's so . . . the mind really reels. I'm like really? You are so dedicated to this racist costume that you're going to take it up a notch?

And the psychology to that is wild to me. Remember when we were in Toronto and I was like where does one even get blackface makeup and you had to teach me about . . . [Laughs]

Ann: Halloween makeup, yeah.

Aminatou: About Halloween makeup and I was screaming.

Ann: Yeah, right. That was a really -- I was like wow, I'm just going to do a quick Google search for like brown blackface paint and show you the results and we can move on from this conversation.

Aminatou: Ugh.

Ann: Which is all to say that -- and the reason I wanted to read that email from 2017 is because I think that even among at least the Canadians that we have been in conversation with the conversation about the scaminess level of Justin Trudeau is inseparable from the kind of overall political landscape and this idea of he's better than or like well, you know, our last prime minister was terrible. Or we're in an election campaign so we shouldn't' be talking about these really old offensive photos of him because there's a current thing to deal with. You know, a lot of these conversations are not new right? Like in terms of how we are assessing whether he's behaving like the kind of person he claims to be.

Aminatou: Hmm.

(32:18)

Ann: And so it was really a pleasure to be able to have a guest with us onstage in Toronto -- sorry, Churanno . . .

Aminatou: [Laughs]

Ann: Who could give us a little perspective on this. Like this is one of the joys of going on tour. So the writer and critic and all-around delightful human Sarah Hagi joined us onstage and we had a conversation with her about Trudeau, his scaminess, and the context he fits into in Canadian politics.

[Clip Starts]

Aminatou: We're excited to have friend-of-the-podcast Sarah Hagi with us tonight. [Cheering] She's a writer of journalism essays and cultural criticism and a second-generation Canadian, hello! Welcome Sarah to the stage. [Cheering]

Ann: Hey Sarah!

Sarah: Hey guys. 

Ann: I noticed we had a pause we did not fill with music and if we let you pick a song to walk into . . .

Sarah: Ooh.

Ann: Would you have an immediate answer? If you don't have an immediate answer you don't have to answer it but . . .

Sarah: I feel like my immediate answer's embarrassing so I'm just not going to do it. [Laughter]

Ann: What?

Aminatou: Okay, let's -- if we want we can ask Ann. Ann, what's your walk-on music?

Ann: Well it's hard because I'm so used to walking on to Call Your Girlfriend at this point.

Aminatou: I know, but if you were playing baseball what would you do? [Laughter]

Ann: Um, Heart's Barracuda.

Aminatou: Okay, that's good.

Ann: What would yours be?

Aminatou: What can be more embarrassing than that? [Laughter]

Ann: I mean absolutely nothing.

(33:50)

Sarah: For me it's just like -- like okay, my best friend is in the crowd, Olivia.

Aminatou: Hi!

Sarah: Our song is Sexual Healing. [Laughter] Like our most listened to song together for some reason. But it's too perverted to walk up onstage to but I would do it for her sake.

Ann: Wait, what is your walk-on song?

Aminatou: I don't know, I have to think about it.

Ann: Oh my god, you have to answer the first thing that comes to mind.

Aminatou: Oh my god, probably a Celine Dion song. Are you kidding? [Cheering] Okay. Celine Dion, French, Priere Paienne, uh, Pagan Prayer. That's what I would walk on to. All the time. [Laughter] The piano is legendary in that song.

Ann: A soaring moment.

Aminatou: Yes. That or Nelly Furtado Promiscuous Girl. [Laughter]

Ann: Canadian icon Nelly Furtado. Ugh.

Aminatou: Okay. Sarah, first things first.

Sarah: Yeah.

Ann: We have to talk about your prime minister. [Laughter]

Aminatou: What is going on with your prime minister?

Sarah: I mean this is . . . I just heard about this tonight.

Aminatou: Oh you didn't know? You heard tonight for the first time?

Ann: You didn't think we'd talk about it?

Sarah: No, I mean it's like water on the bridge at this point. No, I'm joking. I mean I think you guys have never been fully trusting of Trudeau correct?

Aminatou: Correct. Correct.

Sarah: I mean I don't think . . . I think everyone here who's Canadian can agree the world has been scammed by him. Like any time I go to the States people would be like "Oh my god, your Disney prince bae." And I'm just like no one thinks of him that way. He's a cheesy guy from Quebec. [Laughter] Like he had a soul patch for no joke ten years.

Ann: Wow, when will those photos surface?

Sarah: Right? That's the real controversy. This dude had a soul patch. There's a video of him showing how he can fake fall down stairs. He's like an embarrassing person and like yes -- I mean all the things you mentioned before about how a lot of his principles don't really line up to his global image but we knew because he's so corny. He is the type of person who would do blackface and he probably didn't think it was racist.

Aminatou: I mean we'll probably get into that soon.

Ann: Yeah. I mean also he probably didn't think it was racist and then it's like this . . . [Laughs]

Aminatou: Well I just have to say la faille de blackface is the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. [Laughter] Fully 34 years old, never thought I would live to see that. Love it. Love it. Thank you Quebec Press. Nothing has made me happier. But also the thing about this -- the thing that this headline is actually really saying is he's not really receiving any kind of electoral push-back for it. Like sure it's very embarrassing. Nobody likes to be embarrassed in front of other people, like the world. But also it's not really making -- you know, it's not really making a dent in how the election is going.

Sarah: No.

Aminatou: Which is not shocking but shocking but not shocking. It's a lot.

Sarah: Well yeah, I think a lot of it has to do as well with there's a portion of Canadians who are like okay, yeah, it was bad but if we keep criticizing him then the conservatives will win. And it's kind of like can't we kind of do both where they will lose and also we can hold him accountable for doing blackface? [Applause] So there's this whole chorus of people and people in the media who are like all right, let's calm down now. We had our fun with the blackface stuff and they're just kind of trying to get everyone to shut up. But no, he did blackface and I'm going to talk about that forever. [Laughter]

Aminatou: Yes. Le faille de blackface. Please talk about it all the time.

(37:50)

Sarah: Like I'm going to write a book called la faille de blackface.

Ann: We're parachuting in here. Tell us what people are getting wrong. What is the nature of the conversation around these photos?

Sarah: I do think that there's just like -- it's kind of . . . I feel like no one knows. Now Canada's talking about racism in this way we always kind of try to avoid and it's people are like he's not racist, he just did blackface more times than he knows. [Laughter] That's essentially what's happening right now. Because he was asked "How many times did you do blackface?" and he's like "I don't know guys." [Laughter] Like you'd think if you're the son of a prime minister you'd know how things are, like people would have this dirt on you, and he can't even list the amount of times he's done blackface. And everyone's kind of like yes, but he's not racist. And I think there's this group of people who are kind of waiting for him to be like "I'm racist." [Laughter] And to be like "See? Now we can say he's racist because he admitted to it." But I don't know, it's like this weird thing where no one wants to say yeah, that was literally racism. Like okay, think about blackface. You have to buy this music. [Laughter] Put it on your face.

Ann: On purpose.

Sarah: Okay, I wear foundation sometimes and I'm like oh this is getting all over my sink. Like I'm going to have to watch this off my hands. [Laughter] And this is like straight up the darkest makeup you can find, darker than anyone will wear, then you have to wipe it off. Then you have to wash your sink. Like there's so much you have to -- there's so much around blackface that's so much effort that you have to be like wow, you have to be legitimately racist to be like yeah I want to do this. Like I want to go through these steps.

Ann: Do you think he had a moment like racist Lady Macbeth where he was washing it off? [Laughter] Like . . .

Sarah: Yes, like he probably wakes up the next morning after a night of blackface and there's some of it on his pillow. Like it's just insane to think about. It's like it doesn't end with the picture. There's a whole process and he did it more times than he knew. That's insane. Just really let that sink in for a second.

(40:00)

Aminatou: I am internally singing. I mean that's -- okay, that's depressing.

Sarah: It's depressing. I just imagine him doing it and I'm like dude, you went so far.

Ann: Thank you for Cansplaining to us. We really appreciate it. [Cheering]

Sarah: Thank you so much. This is so fun.

[Clip Ends]

Aminatou: Ugh, Sarah. What a -- ugh, the best. The best. The first lady of Canada.

Ann: The first lady of Canada. An opportunity to relive . . .

Aminatou: The real first lady.

Ann: The real first lady. Sorry, yes. I feel apropos of us having a conversation about what it's like to be on tour, one of the truly, truly great moments is being able to talk to someone who is local and really invested in their community about the community that we're in, like so great.

Aminatou: Oh man. That thing you said earlier about not being a joiner. [Laughs] In thinking about, yeah, in thinking about Trudeau and how people were so excited about him in the same way we were excited about Canada or whatever, a thing that I always have to remind myself when I get too excited about anybody in politics is I have to tell myself remember this is corny, like politics is corny. This is like a league of cornballs so don't get too attached. And that's the energy that I'm taking into the election.

Ann: Wow. League of cornballs is definitely the title of this week's episode.

Aminatou: [Laughs] It's true, it's so corny. So whenever people are like "Oh my god, he's so amazing," I was like oh yes, Justin Trudeau can seem amazing when you look at everyone he's up against.

Ann: Right.

Aminatou: You know? As opposed to like put him in context of the real world. He's just a corny actor.

Ann: [Sighs] Right. And yeah, and corny actors take up a lot of space on the world stage. Let's not mince words about it.

Aminatou: [Laughs] Oh my god, the block is too hot or I would tell you we should rank our presidential candidates from least to most corny but we're not going to do that.

Ann: Oh my god, maybe that's a thing we should do at the D.C. live show is do the corniness rankings of the Democratic . . .

Aminatou: Oh my gosh, done.

Ann: Done.

Aminatou: Done and done and done. See you there D.C.

Ann: Yes. And real quick before we go I want to leave with a note about last week's episode. For those of you who listened and also those of you who wrote in about my conversation with the mortician and death activist Caitlin Doughty there was a moment in our conversation where she made an offhand fat-phobic comment, let's just put it that way, and it had to do with her perceptions about weight and health and mortality. And a few notes about that. First of all I just want to apologize for its inclusion in the episode and I wanted to give a little bit more context about why you don't hear me interrupting her in real time to question her about that.

(42:50)

I did clock it as fat-phobic when I heard her say it and I did in real-time make a mental note to say like okay, this is not going to appear in the final interview. I'm going to make a note for the editing process later that we cut it. But I'm not going to cut her because I don't want to take this conversation off on a tangent about what does the Journal of the American Medical Association say about weight and mortality? Or can we do like a fat-phobia 101 and let me . . . all of that I just sort of made a split decision in real-time to say okay, I'm going to keep this interview moving in a direction that I actually care about which is about her experience with death and not about this, you know, casually really hurtful comment.

And so yeah, that's why you hear me not checking her in real-time. And honestly, and this is just a mistake on our end in being in a post-tour rush and flustered state, I forgot to flag it. The episode was supposed to run a different week. We ended up running it last week. I didn't call it out to be cut and we didn't catch it and it made it into the show.

(44:00)

And so I just want to say I really recognize the way that a lot of comments like the one that Caitlin made in that interview are used to malign and really further a lot of hateful comments toward and attitudes toward fat people and I'm really sorry to those of you who heard that and really recognized that as like a violent and hateful thing that you've heard directed at yourself or people you love in the past and I just wanted to explain a little bit about how it came to be in the show rather than just apologize for the mistake. Because I think there's some accountability there.

And I do think it gets to this bigger question in some ways at how we are oriented towards the guests that we have on which is to say that we do not fully agree with everything that everyone says to us in an interview for the show and we are often just better at cutting the things that we don't want to perpetuate in the world and this is a case where we were not right on top of it. So that's a little long-winded but I did want to offer the explanation and to give my apologies to listeners who heard that.

Aminatou: I really appreciate you saying that Ann. You know, I really want to echo this last thing you said about having guests on the show and a realization -- and I don't know that this comes across to everyone who is listening -- our goal is not to have only guests we agree with all the time because we don't even agree all the time, you and me.

Ann: What? [Laughs]

Aminatou: First of all we don't agree all the time but also that's such a -- that's just not a possible . . . like I can't name you one person that I agree with every single thing on. But I do recognize that we make media and I think that it's -- you know, that's worth reiterating. We have people on that we think are interesting. We have people on that we believe will not say harmful things on purpose. We have -- you know, clearly we have lines right? There's a reason that most people who come on the show have the same I would say like bent. Megyn Kelly's not been invited on. But uh . . .

(46:15)

Ann: But we did have Gretchen Carlson on.

Aminatou: We did have Gretchen Carlson on.

Ann: That's a great example.

Aminatou: I interviewed Gretchen Carlson. Yeah, I remember interviewing Gretchen Carlson and I remember that being -- the reason I really wanted to have her on wasn't because I was like oh my god, she's from the other side of the aisle, like let's talk about it. It was truly that I think that for somebody I do not agree with she had a really interesting story of being harassed and using her power to push against that and also being very successful in highlighting it. And I think if you listen to that interview you can also hear that we don't agree on most things. But anyway I'm not afraid to talk to people I don't agree with. I think that the point is also in consuming this podcast and in being honest a lot of the times with what we're doing the goal here is not to say like "Oh hi, we're all friends and this is one happy, cozy whatever place." No. The people who come on the show are not our friends. They are not people that we know very well. We know of their work. We do not anticipate that they will say harmful things but that doesn't mean that that doesn't happen.

And so I think that for me it's really important as I listen to -- as I consume anything in the world -- is remembering that right? Of it's not a . . . like this is not one happy family. People -- we want to engage with people and their work. And also, yeah, and also the truth of we do make decisions about editing and we cut out a lot of stuff that people say, sometimes for their own benefit and other times for our own benefit and that is just the truth of how the media sausage is. And so I don't know, I really appreciate you saying all of those things and also I wish that that, you know, fat-phobic talking point had not made it on our air.

(48:02)

Ann: Yeah, me too. And so -- so yeah, and I think like look, even within one big happy family people say things that hurt each other. That's not to say we would have a guest on that was maybe known for their racist or homophobic or fat-phobic views. We would probably at a certain point call it and be like nope, you can't play here, you know? That's like . . . but I think that your point about we have people on, like I love that Gretchen Carlson example, we're not endorsing the full output of everyone who's ever been on the show but we are really -- we try to have people on and engage with them in specific ways about work that they're doing. And I think not trying to cop out as well when I say that we're moving pretty quickly lately with being on the road and making the show but it does bear noting we're a tiny team, you know? And so that also has an effect on our ability to really follow through on our values to the fullest extent that we'd want to all the time. And we're here to apologize when we fall short. So thanks for your emails and accountability on that front.

Aminatou: Shall we go?

Ann: We should go. I'll see you on the Internet and in Washington, D.C.

Aminatou: I will see you in Washington, D.C. on October 26th and I will also see you on the Internet. You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Our logos are by Kenesha Sneed. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf where Sophie Carter-Kahn does all of our social. Our associate producer is Jordan Baley and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.
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