203. Inside the Implosion of the Platner Campaign

Hello and welcome to the Restisted Politics US, I'm Katty Kaye. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci, Katty. We had a very good week, Anthony, come on, let's face it. We've got a big shout out to all things Wimbleton, thank you so much for the invitation. I had the time of my life. You cleaned up very well, Mr. Scaramucci. You got a lot of compliments from people who were watching. They saw Benedict Cumberbatch and then they saw the real star of Wimbleton, which was you. Anyway, thank you to Deirdre for choosing the outfit because she did good. That was very important. Very far from true, but I'll take the compliment because I think the commentary was, there is a man who won the Oscar and behind him is a Hollywood star. And that was you. Okay, so there you go. Look at the flattery going on here, but what do you want to talk about because we have Mr. Crazy coming back out of NATO switching planes. What are our topics today? A lot of craziness going on. So we're going to talk about Maine and the candidate, Graham Platner. We've spoken about a lot on the program, the Democrat, insurgent candidate for the Senate seat in Maine, who has now suspended his campaign after yet another story broke this one with very severe allegations of sexual assault. Obviously, he denies these allegations and says that the Democratic Party is trying to destroy him and his campaign. The Democrats now have to struggle to find a new candidate within the next two and a half weeks, which is their deadline for putting somebody on the ballot for November. Maine had been a state that was in play. If the Democrats want to take back the Senate in November, Maine is one of the top states they have to win. I'm going to say it's now off the table. And it just has made it much harder for the Democrats to take back the Senate. Okay. Now off the program, we will talk about Trump and NATO, and it looks like we are back at war again, Anthony, in the Gulf. But Trump is also seems to be banking Pally with Vladimir Zelensky, or is he really? I want to address Platner for a second. And I want to talk about McConnell. So Platner, as we have said on this program, was a very flawed candidate. And you and I predicted that Susan Collins would smist Platner because of all of the problems that he has. But if you had said to me, what does Platner define? I think it's the following. Platner has explained to the world who the leader of the Democratic Party is. And who is that leader? That would be Donald J. Trump. And why is that? Well, these guys are literally don't know what the hell they're doing or what direction to go in. And they're shooting in the dark. And they created a Frankenstein monster called Platner with his SS tattoo on him. And they thought that this was going to be the Democratic rendition of mag up. And then as a result of their hypocrisy, they started supporting him even though he was against the values that they stood for. And then all of them now have egg on their face. So to me, Donald Trump, leader of the Democratic Party, okay, made them crazy enough to put Platner in a position in Maine. One last point about Trump, he crapped all over Cornyn. He crapped all over Cassidy, but he said not a word about Susan Collins who has voted less with him, Gadi Kaye, than those guys. So this is also Trump's hypocrisy and his real politic. He's like, hey, I got no one else in Maine and Maine is a purplish state. I can blow everybody up. I want in the red states like Louisiana and Texas, but I got to leave Collins alone. I think this is something she's going to win, by the way, I predict that I know there's people saying, well, now that he's out, they'll find somebody to beat her. There's no chance because nobody has the name recognition. So she'll win. Those are my comments on Platner. I think she probably would have won anyway, and we can put Platner in the rear view mirror. I did watch the whole of his 11-minute grievance-filled video in which he rails against the establishment, denies the allegations, says that the election is being stolen from him. And he is echoing, by the way, the voices of some of his die-hard supporters who really do believe that. But I think the establishment of the Democratic Party has to be really careful now. They have to not jump to the conclusion that this is an indication that there is not a market for insurgent, far-left populist candidates, because I still think that there is in the country. There is definitely energy there. And sometimes it's diffuse, right? Sometimes this kind of populist left-wing energy is about policies. I think we're seeing that in Michigan. I think we saw it in New York. Sometimes it's about vibes. It's about a generational shift. A lot of what Graham Platner's appeal was to younger voters that I'm not the geriatric Susan Collins and I'm not the geriatric governor who is trying to be the Democratic Senate candidate. But the party has to be careful now. They have to realize that that energy is real. And that if they start thinking that the old guard of the Democratic Party, the people like Chuck Schumer and the leaders in Washington, can tip the scales whether it's in Maine or whether it's in other states in their favor because they think, look, we are in a moment where we need safe candidates, vanilla candidates. And maybe that is the message from Maine. But if the Democratic Party thinks that it can go in and dictate that, they're going to suppress voter enthusiasm. They already have like, you know, record low approval ratings. There's a few things in this world that are less popular than the Democratic Party. And I think if they start thinking they can dictate thing, that's going to be a problem. So the establishment didn't out organize Platner. It just outlasted him. And I think that's a worse story for the Democrats. They may end up taking away the wrong messages from this because populism is being tested Anthony on the left and on the right right now. Is populism winning, Carrie? Well, I think that's a really good question. I mean, populism is clearly one in the form of Donald Trump. And it won in New York City in the form of Zora and Mamdani, who is an exceptional political athlete. I don't think that Abdul El-Sahead is necessarily a populist. I mean, he comes across in some ways and is as a kind of anti-establishment insurgent. But he, Abdul El-Sahead, who is the candidate in Michigan, who is being compared now. And I think there's going to be a ton of attention on him now that Platner has dropped out. Abdul El-Sahead is a doctor. He's a brainiac. He's a road scholar. He's married his childhood sweetheart and they have two children. He doesn't drink. He's such a different character. And he has literally a policy slogan that you can put on a bumper sticker in forward's healthcare for all. It's very easy to define what he stands for. I think he's a much more serious candidate. You may feel that he's way out of the left, particularly he's running a lot against Israel. But he's a much more, I think, a much more substantial candidate. I mean, the point of populism is that they are not establishment, right? Whether it's in Hungary or Brazil or Argentina or MAGA world. The whole point of a populist candidate is that they are not part of the establishment. They have not run for office lots of times before. And with that comes energy and excitement. But with that also in the case of Graham Platner comes risks. And I think populism is being tested right now in this 2026 selection campaign and it will be again in 2028. I don't think particularly on the left, it may be over on the right. We see it over in Hungary. It doesn't work. It doesn't deliver. The corruption is too much for people. They don't like it. But I think we are in a moment where there's populism on the left and they're going for these outside candidates. And the establishment would say, look, that gives you Graham Platner. That gives you people who haven't been vetted. That gives you people with a ton of opera research on them and a whole load of skeletons in their cupboard. But I don't think it's always the case. I don't think it's always the case. It was not the case with Mamdani and it may well not be the case with Abdel El-Sahed in Michigan. What do you think? Do you think populism is over? No, I don't think it's over. I think it's straining because what happens is without policy solution, the anger can only last so long and then people are looking around saying, wow, this really has not worked for me. Everything is more expensive. He's still in the forever wars. I didn't get the Epstein files. He was supposed to crush the establishment. We have this supposed pedophile class that he was supposed to expose. That didn't happen. And we're sitting here very frustrated and people are losing purchasing power. And let me tell you something, when people lose purchasing power, they get really upset. And none of these politicians are looking at them and saying, we're going to help you restore your purchasing power. They're saying, listen, we want to trade our own stock accounts. We have no problem with Trump making billions of dollars. Scott percent said that it's a representation of the innovation of America that Trump is making 2.4 billion dollars and has a 927 page disclosure. So while all this is going on, okay, we have a gerontocracy and we are running an adult care center in the Senate. Which is what Platinum was running against and a lot of his appeal was about that, right? I am young. She is old. Basically, I mean, it was pretty simple. So we have a gerontocracy. This is not ageism. I'm just saying objectively, that's what we have. We have people in their 80s that are clinging to power. They don't want to leave power. Mitch McConnell has disappeared, Caddy K. [BLANK_AUDIO] former Senate Majority Leader. He stepped down so Thune could replace him. He's retiring at the end of this term, but he has disappeared. He has a health issue. He was found unconscious. They brought him to the hospital. CPR was performed on him. It was described by Axios as an apparent cardiac arrest. Okay, but he's been hospitalized since June 14th. And we haven't seen him. - Yeah, and the governor of Kentucky is asking where is he? - Yeah, and now they're saying that people like Scott Jennings, Barrasso and Thune, have had 20 minute calls with him, which have now become social media memes. But Donald Trump said something that I think people should listen to. He said I have no idea how he's doing. Okay, but Trump knows how he's doing because Trump's informed. But he's letting people know that he hates McConnell and he doesn't like the rules that's being played right now because he really wants to disgrace and deform McConnell. But here's the thing, Katty, because the way the procedures work, they're trying to get to August 3rd. 'Cause if they can get to August 3rd, they can avoid this special election in Kentucky. And McConnell is going out the way he played the game. Okay, and just hear me out for a second. When Harry Reid broke the engagement rules in the Senate with the filibuster, McConnell said, okay, go ahead and do that. I'm gonna use it against you and he did. He put three Supreme Court justices on the court in one four year Donald Trump term. And he blocked Merrick Garland from getting to the court with Barack Obama trying to put him on. So now the Gainesmanship is a foot. He's probably got a pulse. Laura Lumer saying he's brain dead. I'm not saying he is. I don't know, but I just think it's very ironic that he is going out the way he played the game. They're gonna try to get this thing now to August 3rd. I don't know if it'll happen. But listen, Cady, he's already missed a couple of votes. He missed the housing affordability bill. The Iran War Powers vote. And Cady, what does it say about that tightening margin in the Senate? That they're so worried about losing one seat potentially to a special election. I mean, Mitch McConnell is the irony of the Mitch McConnell Trump relationship. It was Mitch McConnell who got Trump the Supreme Court that he wanted by playing what the Democrats would say very dirty games of politics. And yet then the two have a massive falling out that starts around 2020 in January the 6th. And they never get over it. And now I suspect when you get Trump saying, I don't know what's wrong with him. He wants, like you say, that was my take. Trump wants the truth out there. And the irony is we have the Democratic governor of Kentucky and he Bashir who's probably gonna run for presidency in 2028, along with Trump and a whole load of other people wanting to know exactly what the state is of Mitch McConnell. - Can I ask a question? When Scott Jennings, the pundit on CNN. - Conservative pundit on CNN. - Yes, when he conservative pundit. When he says on social media that he's using his Ouija board to have a 20 minute conversation with McConnell, is that when we know it's over? - That's when we know he's talking to the White House. - The White House wants him to know. Can I ask one more question of you and I've been wondering about this over the last couple of days about what Platner tells us about where America is right now. I think you're right about the Geron Tockressy thing. And I think there is a real push bank in the Democratic party against the idea that the party is being run by a bunch of very old people. But I think something else is happening too. And I think that there is a backlash against me too happening. And I have been struck and a little dismayed by how many younger guys have said to me these allegations of sexual assault against Platner, they're all fabricated by the establishment. They're fabricated by the Washington Democratic party. And they just somehow don't believe them. And they feel I think that during me too, people got to play judge and jury and a few people were wrongly accused and wrongly fired from their jobs. And now you see this me too backlash. I mean, this is obviously just my opinion. He denies the allegations. But when we tend to look at patterns of sexual abuse, if there is only one story, that's one thing. When you get several stories, you start to think that maybe there is a pattern here going on. When you get the sexting when he was just marriage to half a dozen other women, when you get two women now accusing him in some detail of sexual assault. I just think there is too much of a pattern there for this to be less than credible. And here's the thing about Platner. He must have known about this. So what does this tell us about him? Does it suggest about him that he didn't think these incidents were important? And is there a cohort of young men on the left and on the right who feel that me too went too far in this country and now they're pushing back against it? And maybe they justify it by saying, well, look at the president or look at other Republicans. But I feel as there are too many allegations for people to be dismissing this as easily as they have been dismissing this. - Okay, well, there's so much there. So I'm just gonna make four comments and we'll cut to the break. So comment number one, Trump caused the me too movement. He's the source of it. Why is that? They couldn't get the Trump. Trump had did all of these types of Platner-like and discussions. He was the sitting president. They couldn't dislodge him. And so an atom bomb went off and then they started dislodging media pundits and other people that were more vulnerable and had more shame than a Donald Trump. So we took out the anchor for the today's show. We took out a PBS interviewer. We took out a couple of Fox News people. And so Trump was again, they were trying to get him they couldn't get him and they blew this me too thing up. Number two, we're now in a state where the establishment is being accused of accusing people of things. And so when a guy like Platner or anybody can say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." That's the establishment coming after me because I'm coming after them. The general public believes them, Cadi-K. And so you have to understand they're using that. The third thing I would say, guys like Platner go into denial. Whether he did it or not, I'll leave that up to a judge and jury to decide. But I'm just gonna make the supposition to make this point. If he did do it, his attitude is I'm a narcissist, I'm above everything and I'll be able to prevail even if these facts come out, okay? And so what differs between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party at this genre and our history, the Democrats can't stomach it. The Republicans can hold their nose, look the other way. We're blindfolds. We had the Supreme Idiot, Kevin McCarthy on Fox saying, "Well, when we have bad people in our party, like Platner, we don't support them." Yeah, right. Dude, what are you talking about? Okay, you get smoke another bomb. Look, I think it takes an awful lot of courage as a woman to come forward in the way that these women have with the kind of detail they've come forward. Most women do not do that and there's something has happened. So I take my hat off to these women for being brave enough to come forward. My feeling on this Anthony, honestly, is that throughout history, far more men have got off. No question. On allegations of rape and actual acts of rape and sexual harassment and abuse through history in the workplace, not just like back in the crusades. And most women I know of my age have suffered incidents of sexual harassment at work and nobody has ever been held to account for them. And so we had a very brief moment where a few people may have been held to account more than they deserve, but the pendulum has still not swung, I think, back to the center. No question about that and that's very disheartening. And I think me too made it a better workforce for my children and my daughters. So I hope I actually think it did a lot. Oh, and I would say the same thing for my daughter and my wife, frankly. So Katty, having said all that, I just want to make it very clear these are my opinions and he has denied all the allegations and nothing has been proven, of course, but I think there's a threat here of facts that we have to analyze. They are very difficult to prove these allegations and he is definitely blaming the Democratic Party, which by the way may suppress voter turnout in November because he is saying to his people, they punished me, the Democratic Party punished me, I suspect you're going to see low turnout from Democrats in November because of the way this has been handled. And Susan Collins is going to be concerned again. She's going to be concerned. And this is going to have very many more years in the Senate being concerned. We're going to come back and talk about NATO. The Senate promised November 10th, off that flight, with 350 passengers on board. The great gain, strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess a premise that with high confidence it was Russian. Holden DeRussian's accountable is world war story. They took down a British passenger jerk containing 350 people. Man in the Kremlin is playing Alex. You've got to ask yourself, you want to play or not. You're the prime minister. If done, nothing. We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today, and disseminated into an operation order or frago. A frago that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes. New from Golhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my shoulder, are you? Sergeant Trump at Duff, Duffy. An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as a technically rigorous, geopolitical action forever. We have to take friendly care of you. Where Britain plays its strongest task. He's the best against his strongest foe. Don't do it, Dupont! Bear hunt. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the rest is politics US. Anthony, it looks like we are back at war with Iran. Are we back at war with Iran? What's going on? They are now scum apparently. The people who were a couple of weeks ago were normal and reasonable. The Iranian leadership Donald Trump has now said they are scum and he can't deal with them. Sick. They're sick people, according to Trump. Again, these are factual statements, meaning Trump is saying these things. I'm not saying they're true. I'm saying Trump is calling them sick. The market, for me, I always watch the market. The market, when the MOU was signed in Versailles, Ho-Hum slight blip up. The bombs are getting launched again, Ho-Hum slight blip down. I think people think that we are in a quagmire and we are in a permanent war with Iran. That's not going to get resolved anytime soon. How long will it go, Caddy? I don't know. I would imagine that you and I will be talking in December about fits and starts with the Iranians. Their economy is devastated. There's no question about that. They need to sell oil. They'll string this thing along as long as they possibly can. Whether the president wants to admit this or not, he's hamstrung in terms of his game theory strategy. There's only one real thing he can do and that is to put ground troops in 600, 700,000 ground troops and stay there for three or four years to gut the country, which he's not going to do. I don't see this changing anytime soon. If you disagree with me, please chime in. I think that's right. I had a very interesting conversation with General Mark Hurtling, who was former commander of US forces in Europe just this morning. He was saying that the problem here is that the White House kind of fooled itself into thinking the memorandum understanding was actually an understanding between the US and Iran. In fact, it was a misunderstanding on America's party. Iran always thought it was going to have control of the state of Hormuz and that has now given it leverage. He called this an asymmetric war at the moment where Iran is, as you say, the weakened country militarily, but is stronger because of this leverage it has, not necessarily of controlling the state of Hormuz, but just of spooking tanker insurers. I think that's what's critical. All it needs to do is do a few attacks and these multi-million dollar tankers are not going to go through because they don't want to risk them being attacked, having a hole in them and then having to take them off the market, acting, sitting idle for a while. So I think that was interesting. I had such an interesting conversation with the great Kim Gattas as journalists for the financial times, who reminded me of something that President NASA had said, and this is how he put it. He said, "The genius of U-Americans is that you never make a clean stupid move, only a complicated stupid move." And that has the rest of us wondering if we've missed something. And I think that's the feeling in the Middle East was, were the Americans just so stupid? Because I think at the beginning, they're all thinking, is there kind of nine-dimensional chess going on here? Does Trump understand something we don't? Whereas, actually, I think this was just a complicated stupid move. And we can talk about Ukraine. They have used up a ton of interceptors. They have caused more volatility, security experts on the region are saying to me, there is now a greater risk of a broader war in the Middle East, because you've got a split between the Saudis and the UAE. You've got a split within the UAE. The chances for rapprochement between Israel and the Saudis is minimal. So I think they've, you know, they've left a real mess. However, this resolves itself around the MOU or ceasefire or not ceasefire. The long-term implications, I think, Anthony, of this are pretty bad for the region. It's not going to end. And so the question is, where will oil prices be at the end of the year? And I'm just letting people know they're going to be likely higher. And you're going to see probably rate increases. And even if Trump is going to mouth off at the new Federal Reserve Chairman, it's not going to matter. He's got no choice but to increase rates. And there's something going on that people really should understand from outside the United States. And that is the processes of the American government. So the board of governors, even those that have been appointed by Trump, are saying, yeah, we got to increase rates. So just need everybody to know that. The board of governors of the Federal Reserve. At the Federal Reserve. So it's not just Kevin Wars, the new Fed chair. They're all looking at it in the market signalling that. And Trump is going to have to back off of that. Additionally, D.A.I. and C.I.A. Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency are still generally running the military footprint and the military strategy for us. And they're helping Ukraine. And so Trump is now trying to take credit for that, even though he doesn't deserve any credit for that. They're leaking from the White House that Trump is approving of this stuff. What did you make of the Zelensky Trump meeting? I thought it was interesting about how he said that they are now going to allow Ukrainians, which they've been asking for for a long time, the license to build Patriot missile interceptors in Ukraine. And then he had loved Trump. And then he hadn't even told the defense contractors yet. He hadn't even told the companies yet. I'm telling it to you first, like it's some big kind of inside secret that he's telling them. But hurtlings take on that was that this was just a bit of interceptor washing. And it would take months, if not years, for the Ukrainians to actually build those Patriot systems. They need them now. They are getting hammered by the Russians in their civilian areas right now. They need to be able to protect their population. And that these licenses are just a way to say, well, look, we gave them the licenses. We're not actually giving them the hardware because, by the way, we've used all of them up, or too many of them up in the war in Ukraine, which was a war of choice that was not particularly successful. But anyway, we used up a lot of our hardware, but don't worry Ukraine because we're giving you these licenses, which are not actually going to help you for a long time. Do you think Trump's had a change of heart on Ukraine generally because he sees the Ukrainian winnings, and now he wants to get on the winning side? No, I think you just gave the insight. And I think that's the central thesis that I'd like to underline. Give them the licenses without giving them the material. It takes them forever to build the Patriot missiles anyway. But I think Zelensky's tell was really when he said when Trump, you got to love Trump because he just says a slave and a nave to Vladimir Putin. I talked to Putin for 90 minutes, and we should meet in Moscow. And of course, that would never happen. And Zelensky said, yeah, I probably shouldn't go to Moscow. There was a lot of Ukrainian drones in Moscow. Yeah, I'm not going to Moscow. It's not safe these days. Yeah, it was such a dead, it was just such a deadpan actor's delivery. And it was loaded with irony, but loaded with truth. But I'll say this, Ukraine is the quiet success story because the Allies pledged $70 billion of Euro military equipment training for Ukraine in 2026. They have a commitment, Europeans do to at least doing that much in 2027. And Trump is out of the frame, Kat. This is happening without him. And so weirdly, the Europeans responded. Trump said you're not paying enough. Mertz is acknowledged that we're not paying enough. Ruta, I mean, I've already said my peace on him, so I'm not going to be overly critical of him here, but I am generally overly critical of him. He's calling the trillion dollars of new European spending the Trump trillion because he's always trying to insert himself into where and Trump's what. But in any event, I just think that Ukraine is going to survive. I think this war also goes on until the end of Trump's term. You have to tell me who wins the presidency after Trump. If it's somebody that believes in the Alliance, is somebody that believes in the strength and freedom of Europe, which I'm assuming it will be, they're going to shove Putin very, very hard here. And I believe that Putin's regime will collapse as a result of that. And then the question is, who replaces Putin? But you know, it's getting late early out there to quote Yogi Berra. It's getting late early out there in Moscow. And I think there's trouble. And I think Zelensky has the upper hand right now. And people should realize that he got the upper hand because the Europeans responded while Trump was doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin. The Europeans realized the threat from Russia. And I've had a couple of texts this week from a European Union official who said, look, there is real concern that as Russia comes to the realization that you've just made, that Ukraine is winning this, does Russia try to test the Alliance? Does Russia push somewhere? They're already involved. I'm told in kinetic warfare, in cyber attacks around Europe. But would they actually go as far as to go for something militarily? Take a nibble at the edge of NATO because their ultimate aim, and Vladimir Putin's ultimate aim is to destroy the NATO Alliance, to destroy the European Union, to destroy the Western alliances that have held since the Second World War, and would he like to just take a little nibble? and see how the Americans respond because the Europeans aren't there yet. Yes, they're pledging the money. They still don't have the capacity. And that's gonna take a little while longer. Okay, before we go, Anthony, we have an exciting new project to talk about that you have been part of with me. I have a new show that is launching on Goal Hanger. It's a fun series that I'm doing called Doing It Anyway with CattyK. And it's looking at the question of how we can become better workers, better leaders, have more confidence in the workplace. I've got a great range of guests. I'm talking to Adam Grant, a professor from Wharton, who's fantastic on leadership and confidence. I'm speaking to Ali Love, who is the peloton instructor, who was so great about overcoming hurdles in her own life to become what she is today. You joined the program, which was so fun talking about the importance of reaching out to people, asking people for help. As you know, I've worked on the whole issue of confidence and leadership for years. This is a series I've wanted to do for a long time. So I'm really happy it launches on Friday this week. - First of all, congratulations, super excited about the show. I wanna go to the title for a second, if you don't mind. - Yeah. - Doing it anyway, you're really good at this CattyK. So why that title? Tell us the elements of what is in the show that's reflective of that title. A lot of the issue around confidence, I think particularly for women, we have found in our research, and I've been researching this for years, is that when you suffer from a lack of confidence, you don't think you can do something. You have a choice. You can sit back and be passive and not take risks, and not ask for that pay raise, or not go for that promotion, or not ask for that stretch assignment because you might not get it, or you can try. You can try and do something, even though it could lead to failure. And I think it's that idea that, yeah, everybody is afraid. Everybody has moments, even you spoke about this Anthony, where you're afraid of taking a risk, where you're worried that it might not work out. And I think the key for women, but also for men too, is to do it anyway. But you joined the program. Did you enjoy the discussion? We spoke a lot about how you have overcome failures in your life, and you've done so. You're a lot cheaper than my therapist, Caddy. So I appreciate, give me the opportunity to be in the confessional with you. But I want to talk about failure for a second, because what are the things that I admire about you among many things is the honesty about this issue. And explain to people in your experience interviewing all these people, your own life story, why do we feel fear failure so much? And why, and again, this is universal, in my opinion, I have yet to meet a person who's being brutally honest, that doesn't say yes. There's elements of my personality where I fear the failure. Now I have failed, and I've triumphed in my life, and I can tell you that when I'm failing, I still feel miserable about it. I don't want people to think, oh, you know, I'm a big, I got a big pole of dance. We know it all much rather than ever fail. Yeah, but why the fear of it? I'm not talking about the actual failure. I'm like, okay, Katty, you're about to embark upon something. It could succeed or fear, but we have so much anxiety about the failure. Look, I think there's, I think there are different things. I think for women, perhaps more than for men, there is a desire to be perfect, whether that's conditioned into us from, you know, centuries of needing to do that. And every time you take a risk, right, you might screw up. That's just like part of taking a risk. And if you want to be perfect, the psychological battering you're going to give yourself if you screw up is that much greater. But I think there's also this sense that failure only happens to us. I mean, this is what I hope people can understand from this series is all of the people we've interviewed have overcome hurdles. It's so universal and yet it feels so uniquely personal. And you feel like the clear lights of public opinion are on you when you fail, that everybody's talking about you. One of the great things I remember hearing from a neuroscientist actually was when I was doing the research on this, was that, listen, don't worry, you're not everybody else's headlines. People are way too busy getting on with their own lives and their own problems to actually be thinking about you for more than five minutes. And I know that when I've had failures that were very public failures ended up like you on the front page of the New York Times, I thought, oh my God, this is, you know, I wanted to go into a hole and kind of hide away. No, nobody remembers or cares. That's the beauty of it. Katie, does the word rubber necking translate over to the United Kingdom rubber necking? You know this term? Oh, when you're looking at a crash on the road? Yeah, so your rubber necking is when you're driving and there's a crash and you slow down to observe the crash, could be on the other side of the road or could be on your side. And so even though the traffic's clear, everybody is halted by the rubber necking. And so this is also a sign of human nature that when something catastrophic happens, we are vicariously observing this. And so do you think that's an element of it? Do you think the people, oh, wait a minute, you know, I look at catastrophe weirdly and meet me, other people will be looking at my catastrophe. Weirdly, I think there's some rubber necking in our human nature. Then there may be some rubber necking that for a moment we love the idea of people being brought down, a peg or two. I think that's the way we would describe it in the UK. But actually. Tall pockets. Generally, I think people want your success. They want you to do well. Is my experience of people? I think there are people are probably more supportive of you than they are destructive of you. There was, I think the other reason I wanted to do this series now. And it's so timely, Anthony, because we are seeing something of a backlash against women and the promotion of women in the workforce. There's a very interesting story just this week and the economist talking about how women are sliding backwards in leadership positions. They're getting fewer board seats. More of them are getting fired. They're getting fewer of the top positions. And that's really for the first time in about 20 years or so. So I think with that anti-DI, anti-workback clashes having a real impact on women's fortunes in the workplace, which probably is also then, in turn, going to make women feel less confident in the workplace, less confident about asking for those promotions, asking for those stretch assignments, which are exactly the kind of things you need to do to get ahead in the workplace, so it's a vicious circle. And one of the things that we found in our research that women find particularly bad, and actually we went out around the streets of London, we're asking women about this, is asking for a pay raise. And this week's episode, the first episode of our series of doing it anyway, is with Mika Brzynski, who is a good friend of mine. She's hosted, of course, you know her from Morning Joe, but she's also written extensively on how women can ask for a pay raise, how we can do this thing that is particularly difficult. So that's our first episode coming up. Anthony, have you got wise advice for anyone negotiating a pay raise? - Oh, I mean, the first thing I would say to everybody is listen to this show. It's gonna be on the US feed here, so the rest is politics, US feed, so stick around and listen to the show. But I would tell people that in the world of corporations and everything that I've learned, you know in your boss' nose when you need a raise. And so you know it, it's just in your gut, you know. And so when you feel that, it's okay to ask. But if you're pushing for something that you don't deserve, don't do it. But I'm telling you, everybody knows I have found that I'm getting to the point of giving somebody a raise right at the same point that they are in most times of my career. And so I would just tell you, you know when you're gut when it happens. - There's a lot of research in the series, but there's also a lot of practical advice from really these fantastic top psychologists, top leaders, top sports figures. So I hope you'll enjoy it. So do tune in, you'll see it right here on your rest is politics, US feed, doing it anyway with Katty Kaye every Friday this summer. Tell your friends and family. Thanks for listening everybody. We will be back next week with more American crazy politics. - See you next week, guys. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)