EPISODE 9b: ALLEY MULRAIN UPDATE
TRANSCRIPT
SAMIA VO: This is Make America Relate Again. I’m Samia Mounts.
Thanks for tuning in to this mid-week mini-episode featuring my phone call update with Alley Mulrain of Episodes 5 and 9. If you haven’t heard my original conversation with Alley, I recommend you go back and check out those episodes first, before listening to this update. In our first interview, I was an emotional mess, and I stepped all over Alley, dominating the conversation in a way that now makes me cringe when I listen to it. So I thought it was important to at least get her on the phone and ask her how she thinks the Trump administration is doing so far. And you know, maybe give her a chance to speak this time.
Let’s get right to it.
—
Alley: Hello?
Samia: Hey, Alley, how are you doing?
Alley: Hey girl, so I'm on my cell in my bedroom, hopefully you can hear me okay?
Samia: I can hear you great, yeah.
Alley: Awesome. I can hear you great. Cool, how are you?
Samia: I'm good. I am trying to get as much work for this podcast done before I leave for my Europe vacation tomorrow as possible.
Alley: Oh where are you going? Where are you going?
Samia: I'm going to Amsterdam, Budapest, and Paris. It's my first time in any of those cities and my first real adult vacation that's not just going home to visit Seoul so I’m very, very stoked.
Alley: Well I've been to, out of those three I've been to Paris.
Samia: Fantastic.
Alley: And it's beautiful.
Samia: I've heard.
Alley: It's beautiful.
Samia: People say it's a great place.
Alley: It's beautiful. It's a great place. I will say honestly to you and I haven't been though in many years but I will say the one downside, and they might have changed this because this was 1995 that I was there, at that time they didn't clean up after the dog poo so there was a lot of poopy on the street, and I'm an animal lover but I stepped in a lot of poo poo, and then the same dogs were in the restaurants dining with me and I was like, "Oh God this is the poo that's in the restaurant, yes.”
Samia: I had my ex-boyfriend like that, I broke up with him for reasons associated with dogs and poop.
Alley: Oh my gosh, I washed my hands and I'm like okay Hepatitis C what is happening…
Samia: Oh my goodness…
Alley: Oh yeah…
Samia: All right well I'll let you know if that situation has improved.
Alley: Yes, and then also people, I'm not a smoker, but when I was there too people were smoking still in movie theaters…
Samia: Well right.
Alley: Everybody was smoking, but that was a long time ago.
Samia: That's the Parisian thing, I might smoke a cigarette while I'm there. Just one, just to be…
Alley: Yeah.
Samia: You know assimilate. All right, anyway…
Alley: Good for you.
Samia: Thank you. Let me ask you these questions so I don't take too much of your time up today as I know you've been working very hard lately.
Alley: And for August yeah it's been great, I can't believe how busy I've been in the summer, this is very, very different from what I'm used to. It's usually slow like a snail, but it has been crazy which is great.
Samia: I'm glad.
Alley: For you as well, yeah.
Samia: Yeah for me it started off busy but now my normal work has been kind of chill so I've been able to focus on the podcast which has been a blessing. All right let's get to it.
Alley: Awesome. Go.
Samia: In our first conversation you said that you were going to wait at least six months before judging Trumps performance as president. So we're just about at that point right now, I wanted to ask you how you think he's been doing so far and whether any of your opinions about him have changed?
Alley: Okay. I think he's doing pretty good in terms of the economy and in terms of ... Yeah, the economy first and foremost I think the numbers are great with that. I'm happy with how the country looks in terms of jobs that have been produced. I'm happy with the way that the Dow has been up. I understand that his popularity vote has been a little bit down but his approval rate I think is up in terms of the economy and that makes me happy because that was a big thing for me when we talked last. I still am a little perturbed by the excessive tweeting.
Samia: Yeah we all are.
Alley: And some of his ... Yes. And some of his verbiage that I said last time we spoke that I thought was a little juvenile and not presidential. So in that regard I still think he needs to work on that, but in terms of leading the country I'm pretty with it so far, with him so far.
Samia: Okay, great. So I wanted to ask you…
Alley: But I'm also…
Samia: Oh go ahead.
Alley: Go ahead.
Samia: No you go ahead.
Alley: Oh I'm also happy with this new Korean thing, I'm not necessarily happy, again, with his verbiage of the fire in Syria, but I am happy with his strength against North Korea and not necessarily the threats but the powerful message that he's sending that it's not just the United States that are here to back up that divided country but there are a lot of other nations that are with us as well as standing against this crazy Kim Jong-On person that I think is crazy and wants nothing but bad things for his people. So I appreciate the power and the message and I think a lot of other nations are jumping on us, and getting behind us, and appreciative of our pack together, and our strength together against this man that I don't think should be in power. I'm not happy about that.
Samia: I absolutely agree that Kim Jong-On shouldn't be in power. For me of course you know this is a really personal issue and I was actually going to ask you about…
Alley: Yes.
Samia: That so I'm glad that you brought it up. From my perspective my entire life I've lived under the shadow of North Korea and it seems that the people of Seoul are taking their normal attitude of thinking this is nothing to worry about, they've been posturing for years, they always make these exaggerated threats and…
Alley: Okay.
Samia: They never really make good on them aside from a few smaller incidents. North Korea has never actually taken a major move to attack the U.S. or to attack South Korea. I've been reading that people in Seoul are just pretty unconcerned the way that I always was when I lived there and the way they've always been, so that was encouraging to me. But that being said, we're used to these crazy threats from North Korea, but never before has our country's leadership responded in kind. I've been listening to experts talk about this on various news programs and reading news articles and people who know the situation well are basically saying you don't escalate with North Korea, the only thing that's ever really worked with them has been coming to the table and making deals, negotiating with them, which is what Trump is supposed to be best at. And everyone's really…
Alley: Correct.
Samia: Worried and scared that he's escalating things because look at what happened, they made a terrible threat, he responded with a terrible threat and his response if they make another threat they're going to see "fire and fury" like the world has never seen. Then they responded by saying, "Okay, well we're going to bomb Guam," which is a U.S. territory and we have military personnel there.
Alley: Correct.
Samia: So they were like, "Oh really? You're going to fire in fury? Cool so here's another threat. What are you going to do now?" And that's very…
Alley: Right, and so…
Samia: Worrisome to me.
Alley: It is worrisome and I've heard that we've had now, and then counter to that, is now we have missiles pointed ready to go towards Guam and that's disturbing to me. I hope and pray that none of this ever comes to fruition and I was thinking of you because I know you're Korean. I was like, "Oh my God, Samia must have very sensitive and strong opinions about this." I also think, and I wanted to ask you thinking about this and thinking about do you think it's possible that perhaps the community and the citizens of North Korea would have the gumption/balls or courage to overthrow him?
Samia: They don’t...
Alley: So that ... Yeah, go ahead.
Samia: Yeah, the masses of North Korea don't seem to have the information to be able to actually come to the conclusion that that should even be done because their state-run media is heavily censored, it presents a view of the world that puts North Korea at its center and it's kind of an us against them mentality. Kim Jong-Un is glorified as a great leader who can do no wrong. The information that people are getting in North Korea is all that and there've been…
Alley: I see.
Samia: Many efforts to smuggle in information, really information about what's going on in the world and there is a movement in that direction. There've been plenty of North Korean refugees, people who have found a way to escape against incredibly difficult odds and come to South Korea and told the world about what's going on up there. But overall, that government has a tight grip on the information that their people get, and that's what's so dangerous about a state-run news organization and without access to any other independent news organizations ... I mean…
Alley: Right.
Samia: North Korea's a great case for why a free press is vital for a functioning open democracy.
Alley: Right, yeah. I was talking to my dad about that because I was doing the old so radical Alley thinking, like, "You know what? Apocalypse now, let's just send in Martin Sheen in a boat and take out that crazy MF." But…
Samia: If that was possible.
Alley: My dad was... Yeah but then my dad was like, you know what, not for nothing, how about the North Koreans maybe rallying their troops together and maybe like with Gadaffi, wasn't that a similar situation where the citizens took him down in protest like we don't want you anymore, you're crazy, and you're gone…
Samia: Sure.
Alley: And we're going to fight for ourselves?
Samia: Yeah, but that hasn't exactly worked out well for the country either.
Alley: Yeah, it was just a thought that I had that if anything that to me would be a great solution because it would be the North Koreans taking care of their own problems and not involving ... And I would be so proud and loving of them if they did that. So taking care of their business, not that I want to see anybody be assassinated, but at the end of the day to free them of this crazy person who in better hands if they could for it to be them?
Samia: It's just not one crazy person. It's a whole government full of them, and a military that's been indoctrinated with these beliefs.
Alley: Beliefs, right.
Samia: I compare North Korea to a cult…
Alley: Okay.
Samia: They don't know that they need to overthrow Kim Jong-On and even if Kim Jong-On was assassinated there would be somebody to take his place immediately. It's so ingrained in the people…
Alley: I see.
Samia: Of that country that this world view that's so twisted and so divorced from reality is what's actually happening. They don't know.
Alley: Oh well that saddens me a lot, yeah.
Samia: Yeah, yeah, it is, it is. It's much more complicated than well the people should just rise up and overthrow him. In addition to not having the information needed to really do that in any kind of massive effort they also don't have the resources, the people of North Korea are impoverished on purpose, they have no power.
Alley: Right, yeah.
Samia: So anyway, I want to move on from this...
Alley: Okay.
Samia: And get to some of the other questions.
Alley: Okay.
Samia: We talked about climate change in our first conversation, and you said that it pissed you off that Trump had been calling it a hoax, and of course we know it's not a hoax and since then his administration has been very cagey about revealing any details about how he actually feels about climate change now. But we do know that he pulled us out of the Paris Climate Agreement which was a landmark agreement, something like almost 200 countries all signed it saying they were going to work together to combat climate change. So what was your take on that? As a person who cares very much about the environment does that worry you?
Alley: Yeah. Well I did a bunch of digging on that because I did say to you in our first conversation that yeah I do believe in climate change. I remember saying as I was thinking back that I thought the [inaudible 00: 12: 10] I said to you, "Yes we definitely as human beings all across the world are affected," but I did say that I think Mother Nature and the universe has a way of cleansing itself and it's bigger than us. So having said that, I did a little digging about the climate agreement, the Paris Climate Agreement, and what's interesting to me is they did a little, forgive my verbiage because I'm not sure how to say it correctly, but the pie with the different countries and the different percentages of the damage that each country is doing, and the biggest culprit according to this, and this was a Wikipedia reference that I got on Google was China at 29.4% damage.
Samia: Mmhm.
Alley: They divided the pie into all these other countries. U.S. was at 14.3 and then they had other, they had this big white pie thing that said other and they didn't put the countries in the other but the other was 31.5% and it puzzled me a little bit because I was trying to figure out ... I guess I'm really not sure, it kind of disturbs me that we pulled out. Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I think we have four years to pull out effectively...
Samia: Yeah.
Alley: Altogether, so...
Samia: We can't actually start the process of pulling out until 2019 or 2020. That's true.
Alley: Yeah, so that makes me feel a little bit better because I'd like to look more into this because it got a lot of front ... It got [inaudible 00: 13: 43] to fit for me and I was looking up scientists and their different percentages, and all this, and I got a little overwhelmed with the numbers. I'm not sure what the other meant in that pie and...
Samia: Maybe every other non-major world power country combined? I'm not sure, I'd have to see it.
Alley: Yeah, and then I was just interested because everything I read just kept saying, "Well Trump did that for economic reasons," and I wasn't really sure what that meant. Apparently there was another quote that said Trump was in coordinates with Syria and Nicaragua was saying we'll fail to punish the biggest offenders meaning he pulled out of the agreement because it looked like it was going to be detrimental or someway punishing for the U.S. economically. I tried to keep digging to find out exactly what that meant and I wasn't really satisfied with what I was coming up with. So sorry for my vagueness but...
Samia: No, it sounds like you're saying that it does worry you and you want more information which is...
Alley: It does...
Samia: Perfectly valid.
Alley: It does and I would like to dig ... Yes, yeah. Absolutely, yeah.
Samia: Great, all right.
Alley: I definitely think it exists and I just think I'm not really sure how each country what their contribution is and how it's affecting ... Like I said, I did that pie thing and I just kept reading numbers and it was confusing me more and more. I know there's a lot of political divide on why he did that and a lot of, on both sides, Democrat and Republican that were upset and not upset about it.
Samia: Yeah.
Alley: Like different viewpoints on it. At this point I'm going to say I'm not really sure, I'd like to do a little more research and then let you know, but it was vague. The research that I did was vague.
Samia: I would like to let you know in fact checking part two of your interview which was Episode 9, it just came out earlier this week, I had to do a bunch of climate change fact checking in the show notes for that episode you'll find ... I'll email the sections to you so you can check them out.
Alley: Great.
Samia: I put together all these links, synthesized a bunch of information and I think you might find it very interesting. All right next question...
Alley: I would love that.
Samia: Great, thank you. Thank you for loving that. You're awesome.
Alley: You're welcome.
Samia: All right. So you are very much a supporter of LGBTQ rights...
Alley: Yes.
Samia: We talked about that at some length last time. Now there've been a few things that have happened with the Trump administration recently, most notably the tweets that Trump put out saying that he was going to ban transgender people from serving in the military, which of course has not actually been turned into policy at this point, so we don't really know what's happening with that...
Alley: Right.
Samia: It was kind of a surprise. But then I think probably more seriously, Trumps Justice Department recently announced with no provocation or relevant case before them that would compel this announcement that gay people are not going to be considered protected under existing workplace anti-discrimination laws. Now...
Alley: Oh okay, I was ... Yeah, go ahead.
Samia: Yeah, so that's the opposite of what the Justice Department stands on this that was under Obama. That really worries me as a person who is queer, who identifies as bisexual, and has many, many friends who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, it scares me a lot and I was even more disturbed by that than the trans in the military tweets, which at this point I'm not taking that seriously. I just wanted to see what your take was on all of that.
Alley: Well I was actually doing a little bit of research on the bathroom issue so...
Samia: Oh yeah, that was the beginning of, one of the first things Trump did was...
Alley: Yeah, and that I did more research on that specifically, the transgender bathroom issue as opposed to the gay rights ... And here's my take on that...
Samia: And are you talking about the executive order he signed reversing on Obama rule that protected transgender students...
Alley: Yes.
Samia: In public schools?
Alley: Yes.
Samia: Okay, great.
Alley: Yeah, okay, I'm talking about that he made it ... And correct me if I'm wrong, but he made it a state decision as opposed to a universal government decision.
Samia: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what it was.
Alley: Okay, now if that's true I don't have a problem with that and here's why. I, like you, I'm in the arts, I'm an actor, I have a lot of bisexual, I have a lot of drag queen, and I have some transgender friends as well and first of all, in terms of the bathroom rule I don't really ... Okay, I don't have a problem with any sex or any transgender person using any bathroom at all, period, as me as Alley. I think if there's stalls in there with doors that anybody should be able to use a stall comfortably. Now, when you're talking about younger kids, schools if you will, bathrooms in schools, my first thought is I think it's maybe confusing for both sides. Let's say hypothetically there is a 10 year old Alley like myself identifying myself as a 10 year old as a girl, and I'm in a bathroom in school, and maybe there's a transgender boy/girl coming in. It seems as though when the Obama administration and before this reversal they were very concerned about the feelings of the transgender child/teenager. What about the feelings of the other person in the bathroom and their confusion and sensitivity? Now again, I'm all for it. Put a door on a stall, fro me it would be fine, I don't care about, it's just everybody goes to the bathroom. I understand when you're a young child or a teenager and you're going through those changes and feelings about who you are in the world and what your sex is, but I don't really think it's the responsibility of the government to makes transgender teens feels comfortable in the world...
Samia: Well it's not...
Alley: I think that's the...
Samia: Well it's not actually about people's feelings, it's about the fact that trans people are at high risk for violent assault, just purely because...
Alley: Okay.
Samia: Of who they are. Trans people are at much greater risk of being physically assaulted and sexually assaulted than nearly any other group.
Alley: Because of that sexual identity challenge?
Samia: Well think about it, if you have a high school teenager in a small town where people don't really know what it means to be trans, and say it's a trans girl...
Alley: Okay.
Samia: Who previously had been presenting as a boy but now was presenting as a girl, and that girl is now forced to use the boy's bathroom at school.
Alley: Okay.
Samia: Think about how teenage boys treat people...
Alley: Yes I...
Samia: In general.
Alley: Right, no...
Samia: So that's...
Alley: That could be very... Yeah, yeah.
Samia: So that's the concern, it's to protect trans students from being vulnerable to physical assaults and sexual assaults because they're already at such high risk, and then putting them in a situation where now they're sharing a bathroom, especially trans girls and trans women with a bunch of men, it's dangerous for them.
Alley: Well I saw that, and I also saw Trump saying something about building a separate bathroom for these people, but that's...
Samia: Yeah, that's a solution, a unisex bathroom would solve the problem.
Alley: A unisex bathroom and then he said something like, "Oh it's going to be very expensive," and actually, honestly that was a turnoff because I don't think it would cost that much money to build an extra bathroom, that might be a nice solution. I hear what you're saying, I just wish there was a way that it wouldn't have to be regulated governmentally. It's a very sensitive issue and I think it has a lot to do with ... I don't know. It's hard to say because like I said, you can have the parental guidance but once these kids are out in the world and they're dealing with other...
Samia: It's so complicated.
Alley: Students.
Samia: Whatever...
Alley: Yeah.
Samia: What about the other two more recent issues, the trans in the military tweets and what I think is the biggest one, the Justice Department stance that gay and lesbian people aren't protected under anti-workplace discrimination laws?
Alley: Yeah well that I actually didn't do a lot of research on because I was just kind of focused on the bathroom thing maybe...
Samia: I mean it just happened, it was very simple. The Justice Department just came out and said with no provocation that from now on the Justice Department was not going to consider LGBTQ people protected under existing anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. That just...
Alley: What the reason...
Samia: There was no reason given, there was no case in front of them, they just issued a statement saying that.
Alley: Well in terms of the military, the one thing that I maybe can contribute and sort of half believe is that I think there might be seem uncomfortability in the military in regards simple soldier strength, if you will, and the idea maybe of a male now presenting as a female in the military and maybe the fact that ... No maybe I should go the other way...
Samia: There's already...
Alley: I'm not—
Samia: There's already thousands estimated of trans people serving in the military openly because the ban against trans people serving openly was reversed last year by Obama...
Alley: Right, right, yeah.
Samia: So you've got all of these trans people who have come out since then...
Alley: Right, yes.
Samia: And now they're all scared that they might be discharged because of this tweet, this series of tweets from Trump.
Alley: Yeah that's disturbing. I guess in the minds of a lot of people, in terms of people on the frontline, they might be confused or not feeling secure about... I know it sounds very ancient/old school way of thinking, but like soldiers should be male kind of vibe...
Samia: What about all the women...
Alley: I'm sure you were like...
Samia: Serving in the military?
Alley: Yeah, no I know. I know. I definitely don't think that they should not be serving if they so choose, if they have the qualifications, and desire, and will to be serving their country I don't care if they're whatever they are. I think there's probably a place, a position for them in the military.
Samia: Yeah, I'm with you on that.
Alley: But I understand why people... I do, but I understand why some people are uncomfortable with it. I'm not as Alley, I understand maybe older people or more traditional thinking that if you're in the military you need to be John Doe, 5'5", 140, working out every day, testosterone, you know what I mean? I get that, I don't think like that, but I understand why people would be a little sensitive with that. I don't have a problem with it.
Samia: Okay.
Alley: Personally.
Samia: And the anti-discrimination laws, the Justice Department's new stance, do you have any response to that? Even if it's as simple as, "I need to look it up." I'm just looking for you to weigh in.
Alley: Yeah, I need to look that particular... Repeat that again, because I didn't look that up quite as thoroughly as the other thing.
Samia: I'll just email you some articles about it, it was a very...
Alley: Yes.
Samia: Brief announcement.
Alley: Okay.
Samia: There's not much to it other than what I've told you.
Alley: Okay.
Samia: Just that the Justice Department came out and said LGBTQ people are no longer considered protected under existing work place anti-discrimination laws. That's it.
Alley: Yeah, well see that's not cool, that's not cool with me at all, if that is in fact happening.
Samia: Yeah, I kind of figured that would be your response. But I will send you more information.
Alley: Yeah, people... Yeah.
Samia: All right...
Alley: People are people... And yeah, go ahead.
Samia: Yeah, everybody should be protected in the workplace from being fired for something about them they can't control. Right?
Alley: Oh yeah, you know what that reminds me of? Did you hear about that guy from Google that just got fired because he talked about women having periods and they fired him. Did you hear about that?
Samia: Well, he can control whether or not he's a misogynist, that is not something he was born with.
Alley: I know, well I just... Think of this, I just thought I'd throw that in. He's a heavy duty Google guy and he was...
Samia: I'm glad they fired him.
Alley: Inappropriately talking... I'm kind of... Well, you know it was NPR, I was driving up to a gig yesterday and I'm like, “Ahh." They have the whole story about this guy from Google is talking about women menstruating and how they might not be as effective, and what's appropriate at the water cooler and what isn't, and they fired his ass.
Samia: I mean would you...
Alley: That's interesting, right?
Samia: If you found out that your boss say in a band you were in or on a set you were working on was saying that the women, including yourself, might not be as effective when they're on their periods, would you have problems with that?
Alley: I'd be disturbed by it.
Samia: Yeah, Lord knows we've...
Alley: I'd be like, "Yeah..."
Samia: We're performers, we work through stomach viruses, please.
Alley: Thank you.
Samia: I can be fricking effective on my period, goddammit.
Alley: I might be a little cunty, as I'm saying that on the air, you can edit that.
Samia: No, I won't. This is an explicit podcast, we can say whatever the fuck we want.
Alley: Moody and cunty, but I'm going to produce, motherfucker.
Samia: Amen, thank you. All right, last question, very last question. I really want your honest answer. I think I know what it's going to be, but we'll see. With what you know now about how things have been going so far with the Trump administration, if you went back in time to the 2016 election, would you still vote for him?
Alley: Yes.
Samia: All right, that was easy.
Alley: Yes, because I couldn't vote for the other.
Samia: All right, all right.
Alley: Yeah, now question for you. We're using the second half of my podcast plus this?
Samia: Yeah, the second half of your interview came out on Tuesday of this week and this is coming out tonight.
Alley: Oh I didn't even listen to it, I just listened to Sarah, she was awesome.
Samia: Yeah, she's great.
Alley: Sarah, the radical, feminist lesbian from Greenwich, she was great.
Samia: She was great.
Alley: She was really great.
Samia: Thank you for listening. What was your question? Was that the question?
Alley: Yeah no, that was the question because I wasn't sure ... Because remember I was like, “Oh, send me the second half," and I never got to hear it, and I didn't know if you were going to post it or not, I wasn't sure.
Samia: I thought I texted you. Maybe I forgot, I'm sorry. It's been a whirlwind week. But yeah, it's up.
Alley: It's okay.
Samia: You can go listen to it, it's great. I actually, before I let you go, I wanted to apologize because after listening back to that entire interview and working on it, I really stepped on you a ton, and I'm really sorry. I was just in a place where I was going off on rants, and very passionate, and my nerves were frayed from everything that had happened before I talked to you that day. I really needed to be hanging out with a girlfriend that night, which is exactly what you gave me. So I wanted to apologize...
Alley: Without the cocktails.
Samia: We should have had cocktails. But I wanted to apologize and I also wanted to thank you for being so generous and for listening to me go off and off and not getting mad. You're really an extraordinary person. I'm very proud to call you a friend.
Alley: You're most welcome, and no problem, and I'm here to help, and I'm sorry it took us two weeks to get this phone call together.
Samia: It's okay.
Alley: Wait, and we're doing happy belated birthday, and we have to go out for drinks, and when are you coming back from vacation?
Samia: Awesome, yes. Thank you for the birthday wishes. We do have to go out for drinks and I'm back on August 22nd and we will definitely get together.
Alley: All right, yes. Connect with me. I don't even know the... Okay, I've got to listen to this podcast. Now I'm all nervous. Okay, no.
Samia: All right.
Alley: All right, girl.
Samia: Thank you Alley, have a...
Alley: Talk to you soon.
Samia: What did you say?
Alley: I said talk to you soon.
Samia: Okay.
Alley: And thank you, and happy belated, and hopefully have a great vacation if I don't talk to you before that, but we need drinks after that.
Samia: Thank you, I can't wait.
Alley: Okay.
Samia: I'll see you soon, bye love.
Alley: Okay, bye.
—
SAMIA VO: Alley’s the best. I definitely do not agree with her on a lot of things—like, my views on Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump are the exact opposite of hers. I could never have voted for Trump. Hillary could’ve literally been a New York City sewer rat in a pantsuit and I still would’ve voted for her over him. Also, I’m very convinced that climate change is something that is primarily being caused by human activity right now, rather than by natural forces, based on the consensus of the world’s leading climate change scientists. But these differences have nothing to do with the real human connection between me and Alley, and differences between people can only be resolved through conversations, through engagement. I’m looking forward to continuing this conversation with Alley over drinks in a few weeks.
Because of the quick turnaround time on this mini-episode, there will only be limited show notes available on the website, addressing what I think are the main issues we discussed that need clarification. You can find those notes, as well as a transcript of the episode, at makeamericarelatepodcast.com.
If you’ve been loving the show, take a moment to leave us a 5-star review on iTunes or Apple Podcasts. After this season is over, I’m going to go in overdrive pitching the show to media their outlets and potential investors, and every review counts in convincing people to give me their money!
Thanks to Christopher Gilroy for recording the phone call and putting this mini-episode together, and to Douglass Recording in Brooklyn for letting me use their splendiferous studio space.
I’m Samia Mounts, and this has been Make America Relate Again.