Cory Booker Visits the Suburbs (with Senator Cory Booker and Julie Womack)

We have such an amazing guest on the pod this week… Senator Cory Booker! Ever since Trump “warned” suburban women that Cory Booker would be coming to our neighborhoods if Biden got elected, we’ve been excitedly waiting for him to visit. And this week, he dropped by The Suburban Women Problem!

But before we get to Senator Booker, hosts Jasmine Clark, Amanda Weinstein, and guest host Katie Paris talk about the inspiring women of Ukraine, schools, and an article Amanda co-wrote where she discovered that job growth is actually more tied to great schools and parks than it is to tax cuts for businesses. (Yet again, policymakers should be listening to moms!)

Then the hosts are joined by Red Wine & Blue’s organizing director Julie Womack. Julie drops by to tell everyone about the brand-new Parent Playbook, a fun guide full of helpful advice for moms who want to organize in their communities. Julie also talks about some of the amazing women she’s met through her work with Red Wine & Blue and how she considers an “activist” to be anyone who cares about their community.

And then it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for… our interview with Cory Booker! Amanda and Katie sit down with the Senator to discuss Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, hope, book bans, comfort TV, and his grandma. And of course he destroys a few right-wing talking points while he’s at it.

Finally, the hosts raise a glass to best friends, proud Sports Mom moments, and to inspiring women in the military in this week’s “Toast to Joy.”

For a transcript of this episode, please email theswppod@redwine.blue.

If you haven't taken our listener survey yet, there's still time! You can find the survey here. Thanks - we’re so excited to hear from you!

For a transcript of this episode, please email theswppod@redwine.blue.

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Transcript

Amanda Weinstein: Hi everyone. Thanks for listening. I'm Amanda Weinstein.

Jasmine Clark: I'm Jasmine Clark. 

Katie Paris: I’m Katie Paris, filling in for Rachel Vindman. 

Amanda: And you're listening to The Suburban Women Problem. We have such an exciting guest on the show today! We have— drum roll, please—Cory Booker! Red Wine and Blue founder Katie Paris joined me to welcome Cory to the suburbs. And before that we'll have Julie Womack on the show to talk about Red Wine and Blue's new Parent Playbook. We've been getting some amazing responses back from our listener survey and a lot of you are eager for tangible ways to get involved. So I can't wait to talk about the parent playbook because it is a step-by-step guide for moms who want to fight back.

And speaking of, if you haven't taken that listener survey yet, there's still time. The survey link is in the show notes, but before we get to all that ladies, how are we doing today? 

Jasmine: So I'm just a busy body. I just say that off the top of my head, I'm all over the place, but, uh, I am so excited to see you all today. I love Cory Booker. I just want to say that, like I've met him several times, so I'm really excited about this episode because Cory's awesome. 

Amanda: I know when you meet him too, the first time I ever met him in person, I just like ran up and hugged him and I was, I don't know if that was inappropriate, but like he had like this huge smile on my face and said, hi. And it just felt like the right thing to do, I think in hindsight. And he was like, that was weird. 

Katie: Okay. Jasmine, Jasmine, Cory, and Amanda kind of hit it off. Right? They were like, it was, I mean, their conversation on inflation was—

Amanda: We needed out. But we didn't get to talk, we were going to talk about Ukraine with him and we didn't actually get to even like Ukraine. So what is going on with Ukraine, ladies? What are you hearing? 

Katie: I’m sort of missing Rachel at this moment, given the depth of her personal experience with Ukraine, but I know something we've all been chatting about this week is just how inspired we are by women. You know, like around our age, you know, just on, on the front lines, fighting for their democracy on behalf of their kids. 

I have, um, maybe a little known fact about me guys. When I was about 10 years old, we went on a family trip to Russia and we also visited Ukraine. This was in 1989. It was right before the fall of communism. And we went on this family trip because I was in a musical back home in my community in North Carolina called the Peace Child. And I played a Russian little girl who meets this American little boy. And I mean, we basically bring peace to the world and it was performed all across the United States on Earth Day, 1989. Okay. 

So then this cool thing happens where the foundation that it had supported the play said, Hey, families do y'all want to go to the Soviet union. And when we went to Ukraine, we went to a children's summit. And I got to meet all these other kids who were involved in the arts and, you know, just caring sort of about the future of our countries together. It was an amazing experience. And I keep thinking every day, as I read about these women in Ukraine fighting on behalf of their families who are my age, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, some of these women were probably at that children's conferences. It just, it just shakes me a little bit every time. 

Jasmine: Speaking of kids and Ukraine, I saw a news story and I don't know if y'all remember, um, you know, back when everything was first happening and there was a story about the little girls seeing Frozen, uh, let it go, in the bunker. She's seven. So I'm talking about a little, little girl. Uh, she made it out of Ukraine. She's with her grandparents in Poland and, um, she got an opportunity to, to sing on the stage in front of thousands of people. And I just think about the fact that she has been through something that most children will probably never go through. And she still found somewhere inside of her to sing. 

Amanda: I saw that it was so cute. 

Katie: Did you see the teenager too, who was photographed reading from the Ukraine constitution, you know, as the Russian military, just, uh, you know, looking very intimidating over her. 

Amanda: I saw both of them. I thought it was so amazing. And I just think also about the moms and the parents that they have to give them the strength and the encouragement to do stuff like that. And I think all the time that people underestimate what women can do in every sphere and including warfare. I love this story about this grandma from Ukraine, who was a retired economist. So, you know, I loved her immediately, but she was a retired economist Grandma making her own homemade Molotov cocktails. And she was going through a little Molotov cocktail process and she was like, I'm going to kick some ass. And I was like, whoa, grandma. I like this woman. And I was like, yeah, get it. 

And I think it makes a lot of sense to me too. Cause when you think about women, I know for me, like the time I really turn the mama bear switch on is when I feel like my kids or my home are in danger. Right. And you can't even help it. It's just like this thing that comes out where like, yeah, I'm going to make a Molotov cocktail. Watch me. Right. And I totally see these women as like fighting so hard and being such the mama bear bad-asses that I know they are.

Jasmine: Well, they've got a fight right? They're under attack. I mean, these Russians, they're not just attacking military targets, which is what we normally think of when we think about war. But we are seeing news that they're attacking things like maternity hospitals. You know, that's a direct attack on women.

Katie: And then check out too, you know, there's even been Russian women standing up for the families of Ukraine. I know you guys had to see the woman who worked for, you know, one of the media outlets, one of the news stations in Russia, and she jumped on the screen, holding a sign up behind the correspondent. On TV, you know, speaking the truth to the Russian people about what was happening in Ukraine, because of course, Putin is lying to the people.

And it was a handmade sign. And I knew the moment I saw this woman, I was like, she's a mom. She's definitely a mom. So of course I had to like Google right away. Of course, she's got two kids. It's a handmade mom sign. She's doing it. It's, it's super inspiring to me to see moms, both in Ukraine and Russia, common cause standing up for their kids.

But Jasmine, I know you have stuff going on in Georgia. What's going on there?

Amanda: Moms under attack in Georgia, too, right? I mean, this is not just the story abroad. 

Jasmine: Exactly. It's and it, you know, I, to not to you know, diminish what's happening in Ukraine, but here in America, you know, we are still having a fight as well. And women are having to fight like this fight has been going on since before I was born and here I am knocking on 40 years old, and we're still having a fight over control of our own bodies and the decisions that we make. 

When it comes to Georgia, even when we think we're doing good things, misinformation finds a way to adulterate that and make it gross so that people won't even want good things. So a good example of this would be when it comes to mental health here in Georgia we have this great bill, great mental health bill, everybody loves it. And then all of a sudden someone comes in and it's like, this bill is going to make it to where everyone has to pay for gender dysphoria. And this is going to make it to where pedophiles get mental health therapy instead of being thrown in jail for the rest of their life. And just like all these things. You know, we were doing so well. 

Katie: Well, there's efforts all across the country now I know to actually strengthen mental health programs, particularly in our schools. I mean, we all know what a crisis the pandemic has put our kids in. And, you know, I saw in Alabama how they're trying to, you know, have more school counselors. And now there's legislation coming in trying to take away school counselors, because they're saying similar to what you're hearing in Georgia, that they're indoctrinating their kids. I do not believe they actually care about what is being said in these programs. They want to undermine public education. 

Jasmine: Yes. The people who are against this, the people who are like, oh, we need to get rid of librarians. We need to get rid of teachers. We need to ban books. And now we need to get rid of school counselors. They are such a minority of the overall population, but they are so loud. And because they're so loud, it seems like there's more of them than there really are. 

I don't know everyone obviously, I don't know every single person in the United States. I don't know every single person in Georgia. Uh, but I know a lot of people I talk to constituents all the time, even the ones that don't agree with me, I haven't met a single person yet who is like, I think that having school counselors in schools is bad and I do not want to move into a neighborhood where there are school counselors in the school. Like I've never heard that. 

Amanda: No, no one says that. Exactly. Yeah. So I think it's interesting like there, so the New York Times had an op-ed where they gave some of these stats. And I think it's based on a New Yorker piece where they said 8 out of 10 parents whose kids are in the schools are satisfied with the schools.

Jasmine: I saw that. 

Amanda: Most of the people who are dissatisfied with the schools didn't have kids in the schools, which I was like, this is so not shocking now that you tell me these debts. And so I actually have a recent Brookings article where we wanted to look at, actually, we weren't even looking at schools that wasn't our goal. Our goal was what places, what cities do people like? And so what we found was actually even a little surprising where we found the places with the highest quality of life, just where it's really nice to live… they not only had the highest population growth, they also had the highest job growth. 

And then what we did is we wanted to backtrack like, well, what makes a place nice? And the strongest predictor of what made a place nice was those women that are talking about their schools and their parks, they have a more important impact on economic development than a tax break for that company does. 

Katie: I just love that the parents who live in these communities value these communities because of the schools within them are getting a voice, are now stepping up at these school board meetings in their communities, not letting these, you know, extreme voices represent all of us. It's so interesting that the people most dissatisfied with the public schools are the ones who don't even have kids in them. They don't know what they're talking about. Right? They're the same ones showing up at some of these school board meetings complaining about it—

Amanda: Trying to mansplain our schools to us. 

Katie: Speaking of not having someone mansplain our schools, instead, let's hear a little bit mom to mom. How about we bring on Red Wine and Blue’s organizing director, Julie Womack, one of my very favorite moms to tell us all about the new Parent Playbook.

Amanda: Hi, Julie. It's nice to see you again. 

Julie: Hi. I am so excited to be back. 

Amanda: So Julie, you've been doing so much organizing with Red Wine and Blue, and there's no shortage of issues to organize around. Could you tell us more about the work you've been doing and some of the amazing women you've met? 

Julie: Oh my gosh. Ever since Book Ban Busters launched, I mean, I have been talking to women all over the country. People are just so excited and I am so energized by talking to these women, they are doing, I mean, amazing creative things to try to fight book bands in their communities. I've been talking to women in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, I mean everywhere. And some of these things that they're coming up with to draw attention, going to school board meetings and handing out banned books. Um, I've recently talked to a group that I thought was fabulous in Tennessee. They had an entire banned book fair. Like they had like over a hundred people come to their park and they were making crafts and bookmarks and handing out t-shirts if you donated a banned book.

So the creativity and the energy is just really amazing right now. I'm so proud of so many people who stepped in. 

Amanda: That sounds awesome. I want to go buy a book from a banned book fair. 

Jasmine: I know. I kind of want to go to one. I want to do one. I wonder if I can put together a banned book fair. 

Julie: Well, I think it was a great, because it was, you could tell it was moms, right? Cause they were like, we're going to have bouncy houses and like prizes and I'm like, oh, like every kid is going to want to go to that then and get their books. 

Katie: So, all right, Julie, so up next in the Book Ban Busters campaign, Red Wine and Blue is releasing something that I know you and like our whole mom squad organizers has been working hard on for months and months and months. Do you want to tell us about the Parent Playbook? 

Julie: Yes, we are very excited about the Parent Playbook. So this is for everybody out there who knows what's going on with their school board may not be great. Like they're starting to hear rumblings about book bans or pressing on, you know, issues of diversity and equity and inclusion in your schools.

So this is a guide to how to effectively fight back against those things at your school board. How do you bring people together? What are the things that you need to do to get really organized? What are the messages that you can really use when you're talking to your school board? How do you get press attention around things about this and how do you get your message out to the community? Whether it’s through a social media campaign or talking to your neighbors and your friends. So this is a really fun guide that you can download, you can read through. 

And of course, because it's Red Wine & Blue we have to make it fun and creative. So it's not just a boring PDF. I mean, there's cute graphics and things to read. So definitely hope you guys will check that out. And, um, I hope that it will help so many people who want to take action in their community, feel confident in doing that. 

Amanda: Does it involve going to happy hour before the school board meeting?

Julie: A hundred percent. And honestly, that is one of the major components, Amanda is that you have to be social. Because if all it is, is work, work, work, and book ban book ban book ban, and there was no like friendship building or opportunity to get to know other people, you know, that's not why people come back. They come back because they build relationships and they make friends.

So yeah, you can have a happy hour, maybe not right before you go to school board. Maybe that is not a good idea. Maybe after, or maybe like a planning session with a little cocktail hour at the same time. I think that would work. 

Katie: Julie. I love to hear you talk about this because we talk to each other a lot every day, you know, I love hearing about the women who are putting this all to work. Like I know when you give advice for people on like how to gather their squad, it actually works because everyday you're like, oh my gosh, remember that woman I told you about, they've now they've got 245 other women working with them too. You constantly have these amazing stories about women coming together. You know, what's, what's the latest greatest, like one of your favorite win stories. 

Julie: I can give you a couple. So I did have a woman reach out to me, um, after one of our troublemaker trainings. And she said, you know what? I think I'm going to try this. You know, I'll just see how it goes. And then she started writing me back because it went from like 50 to a hundred to two 50 to 300, like Katie just said—

Katie: Happens all the time!

Julie: Which is what I tell people. You will not be alone for long. These things grow organically and they grow quickly and you would be surprised by that. 

Amanda: All right. So, Julie, I have a question. So actually it's a two part question. First, would you call yourself an activist? And second, what got you started organizing with Red Wine & Blue? 

Julie: I was never an activist, but I always joke that I'm the stereotype of the suburban woman, because I was PTO President, my kid plays soccer, I’ve been a soccer mom since he was four, I drove a minivan, even though I vowed I would never do that—

Amanda: Same! Haha.

Julie: You know, I voted. I thought that I was well-informed. But then after the 2016 election, it became quite apparent that there was a lot of work to do. I didn't think of myself as an activist. I just thought of somebody who cared about her community and I needed to make a change. And then I slowly, not even slowly, I pretty quickly found other women in the community who felt the exact same way I did, which is amazing because where I live is pretty conservative and pretty red. I felt very alone. So to find other people who feel exactly like you. So empowering. 

Uh, we have been finding candidates working on their campaigns. We recently had a city council that passed a local abortion ban. If you can believe that it was a long fight, but we were showing up, we had crowds there outside the meetings. We had media coverage. We had our women standing up and speaking at every meeting. I guess I am an activist now by that definition, but I think that's just really caring about your community and building, being willing to use your voice and stand up. And finding other people who are willing to do that with you.

Jasmine: And that's why I like what you all are doing with the Parent Playbook. And with troublemaker training. Is that you're giving people the tools and the information to use whatever their strengths are to make a difference, um, in their community, y'all are doing some magical things. And I, I, I, I love it. And I especially love it down here in Georgia would love to see more people, you know, taking part in some of these things and, you know, taking some notes out of this parent playbook. So you can stop some of these horrible things that are happening here in Georgia. 

Katie: And I just want all of us to always remember, like how hopeful it is, that how much all of our communities are changing for the good and the reason why we're seeing book bans and extremism coming into our communities and it all being, you know, funded and fueled by these big, you know, right wing political movements out of DC. They are doing it because they see us making positive change in our communities. 

Amanda: That is such a good point. I know. And I think you see so many people show up because there is a gap and I think what red wine and blue have done and what you Julie have done, and you Katie have seen that gap. And so like, you know what? We have a space for you to build and to fill this gap that no one else is filling. So, Julie, I want to thank you for all that you are doing and thank you for being with us today. 

Julie: Thank you all for having me. It's always fun to be on the podcast. 

Amanda: Thank you to. Now we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we'll have me and Katie's interview with the one and only Cory Booker.

BREAK

Amanda: Our guest today is a man who needs little introduction. He's fought for legislation to address affordable health care women's rights, climate change, and wealth inequality. He's a Senator from the great state of New Jersey Cory Booker. We are so excited to have you here on The Suburban Women Problem.

Cory Booker: I'm so happy to be on. Thank you so much. 

Katie: Back in 2020, Donald Trump claimed that you personally would be coming to destroy the suburbs. If Joe Biden got elected, we here at Red Wine and Blue knew how absurd this whole claim was because all the suburban women we know with the love for you to come to their neighborhood.

So ever since Biden did get elected, we've been saying, when is Cory coming to the suburbs? So welcome. We're glad that you're finally. But the real question is why do you think Trump used you of all people as the boogeyman? 

Cory: I think it was a form of dangerous, uh, demagoguery that unfortunately still exists, but it kind of hit home for me because in 1969, the year I was born, my parents moved into these great suburbs, but they weren't welcome. My parents had to get a white couple of pose as them, thanks to this incredible group of activists, suburbanites, uh, Black and white that came together to try to break the segregation in some of these towns. 

And it's actually an amazing story because. They set up a sting operation where the white couples would follow my parents, volunteers, and my parents would be turned away from a home. And then they would, uh, send the white couple in on the house that my parents loved, they were told it was sold. The white couple found out it was still for sale. And then on the day of the closing, instead of the white couple showing up my father did and this volunteer lawyer named Marty Friedman confronted the real estate agent who didn't relent.

He actually got up and punched my dad's lawyer in the face and sicced dogs on my dad. And after all of this, this fight broke out and then a lot of legal rigamarole. But we eventually moved into this incredible town as my father called us the four raisins in a tub of vanilla ice cream and, uh, uh, uh, and it ended up being this most amazing place to grow up.

So my life was growing up in the sort of nice New Jersey suburbs and they didn't get ruined as the real estate agent seemed to think that they would. In fact, by the time I was a senior, I was President of my class and all that kind of stuff.

Katie: Of course you were.

Cory: Well, I will tell you. Uh, I still, as I was growing up every time my dad would tell this story, the dog would get bigger in the story. So eventually he's like son, I had to find a pack of wolves to get, to get you into this house. You better appreciate what you got. 

Amanda: That’s an amazing story. All right. So you mentioned being, uh, like the raisins in the vanilla ice cream. What was like that for you as a kid growing up as the raisins in the vanilla ice cream?

Cory: This was definitely a community, a rich community of good people who, um, many of them, uh, really went out of their way, especially when we, knowing how we got there under this controversy, that really went out of their way to show, you know, the, the very human ideal of love your neighbor. And I felt, again, very blessed to have teachers that looked at me like one of their own. And so much of who I am is because of the foundation of this small suburban town that really cared for me and helped to raise me. I just feel very blessed by the experience. 

Now look, the reality is, especially in the seventies and eighties, there were very few images of Blackness in the media. And there definitely was, you, you face a lot of ignorance. A lot of my friends never met a Black person. And so there are definitely work challenges, being different. As many people feel when they grow up as different than the norm in their communities. But as I was talking about walking to work today in the United States Senate talking to one of my childhood best friends, I’m lucky that I grew up, not only that community, but also, uh, bi-cultural. In other words, my church was Black. My family was Black. Um, my parents did a lot to sort of ground me in who I am and in many ways, crossing the race line as much as I did, especially my first 18 years. You begin if anything, you get to understand this, the common threads of humanity that exists in us all. And, uh, it it's, it's been my hope in many ways in this country to be a bridge not just to racial understanding, but as we see more fissures in our society, more lines that divide us, I really feel a calling to try to remind people that the lines divide us are not nearly as strong as the ties that bind us.

Katie: Absolutely. Okay. So as it turns out, you did not destroy the suburbs, but the right wing keeps fear-mongering to try to win back suburban women. So we're wondering Senator Booker, instead of destroying the suburbs, if you could please destroy some of the right wing’s favorite talking points that they're using to try to scare suburban women and to tell us why all of these fear tactics are completely off base. Are you ready? Number one, the public schools are trying to indoctrinate your kids. 

Cory: Well, I that's an interesting trope, uh, because the reality is that the most democratic of all institutions, while you have a federal government and state government, perhaps the most local government in America is your school systems. The second thing I'll just say his, there is if there's one party that has been defending public schools, trying to fund public schools, pay teachers at, um, uh, adequately, it has been the Democratic Party. And I can't tell you how much schools have been under assault by right-wing schemes that would destroy public education as we know it.

So, so much of what I've heard in the culture, parts of these debates that have whipped people up, uh, where I see things I never thought I'd see in my lifetime, like book banning or, uh, trying to withhold, uh, freedom of speech. I just came from Miami where a gay friend of mine had a child in school and just even having a conversation about their gay parents, uh, could run them afoul of the law.

And so those are the kinds of stuff that to me seems stunning in a nation that values freedom, that savers this idea that one of the best sort of instruments of a democracy is a, is a vibrant public school system. Again, I think any society, banning books or burning books is, uh, some, uh, is a time for all of us to organize and be active against this kind of frankly, authoritarian government that wants to stop the freedoms of thought, freedom of education and the kind of exposure that helps all of us start developing. 

Amanda: Amen. All right. The next talking point is near and dear to my heart as an economist: inflation… because, Biden? 

Cory: Well, I think that anybody could just look outside of this country. There is a crisis of inflation going on all around the world. And I'm sorry, you could, you could afford Biden a lot of power, but that ain't it. The reality is this inflation is being driven by a number of things. One is a global pandemic that sent shockwaves through supply chains. And so suddenly you have a supply and demand problem.

Now, interestingly, we have a greater demand problem because what often happens during recessions is people fall into poverty and fall into crisis. So you may have shocks to the suppliers. But the demand drops because people simply can't afford things. Well, President Biden got in and did things like stimulus checks and unemployment and increased unemployment insurance so no family went that far down into crisis. Now when Biden came in, there were these food lines if you remember, that were stunning, but he found ways to make sure that families didn't fall into crisis and had disposable income to spend on things like, hey, food and diapers. 

So that demand shock, that supply shock, the consistency of the demand thanks to President Biden, um, has created inflation, but there's something else that's creating inflation that we're not talking enough about. If you look at the last 10 years of all the corporations of the S & P 500, there are four most profitable quarters were all last year. In other words, corporations are not simply passing on their costs. Corporations are making extraordinary profits by jacking up prices to consumers under the guise of supply and demand challenges. And so when you see the companies making these kinds of record profits during this time of crisis, you can see that a lot of this has to do with corporate gouging as well. And that's a problem. 

Amanda: Bam. Nailed it. 

Katie: Okay. I know you two could talk about the economy all day, but we got to get to the next right wing talking point, which is crime is skyrocketing and the Democrats would do not care.

Amanda: Especially the mayors of democratic cities. They love to do that too. 

Cory: Well. I love how a lot of these trends, including inflation started under Donald Trump, and nobody points to that. So you started seeing spiking, uh, um, uh, illegal border crossings, under Donald Trump, we’ve seen spiking inflation under Donald Trump and crime was going up under Donald Trump. 

There is one party offering common sense solutions that are, are evidence-based solutions that actually work, universal background checks on guns, but you have states and I think Ohio, you can correct me if I'm wrong is, is pushing legislation right now that says you don't even need a license for a concealed weapon. 

Amanda: That’s right.

Cory: So it's very frustrating to me that we are in a nation where we're seeing the number of people being shot and the suicide rates access to guns, where we can't even pass common sense laws, uh, re regarding gun storage or common sense laws that with people that are suffering serious, mental illness can be temporarily suspended from being able to access guns. There's a lot of things we know that the Republicans are blocking, uh, right now. And that's the same thing with inflation. 

Katie: So now we want to turn to a major event happening this week, which is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearings. She would be the first Black woman on the United States Supreme Court. Last month, you released a statement that I love where you said this is a Jackie Robinson moment for our nation. As the only member of the Senate judiciary committee who is Black, could you tell us more about what this means for our country? 

Cory: Well, look, we are, a nation has had 115 people ever serve on the Supreme Court, and 108 of them have been white men. When Ronald Reagan appointed the first ever woman to the Supreme Court, we know that there were generations of women before that, that were qualified for the Supreme Court. Heck, we've had men on the Supreme Court who didn't go to law school and never practiced law. And so this is a big moment.

And for me, it's a very emotional one. Uh, I tell you, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, her daughter wrote this very powerful letter to President Obama when she was 11 years old, uh, asking him to consider her mom for the Supreme Court. And I just wonder about that moment that a little girl dreams believes it’s possible for her mother to break a barrier. Um, I just wonder that her very presence there will inspire a lot more little girls and little boys around this country to dream that their mom or their dad, no matter how different they may be than all the Supreme Court justices that have come before. That could really dream that one day the highest court in their land can really reflect the rich diversity of our nation. 

And it's not as good for girls. I tell you, I grew up with this phenomenal mother. Um, even though she teased me on my Presidential campaign, she would introduce me and say behind every successful is an astonished parent. But you know, James Baldwin said children are never good at listening to their elders, but they never failed to imitate them. I had this model of his mom who worked, um, who, who led in the community as a volunteer, and that was great for me, the man growing up, a boy growing into a man, uh, to see such an extraordinary woman, professional woman, as an example, every single day. 

And so I'm tired of seeing these studies that come out of universities when they ask a hundred students to imagine a CEO or imagine a President or whatever, and, and like 98% of the men and women and students that are pulled in many of these studies will picture a male or picture a white male, because we still don't have that reflexive imagination. I still have implicit bias. I'll find myself making the mistake. Someone will say, oh, I saw my doctor. And I’ll say, oh what did he say? I mean, I'm sorry, what did they say? You know, we, we still have these implicit biases rife within our society because the extraordinary, competent, qualified women are not the ones selected for positions of leadership and import.

We still have a Senate, uh, that is woefully lacking gender diversity. There are no Black women in the United States Senate. Heck I'm only the fourth Black person elected popularly elected to the United States Senate. We have a long way to go to begin to really break these glass ceilings until they're completely shattered and there's no limitations. Uh, and, and that's what I'm really hopeful for. 

Let me leave you with this, to this question. I've answered her too long already, but it really is one of my favorite moments as an American. Where, um, it's a President Obama's inauguration. And my grandmother born two years before women had the right to vote, um, was asked by a reporter at the inauguration.

Does she ever think she would live to see a Black person be present in United States? And my grandmother looked at the reporter and, um, I didn't know what she was going to say. And she looks at the reporter says, no, I did not believe that. This, this moment was beyond her wildest dreams. My hope is that I can make it into my nineties and we, as a nation will have so advanced, um, that I can say about whatever I'm witnessing, uh, uh, 40 years from now that I, that I see too in America, that's beyond my wildest dreams for, for a more perfect union. 

Amanda: Oh, that is such an inspiring story. Oh, you're gonna make me cry, but I, but I love that. Like, I hope for that future too. And I love that you pointed out in the hope for that future, that it's a fight. The future doesn't come just because we hope for it. It comes from because we fight for that hope. And I love that kind of marrying of like, that's what you're working for right now is that future you see of this government.

Cory: This idea of hope, it’s tough, right? I mean, there's something I always say, if America hasn't broken your heart, you don't love her enough. You put your heart out there and you're in love with this nation as we are, then you see it, you have this, the, the, these, you see these injustices and I've come to believe that real hope is scarred. It's broken at times. It has to resurrect itself on some days. Hope is the active conviction that despair will not have the last word and that, that somehow you've got to get out there as an activist, uh, and be an agent of hope when it seems all hope is gone. 

King said something that, that reflected your comment. He said that change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, it must be carried in on the backs of people who never give up working for it and never give up hoping for it. And so I just, I just know that you have an audience of people that see things that have laws that are passing, whether it's in Ohio or in Florida or in Texas.

And it's hard. There are times where you are broken hearted. There are some days where your hope, uh, is on life support, but those are the times I think that we've got a call, uh, to resiliency. And if you can't find it in ourselves, um, perhaps we can look to our history. And remember that in every major struggle from the suffrage movement to the civil rights movement to the LGBTQ movement, uh, there have been people that have faced more dark days than we will ever face, and yet still found a way to keep, keep going on and keep forging forward.

So I'm glad you brought that up and I just want to give people encouragement. There are days I get so frustrated on the Senate floor. I feel like I'm banging my head against implacable walls of resistance, but then I just seem to have a memory of what it took to pass a civil rights legislation, what it took to end slavery, uh, what it took to make, uh, for a way for me to even be here. From that I draw some hope. 

Amanda: I love that framing because I think of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, right, that love she has for the country to want to serve her country in this way, even though the country is potentially falling short in some cases for that particular person. Okay. Before you go, we like to ask some fun, rapid fire questions. Are you ready? 

What's the best thing about New Jersey that nobody talks about? 

Cory: Oh my gosh, the food. We are in national magazines, the best pizza in America, best bagel in America. I, in fact, we have such great ethnic food. We're one of the most diverse states in America. I was the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, where I'm not exaggerating, the number of hundreds of thousands of people just came to Newark for the Portuguese food. So we are a tremendous foodie state and I'm very proud of that. 

Katie: Okay. So what's the strangest thing that has ever happened to you on the campaign trail? 

Cory: Oh my gosh. I have bad handwriting, so it frightens me, but a lot of my sayings that I had during the campaign, uh, people began, uh, uh, tattooing them, uh, and occasionally would be asking me to write it out. Like I have this one saying from the last words of one of my greatest mentors of life, right before he died, said to me, “I see you. I love you. I see you. I love you.” And, and, uh, I would use that as a way to end a lot of my speeches. Some folks asked me to, to write it out so they could tattoo it on themselves, which scares me because if my fourth grade teacher, uh, could ever see that she would have said, I should've worked on your penmanship a little harder. 

Katie: I like that. Okay. You have passed some great bills, but we want to know what's the one legislative victory that you are most proud of.

Cory: Look, you ask me that I, it probably is whatever bill I'm working on getting over the line most recently. So we just passed after literally over a century, uh, over 200 attempts to get this bill done. It is the, um, uh, Emmett Till anti-lynching bill. So I tried, ever since I got here. Tried three attempts. And we finally through some negotiation, got it done. It also passed the house of representatives and the President will sign it, uh, very soon. 

Amanda: So we heard that you and Ru Paul found out your cousins on finding your roots. So. What would your drag name be if you had a drag name? 

Cory: When I, when I joke with my friends about the days when I had a very big Afro, I’m 6’3” but I used to be 6’8” when I had the Afro, I used to joke, uh, that my eighties rap name was C-Boogie. And C-Boogie might, might be good drag name too. 

Katie: Okay. Your last rapid fire question is what's your favorite comfort TV show to watch when you need to unwind from a long day in the Senate? 

Cory: God, I cycle through shows a lot, uh, often just comedies that just make me laugh. But I do have to admit something, even as a vegan, I still take comfort in a lot of cooking shows. Put the British baking show on and it's just like, it's so good. 

Katie: It’s so good! I watch it with my seven year old all the time. 

Cory: And they're so nice for crying out loud. I love kindness and the competitors are gracious to each other. It's just a wonderful little world under that tent. 

Amanda: So before you go, I have to also say, when you made your announcement to run for President, there is a picture of you on the New York Times and you were in Akron, Ohio. And I was like, hey, I was there. Oh my gosh. I was so excited. And one of my friends sent me a picture. Cause I don't know if you remember this, but when you were giving this speech in Akron, Ohio, my two kids were running around you. And they were the only kids there. And there were throwing Cheerios. You were stepping on Cheerios literally when you gave your speech, cause you walk around a little bit when you give a speech, you would crunch and everyone hear you talk and they would hear a crunch. And I swear to God, you did not miss a beat. 

The picture of you was like amazing. And I was like, oh man, they should take the other picture. Like, I think it's even more amazing he's doing this while his feet are crunching. And my two toddlers are just running circles around him and he's acting like nothing's happening. So I thought that was so amazing when I saw that picture come out and I shared that picture with all my friends, that it was like the behind the scenes, not behind the scenes photo of my kids running around you.

Cory: Well, I hope to come back out there to Ohio and see the kids again and get to get to walk upon Cheerios one more time. 

Amanda: They will love it. All right. Thank you so much for joining us and for being here with us on The Suburban Women Problem. 

Cory: I’m so grateful. Can I ask the question why the suburban women “problem”? 

Katie: So we call the podcast The Suburban Women Problem thanks to your colleague, Senator Lindsey Graham, who following the 2018 election went on Fox News and he lamented, oh, we have a suburban women problem. And it's real. And we said to that, heck yeah, you do. You do have a suburban women problem. And we're going to keep it that way. 

Cory: Thank you for discussing the problem, but in many ways through your voice and your connections and the audience that you're attracting. Thank you for being part of the solution. 

Katie: Thank you. 

Thank you, Cory.

BREAK

Jasmine: Welcome back everyone. So, okay. Katie you were right. Amanda and Cory seriously have like a synergy that is unmatched. That was awesome y’all.

Amanda: It was so fun. And I was really touched hearing about his grandma because I think I can only imagine what it must be like for Cory Booker's grandma to see President Obama become precedent. And it really made me tear up because I think about the things that I personally want to see and have not yet seen. So especially when I think about my daughter and the things that she hasn't seen, that I want her to see. Cause she talks it to me all the time, why isn't there a girl president? Right? And I hope one day she sees that for herself. 

But it does give me teared up to, to think about that. And also I loved talking with him about when we think about hope for me, I loved Obama's message about hope, but thinking about how hope it doesn't just come, right? It's a fight. Katie, with Red Wine and Blue, all the stuff you do, like that is a fight. So that one day, like my daughter and our kids can see the things happen that we want them to see. 

Katie: Yeah. But I also just love to that, like, okay. He has not yet destroyed the suburbs as Donald Trump promised. Like, I, I love that he was just riding right with us on that joke. It's our favorite. But then of course he did proceed to destroy the right wing talking points that, uh, Republicans are using to try to scare suburban women. So I loved that. Flip it, flipping it right back on them. 

Amanda: It was so fun. All right. So before we go, we like to leave you with something good that happened to us or something positive that we saw on the news this week. So Katie, why don't you kick us off? What is your toast to joy? 

Katie: My toast to joy this week is to best friends. You guys, I got to go away for a few days last week with one of my best friends in the world, a best friend from the age of 14. And we went on a, what we called our adventure retreat together. We were up early hiking every morning. We went to our yoga class. We had a little mindfulness and both of us are like very Type A, not like mindfulness may not be like our main strength in life, but we did it. We did it together. We had the best time. It was just one of those like 48 hour periods where like your stomach hurts because you you're laughing so much nonstop constantly.

So, huge toast to joy, I feel like I had my joy reset button punched. I just, I love best girlfriends. What about you Jasmine, what's yours?

Jasmine: My toast to joy was to watching Jayda play in her first basketball tournament. She plays AAU basketball and they had to move their tournament to a week that it wasn't scheduled and a few people couldn't come, so they only had five players. So that's how many people are on the court. So that means there's no subs. And partway through the game one of the girls, uh, started having issues with breathing and she has asthma. So then the choice is either forfeit the rest of the game or play with four players. So they played four against five and even though they were down a man, they still played their hearts out. 

And the game was actually really close, even though they were playing with only four people. And I just got to see Jayda shine. And then when she made her first three pointer ever, she was so excited. And so now she's like, oh, I can shoot threes and all this stuff. So I was just really proud of her. It was just, it was like a good, it was like a proud mommy moment just watching her kind of blossom on the basketball court. 

Katie: That’s awesome. Go Jayda.

Jasmine: All right, Amanda, what about you?

Amanda: So my toast to joy today, I would like to do my toast to joy to my college roommate Shayla. Um, so she is in the military. She's a Lieutenant Colonel now. And so she recently did a post that she helped organize and was part of, um, basically in their unit they had this whole women's empowerment thing and it wasn't just women. They had men involved too. 

And how this is really, they don't do it. I know the right loves to accuse the military being woke now, like they're not doing it to be woke, they're doing it because they have to fight wars and to fight wars, you have to support each other. And women need to know that they're supported by other women. 

And every time I see what she's doing and she is so humble about it, so I just wanted to do my toast joy to Shayla. She's amazing. And to all the other war fighting women out there, I'm so proud of you. You're doing amazing things. So to my awesome roommate, Shayla.

Jasmine: I love that so much. 

Katie: Very cool. Go Shayla.

Amanda: All right. Thanks so much to everyone for joining us today. Don't forget to take our listener survey and we'll see you again next week oOn another episode of The Suburban Women Problem.