Julia Gets Wise with Nina Totenberg
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Hey, listeners, it's me. Julia were back for season three of wise than me, and we have so much more wisdom to share from the legendary older women who have joined me this season. I can't tell you the number of times when i'm having these conversations.

I find myself scrambling for up like a pizza paper or a nap in or whatever I can find in my desk to quickly drop down some nugget that my guest is sharing in our conversation. I mean, you've probably have the same experience, right? Well, guess what problem solved.

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You know that movie, twelve angry men with Henry thunder and lj cob. I just I love that movie. It's one of the truly great american films.

And IT all takes place in a jury room. If haven't seen IT watch IT, I have only been under jury once. I was a very long time ago. I can't really remember exactly when, except that I had too little kids and my husband, brad, was running a show, and we were incredibly busy and self absorbed. And a jury summons hit my mailbox and I thought, oh, Chris, I don't have time for this bullshit.

And I figured I probably get out of serving because somebody was gona recognize me from sign south, right? But, uh, yeah, nobody recognized me or they didn't give a crap because I went through wander with a couple of hundred people downtown. And of course, I got selected for the jury, and I am so glad that I did.

The jury that I was on with eleven of my peers was made up of actual serious citizens. And what I mean by that is, I mean, we all took our obligation very solumly. IT was sober, you know.

I mean, I I can't remember the exact makeup of the jury now, but IT seemed like IT was an actual representation of people living and working in los antil st. You know, was something like a real estate agent and a nurse and a couple of city workers and me, an actor. You know, los Angeles on TV, you often see the beautifully polished grand locations where important things are being decided.

But in reality, we're in downtown L A. Deliberating in a room that looked and smells know, kind of like the D. M, the whole thing was impressively drab.

And still there was something just so touching about IT. I found the whole jury experience to be incredibly moving. The lawsuit was about a woman who was suing her insurance company because they refused to pay her hospital stay and a medical procedure.

The case was pretty technical, and IT took a whole week for the two sides to argue IT out when we started to deliberate. The header was this middle age stockbroking, I think, who turned out to live about a block away from me. And he was so good, he was very soft spoken, and he got everyone around the table to state their personal views of the case.

And the thing that amazes me, and actually amazes me, still looking back on IT, is that everyone stuck to the facts, and nobody talked about themselves, right? Nobody wanted to bloviate, and you make speeches and so on. They had listened, and they had things to say about the case.

So we took our first vote, and I think IT was ten to two against the insurance company. But the two who had voted the other way actually just wanted to talk a little more about IT. And pretty quickly on the second vote, we had a verdict in favor of the patient.

No drama, no David. Equally, T. V. Series theatrics. This was just a humble, serious, restrained proceeding. So IT wasn't exactly like twelve angry men.

In fact, supreme court justice Sonia soda mayor once said when he was a lower court judge that he was specifically instruct jurors not to behave like the jurors in that film, but justice soto mayor also said that seeing twelve the angry men when he was in college was a big reason that he decided to go to law school. How call is that? SHE said that jr, number eleven.

Speech about american justice was particularly inspirational to her. He's the only immigrant on the jury, played by George bose, covered I won't to his accent, but here's what he says in the film. We, the jury, have a responsibility.

This is a remarkable thing about democracy that we are what is the word um notified that we are notified by mail to come down to this place and decide the guilty innocence of a man we have not known before. We have nothing to gain or lose by our verdict. This is one of the reasons we are strong.

But I guess right now, unfortunately, a speech like that seems terribly naive. I I don't even know how to feel about justice or justices for that matter. The constitution itself seems to be in danger in americans are losing faith in the judicial system so fast it's dissing.

I know our system has never been perfect. God knows we continued to be in desperate need of reform and justice is unfairly applied, especially regarding wealth and race. But when I served on that jury, I couldn't help but feel hopeful that the system is working. Now i'm not so sure. So it's a good thing that today we're talking to nan a toton berg.

Hi, i'm july, although we drive us and this is wiser than me, the podcast where I get school LED by women who are wiser than.

Now that i'm in the podcast game, I am more aware than ever of the power of the spoken voice. And i'm talking about the voice itself, the sound that goes into your ear and delivers what the voice is saying to the brain.

I've realized that for me, there are a few voices that I have come to absolutely rely on, and I absolutely need na toton birds voice, the timber, the intelligence and reasonable allness that he brings to her, reporting of even the most outrageous injustice. Well, somehow what he says, and maybe just as important how SHE sounds when he says IT comes me. Well, I mean, IT also, weirdly lets me continue to rage.

And I do love a little rage. SHE was one of the founding mothers of M. P. R, and has been on the air covering legal affairs, justice and the supreme court for almost fifty years, which is actually longer than any justice has ever SAT on the court itself.

Her coverage has earned her every major journalism award in broadcasting, and he was the first radio journalist to have one, the national press foundations broadcaster of the year award she's in the radio hall of fame for got six. Even before epr, SHE was breaking national stories and paving the way for future generations of female journalists and just playing journalist SHE is written beautifully about her relationship with justice ruth beter ginseng berg in her book dinners with roof. I am beyond excited to talk to a woman who is so much wiser than me, the extraordinary nana totenberg. welcome. Nana totenberg.

thank you for having me.

okay. So i'm going to start with the first question. I always ask everyone on this show. Are you comfortable if I ask your real age no.

i'm not comfortable at all about that because the world is an age's world boy, i'll say and I don't so I don't go around advertising my age. Let's just say, um I am many decades wiser than you are so you don't .

want to say what you're real age .

is I hate you, but I mean, I will if you forced me to, but I hate IT because I don't feel like i'm at age.

okay. Well, how old do you feel?

I think I feel that i'm about late forties, early fifties.

I feel the same. Actually, I feel the same. What's the best part? Do you think about being your age that is unspoken?

I don't think there's a wonderful part about being my age because you suddenly realize that you're not gonna around forever and that the forever part is getting closer and that your as much as I am, who I always have been, I know I had this year a real, genuine, horrible health scare. And i'm still walking around with a king from IT. So, you know, I had to learn to walk again. The most boring thing that I do, a lot of his physical therapy, and 反正， so that's what I do for the other part of my living, is making sure that I will have another good ten or fifteen years maybe.

And what what have you learned from this process of recovery at this age where their big .

takeaway no, I do think there's a good deal of in life when you are you come to a serious health issue over which you have some control, not total control, but some control that you just have to try, uh, as much as you can act as if you're going to conquer this, because that way you will not scare the people you love so much. And it's one of those things where if you act something, IT becomes so. So if you act miserable, you can actually be miserable. And if you act with a sense of humor about your dilema, you will feel much Better about IT.

Well, that's fascinating that you say that because, you know, I had breast cancer seven years ago, and that was exactly my experience. You make a decision to approach IT with a certain point of view and you adhere to that period .

as much as you possibly can and and you know there's nobody that doesn't have their down moments, sure. But if you can act as if it's gonna a be all right yeah and that you will do your best to make IT all right, IT gets you there faster and Better.

I think, yes, I agree with that. So I wanted to talk first about your early career, about which I know you've spoken before, but IT sure is fascinating. We all know and love you as one of the founding fathers of epr.

I me, I may not even seem possible to people who are listening to us talking, but you had a, you had a career even before you ve got to mp. r. You dropped out of college, by the way, I did to. So yeah, for us, and you started your journalism career at the boston record, american doesn't .

exist anymore.

You didn't stay there for very long, did you? Na.

no, I didn't stay there for a long time. I think the straw broke the camel back was that I I realized that I wanted to have a story that I could call my own. And I had this idea, which was, in hindsight, a very good idea.

which was.

at the time, massachuset was a pretty conservative state. Hard to believe, because the legislature was very conservative. IT was democratic, but IT was very conservative and contraction tion was illegal in the state. So I figured IT wasn't illegal, probably at all the schools around town. So i'm pretending to be a student called up red Cliff and Simons and wisely and made appointments with their health services as is pretending to be a student to yet contraction, which in those days was probably, I think that was a IT, was a dire frame. And I wrote all this up as a memo, and I presented IT to the editor of the newspaper, the executive editor.

who was a man named .

edy helland. And he IT was lovely to me, but he called me into his office that afternoon, and he said, nina, I can't let you do this. And I said, why not? He said, have you ever had an eternal examination? And I said, no.

And and he said, I can't let you do this. I'm not quite sure when I was writing the book, my editor asked me why he was so upset, and I don't no exactly why I think he thought he was protecting me. He wouldn't let me do IT. I couldn't persuade him.

He didn't. He ask you if also you were a virgin, yeah.

He asked me if I was a virgin. And I said, yes, I was a virgin. And it's so an amazing thought today that somebody in her twenty years would be a origin. But life I was. And I was not hugely unusual because IT was difficult to get contraction when .

you said it's amazing thing to I thought you were going to say an amazing thing to .

ask someone, well, IT was amazing. But I know yeah, they were all I ever wanted was a job at the early in the early part of my career, and where I was willing to do almost anything I wouldn't have slept with somebody hear something like that, but I know I wasn't gonna get offended by something that wasn't gonna stop me from getting a shot at a good job. And so I figured I needed to go some place us.

And you did.

I did. That's when I went to the people at times where I got to do lots. There were days that I wrote every, every story on the front page.

Everyone of them really, oh yeah. My byline was on everyone of those stories a few times, like I after an election or something like that. And I covered the courthouse and I covered, they sent me in because I was pretty Young.

They sent me in undercover to find out what was going on in the local high school, which I don't remember, that I found out a huge amount. And I think IT was painfully obvious that I was not the age of the kids there too. I don't think I was what that .

means that you went undercover week. What was that?

I did not go as a reporter. I went as if I were a new student in school. I can't remember to save myself what they thought. I was going to find out whatever IT was. I didn't find IT out.

And you sort of dress like a student and try to blend in.

But I felt like an amazon. I love that year at the party times, because I got to do everything. And when I got to N, P, R, I got to do everything.

I covered politics. I covered president special campaigns. I covered the supreme court. I covered almost every scandal that broke. I broke a few big stories like the I need to hill story, right?

But I do want to ask you, you did say at some point when when I was getting ready to talk to you and I saw you said you were trying to break a glass ceiling, you, yeah, you were just trying to get a foot in the door.

Yes, exactly.

Do you now still have a feeling like you have to prove yourself in some way or stay relevant? Has that changed over time? That driver for you IT change.

but I didn't change until I was well into my fifties. I think.

aha, how did IT change? nina? Well.

I used to sometimes sit down when I had a big story to write, and I was on deadline. I would sometimes sit down and think, oh my god, this time i'm gonna exposed for the complete fraud that I know I am. IT was kind of uncertainty that is so female .

and that .

is so freaking female. I know that I an, unfortunately, I was able to talk about IT with other women as we got older, which helped, helped a lot. Yeah, but but IT wasn't really until then that I was able to sit down.

And I had that feeling. And I would say, come on in, I just suck IT up. You just have to start writing and you know, you will get through this and you if you do that, I when I was writing the book, I I asked for a list of the stories that I had done on in pr. yeah. And there were over nine thousand of them.

Oh, fuck.

And so I didn't even look at the list. I mean, I thought, okay, I don't there are stories I look at that I wrote that I not only don't remember writing, I don't remember knowing you, it's literally don't remember knowing.

I know and and by the way, I want to say that i've have the same feeling in my own life of like, oh god, you you are a fraud. I wouldn't say fraud, but .

they don't know.

they don't know how how much you suck. And and have and to to push yourself to power through that and to with our easy feeling that for me anyway that IT hasn't completely gone to wait, that I feel that I have to be able to prove myself um you know even to this day to a certain extent, not like when I was in my twenties, but still that's a real thing. And I think it's it's a female thing. As you say, it's not .

interesting. IT is a female thing, but also it's IT returning to the subjective aid. People are very willing, including Younger women, to dismiss older women because they think we're fuddy studies.

And we and we are in some ways, you know, we are we, those of people, my agent, the aid that coffee Roberts was and that Linda worth hydras and that Susan stanbery is. So he even older than I am, and and we were almost always until we came to M P. R, the only women where we worked, we were the only women there. And we are, we just wanted a chance to prove ourselves. And therefore we put up with a lot of stuff that no woman puts up with today or should put up with.

That's why i'm doing this podcast for exactly that .

reason yeah and heads off to you no.

But I mean, i'd feel strongly about IT because they do listen to older men and and i'm exhausted by that. Now i'm exhausted, and we need to hear exactly what you're saying right now, exactly what you thank. Don't go anywhere. We will be right back with me a totenberg after this quick break.

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I want to talk about sexism, but before I even do, I do have to ask you this question. IT was, I guess, when you were when you were at the national observer that you started covering legal affairs in those days, you would invite the certain supreme court justice is over for dinner to talk with them. Is that true? yes. Okay.

I invite them in their wives. I mean, come.

So let's talk about how did you get the charge to do that? Because to me, that's like capital b balls. I can't get alright.

I can't get already either. The truth is, I can't get over either. I was so ambitious and determine not to fail at this job that I, I, I, I mean, I really don't rehire how I had the balls to ask Lewis power and his lovely wife joe, to come have dinner at my little thirteen foot wide house.

And i'm in my late twenties, early thirties, and how I had the nerve to do that. I would not have the nerve to do that today. Yeah.

but except I think that you would. And for our listener's Lewis power, he was the supreme court justice during the seventies and the eighties. Do you still have justices over for dinner parties and so on?

If you'll come, it's all of the record and it's usually just social. And if you'll come and it's how I got to be a really good supreme court reporter, was at least knowing some of these people and being able to not too much ask them the inappropriate question, but the appropriate question. I mean, one of my great things that I did when I was a bit Younger was that I would invite justices who were retired to have lunch with me.

And they were usually very happy to do that, because washington is a place where, except for your beloved local locks onto you, no longer half wer people or less, less visit you, less care about you, less is set. It's not a very attractive thing, but it's true. And so I would have lunch with somebody like Louis power, and I would never invest him a question about why he'd voted a certain way in a certain case, as long as he was a sitting justice.

But afterwards, what have I got to lose? And he was much more forthcoming, I think they would have otherwise because we're talking about history at that point. We're not talking about something at that moment that he was doing.

And he was very helpful to me. Justice brand was very helpful to me. Justice Stewart was helpful to me. Lots of members of the court were willing to talk, at least generically with me about the court. And then after they retired, if they were, remain washington more specifically.

Do you, even today, have justice as ever? I am guessing you can't say who I can.

but I do. Yes, I do. Okay, including some conservative justices who I quite like. I never invite any other reporter, and I never invite people who are involved in court business.

You know, I invite a really a smart couple of doctors like I do husband and wife team. You know, he a critical care dog and SHE an O B. They're good friends. They, you know, after just a scolia ag, who I really adored, they had had dinner with him couple of times at our house. And so and when when he died, they went over and bought one of his rifles from him for their daughter, who was working in a part of the world that was where you needed to have a rifle.

We're a alaska, a alaska. Oh, I say.

you know, and ask if you're going out. You could see a moose and you would yeah not want to have trouble with .

the moves I had. I had this experienced once where I ran into at a gathering at the White house, uh, justice cagan and he was incredibly lovely and SHE said that how much he enjoyed the show I was making called weep at the time, and that SHE and justice scalia would get together every week after an episode air, they'd have lunch and they would talk about things within that episode that they thought we're funny or whatever.

And I got such a kick out of that, and I was perfectly amazed that these two justices, who, you know, their ideologies are obviously a post from one another, could have the experiences of enjoy that show together. I, that was just mind blowing to me, absolutely mind blowing. But I know that square was a good time. I obviously read a lot about him and understand that to be the case. Neo, right?

Neo, yes, we used to get a kick out of going to some, you know, I would have invite him to the White house correspondent dinner or something like that, and would be the ino and na show.

That's good. That's really good. okay. So now let's talk about losing your temper. I read this amazing quote from you.

You said losing your temper is not good for dealing with people, and it's not good for you. The person who feels the worse afterwards is usually you, did you learn this lesson in the hard way? Nina.

oh god. yes. I had a really short views, I think. And and I think IT was really because I always felt, as a Younger person, as if I was, I had to defend myself because I draw.

I was the only woman in the room and so that I had to be and I to prove that I was really tough. And believe me, I proved that many times, but i'd never felt that way. I always felt like mush.

So I was even more probably tough than I needed to be by far. So I and I would, you know, when I wasn't completely junior anymore, I I would lose my temper from time to time. And there was just no two ways about IT.

At some point I realize is the best thing to do when I felt that hydrox push of you think your heads gonna come off, right? Turn around and walk out. really? Yes, because that way I couldn't. Because if I did lose my temper, inevitably I said something that I was really sorry for, embarrass about, shouldn't have said so I don't lose my temper that way anymore.

Was there a specific moment or a period of time in which you made that transition to controlling your temper?

I think, IT, I probably was in my forties, in my early forties, because by then I had started to actually have a real reputation as a person, as a journalist. That means you can do that and not have people notice. And it's one thing for somebody who's nobody to blow her stack.

It's another thing if you were to do that in the office with people you have to work with an end, or at the airport or whatever. IT was not a wise thing to do. And I learned to not do IT. And I also learned the person who, if you really lose your temper, you physically ill afterwards. IT just feels awful afterwards.

It's a terrible feeling. I mean, you feel as if you're it's a release in the moment, but IT went. In fact, IT is the sting of IT stays with you IT doesn't an you can't get angry if I I would say, of course you can get angry, but there's a there has to be a rationality to your expression of anger um and but what about like shall I say, as whole management because here you are inside the bet way and here I am in show business.

There are plenty of as holes at work i'm guessing in the cortege. How do you manage that? How do you manage people who you have to work with that are very misbehaved?

Well, the people that drive you, the most bankers, you should ee just steer clear of if I right, you know, I just why bother? And I don't actually get mad at anybody who I interact was regularly at the court because, well, first of all, the the public information office is entirely female. Really entirely female.

And so that's just for starters. And um the people who work at the court take a lot of pride in what they do and deserve the respect that we generally give them. yes.

And we can certainly we certainly don't have any influence, I would say, is, I guess, the right way to put IT with the justices. So if they're gonna be, why bother? I mean, the first of all, I don't know how you even get to them to say to them you were very disappointed in them.

Yeah exactly. But let's go back a second. What were you saying about the public information office at the supreme court?

That's the press secretary for the court, the deputy press secretary. Then there are two other, two or three other people who work in that office. And they are very professional and they are all women.

So I am fascinated that you say that because I in my experience um when I have worked in situations with all women, for example, on this podcast for the most part everyone's women and um and on films that i've made director by women cover center shows that i've done with caliza female LED it's an entirely different workplace and there is a what's the word i'm gonna say there is an ease of generosity that's just in place and I would imagine you have that experience with Susan stamper g and Linda worth hymir and cokie Roberts when you first started at mp r, right? I mean.

absolutely yes. Linda and cokie were and are my best friends. And when I when my late husband died and when he was terribly sick for for almost five years, they and my sisters were the people who looked after me, took care of me, make sure I was okay and.

They were my closest friends, and ruth ginsburg became one of my absolutely closest friends. Even though I I know I I in in the book I I wrote about this because I had to think about IT. I didn't realize that I was a close friend of her until he turned. Fifty or sixty, I don't remember which. And her husband asked me to write something about my friendship with her, a letter that would be he was putting together a book for her birthday, and I did that.

And when I was writing my book by then, router died, and I asked her daughter jane, if SHE had, by any chance, had a copy of the letter that i'd written because I was a book, and SHE took a picture or whatever, and SHE sent IT to me. And I was really quite astonished, because now I think of roof is my friend for almost fifty years but back then when he turned fifty, I think um I signed IT nan a total work which is a little crazy when you think about IT. So I had this moment of realization that I still thought I was that we were not best buddies or among the best buddies.

And I thought, why did you think that? And and what did you have in common that lasted almost fifty years? And the thing that we had in common, that lasted almost fifty years is that for much of that time we both were women of some accomplishment who constantly had our noses pressed up against the window, looking inside at men who had all these jobs and they weren't letting us have them and we wanted them let us in. Let us be part of this um game that you have yes and and I think SHE that's one of the reasons that he was so generous to so many women and so many girls and so many little girls is that he understood that you said that you .

learned how to be a Better friend from your friends oh.

I definitely learned how to be a Better friend. I mean, I I don't think I could ever be as good a friend as cookie robberts.

Why there was .

no end to her ability to be a friend and to know what was the right thing to do so that I mean, at some point. I remember lee, her son, was talking to his father and he, they said, you know, if cookie were here, he would have been at the house, said save SHE would have gone over because so in those husband was in terrible shape or was in just and and lee said, no, no, SHE wouldn't have just gone over the house.

He would have sleeping on the couch at night. So that is the kind of friend he was for me. And I learned from IT how to be a much Better friend and to understand that what you give, you get back to .

just by giving.

yes, by giving. And that that is no, I don't know anybody could be as a good friend as cookie was. But just the other day I wrote Steve, her, her husband and I said, just want you didn't know I had one of my coke moments, which is always, you can figure out what, what would be the right thing to do? What would cokie have done? Okay, then it's obvious what would cokie have done.

And it's obvious what you would do. You would give this much money, you would not hesitate to say I, to say I can afford IT. This case, the woman who would help take care of my husband was in called me because he wanted sh'd been cheated out of some money.

Could I help her get that money from the employer who had cheated her? And I thought, sh'll never get this money. SHE needs the money. I'll send a check. What cokie i've done, SHE would have given her the money.

So look at that. Coffee is alive and well in you. That's lovely. This is actually, in fact, it's time to take another break. There is more wisdom from nana totenberg when we come back.

You know we had frame liberals on our show um back and season one and uh he was best friends with tony morson and SHE mentioned specific moments in her life when SHE wish he could ask her dear tony Morrison for her thoughts on something and i'm wondering right now, is there anything that you wish you could ask ruth bader ginsburg right now other .

than .

could you please come back that's .

probably what I would do you know ruth was in her own way, just as I am in my own way, rather conservative person um in her the way he conducted her life and what he thought about things and and and I would ask her what knowing now what happened in the aftermath of of of what's happened at the court, what would you think we should do because I don't think this is a question it's easy to answer.

And I interviewed her probably six eight months before he died in that in course of that interview, I asked her whether he thought I was the court should be expanded, for example and SHE said, absolutely not. It's if if you expand IT, you can contract IT or somebody the next president can just add more people and more people and IT gets. And it's just an unwilling situation in which the court just seems constantly political.

So there are those who would say that the court seems constantly political now, I am sure. So what would you say now, knowing more about what happened, I know people will say he should have quit earlier. Yeah, he would if if he had thought he was sick, SHE wasn't sick.

SHE was at the height of her powers on the court. SHE didn't want na quit. And then by the time he did get sick, IT was too late to do anything about IT. So that's a sort of foolish question.

I don't have to answer that when I know what the answer of that one is, but i'm wondering because he was very wise, not necessarily about politics, but SHE was a very wise person, who what he would think of today's court. And for people who think it's that the outcome has been more than desultory, but even frightening for some people, what would you tell those people to do about IT? And I don't know what her answers would have been.

Well, maybe we should have a say, answer something.

Maybe yeah.

So we're a speaking of the supreme court recording this in the summer, and I have no idea what's going to happen with .

our country between .

now and the time that this episode areas. I mean, let's talk about the culture change that you've experiences covering the court over this very long period time. I mean, you were there for the original roadway decision, which is extraordinary actually and then of course, most recently, the jobs decision.

Um i'm sure you have a lot of feelings about this that are unique to you. um. I mean, I I I am not exactly sure had a phrases, I guess I want to talk about restraint and journalism.

We have policies about that. A Brown and all who was, for many years, the executive editor of the new york times, used to have the same. Forgive me for my language, but please, if you cover the circus, you don't fuck the elephants.

okay? First of all, that's my new model.

That might be the best thing I heard all week. I love IT. I mean, of course, that was a different time. And there is plenty of biased media coverage now, plenty fox news acedera. It's partisan.

I guess my question to you is the following is IT chAllenging to keep your own personal views apart from your reporting? Is IT particularly chAllenging now? Is .

particularly chAllenging now because. If you would set to me. Ten years ago that I would ever be saying regularly that a president lied when he said ex, I would have said, no, we don't do that because they didn't lie like that. They may have overstated something, but they were afraid to lie. Now people do not seem to be afraid to just tell bold face lies and that is very chAllenging to journalists, even journalists who and maybe especially journalists who believe that we're not supposed to impose our views on other people.

We're calling someone a liar, imposing a view.

Well, if you say that somebody's a liar, you've made a very definite value investment about them. And I know lots of republicans, most of them are no longer in the house and senate, but there are some who will tell you, absolutely, the trump has lied and they will never say that publicly. So what do I do about that?

What do you do about IT?

Well, if you really want to know where people genuinely think you have to keep people's confidences, if that's the terms of them talking to you, otherwise, who's gona trust you? You do have to do that. And I think the problem of baldface lying is a relatively new one.

Now I didn't live through the civil war, and I didn't live through the late eight hundreds, and I can't know what politics was like then. I only know what it's been like for my life, which is a very pretty, now a long life in washington. And I I came here as a quite Young reporter, and I did not know of any president who lied willfully to the american public until well afterwards.

But the biggest life, for example, we know that now is that london Johnson lied about the gulf of tongue and resolute to get the gulf of tanking resolution through. But we didn't know that then and maybe he didn't think he was lying. But it's a daily occurrence now in our political life, and i'm not just talking about trump.

Well.

you're talking about a new culture. I'm talking about a new culture.

Have you lost faith? Do you have full faith into the judicial system? Or is IT been shaken? Do you have hope?

I don't. Actually know um but I try to tell myself always that you know the the court for I would say eighty or a ninety years was on a fairly study. But IT would IT move back and forth from a bit from liberal to less liberal to more conservative to, but there always was a center on the court, and there isn't now.

And I think that's dangerous. I do think that's dangerous. Maybe it's a reflection of my own political views that I think they're always ought to be a center.

IT may be more a right center or a left center, but there ought to be a center that is a byword, san center that is, you know, so you could look at just so kono and just as Kennedy, for example, who were the center of the court when they were on the court. And that is, there's nobody like that anymore, who's at all. So a very small extent of a spirit, perhaps in this last term.

But this term, the court was on all of the biggest questions. The court, and there were a lot of big questions. Seem the court was divided six to three. So nina, I of course.

have to ask you about, I need a hill. When you reported that story, you got a lot of blow back to say the least. How did you cope with that?

So this is probably a longer answer than you want, but I got give IT to .

you anyway.

I had no idea when I broke that story, how big a story IT would be. I knew that after I broke the story and I had gotten an exclusive interview with you need to hill, if he went to ground and just disappeared, that this story would die, that I wouldn't have legs on its own. But I didn't account for enough, was how many women had had the experience of being hit on by their bosses.

I remember walking into the Russell senate office building the day that the second set of hearings opened and being shocked at this enormous media can glamour IT that was there and networks were Carrying IT live. In fact, the Thomas hill hearings out rank the word series. I think um maybe IT was the playoffs. I think IT was the worlds ies in terms of ratings.

What is this, by the way.

nineteen ninety one, the fall of ninety one. So I had not anticipated this at all, but I did see what happened the minute I broke the story. And that was this rage from republicans.

So they got themselves a special council to investigate me and find out who the league was. And of course, the discipline, and I refused. I, when I showed up by, complied with the cipta, and I did tell them anything. And IT was very, I guess the word is intimidating, but IT really paid to be in my middle forties at the time because I did have a lot of experience. Yeah and the night I broke the story, I was on nightline and they were a bunch standards on alan simpson and the the late paul.

Simon and I do enough to keep my eye on the Clark and to get the last word and say that if I, what I really wanted to say, which was, if you had looked into this, I wouldn't have had a scope, you buried IT, you senators, you buried IT. And I got a scope because you buried IT, and I had enough sense to realize that something was going on and to start pRobing to find out what the hell I was. I didn't know what I was when I started.

So that made senator simpson very mad at me. But we eventually buried the hatred and became good friends. IT was in both our interests, I would have to say. And I like alan simpson.

And did you did he have any a regret about that incident in retrospect? CT.

I don't know, but he has a wife and a daughter who made very clear that he needed to make peace. And I was very clear that I wanted to make peace. So I invited him to the one of these correspond st.

dinners. And he came and even brought me a corsage. And he was the republican whip. And he came in the fancy car, the limo from the we went we were the stars of the evening because we were the unexpected duo there ah and we made nice yes, we made nice and IT was a good thing. We have both, I think enjoy each other others thoughts and friendship since then, about at the time I remember coming home from that broadcast, two things happened. My husband, who was a former senator, greeted me sort of IT.

He was up on the stairs when I walked in and he said, what's wrong? And I said, I asked my debate alone sums and and I called him bad words and and I cried and he because we've had a contract outside and that was outside that wasn't only that was not on the air, that was outside and he said, well, this was one of those nights where they'd had football, so was delayed so he said, we're, let's watch IT and so we watched IT and he said, you won. Come on, let's go a bit and then I called my sister the next day, my sister jill, I have two sisters, one as a federal judges, lanta and Warners has their own pr business in new york.

And I called her, and I was weeping because, of course, people were trying to dig up dirt on me now. And IT was very unpleasant. And he said, you just have to suck IT up is nothing you can do about IT just do your job IT was great advice, but I would not have known all of those things when I was twenty seven, for example, instead of, I think he was forty six. Forty seven at the time, I don't remember, but I would not have known that when I was .

in my twice. Yeah, I got IT. Yes, of course that makes sense. okay. So wrapping up, i'm going to ask you a few sort of rapid fire questions.

okay.

Is there something you go back and tell yourself at twenty one in a toton burg?

I probably would tell myself you will make IT, so just calm down. Yeah, you don't have to be quite this pushy.

Is there something you go back and say yes to.

something that I said no to, and that I would say yes too? I can't think of anything like that. 哼。

Is there anything that you wish to spend less time on? nina?

Well, I wish i'd spent less time persevering about all manner of things and less time worrying about what people would think of me or. You know I I copy once was doing a in vitro, which we do in our business in advance. Yeah of jailed ford dying. He wasn't dying at time. We just do this right people shock, shocked IT asn't shock you but um and he was you know paying her way through rims of tape and one of the video tapes that he was looking at was the press conference that ford had um right after nixon resigned his first press conference and I was that press conference and I was you know when I got a question in um I asked him a part in question and i'm looking at this picture of myself and I was really pretty and I had no idea of that then yeah and I wish I had had at least a little bit of idea that I was pretty and because I always felt that I wasn't well.

it's that added youths wasted on the Young.

Yes, exactly right.

yes. What are you looking forward to?

I'm looking forward getting rid the cane. I'm really looking forward. My vacation this summer. I've earned IT this year.

IT was a really tough year, and going back to work when I went back to work was essential, or my brain would have turned to mush. But IT was hard. IT was very hard work.

And the term has been very hard work. Not, it's been hard for them. The justice is too just I don't remember any term in which there were so many important cases, and there's always a train reck at the end of cases that are backed up. But this year was even worse than you 说， and IT was just an enormous amount of work. Do you want to keep working?

I know you're ready for a break right now, but is your plan I you don't seem to me to be the retiring tight.

You know that's consider that the r word. I won't let my husband retire either.

Yeah, so you're gonna keep going.

Is that the plan? I'm going to keep going as long as as justice in where, who's to say as long as I think I can do the job now, my father died at one hundred and warm and was a virtuoso violinist. And he really didn't wana die.

But in the end, you know, even he couldn't stay alive longer than he stay alive. I can do what he did, which is in the last ten years, to solve his life. He did relatively little, performing certainly, and not many, I think after he was about ninety five, but he taught and he played for fun. And I don't think you I don't think my brain hold up long enough for me to be on the radio when i'm ninety five or ninety, maybe but so I can .

IT might be, yeah.

maybe i'll be a guest. I'll be a guest person. I'll make the occasional appearance in which I can write about the quarter, talk about the court in different ways. I don't know. I haven't .

figured that out.

No, I don't have to. If they were an easy way to do a little less work, I probably would. But there's no way to do a good job without working hard. I'm sorry, there's not a way to do that most of the time.

I think that's the advice of this whole long conversation of hard work equals good job, period. End of story, right?

IT is and being lucky in your family and the people who love you.

Thank you so much for talking with us today. I just adore you and am grateful to you for your for your hard work. And I mean that from the bottom of my that's .

so lovely of you and for those of you who are dying to know how old I am, just look at up. Yes.

if you have google, google if if you have google.

you can google IT. yeah. If IT says i'm ninety, i'm not.

Alright, thank you. Thank you and thank you again and thank .

you for having me.

of course, such a pleasure. Well, that was a trip having a conversation with someone whose voice you know so well, but with who me, I ve never spoken. That's just wild. I got to get my mom on a zoom .

to tell her all about IT.

Hi, mom.

Oh, I love. Hello, how are you? I'm good.

How are you? I'm good. I just talked in inner tonton work.

Well, I am so excited about that.

God, mom, we talked about so much, but he was talking about up until he was really, I think he said into her fifties nata burg, very often when he got, when he started to write a story, SHE felt sort of like a fraud, like SHE was was playing at the role of journalists as supposed to being a journalist. I'm putting words in her mouth there, but I think that sort of there was sort of war and SHE SHE characterized IT as being a very female of her .

lack .

of security confidence in herself as a journalist. And she's had SHE had to in her life she's to push back against that. And SHE has successfully done so now um she's a eighty SHE didn't want to say her age by the way, she's the first guess where they were had who didn't want to say her age, which I thought was kind of strAngely .

charming because obviously .

you can google IT and he said you can but SHE sort of want to say IT but anyway um have you have that experience mom feeling that way like as a writer but first .

for when I say, why did you use the word frog .

well first fall I didn't say frog. I said fraud I I said.

Okay, okay, well, that's that's so that's that's wonder all right, well, well, well, will move on for that. 我 鬼 变鬼 变。 I no.

There is no way that that isn't the funny saying i've heard of like a week, way, way bread is come in here ruining the because he heard IT to and now he's lying on the floor in the hallway clutching his. Yes, SHE was SHE had a story to write, and he felt like he couldn't because he .

was a frog.

But then SHE was right to not write IT because of.

Oh, fuck, that is various. Mom.

is that so funny? Well, we get.

have you ever felt a fraud or a frog?

Yes, very. Thank you. That's a common thing. You hear women say, yes, what what IT took to make them feel leg and authentic yes. And ah I have a theory about IT in these days for myself, when we were Young women who burn in the thirties and forties and we didn't know what to do with our ambition IT was your ambition was always like, uh, you don't go there and what I mean is that when I was in college and I read about clear bth lus belong article about her, and I read about her and I thought, that sounds so interesting.

What was he doing?

SHE was then that because he was the named ambassage to italy or SHE was gotten n into politics and he was taken very seriously. SHE was married in and we lose. He was a huge thing and publishing, uh, so I said to my godmother, I I was in forward with her and I said to her, i've read this article about clear with loose and i'm fascinated. I think that would be such an interesting life and so my and here and who is my god mother said, uh, he had very interesting, but you'd have to very and reload so the point thing that they were saying all that happened to her because he was married to that person and that was such a way of um that was like don't don't acknowledge your your own ambition and a and so so because I think that sometimes women that do I think part of this is a little bit of that hangover that when you feel like you don't work you're not worthy that you even if you prove yourself over over again um I think that maybe he has to do with the fact that you don't you don't quit permit your your ambition that makes me .

angry hearing that story, I wish I could go back .

and change the way that is not an uncommon story. I mean, I I bet you that, uh, no, my, my, my class and graduating class and from college was fifty five from high school with fifty one. And I bet you there are scared of women of my era. That's why i'm so interested in nina toton bird and the fact that he had that residue, a little bit of that residue, working for her and you against her and actually.

no. Well, and my final words today are are screw you and Harry IT for your for your shift remark. I don't like that at all. Well, anyway.

he was also a product. Yeah, I know.

but i'm still mad about IT.

Yeah, okay, well, well, me too.

Good mommy, yeah, okay, we'll listen.

We're gna go, kay. Well, much love and glad we got .

a good lab. Yeah, got a that was all the provider. I've got a great inside joke. ribbit.

T rabbit, okay.

anyway, I love you so much. I love you, mommy. bi.

There is more wise than me with lemonade premium on apple. You can listen to every episode of season three, add free subscribers, also get access to exclusive bonus interview excerpts from each episode subscribed now by clicking on the wiser than me poc logo in the apple podcast APP and then hitting the subscribed button, make sure you're following wiser than me on social media.

We're on instagram and tiktok at wiser than me, and we're on facebook at wiser than me wider than me as a production of lemon auto media created and hosted by me. Julia li drives this show is produced by cric peace jelas, era Williams, alex michelin and oho pest. Brad hall is a consult producer, Rachel neil is VP of new content, and our S, V, P of weekly content and production is Steve Nelson.

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