I am very pleased today to be joined by my very good friend Maria Shriver, who is an exceptional person. In more ways than one, I always tell people, when they asked me, who are the most exceptional people you've met in your career, Maria is always at the top of my list. One of the I always say 10 smartest people hands down I've ever met, brilliant person, kind person. And someone who has a very optimistic and unique perspective, I think in a very troubled time. And your Sunday paper, which is read by me and hundreds of 1000s, each Sunday, you had a column, which really struck me, because you use the phrase that I use a lot, and I'm very aware of people using around me all the time. And it was not a phrase that I have any consciousness really, of living with thinking about, even five years ago, or 10 years ago, it's not colloquial, to my childhood to my region. And the phrase is, it's a lot. And the notion of your piece is that there are all over America, people dealing with a multitude of difficult issues, and that there's this consensus in so many people around. It's a lot. What does that mean? It's a lot.
They will before I answer that, Steve, let me just say first, I'm happy to be here. But I want to know who the other nine people are on the 10 that you said, I'm one of the 10 smartest people. So who are the other nine?
I want to know, I will, I will tell you the people, I always say that just immediately as I as I flesh this out, because, you know, I've met I've met a lot of people in my in my career and in life. You are you are hands down on that list. I put the Chief Justice John Roberts is is immediately, you know, kind of comes to mind on that on that list. And there are a handful of other people. But how about I'm not I'm not on the list, Maria, but I'm smart enough not to try to name that list of people, particularly in front of one of the 10 people. Okay, so
do you are there any qualities that get you on the list and get you off the list? Are there any things?
So I do say, I do say all the time is that you have a way of seeing the world that is unique, that is broad, and visionary. And I think you know, I've worked with all the best political consultants, certainly in the Republican Party as involved in democratic politics, per se, through the Lincoln project. I know all the Democratic strategists I you know, ran a political campaign with you and it would not have won without you. And you're a brilliant political strategist I one of the very finest, you know, I've ever known. But more broadly than that, I think in the culture it will you appreciate is that politics is downrange downriver from our culture. And that we talk about politics as if it's on an island isolated apart from or the headwaters. And it's not, and it's such an obvious and intuitive thing. But most people are completely divorced from this, you're not. Now I've always thought that that makes you really unique in the constellation of people that you sit around a table with, and you have these discussions about what should the message be to a state of 40 million people or to a nation of 330 million people is the entire premise that there's common interest, a fallacy? Is it a illusion, is it a delusion? And I think that the ability to find common interest through a set of values without anger, rancor, judgmentalism is an exceptional skill. And for example, when you were first lady in California, your women's conferences were these enormous event events. Overflowing 10s of 1000s of people wanting to go to these and it was because you were able to inspire and it's a rare quality to see any machine, you know, do that. But to see a friend do it up close, it's a real, it's a real part of some that I have a lot of gratitude for my life.
Thank you, Steve. And well, as you well know, I grew up in a political family. And so I was always had my ear to the ground about politics and then went into journalism and so covered politics from a different point of view. But I've always felt that there actually is a lot that brings us together that we do have in common. And I've spent a lot of time talking about the American family about women in particular women who work women who provide women who take care of aging parents, women who are parent teen, how does the work structure how does government deal with that? How do workplaces deal with that? How do we talk about this whole part of the population in a different way than we had been talking about it in the past, that's something that was very important to me as first lady of California, because California has more women in it than any other state. And there's, there's California sirens, but more women, business owners, more women who are providing partnering. And certainly as an Alzheimer's advocate, I've seen millions of people in the caregiving space, the cost cuts across gender as well. And I see a lot of issues that I don't think a lot of political leaders are talking about. I don't see a lot of political leaders talking about the caregiving crisis in our country today. And I think that's something that brings people of all political parties together all walks of life together, because everybody's dealing with how do we care for aging parents? How do we? What are our character? What is our character around that? What are our values around that? How do we raise up a generation that wants to care for aging parents? So I think there are a lot of things that we do have in common that we're politics is, you know, not in the conversation, but as a means by how we can make the conversation better. So at my dinner table, there are people of different political persuasions, who talk about gun reform, who talk about immigration who talk about caregiving, who talk about child rearing, who talk about flexible work hours, who talk about wanting to learn how to converse in a calm, compassionate way, who talk about having a lot on their plate, but also wanting to be the kinds of people that bring about change in a positive way in our country. And I think, I think people from what I've been able to kind of hear in the zeitgeist is people want leaders that brace them up that point to where we're going in an aspirational way, that use language that brings people together. That's realistic, but that's not about just attacking one another. But that's about finding things that we have in common. And I do believe we have so much more in common than we're led to believe. Why do
you think they're such a polarization in the culture in so many incentives towards division, as opposed to Unity? When one is obviously so much better than the other? Right for the future of our children, our grandchildren? I was always struck by John Lewis, he said, you know, no matter what ship we arrived on in this country, how we got here, and he was the descendants of African slaves. We're all in the same boat. Now. How do you how do you think about that?
Well, I think a lot of people don't feel we're in the same boat. They think like, well, what boat is that? And I'm not in the same boat as John Lewis. And I'm not in the same boat as Maria Shriver or Steve Schmidt. And then I think when you kind of one thing I've learned through therapy is to ask people, okay, well tell me more about why you feel like that. And then to keep going beneath the layer of the conversation, and then I find that when we get below all of that people go, Oh, I didn't realize that we actually kind of are in the same boat. But I think kind of backing up how we got where we are is a long story. I think the media has played a role in that. I think politics has always been about the fight. It has been negative. It has been, you know, ugly in many ways for a really long time. And I think that's what when people think about politics, they think about that they think about people yelling at each other attacking each other negative ops about each other, they think about how to attack the other person how to put them in the worst possible light. And I think we've got to change that. I think, you know, political strategies have to be a part of changing that media people have to be a part of changing that I think social media has played a role and letting the negativity rise to the top people talking to each other on social media in ways that you would never talk to a person at an you know, dining room table, you'd be put in a timeout, and I grew up at a table when people sat at the table with different political parties. My mother was a big pro lifer. She brought people to the table who worked in Republican politics, she was an avid Democrat. My dad was very religious. They had people from all different faiths, all different genders, all different skin colors at the table. And people were respectful the way they spoke to one another. There was never name calling, it was just unheard of, to have the kind of dialogue that we see now on social media at the table or in the conversation. So I sound kind of old fashioned and say that people were better mannered, or that they spoke in a different way to one another. And I think we can get back to that place. I think that starts in our own homes. I think that starts by how the media that we consume, how we behave on social media ourselves. And I think it goes out from there. It's a much deeper conversation. I know the algorithm rewards, the kind of negativity and all of that, but I do think that people feel coming back to your original question, look, I've got a lot on my plate. I'm taking care of aging parents, I'm going through my savings, taking care of aging parents, I myself have some health challenges. My kids may have health challenges, or may be dealing with mental health struggles there, I'm dealing with maybe one or two jobs, maybe my husband or myself is out of work. There's a lot going on. And people aren't brought up. They don't feel hopeful when they turn on the news or when they turn on social media. So how do we get people who are dealing with a lot who feel despondent, who feel hopeless, who feel really, I think, unseen, uncared for and undervalued. And that's certainly been a large part of the conversations I've had with women over many decades. And I think how do we let people know that they are seeing that they are valued, that they're worth it that they're cared for? These are very, I think, humanistic conversations, and that we understand that they're dealing with a lot and the role of government is to help them feel that it's going to be okay, that they are seeing that their future will be better, that there are people in there of both parties who want to work to help them. I don't think that's the feeling in our country today.
Do you think that when you look at the totality of everything, where the where the country is at right now in that, in that spirit, that people have made a judgment. And they have simply turned off listening to institutions that they used to respect and that there's no hope to reengage them without first turning back on something at those institutions, that allows those institutions to permeate the wall that's been put up, to be believed to be trusted. So how do you how do you do that?
I think that is up to us. We get the government that we deserve, right that we bring in I don't think institutions talk people talk people raise people up, people engage in conversations with a certain tone look at I grew up wanting to, there wasn't a fight that I didn't want to jump into. I have four brothers, I came from a boisterous Irish Catholic, very competitive family. You threw up a fight. I'm all in today, I kind of stepped back and I tried to listen in a different way I try to understand in a different way I don't come into the conversation with like my dukes up I come in trying to understand, I come in without, you know, trying to demonize the other I come in try not to think of a person as the other. And I think if we all let you know that this is that I'm doing it the right way. But I do get different answers. I do get to a different place when I listen more attentively to people when I'm more considerate of where they've come from and where they're going. And I think that I can hear people differently when they're not screaming at me and when they're not yelling and when they're not just telling me how terrible everything is. I think look at universally people are are concerned about the economy. They always have been right. They want to be able to provide for their families. They want to be able to send their kids to school. Well, they want to be able to send their kids to a safe school, right? The economy is important. I think democracy is important. I just came back from the International Special Olympics, there were 180 countries in Berlin. And I talked to over a period of a week to people from all different countries, and the universal thing was like, you guys, you in America, come on, you've got to stay this beacon of hope. You're the democracy, we look to, you've got to get it together, you've got to be able to shine the light, you've got to be able to rise above the noise, you're gonna be okay. Right? There's this like hope that we can continue to stand for what we've always stood for. So I think our democracy is certainly very important. And it's, it's part of our identity, right. And it's a great part of our identity. So people, I think, you know, when you talk about what unites us, I think, who doesn't want to send their child to a safe school, who doesn't want to be able to provide for their family who doesn't want to be able to take care of their parents, right, and without going broke themselves, right, who doesn't want to work for somebody that's flexible with their, you know, the challenges they have in the workplace, there's a big, big thing of mine, you know, kind of to talk about flexible hours flexible work time for, for women, you know, who are raising kids who doesn't benefit from having family leave, there's so many things that we have in common. So I'm very hopeful. I don't think that's naive, I'm hopeful about our country. I'm hopeful because I see the people in our country, I see the people that came to Special Olympics from from the United States, cops who took their time off, who've raised millions of dollars, who've run across the country wanting to be a part of a movement that moves you and humanity forward, people who are disabled to look for the best in people, they're out there, we don't raise them up. And one of the goals of the Sunday paper, which reaches millions of people every week, and it's doing the best it has ever done. It's because people want something that raises them up. People tell me, I've turned off the news, I come to the Sunday paper because I want to live my life above the noise. I want to be in community with people who are positive, who want to be aspirational, who want to be part of the problem, and who want to give back and want to make a difference. Who doesn't want to be in that community.
When you think about the Special Olympics. Yeah. Let's talk about it for a minute. How did it come to be?
It came to be because well, it came to be in our backyard. My mother had a sister with their
back yard. Yes. And now an organization think about that. 180 countries.
Yeah. And not only is it a program, and 180 countries built by volunteers, mind you, it also has a huge health care component to it. So in Berlin, for example, you saw, you know, hundreds and hundreds of doctors volunteering their time to come and see Special Olympic athletes who had never seen a doctor, you saw dentists from all over the world, taking their vacation time to come and look at an athlete's mouth. Many of the athletes had never been to a dentist had never been to somebody who checked their hearing had never been to somebody who gave them a pair of glasses. So now Special Olympics is not only the largest organization for people with intellectual disabilities in the world as a sports organization, but also as a healthcare organization as well. And that came from my mother and also from my father that came from Democrats and Republicans working together on the hill. That came from people who were interested in making sure people with intellectual disabilities could access housing, school programs, medical programs, and it was a program and is a program where people don't say like, I'm a Democrat or Republican, I'm not going to help you. It's like, I want to help. I want to be a part of this. It lifts people up, count me in all over the world. So that tells my dad started Special Olympics. I mean, my dad started the Peace Corps, same concept people want to serve, you can't Peace Corps can't handle all the people who want to be of service today who want to go out and want to do better. There are 1000s and millions of people like this all over the world, but we don't talk enough about them. They don't make the news.
How important is service and purpose towards the achievement of happiness?
Well, I think it's, it's, I think, an integral part to everybody's life. Why are you here? What is your purpose in being here? I was raised by two people who believed you were brought here to serve. Bar, you know, they didn't have you, there was no excuse. And they thought you should start serving at four and five years of age. And everybody who was your friend should also serve at four or five, six, I was a camp counselor. At Special Olympics, when I was six and seven years of age, of course, I had no qualifications to be a camp counselor, the camera there than I was, but my mother put me to work at five and six years of age, because she believed that, no matter the age, we all could make a difference. So I think that when you look at people who will tell you that they're happy in their life, they will talk about having some kind of spiritual life, they will talk about having a life of purpose, a life of mission, a life of meaning, they will talk about these verticals of their life as being integral to them, living a quote, unquote, happy life. And that is not a life that's devoid of pain. That is not a life devoid of grief or sorrow. That's something I've come to understand that a meaningful life or an authentic life or a happy life involves those other things as well. They it involves sorrow, it involves incredible sadness, it involves failure, it involves, you know, being on your back and thinking you're not going to make it and it involves joy. And it involves meaning. I don't think we talk about that enough, actually, that our lives are a mixture of all of those emotions and those experiences so that when you get to my age or older than me, you will you will, as I say to my kids, you're going to have times when the you know what hits the fan, what do you have inside jail that will help you get through those moments? Do you have friends who will walk alongside you who will get in the foxhole with you? Do you have a relationship with a higher power? Do you have something to get up for in the morning? I think all of these things are important in our kind of long life, if we're lucky enough to have one. I think
what resonates for me when I listen to you say that is you can read when you're younger, there's a time for all things under having. But then you experience those things. Yeah, reading about men experience, man, the consciousness of being in the middle of the times of testing times of real grief and sadness that you think there's no way out from. And there is talk about resiliency as a quality that's necessary in life, that's going to be called on over and over again. How important is that? Well, I
think it's critical. I think, you know, as I tried to say to my kids, no one, no one has a life, devoid of pain, no one has a life devoid of suffering. And therefore, how do we, you know, handle those moments? And do we have what's within us? Do we have the intestinal or internal fortitude to keep going when our back is up against the wall? So you may lose a job, you may get divorced, you may find yourself, you may lose a child, there's all of these, I saw that you talked to Fred Gutenberg, you know, who lost a child who found himself I'm sure, and continues to find himself in, you know, depths of despair depths of depression depths of not wanting to go on. And so we all have to dig in and say, like, I've got to go on, I've got to continue. I need help. I think what these are one of the things you know, that you learn as a grown up, right, you've got to be able to ask for help. And not think that you're so competent, that you don't need help. I've found that in my own life, I've had to ask for help. I've been on the ground, I didn't think I would go forward. I didn't know where I was going. I had to rebuild my life. And so I think that and it's also not a competition whose situation is worse than somebody else's, right? It's when you're in those situations, you're not there to compare, or like, oh, well, he or she did worse than me. It's like, how do I pull myself together to carry on? Do I have a relationship with a higher power? Do I have a purpose under heaven? Right? Do I have meaning in my life? So I think that the having those things a lot, and also having friends that help you. And those things are critical to having a meaningful life living a life that matters.
Why do you think it is so hard for so many people to ask for help?
Well, I think we prize here in this country, right? Independence, strength, being able to do it all going it alone. And I think, you know, that's the successful person. And I actually think that that image needs updating, right? What is success success for you is different than it is for me, I used to think, Oh, if I got to be the anchor of the morning, news show, I'd feel really successful. Check and no, I thought, Oh, if I write a book on The New York Times bestselling list, I'll feel really successful check. No. So it's an internal job, right feeling, quote, unquote, successful when you look in the mirror? Do you like that person? Do you feel like that persons living a life of meaning have for much of my life, you know, I was raised in a family that if you weren't running for president, like, sit down, right, if you weren't gonna go out there and change the world at the level that the other people in my family had done it, like, move to the back of the room. And so that can mess with your head for quite some time. So you try to achieve in your own way, something you think is similar to that until you step back and go like, you know, I'm not here to be a sequel, I'm here to carve out my own authentic life, I'm here to honor perhaps what was done before me to honor my own family's work, if I believe in that the work they did was admirable. But I'm here to live out something original, I'm here to carve out my own authentic path. And that means you don't know where that's going. And that means that, you know, you've got to do that on an internal level, so that when you look in the mirror, you like that person, you admire that person, you respect that person. And so you have to make choices right along the way, that, you know, strengthen that and you can look in the mirror and go, I don't like that person, and you've got to pivot, right? And so I think, then, if you're pivoting, you're gonna have to ask for help, because you don't know where you're going. You're like, in the forest. So I have found asking for help has been a relief. Because I would go like, I don't know where I'm going, I don't even know, do I go to the left? Or the right? Can you help me? People are like, Sure, let me help you or tell me what you need. And a lot of times, we don't even know what we need. We just maybe need somebody to listen to us or to walk alongside us shoulder to shoulder and say nothing. We just need support. Sometimes when people say like, what do you need? We go like, I don't know. And then when someone says that, to me, I go, let's just walk. Let's just walk. And I think that's that's why sometimes when people I find her like skirt, like if I have a kid who's like yelling at me or something. I'm like, what are we actually what is this about? It's about what I just told you? I'm like, No, it's not. Let's sit back and like, what is what's underneath the hair? Tell me more. Why are you mad? I don't ever have a parking space here. I never had that you never felt like okay, let's talk about that, as opposed to you can't get in the garage. You know? It's always it's what I've learned also to the it's always about something other than what people are fighting about. And I think that's true in politics, too. You know, everybody's fighting about this, but what are we really fighting about? What are we really fighting about?
Thank you for listening to my political commentary. If you like what you heard today, please also consider subscribing to the warning. daily newsletter on substack. Our democracy hangs in the balance. The 2024 presidential election is the most consequential in America's history. It's not hyperbole. It's a fact. That is why the mission of the warning was Steve Schmidt is to help readers orient to the currents that are shaping our times. And the unseen forces driving politics that are very rarely discussed. on cable news, please sign up at Steve Schmidt, S T E v s ch mi di t.substack.com. Again, Steve schmidt.substack.com, or at the link in the show notes section below. Thank you, to each and every one of you for listening and watching. For people who know you at the core of your identity is Maria Dima, and you've talked about your cable and as someone who's been to your cable, that's an important place for you. People gather there, they eat there, they laugh there, they discussed a debate things there and out of the cable you raised Two daughters and two sons. And so you have a perspective on on both daughters and sons. There's a lot of talk about a crisis in our men. In America, there is a massive suicide epidemic amongst middle age men, which apparently is classified information against the coverage it receives, generally speaking, in the news media, what is going on? How do you have a healthy society with so many men who feel displaced and broken, and it's about to get a lot worse, very fast. At this advent of the age of artificial intelligence, where, for example, I just said to my daughter, 20 years old, going into sophomore year, or college, whatever it is, you're going to do, and she loves the music business. I urge you to do that because no one's going to pay tickets to go see the robots sing the song. And you're going to need to have jobs that have some human connection. And so so many men who drive who build to do things, who don't view themselves as disposable, are treated as disposable in a in a society at the at the edge of edge of change. What do we do about that?
Well, I think we have to talk about it. I think we have to assure whether it's men, women, transgender people, gay people, you name it, that no one is disposable. I think we started that place, I think people feel it comes back to I think so many people feel invisible, in our culture, in our society in their lives. So many people have not been brought up with love, have not been brought up at the dinner table. I can't tell you the number of people who come to my table and say, I have never been to a table like this. I don't have family dinners like this. I did not grow up like this. I've never had this. And from all walks of life. I hear that almost every week, to the tune of like it's take your breath away. So I think I think we have to, you know, I've tried to do several stories in the Sunday paper. And at first people were like, why are we doing man? What is that, you know, men had their moment. I'm like, men are human beings. I have two boys. I have four brothers. I love men, right? And so I don't see women's empowerment. as something that doesn't involve men. I see the table. I want men, I want gay people. I want straight people I want black, white, Latino, Asian, you name it, Native American at my table. That's an inclusive table. That's the kind of leadership, emotional and strong that I think we all want. We want that from men. And we want that from women. So I think laying out I think just since we first talked about the men and boys, there's a lot more news now about what has happened to men, about the deaths of despair, the depression amongst young boys and men, the lack of the role of fathers, the amount of families being raised today by single mothers, where do men get their role models? Coaches? Why there are so many female teachers? How do we get more men to teach so that young boys who come into school, see right away? A man who's also there as a teacher, right? rites of passage, we don't have that in this country, other cultures do. I have a nephew who is doing a lot of work and the rites of passage space for young men? Young men are in search of mentors, they are in search of role models. We talk a lot at my table about what does it mean to be a good man? What does it mean to be a successful man today? And there's a lot of different conversations going on, in that around that? What is a good man today? And somebody will say, Well, you know, my mom may tell me this, my dad may tell me that society tells me this. There is no clear, I think answer to that question that young boys in particular can land on. There's a lot of fear. I have a lot of 20 something year old boys at my table are like You know, I'm not going to be able to afford to raise a family, I don't have a job that will allow me to buy a house like my father or my grandfather. So I think this is a multi layered conversation that talks about, you know, how do we treat the opposite sex? What is success? What kind of a person is standing in front of you? And therefore, what kind of a future do they have the role of vocational training versus, you know, just regular college, honoring and valuing people that deserve our honor and valuing. They don't get it just because of the sex they are but about the human being that they are. And so I think that we need to kind of openly talk about that conversation, Richard Reeves was over at my house, with our good friend, Tim Ryan, and we were talking about this very subject. And he's going to start at Institute for boys and men. And he was saying, how fraught and how complicated this subject is, for women, and for men, and that many people who are having it are speaking exclusively to women, and that some men are having it, talking exclusively to men and saying certain things that women might not agree with. So I think kind of bringing it out into the open, recognizing we have an issue, we have a problem. Whether it's deaths of despair, whether it's addiction, whether it's porn, whether it's video games, whatever it is, let's bring people to the table. Let's say we have an issue, we have a problem. And what is the road forward for young men for middle aged men for older men? And how can we all the different sexes come together to realize that having that conversation should not be fraught with like, you can't help them because they didn't help us and how we can get to a calm place. And saying, well, if women are doing well, is it not okay for men also to do well, and vice versa?
There is a online influencer, who's been charged with human trafficking and all manner of criminal offenses named Andrew Tate huge presence online. And what do you say to a young man out there? See advice to the parents where you would the way that I talked to my son about it is very directly like a New Jersey dad would write even though I don't live there.
I can talk to a son about Andrew take differently than I could write.
I say that guy's a shithead. He's a scumbag. Don't be don't be like him. I think there's an absence of Well, I think there's an absence of kind of masculine, decisive, calling that guy out for what he is in society. Certainly. When I grew up, all the men around me would have said some version of that. Yeah, but But what is what is the more soulful expression of that? Right to man, ray from the way you see the world to reject, right, the toxic, misogynistic, stoer that has sprung up in response to a suspect to me to movement and emphasis on women's empowerment over these last couple of years. Anytime there's progress, there will always be a backlash. You have alienated young man who hear these messages, filled with grievance filled with anger filled with cynicism filled with resentment filled with an entitlement. Right to take. Right because you're aggrieved. What do you want to say to young man, you kind of hear that that siren song right that says, society has taken all of this from you, which is what Andrew Tate says, and you're entitled to these things, which is never true and was never true. And stews, grievance and anger, what is the what is the answer? to that? It seems to me there has to be some articulation of better than values based. And it's very hard to articulate better, that values based in a society 80 That won't let you talk about values.
I don't know, I see a lot of young men at my table, they're not talking about Andrew Tate. So and I'm not talking about him either. And I don't think young man probably would come to me about him anyway,
Tucker Carlson or a Ben Shapiro
that I know about the positive role models that are around them. I think many young men really admire their fathers, if they have a father in their life. They admire their coaches, they admire their teachers, they admire, you know, I have more faith in young men that they admire people doing really good things I, you know, I said, you know, I don't know, 1000s of young men volunteering at Special Olympics. I never heard one word about Andrew Tay, I heard everything about look at that kid's father, this people drove, you know, from this country to that country, they put you know, the neighbors, put them up these people, you know, open their houses. That's where I stay focused. That's where I stay over here. And, you know, to keep looking at Wow, look at that man over there. What an inspiration he is, what is he doing? What is how is he changing his community? How is he helping young people? How is he, you know, one of my son's greatest, you know, the people he admired most coming up was his football coach at school. He really admired his football coach, he admired the guy who helped him with math tutoring, he admired a guy who taught them how to swim who took him surfing. On the weekend, these were the men that he was talking about trying to spend time with. You talked about guys who worked as camp counselors. So I, you know, I mean, you know, I
values what are the values within those men, because the dichotomy we're talking about here, between Andrew Kate, and all of these people is they exist in a world that I think, and I know, and I feel as a parent is very real, very present. For a long time, I think a lot of parents had, well, this isn't real world that goes on in the phone screen or on the phone screen. But it is real world, it's just happening in a digital space, the Special Olympics is absolutely happening in the real world, in a in a physical space, not in a not in a digital space, one is preferable to the other. And I think that, for me, at age 52 whatever age you were, that was perfectly aligned to be like, literally the first people to hand an iPad to like a toddler or an infant, right, um, that age. And we did, right, you know, we gave the kids these machines, these phones, we let them play on it. And now we've seen the impact of social media with the benefit of, I guess, a generation almost. Do you have any takeaways from what the impact on society has been on connection? How it's driven some of the issues that were that we're talking about? If, if we could go back right to 2010? And say, all this stuff is great, right? You can move it with your finger. But but right, it's going to it's going to change society in some some significant ways. And you ought to think about those, what would those have been to you looking back on them, when you think about the impact of coarsening all from a from a basis now, of all of these issues? Because I know as a parent, the impact of the phone, the Instagram, on the kid, I think is a match and match.
I think it's immense on people your age and my age as well. I think you know, I think obviously there's no substitute you just listen, I think the Surgeon General has done actually a really great job on this and talking about loneliness and talking about the effective separation of humanity, really people going up to their rooms and watching you know, just turning off the people in their own home to turn on what's in the computer. I remember you know, when my kids were little their dad and I we didn't allow any TVs in the room. We didn't let them have phones too. Will eighth grade. They weren't, you know, obviously it was before, you know, they couldn't have an iPad and that sort of stuff. But it was to try to keep them busy in real life, with activities with our conversations with our dinner table with things that we could do so that what was in the phone or in the computer was less interesting than what we were talking about, or that what we were doing. And I think that certainly, I think we see record numbers of loneliness, we see record numbers of anxiety of depression, you don't need to hear it from me, it's everywhere about the effect of on young people, but on the effect of people of all ages, in terms of how we speak with one another and our how we don't speak with one another. People sometimes come to my house, and they bring their kids and they give their kid an iPad is in to come to the table. I'm like, No, we don't do that here, the iPad goes, the kid comes to the table. Like and the kid you know, loves it, you know? So I think it's you know, and I think parents are pressed, right? They don't have the time people are all doing the best they can. But I think people are really waking up to the effects of all of this technology. I think people are hard pressed for time. They can't afford childcare. So in many ways, the iPad is childcare, right? It's a chance for you to do your work at home. But if you're a parent, and your kid is preoccupied, they're a little bit. And so I think that, you know, I think that there's along with my daughter, Christina, we did two films called Take your pills. One was on Adderall. One was on Xanax. And it dealt with this kind of 24 hour work day that everybody's involved in lack of boundaries, inability to be bored and ability to dream and the ability to turn off the anxiety that, you know, you're taking a lot of Adderall than you have to take Xanax to calm down. I talked to a lot of people who are turning off social media who are stepping away who are trying to investigate is there another way of living? I think COVID started a lot of that people moved out of cities, people started to look at work in a different way, they started to look at what is my life? Like? How do I want to work moving forward? Do I want to have children? How many children do I want to have? What is the climate? What is my role in all of this? I think we're in a reawakening in many ways or reevaluating the role, I think, certainly you hear a lot on AI. Now the debate is more at the forefront of it. You know, like, what are we doing? I'm really worried. I don't know enough about AI myself. But I know that in the last three months, it went from like nobody talking about it to everybody talking about it. And I can get I can see now when I get letters, from people asking me to do something I can tell when it's aI written. It's just, it's too good to be nice. And it's too complimentary. And it's too all over on like AI. Right. But I think you know, this is a discussion about humanity, about the news business, about journalism, about screenwriters about all of these things. You know, a lot has been a lot has been thrown coming back to a lot. There's a lot being thrown at all of us. And it's happening so quickly that people are struggling to catch up. They're going what's AI? Where is it going, all of a sudden, I'm getting AI or I just lost my job to AI. It's a lot going on. So I'm also have the feeling that like trying to kind of I exercise, stepping back, and just taking a beat. Wait a minute. What's my role in all of this? What can I do? What can I do with my family with my company? How can I lead in a way in this small way that might be better for the people who worked for me are the people who come to my table? I think we all can have that conversation with ourselves. Are we part of the solution? Are we part of the problem? Are we willing to change how we move forward?
When you look out ahead, Christina just turned 30 to 40 years from now. Yeah. Are you optimistic about when you think about this country? You think about its resiliency? What is life for your grandkids? You're gonna be like in their kids?
Well, I hope you know, I hear a lot of people my kids age talking about like, I don't even know if I want to have kids because of the climate. I don't even know if I can bring a child into this world. And that, to me is a really sobering conversation to listen to young people in their 20s and 30s. Having that conversation they're talking about why Yeah, they're, they're talking about like the, you know, the planets gonna burn us all. alive, right? They're talking about I don't know, if I want to bring a child in here. I don't know if I can ever own a home. I don't know, if I'm going to be able to work as long as you have worked, Mommy, I don't know what's happening to the world. I don't know if America will be America, you know, 20 years, 30 years from now, these conversations, were not the conversations that I grew up with, I grew up with, you know, we're the greatest country on Earth. Everybody looks to America, you can achieve anything in America. I grew up with a very aspirational conversation, we could do better for everybody in America, people could do better, it was very positive. Now people are like, Oh, my God, we're going to, you know, disintegrate. So I think that that's a, I think it's a hard time to be a young person, it's a hard time to think about, like, getting married. It's a hard time to think about do I want to have children? Do I, you know, when I look at my grandchildren, I'm like, What is? What is their life gonna look like 2030 years from now? I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful. But it's sobering. And I think it it, I think we're all going to have to play some role in steering the ship. Back into the center a little bit. I think we're all going to have to kind of bend and compromise. That's the other thing that I grew up with. Compromise was not a dirty word compromise was viewed as something that leaders did. It wasn't viewed as weak wasn't viewed as losers. It was like, if I want this, I'm going to have to compromise, right? You have to do that in a marriage as a parent, right? You always have to play.
It's like, building blocks of life.
Amen. But somehow we view it as like, oh my god, they gave this up or that they're a loser. You know, I think we were so judgmental. I wish I wish we would lose some of that. But I'm hopeful that America will like fight for its democracy. I hope America will show people that we could get along, that we could rebuild our center that we could move forward that we all found our way together. I think this election is going to be really important. I hope that we can all get above the noise and not jump into the, you know, kind of the gutter. I hope I'm really hopeful about that.
Well, we will leave it there. Thank you very much Maria Shriver for spending time.
Thank you. I'm very happy to have been here to talk with you. And I'm happy that you have this
