B (2:24)

We can do a podcast with a. With the. This is. Here I go again. I'm always giving people assignments.

A (2:30)

Dana is our Normal associate producer.

B (2:32)

I do like this. But. Okay, wait. Maybe one day you could do a podcast with a travel packing expert.

A (2:40)

That would be my dream come true. Because I.

B (2:42)

You pack a lot.

A (2:43)

I pack a lot in one roller bag. So last year, me and my beloved fiance went to Maui and I packed for both of us in one roller bag for a week. And it was not easy because, you know, you have sure shorts and bathing suits and caftans, but you also have like a dinner jacket, a nice dress, shoes, men's shoes, running shoes, and the toiletries. Exactly right. So there was a lot of rolling and compression.

B (3:12)

Have you seen the travel tips with using the sudoku method? No. Okay.

A (3:19)

I. Oh, I know what you're talking about. It's like you put like three. Three of one, three of the other. So you have like three tops.

B (3:25)

Three.

A (3:25)

Yes, three. And everything goes together and that way you don't. I absolutely love that. And I'm obsessed with that. Like, I feel like I'm really good at paring down and swapping in and out. Oh, by the way, cheers to you.

B (3:38)

Cheers.

A (3:39)

These are iced lattes from Starbucks with the UBE cold foam with. Which is purple for Purple State. I am also wearing purple lipstick, purple eyeshadow, and a purple sweater. And Honor.

B (3:50)

Can I make a confession? First of all, thank you. Delicious. I have to make a confession. When I was a kid, I loved the color purple, but as an adult, I don't wear purple. I have two purple jackets that wardrobe found for me.

A (4:01)

The jacket you had on for release day on Tuesday, the Dolce and Gabbana was like masterful.

B (4:06)

Yes, that was a great jacket. I have all credit to Ally Ali Franz, but I really don't have that much purple. But people have been sending me, like, actually Megan Albano, she got me this purple bracelet. Oh, that's cute. So that's like my little nod to purple.

A (4:20)

I love it.

B (4:21)

The reason it's called Purple State is because it's about a state that goes Republican, Democrat, Republican, Democrat, red, blue, red, blue, red, blue.

A (4:27)

Wisconsin.

B (4:28)

And it's a purple state. And Wisconsin is the ultimate purple state. Yes.

A (4:32)

And I love that your protagonist is not a conservative because people would assume that the first fictional female main character you write about would. Would be a conservative woman, but she's not. She has some of your characteristics. She is driven, she is organized, she is loyal.

B (4:55)

She worked in high tech pr.

A (4:56)

Yes, but she's a Democrat. She's like a dyed in the wool Democrat fighting for Democratic causes. And you don't write with contempt. No. Was that difficult?

B (5:09)

Not really. Not really. Because I can analyze for both angles. And I wanted to write about three young women in New York who are super good friends, but all going through that quarter life crisis that we all went through. I mean, mine was I worried my 20s away for no reason, but similar things. I was working in high tech PR when I worked in dc, I didn't date anyone for two years. That was on Capitol Hill. Then I was like, I'm never gonna meet anybody. Then I meet Peter on an airplane and I make this big decision to leave my career as it was at the time and chose love and moved to England. I didn't know what was gonna happen in my life and everything works out. And so the previous book that was great for people like your daughters was Everything Will Be okay. And that was my advice for young women.

A (5:57)

People tell you that, but it's really hard to internalize, especially in your 20s.

B (6:01)

You just are like. You're like, everything I planned is not working out. And that's what happens to Dot Clark

A (6:06)

in particular in her love and in work. And even though, you know, it seems like she's at the pinnacle of where she should be in her 20s, like something isn't right, like something isn't fitting. And she knows that.

B (6:20)

She kind of, she. And she wishes she had gone into politics. And she. There was this classmate of hers that now is working in Washington and has this great life, you know, Kitty Bell. That's right. I love her name, Kitty Bell. And she's looking at her going, wow, her life's perfect. Of course, we all look at Instagram, be like, oh, I want that life. I want this body, I want these clothes. But Dot's more level headed. But she. And she loves New York. And I love New York now.

A (6:44)

Yes. And I love the references of New York because they were so subtle. But truly written by someone who lives and thrives here and like, you know, love details. Yeah.

B (6:57)

And actually, you know the part. There's a. There's a scene in the soft. The co ed softball game at Central Park. That story in real life happened to Emily Compagno.

A (7:06)

Stop it.

B (7:07)

She told me that story and I internalized it. And I wanted a scene as Dot walked through Central park. And so I put that in there.

A (7:15)

That's amazing.

B (7:16)

When Emily read it, she's like, that happened to me. I'm like, I know. That was your story.

A (7:20)

How much of the details and stories and backstory in the book is mined from people, you know, and how much is pure invention?

B (7:31)

I would say 20% what I knew and 80% made up.

A (7:36)

Was that fun?

B (7:37)

So fun, Yeah. I mean, when I was getting ready to do interviews for the book, I thought, okay, somebody's gonna ask me, how did you write the book? I look back and sometimes I think, I don't know, because I had an idea of how I knew, how I wanted it to start and how I wanted it to end. Precisely. I knew how, but I didn't know how to do anything. In the middle, had a great editor who would say, well, in the next five beats, the following things need to happen. And so. Okay. So then I would work on great

A (8:09)

pacing, too, by the way.

B (8:10)

Thank you. In the book, he cut out some of the fat. He wanted to move faster. And people like books faster. You know what I did interesting to this. And I'd be curious what your niece thinks about this. Cause I know she's a huge reader, too. The book is as long as it is. I didn't change anything. But when I did the final draft, I went through and I cut every chapter, Sometimes in half, sometimes by a third.

A (8:33)

Wow.

B (8:34)

And here's the reason why I would never read a book that was 70 chapters long. That sounds ridiculous. Can you imagine, like, when you were a kid, like, 70 chapters?

A (8:41)

Unless it's like, Dan Brown and their kids, it's usually.

B (8:43)

Usually 10 chapters. Right. But young readers, especially now, they want to feel like they're accomplishing something. It's a little bit, like, scrolling. I got through this. I got through this. So I went back through it. I'm like, where can I cut this? Instead of doing, like a page break, make it a new chapter. Oh, cool. Yeah. So that people could think, okay, I want to go to bed. But I have three. Okay, I can get through two more pages.

A (9:02)

Yes.

B (9:04)

So there was that sort of mechanical thing, but when I sat down to write the dialogue, like, there's a scene, a fishing scene in Michigan where one of the young girls, Harper, goes on a date with this guy, Tommy, and he takes her fishing. And she's from Brooklyn.

A (9:19)

Yeah.

B (9:19)

And she's never seen a nightcrawler. She's like, want to touch that thing. But she doesn't want to freak out because she kind of wants to impress him. She's not really sure. And I love the fact that these girls from Manhattan who say they're never going to leave Manhattan, they agree to go to Wisconsin for one year only. But then they get there, and that's when you realize, wait, maybe my plan isn't supposed to be my life. I Don't know. Like, could I. Could you change that? Could you change your career? Could you change your idea of who you're going to marry? Could you fall in love with somebody who votes differently than you? Or maybe somebody who grew up on a farm? Is that possible? And I know it's a little bit aspirational, but I think that's okay.

A (10:01)

Okay. So I agree with you that I do feel that it is very much. It's likely and it's okay to connect with someone and end up with someone who has a completely different life path than you. I think that's easier than the politics. Like someone who is geographically from a different place. Someone whose family went to church every Sunday and had a big family dinner afterward. You know, we were talking to Harold Ford Jr. The other day. What? You know, he has his son put on a jacket for Sunday dinner because that's what he always did. And I love traditions like that. And there are traditional people that you might meet in adulthood who have a different way of living and looking at life than you do. And that can be really attractive. I think the politics, they're not insurmountable. We were talking about this earlier in the week on America's Newsroom, but it has gotten so much harder because we are so dug into our politics.

B (11:00)

I know. And also, like the three girls that I wrote about, yes, they're Democrats, but they're not your going down to the protest, Free, Free Palestine, screaming in people's ears at an ICE protest kind of Democrats. They're more a casual Democrat.

A (11:14)

Yeah.

B (11:16)

And realistically, do they still exist? I don't know. Maybe not, but possibly. I think that we talk a lot about the radicals because the radicals make

A (11:27)

news, they get the attention, and most

B (11:29)

people are kind of like somewhere in the middle in the spectrum. And I kind of wrote it from that perspective that they're more interested in their career and in their love life than they are in the politics. Yeah.

A (11:38)

And I think the people who exist in the middle and can find common ground, I think that's a real silent majority in this country, because the loud minority, they get all of the attention on both sides. I mean, just absolute insanity feels like it is the most common thing in the world, but, you know, really, pretty much everyone is like, wow, that's nuts.

B (12:00)

Right. And the other thing that I loved about it is I wrote again about what I know this hasn't happened to my family, but my family ranches in New Castle, Wyoming. And part of the story, one of the subplots, is about a Family who is trying to hold onto its farm because there's a lot of pressure to sell, a lot of money on the table. And a foreign entity, high tech company, is trying to buy these farms because they want to put a manufacturing facility. And the governor is like, we really want this because it's going to have so many jobs. They don't want to sell their farm. It's a family farm. Been in the family for generations. But the pressure is real. And also then you could have the government threatening to take it over.

A (12:38)

Yeah. Eminent domain. I mean, there are tragic stories in this country about people who've lost. You know, it's like, sure, they get paid for it, but it's. It's not the same thing as having a ranch, a farm, a house in your family for four generations now.

B (12:53)

And so, actually, in real life, In Wisconsin, in 2019, there was this big effort to bring the South Korean company to a southern part of. I think it was a southern part of Milwaukee. All these farms, some of them sold, some of them got taken by eminent domain. They build this factory. 2020 happens with COVID And that was the excuse that the company made to say, oh, actually, we're never going to build anything here.

A (13:17)

Yeah.

B (13:18)

So they took the farms for nothing.

A (13:19)

Wow.

B (13:20)

And that really. I've always remembered that. So there's a little bit of a subplot here of like, somebody from a corporate background in New York, and she wants to be a corporate lawyer. And now she's there, and she's like, well, maybe I could help you this. Let me try. And so it's like, how could you use your skills that you thought you're gonna be high tech PR or you're gonna be a novelist somewhere, or you're gonna be a corporate lawyer. And can you go to this small town in Wisconsin, meet all these people and become ingrained in the community? Because you're like, wow, these guys are kind of hot.

A (13:53)

Yes.

B (13:53)

And the people are really nice with lust.

A (13:55)

All things are possible.

B (13:56)

A couple of older characters in the book, the couple, the Jankowskis, that own the independent bookstore, which is a champion in the book. And then Rose, who is the longtime Democrat, she's been volunteering since the Clinton days, and she can show the young people the way. Like, I'm still friends with Charlie Cooper. I went to high school with him. Yeah. He runs the Republican county party. The county Republicans. But we're friends. Yeah. They're like, how could that be? Don't go anywhere more.

A (14:24)

Kennedy Saves the World right after this.

C (14:28)

Some follow the Noise. Bloomberg follows the money because behind every headline is a bottom. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now@Bloomberg.com

A (14:55)

on Capitol Hill. Because I always hear, especially from Republicans in Congress that they, they craft legislation with Democrats sometimes, you know, it doesn't get passed. There's no, it's not, it's never on the docket. But they do try. Like, are there friendships in Washington across the aisle more so than we are led to believe?

B (15:18)

Yes, I think that there are. I do think it's not as much as it used to be. And part of that is the fact that they try to get out of town as much as possible and they leave and so that they can go home to their districts and their families. So before, like you, it's expensive to try to maintain two households, right? For sure. Well, Harold Ford Jr. Is a good example. His dad was a member of Congress and that meant that after he got elected, the whole family moved to Washington D.C. okay. And then the whole family is there and the dad went home to the district now and then, but they were with their dad. Now that's not how people want to do it. People live in their district and they'll sleep on their couch.

A (15:57)

A lot of people sleep in their

B (15:58)

offices and they'll try to get home as much as they can. And they, I mean, they make a decent, a very decent salary, but it's not really, they're not making millions. Right. So they have to save on that. And so you know how it is if you, after work, go to the bar and you get to know somebody, you're gonna have a better connection with them.

A (16:18)

Yes.

B (16:19)

But now nobody does that. So there's that. There are some friendships that we know about, certainly. Actually, Kyrsten Sinema and Kevin McCarthy were very good friends and got along great. Katie Britt and John Fetterman, again, very good friends.

A (16:34)

Yeah.

B (16:35)

Like, hey, what's up? I'll say. Yeah, they're friends and then, you know, they say terrible things about each other. But I also feel like social media has changed a lot and it has

A (16:44)

changed people and they now comport themselves for how they anticipate people are watching them.

B (16:53)

Yeah. And also that's how you make small dollar donations. Yeah.

A (17:00)

What are the chances? I was thinking about this today as I was walking in. What are the chances? We see the Purple State film.

B (17:10)

Oh, Film? I don't know.

A (17:15)

Have you discussed that?

B (17:17)

There has been discussion of, like, seeing about the possibility.

A (17:20)

Nice.

B (17:21)

I would say that's where it is.

A (17:21)

Have you started on a screenplay?

B (17:23)

I have not. Okay. I actually have a good friend named Siobhan Fallon. She is one of the people who blurbed the back of the book. She wrote a novel called, you know, when the Men are Gone, and it was based on her personal experiences, but it's fiction about a deployment during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and it's all the women who are left behind in Fort Hood. Yeah. And that is becoming a movie. Oh, wow. And she has been helping with the screenplay.

A (17:52)

Okay.

B (17:52)

And she said, I will never again complain that a movie wasn't as good as the book, because it's impossible.

A (18:00)

Yes.

B (18:01)

And I thought that was. That was interesting.

A (18:02)

I mean, the movies would have to be six hours long.

B (18:05)

Paul Morrow, who's a great Fox News contributor, but people don't know, is that he was also a professor of English literature. Wow. Yes. And he knows Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway's story backwards and forwards. And when I was working on it, he said, write scenes. Like, scenes in your mind. Scenes. Like, if this were, like, maybe that's the way to do it. So that's what in my mind's eye. Like the fishing scene I mentioned or the debate scene when there's a. There's a primary debate in there. I could picture it. I'm like, oh, yeah, that would be funny if this guy did that and she did that and then this happened. And so I would picture it in my mind if it ever comes to screen. I don't know. I mean, I could. I could imagine it. I watch a lot of those shows. Like, there's a new one on Netflix by Emily. Henry wrote the book, and now it's a screenplay. The people you meet on vacation.

A (18:55)

Okay. So cute. Yeah.

B (18:57)

Really fabulous. So maybe. But I actually really love writing the book. I don't know if I'll ever write another nonfiction.

A (19:05)

Oh, really?

B (19:06)

Yeah. That's amazing.

A (19:08)

I would figure that because you are a prolific nonfiction writer, that that's, like, your comfort zone.

B (19:15)

Well, I feel like on the nonfiction, I kind of have written what I knew. What I wanted to do was to provide all my mentoring advice in one place. So I did. Did that now a few times. I don't really have any more to say on that. But what I tried to do is hide the mentoring advice in the macaroni and cheese.

A (19:33)

That's the peas in the Mac and cheese.

B (19:35)

So, like, maybe a young woman doesn't like to read nonfiction. I get it. So she's reading this, and she's like, wow, what's she gonna do? What will Dot and Mary and Harper decide to do in the end or, you know, contemplates?

A (19:45)

Would I do that?

B (19:47)

Would I have the power?

A (19:49)

If someone offered me a year in a totally different place with all of my living expenses covered and a good salary, would I do it? And do things like that really exist?

B (20:01)

Again? It's a little bit fiction, but I think that with all the dark money out there in politics, sure, yeah. These super PACs have so much money. Actually, you know, that my idea initially was very much more grand than this because these girls are going over and they're trying to flip this one gerrymandered district. Because if you flip that district, you can flip the state. If you flip the state, you could help the Democrats win, and then Wisconsin would be blue. You're better chances of winning the presidential election. Initially, in my mind's eye, when I would think about this story as more of even, like, a show, it was much more grand. It was like, where the Democratic National Committee said, I know what we should do. Let's organize enough young women, like all the women that go to the protests.

A (20:46)

Yes.

B (20:47)

And say, do you really care? Do you really care about saving democracy? Then you are going to leave, and you are going to go live in Michigan, and you're going to Pennsylvania, and you volunteer and, like, send me. I'll go and become a resident of that state. And your job is to try to get as many people as possible to vote your way so that they could flip all of those states. That was my big idea. And I was like, I don't know how you write that. That's too many people. And I was walking with a guy named Andrew Graff. I think he's a great author. And I'd invited him to give a book talk and a signing in Point Pleasant Beach. We're gonna go on a walk. And he said, you said you have an idea for a novel. I was like, yeah, but I don't want to bother you. It's so embarrassing. Everybody says that. He says, well, how long is the walk? I said, it's about three miles. He said, start talking.

A (21:32)

Wow.

B (21:33)

So I said, and is that how

A (21:34)

this came to be?

B (21:35)

So I said, okay. Well, my idea is like, what if the Democrats and I tell him the whole story, and we're about 200 yards down the street, and he goes, wait, it all comes down to this one gerrymandered District in Wisconsin and Kennedy, like, a light bulb went off for me, and I was like, oh, oh, wait, that is doable.

A (21:55)

Yeah.

B (21:55)

And that's how it started.

A (21:56)

Oh, that's incredible.

B (21:57)

Yeah.

A (21:59)

Have you talked to him about. Are you going to continue this as a series? Are we gonna follow Dot and Harper and Mary until.

B (22:07)

Yeah. I said, well, spoiler alert.

A (22:09)

Next Existential crisis.

B (22:10)

The spoiler alert is no one dies. Yeah. I started working on it once I knew the characters. I love these girls. I think about them all the time. I'm like, John Glenn, who works here. He said, was this about any of the girls that work here? I said, it's about all the girls who work here.

A (22:28)

Yeah.

B (22:29)

And I think about them a lot. And I think about, okay, now that we know this one, this one, this one, what they decided, what's next? And I think I have a great idea. So I'm kind of excited to.

A (22:41)

When do you start writing?

B (22:43)

I started, but I also. I needed to set it aside. Yeah. I did the first two chapters. I wrote an outline, which I hadn't done before, but now I kind of know what I'm doing, and then I set that aside. I'm gonna try to give it my all to make sure as many people as possible read Purple State, and then I'll write the second one.

A (22:59)

Is it like having your heart live outside your body? Is it as personal writing a book like this as it is writing some of the mentoring advice books that you've written? I think it's a little more personal aspects of it.

B (23:17)

Yeah. Not as much because I'm making up some of it. I think the vulnerability part of it is that, are people gonna think this is interesting? Is it funny? Is it gonna be terrible? You know, like, if you start to read a book and you're like, this is awful. I'm like, is anyone gonna think that. I know I couldn't put yours down.

A (23:32)

Like, Lotus kept coming out, and she was like, what is that? I'm like, it's Dana's book. I was like, you're reading it next.

B (23:37)

She's like, oh, cool. I can't wait till Lotus reads and your niece's.

A (23:41)

Bella.

B (23:41)

Bella, Yes. I want. I want Bella to read. I would love young women to read it. A couple of people here read it in one day.

A (23:46)

Wow.

B (23:47)

Which is amazing because they can't put it down. But also it's like, no, you can't put it down.

A (23:51)

Like, that's why it's so great. Like, you wanna know what happens? And then the chapters, like, they they interweave, and it's like, then you're on Harper. And then, you know.

B (24:00)

Mary.

A (24:00)

Yeah.

B (24:01)

My friend yesterday said he drove an extra 45 minutes because he was listening to the audiobook.

A (24:06)

Oh, amazing.

B (24:07)

And he was like, wait, I want to find out what happened. So he was like, oh, I'll just run this errand. And he did the fight. Yeah. It was great. So I do. I do love it. I love it.

A (24:16)

Well, here is to Purple states, Purple drinks.

B (24:21)

Purple drinks.

A (24:21)

And.

B (24:22)

And to you, my coolest friend.

A (24:24)

Oh, if only.

B (24:25)

Mm.

A (24:27)

Well, cheers. This is delicious. The book is even better. Order.

B (24:29)

And there's a playlist.

A (24:31)

Stop it.

B (24:32)

Yeah. Kate made a playlist on Spotify. The Purple State playlist.

A (24:34)

Oh, my gosh. I'm gonna play it.

B (24:36)

It's like three and a half hours of fun.

A (24:37)

Amazing.

B (24:38)

Yeah.

A (24:38)

That is so great. Well, Dana Perino, congratulations.

B (24:41)

Thank you.

A (24:41)

I'm so proud of you because this is a completely. This is a wonderful divergence, and it's very inspiring.

B (24:48)

And nobody knew about it for so long, so the fact that now, like, this baby is being born and now you're a mom.

A (24:55)

Go buy this baby. This has been Kennedy Saves the World along with Dana Perino, authoress of Purple States.

B (25:02)

I'm Kennedy.

A (25:07)

Listen ad free. With a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple podcasts and Amazon prime, members can listen to this show ad free on the Amazon music app. Oh, go ahead and leave me a review while you're there.

B (25:19)

I'd love to hear what you have to say.

A (25:21)

You've been listening to Kennedy Saves the World on the Fox News podcast network.