Aaron Sorkin Rewrites “To Kill a Mockingbird”

Summary

Podcast Summary: The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode Title: Aaron Sorkin Rewrites “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Date: December 14, 2018
Host: David Remnick
Guest: Aaron Sorkin (playwright, screenwriter)
Producer: WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

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Main Theme

This episode focuses on Aaron Sorkin’s bold adaptation of Harper Lee’s classic novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” for the Broadway stage. Host David Remnick interviews Sorkin about the challenges, controversies, and insights involved in revamping a beloved American story—particularly tackling issues of race, character agency, authorship, and cultural relevance in 2018.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Challenges of Adapting a Classic

• Sorkin began the adaptation intending to “add stage directions” and remain faithful, but realized that produced something lifeless—“a trip to a museum, not a thrilling night in the theater.” (01:47–02:13)
• Producer Scott Rudin’s critical note: "Atticus can't be Atticus from the beginning to the end of the play—he has to become Atticus." This forced Sorkin to make Atticus the protagonist with a real character journey, rather than immutable moral perfection. (02:34–03:25)

Sorkin: "A protagonist has to have a flaw...In the novel, Atticus is Atticus...he doesn’t change. The answer is, Atticus isn’t the protagonist in the novel. Scout is." (03:10–03:24)

2. Giving Voice to Marginalized Characters

• Sorkin was troubled by the marginalization of black characters in the original:

Sorkin: "In a story about racial tension and injustice...neither of the African American characters have anything to say on the matter." (05:32–06:06)

• In the adaptation, Calpurnia and Tom Robinson are given more agency and voice, reflecting contemporary awareness and correcting missed opportunities from the original. (05:32–06:27)

3. Confronting Racial Anxiety and Modernization

• The play addresses the overt racism of characters like Bob Ewell, explicitly depicting him as a Klansman to draw clearer historical connections. (04:37–05:10)
• Remnick observes that black characters’ lack of voice “doesn’t go unnoticed” today, and Sorkin concurs that this silence is “wrong” and “a wasted opportunity.” (05:19–06:27)
• Sorkin acknowledges present-day audience expectations, noting the importance of making the story relevant without being heavy-handed or “on the nose.” (13:34–14:49)

4. Sorkin’s Writing Style vs. Harper Lee’s Voice

• Remnick playfully asks how “Sorkinian” the adaptation is. Sorkin tried to stay true to the novel’s tone, blending his own style subtly into Lee’s narrative rhythm:

Sorkin: "I’m not trying to write Sorkinian...There were similarities between the way I write and the way Harper Lee does." (07:12–07:21)

5. Legal Disputes with the Harper Lee Estate

• The estate, represented by executor Tonja Carter, objected to changes in the script—especially changes seen as altering Atticus Finch’s character and expanding Calpurnia’s role. (08:07–11:07)
• Key sticking points: Atticus using profanity, drinking alcohol, having a rifle—all eventually resolved to reach compromise and keep the production moving. (10:05–10:24)
• On racial grounds, the estate found the new Calpurnia “too civil rightsy”; Sorkin refused to back down:

Sorkin: "There was not a chance in hell that I was going to aid and abet what I felt was racism on the part of the person in charge of the legacy of To Kill a Mockingbird." (11:07–12:08)

• The dispute almost led to a trial, with a proposal to present the play in a courtroom—"the only play ever to close on opening night in the Southern District." (12:24–12:50)

6. Resonance in the ‘Trumpian’ Era

• Remnick points out the political context—the rise of Trump, national division, and questioning of legal and moral standards. (12:50–13:39)
• Sorkin updated some lines to avoid overt political messaging while still letting the play’s themes echo current anxieties:

Sorkin: "There was a line…which felt a little bit like the production was kind of unzipping itself and...making the play relevant. And the play is just doing a good enough job of that on its own." (14:06–15:13)

7. Examining the ‘White Savior’ Narrative

• Sorkin reflects on the classic “stand up for your father” courtroom scene—once his favorite—now recognizing its limitation:

Sorkin: "In reality, those people in the balcony should be outside on the streets, rioting...But instead, they’re standing, docile, in gratitude to the white liberal man. It’s a white savior moment." (17:10–18:50)

• He sees Atticus’s journey—as discovering the limits of his own understanding—as a reflection for many Americans who thought they knew their own country.

8. The Work of Adaptation

• Sorkin had to stop “swaddling the book in bubble wrap” and take creative risks, knowing some would say, “You ruined my childhood.” The play remains set in 1934 but thematically updated for today. (15:19–17:03)
• The process of adaptation is both homage and critique—a way of looking at a classic art work with new eyes. (19:13–19:55)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On changing Atticus Finch:
  “Atticus can’t be Atticus from the beginning to the end of the play. He has to become Atticus.” (Scott Rudin, via Sorkin, 02:34–02:52)

• On character flaws:
  “A protagonist has to have a flaw. So I thought, well, how did Harper Lee get away with it?” (03:10–03:19)

• On Calpurnia:
  “There's no such thing as a typical black maid. And plays aren't written about typical people doing typical things.” (11:07–11:22)

• On the ‘white savior’ moment:
  “It’s sentimental white liberalism. It’s a white savior moment in the thing. And I was in touch with the fact that that’s what I want... to be recognized as one of the good ones.” (18:47–19:13)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening context & Remnick intro: 00:10–01:47
• Sorkin’s first draft and Scott Rudin’s note: 01:47–03:24
• Discussion of Atticus’s character arc: 03:24–04:42
• Race, marginalization, Calpurnia & Tom Robinson: 05:19–06:27
• Sorkin’s writing voice & adaptation method: 06:27–08:07
• Legal battles with Harper Lee estate: 08:07–12:08
• ‘Trumpian’ echoes & relevance: 12:50–15:13
• The ‘white savior’ scene and Sorkin’s reflection: 17:03–18:50
• Adaptation as both homage and critique: 19:13–19:55

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Language & Tone

The tone is thoughtful, candid, and self-reflective. Sorkin is open about his learning curve and the pitfalls of adapting “sacred” material, while Remnick’s questions are probing yet respectful, helping the listener see both the reverence for and the need to modernize a classic.

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Summary for New Listeners

If you haven’t listened, this episode offers an engaging behind-the-scenes look at the making of a Broadway blockbuster and the artistic courage it takes to take on—and challenge—a canonized work. It explores how art, race, authorship, and the American conscience collide in both the original “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Sorkin’s 2018 adaptation.

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(Note: The following segment in the podcast transitions into a separate interview with Senator Amy Klobuchar and is not part of the Sorkin-focused discussion.)

Transcript

[A]

From one World Trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios.

[B]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. To Kill a Mockingbird has been considered a classic for at least a half a century. So long in the past that even I read it in the eighth grade. And I'm sure you have taken a crack at it, too, at least once in your lives. One reason for that is that many schools have always seen the book as a way to talk about prejudice, about white hatred and violence against black people, but in a way that's kind of suitable for kids. It does have to be noted, though, that in Harper Lee's story about standing up to racism, the central character, the moral compass, is, after all, a white man, while the black characters remain on the margins and really without a voice. That posed a problem for the playwright, who's come up with a new theatrical version of To Kill a Mockingbird that's opening now on Broadway. There's an old saying, a person is smart, people are dumb. A mob acts out of emotion. Absent facts, absent contemplation, mostly absent responsibility. What they get in return is anonymity. Conscience can be exhausting. It'll keep you up at night. Mob's a place where people go to take a break from their conscience. The writer in question is Aaron Sorkin, who's best known for the White House drama the West Wing and for movies like Moneyball and the Social Network. I saw his new play, To Kill a Mockingbird, last week in previews, and Aaron Sorkin joined me in the studio.

[C]

I just thought that my role in adapting To Kill a Mockingbird was just gonna be essentially adding stage directions that I'd take, you know, the greatest hits of the novel and I would stand them up, dramatize them, and that would be the play. And that was my first draft. And it was terrible because it was what?

[B]

It was just. You were adding nothing to it.

[C]

It was what? Yeah, there was nothing new. It was not a thrilling night in the theater.

[D]

It.

[C]

It was an homage. It was a trip to a museum. And it was not what plays are supposed to be. And it was our producer, Scott Rutten, who made that clear to me.

[B]

How did he make that clear to you? Because he's usually not a master of subtle opinions.

[C]

Yeah, no, he's not.

[B]

Does he throw it at you or anything?

[C]

He's kinder than that. I've worked with Scott many times before. Scott produced the Social Network. He produced Moneyball. He Produced Steve Jobs. And ordinarily, I turn in the first draft. He says, great, come to New York. We'll have a session. Those sessions usually last three or four days. I go home with hundreds of notes and do the second draft. When I sent in the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, the session lasted 45 minutes and he had two notes. The first note was, we've got to get to the trial sooner. Okay, That's a structural note. The second note was the note that changed everything, including, and especially my attitude toward the whole project. The second note was Atticus can't be Atticus. From the beginning of the play to the end of the play, he has to become Atticus. And that really got me thinking. First of all, of course, that's what has to happen. That's what a protagonist is. A protagonist has to be put through something and change, and a protagonist has to have a flaw. So I thought, well, how did Harper Lee get away with it? In the novel, Atticus is Atticus. He doesn't have a flaw. He doesn't change. He's kind of carved out of marble. The answer is, Atticus isn't the protagonist in the novel. Scout is. She's the one who changes. She loses some of her innocence. And her flaw is that she's young. But I wanted Atticus to be the protagonist. And I went and reread the book again and found that I did not have to create a flaw to paint onto him. That there were things I found troubling about Atticus. Things that when I read it in middle school, we accepted those things as a virtue. Primarily that Atticus believes that there's goodness in everyone, that you can't understand someone unless you crawl around in their skin for a while. He is tolerant of intolerance. He excuses racism all over the place. He excuses it in Bob Ewell because he just lost his WPA job.

[B]

Bob Ewell being the father of the father of a young who's been raped and abused.

[C]

Yes, He's a stone cold racist in the book. In the play, he's a stone cold racist who's a member of the Klan. I don't recognize the subtle, nuanced differences between the alt right, neoconservatives, white nationalists, white supremacists, neo confederates, regular confederates. They're all with or without the Halloween costumes. They're the Klan. And so we just come right out and call Bob Yule clan.

[B]

But did you have racial anxiety about writing about race? Initially, it seems that this came a little later because this is a story set in 1934.

[C]

1934.

[B]

The novel comes out 58 years ago. And as you say, we're in a very different time. Racially, the black characters in the novel have no voice. Really?

[C]

Well, that was another thing that troubled me. There are two significant African American characters in the novel. Calpurnia, the maid, Tom Robinson the defendant. And in a story about racial tension and injustice in a small fictional town in Alabama, neither of the African American characters have anything to say on the matter. Calpurnia bakes cornbread, and she seems more concerned about whether Scout wears a dress or overalls. And Tom Robinson gets to plead for his life on the witness stand. And that's it. Now, I imagine that in 1960, using African American characters only as atmosphere is the kind of thing that would go unnoticed by white people. In 2018. It doesn't go unnoticed, and it's wrong. And it's also a wasted opportunity. You want their voices in this story, and you want those characters to have agency.

[B]

I've been watching and in many ways, listening to Aaron Sorkin's writing and voice. I don't mind admitting it rather fanatically for a long, long time with great appreciation. And I was very curious to see how much of the sort of, and I don't mean to stereotype it, Aaron Sorkin voice, which is so, so distinct in West Wing or the Newsroom, are things that are utterly yours. And how much of it is going to be there in an adaptation. And I was pleased to see that it didn't, as it were, sound like an Aaron Sorkin thing. You must be very aware of this, how you'll forgive me, Sorkinian can kill a Mockingbird be as opposed to an episode of the West Wing or any of the things that are purely yours.

[C]

Right. I'm not trying to write Sorkinian, as we say.

[B]

I'm so sorry for that, but you know what I mean.

[C]

Any more than I'm trying to make my voice sound like it's my speaking voice, it's the way I write. And on occasions when I have tried to write some other way, for instance, in reading the book over and over, there were similarities between the way I write and the way Harper Lee does. She also enjoys long, winding sentences with parenthetical sub clauses and things like that. So what I would do is I'd start to read her stuff out loud over and over again, kind of get into the music of it, and then I'd add a couple of words of my own at the end. And then after doing that for A while I'd start to substitute my words in the middle, and before too long, the whole thing was mine.

[B]

Okay, so there was a lawsuit.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You're in the midst of writing again, and all of a sudden, you've gotta present this to the literary executor who has been appointed by Harper Lee.

[C]

Harper Lee passed away. An executor took over the estate. We did not yet present it to the executor because it was a very early draft. We were still months away from starting rehearsal.

[B]

But by this time, you've got investors, you've got a theater, you've got.

[C]

We've got a cast. We are. Yes. We are happening. We're doing it. The executor got ahold of the script, was not a fan of it.

[B]

What's the executor's name?

[C]

Her name is Tanya Carter.

[B]

And what are her interests? What is she trying to protect? What is she trying to allow?

[C]

It seemed from her complaint that she would have been happier with my first draft of this book.

[B]

A kind of hagiographic production.

[C]

Exactly. What was entirely unclear was, legally, was whether she was entitled to insist on changes to the script. There were two things in Scott Rudin's agreement with, first, Harper Lee and then the estate, which inherited that contract. One, Harper Lee had absolute, unambiguous approval over who the playwright would be. She approved me. But the other thing was a clause that said that I would not depart from the spirit of To Kill a Mockingbird nor alter any characters.

[B]

What does that mean? The spirit of To Kill a Mockingbird.

[C]

The spirit of To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't know what the spirit of To Kill a Mockingbird is. I don't believe you do, or anyone else.

[B]

Well, this is it. Can a judge, much less a literary critic, determine what the hell that means?

[C]

No. There was a list of. It has a name. It's a list of complaints that she had.

[B]

What were the complaints?

[C]

Atticus would never take the Lord's name in vain. Atticus would never drink alcohol. Atticus wouldn't have a rifle in his closet. There were more, but let me explain those.

[B]

Those are the three that you agreed to in the end in order to have it move forward.

[C]

That's right.

[B]

If that had been the case early on, it would not have been such a big deal.

[C]

Right. It would not have been such a big deal. There were other elements, and we're getting into tricky territory here because the other elements were fairly racially charged. Okay. First, those three that I named. I just want to explain why they were there for the first place, in the first place. For anyone thinking, yeah, Atticus wouldn't do those things. Right. First of all, we're talking about fictional characters. And if you think asking a federal judge to decide what the spirit of something is, asking a federal judge about a made up person, what a fictional person would or wouldn't do, this has.

[B]

Brought the argument down to earth. That's fair enough. And on the three points, I get it. But on the racial aspect, can you be a little more forthright about what complaints were in racial terms?

[C]

Sure. One of the notes was, a typical black maid in the south at this time would not talk to her employer that way. There's no such thing as a typical black maid. And plays aren't written about typical people doing typical things. Other notes were that Calpurnia felt a little too civil rightsy. But to my mind, let me put it that way, all of them added up to, I don't like the mouthy black made. Okay. And in trying to settle this lawsuit, there was not a chance in hell that I was going to aid and abet what I felt was racism on the part of the person in charge of the legacy of To Kill a Mockingbird, of all things. So that battle was had.

[B]

How did the executor back off on these issues?

[C]

First of all, we were sued in Alabama. Scott then countersued to have the case moved to New York. A session was arranged. We wanted it to be in person to work these things out. There was a big snowstorm that day that closed the airport.

[B]

So didn't Scott Rudin even suggest putting on the entire play before the judge, which is maybe unprecedented in the history of drama or jurisprudence?

[C]

Yes. Then Scott Rudin said to the court, we will perform the play for you in your courtroom and you can make these decisions. We thought, if nothing else, we'll go in the record books as the only play ever to close on opening night in the Southern District.

[B]

So this play is opening in the midst of one of the great American political crises of the last hundred years, which is to say a president who has displayed his own views on race and women and an attitude toward the law and all the rest, and may well be impeached. He's facing all kinds of threats from the Mueller investigation. And inscribed in To Kill a Mockingbird is this moment to some degree, I wonder if you could describe how you go about doing that, to what degree you can get away with it, how you wanted to do it.

[C]

Which moment?

[B]

Just the Trumpian moment.

[C]

Oh, um.

[B]

It's it's present.

[C]

Yes, I see what you're talking about. I can tell you that just about a week ago, I changed the line because there was a concern on my part that there was one line toward the end of the first act which felt a little bit like the production was kind of unzipping itself and we were stepping out and saying that this.

[B]

Is two on the nose.

[C]

Exactly right.

[B]

Can you say what it was?

[C]

Since his name, Bob Ewell, the Klansman. I don't think this is a spoiler. Toward the end of the first act, he and his friends, it's on the eve of the trial, they come to the jailhouse, they come to lynch Tom Robinson. Atticus is there. And Bob Ewell, on his way out, turns to Atticus and says, don't underestimate the rage that lies just beneath the surface of an ordinary person. That rage can turn itself into a revolution. You know how I know? Cuz it always does. And he walks off. Now, the last bit is what you. No, I changed the whole line.

[B]

Because you think the audience, by and large, is also in political sympathy with you.

[C]

Yes. I feel like at that moment they. Not consciously, but on some level they could see me typing that line as a way to make the play relevant. And the play is just doing a good enough job of that on its own.

[B]

You're revising and you're revising. Tell me about the work of going at it again and where you got to.

[C]

Okay. What I had to do was make the decision that I am not going to swaddle the book in bubble wrap and gently move it to a theater that no longer was the goal going to be. How close could I come to preserving the novel on stage? I had to stop listening to all the voices that I knew were gonna be online if you ruined my childhood. And why did you change this and why did you do that? And Atticus would never do this, and Scout would never do that. I was gonna write a new play. So the play hasn't been updated in the sense that it still takes place in 1934 in Alabama, but its themes, I think, are very relevant today, beginning with the fact that Atticus keeps saying, these are our friends and neighbors. These are our friends and neighbors. I know these people. I know these people. Sure do. We have ignorant citizens that are stuck in the old ways, of course. But does their bigotry extend so far as to send an obviously innocent man to the electric chair? No, I know these people, I'm telling you. And of course, through the course of the play, he discovers that he does not know these people. I think a lot of us, frankly, on either end of the ideological spectrum have had that same feeling for the last couple of years. I thought I knew these people, my fellow Americans. I had no idea that they felt this way, not just about Mexicans, not just about African Americans. I had no idea that we were this misogynistic or I had no idea they saw me as an elitist who looks down at them, that that was the problem.

[B]

So in other words, you relate a little bit to Atticus Cluelessness, yes.

[C]

I'll tell you a quick story of my own slight awakening, and I understand slight. I don't know why it took me so long to wake up to this. My favorite scene in the movie. The scene is in the book, too. And my father's favorite scene. My father is a bow. Was. He passed away two years ago. Bow tie wearing, dyed in the wool liberal from Brooklyn. The trial is over. The courtroom has cleared out, except for everybody but Atticus, who's putting papers back in his briefcase. And all around the balcony is what they called the colored section. All the African Americans in Maycomb standing silently out of respect for Atticus. And Scout is sitting there. And the Reverend Sykes says, Ms. Jean Louise, stand up. Your daddy's passing as Atticus walks by, always put a lump in my throat, always made me cry. I know a lot of people who feel the same way. For some reason, while I was working on this play, I don't know why, it just occurred to me to think about, why is that my favorite scene in the play? What do I like about that so much? I mean, it's a movie scene. I get that. But why did I love that so much? And the answer was troubling to me, which was this. In reality, those people in the balcony should be outside on the streets rioting. They should be burning the courthouse down, chanting, no justice, no peace. But instead they're standing. Docile ingratitude to the white liberal man.

[B]

It's sentimental white liberalism.

[C]

It's a white savior moment in the thing. And I was in touch with the fact that that's what I want. It's what a lot of people want, to be recognized as one of the good ones. Harper Lee, you know, was obviously a genius. And this novel is fantastic, but it is worth looking at for things that are worth asking about.

[B]

So in a sense, the work of adaptation is both a work of bringing one thing to another medium in another time, but it's also a work of looking at a work of art. Anew and even critically.

[C]

You know, sometimes writers adapt their own work. I did with A Few Good Men, and even then when it was my own work, I think I was writing the movie a couple of years after I wrote the play and I was able to look at it again and kind of write it better again. I want to be clear, I'm not making the case that I have written a better To Kill a Mockingbird. It's just that it's a different writer writing it and I gotta be me.

[B]

Aaron Sorkin, thank you so much.

[C]

Thank you very much, David. I appreciate it.

[B]

Aaron Sorkin wrote the new play based on To Kill a Mockingbird, which has just opened on Broadway. By the way, the estate of Harper Lee declined to comment on Sorkin's remarks. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Whether we like it or not, the 2020 race for president is on. Would be candidates are hiring staff, they're planning trips to Iowa and New Hampshire. They're making phone calls for money, of course, and they're giving interviews. And that's been keeping our Washington correspondent Susan Glasser pretty busy.

[E]

So we're standing here in the soaring atrium of the Senate Hart Office Building. It's the only modern office building of the three Senate office buildings. And you know, it doesn't get a lot of love, but I actually have always liked it in particular because there's this grand marble atrium and it's totally dominated by this huge Alexander Calder sculpture called called Mountain and Clouds. It's a gigantic black steel thing. And of course, it ends at a very pointy top, at the top of those mountains, which always seemed to me to be the perfect metaphor in some ways for Capitol Hill, where pretty much everybody is looking to get to the top.

[B]

Glasser was on Capitol Hill that day to speak with Amy Klobuchar, who was elected to the Senate for Minnesota, Minnesota in 2006. Klobuchar recently made an impression on many observers of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings when she questioned the judge on his early drinking habits and he answered sharply and then later had to apologize. She was just re elected by a wide margin in the midterms and she's one of the many Democratic senators who's considering a run for the presidency in 2020. Susan Glasser spoke with Amy Klobuchar in her office just last week.

[E]

I know, you know, this sort of Washington beltway reporters are constantly going out to see the rest of the country and Saying, what's happening there? How do you talk to Trump voters? So you've actually talked to Trump voters and gotten them to vote for you. What, what are the one or two ways that you did that?

[D]

Well, I think the first is that you have to show up and you have to go not just where it's comfortable, but where it's uncomfortable. And that's why I visited all 87 count every year. One time I found myself in a business called Insect Inferno, because we had run out of places to visit. It was near the Canadian border at Trump county, and I was in this truck and it said on the outside of it, insect Inferno. We kill bedbugs with heat. And the whole concept was they would drive around and you put mattresses in them, and then they would put the temperature up to 300 degrees. So when I was in there, they put it up to only 100. But again, I thought to myself, you go not just where it's comfortable, but where it's uncomfortable. And to me that means being there. So that's the first measure and not avoiding it, and then two, understanding that not one size fits all. There are issues that transcend urban, rural. Like for instance, you don't want to kick people off of their insurance for pre existing conditions. That was something that you saw Democrats run on and win on. But then there are other issues that are unique. And I would put critical access, hospitals, rural broadband. Most people in urban areas don't have to worry about that. And a lot of parts of our rural countryside can't even access cell phone service, much less broadband. Their cell phones keep going in and out. And I don't understand, as I pointed out to the farmers union, how you can have rural cell phone service all over Iceland and not in northern Minnesota.

[E]

But I gotta ask you, Donald Trump obviously isn't talking to people about rural broadband service. Right. You know, he wasn't, he's not a technocrat. He's not immersed in the details of policy. Arguably he's not even all that ideological or he has a mishmash of different ideologies. So it's great that there are issues that appeal to different people, but does that still matter as much in this sort of post ideological age?

[D]

I think it matters when someone makes promises and then time goes on and your life hasn't changed. So I do think it matters. And when you add disruptions in and chaos, that make things hard for you. So I think those things matter. But I think what you're getting at, which is really values and it is kind of the argument that I feel in rural and I think helped me to get support, is that you really have to go to the core of what. What kind of person do you want to have in the White House that your kids watch on TV when they're learning their civics lesson and the Pledge of Allegiance in first and second grade? The second thing is that Donald Trump just doesn't talk policies and facts. In fact, he oftentimes gives statements that are completely contrary to the evidence, like what he just said on climate change when his own administration predicted dire consequences from climate change. So I think you not just have to meet him with facts, and you certainly don't want to go down every rabbit hole with him, but we have to meet him with emotion. And it doesn't have to be negative emotion. It can be positive emotion. So when he starts talking about caravans and mobs and all those things, you know what I say? I say when I talk to our people about pre existing conditions, I just don't use that boring term that a lot of people don't quite know what it means. I tell the story of a woman coming up to me in a parade with her baby carriage with a kid in it, and she says, you know what? This is my son. I'll do anything for him in the world. He has down syndrome. He is a preexisting condition. This is what a preexisting condition looks like. So you say, you know what President Trump really, your administration is arguing to kick people off their insurance for pre existing conditions. This is the kid you're talking about. So I think it's very important to. To respond to him, but to not let it dominate what your own agenda is.

[E]

A lot of people remember your star turn in the Kavanaugh hearings.

[D]

You're asking about blackout.

[C]

I don't know. Have you.

[D]

Could you answer the question, Judge? So that's not happened. Is that your answer?

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And I'm curious if you have. I have no drinking problem, Judge.

[C]

Nor do I.

[D]

Okay, thank you.

[E]

Your response to Kavanaugh was so kind of straightforward, unpersonalized, a different kind of politics than we're used to. Do you see a lasting effect here up here in the Senate as a result of that? Incredibly traumatic, I think, for a lot of people, confirmation hearing on both sides, actually, it was.

[D]

But when you really go to the guts of what happened. You had a situation where a nominee decided at a very critical hearing where a woman who my own colleagues on the other side of the aisle said she had great credibility, had come forward and Then he decided to politicize it in his statements, the way that he literally attacked Democratic senators. And I said the next day, excuse me, we can't control sometimes what happens in the criminal justice system or in politics. Things come at you that you wish you hadn't gotten. The question is not, does that happen? The question is, when you're in a position of power, what do you do about it? So my plea to my colleagues was, we need an investigation. We need to make sure that this doesn't happen again in terms of having information hidden and 42,000 documents dumped on us the day before. So do I hope that this changed things because it was so traumatic? Yes. Do I know how this is going to go with the next opening? No, I don't.

[E]

Do you think that he still should be investigated? I mean, should the matter rest now that it's been confirmed?

[D]

Well, I think that there are some. I know there's some complaints that are being in the court system. I mean, that would be the procedural way to handle them. But there's no open way for us to do that now. And my own experience with this was just. I was pretty shocked when he shot back at me when I was simply asking him questions. And then he. I felt it was very important for the dignity of the, of Dr. Ford and the dignity of the Senate and the dignity of our country to not go down there with him and to not land where he landed, because I think there's way too much of this going on in politics. And starting with the White House, you.

[E]

Know, dignity is definitely not the word that is going to come to mind when people write histories of this moment in Washington. Senator Klobuchar, final lightning round here. On a scale of 1 to 10, where are you in terms of running for 2020?

[D]

Well, I, as I've said before, I am considering it, but I never rate scale things, our beauty contest numbers. So I'm not going there. But I have been talking to people in my state and people around the country about it. I think that there are a lot of good people considering this, but I do think you want voices from the Midwest, and I think you want to have people with different views running. I think it's really important to have that. I don't think it's bad that we have a competition for the nomination at this key moment in our nation's history.

[E]

You know, you say you want voices from the Midwest in 2016, was. Was decided in the Midwest. Is there a risk of overlearning the last battle, refighting the last war?

[D]

Good question. I think this will all basically sort itself out. It won't always be pretty, but I think that a lot of presidential candidates.

[E]

Is not going to probably won't end.

[D]

Up at that number. But I do think on the Midwestern front, my husband is the third of six kids and his mom, they grew up in a trailer home and they would have, they would go out on vacation and oftentimes when they came out of the gas station, she would have them each count off to make sure they were all in the car because my husband was always the sweet, quiet one and she was afraid he would be left at the gas station and the Midwest was left at the gas station. And we're not going to let that happen again. And I think that is more than a metaphor just for the Midwest. It was a lot of middle class voters. It was a lot of citizens that felt that they weren't getting a fair shake in the system, that they were having to ration their insulin like a kid that died in Minnesota, a restaurant manager recently was doing. They weren't feeling like they were treated right. And I think our party and whoever is our nominee has to be able to respond to those people in a way that we weren't doing in that last election.

[E]

Senator Amy Klobuchar, thank you so much for taking the time with us today.

[D]

Thank you, Susan.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

Susan Glaser is a staff writer for the New Yorker and you can find her column Letter from Trump's Washington every [e-mail] I'm David Remnick and that's our show for today. Hope you enjoyed it and I hope you'll come back next week. See you then.

[A]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Toon Yards, with additional music by Alexis Cuadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Botin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, Callalea, David Krasnow, Caroline Lester, Louis Mitchell, Sarah Nix and Stephen Valentino, with help from Johnny Vince Evans, Emily Mann and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Turina Endowment Fund.