9-1-1, where is the emergency? It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey Shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sarah Stern. Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point nobody knows. Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm Juju Chang from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies, wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, I am here with the guest of honor. It was her baby shower day, her TV baby shower, which is a right of passage for all view hosts. Welcome, Alyssa Faragriffin. Thank you, Brian. That was so wonderful. Did you have a good time? Honestly, it meant so much to me. And I know how much the producers have been working behind the scenes to make it special and just seeing it come together meant so much to me. And then also having my friends and family and women I admire and men I admire, like Andy Cohen give their advice. It just honestly meant so much. I'm weirdly emotional, so I'm trying not to cry. I was really touched by the co-host because I thought they were really, you know, they asked me to do things like that all the time and they were excited to do it and I feel like they were really thoughtful. They were so close to home, at least sincere. And then like I wanted nothing different than what Joy gave me, which is the truth that my boobs are going to sag. But no, every one of them, it's actually all of it is advice that I've gotten like Sunny saying, record everything just like for your own memories because he's going to be this tiny little thing in a month later. He's going to be like twice the size in like Sarah just leaning on your community like whoopie just they're just the they're so wonderful and I've this this show I think people have a lot of like perceptions about and there's always the intrigant stuff. But I have to say I've never felt more supported by like colleagues and by my co-hosts than during this pregnancy. And I think it's because they know how everything I went through with IVF they knew how long this took for me and how much I wanted it. So it just means so much to like to hear from them and have their support. It's really it's really great for everybody around you to see that and I think about when you first were auditioning for the show, you weren't even married. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, like and here you are, it's been a journey. Yeah, that's true. It was October right before I got like a month or two before I got married. Yeah, so how time flies. It does. It doesn't have no idea what he was getting into. He was a trooper on the show today, I think, you know, it's intimidating to sit at that table. He did a great job. So we had an audience filled with pregnant women who all went home with some nice stuff, which is pretty good. Yes, it's such a good stuff. And but they seem to enjoy that. We really, it wasn't a joke. We really had paramedics on standby. There was literally a stretcher when I walked off set. Yeah. That was smart. A couple of them were due right around when I am. You never know. You never know. And we had confetti cannons that didn't go off and if they gone, there was some concern if they went off, there would be an issue. But it was all good. So I have to ask because we are coming to the end here. How are you feeling? I'm feeling honestly good. I think that there's, I think there's some science behind this toward the end. Like you remember this with Heather, like you're not really going to sleep. There's no getting comfortable. I think I'm averaging like three to four hours a night. But when I do get it, if it's enough to energize my body, it gets me through what I need to. And I think it's good preparation for when baby arrives and I'm going to be up every couple hours, breastfeeding. Like I'm already kind of conditioned to it. I also think that like we have like a lot of pregnant women will joke. Like I feel like I've been pregnant for like five years. I feel like that and I feel like the discomfort at the end makes you so ready. Like I'm ready for this baby to come. Because otherwise I could see dreading like, Oh, I'm not looking forward to labor. And I'm like, Oh, no, no, no. I'm ready to meet him and I'm ready for him to be right here and not right here. Absolutely. I'm sure. Cara Swisher gave some advice about staying offline and things like that. Do you think you'll do that? What do you think you'll happen? Someone asked me that. Also someone asked me if I was going to watch the view on maternity leave. I'm going to try. I want to be really present and try to spend his little time following the news cycle at least for the first few weeks. I was I did a podcast with my friend Tim Miller at the Bullwork, maybe two months back. And he pointed out to me something that hadn't occurred to me. But like my child is never going to remember Donald Trump in the White House. He's never going to remember this moment in politics. Right. There may be things that that you know, influence that era that he's going to come up in. But is big and scary as the world right now feels. And it's you're right to feel that way. I want to be present for like what the life is he's going to have afterward and tune out the things that I have the privilege for a small period of time to hopefully tune out. But then I'm going to reengage because it's like I need to be able to do this job when I get back. And I also think you have to understand the world that you're bringing a child into it. From what I remember of this time, because again, it's different for the dad, but I spend a lot of time in a rocker, you know, rocking the baby to sleep and reading and things like that. But then you definitely get into a point where you're sitting in the chair and you got a phone. Exactly. Exactly. Well, I've had friends say too that it's like it's the most rewarding and bonding period. But there's going to be a moment where you're like, I need to engage my adult brain into activities. So that's when I think I was going to get back to like reading things. I want to be thoughtful in how I do it though. Like choose the outlets I'm reading, not just do the doom scrolling on social media. I'm here for texts. Let me know. I'm available for it. And I will watch the view by the way, but I'll probably watch it at like one a.m. on Hulu. Will I'm breastfeeding? Well, you're admitting it. Most hosts say they don't watch the view than not here. And like joy, whenever she's not here, it's like, I'm not watching the show and I get notes on every segment. Every segment. Yep. It was great to have her back today. It was good. I know. I missed joy. It's a she it's fun to have her back. Yes, absolutely. Did Justin have any notes about the shower before he left? He got out of here pretty quick. I didn't even know he didn't meet him in Connecticut, but he know he, I honestly, I think that he's kind of blown away by the show because again, like we all have our perception of what the view is before being a host of it and being here as long as I have. And like for all the like funny headlines about us, I think he's so appreciative of everyone. I think he realizes like I have such a good community here. The co-host has been so good to me. The producers have been so good to me. And I think he was he was very touched by the effort everyone put in. And I'll give a shout out to the producers that worked particularly on this summer and Dana. Molly and Sophia, everybody and our whole our whole team, but they worked really hard. We really did. Amazing. I'm glad. I'm glad you're happy. Today I want to tell you about one of our partners, Reathlete. Before I go on, take a moment to check in right now on how your body is feeling. How does your back feel? How do your hips feel? How about your knees? I got some issues. If you sit for most of the day, you might find that your body saves up a lot of discomfort. And Reathlete is a seat cushion that's designed to help. With their serene sits orthopedic seat cushion, you experience all day comfort. It's made from advanced memory foam arranged in a unique W shape design. The slip resistance material means it can be used on any seat at your desk. It work on your couch in your car or anywhere else. You find yourself sitting for long periods of time. And best of all, it's affordable. Just $29 with a special deal for our listeners. Start sitting better today so you can head home feeling ready to enjoy the evening to the fullest. Get your Reathlete ergonomic seat cushion now at abcsecretsavings.com slash btt. That's abcsecretsavings.com slash btt to get yours today for just $29. Abcsecretsavings.com slash btt. From 30 for 30 podcasts. Brian Pada, Senior Defensive Lime and From Miami. Gun down. The key to this case, it's Brian. Oh, it's a rip man. A hour before he died, he was on a phone arguing what's about this might be a hit. You want the truth. You just want to conviction the impression to rest. We had a killer monster murder at the you listen now. All right, let's get back to politics while we still have you. Don't don't. So the lead topic today was President Trump on Monday called for Republicans to take over and nationalize voting as he continued to make false claims about the electoral process in America. So for me, like, it's funny because you know, joy's been on this tack for a long time. People like, you know, maybe we won't have midterms every time he says that I'm like, let's not get alarmists. Let's stick in exactly what the facts are and what's been talked about and things like this, but it's an opinion. So that's her genuine opinion. It's starting to seem like when he says something like that, it's it's I kind of have to say to joy. I'm like, okay, well, I understand why you feel that way. Tell me your thoughts on this. Well, I'll start by playing my favorite game. Imagine if Barack Obama had said. I mean, the absolute outrage and by the way, probably by Dan Bungino who is conducting this interview with the president, if he had said we're going to nationalize elections, take him back from the States. I mean, it violates the Constitution. Yeah, completely. Yeah. And it goes against what's been a, you know, 100 plus year long conservative principle of federalism of states rights. The states oversee the elections, not the national government. I'm also old enough to remember when things like national databases were something conservative strongly opposed. Remember during COVID, I mean, what shifted the right almost completely away from like, hey, science and vaccines and American free enterprise or good things was, well, I don't want a national like, you know, registry of people having COVID vaccines. National gun registries are something that conservatives have always been against. This is your, your political data, your personal data, your social security numbers. In some cases, your email addresses that you would just be willingly turning over to the federal government. I find it appalling from a conservative standpoint. But I also go back to, because I've been asked about this and we've talked about it behind the scenes too, a number of times of how seriously to take it. And I remember being in the White House in the summer, early summer of 2020 and then Chief of Staff, or so I would have been spring of 2020, then Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was asked, if Donald Trump loses the election, will he peacefully leave office? And Mick, who someone I still get along with very well is a very smart guy, was kind of laughed it off. And it was like, of course he will. And I in my head did too. I don't think I ever said it publicly, but I'm like, of course he will. And then after he lost the election in 2020, I stayed till December 4th, but I remember that Thanksgiving break being, I, you know, off the record said to a few reporters, I think he's going to go to Marlago and might just never come back to the White House. He may just pack it up and call it. So I misread all of the scene. I remember a lot of people thinking that at the time. Yeah. And it was sort of, and he actually didn't end up going. I might have been for Christmas. It was one of the two holidays that then people were like, oh, yeah, it's like that's not great. You've talked about it on the show before. I made a lot of news when you did. He admitted in your presence that he lost that election. Yeah. He said it was something along the lines of watching the TV. Can you believe I lost to this guy, pointing to Biden? And I always give the caveat, maybe he meant I don't believe I lost to this guy, but how I believed it in the moment was that he very much acknowledged and knew that he did. And I think I personally it's always going to be my belief. He knew he lost the election. And then it became the like machinations around what can we do to stay in power? And that's when I ran for the Hill. Was it a shock for me? I mean, election day 2020, what was the feeling in the White House? So I think that there was like a an optimism, but subtle and there was a nervousness. But what I've said, and I said this when I testified to the Department of Justice and to the House in like the January 6th voluntarily, voluntarily. No one should have been surprised. I was fairly confident he would lose. I wasn't I'm never in elections like holy confident one or the other, but I was I was like I expect he will lose. I had kind of started to privately with my husband talk about he wasn't even yet my husband. Talk about, you know, what I was going to do next regardless of the way the election went. But we also had internal polling and internal polling at a presidential level when you're spending millions of dollars on it tends to be extremely accurate. And it basically called every swing state exactly how it went. So and I remember a very senior Trump advisor telling me after the second debate, this is a really big uphill battle for him to win. Like it does not look good. There were there were people around him who both knew that and were saying it to him at the time. But there were also people saying you could never lose. You're going to win by landslide. You did win by landslide. So there's always that friction. So now all this news about these comments he's making and what he's doing in Georgia. There's been also a lot of outrage and questions over Tulsi Gabbard being involved. She's the United States director of national intelligence. And she's taking a lead role, I guess in an FBI raid on the Folk and County Georgia elections offices, which she says she was told to do by President Trump. Yeah, make it make sense. So technically like the director of national intelligence overseas, all of the intel agencies, the FBI does fall under it. So she does have some purview over the FBI, but not over a domestic American election in the state of Georgia. That's already by the way been litigated and gone through all of the like the legal hurdles that it would have. I can't think of a single credible serious reason that she would be there. What scares me and I always want to be careful because I don't want to sound alarmist and I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist. But we heard from from workers in the state who have said, you know, we keep these ballots in our custody. They're preserved. They have been since the election. They've gone through all these audits. The second they're turned over, they don't know the chain of custody. They don't know like, like what are they being used for and what information do they think they're going to get that they didn't have before? And then add to that that you've had the president start to lean into some of the more bizarre conspiracy theories, something with like Italian satellites, something maybe with Hugo Chavez, who has not been in power for a very long time. It just it, it's not something we should ignore. The point I made on the show though that I think is important is let's say that Trump is means this both literally and seriously to Sonny's point and he wants to nationalize elections. There's some effort to do that where there's some way that he wants to have more control in the midterms. This is where governors, secretaries of state and states and attorneys general need to know their power and need to claim it. And they need to have plans right now to do that and to fight back. We've seen states win in the courts. I mean, every one of the 60 plus cases in 2020 that ended up being won for the states and that Trump lost. It was because people fought back. So like, this is one where I believe in the courts and the state's powers. We also have to be ready for it. You have to get ahead of it. I know we don't know, but what do you think the end game here is for him? I mean, to, to, to manufacture or show in his mind that there was Frodo Fraud and then use that as a basis to change the way we do elections. I'm just trying to figure it out. And so it's kind of two different things. I think the, I think Fulton County, I think there may be some effort to claim that he actually won by a landslide in 2020. Okay. I think that's going to be real hard. You're going to need more than the state of Georgia. What was that even gained for him at this point? He was reelected. Yeah, he, to my point focus on the election you want. Right. It's so bizarre. The midterms are different to me because I think, I think he's very nervous about congressional oversight. I think he assumes he'll be impeached by the House. I don't think that the balance of power in the Senate will change enough that he could get impeached by the Senate. Oh, really? You think it's going to be still? I think, I think Republicans might hold it, but even if they didn't, it'd be like a one seat. And you remember, you need a super majority to conduct in the Senate. But still, he doesn't want to deal with. He hated impeachment one and two. He doesn't want to deal with that again. The fact that we have like impeachment one and two is just, yes, it's just like why? It's very the third one's the best, but you never know. I'm trying to think like, I like the turn of the Jedi, but I don't know. It's, yeah. I don't know what he's thinking. Yeah. And there is an element to what, I think, Sarah and what we have pointed out whenever these topics come up that some of it is distraction, but I also never wanted. So we've talked about this a lot, but the whole concept of flooding the zone, which was a thing in Trump one is Matt, if they've mastered it in Trump too. I mean, this weekend was insane. I mean, the fact that Don Lemon getting arrested for conducting journalism was like the bee block on our show because so much had happened. Yeah. With three million Epstein files released. It's a, it's a herd of what we're saying. And the Epstein files, and again, you know, they're still going through it because it's three million files here, but it doesn't seem like there's anything going to come of this either. Do you think that's going to change? I don't think it's going to from the Department of Justice. And that's been, that's been my take all along. I think that there is information that could and should be investigated for it. It seems like it needs to be followed up on. Yeah. Very horrifying allegations against some very powerful men. But I think if there's any sort of anything that comes of this, it will likely come from in the outside investigations based on the information DOJ is released or it's going to be information from the Epstein estate. That's completely separate from the Department of Justice for a long time. The hunger to see these files has been from the Maga crowd. Are they modified by this at all? I haven't seen a lot of outrage about a lack of follow up. I think that it's honestly split screen America and it's choose your own adventure. And I think people who spent years believing everything from pizza gate to QAnon to, you know, every Epstein theory, they're sitting there like, yes, Bill Clinton, but then ignoring the other names that are on it. Howard let Nick Elon Musk, Donald Trump more so than I think any other individual. I saw one meme today was that Donald Trump's name isn't the Epstein files more than Harry Potter's name is in seven books about Harry Potter. Yeah. And then there's also misinformation. I don't know if you've seen this, but like there's people like adding Mumbani into the Epstein files. Just insane. I think people are choosing their own adventures. And it's a shame because if there's anything that should be completely above partisanship, it should be wanting to stop child sex. Absolutely. Left right. Anybody that committed these crimes should be prosecuted. Yeah. All right. Before we go, we had a Democratic Texas Senate primary candidate James Calarico with us yesterday. What did you make of him? Really liked him. So I discovered him similar to what be on like Instagram reals. You just kept popping up because he's super plugged in on social media. And I didn't know who he was. And to be honest, I had listened to a couple clips of his before I knew if he was a Republican or Democrat because he talks a lot about like his faith-based approach to policy. Right. Which tends to be more Republican. Yeah. You would think. And he's what I think he's doing. That's really interesting because like I'm a person of faith. We I'm a Piscopalian. We go to a reformed church. My husband's Catholic. Our belief is like we can't I don't really let politics enter my faith because I think that there's on the right you want to pick and choose and say, okay, so abortion is the top issue because the church cares about abortion. But then you just leave out the part of like, but we care about refugees and we care about immigrants and we care about like supporting the and taking care of the poor. And so I like that he's pushing back and reminding people like all aspects of what the Christian faith actually and he doesn't actually calls on us to do. But super interesting. He and Jasmine Crocodre neck and neck and the polls. There was a big poll this weekend like statistically tied. They they I also I liked his answer. I thought he was super gracious when asked about her and said he will support her. If she ends up being the nominee, I assume she would support him if he is. But I think kind of regardless of who gets the the nomination there, he will have a big profile in the Democratic Party. I think he kind of harkens back to this. Not not so much on the religious side, but this this Clinton era Southern death. Democrat who looks and talks like a lot of maybe Republicans do, but is preaching Democratic values. And I think that helps and I think it helps in the Sun Belt in the South. And I think it helps in parts of the Midwest where there's been sort of this like loss of voters to Donald Trump. But I think a lot of those votes are up for grabs right now because they're just not happy. They don't feel like Trump's delivered for them. Now all I can think about and you can tell me this the my my own business here. You mentioned you and Justin having different religious backgrounds. What about the baby? So we think it's actually easy. We he's going to be baptized Catholic. So Episcopalian were basically Catholic light. Sure. We have a family priest who fully supports that I am a person of faith and we're going to baptize him Catholic. And he will have the full confirmation and all of that. It's never been an impediment to us. We I mean, the gospel is the same like our our faith and the core tenets of it are the same. It's more just like little little like traditions that are different. But honestly like Episcopalians are our services are also very similar to Catholic service. My dad was Catholic. My mom was Lutheran. And I was raised Lutheran my sister and I and my daughter's are too. But it's interesting. And I asked my parents why they went that way. It was because my mother said because your father wasn't going to do anything and I was going to take care of all of it. And that's why he went that way. I know I on I think that's it tends to gravitate toward the member of the family who's like more religious or like more practicing their faith. What's really important to us is father bur is our family priest. He baptized my father-in-law in both of his brothers married my in-laws baptized my husband and his brother married us married my brother-in-law will baptize our baby. So he's he's in his 90s. I need to get him to the show before he comes because he's a whoopie super fan. But like he just means so much to us too. So like I think him being baptized Catholic is much about father-bur is anything. Heather's grandpa was a Methodist minister and he married us and and baptized both our kids. It's the best. Yeah. That's very cool. All right. So that was curious. And then on on baby front is the name locked. It's actually not. We're very between two names. Both are family adjacent. One's more traditional than the other. I think it's going to have to be how I've named all my dogs, which is I think I have to meet him and know. Okay. So there's monogrammed nothings. We love both and we'll be happy with both. We just can't is one the middle name either way. Middle name we've decided. Middle name you've locked. Yeah. But I'll wait to share it. But middle name is a family name that we've known from the outset. Every Griffin first born has had it as their first or second or middle name. Okay. Oh, interesting. All right. But the first thing to go either way. First thing you could go either way. All right. Oh, this is very exciting. Yeah. All right. I'll be placing bets in an office pool. I know exactly. Let's see. And then. And then I'm be out for a bit. Yeah. And we're going to miss you for sure. But we'll hear from you. I'm hoping you could videos keep us posted. I will keep you guys posted. And you've got some fun fill in host. Yes. We haven't announced them yet, but there'll be more to come on that. It'll be it'll be different without you here. But we'll we'll persevere and we'll welcome you back as soon as you're ready, which will be exciting. All right. Thank you for joining me today. Alyssa, we'll have one more podcast next week too. Tomorrow I'll be back with Sarah Haynes. We'll see you then. And thank you.
