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, we are here. It is Super Bowl Monday. I am here with Elissa Faragraph, and hello, Elissa. Hello, a very defeated new Patriots fan. Oh, sorry. I'm trying to hide my smirk, but this is both predicted by me and enjoyed by this. So there we go. It was just, it was a depressing game. Okay, on the bright side, I was literally thinking last night I was like, if the Patriots win, Justin's gonna make a real push to be like, our baby will be Drake May Griffin. Oh my God. So I'm kind of glad we don't have to do that. That's amazing. But it was, it was such a bummer just because they had, I felt like they had such a good season and you know I don't follow. By the way, Drake Griffin is the bully in every 80s movie. That is. That is, like he's the yummy guy. Not a nice kid. No, no, no, no, no, he'll be good looking. Yeah. But he'll just be horrible to the protagonist of the movie. No, but I got weirdly invested in football this season. So I'm like, I see why it's so sad when your team loses. It can be rough. Yeah. It can be rough. My team's been losing for a couple of years. So I'm getting used to it. But it was that last touchdown that like the Seahawks didn't even seem to realize was a touchdown. And Justin just looks at me. He's like, can we just go to bed? No. It's like, yeah, let's turn this off. You know, we talked so much about the halftime show, which was really fantastic. But we didn't talk a lot about commercials today. Was there anything that stuck out to you? Mine was kind of basic, but the anthropic one with like the chat bot that then they work in the ads. Brilliant. It was so good. It was too long to do on the show. Also like multiple Backstreet Boys references. A very good. A very good. Yeah. Yeah. And then obviously that the Duncan one was great. The Duncan one was my favorite because I'm a 90s guy. So all of my favorite 90s stars showing up in the aged AI, which looked a little weird. But I know that I was trying. I like couldn't tell it first. I was like, I feel like Jennifer Anderson looks younger, but she also always looks great. So it looks great. Yeah, yeah. No, but definitely Ted Danson was in 1985. Oh, yeah, that was the five. Yeah. It was good. But it was really fun. So I have to start of course with how are you feeling? I am feeling ready to have a baby. There was some concern that maybe would happen today. I think. I'm definitely in that period where it's like it could happen at any time. We've got a plan. My in-laws get in. They get in tomorrow. They might need to get here sooner to watch the dogs. But I'm ready. I think breaking news. Tomorrow is your last show before having the baby. Yeah. And this was my last weekend of my life not having children, which was such an interesting thought. And like I just I thought I was I thought I might have a little bit of like, oh am I going to miss this? No, I'm just so excited. Oh, it's going to be great. I can't wait to see him and smell him and just have him here. It's going to be great. And I try to think about that. I really don't remember what it was like not to have kids anymore, but I definitely don't like long for that at all. Yeah. So you're going to love it. But I am going to miss you on the show. So we have we have tomorrow's your last show. And then that'll be exciting. So many of the guests, many of the hosts have been giving you advice. Anything stick out? So by the way, I loved that for my baby shower that we got all the hosts to give me mom advice. That's so much. It's all been really good. I think the most consistent thing I hear both Sunny and Sarah have said to me multiple times, what you said it to is it goes by so quick. Like the especially the early phases, like they're a kid and then you blink your eye and they're 30 years old. So like enjoy and like cherish every little phase because they're like a different human every few months. Yeah, so hard to be in the moment when those things happen. Yeah. Because I kept getting excited for the next thing. You know, you want that. And I'm like that and I want to remind myself to be present even when I was like folding and organizing his little clothes, you're like newborns three months. Oh my gosh, six months. That stuff goes so fast. So as you mentioned, tomorrow is the last day on the show. Your maternity leave is starting. And then next week we're going to start having guest hosts on the show. I want to get your advice for them. So we've got a lot of different people. We have Savannah, Chris Lee. We have Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Abby Huntsman. They probably don't need advice. They've done this before. We have Amanda Carpenter, Cheryl Underwood. Also someone who's been on a daytime show for a long time and Whitney Cummings. Now obviously we can't wait for you to come back. We're very excited about that. But we're going to have these people and some other names we haven't even announced yet popping in. What advice do you have for people that maybe aren't used to being at our table? So well, all these women have in common and I think we'll make the shows really good as they all have a kind of TV experience because I think what people forget is they think of our show is this like political show. It's all about like your political chops. That matters. You have to be able to do the serious hot topics, but you also have to be able to do the more fun and light stuff in the bantery and like you don't know what kind of silly moments what might come up. And I think all of these women are going to be really ready for that with their different experiences. My advice is, and honestly, I'm pretty sure Abby said this to me before I started. So it's not based on her, but to some who haven't been at the table, authentically be yourself. It's the view. Each of us brings our own view. It's not you are not here as a Republican Party spokesperson. You're not here as a defender of the administration. You're not here as an opponent of the, you are there to say authentically what you believe when presented with like the issues of the day. And it come, it took me time to learn, but it comes through more with the audience when they're like, I know they're saying what they genuinely believe rather than what they think they're supposed to. Yeah. I think that's right. And I think most of the people that are, all the people that are coming on are people that have different opinions than many of the people that are on the table now. Yeah. Different than you in some cases. But I think like that's what makes this show great. I think yeah. And enjoy the women at the table. Like the most important thing to me and I appreciated how collaborative you were and, you know, me bringing you suggestions of people to fill in is like, I respect and love my co-hosts so I want people who are going to respect and love them and treat them like you want to treat it like you're having coffee or a meal with your girlfriends who have different viewpoints than you. Right. Like I've never, listen to our shows, I was always going to have the flashy, shouting moments. But I think just honestly listening to other people's perspectives, sharing yours if you need to be forceful be, but like just realizing like these are women with different experiences than you and you can learn from them and they can learn from you. I think all these people are people uniformly that believe that it's important to have conversations with people that don't agree with you and that's one of the criteria we looked at for have a good, it's a very good mix. Yeah. And I like that they're all very different from each other. Do you think you will be watching? So I better watch it. I do think I will, but I think I'll watch it like at night on Hulu. I'm like, I'm going to be like pumping or feeding at 11 p.m. and watching it not 11 a.m. You're not going to be at my, I don't think you're going to be a live text for me during the show. You would be the first host to not do that. So let's see what happens. All right. Let's go back to the Super Bowl and talk about the bad bunny half time show. What did you think of it? Loved it. Yeah. And I went in, I've said this for I didn't have strong feelings about bad bunny. I really only know one song of his. I've seen him in movies like I like him. I know he like dated Kendall Jenner and he's hot, but like I did have I really was not someone who came in either direction with strong feelings. I thought from a production or performance, a musical standpoint, it was amazing because a lot of artists and it's not, it's not shade. They'll just be on a stage. I was like, he did everything you could do. I thought it was brilliant. I had rightly predicted it'd be the most viewed and Super Bowl history. I loved that he made points, but he did it subtly. And I think in art, that's actually often more powerful. Sometimes when things are so in your face, like let's say he had an ice outside. That would be really powerful to a lot of people. If you're someone who's like, and he's he had said that at the Grammys, but like if you're someone who's in the middle and they're like, I really support law enforcement. I don't like what ice is doing. It may not sway your opinion, but just showing culture heritage, love for America, love for the entire region, this warmth, this joy. I think that resonates across the board and it's actually in some ways more powerful to show what you stand for in that way than in like a more provocative political statement. I thought it was brilliant and there was a clip like after the Kim and like Roger Gidele backstage, like the NFL knows that they chose a winner there. Like they were like, that was such a good choice. Yeah, I keep seeing like tweets and stuff and I shouldn't look anymore. But people are like, well, wait till next year and it's Morgan Wall and then we'll know we won and things like that. I'm like, I don't think. No one's viewing this as a mistake. No, I don't think so. And I have friends that like they're like, I don't know any bad bunny songs. And I get it, but I'm like, guys, we're just old. That's what it is. I mean, that's what it is. So my mom had the most like earnest take, which was we were talking about before, before and she's like, well, to be honest, like I didn't really know any Kendrick Lamar song. She's like, I kind of remembered some of the like 50th anniversary of hip hop because we all listen to what like growing up. That I knew everything. Yeah, that was like we knew that. She's like, I kind of like tuning in to know what everyone likes that I'm not aware of. And I'm like, that's how it should be. Like we're not necessarily like the cool target demo anymore. No, you're closer than me, right? Of course, sir. Yeah, I thought it was brilliant. And I think that a lot of the like culture or stuff is overhyped by like social media. It is. Because I could have predicted it would be about 135 million to about 5 million. And like Godspeed, they have every right to do their counter programming, but like to compete against bad bunny, the like multi time most streamed artists on Spotify, you would need like Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, like Lenny Kraut, you need a bunch of people. Like you would need like some of the biggest performers of all time. And that's what people didn't realize. I'm like, even if it's political and ideological for you, that's a minority of the country. I mean, that's the thing. Like if I went into our offices and I said, Hey, Paul McCartney's doing the Super Bowl. I don't think people would be. I know. I know. I mean, I mean, I'm very excited. And he did do the Super Bowl. I was there when it happened. It was great. But Lady Gaga showing up was amazing. I like, I like squealed when she popped up on the screen. Is there one Super Bowl you remember as like your favorite? Honestly, I think it was the 50th anniversary of hip hop. That's great. Because it was so much of like our generation who's so many artists. Yeah. That was so fun. And then like Brittany Aerosmith, like I could like, you were like nine when that happened. Yeah, but I loved her. So no, so there you go. I mean, it's interesting. Did you end up watching any of the turning point after the fact? Well, so God's on his truth. Because we were watching at my neighbor's house. Was super fun. And I don't think anyone in the room other than my husband, like, knew really any bad buddy songs. I knew like I mentioned the one. But we all enjoyed it. I ended up going home after we're just super pregnant. My husband stayed over and I was like looking on Twitter to find it. I couldn't find it because I guess there was a licensing issue. They didn't even able to be sure. I mean, I wasn't going to turn my TV away from the Super Bowl to find Kid Rock. I was at this morning. Yeah. I would have bought like, speak English. I did have that joke and get to make it on the live show. But it was good. Like, this is not English. I mean, yeah, no, it's, yeah, he's not at the height of his powers right now. I'm not going to lie. There was a time in my life where I enjoyed a Kid Rock song. Well, okay, here was my thing, which this was too deep to go into in the live show. But I saw some like Christian right folks, people like Franklin Graham, who I disagree with him on a lot, but he runs one of the best charity organizations in the country and the world with Samaritan's purse. But we've argued on things from gay marriage to everything. And he tweets out like, I'm going to be watching the turning point show in Kid Rock because it's like a better reflection of Christian values. I'm paraphrasing. And I'm like, what are you talking about? People were quoting Kid Rock's lyrics back to him. People of faith, by the way. And I'm like, don't, don't get pulled into that. Like, don't let people tell you like, let's be clear. The objection to bad bunny was because it's in Spanish. It was not because it wasn't Christian or it wasn't a mayor. Like it was filled with love and happiness and it was great. Honestly, I loved community, a little business. Like, I saw a lot of conservative values there to be honest with you. Like if I went back and analyzed it, I could point out things that are like, this is what America stands for. I also think Arthur Brooks, sorry, I'm going deep on this. Arthur Brooks has a great piece on this today where he's like, actually bad, when he's the best representation of America, it's exporting culture, showing that the biggest Spanish language artist is an American citizen, by the way. Like, we should want that. We should want that contribution. We should want the money that it brings into the country. Like, it's just a very, it's an unfamiliar way to look at things for me. And he wasn't wearing shorts. Well, he was, I know, and lip singing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. So the other topic we talked about today was the biggest story of the weekend and just horrible. This video is shared on the president's social media platform that picked former president Obama and former first lady Michelle with the bodies of apes. What did you think of this when you first saw it? And were you even surprised at this point? I wasn't surprised though. There's that small party that wants to be like, it's AI. He didn't reach through this. Like this is fake or something. And it's like, no, it's, it's real. And it's horrible. And it's just like, it just, it feels like you say it's beneath us as a country. But it's like, but is it because this kind of stuff keeps happening, keeps being done proactively by, by certain individuals. I, I think what I was struck by a number of things, a that the Obama's don't even weigh in on this. Something about silent grace and being like, everyone knows what they saw. You don't like, you're either lying to yourself about it or you're having the wear with all to be like, yes, this is wrong. This is racist. This is disgusting. Like that's it. There's no, there's no other interpretation here and seeing people who support the president spending the day trying to like, bend themselves into pretzels, explaining it only for him to then double down on it. Like, don't do it. You don't need to, um, I don't know. It just, I kept thinking of the moment of like Obama in the Oval Office with the little boy who touches his head and like, what that meant to black children and what that meant to the community. And now 15 years later or 10, I don't know how long we are 10 years later, you're seeing this. But I do genuinely believe that like our politics is cyclical. I believe that things change and I think that the goodness that exists in this country can come back outside of politics. Just the, like, I think that there's a decency that can come back and I think people are really over how ugly it's gotten. Um, I hope I'm right. I have my speed being optimized. I believe it too. And I think the, the fact that, you know, I know you were underwhelmed with the amount of Republicans that came out and spoke against this, but maybe the bar so low. I was like, oh, wow, Tim Scott. I was like, okay, I know he's like, I hope it's fake. I was like, it isn't though. Yeah. But he called it racist. He said it what it was. I mean, yeah, it was, it did feel like the most significant backlash to something in this term. Yeah. Again, the bar is low, but I think it's just, it's an offensive. Today, I want to tell you about one of our partners, reafflead. 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. 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Arve him once a month. This might be a hit. You want to treat. They just want to conviction. Inpress your ass. We had a killer monster murder at the U. Listen now. I can tell you're getting emotional about this, but it kind of leads to the next question. So with the Olympics going on, there's some Olympic athletes that have said they feel conflicted about representing the country on the world stage because of what's happening here right now. They've gotten a lot of one in particular. It's gotten a lot of backlash from the president. What do you think of this? And as somebody who is very patriotic, how do you feel about it? I know, I was hoping there was so much to cover. I wanted to talk about this. Well, first and foremost, one of the most American things that we should we should prize and be grateful for is our ability to have free speech and to express our political viewpoints. So anyone who's suggesting that these athletes don't have a right to is ridiculous. I feel very strongly that you can be so proud to be American. You can be a patriot and you can also call balls and strikes about what's wrong with their country. Yeah. Patriotism does not mean blind loyalty to anything that the federal government does or your government does. I'd say that's actually anti patriotic when you're defending things that the government does that are out of step with the values that the nation was founded on. And I think that, listen, on the world stage, how America's represented matters, but I think that we're in a moment where you've had the president on the world stage not represent us. Well, how are you going to come for Olympic athletes who are asked a question, give their authentic opinion, something that they have every right to, and that's somehow more offensive than when the president's been critical of our own government, of our own, you know, fellow Americans on the world stage. It's just it's disappointing. But she J.D. Vance getting booed at the opening ceremonies. Yeah. It's not a moment that people are our allies feel like we've left them behind. They feel like we're uncertain. They feel like we're fickle friends. Like we're not real true friends the way that we have been in the past. And I find that like I'm sorry, I care a lot more about how our European allies who came to our aid after 9-11, view us than the words of an Olympic athlete who has every right to speak out. And given this is the second time this has happened now in 10 years. It's harder to dismiss it. It's hard to feel like even if there's someone next time that goes back to the norms, well, that'd be trusted because it's just an election away, you know, it's it's hard. It is it runs very deep. I don't know what healing like this moment and moving on from it looks like, but I do think that there's this. I think that people falsely conflate patriotism with just like blindly rooting for anything the American government does if it's your guy in charge. That's the other thing because it's we can often you see a lot of the same people deeply critical when someone else is in leadership. And I think at the end of the day, it should always come back to the values that were meant to reflect as a country. Standing by our friends, showing up for them, you know, basically everything laid out in the Constitution, freedom of religion, speech, freedom of the press. When we're standing by those things, you don't have to be embarrassed on the world, say you don't have to equivocate. I'm in listen, I mentioned all this by also saying there are far more repressive, difficult, horrible countries on earth. I still think we're the greatest nation on earth. But I think that you stay the greatest nation on earth where you improve by calling balls and strikes, not pretending that you're perfect. Yeah. Let's get one more topic in. One more bravo topic before you leave us. Very important. This will be the last bravo topic I do for two months. Plus. Yes. All right. The new season of summer house is on and the big storyline is about Amanda and Kyle, who have announced they are separating. Sorry, Amanda. I've been told that they broke up because Kyle, who was in his 40s, is now a DJ and goes out every night. Tell me more about this. Well, this, everyone saw this coming and I never want to root against a marriage. But like, hey, I don't get how these people in their 40s like send it as hard as they do. Like my ability to, I beg my pregnant, I really drink it all anymore when I'm not pregnant. Like sleep is important. Being like healthy is important. And this was a classic, Amanda basically got married and laid out very clear expectations. Like he already owns an alcohol brand. That's fine. Now he wants to DJ and she's like, I just want a partner who's going to be an adult and be in like the phase of life we're in together. I think it's good for her that she's getting out of it now. But I think like, in general, you just have to be super blunt with your partner. Like there is no world in like, where Justin would come home and be like, well, I'm going to go DJ till three in the morning. Like that just would never exist. Right. If it did, you would have strong feelings. We would have a such strong feelings who'd be physically barricaded into my house. Like that's just never going to happen. You have to be on the same page. It just can't work if your lifestyles are that different. Who is more blunt? You or Justin about things that are upsetting to them. Justin usually but pregnant, I'm very blunt. And I think you're very empowered to be blunt when pregnant. I believe that you now have the power to be blunt forever. Once you're the mom, I think so too. I think so too. I'm seeing the dynamic shift in a little bit. It's a big shift. Yeah. It's a big shift. Let me tell you, 14 years in. It's a big shift. All right. And then a lot of these reality shows are like kind of centering on going out and drinking. This is not just unique to this. But you think that trend is changing now. Tell me about what? Yeah. You've noticed this. But I definitely think with millennials, like we were kind of the end of the parting generation. Like our 20s, we would go out late. We would drink. We'd somehow make it into work. I would drink sometimes five to seven days a week. Like you literally would do happy hour after work. Right. And weekends you'd go out. And now, nearly all my friends, you go to a super bowl party, half of them are sober or like sober, curious and barely drinking. And I think a lot is learning more about like health, longevity or mental health. But I think that this, like, I think there's a little bit of a toxic drinking culture that we as like a country haven't really talked about. I think Jen Z. Get said. They're drinking less. But this idea that like we solve all our problems by being like, all right, I'm going to down four martinis. That's not good. That's not healthy. And I've been like really pleasantly surprised by like across the board, people of my generation are like looking to be healthier and to just be drinking alcohol. There's definitely something about, I mean, I have friends that still drink very hard. I've never been that guy. And I still get like the text on Saturday morning like, oh, I can't get up like, you know, how do you do that? And I'm, you know, I'm going to be 50 this year. Like I can't imagine that. I'm sober and unconscious at 10 o'clock every night. I'm an old man now. My kids are like, Dad, like we don't, we never see you. You go to sleep. I'm like, I can't do it. I got it. I'm pressed you stamped to the dead. I mean, it's a chore. But yeah, this is what you have to look forward to. Exactly. Yeah. I'm so excited for you. Really sincerely. It's going to be great. I can't wait to get lots of updates. Yes. And you're going to be missed. But we will see tomorrow. You're going to have fun shows, though. We will. And we'll see you tomorrow. Thank you for joining me, Alyssa. Tomorrow, Joy Bayhara returns to the podcast. We've missed her too. And we'll see you there.
