Remembering Feminist Trailblazer Gloria Steinem

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1:29Ty Cobb:Welcome to The Beat. The nation today is mourning. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem. Women's rights leader has died at the age of 92. We will be remembering her in depth later on in tonight's show. I wanted to tell you that up top. We begin with the pivotal court hearing today challenging Trump's plot to corrupt midterm ballots. This is a story that's staying in the news because Trump apparently fears losing and wants to cheat. A federal judge sounding skeptical of the Trump administration's unprecedented effort to basically try to seize ballot review powers through the Postal Service. I don't even have a declaration from the Postal Service, the judge said, such as this is how it'll work.

2:12Ty Cobb:Continuing, I don't have it. I have nothing. And in this hearing, it was casting the Trump administration's pitch as absurd, saying, so we're going to do a test run on this election. We're not playing an intellectual puzzle game, the judge continued. We're talking about people's right to vote. Late this afternoon, the administration is now going back to the Supreme Court, basically trying to lure them into this rushed sort of shadow docket process. Trump also, meanwhile, pushing for this Trumpy midterm convention. convention, and that effort is collapsing in real time. Candidates skipping it, trying to keep their distance from the unpopular incumbent.

2:49Ty Cobb:Republican Karl Rove warning Trump, if your approval rating is low, making the election even more about you only helps the opposition. Why is Team Trump talking about making the president the face of the GOP campaign? The answer, says the Republican, narcissism. So you have a GOP vet there saying in public what so many others in the party lament, basically in private usually, that Trump is now paving the way for even larger losses for his party. Republicans bracing for a Democratic majority and they're lawyering up already, looking for litigators, ways to expand privilege, reviewing oversight material from Trump's last term, all to prepare for an expected, quote, onslaught from Democrats.

3:29Ty Cobb:That's a political account that assumes the Democrats would win. I want to bring someone in who knows exactly that intersection of the White House, the law and oversight, as well as the psychology of Donald Trump, former White House attorney, often critical now of the Trump administration. Ty Cobb, welcome back. Good to be with you, Ari. You've said on this program and elsewhere that people should take very seriously the assorted plots to kneecap the midterms. What is your view of what's happened here? The Supreme Court kind of reopening the door and lower courts now trying to slow it down. So I think with regard to the Supreme Court's action, you know, what they did was was really not consequential in the negative, in my view.

4:14I mean, what they said was you can't really enjoin a proposed rule. You have to wait till it's final. Judge Tolwani waited until it was final. And then she and then she enjoined the and then she enjoined the rule preliminarily. And she's now considering whether to enter an injunction, you know, bringing it to a full stop, which I believe she will do based on the hearing today. Clearly, the Postal Service is not ready for this. Clearly, it is designed and intended by the president to disenfranchise voters, particularly Hispanic voters, people of color and people of lesser means. So I think that the court is going to go that route.

4:59I suspect and I'm hopeful that the Supreme Court will agree with her that, A, it's both unconstitutional and, B, too disruptive of the upcoming election to go forward with the president's effort, which is basically designed to try to aggregate control over elections in the executive branch of government, which is excluded under the Constitution from any role. And in connection with elections, which are largely left to the states to determine. Yeah.

5:35Ty Cobb:And you're reminding everyone that while there are reasons to be skeptical of this Supreme Court, that original thing was about timing. It wasn't saying this is OK or go ahead. It was about timing, which is why something I think you and I know is that lawyers can be annoying at work, at dinner parties, in all sorts of forums where they start telling everyone about, well, it's not really this. It's the timing, it's the standards, the procedural posture. But you're right. It was that limited. I want to show you Trump's troubles at Trumpifying the midterms. Republicans don't want it. Here's some of the coverage about the convention.

6:14The midterm convention in Dallas is being called Trumpapalooza. But it comes as President Trump's approval rating is underwater. And at least 45 Republican lawmakers have told Politico they're going to skip it. Will you be there?

6:28Ty Cobb:I had stuff already planned in my congressional district. Some Republicans aren't going or they're unhappy because they have to pay$25 ,000 per House member, per Republican going to attend. Is that normal from your experience? I've never heard of anything like that myself. Tim Burchett was saying he got a bill for$25K. They're supposed to be raising money for the candidates. Yes, it's the... Ty, your view on this, you've been in Trump's White House. This doesn't seem strategic. and how significant is it that so many Republicans are saying no? Well, I think the Republicans who are saying no are being strategic.

7:02This is a president whose approval ratings are in the tank and they're doing their best they can to distance themselves from him, not aggressively and certainly not directly, but to the extent that they can get their constituents to focus on their records, It's not the president's record. That's what that's what they would prefer. Now, you know, as you pointed out, you know, Trump has has come out and said to to the Republican, you know, nominees and people running for reelection that what they should do is talk about all his achievements. They should pump him up, which is consistent with his narcissism in the sense that, you know, the more they do to make him seem grandiose, you know, the better he'll feel about it.

7:50But at the same time, he's sitting on$400 million in campaign money that he could donate to some of these elections. And he's not. You know, the thinking is that he would rather keep it for his presidential library or other personal interests. But it but it also plays into a narrative that I think people are under undervaluing, which is I think Trump doesn't feel he needs to spend this money because it is his intention to interfere with the elections and to steal these elections where possible. And if and to the extent that they go big time against him, perhaps even support Mike Johnson and urge him not to seat democratically elected representatives.

8:35Ty Cobb:Right. And then you have the actual constitutional crisis. We had a sedition and we know that Trump is pro sedition because he freed every last one of them. And you're saying then you can get another constitutional crisis second term where it gets worse. And so people have to be ready. The society has to be ready to take that seriously as a prospect. I want to show you Ted Cruz. I don't know if he's telling stories out of school or what he's thinking, but discussing the moment that he says Trump saw that Elon Musk, who has a large following, was naming him in the Epstein files. Take a look. That is when Elon Musk tweeted that Trump was on the Epstein list.

9:14Ty Cobb:Natalie comes in, printed on a piece of paper and hands it to him. And he literally reads that tweet. and I'm sitting in the Oval and his knuckles turn white. He was so pissed. I joked, I learned some curse words I didn't even know. And I will say our school choice meeting went off the rails. We were done talking about school choice and Trump had some technicolor views to say about Elon. Your view on that moment as recounted? Yes, I think, you know, we all remember the public split between Trump and Elon. I think that's largely healed now because they find each other necessary for the other in their own self-interest.

10:00You've seen Elon Musk recently start to open up his expansive pocketbook on behalf of Republican candidates, even though the president has not. But, you know, and I think the president is hoping that maybe Elon can fill the void there with his with his vast riches. But, yes, no, I think I think, you know, that was a that was a moment that that we all remember. You know, Trump's, you know, unhappiness about being in the Epstein files and the fact that people know about the Epstein files is why Mike Johnson held Congress out for two months to avoid. I avoid the passage of the original Epstein disclosure law.

10:40and why he actually this week, actually, you know, just in the last 48 hours, has taken action to ensure that Congress cannot be in session for the seven consecutive days necessary to get the discharge petition that Thomas Massey intended for his second round of Epstein disclosure legislation.

10:59Ty Cobb:Well, you know, no surprise. You got it locked and loaded, all the details. And you're reminding folks that Massey is a Republican who was a profile in courage, who fought this all out and didn't back down. Ty's agreed to stay. I want to show what is a basically broken law in public, in real time, the U.S. Treasury breaking federal law to put Trump on this coin. It's a version of his mugshot face. And I want to get your response in 90 seconds.

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13:40Ty Cobb:We're back with Trump White House, veteran Ty Cobb. The news today, the Treasury has moved forward with this completely unprecedented coin with a living president on it. This is taxpayer resources, federal resources. Rolls of 25 coins cost 61 bucks. The big problem here is not taste. It's not whether people think that it is gauche and self-dealing to put this photo, which is modeled off the expression he made in the mugshot. on Treasury coinage. The big point is the federal law says only the portrait of a deceased individual can appear on U.S. currency. No coin in a presidential series may bear the image of any living or former president.

14:20Ty Cobb:This has been thought of before and banned for that reason. And no portrait of a living person in general, even beyond the political issues of a president promoting himself this way. How do you view this illegal act? Well, I think it tells us a lot, But it tells us a lot, though, I'm afraid we already know. I mean, Trump is like no other president. You know, the norms that other presidents held close to their heart, which were to, you know, try to portray themselves as, you know, courageous, virtuous, honest. Trump, I mean, he makes no effort to do that. You know, he's none of those things. In fact, he showboats his corruption and his vanity.

15:02This is, you know, a defiance of federal law. We're going to see more and more of that. We saw recently at the Justice Department when at Trump's direction, the Justice Department fell into line and tried to extend executive privilege to private communications with private individuals, which is constitutionally absurd, of course. But they do that in an effort to try to insulate, you know, Trump and his community of sycophants, from the upcoming investigations that are virtually certain if the Democrats take the House. We see this in the vanity projects, the arc to Trump, which, you know, is nobody wants except the president, the paving of the Rose Garden, the gold-plated Oval Office, turning the White House into a whorehouse, adding a ballroom that nobody in the world thinks we need except Trump.

15:56And it just, we're going to see this constantly unless and until he's gone. And it won't be until then that we have a chance to restore America to the virtuous, aspirational type of things that our previous leaders, you know, have held dear.

16:13Ty Cobb:Yeah. Well, you're very clear on this. You've served in government and it's really striking. And we've had on Stephen Miller, Lewandowski and others from the administration. They're Welcome to come back if they can face the questions, what we've got in your perspective tonight, so people can make up their minds about the times we're living through. Ty Cobb, always good to have you, sir. Great to be with you, Ari. Have a great weekend. You too, sir. Appreciate it. Have a good long weekend there. By the end of the hour, we'll look at why colleges are hitting$100 ,000 a year. What's gone wrong in American education?

16:42Ty Cobb:But as I told you, we have a very special piece as we mourn Gloria Steinem. what she meant, what matters now when we hear about these right-wing gender wars, and a special guest. That's next.

17:04Ty Cobb:Now we turn to feminist activist, writer, and women's rights pioneer Gloria Steinem. She built a career in political movement that was once deemed impossible for women like her when she was growing up, beginning as a freelance writer and journalist, covering stories often ignored in the then very male-dominated press. That included harassment and discrimination against women working at New York's Playboy Club. And choosing to cover those stories was viewed by many as a kind of a gendered political choice. She was writing about facts that were just undercover. And she joined the fight as an activist and spokeswoman for equality.

17:41We have got here a revolution.

17:47This inhuman system of exploitation will change, but only if we force it to change. Stand here not only for the Equal Rights Amendment, but in the names of all the women in this country who struggle with two jobs when men have one. Do we understand that this is a revolution we will live for, not die for? Now, thanks to the spirit of equality in the air and to the work of many of my more foresighted sisters, I no longer accept society's judgment. This is a revolution that cannot fail. It has just begun. It is alive all over the world and we cannot lose. was.

18:30Ty Cobb:Steinem lived for it. It remains alive. She dies at 92. She helped found and edit Miss Magazine, which intentionally centered women and their demands for equality. Its 1972 debut confronted abortion rights and gender roles that were not being widely covered at the time. The magazine has noted that it was the first major outlet to advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment, to put domestic violence on its cover, to report on a national study about date rape, So how did that all go? Well, the magazine was ultimately influential. It was a hit among many women and some liberals, but its early issues, we should remember, were greeted with all kinds of attacks and skepticism, including a retort that came from the apex of journalism at the time.

19:16Ty Cobb:60 Minutes Harry Reasoner said, quote, I'll give it six months before they run out of things to say. That was considered diplomatic. Steinem, of course, was facing a nation that maligned women for daring to demand equality anywhere, at home or at work, often with far harsher words, as the CBC reported when talking to her in 1971. I keep meeting women who I've heard all my life are bitchy and pushy and so on and so forth. I meet them and they're nice, compassionate people. If you don't play your role, you know, if you dare to aspire to something, then you get it automatically.

20:05Ty Cobb:Steinem stood out with her ideas, with her writing, with her leadership and her voice, as you heard just there. And she soon catapulted basically into a sudden national political force, speaking at the Democrat 72 convention and holding court on the leading political talk shows. You said that revolution, not reform, is what's needed. On the basis of what you saw at the Democratic Convention, do you now think women can win rights by working through the political system? I think we have to use a variety of methods. We can't neglect the ways in which demonstrations and other kinds of techniques influence the changes that are made.

20:47In other words, we need a multiplicity of tactics in order to get changes within the system.

20:54Ty Cobb:Steinem building on what had been a civil rights playbook that tries to combine the inside and outside game. She later recounted how, of course, trees grow from the bottom when it comes to grassroots pressure for abortion rights. Those early protests and marches did force women's rights, reproductive health and abortion rights onto the national agenda at a time when we should remember, you can check, Congress was over 95 % male. So if change was going to come anywhere, it was probably going to come from the grassroots people or the courts, not from all male committees that you see there. She discussed this in an interview a year before the Supreme Court recognized abortion as a constitutional right.

21:38Over the years, male-dominated legislatures and courts have tossed around women's rights like a political football. We are here to make known the unity of women behind the demand that abortion be a woman's right to choose. We will work on a national level to win legal recognition of our right to abortion by choice. We are carrying on many kinds of campaigns to make known the attacks on women's right to abortion and to expose those who are perpetrating them. That's what it looks like in history, but also today, right now.

22:10Ty Cobb:And when you really take this seriously and look at the political and intellectual building blocks, Steinem was building on earlier gains in American feminist activism. Women pushing back in the 70s against the dated critiques that their demands were overly personal. A sense of sort of trying to miniaturize or demean what they were fighting for, saying, oh, you're only interested in the personal, the home or the doctor's office or treatment by men from the workplace to social spaces. But of course, that led to the maxim that women rallied around in second wave feminism. The personal is political, that the conditions and oppression that women were facing was entirely public and political and, yes, changeable.

22:53Ty Cobb:That meant, of course, drawing on their own experiences. Steinem discussed her own London abortion, which was illegal when she had it in 1957. that was itself a revolutionary way to fight and advocate. Sharing her experience as a woman was not just personal. It was a political act. Just as Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez recently broke ground sharing her fertility treatment and then drawing gender double standard reactions about her, a woman in office, doing that now in 2026. Steinem also created the National Women's political caucus, one of several groups that tried to diversify Congress and elected officials.

23:32Ty Cobb:Women's representation, we should note, has surged from under 10 percent of the U.S. House to 30 percent today. Both parties now have featured women on the national ticket. That is a profound shift. Women still lag, though, far behind in private sector leadership positions, let alone pay parity, which is the kind of structural inequality that will not be fixed by one candidate or election. It's what Steinem argued required attendant structural change, pushing for the Equal Rights Amendment, which was never ratified. What is the strongest argument against it? What do people fear most from it? Money, money, money, money.