Shannon Bream is the author of the new book, Finding the Bright Side: How To Find The Positive Side Of Life, and a regular contributor to the New York Times and CNN. She talks about how she stays positive in the face of adversity, what it s like being a journalist, and how she keeps perspective on the bigger picture. She also talks about her faith and how it helps keep her perspective on life and what she does to stay positive in a world where things can feel dark and dark times can feel like they re never going to end. She also discusses the importance of being objective and balanced, and why objective journalism is more important than having a balanced point of view on a particular issue, even if you don t agree with both sides of the argument. Thanks to Shannon Bream for coming on The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special with Ben Shapiro! Ben Shapiro is the host of the conservative radio show "The Weekly Standard" and host of "The Ben Shapiro Report" on Fox News Radio's "Fox Business" where he hosts a weekly political talk show with guests such as Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin and Sarah Palin's daughter, Sarah's husband, Sarah, and her husband, Michael Bloomberg. The Shapiro Report is a show that focuses on the intersection of politics, economics, and culture and culture, and is a must-listen for all things related to politics, business, finance, and entertainment in Washington, D.C. and politics. Subscribe to the Ben Shapiro's newest podcast, The Weekly Standard, wherever you get your news and opinions on the latest breaking news and opinion, and everything else going on the political and culture in Washington. . Click here to get the latest in politics and culture. Check out the latest and breaking news. Get exclusive access to Ben Shapiro s newest book, "Finding The Bright Side" by Shannon's newest novel, Finding The Brightside: How to Find the Brightest Side: What's Good, Good Things Happen in the Real Life? and why you should listen to it on the show and more! Subscribe for a chance to win tickets to the next episode of "Finding the Brightside of the bright side of it all! Find out more like it on social media and more by using the show that s better than you can vlogs and more like that! Learn more about it on Insta: Subscribe and share it on your favorite podcasting platform,
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00:01:41.000Well, Shannon, thanks so much for stopping by.
00:02:03.000Sometimes you have to compartmentalize things, and we do report on things that are really tough, especially if it's, you know, a situation with a loss of life.
00:02:09.000It could be natural disasters, you know, a terrorist attack, whatever it is.
00:02:12.000You have to do what you have to do in the moment, report these things.
00:02:15.000But for me, I try to separate that and have my real life where I have a little bit of perspective on the bigger picture.
00:02:21.000For me, my faith is at the center of everything, and that's really my compass and kind of where I have my foundation.
00:02:26.000And so for a lot of people, I think, I'm not sure where they put their roots and where they kind of find that stability, but that's it for me.
00:02:32.000So, one of the big controversies that's broken out in sort of the journalistic sphere is the objective journalist versus opinion journalist divide.
00:02:38.000Now, I'm very obviously an opinion journalist.
00:03:29.000And on the other side, the very same show, I have people who will say, obviously, you're taking all of your talking points straight from the White House.
00:03:35.000The president told you exactly what to say.
00:03:36.000And I think, well, if people don't know where I'm coming from personally, then I've done my job.
00:03:40.000Because, of course, all of us have our own opinions as human beings.
00:03:44.000But my goal every night in doing this show is that people don't know what my personal opinions are.
00:03:55.000You see a lot of politicians, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle, now having this open debate about whether it's even appropriate to do things like appear on Fox News, whether to do these town hall events with the objective side of Fox News, people like Brett Baier.
00:04:07.000And then you have Senator Elizabeth Warren who goes on The View and says, well, Fox News is a hate machine and a propaganda machine.
00:05:27.000But when it comes to putting our shows together, making editorial decisions, there's really no crossover at all.
00:05:32.000I mean, we're friendly with each other, but we have completely different production staffs.
00:05:36.000And the way that we tackle our shows, I think, is very different.
00:05:38.000So given sort of the politically fraught nature of the moment and the very strong opinions that people hold about President Trump, what do you think is the best way as an objective journalist to cover President Trump?
00:05:48.000From the left, there's been a contention that if you treat anything that is pro-Trump with any level of seriousness, that you are somehow contributing to his fake news narrative or that you are somehow covering for him.
00:05:59.000On the right, there's this feeling that if you criticize President Trump at all, then you are being disloyal or that you are treating him As something terrible.
00:06:08.000What is the best way to cover President Trump?
00:06:10.000And how exactly do you separate the narrative from the news when you do this?
00:06:42.000But again, if it's factual information, it's data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on unemployment, those kinds of things, that's what we traffic in, in the news side.
00:06:49.000That's what we do in our particular hour.
00:06:52.000And I find that so much of people's reaction is projection.
00:06:58.000And I think that their feelings factor into the way that they hear what we're saying.
00:07:02.000So we try to be very careful in the way that we present things, knowing that people are going to come at it from, you know, often very tribal places.
00:07:09.000And sometimes we have to remind ourselves more about their emotions, and things are so emotional and passionate on both sides right now.
00:07:15.000It's more about that than it is about what we're presenting.
00:07:18.000So what do you make of the critique that the Trump administration is somehow uniquely stonewalling?
00:07:24.000The critique is that they are a threat to press freedom.
00:07:27.000You have Jim Acosta, and ladies, find you someone who loves you like Jim Acosta loves Jim Acosta.
00:07:31.000But you have Jim Acosta at CNN who actually puts out books about how victimized he is from an air-conditioned office in Washington, D.C.
00:07:38.000So as a journalist, what's your impression of how transparent the Trump administration is or is not?
00:07:43.000I think, if anything, I would say that this administration, sometimes there are members of it who feel like they're too transparent, because he does say and think what he, you know, he puts it all out there, whether it's on Twitter, whether it's stopping to talk at these gaggles as he does so often when he comes to or from the White House.
00:07:59.000I mean, that's something we didn't always get with previous administrations.
00:08:03.000He will stop and take question after question, and I think in the beginning there were probably some people on the No, no, let's keep it moving.
00:08:08.000Just get on Marie One and let's go on this trip.
00:08:13.000But I think his critics are going to say, yeah, he's been really nasty to the press.
00:08:16.000The fact that he points them out or calls them out when they're at these rallies, he always points to them in the back.
00:08:21.000It's something you see him consistently do.
00:08:23.000He knows it's a winning talking point for him with a crowd who's there.
00:08:26.000But as far as transparency is concerned, I think he's made himself in ways that are very unique to him, much more available to the press and to these questions than a lot of people have in the past.
00:08:36.000Because even if he's doing a joint presser with a foreign leader, he ends up taking all kinds of questions that I think sometimes people in his staff who are trying to manage him would like him to do less of that.
00:08:46.000But I think he's made himself pretty available.
00:08:48.000I think every White House is going to be criticized for not turning over more documents or having more press conferences because they are limited in that respect.
00:08:55.000We don't have a ton of press conferences and briefings from them that we've had more of those in the past.
00:09:00.000So I think he gives you a little bit more on the personal side.
00:09:03.000But I think on the more structured side of the way that this administration talks to people, certainly there are those in the press who wish it more of that.
00:09:09.000And one of the things that's been kind of fascinating is to watch the dynamic between President Trump and Fox News.
00:09:14.000So, he'll tweet things out where it's as though he has certain expectations that Fox News is going to cover him in a particular way.
00:09:20.000Again, making, I think, some of the same mistakes that people on the left make.
00:09:23.000Mistaking the opinion stuff, the Sean Hannity show, for your show, for example.
00:09:28.000Or the idea that if Fox News has a town hall with Pete Buttigieg, that this is somehow Fox News now supporting Pete Buttigieg when before they were just the Trump network.
00:09:36.000And that seems to have Created a false perception of Fox News among people right and left.
00:09:42.000So, in your mind, what do you think Fox News actually is?
00:09:44.000Because, obviously, it's a huge talking point for people on both sides of the aisle.
00:09:48.000What I think is interesting about Fox, and I always tell this story about my dad's birthday is the same day that Fox launched, and he loved that because he is, you know, he's a former law enforcement officer.
00:09:59.000Everybody says, never a former, but I just mean that he's not in this earth anymore, to say oorah.
00:10:04.000But he felt like when Fox launched, it actually was a place that presented stories and viewpoints that he felt represented for the first time in a long time in the media.
00:10:12.000Not that they were taking his side, but at least that they told his part of the story or that they looked at stories that other people would overlook.
00:10:20.000So I think about a lot of people like my parents and people out there in America feel like, okay, this is a place that's at least going to treat our viewpoint like it's one worthy of conversation or being included.
00:10:32.000So I think Fox is unique in some of the stories that we pick and the way that we do things.
00:10:35.000There's definitely the opinion contingent, which is highly popular and has a very devoted fan base.
00:10:41.000But we do make a real effort to keep a dividing line between that and the news division.
00:10:45.000So I think in the news division, we do stories that you may not hear other places and we tackle stories in a different way.
00:10:51.000But our commitment is always to have both sides on.
00:10:53.000I don't think it's interesting to go on and have You know, any kind of conversation about a particular issue, whether it's abortion or taxation or whatever it is, and only have one side.
00:11:02.000I think it's a much more interesting conversation for people to make sure you have two or three sides, or however many you can fit into a broadcast, to have that conversation.
00:11:19.000So, let's talk a little bit about your sort of backstory, so how you got where you are, because there's a lot of this in your book, Finding the Bright Side.
00:11:25.000So, if you go back all the way to the beginning, you grew up in a very Christian household that had very solid values.
00:11:31.000Obviously, you talk at the beginning of the book, first few chapters, about your mom and how she really impacted your life.
00:11:35.000I was hoping maybe you could talk a little bit about that.
00:11:37.000Yeah, I talk about, the chapter about her is called The Meanest Mom in the World, and people cringe sort of when I say that, but the truth is, she embraced that title.
00:11:44.000There was actually a yarn sale that she went to, which is the kind of thing we would have done growing up, that there was a plaque there called Meanest Mom in the World.
00:11:50.000She actually found it when the book came out and tweeted, and texted me a picture of it, because it does exist, and it's hilarious, because it talks about sort of like, I'm not your friend, we will be one day, but right now I'm here to keep you on a straight and narrow, and keep you out of trouble, my word goes, and that's it, kind of thing.
00:12:04.000She hung that up in the kitchen, and that really is how I grew up.
00:12:06.000I mean, I really was not allowed to listen to secular music.
00:12:09.000There was definitely no dancing and that kind of thing.
00:12:12.000There was a ton of love, though, and I understood the discipline because I was, from a young age, always asking, why?
00:12:19.000And my parents allowed me to do that, but they tried to channel that energy in positive ways and kind of keep me on the straight and narrow.
00:12:26.000And, you know, the little things that I did here and there, they got me into trouble.
00:12:52.000And you really did lead an extraordinarily clean life.
00:12:55.000I mean, for somebody who's in sort of public life, this is considered taboo now.
00:12:59.000I mean, as a person who, you know, was religious also from youth, who is an outspoken virgin until marriage, as somebody who believes in those sort of social standards, it's unique to read a book where somebody talks about...
00:13:26.000I grew up in Tallahassee, so I had a full ride to Florida State academically, and it made sense to stay home and be in Florida and be close to my family and go to college basically for free.
00:13:36.000Listen, if you want to go to a place like Liberty where you're going to get an education, but you're also going to have people investing in your faith and allowing you to grow in that the whole time, we're open to that too, even though I knew financially it would be tougher for them for me to do that.
00:13:48.000So, I did take classes right out of high school at Florida State.
00:13:51.000It's a great university, but I realized that very first class that I had in psychology that there were going to be serious questions about my faith.
00:13:58.000We were asked to write about the most important thing in our lives, and I talked about my relationship with God, and I had a professor who wasn't Nasty about it, but was sort of patronizing, like, you'll get over that at some point.
00:14:15.000Is this what I want to do for the next four years?
00:14:17.000Or do I want to have another four years of kind of really rooting myself in my faith?
00:14:21.000And Liberty has very interesting classes that are required for everybody to take that are kind of apologetics classes and really questioning and digging into the doubts about your faith and learning the other side of the argument.
00:14:33.000And I thought, I think I'll do four more years of that before I get into the world that's going to constantly be questioning the most important thing in my life.
00:14:41.000One of the things that I found interesting in the book, and I found this is to be a common thread, you know, for a lot of the folks that I interview who are very successful, is that you were bullied and not treated great back when you were in high school.
00:14:50.000And now it's funny because whenever you see people who are super successful and they say, well, I was bullied back in high school, people tend to think, no, that's not right.
00:14:56.000Especially somebody like you, you were, you know, in the Miss, you're the winner of the Miss USA pageant.
00:15:14.000I was sort of a nerd, partially because my mom was omnipresent at everything that I was ever trying to do, and giving out detentions and stuff to the cool kids in school, so there were times when it was hard to try to be cool at all.
00:15:25.000I was a voracious reader, so I had, you know, these thick glasses.
00:15:34.000And I joke, but really I think the only reason I had any friends is because we had a pool.
00:15:37.000So people would want to come to our house, hang out at the pool.
00:15:40.000And I might have been in my room reading books, but they're there having a great time jumping around in the pool.
00:15:44.000So I just, and I still, I think, carry this, which I think is a good thing to feel like you're always sort of on the outside a little bit looking in.
00:15:51.000And I felt that way as a kid, and I certainly was not cool.
00:15:54.000There was a very cool girl who ended up being a great friend of mine who lived across the street from me.
00:15:58.000She was a little bit older, didn't have any of the rules that I had, and I thought she was super cool because she listened to all, you know, these hair bands, and they had cable at their house.
00:16:06.000I mean, all these things we never would have had.
00:16:08.000But I remember she used to make fun of me for just how sheltered she thought I was and uncool that I was.
00:16:14.000But I think it makes you get a little bit of a shell and almost a badge of, yeah, I don't have to cave into peer pressure.
00:16:20.000I joke in the book, I didn't have a ton of peers pressuring me to do anything, but I wasn't afraid to kind of be my own person and stand up and kind of be a little bit of an outsider.
00:16:28.000And I still kind of, on the inside, I think I'll always feel that way.
00:16:31.000So in a second, I'm going to ask you about how you got from doing stuff at Liberty University and going on trips to Brazil to do humanitarian aid to doing beauty pageants.
00:16:40.000I'm going to get to that in just one second.
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00:17:08.000That totally would have helped me back in high school.
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00:17:25.000That means if you don't love that first pair, you get a full refund.
00:18:09.000And as I got older, I learned a lot more about the Miss America pageant, that it actually, most of the winnings that you would have are paid in scholarship, where you actually then, if you have scholarship money, you have to submit to them, you know, your tuition bills and that kind of thing.
00:18:21.000And it's very much pushed toward getting you to finish your education and get scholarship in the process.
00:18:25.000So for me, I had a guy who cut my hair.
00:18:29.000I talk about him in the book who was running one of these local pageants that fed into Miss America.
00:18:44.000And I went on to win this little local pageant.
00:18:47.000I go off to Miss Virginia still with this horrible stage fright about playing the piano.
00:18:51.000And it really deepened my prayer life, I say to people, because I was so terrified.
00:18:55.000I'm praying the whole time onto the stage, through the piece, you know, getting through it and just saying, like, God, I know that you've brought me here for a reason, and I have to depend on you in this terrifying situation.
00:19:05.000Which I think a lot of things in life, if they scare you, it's kind of a good idea to try it.
00:19:09.000And that's kind of how I viewed this whole thing.
00:19:11.000And a few months later, I was there in the finals of Miss America, never thinking as a 19-year-old I was going to go from almost falling off the stage with embarrassment and forgetting my piece to being in the finals of Miss America.
00:19:21.000It's like, unlike anything I ever did before, it enabled me to graduate from college with zero debt, which was a huge gift to my family because I come from a modest background.
00:19:30.000But it forced me to go out and travel on my own, speak, really dig into a lot of ideas.
00:19:35.000The very first question I got at Miss America was, there was a KKK rally in Georgia yesterday.
00:19:40.000Is that really what the First Amendment?
00:19:50.000Not everyone wants to walk on stage in a swimsuit and high heels.
00:19:53.000But that was actually the least of my worries.
00:19:56.000The whole rest of the process was much more terrifying to me than walking around in my swimsuit.
00:20:00.000There's been a lot of criticism of the pageant, specifically because of the sort of swimsuit aspect of it, from both sort of the feminist left and also from the social con right.
00:20:08.000People saying, well basically isn't that just skimpy attire?
00:20:12.000What's your take on whether these pageants should continue to include things like swimsuit competitions?
00:20:17.000I mean, to me, nobody is forcing you to do this.
00:20:20.000if you choose this way potentially to put yourself through school or to, you know, push yourself intellectually to really dig into these issues for a lot of the young women, that's the toughest part is doing the interview and having to dig into questions like the First Amendment or gun control or whatever it is.
00:20:35.000There are a lot of political questions in the pageant now.
00:20:37.000So I think that there are a lot of ways to look at how it pushes you.
00:20:40.000I mean, for me, the physical aspect of it was the least of it.
00:20:43.000It did encourage me to quit being a lazy college student and eating 24-7 and be much more disciplined in that part of my life.
00:20:50.000So it was disciplined across the board, not for everyone.
00:20:53.000I mean, for me, it was, you know, a great option.
00:20:56.000But I know a lot of the programs are trying to, and Miss America especially, are trying to modernize in that they're saying, if you do swimsuit, you could wear activewear if you want to.
00:21:04.000And we're not going to insist that everybody be a skeleton.
00:21:07.000I mean, it's about who you are and what your body is.
00:21:09.000And I think it's been healthy that there's been much more of an acceptance in advertising or the patents or whatever, that people are unique and they have different shape.
00:21:17.000And, you know, you could be positive about whoever you are.
00:21:20.000For me, it took me to a different level of discipline across the board that I needed as a college kid.
00:21:26.000Do you think that when it comes to pageanting that there are serious questions to be asked about objectification of women?
00:21:30.000People treating women simply as sort of pretty objects.
00:21:33.000Yes, there's all of this other aspect.
00:21:35.000There's playing music and people answering political questions.
00:21:38.000But the essence of it is it is a beauty contest.
00:21:40.000It is not just a piano playing contest.
00:21:42.000It isn't the Tchaikovsky competition in Russia.
00:21:51.000And I understand that we're having important conversations about the role of women and the role of equality and all of those kinds of things.
00:21:58.000So for me, if it's not for you, fantastic.
00:22:30.000I mean, it is pretty interesting to see this sort of uniting between, as I say, the social right and sort of the feminist left on a lot of these issues.
00:22:40.000At the same time, there's this move that's been very bizarre in both media and advertising away from basic human standards of beauty, meaning the idea is that We're supposed to pretend that a beauty pageant is no longer a beauty pageant, that basically it is the Tchaikovsky competition and the only way for this stuff to survive is for us to move away from the very idea of a beauty pageant at all.
00:22:58.000It seems to me that if you're going to do a beauty pageant, it seems like beauty should probably be part of it.
00:23:17.000I mean, they do swimsuit, evening gown, and an interview portion.
00:23:20.000They're all equal, and they don't shy away from it.
00:23:23.000And for a lot of young women who are aspiring models, actresses, the woman who just won Miss USA is a lawyer.
00:23:28.000I mean, she's actually been through school, educated, and is a practicing lawyer.
00:23:32.000So I think it's an avenue for different people to choose what they want to pursue.
00:23:37.000Miss USA makes no bones about the fact that this is a beauty pageant, this is a competition, but we also have women here who are doctors and lawyers, and if that's what they choose to do, good for them.
00:23:45.000Yeah, I mean, when I was at Harvard Law, one of my friends there was actually a former Miss America winner, Erica Harreld, who ended up running for Congress in Illinois.
00:23:51.000There are an enormous number of qualified women who actually compete in this sort of stuff and are really academically brilliant.
00:23:57.000So speaking of that, you ended up moving on into law, so how did you decide that that was the direction that you wanted to move?
00:24:03.000Well, I was always fascinated by politics and I, you know, it's all intertwined with this idea of our laws and how they come to be and how we decide to navigate our society.
00:24:13.000My dad had always said to me when I was in school, you're going to law school or med school, you're going to pick one.
00:24:17.000I don't want to hear anything about any guys or anything else until you tell me they might as well have been.
00:24:21.000They were sort of like, you pick one of those.
00:24:23.000Listen, med school was not ever going to happen for me for numerous reasons, but law school had no math, and I thought that would be a good option for me.
00:24:30.000I wasn't sure what I would do with it.
00:24:33.000I thought I want to go into law school.
00:24:35.000I think it'll be a basis for a lot of potential things.
00:24:37.000I don't know if I'll practice, which I did briefly.
00:24:40.000But I had an opportunity to go back home to Florida State in Tallahassee and to go to school basically again for free, get a law degree and then figure out what I was going to do.
00:24:48.000But even before I was out of school, I knew this is not going to be the traditional practice of law isn't what I was going to do the rest of my life.
00:25:25.000I started calling all of the local universities and schools, like, hey, can I take this credit through you so I can go intern at this?
00:25:30.000Nope, you have to come back here, get your mass comm degree when you get into your third or fourth level of classes, then we'll approve this internship credit.
00:26:06.000But then I'll also approve the credits for you to go intern at night at the station.
00:26:09.000So I did that, and I didn't tell my law firm, and I would go nights and weekends, overnights, whatever I had to do to just go intern there.
00:26:15.000I would go out with photographers, reporters.
00:26:18.000I would work the desk, answer the phone, make coffee.
00:26:53.000My husband would tell you I was tired all the time, but so happy.
00:26:56.000And so I started at the bottom, and I just, any little job they would let me take on, I learned TV production from being there and doing it.
00:27:05.000I mean, it was just one thing after another, and just learning on the job, which is a, you know, sink or swim kind of situation, but it was a great experience.
00:27:12.000Yeah, I mean, that's a very familiar story.
00:27:39.000Yeah, and I had to tell myself, even within the news business, there have been times I've taken promotions or different jobs that were tied to a financial bump.
00:27:47.000And I thought, I knew that wasn't right for me, but I did it for the wrong reasons.
00:27:50.000So I do think you have to follow your passion and what you're going to be excited to get up every day and do.
00:27:54.000So how did you get from local news all the way to Fox News being a national broadcaster?
00:27:58.000Well, I do like to include the story about getting fired from my very first TV job, because the guy who put me on TV left the station.
00:28:04.000The new guy who came in, everybody was freaked out.
00:29:59.000My husband's like, yeah, she graduated with honors.
00:30:01.000Britt says to him, do you think she would want to cover the Supreme Court for Fox News?
00:30:06.000And my husband's sort of like, I won't speak for her, but I think that would probably be a yes.
00:30:10.000So I come back in the room five, ten minutes later, and Britt literally says to me, when can you start?
00:30:15.000And I'm like, I don't know what just happened here for the past five, ten minutes, but I should be paying my husband the agency fee that we're paying to my agent.
00:30:22.000And from there, it was, you know, there were several months in there where I was still under contract with NBC, where I'm trying to work things out to get to Fox.
00:30:29.000Didn't think it was going to happen numerous times.
00:30:31.000It looked like it wouldn't come together.
00:30:32.000And I had to sort of let go of the process.
00:30:34.000And eventually, when my contract was up with NBC, I went over to Fox, thanks to Brit Hume, and I've been there ever since.
00:30:39.000So I want to ask you about the Supreme Court beat, what that was like in just one second.
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00:31:56.000So, let's talk about what it was like to cover the Supreme Court.
00:31:58.000Obviously, the Supreme Court has become an incredible hot button, certainly over the course of my lifetime.
00:32:03.000I really think it's been exacerbated really since Roe versus Wade, but even in the last 15 or 20 years, it seems to have become the number one issue on a lot of people's radar.
00:32:12.000Many people attribute President Trump's victory to the fact that there was an open Supreme Court seat and that was Scalia's seat.
00:32:17.000So, what was it like to cover the Supreme Court?
00:32:21.000When I first got started, I realized how much I had to learn.
00:32:24.000The very first giant case I covered over there was dealing with Guantanamo Bay, the rights of various prisoners there.
00:32:30.000It had been back and forth through the federal court system numerous times, and I just tried to read the record and get ready for covering it there at the Supreme Court.
00:32:37.000I was like, whoa, this is a whole different level of reporting.
00:32:42.000It's a tough beat to cover because there are almost zero leaks over there.
00:32:45.000I mean, anyone who's clerking there, they're not going to blow up their entire legal career giving you information.
00:32:49.000It's not like Congress where people are like, Here, I've got stuff I want you to talk about that I want to leave to you.
00:32:55.000But I loved it because it was an intellectual challenge for me.
00:32:57.000I was getting to use that law background doing it.
00:32:59.000I just knew I had a lot of work to do to get up to speed over there.
00:33:02.000So it was a little overwhelming in the beginning.
00:33:05.000It's a very austere place, and they don't mess around over there.
00:33:08.000But I've really enjoyed getting to know the various justices as much as you can, really trying to figure out how their brains work, how you think they're going to vote.
00:33:17.000Um, and really interpreting the oral arguments because there are a lot of them that lay booby traps on both sides and they want to play devil's advocates.
00:33:23.000You don't know how they're going to vote.
00:33:24.000Um, so yeah, I mean it has become highly political, which I don't think is what the founders ever intended for the judicial branch at all.
00:33:31.000I think it's morphed into something that's probably away from the original intentions.
00:33:36.000But covering the confirmation hearings, I should say battles over the last several years, I've never seen anything like what happened with the Kavanaugh situation.
00:33:45.000I mean, I've covered, that's probably my fifth one.
00:33:47.000There was nothing ever like that before.
00:33:49.000And I think even just, you know, you think about to, you know, Justice Kennedy, who was, you know, such a, at the end, you know, the swing vote, he hated that term.
00:34:02.000Years ago, they would confirm by voice vote.
00:34:04.000Now, it's a totally different process, and I think the whole thing has been so politicized.
00:34:09.000I think it's a little bit off the rails.
00:34:11.000What did you think of how the Kavanaugh hearings broke down?
00:34:13.000I mean, obviously, that was probably the biggest hot-button issue of the last five to ten years in American politics, maybe even surpassing the 2016 election itself.
00:34:20.000How do you think that ended up playing out?
00:34:23.000Yeah, I mean, I truly have never seen anything like that, because it was there in the room, and it became apparent within 10 seconds of then-chairman Grassley starting the hearing, it was not going to be a normal hearing at all, whether it was from the dais, from the various members, or the audience and the seats for the public.
00:34:39.000We literally from our vantage point that we're at as we're broadcasting sort of in skyboxes overlooking the area we could look down and we'd see each group that they brought in and you could immediately we'd started playing sort of bingo on the protesters like that one's gonna pop up that one's gonna pop up it was and I mean the first day it was so jarring because it happens so often by day three we were sort of like There's another protester.
00:35:00.000Capitol Police, very good with informing people.
00:35:03.000If you do this, here's what's going to happen.
00:35:04.000Quickly taking them out and moving on with the hearings.
00:35:08.000But then when we started to get the fallout from the letter that came in with Senator Feinstein revealing it, all of that that played out over the next few weeks, it just got so vitriolic.
00:35:18.000There were times that people did not feel safe.
00:35:20.000I'm talking about senators trying to get to the floor to vote.
00:35:23.000I mean, regardless of what side they were on, there were a lot of people who were very upset.
00:35:27.000I've never seen people that emotional about anything I've covered.
00:35:31.000That's certainly the most emotional topic or story that I've seen where people just were relentless about it.
00:35:37.000I mean, it has become really blood sport and it must be difficult for you.
00:35:42.000I mean, you're a woman at Fox News, which means that You're going to be shellacked by the media for having the temerity to be a woman at Fox News.
00:35:50.000I mean, now that it seems like every issue is being broken down into a certain sort of sexual politics, where women are expected to be on one side and men are expected to be on another.
00:35:56.000And Kavanaugh is an example of this, where it must have been that if you were a woman and you thought that there were holes in Christine Blasey Ford's story, then you were being disloyal to women.
00:36:04.000Even if you objectively covered that, you were being disloyal to women.
00:36:09.000Well, it's tricky because as a woman who's had a few Me Too moments myself in my life, my legal career and beyond, but also being a lawyer, I thought, we've got to be really careful about this because I'm 100% in favor, as every American I think should be, in the idea of due process.
00:36:24.000No one in this country should be accused without the opportunity to defend themselves and to have some due process.
00:36:30.000This was different because it's not a court proceeding.
00:36:32.000You know, people would say it's the most glorified job interview in the world.
00:36:36.000So I definitely had very serious concerns about due process, but as a woman who has been through some of these things, I thought, we need to hear from this person, and we need to allow senators to make informed decisions about who she is and where she's coming from.
00:36:48.000But as we started to get in that second and third and fourth tier of people who are now sending in anonymous letters, that he and his friend had sexually assaulted them multiple times in a car, but I can't name myself, the guy who got in trouble for sending in a false report about something, Um, saying that a woman was on a boat with Kavanaugh and she called him for help.
00:37:04.000I mean, it just got to be preposterous.
00:37:06.000We're like, now we're losing sight of the core story, the person who is willing to come here under oath and tell her story, his side of the story, as we're now, you know, Michael Avenatti gets into it.
00:37:17.000I mean, it turned into such a circus that I think people lost the ability to be objective about a lot of it because it became completely political and not about the substance of what was being discussed.
00:37:30.000So I want to ask you about some of those Me Too experiences.
00:37:32.000So obviously this has become a hot button issue again in the country.
00:37:36.000It seems like this has really ratcheted up since 2012 when Mitt Romney, the most anodyne human being ever to walk the earth, was supposedly waging a war on women and then that was revived obviously during 2016 when President Trump, who was not anodyne, was running for President of the United States and Hillary Clinton sort of revived that.
00:37:52.000So you've been in the TV industry, which is not Well, I mean, there's some, you know, there's the funny subtle stuff that is not a sexual assault, but it makes you very aware of some gender stereotypes and things.
00:38:12.000I can remember as a young attorney that I was conducting a deposition and the person came in that day with their lawyer.
00:38:17.000I met them out front and they said, tell Mr. Breen that I'm here and please get me some coffee.
00:38:21.000And I'm like, It's Mrs. Bream, and I'll see about getting you some coffee.
00:38:24.000I mean, there's just those subtle things.
00:38:26.000And probably most of that had to do with the fact that I was so young and baby-faced as a new attorney, like, I'm going to be the one deposing you today.
00:38:33.000There were times that we would show up for a deposition for something else, and there's somebody there that maybe we were representing the company that they worked for, and they were being accused of sexual harassment.
00:38:41.000The way that they treated me when I walked in the door, I thought, might be true.
00:38:46.000I mean, there's just that stuff that happens, like, yikes, this may not be your best character witness here.
00:38:50.000Um, but there were, you know, there were times over the years where I've been put in situations that were uncomfortable.
00:38:54.000There were discussions about my body or about being more sexual or being more sexy on TV.
00:38:59.000I mean, those conversations are uncomfortable and you have to navigate them carefully as a woman.
00:39:03.000I'd been a sexual harassment attorney when I was sitting in those conversations and I'm thinking, okay, there are lines I'm not going to cross.
00:39:14.000I think there's a way to, as a woman, navigate this carefully, to respectfully use comedy or humor to get myself out of this situation, not offending the person who is now making a decision about my career, but also maintaining my own dignity.
00:39:26.000And sometimes it's a really thin line to walk.
00:39:30.000How do you decide where exactly that line ought to be?
00:39:31.000We've spoken with a bunch of women on the show before and asked the same sort of question.
00:39:35.000Women who... Carly Fiorina was sitting in this chair a few weeks ago and she was talking about some of her experiences in the business world with this sort of sexism.
00:39:42.000And I asked her, so how do you deal with the person across from you?
00:39:52.000Yeah, and that's so frustrating to me as a woman, because you feel like you shouldn't have to make that decision.
00:39:57.000I mean, you shouldn't be put in that place.
00:39:59.000But also, if you're being realistic about some conditions, and I think, listen, in the last five years or so, that's wildly changed, that companies are having extreme makeovers with the way that they handle HR, giving women a place to report, and so I think there's been such a disinfectant of sunlight, which is fantastic for all women, and men get harassed too.
00:40:17.000I mean, we have to be honest, I've seen those cases, plenty of them, in my career as well.
00:40:21.000Um, so I think that the more we can decide personally where we're going to draw a line.
00:40:25.000For me, it was, you know, I talk about Roger Ailes in the book and the fact that he was a dichotomy like everybody.
00:40:31.000He was incredibly generous to people who were in trouble or ill or had emergencies in their life.
00:40:36.000He was a TV genius, but there was the side of him too, that for me, I had to deal with some really uncomfortable conversations and I kept going back and having those conversations because it was part of a regular part of my career to meet with him and to advocate for myself, to take on new assignments and do things.
00:40:50.000But there came a point to me where I felt like there was a moment where he said, let's talk about you having a show.
00:41:05.000He immediately kind of tossed the folder aside where I realized we're not going to have a conversation about the show.
00:41:10.000That's drawing me back into another one of these uncomfortable conversations with him.
00:41:13.000And I said, It may jettison my career, but at this point, I have to draw the line here and say I'm not going to have these uncomfortable meetings with him anymore.
00:41:20.000And so for the last two years, he was at Fox.
00:41:38.000And I never saw him again after that last meeting, where for me, that was the line in the sand.
00:41:42.000I don't mean to get gossipy, but I think I'd be remiss if I didn't ask what those uncomfortable conversations were like, or what exactly the content of those was.
00:41:48.000Well, he would talk about the need to be more sexy on TV.
00:41:54.000The conversation he would use is, people need to think if they went on a date with you, it'd be a good time.
00:41:59.000Because right now, that's not the vibe I'm getting from you.
00:42:01.000I'm kind of getting like church lady vibe, which is me.
00:42:03.000I kind of give off a church lady vibe, and I'm okay with that.
00:42:06.000And I think he understood the medium of television and he knew what audiences wanted in a way that sometimes you had to think, okay, as a journalist, am I okay with this?
00:42:15.000Yes, I can dress differently than when I was a lawyer and I wore a black suit to court every day.
00:42:22.000I need to be more imaginative about that.
00:42:25.000But if I have to try to do the news in a way that's also me flirting with the audience, no, that's not okay with me.
00:42:32.000You can have a wink and a nod about a funny topic or story here and there, but I didn't want to come across as provocative or somebody who was trying to be sexually alluring while delivering the news.
00:42:42.000That just wasn't something that works for me as a combination.
00:42:45.000It's been really fascinating to watch everybody trying to navigate the new lines.
00:42:50.000As a social conservative and somebody who is very strict on these matters myself, I'm pretty comfortable as a social conservative with a lot of the new lines that are being drawn.
00:42:57.000At the same time, one of the things that I see is that there's almost a virtue that is attached to claiming for some people that they've been victimized more than they've been victimized.
00:43:07.000The other week I was with my wife and we were at Disneyland with my kids.
00:43:09.000We're walking down the street and there was this big fat homeless guy sitting on the side of the street and he's wearing a beanie with a marijuana symbol on it.
00:43:17.000And I figure, okay, well this guy probably is not, you know, vice president at Chase Manhattan Bank.
00:43:21.000And we're walking by and he turns to my wife, who's an attractive woman, and as she walks by he goes, oh girl, don't do that.
00:43:28.000And my wife turns to me and she goes, still got it.
00:43:53.000Am I getting in trouble for saying that?
00:43:55.000I'm not one of those people who cares about that.
00:43:57.000Yeah, I would like to think at almost 50 that people think I look sort of cute, so I'm fine with that.
00:44:01.000And if somebody walking down the street is, you know, salacious is another thing, but to get an admiring glance or something like that, I don't know what woman, well no, some women will be offended by that.
00:44:12.000I mean, sure, if it crosses the line into something super sexual, not okay.
00:44:16.000But for me, that even I have male friends that have to worry about whether they can say that something looks nice or how I feel, you know, I'm hoping that the pendulum will equalize somewhere where people can feel comfortable saying nice things to a friend or a woman that's in their life that they are an acquaintance with and not feeling like they have to be hypersensitive.
00:45:12.000So, it works really well for me, just, you know, biologically.
00:45:16.000And I also have a husband that I've been married for, we've been married for almost 24 years.
00:45:20.000And so he's been through everything with me, the doing the law and hating it every day of my life, getting up, as I'm sure your wife saw with you, going to do it, getting fired, moving around the country.
00:45:29.000I mean, I couldn't have done any of this without him.
00:45:37.000Um, but the two of us, you know, we kind of try to be each other's biggest cheerleaders and biggest supporters.
00:45:42.000We disagree and have arguments like everybody does, but we try to remember we're on the same team.
00:45:46.000And so that means that sometimes when I have crazy hours and I travel, he comes with me when he can or he makes sure that our house does not completely implode in disaster when I'm not there, you know.
00:45:55.000He's a guy who's great at all things that I'm not good at, which are cooking, grocery shopping, laundry.
00:46:01.000I can put it in there and get it started, but we're very much a team, and I don't think I could have done any of this without him.
00:46:15.000Not that I dated anyone before him, but hypothetically.
00:46:18.000Um, but, um, we had friends kept trying to put us together, and so finally our senior year, we were at this homecoming sort of football game, my parents were there, he was there, my friend who really was instrumental in putting us together came to me and she's like, you are meeting him today!
00:46:34.000So she dragged him over to me, I think, and I was with my family, and I joke about it.
00:46:42.000And so when my husband, I met him that day formally, and we had friends in common, but to really meet him, I'm standing there with my stepdad, who is a unique character, and I'm thinking, he's already met my very interesting stepdad on day one of this not even being on a date yet.
00:46:56.000And so I thought, if he can make it through that gauntlet on this very first meeting, There might be something to it.
00:47:02.000Now, we were still dating other people at that time, so nothing came of it.
00:47:05.000But our final semester in school, we were both single and available.
00:47:08.000And I, at that point, had determined, I'm leaving.
00:47:20.000And he played baseball, and a lot of the players on the team kind of had this player reputation for not being the most wholesome guys in the world.
00:47:46.000And I think when you fall in love with somebody, you really can't help that.
00:47:49.000He says he went home that night after our first date and told his roommates we were going to get married.
00:47:53.000He didn't tell me that for a little while, but I think that I knew right away it was something different, too.
00:47:56.000Yeah, that is every story that I hear is basically the guy knows almost immediately and then at least this is what it was with my wife as well.
00:48:03.000I knew like right away that I was going to marry my wife and then it took her a little while longer.
00:49:30.000Because my world is like, I'm barely holding it together at this point.
00:49:34.000I left there and felt so discouraged that he couldn't help me and that it was sort of suggested that I was nuts, that for a long time I didn't go back to the doctor.
00:49:42.000So I'm living in this constant cycle of excruciating pain, chronic sleep deprivation, and that gets you to a really bad place because I'm now almost two years into it.
00:49:50.000Start searching online, which I say don't do for a health condition, because you'll find out you have like 17 seconds to live, and that's it.
00:49:57.000So, I was just trying to find people with similar symptoms so I could get an answer, and I would stumble into these message boards and chat boards where other people would say, yeah, I've been turned away from the emergency room 10 times, nobody can tell me, no one can help me, and they, you know, would talk about ending their lives.
00:50:11.000And I thought, that actually sounds like a huge relief.
00:50:14.000I'd gotten to the point where I was into my 40s then, and I thought, I can't make it another 40 years like this.
00:51:58.000And I remember getting in the car and just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and saying, like, God, why?
00:52:02.000Like, I can't continue living like this.
00:52:05.000And I really just thought, I'm going to just drive my car off a bridge.
00:52:07.000I mean, I can't function this way anymore.
00:52:10.000And I was praying and crying, and I remember, I say to people, I don't feel like I've audibly heard the voice of God, but I remember feeling in my spirit Him saying, I will be with you.
00:52:18.000Not, I'm going to heal you, I'm going to take this away, life's going to be perfect, but I'm going to walk through this with you.
00:52:23.000And it was such a calming thing because it felt like I heard from Him.
00:52:28.000And I drove back to work, got through that day.
00:52:31.000Eventually went back to the doctor and he said, I don't want you to miss what I'm saying.
00:53:09.000I completely shut down and kind of went into a shell because I thought, I can't even say hi to people in the hall because they're blobs walking by.
00:53:17.000So I talk about in the book, during that I had been booked to speak at a conference, a Christian conference, and I wanted to cancel because I thought, this is ridiculous.
00:53:25.000I can't even, I don't, how am I going to get there?
00:53:54.000And I'm like, I can't see the clock in the back.
00:53:56.000I can't see people's face in the audience.
00:53:58.000My mom met me there to be my seeing-eye human for the weekend to get me through this thing, and I just leveled with people.
00:54:03.000I was honest in that speech, like, hey, I'm not here to make fun of myself and be funny like I usually am.
00:54:07.000Like, I'm struggling, but I'm hoping that you all will understand this, and I'm relying on God because I know there's purpose in this.
00:54:14.000It makes you more empathetic when you go through things like that, and He's teaching me something, so I get this moment that I'm in.
00:54:19.000When it was over, People lined up down the aisles just to hug me, to pray with me, to cry with me, to tell me about their own struggles and say like, hey, I'm in a terrible place too.
00:54:28.000And it was a greatest blessing just being vulnerable and honest with people about how much I was struggling.
00:54:33.000And I hadn't looked at it that way, but it made me realize I hate being vulnerable.
00:54:37.000I want to be independent and do everything myself.
00:54:40.000But you got to lean on other people sometimes.
00:54:42.000And if you don't give them the gift of being honest about how you're struggling, then they don't get the gift, I think, of helping you.
00:54:48.000I think that's one of the most beautiful things about the book, Finding the Bright Side, is that you actually do talk about this sort of stuff, because if you happen to be a strong person, it seems like you seem like a congenitally happy person, a person who just, by nature, every time I've met you, you've been upbeat, that people think, therefore, that you haven't suffered, that you don't have to struggle with these things.
00:55:05.000The fact that you are willing to openly struggle with these things, I think, is a good reminder to folks that just because somebody is happy doesn't mean that they're not struggling to be happy, or that if you have struggles, you can't be happy.
00:55:16.000Yeah, and that's what I hope people will be encouraged in it because everybody, if you haven't been there, you'll be there.
00:55:20.000A sudden death of someone you love, a terrible health diagnosis, losing your job, financial trouble, just struggles in relationships, whatever it is, we're all going to be in a valley at some point.
00:55:28.000And because people do think I'm so happy all the time, I thought it was important to tell some really tough stories in the book and say, I've been in that valley.
00:55:40.000There's plenty of pain in the process, but I think there's purpose in it.
00:55:43.000I'm way more empathetic to people now living with chronic pain or mental health issues because I've been there.
00:55:48.000I think it makes you look at people differently, like you have no idea what's going on with them.
00:55:53.000I remember at one point being on a treadmill and running and thinking like, yeah, I could burst into tears at any moment with all these things I'm struggling with.
00:56:02.000What if that person feels the same way?
00:56:03.000The person who cut me off in traffic, which I hate.
00:56:06.000I'm a little crazy behind the wheel myself.
00:56:09.000But who knows what they're rushing off to do?
00:56:10.000I mean, we have to give each other a little bit more leeway and a little bit more respect and love because everybody's struggling with something.
00:56:17.000So let's get back to you covering stories and journalism.
00:56:21.000So you talked about the difficulties of covering the Kavanaugh hearings.
00:56:23.000What was the hardest story you had to cover?
00:56:28.000I think sometimes where you've been at the site of devastation.
00:56:31.000I mean, I've covered tornadoes and, you know, storms, Superstorm Sandy, things like that, where you see people who utterly feel like they've lost everything or they're just looking around themselves and their life, at least the physical part of their life, seems to be in shambles.
00:56:44.000I had a story one time when I was a local reporter in D.C.
00:56:47.000about a woman who had been out walking, an older woman, and she had been, there was a hit and run, and police were searching for this person.
00:57:08.000And those moments make you stop and think about humanity and just how precious life is and how people, we can report on these stories every day.
00:57:16.000People's lives are being devastated by the things that we report on, whether it's a shooting or anything else, a natural disaster.
00:57:22.000So I think things that force you back to the humanity of the people that you're covering so they aren't just another story that you read in the prompter, but you're actually seeing them and seeing the devastation to them.
00:57:30.000I think as a reporter, those are the hardest things to show up and see people in enormous grief.
00:57:36.000It's interesting being in sort of the political business and covering the news.
00:57:38.000Every so often I sit around wondering, am I really just sort of in the gossip business?
00:57:42.000Because it seems like a lot of what we do these days is just covering whatever gossip is happening without really thinking about how it impacts people's lives.
00:57:49.000What gets you up in the morning to do what you do for a living when it seems like half the stuff that we have to cover is just minutia or errata of the day?
00:58:12.000I think the best example of that was a few weeks ago when Speaker Pelosi and Attorney General Barr were at this event and behind the scenes they see each other and he jokes to her about whether she's brought her handcuffs, like she's going to throw them in the jail over at the Capitol.
00:58:25.000And she makes a joke back, well, the sergeant at arms is here, so if I need to arrest anyone, I can.
00:58:34.000But the minute you put them in front of a camera, there's a partisan agenda, and that people have to be mad at each other, where, truthfully, they're very chummy, a lot of them, and when they see each other socially, it's fine.
00:58:44.000So I think knowing that a lot of this is for show, it's for the rest of us, and kind of digging to see what's really behind it, what the real policy is, what the real motivations are, because there's always a secret motivation behind a lot of these stories and the reasons that people introduce a bill or vote for a bill or don't vote for a bill.
00:58:59.000So to me, what gets me up is digging to find the story behind the actual headline to see what's really going on.
00:59:05.000They've covered politicians forever, so do you think that they are more or less honest than they are portrayed in the media?
00:59:12.000You know, my dad used to always joke, like, lawyers are the worst rated people, I think, behind dentists, as far as, like, how the public feels about them.
00:59:44.000A lot of politicians away from the camera are great people that you'd want to hang out and go to lunch with them or hang out with their families.
00:59:50.000But I think something happens sometimes in front of the cameras.
00:59:52.000They feel an obligation to have a certain talking point or to be a certain way.
00:59:56.000I do think there are good people on both sides of the aisle who generally are driven by their faith, their own moral compass.
01:00:03.000Um, that they genuinely believe in and that they want to make a difference in a positive way, I think that's the minority.
01:00:09.000And I think a lot of other people are on the Hill for a lot of other reasons, or they go there with good intentions, but they get caught up in the whole thing.
01:00:15.000I mean, I'm personally a fan of the idea of discussing term limits.
01:00:18.000I think America should have that conversation.
01:00:21.000Um, it would require amending the constitution, which is not easily done.
01:00:26.000I think a lot of people get there and they get enamored of the whole thing and it's, Since we're both members of the media, how do you think the media climate has contributed to this?
01:00:34.000So if it used to be, I've said forever that people say, well if you were president what would you do?
01:00:39.000I'd say basically make it so that, I thought Rick Perry's line was the best, make it so that Washington D.C.
01:00:44.000So you don't care who's the president, you don't care who's in Congress because they're not bothering you all the time.
01:00:49.000But the media, because we cover this stuff incessantly because we're on top of it all the time, how much are we magnifying the conflict and making the conflict worse as opposed to helping to get people behind the news that they're seeing?
01:01:00.000Yeah, I think sometimes we have to be very careful not to take the bait because I think both sides will put it out there and there's histrionics about this or that and you get the press releases or the releases from the congressional offices or the tweets that are like, this is the end of the world.
01:01:14.000You know, this is not the end of the world.
01:01:16.000So I think we try to, like I say, when I go through a script and I see too many adjectives, I want to take those out.
01:01:21.000Like, I don't want to be so descriptive and hyperbolic about things.
01:01:23.000I think that we have a responsibility to present things.
01:01:26.000And sometimes if a story has been super overhyped, we're like, you know what, we're not doing a full guest segment on that.
01:01:30.000We're going to read it and tell people about it in the story, but we're not devoting five or 10 minutes to it because it's not something that rises to the level of that in reality.
01:01:38.000And I think it's up to us to parse the difference.
01:01:40.000So, since now you've been covering a very polarized period in American history, are you optimistic or pessimistic for where the country is going?
01:01:49.000I'm very Pollyanna, people will say at times.
01:01:51.000So, I mean, there's a great book out a few years ago called Implosion by Joel Rosenberg, and it was very interesting because he talks about times where a country has seemed irreparably fractured.
01:02:01.000And other periods and it was it was very good book for me to go back and read when things seem so crazy right now to say like our country has been in horribly divided places before and we have found ways he says mostly through religious revival but we found ways to come back to our humanity and to each other and you don't want a tragedy to have to be the way the country comes back together but there have been examples through history where we've been in a much worse place I mean someone caning someone to death on the Senate floor essentially I mean it has been crazier as bad as it may seem now and we've come back from that we have reunited many times
01:02:31.000And I think, I'll always think that there is good ahead.
01:02:34.000So I do have one final question for you.
01:02:35.000I want to ask you, if you can give three pieces of advice to young up-and-comers who want to get into journalism, want to get into covering politics, what those would be?
01:02:42.000But if you actually want to hear Shannon Bream's answer, you have to be a Daily Wire subscriber.
01:02:45.000To subscribe, head on over to dailywire.com.
01:02:47.000Click subscribe, you can hear the end of our conversation there.
01:02:49.000Well, Shannon Bream, thanks so much for stopping by.