Funding for To the Contrary, provided by Coming up on To The Contrary, Presidential Contenders in order of popularity in some early state polls.

Donald Trump, number one.

Nikki Haley Number two.

Could this grand Old Party nominate a woman of color from an immigrant family for president?

Then is working from home a life saver.

For career killers, for American women?

(MUSIC) Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbe'.

Welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

Up first, is SHE the Trump alternative?

Former South Carolina governor and U.N.

Ambassador Nikki Haley is gaining significant attention and support in the GOP primary for president.

She's been on an upswing for a while and has climbed to second place behind former President Trump in some early state polls.

She recently met with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

His potential financial support could help her raise significant Wall Street money and highlight growing establishment enthusiasm for her.

While Haley's background in international diplomacy is one of her assets, she's also emphasizing the economy and the need for social media reform.

She's proposing mandatory competency tests for politicians over 75.

Presenting herself as a candidate for generational change in American policy.

Joining us today are former U.S. House members, Maryland Democrat Donna Edwards, New York Republican Nan Hayworth Reproaction Co-founder Erin Matson and Republican Strategist Rina Shah.

So welcome, everybody.

Are we all energized now that the presidential campaign way earlier than it should be, in my humble opinion, is in full swing?

And Nan Hayworth, do you think Nikki Haley has a chance?

She's making a strong showing at the moment in a narrowing field of folks who are very much behind President Trump, who actually has gained considerably among diverse constituencies in the past few months, including suburbanites and Americans of color in various configurations.

Most interesting and I can you know, I can certainly rationalize why that is, but in the other the rest of the field, Nikki Haley is an appealing candidate, particularly in a post jobs environment.

And I am one of the many Republicans who contend that the this 2023 election hinged very heavily on the issue of abortion and access to abortion.

And Nikki Haley has a very rational and compassionate position on that.

And I think that along with her strong.

Professional and compassionate but not pro-choice.

Ah... Well, it's it's she is definitely in her personal life, strongly pro-life.

And I think she's entirely sincere about that.

But she offers a realistic accommodation and she says, look, and she's telling all Americans that pro-choice and pro-life, I cannot as president, do anything to push legislation or force legislation through a Congress that at the very least will not have 60 votes for such legislation, which I think is realistic, and that, one hopes would be reassuring, if you will.

But she also has a very strong foreign policy portfolio, especially appealing to so-called establishment folks.

So I think that explains much of her recent boost in the polls.

Very interested.

Thank you, Nan.

Rina your thoughts about Nikki Haley.

Do you think there is enough voter support for a not only woman, woman of color and the daughter of immigrants?

Well, I think there certainly can be.

I think her being a daughter of immigrants is one of her strong points.

You know, her parents really lived the American dream, much like mine did.

And I'm a much younger to Nikki Haley, but I can say that in my early years in politics, I found a lot to look up to.

And it wasn't related to identity is.

It was really about the principles she stood for.

And for young conservatives, I think, who are not as hard right, There's a real opportunity for them here to have their voices heard through Nikki Haley, because she has been quite moderate throughout her career.

Now, many of us took great issue with how she conducted herself during the Trump years.

There was criticism and then there was going into the administration, and then there was criticism again.

And it felt a little soft and not really like she had a backbone at times.

But what she has done.

But, but what do you think?

Do you think a white MAGA guy in Georgia or Florida with a rifle rack in the back of his pickup truck, which is the core of former President Trump's support within the Republican Party is is seriously a candidate to vote for Nikki Haley.

I think that's she won in South Carolina for the governorship.

I would agree with that.

Yeah.

And I grew up in an area that was a lot like that.

And and she did, too, in South Carolina.

And and there's a way to get through to those people.

And the advantage also, if we want to look past that for a moment and put that aside is is the fact that she has a last name that's Haley.

It's no longer an Indian last name and she is quite light skinned.

So even that's to her advantage on some level.

But but again, I think there is there's a real sense when she gets in on in front of people on stages that this is just a person that speaks to you.

She's very normal.

She's very practical.

So I don't look at her as a brown skinned woman so much like me as as much as I'm listening to her as a mother and how she talks with with heart about abortion, which is a very tricky subject as we go into 2024.

She talks about humanizing, not demonizing women.

And when I heard that for the first time, I really felt like, here's a candidate that could actually win a general election with an R next to their name.

Donna, your thoughts?

Are voters going to are pro-choice voters who want to see Dobbs overturned or a successor law like Roe reinstated as the federal norm by this by a different, of course, Supreme Court going to vote for Nikki Haley to appoint justices?

No.

Look, I do think that Nikki Haley has a broader appeal within the Republican Party.

But I think when you come down to a general election that on issues like abortion and others, that her appeal is very limited.

I mean, after all the response that she gave in the debate, while it sounded compassionate, is still a pro-life response.

And I think voters will see that.

And we've seen in one election after another election, most recently in Virginia and in Ohio, that voters, voters in the United States are solidly pro-choice.

And what Nikki Haley offers up is I wouldn't pursue a federal abortion ban because you just don't have the votes for it.

Well, that is not a pro-choice position.

It is a pro-life position.

She would still support those bans if they emanated from the states, even if she offered what seemed like some middle ground.

It really was not middle ground at all.

And so but I think within the Republican Party right now, I think that she can and does have appeal.

Whether that is enough to get her maybe enough to have her in second place, but maybe not enough to overtake the former president in any number of of primaries.

But I do think, look, she won an election in in South Carolina.

And so clearly she knows how to win elections as a Republican.

candidate.

But at the end of the day, her position on issues like abortion and Americans, American men and women are still voting on abortion rights is really not going to fly in a general election.

Erin, first I want to ask you, because your main issue, of course, is choice about her position on that.

And then I want to ask you about her competency test she's proposing for politicians who are older than 75.

But first, how are young women reacting to her in terms of the choice issue?

Yeah.

Nikki Haley is not their candidate, Bonnie.

That's just the fact.

The fact is that when Nikki Haley has done is she's the she's a master of deflection and she is the candidate out there who will take away the right to abortion and give you a hug and tells you she loves you while she does it.

Not only has she said what she said and tried to paint herself as a compassionate person, she's also directly said in the media, like I literally read the quote today in the press that she would sign a federal abortion ban if it came to her.

So that is what she supports and voters are aware of that.

And as Donna referenced, everything, old time abortion has gone on the ballot after Dobbs, abortion has won.

It has won an extremely conservative state.

You even have evangelicals when you look at the returns from Ohio, you have white evangelicals, a good portion of them voting to put abortion rights in their constitution.

So I just I, I don't think we can understate the power and potency of that issue in the election, but I'm so glad you asked about the competency test.

First.

But let me say something, because the reason I raise it is watching the last Republican debate and her comment to Ramaswamy and everybody knew what she meant to say, but the way she put it, I just have to chuckle that she's, you know, wants to judge the competency of people 75 plus because she said, don't put my daughter in your voice.

Which to me shows kind of a disconnect between what you know, a related to brain function, a disconnect between what she meant to say and what she did said.

Well, I think, you know, as a parent, this is I don't agree with Nikki Haley on anything, really.

But I will say as a parent, she's go for it.

Stand up for your kid.

I understand that.

I applaud that.

I think the issue here is what I'm concerned about.

Yes.

And I also think it's a great idea.

Like, what if we had a competency test we sorely need that we've seen some really deranged behavior out of the White House when Trump was president.

But does it need to be ageist?

What if we did that without an age requirement?

So I'm concerned about that, that, you know, just because it's a good idea doesn't mean it's good to get.

Older people.

You mean a psychological or a brain.

Right.

That's a great idea.

It's a wonderful idea for everyone, but it should be applied across the board and we shouldn't do it in an ageist manner.

Okay.

All right.

I can see that being abused about 500 different ways, just the way the Department of Justice is being used right now to primarily go against conservatives and the you know, I mean, if anyone represents a diminished mental capacity in the White House, it's certainly not President Trump.

- It's Joe Biden.

-Oh, goodness for our eyes.

It's up to voters to decide who is competent and not.

And frankly, if we're doing any kind of testing, I'd much rather have a civics test.

And you know, and a geography test, geography test before I did anything else.

But look, I think the voters are really smart and I and I believe in them.

And I think that most voters are going to make judgments on who they're going to vote in in any given election.

And those are factors they're going to take into consideration.

And we don't need an affirmative test of any.

I mean, do you do it at 75?

Do you do it at 70?

Do you do it it at 80?

I mean, this is a ridiculous idea.

And we should allow voters to see our candidates and then make a determination about whether they think they can do the job of president of the United States.

I couldn't disagree more.

I think that if the average retirement age is somewhere between 62 and 67 coast to coast and that we're giving benefits for certain ages, then we ought to have an age at which it's unacceptable to be running for the highest office in the land.

I find it completely ridiculous that we have a 77 year old man and an 80 year old man again on the ballot.

Because we have a system that's broken, our electoral system is broken, and therefore the incumbent is always an advantage.

And this is particularly true for Congress.

We need systemic reform.

And I've talked to younger conservatives across the country in rural areas, urban areas, they want some systems reforms as well.

We are so tired of the lack of term limits and people staying in office until they're basically dying in office and booted out.

So what I have to say at the end of the day is Nikki Haley will go forward and keep my daughter name out of your voice is is an emotional moment.

If you roll tape of myself, me on this show over the past ten years, I have also screwed up some normal phrases and use the wrong word because it's emotional.

And she she was not ready for that.

And I'm sure any mother would expect that it was completely wrong that Vivek Ramaswamy to talk about her daughter.

Fine.

He brought her up to say, Take care of your family first.

He is.

Scum.

And obviously I don't think that had any effect on her support among Republicans because the the poll numbers for her as as invalid as they may be over the long term but right now are going up, not going down.

All right.

From women running to women working from home.

The shift to remote work accelerated by the pandemic is supposed to be life changing for working moms.

It certainly has bolstered their numbers to record high labor force participation.

A new report reveals public companies offering employees the choice of working remotely or in the office have outperformed financially those with more restrictive policies.

However, there are questions that female remote workers could be stymied by remote work in their career advancement.

Is less face time, leading to increased sexism in the office.

So Donna Edwards, is it?

I remember being very suspicious in the beginning of home work, thinking it's face time that gets you ahead in not just the corporate world, any world.

It's being seen by your boss, and particularly men.

It has been shown obviously testosterone They're more likely to brag to their bosses or they would say, inform their bosses about what they're doing and how great they are.

And that is not done over Zoom.

It's done in person.

And I thought for that reason, if no other that with more women, more time working from home would hurt them.

I do worry about this.

I think that there is something obviously very attractive about having the flexibility of working at home and dealing with a lot of issues related to your children and caregiving.

On the other hand, having worked in an office and work remotely, I really do see the value of, you know, finding somebody, you know, by the coffee pot or the water cooler or stopping by an office or having your boss come in to you with a special project and communicating with your coworkers.

That then leads to advancement.

And just at a point where women are being able were able to figure out these rules of the road, things could get changed with remote work.

We may be a generation away from having young people who are growing up now understanding this kind of remote value of remote working to know, to then raising their own families where we might be able to see some more positive benefits for men and women in doing remote work.

But I don't think that we're really quite there yet.

And I worry that this could have a real disadvantage for women and put them on a new kind of mommy track.

Rina, You're a shining example.

I think, of how women are getting ahead in this environment, in this work environment and the era we're in, which is work from home and work for yourself.

That way it's not held against you if you're not in there, well, you still have to run around a lot socializing.

But as long as you do that and find clients that way, it's not going to hurt you that you're not in the same office with them because any consultant is not going to be in a client's office all of the time or even much of the time.

Yeah, you know, the nature of work has changed so, so much in in just the years that I've been in the workforce, which has been since 2005.

So I must say it's jarring to me sometimes when I go to hire people and I love to hire people from all parts of the country, particularly women and women who are looking for part time work, because I think part time work can be really rewarding for a woman that's looking to have a family and, you know, work from home means different things now in this in this post-pandemic era.

I just read yesterday that the Citadel CEO, Ken Griffin has said that remote work created a wild card workplace that makes it easier to fire people.

And I think that's kind of an interesting take.

And when you think about kind of how we treat people when they're not in front of you and you can't really have that energy that's there in an in-person interaction, I think you you really lose something when it comes to women because women by nature are a little bit more emotive.

Right.

And we're also the ones in offices and in workplace environments and take on that extra work that makes the workplace sort of thrive for making somebody's birthday party.

This has long been seen as a women's work.

Now when you're talking about people behind their computers meeting less, I think there's a number of layers that complicate it.

But I do think for the modern American woman that wants to have a family and I hope that more American women do because I am really concerned about the friends I hear from in rural areas and urban areas and talk about how expensive it is to have children anymore and how do you even balance his career you've worked for and don't want to give up.

But somebody has got to be with that child and you can't just look at things the way that everybody else does.

There are women who want families for which remote work is such a positive thing in their lives.

It's a boon for them.

It gives the it's a difference between them having things in them, not having things.

So I think the numbers are quite stark that we have seen dips in women who have gone I'm sorry, we've seen a dip in work from home situations for women since from 2020 to 2021.

But I think, you know, to demonize remote work, that's what I'm worried about because I see it as such an advantage for women, particularly those who want part time work that can help them augment their family's income.

And you kind of need that in today's economic environment.

It's really hard to have a single income and have a family on that.

I couldn't agree more strongly that it's optimal, I think, for most families to have a parent at home now that can be a father.

Anecdotally, you know, I'm in New York Metro and I do know you know, obviously, I know of more mothers who stepped away from the outside the home workforce to raise their families.

But it seems to me that that was in all the cases I know of, that was their own choice.

And most of the in the Independent Women's Forum has done a lot of really good work looking just looking at the numbers objectively, most of the gap, not all of it, but most of it is 90% of the gap between what men make and what women wake up make.

Obviously, this is broad strokes, but most of it's due to the fact that, yes, more women than men choose have chosen heretofore to have flexible work time, fewer work hours, you know, accommodations that yes, usually are for a family.

But, you know, there's no ironclad law that says that has to be the woman doing that.

And it is often the man especially, I think, as for parenting styles of all.

So we all, whatever our demographic is, have to contend with as employers and as workers.

You know what the optimal balance is between being in person and being virtual.

And somewhere we will find a balance.

I agree with with you, Bonnie, and I think you were the one who pointed out that really it is good to see people and to to be with them.

Rina, I think you said the same thing.

So there's there's going to be a balance and, you know, where all the financial aspects play out will depend on the choices people make.

But I will say this transparency about pay practices within a among employers is obviously a very important thing and make them accountable for the way in which they compensate you or any worker.

All right, Erin, your thoughts?

I work from home.

I lead an organization that's always been all virtual.

We were founded in 2015.

I can say that the model is extremely effective and it works.

I mean, there are different things.

You have to put more intentionality into how you develop bonding among a team.

But there's a lot you can do.

I do agree that it can be challenging, though, from the sense, particularly of people who are in the workforce for the first time.

You know, I don't doubt that Nan or Rina, or Donna or Bonnie, like any of us, could go in a work from home situation.

We know how to develop rapport with colleagues and generally what a workplace is like.

If you have not had that experience before, to immediately have your first job be on Zoom is pretty steep hill to climb.

So I think that's one area where it's a little different.

But I will say within my own team, you know, not only are we all virtual, we actually moved to a 32 hour workweek and we're actually far more productive.

You know, back in the day, I used to work in an office at the National Organization for Women when I was in office for their 80 hour workweeks in an office.

I routinely go in on Saturday morning and leave on Saturday like it was.

It was the total opposite.

I work better and smarter now and I actually get more done.

So but I will say with my husband working in corporate America, I see what's going on is very different in that sector and that particularly Fortune 500 leaders who are predominantly men do seem to be very eager to get workers back in the office.

And a lot of workers are pushing back.

And I think that's hitting hardest on women with caregiving responsibilities.

And I want to follow up with one last question, which is if women do want to spend more time with their kids and work fewer hours, is it fair or quite frankly, is it realistic to think that you're going to get the same promotions as men working in the office 80 hours a week?

You know what, Bonnie, I want to push back and challenge that, because I think there's a number of men who are also doing a number of things during the workday type standard hours, whether it's going out for golf or lunch or other pieces where where it's activities that you could say, well, that's not sitting down and putting numbers into the spreadsheet right now.

Right.

But that's still part of the broader package.

So I think I mean, Bonnie, I do think we have a child care crisis in this country where it's not affordable for people.

We need to address that.

But I also want to push back on the frame a little bit because I think it's not the case that the men are carrying all the load.

You know, I've heard people say and I've heard women say it, too, as well.

They're like, I need to work more than my colleagues who are who are taking care of kids.

And that's just bunk.

And we need to stop demonizing moms.

All right.

That's it for this edition.

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