“I was in the middle of the Women’s March, seeing women come together for a multitude of reasons. For the first time in my life, I was basically in the middle of this giant huddle. I realized something special was happening with women in America and I wanted to dedicate the next chapter of my career to it.”
Brooke Baldwin is the anchor of the 3pm edition of CNN Newsroom and also creator and host of CNN’s digital series American Woman. She recently authored Huddle: How Women Unlock Their Collective Power.
The Women’s March the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration was a major inflection point in society. While Trump was not the singular force behind it, he may have served as the tipping point that brought millions of participants together all across the country. These marches acted as a huddle, a way for women to collectively make their voices heard. “I was in the middle of the Women’s March, seeing women come together for a multitude of reasons. For the first time in my life, I was basically in the middle of this giant huddle. I realized something special was happening with women in America and I wanted to dedicate the next chapter of my career to it.”
In competitive professions like journalism, there can be women who adopt sharper elbows, opting to see other women as the opposition. This can result from limited opportunities for women. The goal of a huddle-driven world is to create greater cooperation where successful women drop the ladder back down to help the next generation.
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SPEAKER
Brooke Baldwin
Anchor
CNN Newsroom
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darcie: (00:07)
Hello everyone. And welcome back to salt talks. My name is John Darcie. I'm the managing director of salt, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance technology and public policy. Salt talks are a digital interview series with leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And our goal on these salt talks the same as our goal at our salt conferences, which is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future. And we're very excited today to welcome Brooke Baldwin to salt talks. Uh, Brooke is a Peabody award finalist who anchors the 3:00 PM edition of CNN newsroom. She's also the creator and host of CNN's digital series, American woman, which focuses on the stories of trailblazing women who have broken barriers in their respective fields and are now helping other women do the same.
John Darcie: (00:59)
Brooke's new book huddle, how women unlocked their collective power is a blend of journalism and personal narrative. Examining how women have come together in a wide variety of times and places to provide each other with support, empowerment, inspiration, and the strength to solve problems and enact meaningful change. Uh, Brooke is crisscrossed the country to research and write this book revealing how huddling helps women achieve success in the workplace affect grassroots change, build confidence during girlhood, maintain better physical and mental health survive, racial and gender based oppression and weather. The COVID-19 pandemic by speaking with historians and researchers, uh, Brooke also learned ways that huddling has often been key to women's survival across multiple generations hosting today's talk making her debut here on salt talks is a Scaramucci, but not Anthony Scaramucci. It's Anthony's wife, dear Jeff, who formerly was a director of investor relations at SkyBridge.
John Darcie: (02:00)
She left that role to help raise a family. Uh, but she, she also hosted the MOOC and the Mrs. Podcasts alongside Anthony and as a intellectual heavyweight in her own. Right. And we're very excited to have here, have her here on salt talks, and then also want to say, shout out to Brooke for being a North Carolina Tarheel. I grew up, I had to give that shout out. So it's all my north Carolinians out there, but now that introduce Dierdre Scaramucci, this'll be my last Saul talk Brook. Okay. I'm going to be blocked out of this. Thank everybody for listening to me during this salt talk series was very nice. It's been a fun ride. I look forward to be being replaced by Deirdre Scaramucci, but in the meantime, it's all been good, but Dierdre Scaramucci taken away. What a book. Congratulations.
Deidre Scaramucci: (02:52)
Oh, he's still talking. He's always talking, still
Brooke Baldwin: (02:54)
Talking, still talking,
Deidre Scaramucci: (02:57)
Having me two years since I've had like an adult conversation. So this is very special for me. So I'm honored that you asked me to join you. Of
Brooke Baldwin: (03:06)
Course. I said to your husband, it's a book about, you know, unlocking the power among women. Thank you. Shout out of the book cover. And not that I don't love your husband to death, but you know, I thought Mrs. Mooch could join.
Deidre Scaramucci: (03:18)
Yeah, of course I bring the funk. You do. So I love the forward by the way. Cause moms go to bed
Brooke Baldwin: (03:26)
Who, by the way, does any of it's just texting with her? The book has not landed at her front door step yet. So she doesn't even know. I dedicated,
Deidre Scaramucci: (03:32)
Let me not say anything, but that's very sweet. Thank you. It will make her life. She's my original huddle. Right. And that will make her life. And also she dedicated on the second half to James loving that. Anthony, did you say that?
Brooke Baldwin: (03:47)
What did, what did I re read what? I said,
Deidre Scaramucci: (03:50)
James, my husband, thank you for loving me and Pugsley. And for being one of many good men who support women huddling, we
Brooke Baldwin: (03:56)
Need the men to support the ladies. Right. It's
John Darcie: (03:59)
Very beautiful. And you know, you know, you know, James is our kind of guy he's, but it's usually helpful to us and salt stuff in 2019,
Deidre Scaramucci: (04:07)
I crack up because I watched, you know, I follow you on Instagram. So I watch you like stalk him and annoy him.
Brooke Baldwin: (04:16)
It's like really, Brooke, do we need to do another ID story? Like I just, can I just make your breakfast or can I just eat my food? And you know, me, I just have
Deidre Scaramucci: (04:25)
Like very fun, uh, dynamics. Cause he's so and English and you are just spunky. So it's funny. Um, okay, so getting out, let's get to it. So tell us about the book, obviously the huddle, how women unlock their collective power. And so how did you come up with this idea of a huddle?
Brooke Baldwin: (04:43)
So I think growing up in Atlanta, um, I I'm, I am, I'm a Georgian, but yes, chapel thrill, undergrad. So growing up in Atlanta, I had, um, I had just a really happy girlhood. I was involved in all kinds of things, whether it was everything from gymnastics before I realized I would be five, nine, whoops, or, you know, tap dancing or soccer, whatever, I was like, I was all about it. And I had lots of awesome huddles as a girl. And I think ultimately then played sports in high school, had huddles, went off to college and then made career my number one. And so when I was graduating Carolina and all of my girlfriends were moving off to New York city and living in, you know, like the east village with like illegally with five women and then having a good time and living their best sex and the city life, I was moving to small town America where I was pursuing my dream of journalism and, you know, growing up too, I admired women journalists like Jane Pauley and Katie Craig and Barbara Walters.
Brooke Baldwin: (05:39)
And of course Oprah, like we're all still living in the, in the era of Oprah. And I just assume that it would, it was a women friendly profession, little did I know that, you know, when I got into my first job would just be some women with some really sharp elbows. And so I w that's like my, my early arc. And then after I'm just going to skip a bunch of years and a lot of hard work and sacrifice and crappy hours. Um, you know, I wound my way up do with my dream job at CNN and I was covering the Trump inauguration and, and w the one day, like on the back of the sweat peg truck and embedded in this Trump motorcade is he's going to the white house for the first time. And then the very next day there I am in the middle of the women's March and seeing women coming together for a multitude of reasons for the first time in my life, I was basically in the middle of this giant huddle.
Brooke Baldwin: (06:26)
So number one, I realized something special was happening with women in America. And I wanted in on it, and I wanted to dedicate the next chapter of my career to it. And then two, I had my own like took my reporter hat off and was like, well, do what I show up here with a bunch of women do even do even have a huddle of women who would have shared a tank of gas to go to Washington with me. And the answer Dierdra is I didn't. And I knew that in that moment forward, I would need to activate my own huddle. And I want readers to learn how to do the same.
Deidre Scaramucci: (06:55)
Right. It's an important balance. My mom always tells me no matter what you do, make sure you keep your girlfriends. And I, I mean, it's important, but when you're building your career, when you're working super hard, I remember, you know, when I first started working, I never saw my friends. Um, and it's a really hard thing to maintain, but I think as we get older, um, it hits home and you probably become more focused on it, but it is something we need for hard times. I mean, there's just some things, a husband or a friend that's a guy, or they just can't
Brooke Baldwin: (07:26)
Everything to us at all times. And also, like, I think looking back to my twenties and early thirties when I was super lonely and putting career first, and I don't regret that time, but I had amazing singular girlfriends, but they were living all over the country and they were becoming first-time mothers or working on their own careers. And we just didn't have, I didn't have a huddle. I did not have a girl group, a tribe, a sisterhood in the way that I do now. And it has changed my life.
Deidre Scaramucci: (07:54)
Right. I mean, time, time does help that out though. You meet people as you go along and then you kind of introduce them and they come together. You know, we don't, we're not born with a huddle, you know? I mean, I have a bunch of girlfriends from high school that are still friends and that's like a one in a million thing. Most people don't have that. I'm very fortunate, but as time goes on, I have a friends of, um, that I've made through my kids and school and, and you build it as you go along. But, um, Anthony, are you there? What do you think about a girl huddle? Because I'm surrounded broke. I don't know what your siblings are.
Brooke Baldwin: (08:33)
I have a younger brother, so it's
Deidre Scaramucci: (08:35)
Another, it's just a guy, another guy I got, I'm surrounded by only guys. I have brothers, sons and nephews. So yeah, it's a lot of testosterone, man. That's what I'm saying. Um, so I'm interested in knowing what Anthony thinks about girl huddles, because I don't have any of that going on in the home place. And now Brooke is stuck with James is boy. Oh,
John Darcie: (08:56)
You know, I'm going to say something that's obviously going to get, it's going to obviously get me in trouble. I feel that like, there is a different way that women bond with each other than men. So obviously that will probably get me in trouble perhaps as politically.
Brooke Baldwin: (09:13)
This is super interesting. This is interesting. I, I, I bet you came from, I mean, I think it traditionally, right? I think men have for so long gotten together, whether it's playing sports or, you know, going and having a golf game and networking or having that happy hour, I think it just kind of has come naturally to you guys.
John Darcie: (09:33)
So let me, let me say something that's very stereotypical and very general. And then the, both of you, you can yell at me, but this has been my 57 year observation that men sort of bond in like sort of a hunter gathering mode. And so we're fighting with each other. We sort of get over it pretty quickly. I feel like women have a little bit of a shell in the beginning, but then once they've shared some level of vulnerability with each other, Katie coming credibly close, and in some ways their bond, their sororal bond is tighter than a fraternal bond because they've, they've seen each other's vulnerability and then they fuse together and are in a complete huddle. And I feel like men are more in like a bee swarm. Anyway, I don't know if that's going to get me talk anyway. Darcie knows that deer just out shiny me every second of this. So this is my last salt, but I just thought I would just point out that. And what is your observation to that, Brooke? Am I wrong in saying
Brooke Baldwin: (10:31)
That, listen, I can only speak from my own experience, but I think you hit on the key word on vulnerability. And that is one of the key pillars of, of having a huddle is showing up vulnerably. And also I would argue that, yeah, man, I
John Darcie: (10:43)
Got that out of your book, by the way.
Brooke Baldwin: (10:45)
Yeah. But I think that's key. I mean, I'm a big Bernay brown follower and she talks a lot about vulnerability and courage. And I think you have to show up vulnerably authentically. Um, and you have to ask for help, which I think we as women, especially I look to my, my women, friends who are mothers. I mean, women wear a lot of hats, right? Especially now in the pandemic mothers caretakers, in some cases, breadwinners community leaders, suddenly at home teachers, there there's a lot happening for women. And so I just think women, uh, aren't really good at raising their hands and saying, Hey, can you help me? But that's the whole, that's part of the, the, the, the magic within the huddle is when you decide to link arms with one another and help one another and show up vulnerably and ask for help. And if you've lost a job because of this horrible time we've been living in, like, I believe your, your sisters will truly want to share the wealth and help you out. I think our culture loves to pit women against one another, like think of all the movies and the Broadway shows and everything else, but that's not the, that's not the whole story. And that's, that's not the focus for me. It's the opposite.
Deidre Scaramucci: (11:56)
Do you think COVID, um, kind of shined more of a light on this kind of thing, given the crisis that we're all in and the help we probably need more than
Brooke Baldwin: (12:05)
Ever now. I think it's shine two lights. Number one, it showed that, you know, women and especially women of color were disproportionately affected by this pandemic and losing jobs and having to give something up as they were, you know, spinning a lot of plates at home. Number one, and acknowledging that. And just number two, I don't know about you Dierdre, but for me, I've never been closer with my girlfriends than this pandemic. I totally took for granted the gift of connection and physically hanging out and taking girl trips and, you know, networking with a group of women in person. And so for me, I've really had this opportunity as if we've been sitting still at home and flexing my huddling muscle flexing, the muscles of, you know, doing, doing things like zooming in Marco polo and these technology things. I was super not hip to prior to the pandemic. And now I think once we, I, my hope is then when we come out of this thing that ultimately after flexing these muscles, women will really have space to kick and bring about change. And I'm really hopeful for that. What do you think?
Deidre Scaramucci: (13:11)
Well, I think so. I mean, I've never spoken to my friends as much as I have now. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, because we're at home and we're like, Hey, this is going on. My, my son is going through this or my daughter's going through this, are you going through this? Or, you know, you're around your husband all the time. He's home all day. Like, are you guys, are you okay? Are you, you know, on each other's nerves, just bouncing stuff off of each other, um, just ways to make like best
John Darcie: (13:37)
You shouldn't as permanent broke ball. One desperation is
Deidre Scaramucci: (13:42)
In the Scaramucci. Yeah. But we've really uplifted each other. We've maneuvered and found ways to eventually see each other after many months. Um, and it was just so nice. And your girlfriends. Yeah. And, you know, just to have to come together safely and have our kids interact and just for me, or for them, or for anyone just to talk to an adult, like I said, in the beginning, I was half joking, but half not. I mean, um, it could be worse, but I spend most of the time talking to young people, which is great, but you need to have adult conversations. I mean, to stay stimulated, to stay alive and happy. Um, so I've, I've looked to them for that, a lie,
Brooke Baldwin: (14:22)
A follow up on that, which is to, to your husband's point about vulnerability. Like what kinds of, because I think of my own text chain, which I didn't even have a group text chain with my, with the ladies in my life before this, before, right. Like the journey that was huddle. And I mean, we text about everything from, are we too old for Jean shorts? What we think about the election to, you know, mental health and depression through the pandemic, to the racial reckoning in this country, like nothing is off limits to our marriage.
Deidre Scaramucci: (14:55)
We talk about all of that. And the interesting thing is we are coming from many different places, ideologically, surprisingly interesting. So we have had some really interesting conversations, whether it be about the vaccine, about quarantining, about how we're handling school. I mean, everything has been so interesting to hear people because we're so similar and in many ways, and we grew up around each other, but life has brought us to different places and we've made completely different choices during this whole thing. And she's been so interesting to see. And also you're saying about vulnerability being vulnerable, to be honest about how we feel about certain things, whether it's the riots, um, you know, women's empowerment, whatever it is, um, the election. Um, and we've just been really honest, without judgment, which I think judgment, judgment, judgment is another thing. Vulnerability is one and people are afraid to be vulnerable because of judgment.
Deidre Scaramucci: (15:52)
And I'm not when you're in a safe space, like a huddle. Right. But to be honest, um, as an adult, um, navigating the waters of adulthood and meeting people, I have yet to meet many people at this stage in life that I've been able to break through. I think people assume things about each other. Um, they prejudge and I think it's really inhibiting. I really do. Um, I think it stops a lot of people from gaining relationships and also just making differences. Cause they're like, so bound up that you don't, you don't get past a certain point. I don't know if you've ever witnessed that cause you're pretty open and
Brooke Baldwin: (16:30)
Try to be really open. And I, and I think I attract other women in my circles too, are equally open. I, I don't, I'm trying to think of, I don't have any friends who are just sort of like myopic or singularly minded. I can't, I don't have time for that. And I come from, you know, I, I come from Georgia. I come from, you know, a lot of Republicans in my family and here I'm living in Manhattan, you know, surrounded by a lot of like left-leaning folks. And I, and I, I remember my mom, when I was a kid, she was always like, Brooke, you should be a judge. That was what she always thought I should become. And instead I became this journalist, but similarly, like trying to maintain my objectivity and always listening to the different sides and believing the truths in some cases lies somewhere in between. But I want to come back to a point you said about like your, so your huddle is comprised of women who are of various ideological backgrounds. Because that to me is another key point of a huddle is either a diverse ideological backgrounds or making sure, you know, members of your huddle. Don't all look like you. Yeah.
Deidre Scaramucci: (17:34)
Yeah. Well, it makes things more interesting to be, I mean, obvious. Yeah. But, um, yeah, I mean, we're just, we're the same, but we're not, and it's been trying at some points, like I'll, I'll tell Anthony, you know, like, I don't know if we could see so-and-so cause they think differently than weed and it's, you know, sometimes it's thrown up some obstacles, but at the end of the day you still remain close. Um, and, and that's basically what we've done, but it's just interesting. We're very different. And um, one thing to say about you is following you on Instagram, you do attract that because you're very open, uh, transparent. You're not always trying to, um, play a character. You're, you're very real. Like, you'll go on after a workout. There'll be like, you know, you know what I mean? But like, that's cool because that makes people know that they can be real around you or they can, you know, they can pick up something from you. I always pick up something from your posts because they're just, there's honest and I'm authentic. And I like that obviously. Thank you sister fan. So,
John Darcie: (18:40)
So Brooke, I want to ask something, you know, I, uh, Don lemon wrote a book as well. Uh, and John and I interviewed Don, he said something about the Trump era. It's not a political question. It's a sociological one. He said that the Trump era exposed levels of racism that was probably passive aggressive, rip the cover off of it. Now we've gotten to see things and in a weird way, he thinks that will actually make things better because now we're having a full frontal conversation. Do you think something like that also happened for women and in terms of the progress that women are making in the country? Well,
Brooke Baldwin: (19:18)
Totally. I, I, I go back to the women's March in 2017, a day after he was inaugurated and went to the white house for the first time. And I, I do, I am mindful of activists, Tamika Mallory, who was on the stage, who said something to the effect of, you know, we are not here just because of one man. So I, I do agree with that. I think like any sort of moment in momentum is not all because of Donald Trump. I think having covered the 20 15, 20 16 presidential race and crisscrossing the country and being rallies and showing up for various candidates. I just noticed women were showing up in ways. I had never noticed in my career. And it wasn't just because they all were in it for Hillary. A lot of people were showing up for a lot of women were showing up for Bernie Sanders.
Brooke Baldwin: (20:03)
A lot of women were showing up for Donald Trump. I think that the, what was the final vote, it was like 52% of white women voted for Donald Trump. So I just noticed women showing up. And then I think at the end of the day, you had this like wave as a, as a result of the election and then came, you know, me too, and time's up. And then we had never seen more women run for office in the 2018 midterms as we had before. And I remember going on Stephen Colbert and the wake of that. And we were talking about, um, my series that I'd done here at CNN about how many of those women are Democrats. And I remember going on TV and saying, you know, we need more women in office left or right. And I was in touch with a couple of Republican women at the time and were saying it was really in the Republican party.
Brooke Baldwin: (20:49)
This was like 2018, a really breakthrough because there were so many older white men in those dark smoky rooms who weren't as progressive. And open-minded for these women candidates coming up and sharing the power with them. And they wouldn't even tell me anecdotes about how they were the candidate. And they would be sitting at the table at a, at a rally for themselves. And some of these guys would come up to the table and they'd be like, hi, what's your name? And where's the candidate. You know, they just it's, it's, uh, they, this is their own personal experience. And so I think it was wonderful that after the 2020 election, that a number of Republican women won seats, uh, on Capitol hill. And so I, I do think that that momentum is shifting for Republican women as well. At the end of the day, we only make up a quarter of the seats in Congress and that number needs to improve as well. I feel like we're
Deidre Scaramucci: (21:41)
Living in a weird time though. It's like, I'm not sure what's going on, but there seems to be a shift in many ways. Health-related, um, women's rights, just all these things. And so I'm just trying to figure out, are we living in the transitional period where we go through all the mess?
Brooke Baldwin: (21:57)
Like, are we in the mess right now to make it better for the next generation, right? Or
Deidre Scaramucci: (22:02)
Will we ever, will we ever be living in a time where it's less messy and just don't matter the mess,
Brooke Baldwin: (22:10)
Like the mess a little bit, like the change.
Deidre Scaramucci: (22:13)
I mean, I like the mess. I like the change, but I would like it to be this, the situation and the circle to be settled and more natural because I feel like right now there's a tug of war and a push and pull with a lot of things. And I just feel like it's very unsettled. So I'm just wondering if we'll ever live in that time or will we see that time?
Brooke Baldwin: (22:34)
And who's got a crystal ball. Who's got a crystal ball. I don't know.
Deidre Scaramucci: (22:38)
Do you think we can make enough, um, of a debt? Yeah,
Brooke Baldwin: (22:43)
I hope so. Dierdre I hope so. Um, I hope that women will it at the end of the day for, for me and for this book, what I heard from various, everyone from CEOs to politicians, to Hollywood, actresses, to women athletes at the end of the day, they want to make sure that women have a bigger table, that it's no longer women fighting for few seats at the, the male table. But in fact, like let's just build our own down at your table. And, um, I think that slowly but surely that is happening. And I think one of the secrets to doing that is being a Huddler and subscribing to this abundance mentality, ethos. And I do hope that if I really want to create a movement of women subscribing to this versus the sharp elbow mentality, so that I do believe we can reach what you're describing, where we do build this table. And we have a table full of women from all shapes, sizes, colors, creeds, ethnicities, everything, and it's sort of like adjacent to the men and we need, you know, we started they'll go the whole conversation, or you were reading the dedication to my husband because we need our men and we need our men to support the huddle. So hopefully yes, in our lifetime, we will, we will have built this big, beautiful table for, for women. Um, it's just a matter of everyone jumping on and going with it.
Deidre Scaramucci: (24:10)
Do you think women that are in power right now are doing enough to, to make that kind of happen? Or do you think it's still could be worked on? I mean, I know there are obviously people that stick out in our mind that are always moving forward with this, but, um, I feel like there could be more
Brooke Baldwin: (24:28)
Sure there's a mix. I can only speak to the women I interviewed in this book. And so the women I interviewed in this book are all in it for everyone to win it. You know, they're all, if they're not, you know, many of them have the access to power and her, then, you know, as Megan Arpino famously said are throwing down their, their ladders for, for younger women coming along. Um, but sure. I mean, haven't you like in, in my own career, I have experienced those women who are not the women's women who are icy and wanna have their sharp elbows and hold on to that lone woman position up top. And it's like, on the one hand you sort of were like, listen, man, I understand where you are and why you're so icy and, and don't want to help other women because you've had that claw girlfriend, you have had to work your off to, to get to where you are. But then I think why aren't you, now that you have this power, like help others help others achieve just a slice of what you have. Yeah. I think there's still an, if I'm just being realistic, I think there's still a mix. What do you think?
Deidre Scaramucci: (25:33)
Oh yeah. A hundred percent. No, that's what I was saying. Even just right now, I'm not working. I did experience that when I was working. Um, but even just navigating, um, moms or whatever, I don't know, not to stereotype or whatever, but just interesting. You know, it's very hard for me to understand. And Anthony, you know, I talked to him about it all the time and he's like, well, for some reason, women are intimidated by other women. And I don't know what it is. Like they automatically assume you are not going to be nice or you, they automatically assume that you don't like them. And there's something that we are, I don't know. Women
Brooke Baldwin: (26:10)
Can be the worst to one, another account. We,
Deidre Scaramucci: (26:13)
But I am not under, um, I'm always trying to figure out, is it a taut or are we, is it like a survival thing or is it something innate or something that we're taught? Um, but I I'm, I'm sure it's a combination of all those things, but I just wish we could, but people like you are because you have a platform you're showing people how to be successful. Um, brilliant, attractive and not, um, too cool for school. Like still approach you.
John Darcie: (26:42)
Imagine if I calling Brooke brawl one successful and attractive on the assaults, I mean, that would be it for me. Right? Anthony's the head of HR here. I would take it as a compliment. Mr. [inaudible]. I appreciate that, Brooke.
Deidre Scaramucci: (26:57)
Um, obviously that's an interesting thing I wanted to ask Brooke about. Um, I think sometimes we are striking, we're not striking enough of a balance between, um, and I'll get all Tony Robbins here, but like female energy and male energy, because I do believe, um, and you and I are born around the same time that there is a distinct difference. And sometimes, and it doesn't mean any difference between male, energy and female energy. And I think sometimes we need to keep a little bit of that because sometimes I feel like we have like an overbite where we're trying to make everybody exactly the same. Um, so like what Anthony was saying, if he complimented you, I personally would never get offended. If somebody come home, I wouldn't take it as a compliment. Right. But I feel like, you know, when I was coming on to this, I'm thinking, what can people say? Not particularly in this conversation, but what doesn't offend somebody, what is still funny? You know, I was just thinking about the time we live in and you face that every day. Cause you have to be on TV every day and, and ask questions off the cuff. Like, how do you know you're not offending somebody now? I feel like we are overly sensitive in some ways, right?
Brooke Baldwin: (28:08)
I mean, that's a whole other conversation and I am certainly not an expert in it, but, um, I mean I try to just maintain objectivity and you know, I, my, my, my, my gut just knows if I'm being offended. And, and I think the bigger thing for me is if I'm being offended to just speak up and say something about it, but I think you're asking like, is the, has the pendulum swung too far? And that people are getting so offended and it's this like hyper PC culture. And when did that become a thing and when can the pendulum swing back? And
Deidre Scaramucci: (28:44)
It's a, it's a weird thing because we're you and I are living in a zone and the zip code where we transferred somewhere in between, where, when we first started our careers, it was like borderline mad men, Nish still, still acceptable. Um, I worked on a trading floor and it was insane. Um, and then now
Brooke Baldwin: (29:04)
You've experienced it totally.
Deidre Scaramucci: (29:08)
And, um, and now I'm like, I don't think anybody could say anything anymore. And I haven't been in an office environment, but it's just, it's really at the opposite end of the spectrum. So I just find it fascinating that that has happened in probably a time pair, a period of 15 years.
Brooke Baldwin: (29:26)
Do you think that it Lee and I, and I hear you loud and clear, and I feel like what I'm hearing is a little bit of an eye roll of like, come on, you know, can somebody just say somebody as attractive? I think that there are many, many shades of what you're describing, but at least I would prefer the pendulum be swinging more on the let's be appropriate side versus the, Hey, you're a hot chick working on the floor and I'm going to be really inappropriate right now. And it's gonna be swept under the rug because it's 1987, you know, like,
Deidre Scaramucci: (29:53)
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah, no, I agree,
John Darcie: (29:57)
Brooke, 2007 and possibly 2017 on wall
Deidre Scaramucci: (30:01)
Street. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: (30:03)
I've just not been around the wall street culture.
Brooke Baldwin: (30:06)
I mean, I can't even imagine. I can't,
John Darcie: (30:09)
When you say that there's a, there's a, when you talking about like, you know, intuitively when you're being offended or not, I've we, we have four, we have four sons and I tell my adult sons, a woman knows right away, charming versus creepy right away. You can tell a woman, her dress looks great. You look great tonight. You're saying it totally complimentary out any, you know, a front or anything like that. But then you could say this same sort of thing in this sort of leering weirdo
Brooke Baldwin: (30:41)
In the wrong places.
John Darcie: (30:43)
And then all of a sudden the woman is like, okay, this guy is out the lunch. You know, I, I'm hoping that we can keep the 5,000 year conversation between men and women. Yeah. Make it more appropriate, make women feel comfortable and make women feel safe. But the flip side is we also should be able to talk to each other in a way that is authentic without agreeing offensive. Does that make sense? Totally, totally.
Deidre Scaramucci: (31:09)
Perfectly. Totally agree. Yeah.
John Darcie: (31:11)
Right. In the book about growing up and learning in an all woman's environment, tell us about that because I think it's a fascinating thing and I think it's somewhat helpful to women to think about it in that perspective. What, tell us that your insights
Brooke Baldwin: (31:26)
There? Well, I think I wrote, I wrote, I wanted to make sure I wrote a whole chapter about all girls learning environments, um, and mentioned a little bit about my own. And I tell this story. I did gymnastics for years and years, and there was one point when I was, I dunno, I was probably like eight or nine when I'm just like, I'm a sweater. I sweat, I work hard sweat. It's not cute. It's still not cute, but I've embraced it. All right. And I'm this eight or nine year old and my, my leotard and my spandex or whatever. Um, you know, doing the things around the bars and I'm soaking wet. And I remember this like precious bun in her hair, not a hair out of place, not the sweat stains under her armpits that I was rocking at the time. And I remember her saying to the coach, like, coach, why does Brooks sweat so much?
Brooke Baldwin: (32:14)
And I was mortified. I mean, I could still feel it now. And she turns to the girl and just quips back because Brooke works twice as hard as you. And that was just a snapshot of what I remember from my youth, but being surrounded by girls, doing gymnastics or girls in dance or whatever other sports I was I was doing at the time. And, and what I, what I write about in the book is how now, if you're, if you have little girls, how there is such a broader spectrum of opportunities for them to step up to bat and fail and try, try again. Rushman, Sujani amazing woman, incredible Ted talk, founded girls who code. She talks a lot in her Ted. Talk about how, when boy boys are brought up to jump to the fifth rung of the monkey bar fall and jump up again, like be messy, fail, it's fine.
Brooke Baldwin: (33:05)
Try again. And girls are brought up to be a bit more perfect and she wanted to start girls who code. So to create a safe space for just girls who would do something really, really hard, like learn, learn to code and fail and, and create that space in which they can do that. And, and also build that like precious, you know, those early days of confidence in, in girls. And so I read about in my book, other examples of that, where I talked to Karlie Kloss, the famous supermodel, who is such a hustler too, and I'd have her whole backstory, but she took me inside. One of her coding camps, Kode with Klossy. And I met all these girls who were doing something very similar. I mean, they'd never, some of them didn't have access to computers. Certainly none of them had learned to code before and creating a safe space where they can raise the, raise their hand without boys around and, you know, feeling, feeling like they could fail and then succeed.
Brooke Baldwin: (34:01)
And similarly, Reese Witherspoon does this awesome film, young filmmaker lab with a bunch of girls in LA once a year with the help of at and T. And so all these girls get to come out and they they're carrying around all this fancy equipment and they shoot a film and they all take turns, playing different roles, um, hosting the thing, shooting the thing, editing the thing. And it's the similar, it's the similar idea. And just how nowadays having girls, and I know you guys have boys, but having, having girls, having these opportunities to fail and, and, you know, just from the, all the spectrum of things that are out there, it's just awesome.
Deidre Scaramucci: (34:40)
Well, having boys, I feel like we're part of this. Like you said, we have men to support. Yes. And, um, I was reading something yesterday. It was, um, somebody wrote about their husband and they were saying, thank you to his mom for teaching him to be somebody who, uh, supported her and let her fail, cheered her on when she succeeded. And it made me think, you know, we have our responsibility as parents of boys to raise people. We'll do that. And also, um, you know, cheer on the girl, like do what I'm doing, go for it. You know? Um, like our young son is seven and he always says, I love this girl in my class. Like she plays Fortnite, you know, so cool. And she's like, I don't know any girls that do that mom. And that is so cool. And, um, she's the one girly invited to his birthday party. And I want to always be that way, like do what I'm. That's awesome. So, um, I think as parents, as adults, we just have to always set an example, whether you're raising, uh, girls or boys, or whether you have nieces and nephews, whatever it is, you have to set them straight, you know, that they can all do the same stuff. W Rudy, each other root each other on. Yep. So, um,
John Darcie: (35:58)
We want you to talk a little bit about your mom. Tell us about your mom.
Deidre Scaramucci: (36:04)
Let's the original huddle, as she said,
Brooke Baldwin: (36:07)
Christy B was born in 1949. No, she's one of five sisters, grandfather. My grandfather, her, her father was a Presbyterian minister and they grew up in Miami and yeah, my mom met my dad. He was at Georgia tech. She was at Agnes Scott to Atlanta, Atlanta colleges. They met dated married voila here I am. And, um, I've always been really, really tight with her. And my dad was a management consultant with Deloitte. He was out of town Monday through Friday, and I just totally grew up thinking that was normal to have a dad on a plane somewhere exotic Monday through Friday. And I remember he would come home and I would like rifle through his bags for all the little trinkets from hotel rooms and the change. And my mom was my, my original huddle. And she was someone who, you know, I was like a four year old kid doing backflips off the neighborhood pool.
Brooke Baldwin: (36:58)
And I'm sure the parents were like, who is this girl? And where are her parents? But my mom supported it and cheered me on. And, you know, as a little girl would, you know, let me, she'd crawl into bed with me and tell me stories in which I was the protagonist. And I was, you know, I'm being brave and whatever story she would tell me. And that's the stuff that matters. Those are the building blocks of that. The confidence is a young girl. And then just coming through this crazy, amazing, challenging profession of TV news, and having a moment when I was living back at my parents' house at the age of 29, because I moved to take this chance on becoming a correspondent at CNN. And, um, of course it was right in the middle of the recession. It was 2008. So I landed in Atlanta and CNN basically said, Hey, we think you're really great.
Brooke Baldwin: (37:53)
And we're really excited to have you work for us. But yeah, although all the positions are frozen. So hang tight. And I ended up working odd hours at various other networks within the building for awhile and had a moment which I described in the end of my book, which my mom and I affectionately refer to as the yellow chair moment where I'm living at my parents' house. And I'm having a giant cry in this sunshine, yellow chair in her bedroom. And I'm not a quitter, but I was on the precipice of quitting. I just thought I left a perfectly good job in Washington DC for this to take this leap. And it wasn't really panning out for me. And she refused to let me quit. And that is my mom in a nutshell. And we've had several yellow chair moments since, um, and she's even become closer to her sisters in the later years. And she's my
Deidre Scaramucci: (38:46)
She's the best. Do you think coming from a family with that many sisters, she was so, um, aware of what it took to be like a brave girl, because she was surrounded by so many girls. I'm sure that used to help her. Right.
Brooke Baldwin: (39:03)
I think she came from a time where they didn't have much, he was a Presbyterian minister. The church would provide the house. She had to bunk with another sister at all times. They had to take care of the younger sisters. It was very Southern in the way of, okay, don't make a fuss if something's going on. Like, just keep it under the surface. You know, it was of the, like child of the fifties, just don't talk about it, that kind of thing. And she actually wasn't super close with her sisters, like growing up. I remember she had, we had this one neighbor who she was really close with, but beyond that, I never remember having huddles of women over to our home to drink wine or anything like that. And so I didn't grow up seeing that, unlike maybe some of my other girlfriends moms who did have that. And I think only later in life, has she, um, grown in her own way. And then of course having her daughter writing an entire book about this, I think she's become much more intentional about really becoming close with her sisters and having a, an all women's Agnes got book club and things like that. So now she, she really walks the walk.
Deidre Scaramucci: (40:10)
It's so interesting as we keep changing as we go along. Yeah. Which brings me to my next question. So what are you doing now? I know you're leaving CNN soon. What do you go off to do?
Brooke Baldwin: (40:26)
I'm trying to figure it out. If you guys know anyone in executive positions at streaming networks, um, I, a couple, a couple of things. I, first of all, this has been such a privilege position and truly a dream job that I have earned every single day and has been like beyond I'm going to be waterworks walking out of this building next week. Um, but I have surrounded myself with these trailblazing women and they have, I can't, I can't hold space with them and not be the bravest version of myself and the bravest version of myself. I remember my dad telling me when I was like, just starting out in TV. He was like, Brooke, when you, as soon as you get too comfortable somewhere, you gotta go. And while this has been such a privilege to have this platform, I gotta go, I gotta take a leap.
Brooke Baldwin: (41:13)
I gotta do my back, flip off the high dive, and I want to stay, stay in journalism, stay in the space of storytelling, like the deep end of storytelling, having time to really sit with whomever. It may be, um, famous people, ordinary, extraordinary Americans, uh, tell their stories, shine lights in places where it's not so bright. And, um, do I do believe that streaming is like the next generation of storytelling and having that space to do that. So I have been working with a production company. I am pitching some folks very soon, some ideas. Um, so that number one is a dream. The next dream. And number two, after I announced I was leaving, um, the Ellen degenerate show called me up and asked me to come to LA, to guest host that talk show. And it was such a bucket list check. And I would love to be able to go back. And I think something in that space could be interesting to stay tuned.
Deidre Scaramucci: (42:13)
That's a major thing if you're going to they'll do it on Ellen, right? It's
John Darcie: (42:17)
Ms. Ms. Dierdre hold up the book. Let's show off the book before we blast out of here. So this is the book title by Brooke Baldwin and Brooke. We are, uh, super proud to know you. We're super proud to be friends with you. Love you guys. And, uh, you know, I sometimes get out shined by John Dorsey and it me off the fact that I have the two of you out shining me today. Doesn't me off at all. I just want to point that out that John Dorsey, before we break, I'm glad there was some makeup left for Dierdre in the house. You know, you're going to be on cameras at the barely any makeup. And there certainly wasn't any Botox left for Dierdre Brooke. I can D I can assure you that. Okay.
Deidre Scaramucci: (42:59)
Oh my God. I
John Darcie: (43:02)
Can't drink without a straw, but the top of my forehead doesn't move. I just want to make sure everybody knows that in all seriousness, Brooke, we wish you great success with the book. Thank you so much for joining us on. Thank you guys so much and going forward to the next career. Can't wait, John, you want to take us out of here? Yep. Uh, thank you everybody for tuning in to today's salt talk for Dierdra Scaramucci is a steamed debut here on salt talks. Just a reminder, if you missed any part of this episode or any of our previous episodes, you can access them all on our website, salt.org backslash talks or on our YouTube channel, which is called salt tube. Uh, please follow us on social media. We're most active on Twitter. You should also follow Brooke by the way. Uh, she's a great follow on social media as Dierdre I think alluded to before long the show or during the show.
John Darcie: (43:52)
Uh, but we're at Saul conference on Twitter. We're also on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook as well. And please spread the word about these salt talks. I'm the proud father of a daughter with another daughter on the way. So I love seeing these types of resources and we'll make this required reading for my daughters as they grow up. So please spread the word about these salt talks and topics like this are especially dear to our heart. You know, Anthony has a daughter as well. So these issues are very important to us, but no question on behalf of Anthony, dear Joe, the entire salt team, uh, signing off for today, we hope to see you back here soon again on salt socks.