Transcript:
Tom Colicchio: Let’s make America great. OK, fine. There’s kids out there right now that are hungry going to school. They’re not learning. And there’s a kid out there that is not going to live up to his or her potential, right? And that’s what we’re going to need to stay great.
Colin Seeberger: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m Colin Seeberger. That was Tom Colicchio, celebrity chef and food access advocate.
Between Trump’s tariffs and Republican’s big bad budget bill, the cost of food has continued to skyrocket. At the same time, millions of children are at risk of losing access to critical nutrition assistance. Meanwhile, restaurants across the country are facing a new reality where fewer people can afford to go out to eat because of the poor economy. And food service workers? Well, they’re staring down higher health care costs because of Republican’s big bad budget bill passed this summer.
Tom and I broke down how this is impacting all Americans and dove into his personal experiences inside the food service industry. And stick around after the interview for a moment of joy because we have to break down Taylor Swift’s new “Life of a Showgirl” album.
Seeberger: Tom Colicchio is an eight-time James Beard award-winning chef and the head judge and executive producer of “Top Chef.” He’s also the chef and owner of Crafted Hospitality and executive producer of “A Place at the Table,” a documentary about the underlying causes of hunger in the United States. His memoir and cookbook called “Why I Cook” chronicles Tom’s personal reflections of more than 40 years behind the stove.
Chef, welcome to the pod!
Colicchio: Thank you. Happy to be here.
Seeberger: So I wanted to start by getting your reaction to these first nine months of the Trump administration and its impact on small businesses like restaurants. I know you talk to chefs every day who are feeling the impacts. In D.C., we’ve seen reservations plummet since Trump’s takeover of the city, and we know a number of his different economic policies are really weighing on their businesses. So from your experience, how has 2025 been for restaurateurs and businesses across the food service industry?
Colicchio: Personally speaking, it’s the worst year we’ve ever had. Craft has been open for 20, 25 years this year, and this current year is by far the worst year we’ve ever had. We’ve seen sales drop by 10 to 12 percent over the summer. Food costs are out of control. I mean, the price of beef is just through the roof right now. Labor is almost impossible, to find cooks.
And I think that’s partially because in New York City, it’s really expensive to live here. And I think a lot of young cooks are finding that there are great restaurants outside of large cities that they can work in and live a little more comfortably. So it’s a combination of things, but it’s been a rough year.
Seeberger: Well we know beyond the tariffs, you talked about labor. We know that Trump’s immigration policies—we have seen his immigration enforcement officers hunting people down who work in blueberry fields. Agriculture has been particularly hard hit. And we have seen in some cases reports of 60 to 70 percent of workers not showing up to work following these enforcement activities.
Are you seeing this kind of dynamic play out in the restaurant scene as well?
Colicchio: Hard to say. I’m sure it’s happening. I’m sure a lot of people are not showing up to work. We’re not seeing that here. I’m probably 99 percent sure that all my employees are documented. They are legally allowed to work. So I’m not seeing it here.
But we’re just seeing the rates across the country. People are afraid. And what I don’t really understand about this—and this is all for show. With the Trump administration, that’s what it’s all about. Because as we know, under Obama, more people were actually—they went through the process of going to court, and then they were deported. More people under Obama were deported than Trump. But Obama didn’t go about it the way Trump is going about it.
I think that the administration would be better served if they actually put money, instead of into ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], put it into the courts, let’s get some more judges, and let people have their day in court. I mean, nobody wants to see criminals here. If criminals are here, they should be deported. I don’t think that’s an issue. But going and just knocking on people’s doors, pulling them out of fields, going into schools, going into the courts when people are actually showing up for their day in court and pulling them out of court—this is what we read about in conflict countries that have dictators. This is not the way America is supposed to be.
And so I just think that it’s all for show. It’s all to scare the hell out of people. And it’s also, I think, a way—because he knows that when he sends ICE to do this, there’s going to be protests. And he wants that.
He wants to actually point to those protests and say, “Look, there’s the radical left Democrats going after our law enforcement”—which I find to be really interesting to me when January 6, I mean, you had people beating up law enforcement, and they were all pardoned. So it is hypocrisy at its finest. And it doesn’t have to be this way.
Seeberger: Yeah. I mean, it really is terror tactics that we’re seeing from the administration. You mentioned the high price of some core groceries, beef. We have seen the prices of fruits and vegetables skyrocket as well following the tariffs.
Beyond the high prices that have been a result of the tariffs, how are tariffs affecting restaurateurs? How is it making it more difficult to run a business?
Colicchio: Sure. Well, I mean, what happens is the price of everything that’s imported has gone up, whether it’s olive oil, wine, chocolate, coffee, just some of the basics that we don’t produce here. We don’t produce coffee in the states with the exception of Hawaii, which is very small compared to the rest of the world.
We produce wine in this country. We produce olive oil in this country, but olive oil is really expensive coming from the states. And there’s good quality olive oil, but a lot of it’s coming from France. It’s coming from Italy. It’s coming from Greece, Spain. And if you’re running a Spanish restaurant in America, you may want to use Spanish olive oil. It just makes sense, right? And so prices of everything has gone up.
Now here’s the dilemma: We’ve gotten past the point of being able to pass those costs through to the consumer. When a steak on a menu is $170, people just opt not to buy it. But that’s the reality of what we’re looking at right now. To get a high-quality steak, whether it’s prime, it’s going to cost the restaurants about $30 a pound. And we have to mark that up. And it gets to the point where you can’t do that anymore.
And especially—for the high-end restaurants, there’s a little more pricing elasticity, but for the neighborhood restaurants, they’re really in a dilemma. And so we’ve gotten way past the point of being able to pass those costs on. I mean, I’m going through an exercise right now where I’m looking to have to cut the portions down on everything to keep the price in line with what I think people are willing to pay.
Seeberger: Wow. It is both the business owners themselves, [and] it is also employees who are working for restaurants who are often small-business employees themselves. One of the things I was curious to talk with you about is the ongoing government shutdown’s impact on folks in the food service industry.
We know that nearly half of the people who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces are either small-business employees or small businesses themselves. And so I was particularly interested to get your perspective on, if Republicans succeed in making people pay twice as much for their health care premiums, that seems to me like it could have huge ramifications for the restaurant industry and those it employs.
If people’s health care premiums double, what do you see as the impact that having across the industry?
Colicchio: What we see, especially young people who for the most part work in the restaurant industry, they just don’t have insurance. They don’t sign up for it. We offer insurance in our restaurants. A lot of them don’t sign up for it. Because it’s expensive. Now that makes our cost go up high because we’re not bringing as many people into the system. But what happens is if they get sick, if they’re injured, they’re screwed.
And we had an employee here that was out at a club, was dancing, and messed up her knee. She was out of work for a year and didn’t have the money to pay for it. Plus, our health care costs are going up there. Our plans are going up probably 13, 14 percent this year. And we pay part of the health insurance, but not the whole thing. But yeah, so people are opting out of it.
Government shutdown, in terms of how that’s affecting the industry, I don’t know if it has much effect right now on individual restaurants. But you think about all of the places that are shut down—whether it’s a national park—they all have food service. So all food service workers—
Seeberger: Food service inspectors.
Colicchio: —all those food services, they’re out of work right now. So there’s a lot of people that are affected by the shutdown that are out of work, that aren’t going to get paid. And what does that do for the economy?
It’s going to eventually have effects. It’s going to hurt. And we’re looking at an economy that’s really fragile right now. The stock market, it’s booming. Gold is at an all-time high. I think Bitcoin hit an all-time high yesterday. But the majority of people don’t have a lot of money in the stock market. They don’t have money in gold. They’re not playing Bitcoin. And they’re struggling.
And the economy is, I think, just on the cusp of—especially now, the tariffs are really starting to kick in. For a long time they didn’t kick in. And I suspect that if the economy takes a hit, then we’re all in trouble because people, the first thing they stop doing is going out and spending money in restaurants. They don’t go out to concerts. They don’t go out to plays. All that. The discretionary spending just goes—it’s gone.
And so that’s my big concern, is that with the fragile economy we have right now, with a lengthy shutdown, it’s eventually going to work through. People are going to lose faith in the economy.
Seeberger: And it’s going to hit those most living paycheck to paycheck the hardest.
Colicchio: Sure. Well the economy already has hit people who are living paycheck to paycheck the hardest right now because prices are high. Someone making $400,000, $500,000 a year, they’re not so worried about the price of groceries when they go. They may look at it and go, “Wow, it’s expensive now.” But it’s not going to alter their spending. They’re not struggling to put food on the table. You’re making $50,000 or $60,000 right now, and you have a family, two kids—you’re struggling. Really struggling.
Colicchio: And I know from experience. I didn’t grow up wealthy. I shared a bedroom with my two brothers. My father was a corrections officer in a county jail. And my mother didn’t work until much later on in life. And when she was working, she was a cafeteria worker. And so we struggled. And so I know what that’s like. And it’s going to be much, much more difficult for people that are struggling now. It’s only going to get more difficult.
Seeberger: Well that’s actually, I think, a perfect segue to my next question. I think a lot of people are familiar with your career as a successful chef. Maybe they watch “Top Chef” and have seen you on TV. Maybe they’re like me, they follow you on Twitter and enjoy your spicy takes.
Colicchio: I’ve cut that way back recently. It used to be fun.
Colicchio: It’s not anymore. It’s like the restaurant business: It used to be fun, it’s not anymore.
Seeberger: Well I’m curious, you’ve also, though, been really involved in a lot of activism around hunger and nutrition in America. And I’m curious to get a little more of your origin story. How did you get involved in that kind of work? And what really drew you to it?
Colicchio: Sure. So as a chef in New York, we are always asked to show up at fundraisers. I could do one a week if I wanted to. And I think we naturally—and I say “we” collectively—we naturally gravitated towards anti-hunger organizations like Share Our Strength, No Kid Hungry, Meals on Wheels, Gaza We Deliver, New York Food Bank. And I’ve done a lot of work around with food banks across the country.
And so for 40 years being a chef in New York, I thought I knew a little bit about the issue. And in fact, I remember taking some media classes with Share Our Strength years ago. And again, I thought I knew a bit about the issue. And then about 10 years ago, my wife was mentoring a young girl. Her family was living in a shelter in Brooklyn. She met her through an organization that was providing free dance classes in the afternoon, and she also had a learning disability.
And in New York City, if the public school system can’t meet the needs of someone with learning disabilities, you can get them into a private school setting that the city pays for. And it’s not a fancy private school. It’s a school that can teach to the needs. And so we got her into a program, but it wasn’t part of the public school system, so it didn’t have a breakfast and lunch program.
And about a week in, we got a phone call from the principal saying, “It’s clear that she’s hungry.” And my wife’s a filmmaker. And she was mostly working in narrative film, but she started to explore possibly putting together a documentary about hunger in America. And very quickly through the research that she did, we found a few things that were really startling.
One, that there was hunger in every county in this country. Hunger doesn’t look the way it typically does. It’s not like the Sally Struthers commercials with the flies buzzing around someone with extended stomachs in sub-Saharan Africa. And so it’s hidden in plain sight. Also, that people aren’t hungry in this country because of famine, because of war, because of drought. They’re hungry—we have the resources to feed everyone here, we just don’t have the political will.
And the film was made. And we also knew that there was a film, or a piece of media, that came out back in, I think it was the late sixties, early seventies on CBS called “Hunger in America.”
And partly, [U.S. Attorney General] Robert Kennedy who was going around to First Nations reservations documented hunger, and also looking at places down south in Appalachia documenting hunger. And it aired on TV. And very quickly, Sens. [Bob] Dole (R-KS) and [George] McGovern (D-SD) got together and modernized the food system.
And so we knew that—and pretty much got rid of hunger for a long time, until the eighties came and Reagan came in, all about pulling your bootstraps up and build the digitalism and get rid of government. And so we saw hunger shoot up. And so after the film came out, as I was an executive producer on the film, I with another one of the talking heads, Ken Cook, we started Food Policy Action.
And Food Policy Action, what we did is we created a scorecard that graded Congress on how it voted around food issues. And so it could be farming, fishing, clean water, hunger, school lunch, things like that. And after about the second or third year, people started paying attention to our scorecard. And I would spend a lot of time up on Capitol Hill. In fact, probably once a month I was on the hill. And I consider myself an unpaid, unregistered lobbyist, lobbying on behalf of people that were struggling.
Seeberger: Doing the good work.
Colicchio: Trying to. And quite frankly, met with a lot of—this was pre-Trump—met with a lot more Republicans than Democrats because Democrats were voting the way we wanted to.
And I found that my meetings were almost always cordial. And there was a back and forth. And then we would go to Congresswoman Chellie Pingree’s (D-ME) home on Capitol Hill, and Democrats and Republicans would show up—and an occasional senator would show up too, that was always a big deal. But they would show up, and we would just chat about the issues. And so I felt like I was getting some work done.
And then also right around that same time, the James Beard Foundation started to train people through a bootcamp on how to actually lobby. And so we would go up with 20, 30 chefs and have, collectively, 200+ meetings. And we were starting to make a difference.
And then I think the last meeting I had on Capitol Hill was right after Trump was elected. I met with Paul Ryan’s team, and they just looked at me and said, “Tom, we have no idea who to talk to right now. The government is not working the way it normally works. And we don’t know who to go to.” And I think that was the last time. Then the pandemic hit, and everything was shut down, although during the pandemic, I took all that knowledge that I had, along with people like Sam Cass and others, and we started the Independent Restaurant Coalition and successfully lobbied the government for, I think, $28.6 billion for independent restaurants to get us through the pandemic.
And so that was kind of the brief history of how I got there. I mean, I had examples. My dad was a corrections officer, but he was a president of this union. And so my family was a political family in local politics. And news was often on at night. And so I was steeped in politics from a young age.
But this was up close, seeing how the sausage was made. And I actually see how the actual sausage is made, and quite frankly, I prefer my sausage that I make to the political sausage, especially now. But I still—I was up on Capitol Hill a couple months ago. [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) had a series of hearings on issues, and I was asked to speak about hunger.
But just where we’re heading right now, I love the fact that MAHA wants to make America healthy again, but I’m not quite sure how cutting food assistance away is going to make anyone healthy.
Colicchio: So it’s really interesting with the MAGA movement, there are times where their instincts are actually OK, and I say, OK, they’re not perfect. The diagnosis—
Seeberger: The diagnosis may be right, but the prescription is very off.
Colicchio: Yeah. I mean, just this morning, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) came out and said, “Yes, we should be offering this health care, the ACA benefits should—we should do it. If we care about taking care of people that are struggling, this is the way to do it.” So it’s just—I scratch my head.
Seeberger: Tom, I’m curious, you mentioned being up on the hill a few months ago. We saw this summer Republicans passed this big bad budget bill and included in there was historic cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP. We saw in that legislation it also puts millions and millions of kids at risk of losing access to free school meal programs.
Why are these changes so harmful to people? And what are you hearing from those on the front lines who help fight hunger in this country about how they’re having to grapple with a fallout here?
Colicchio: Yeah. The food banks are really struggling right now. It was bad during COVID. Things got better. It’s devastating. And if you go to New York City, you’ll go to a New York food bank fundraiser, and we’ll raise $1.5 million, $2 million in a night. And that sounds great. Everybody pats themselves on the back, and they should. They’re doing great work and raising money and helping the food bank survive. But when you look at the cuts that are going through, we would have to do that fundraiser every single night to even make a dent in the cuts.
Why is it important? Well I really believe that in order for America to be great again, this is—again, the instincts might be OK. Let’s make America great. OK, fine. There’s kids out there right now that are hungry going to school. And they’re hungry when they get to school. They’re not getting breakfast programs because that got cut. They’re not learning. And there’s a kid out there that is not going to live up to his or her potential.
And that’s what we’re going to need to stay great. We’re going to need everyone to live up their potential. We can’t afford to have people who have unhidden talents that we don’t know that will be uncovered once they go to school that aren’t going to reach into that potential because they’re starving. They’re hungry.
We know that there was a study done by Deloitte that when kids get breakfast in first period, math scores go up by 13 percent. Instances of going to the principal’s office drops out. Attendance actually is higher because they come in and eat. Attendances are higher. So again, we’re short-shrifting so many people out there. And we’re never going to break the cycle of poverty.
Because these kids are not going to, again, live up to the potential. They’re not going to go to college. They’re not going to be able to contribute all that they can contribute because of hunger, and because we’re allowing this to happen in the greatest country in the world, the strongest country or the most wealthy country in the world. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Absolutely doesn’t make sense.
What I don’t understand is why the military, the funding for the military is something that can’t be touched. $1 trillion can’t be touched. You can’t take some of that money and make sure that people are well-nourished. Why do I bring up the military? Well 25 percent of the recruits that show up to fight are either obese or malnourished, and they can’t fight. And they wash out. And so national security is an issue because of hunger.
Colicchio: I mean, I remember when I testified the first time I testified in a congressional hearing, I testified alongside of a general for mission readiness, and that was his argument. So this isn’t coming from me just throwing some of my liberal nonsense out there. This came from a general who looks at whether or not we are ready to keep America safe. And so we’re just going about things the wrong way. I think we’ve got to stop looking at this as a handout and look at this as—
Seeberger: An investment.
Colicchio: —an investment. Exactly. An investment in our future.
Seeberger: Tom, you are very vocal in your criticism of this administration. And I unfortunately can’t say that we have seen enough other public figures—despite everything that has happened over the course of the past several years, but in particular these last nine months since the president has returned to the White House and seemingly seems to be trying to eviscerate the very founding principles that the country was formed on.
Why do you think that leaders in industry aren’t speaking up? Do you think they can see what’s happening? And if so, what’s your plea to them about why they should be engaged here?
Colicchio: Yeah. I think some are afraid, but I don’t necessarily agree with that. There are people in my industry, like José Andrés, who are speaking up.
Colicchio: Yeah. And Andrew Zimmer is speaking up. There’s plenty of chefs that are speaking up. There’s plenty of public people like Sean Penn, George Clooney, people like that.
I think a lot of people who would be more vocal about the Trump administration are protesting the war in Gaza. And so that’s sucking a lot of oxygen out of the air. But I think also people are afraid.
I’m still pretty vocal about it, but I’m probably a little less vocal. I’ve had threats. A couple years ago I had someone vandalize my house. I live in Brooklyn, but I also have a house out in Northfolk on Long Island. I woke up one morning in August to red spray paint across my driveway, “Trump” on my mailbox and then more spray paint. I have a little berm that goes up. And my wife’s Jewish, and there was a Jewish star that was crossed out. There was a big thing that said, “Go home.” And so, I mean, the Suffolk County hate crimes division came and looked at it but determined it wasn’t a hate crime.
Someone also is, for probably five or six months, would take their garbage and throw it in my driveway. Every morning. Finally we put a camera up there, and it stopped. So yeah, it’s scary out there. And you look at the violence that’s out there right now, and I think people are getting afraid that if they’re vocal, that there’s a target on their back.
And so yeah, I mean, it’s scary times out there. I mean, when you think about—if you think that you have to check yourself because you’re afraid of violence showing up on your doorstep, it’s scary times.
But I think there are still plenty of people that are vocal. I mean, there’s plenty of people in the music industry. I think about Jason Isabel. Springsteen right now is very vocal. And others that are out there. There’s still plenty of people that are vocal, but I still think that it’s scary times out there.
Seeberger: Yeah. It’s hard to say. If you’re living in fear about what you’re saying, it is hard to say that we’re as free today as we were just a handful of years ago.
Colicchio: It certainly is in America. It doesn’t feel like America, right?
Colicchio: That doesn’t feel like America. I mean, I look at these images right now, Portland, and the news, what I’m seeing in the news is people protesting and they have signs up there and they’re being vocal. But that’s our right.
Seeberger: That’s American.
Colicchio: That’s American. That’s our right. That’s how we were founded, right? And so, I mean, if our leaders are so thin-skinned that they can’t hear a late night comedian poke fun at them?
Seeberger: We got bigger problems.
Colicchio: We do. We have bigger problems. Yeah.
Seeberger: Well just to end on a slightly brighter note, I am curious. I enjoy shows like “Top Chef.” Really loved “Destination Canada.” I look forward to taking a reprieve here and there.
But I’m curious, how are you efforting to stay positive in this moment? What are sources of inspiration or joy that you are looking to and you would advise others who are cautious about staying engaged in this moment?
Colicchio: Yeah, I mean, for me, we just finished shooting season 23. We were in North Carolina and South Carolina, and that was a lot of fun. Mostly in Charlotte. And I just got back two days ago, three days ago. And so I’m back into my regular routine.
I’m listening to a lot less news these days, listening to more music. Playing—I play guitar, so I’m playing more music. I fish offshore as much as possible. And I don’t have Starlink on my boat for a reason. I want to be able to disengage.
But no, I think for me, it’s spending more time with my family, friends, and knowing that as bad as this is right now, we were in the same place. I grew up in the sixties and seventies, so I remember images of college students getting shot and killed by National Guard, right?
We haven’t gotten there yet. We saw political leaders assassinated. So we’ve been through really, really hard times in this country again, and somehow we pulled through it. And I think we will again. I mean, the only difference right now is social media. But I think that midterms are going to come. I think Democrats will do well in midterms. I think that will at least put a couple roadblocks up. And hopefully at some point, we’re going to realize that we’re all in this together.
And quite frankly, at some point, we’re going to realize that it’s really not right against left. It’s people who are struggling against the ultrawealthy and these massive companies that I, quite frankly, think we need to have a Teddy Roosevelt-style person come in and start talking about breaking these companies up. And I think it can happen.
I watched Bernie Sanders go down to West Virginia. It’s a coal country. There was a bunch of videos out. And he started with a small group and started talking about what he stood for. And at first it was like a little documentary. They were like, “We don’t want to hear from Bernie Sanders. He’s a socialist, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And then he started talking and they’re like, “Oh, I like what he’s saying.” And then he talked to a big group, and they just gave a standing ovation when he was finished. And so I think that people are out there ready for a message.
And the other thing, spending time in North Carolina, I didn’t see a lot of MAGA out there. I didn’t see big flags from pickup trucks and stuff like that. And I also spend time in Brooklyn. I go to my park every morning, and no one’s talking about it. They’re living their lives. And I think that those that follow politics really, really closely and are watching news 24/7, we think that the whole country is immersed in this. It’s actually a really small part of the population.
Colicchio: And I think that we all have a lot more in common than we think we do. And I think when push comes to shove, we’ll get through this. So I remain positive. My wife thinks I’m absolutely crazy, but I have to remain positive. I’ve got a 14-year-old, a 6-year-old, and a 32-year-old, and I hope that we haven’t completely [censored] up things for them. So I have to have some faith that we’ll get through the other side of this, and hopefully things will get better. I have to be an optimist or else I would go in my bedroom and shut the door and not come out.
Seeberger: Brighter days ahead for them, for us.
Colicchio: I hope. For everybody.
Seeberger: Yeah. Well on that note, Tom Colicchio, thanks so much for joining us on the pod.
Colicchio: You’re welcome. Thanks.
Seeberger: All right, folks. That’s going to do it for us. Please go back and check out previous episodes. Here to break down the latest Taylor Swift album, TS12, “The Life of a Showgirl,” is our supervising producer and eldest daughter of “The Tent” podcast, Kelly McCoy.
McCoy: Does that make you our father figure, Colin?
Seeberger: I think it might. I think it might.
McCoy: Which I think I would take over “Eldest Daughter” on this track, but we’ll dive in.
Seeberger: I do like “Father Figure.” I thought it was fun. I have been loving blasting this every day since the album dropped. I think my husband may be going a little bit crazy at this point, but my daughter seems to be taking to it as well, which may be a little more risqué of an album than “Midnight” or “Lover.”
McCoy: Well, your daughter has a very discerning ear, I hear, so.
Seeberger: I think she does. I think she does. I’ve taught her well. What can I say folks? But all right, hit me. What’s your review? What are your favorite tracks?
McCoy: So as the listeners of our podcast know, I have been counting down the days of this album release. Am I delighted that we have new Taylor Swift music? Yes. Will I listen to it consistently, so much so that throughout the rest of the year, she’ll be in my top listens? Yes.
That said, I keep coming back to the part in the interview that she did with Travis when she said to the effect of like, it’s going to be banger after banger and have the lyricism of Folklore. And unfortunately for me, I don’t know if it fully hit that mark.
McCoy: I know, I know Colin. I did not expect to be the womp-womp on this pod. There are songs that I do like, but overall, I think if she’s going for the Grammy, we’ve been doing like TTPD, we’ve been doing this album, re-releases is out the wazoo. We’ve been touring. I might recommend that we take a beat, do a little editing. Because TS13 is coming up and perhaps that’ll be—well, “coming up.” TS13 will inevitably get here, knowing the lucky number.
McCoy: So unfortunately it was a little bit of a miss for me, sadly.
Seeberger: Oh, I absolutely ate it right up. I loved Taylor really taking a deep breath and exhaling from the sad girl music, the tragic breakups and all of that to just have a celebratory album. And I thought it was frankly, probably among the more honest albums that we have seen over the course of the last couple at least. I liked this, I think, the most since “Evermore”? “Folklore”? Actually no, the most since “Folklore.”
McCoy: When you say “honest,” elaborate on that.
Seeberger: Well, I think that she is acknowledging all parts of her story and celebrating all of them. We can find as much fun and fulfillment and celebrating, reaching new milestones at the same time that we can acknowledge both the joys and the hardships and responsibilities of living the life of a showgirl. And I think that it not only did a good job in all of those respects, I also think, if you ask me, I think there’s a lot of bangers on the album.
McCoy: Oh, the musicality I think is great. As I was telling you before, on some of these songs, if we could turn the vocals down and the beat up, they are so catchy. And to be clear, I also am like a “1989,” “Reputation”—
Seeberger: We both agree, “Lover”—
Seeberger: One of the most underrated albums—
McCoy: And it makes no sense to me. So I love her with a bop. I just think, and maybe it’s the whole bit about the key that unlocked my thigh is like, “Wood,” I know you love it—
Seeberger: I’m sorry. “Wood,” “Fate of Ophelia,” “Life of a Showgirl,” “Father Figure,” best tracks.
Seeberger: Yeah. Top four, go. Top four.
McCoy: So, “Ophelia,” “Opalite,” “Honey,” “Life of a Showgirl.”
McCoy: Are my faves [sic], yeah.
Seeberger: I can work with these. Yeah, yeah.
McCoy: We’ll just have to—the music in “Wood” is catchy.
Seeberger: So catchy. It is so catchy. But it is taking me back to “Lover” album.
McCoy: Yeah. So I would agree with that. It’s just, some of the writing was perhaps a little much for me.
Seeberger: Maybe we could say that it worked for its target audience.
Seeberger: With that, folks, we will close shop here for the week. But hope you have a great rest of the week. Enjoy listening to TS12, and we’ll talk to you next week.
Seeberger: “The Tent” is a podcast from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It’s hosted by me, Colin Seeberger. Muggs Leone is our digital producer. Kelly McCoy is our supervising producer. Mishka Espey is our booking producer. Hai Phan, Olivia Mowry, and Toni Pandolfo are our video team.
You can find us on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.