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Guys, it’s been a whole year that we’ve been doing this. Can you believe it? Happy birthday MoO.

(SINGING) Happy birthday.

It feels longer.

Wow. Wow.

It’s 50 episodes. 50. 5-0.

I mean, happy anniversary. That’s golden, right?

Yeah. This is our golden anniversary.

It’s just like 50 years of marriage.

Aww.

Somebody owes me a cake.

From New York Times Opinion, I’m Carlos Lozada.

I’m Michelle Cottle.

I’m Ross Douthat.

And I’m Lydia Polgreen.

And this is “Matter of Opinion,” one-year-old, where thoughts are still allowed.

Not potty trained, not walking yet.

Not quite toddler, actually the most annoying kind of age.

All right. This is our first of two veep-themed episodes of “Matter of Opinion.” We’ll get to Kamala Harris and Joe Biden sometime soon. But today we’re going to talk about Donald Trump’s potential running mate.

Back in January, so long ago, when we still cared about Iowa and things like that, we had an episode where we shared some thoughts, even some vague predictions, about who Trump might choose. But now we may have a slightly, vaguely, potentially clearer picture of who he might be considering.

It’s going to be Pence!

Sorry. I’m sorry.

You know, don’t get me started on the great Mike Pence. But he actually kind seemed to have an audition of a few options at a fundraising event in Palm Beach this past weekend.

So for our purposes, I hope we can evaluate this parade of veep hopefuls, both in terms of what they tell us about Trump and how he’s thinking about a potential second term and also how they might fit into a second Trump White House. How does that sound?

We’re ready.

Let’s do it.

So purely for reference, among others that were invited to this donor retreat thing, Trump had Senator Marco Rubio of Florida —

Oh, Marco.

— J.D. Vance of Ohio, and Tim Scott of South Carolina. He had both Dakotas.

Whoo!

Wow.

Doug Burgum of North, Kristi Noem of South, and New York Representative Elise Stefanik.

Anyone on that list that surprises you, that elicits any kind of strong reaction, somewhere between clear contender or snowball in hell?

I was surprised that Doug Burgum’s name has been bopping around for a while now just because he’s super boring. The only benefit I see to him is that he is low drama and would fade into the background and he is super rich.

He’s very rich.

That always helps.

Good hair. Good hair I would say.

He does have nice hair.

Looks the part.

I envy his hair. That’s the hair I expected to have back when I thought I was going to keep my hair.

Oh, Ross.

I love that we’ve gone full substantive very early.

Yeah, absolutely.

Very early.

But Carlos, isn’t that part of the problem? That the last time around, Trump ran this not as the kind of process that you would think that he’d want to, right? This is a guy who’s made his bones as a reality television star and running beauty pageants, and instead he had to make a safe pick to shore up his base. So I feel like we’re getting the full Trump treatment this time. We get to do it his way.

But even Mike Pence looked like he was straight out of central casting, right? So he — talk about some nice hair. He has some super hair.

So Michelle, back in January, when we last left our heroes, you suggested that Trump might consider South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. I’m wondering how you stand by that or are you kind of barking up the wrong tree there.

I knew you were going to do that.

Oh, there’s many I could have chosen. That dog don’t hunt!

I did not have puppy killing on my bingo card. I will give you that. But I still think that if we move right along from Governor puppy killer, I still think the model has a lot of merit. You know, throw a little peace offering out there to the women, find somebody who is super loyal. But at the time, we thought she wasn’t dramatic enough to completely upstage him. But who knew?

Do we need to explain why we’re making dog jokes about the governor of South Dakota?

Well, the governor in her upcoming book, which I understand Carlos has already mined from front to back, has a story that she tells about how she blew away her 14-month-old puppy, Cricket, for no apparent good reason.

She was a bad dog and needed to be put down.

OK, Carlos. I’m going to need some fact check here.

That was my understanding.

OK, I received the book last night and I finished it today just before our recording. It is fresh in my head. But here’s what’s amazing about the dog story. For some reason, it’s this interlude right in the middle of her big foreign policy, national security chapter.

But it actually works. It actually works remarkably. Here’s the story. She was having one of these hunts with some fancy friends. You know the kind of fake hunt where you put all the pheasants in one place so that your people can then shoot them?

Did that just last weekend.

Very familiar.

If one of us had done that, Ross, I would have guessed it would have been you.

It’s funny, I would have guessed, Michelle. But go on.

But here’s the thing. She had these dogs, most of which were well-trained except for Cricket, to go up ahead of them and rouse up the pheasants so that the fancy friends could then shoot them. But Cricket went too far ahead before any of the hunters got there, so it ruined the hunt.

Then on the way back, Cricket’s in the truck or something, and she stops at someone’s place, a place that they have all these chickens. And Cricket jumps out and like attacks the chickens. So she writes in the book, now I hate this dog. And so she decided to kill Cricket. She killed Cricket because she was both embarrassed and angry. But it doesn’t end there.

Oh, my god.

What’s even better is that next she remembers that, you know what? I’ve always had this goat that I hated. And now that I’m kind of in the mood for killing, I’m just going to kill the goat, too.

Wow.

Meanwhile, all these workers at her house are freaking out because they think she’s gone —

She’s coming for them next?

She’s gone crazy. And then she ends the story of the dog and the goat and then moves into here’s the Noem doctrine of foreign policy.

Wow.

Wow.

It was crazy. It was crazy to me. And this is the chapter on foreign policy. So of course, I thought this is like invading Afghanistan and then invading Iraq just because you can because I’ve always hated Saddam Hussein. So I am now pleased that she might not be in the running because of the manner in which she reacts to anger and embarrassment. This dog made her look bad? I’m going to kill the dog.

I don’t know. Trump’s not really a dog guy. Just saying.

Yeah, but I think it’s a little bit like a much more extreme version of the Katie Britt problem. Your one job is just be a little bit normal. And I mean, this is just such an extreme version of failing at normal.

All right. So if we’ve knocked Kristi Noem out of contention, who has a case to make for someone who is a strong option?

Ross, save us. Save us from this discussion, please.

All right. I think you can make a good case that, out of this list, Rubio makes a certain sense for Trump. But he and Trump are both residents of Florida, obviously, and that is constitutionally prohibited. In order to be picked, he would have to move out of the state that he represents in the Senate. That seems a little challenging.

But with all that being said, I think, setting aside the constitutional issue, he checks various boxes. The box of submission, in the sense that Rubio was vehemently anti-Trump in 2016. And there’s nothing that Trump loves more than a convert to his cause.

At the same time, Rubio has remained a kind of hawkish, establishment-friendly Republican through the Trump era to a greater degree than, for instance, J.D. Vance. I think he would be a more reassuring pick for a lot of Republican donors and foreign policy types who would think, OK, if Rubio is the VP, we’re probably not pulling out of NATO on day one.

Or attacking Mexico.

Right. Rubio can give a really good speech. He’s Hispanic. I could go on. But I think that’s actually a good mix for where Trump is right now.

Ross, so you’re off the J.D. Vance train? He was your thought last time around, right?

I think these are separate questions. I don’t think I’ve ever thought that Vance is the ideal pick for Trump in terms of winning the 2024 election. I think Vance is much more of a pick that you make if you’re saying, OK, this time we’re doing populist policy and we’re doing it right and we’re not letting the establishment co-opt us and run roughshod over us. So picking Vance is making a pretty clear policy statement about where a Trump second term would go.

I’m just saying if we’re doing it sort of as a beauty pageant, electoral votes —

Like demographics, right.

As a strategic move, I think you can make a case for Rubio.

Lydia.

I think that I’m going to go with the choice who is most similar to Rubio, and that is Tim Scott. He obviously has shown incredible servile loyalty. But I think that Scott, like Rubio, his roots — he came to Congress as part of the establishment rather than part of the MAGA horde. And I think that’s helpful. He can read as normal, although his willingness to embrace election denialism and things like that does seem like that mitigates against his normalcy.

I also think that in Trump’s incredibly reductive, I would say quite racist way, he probably thinks that Scott’s going to help him attract Black voters, and, in particular, Black male voters. I actually don’t think that the old school conservatism of Scott, who’s very much a kind of pull you up by your bootstraps kind of Republican, is actually the pitch that appeals to the male voters of color who are drawn to Trump. So I think he’s actually kind of mistaken about that.

But I could see how Trump could get there as like. oh, yeah, this guy is going to help me with a growth of constituency and possibility. I think he’s wrong about that, but I think that would probably be part of the calculus.

Michelle now that Noem is out, who’s in?

Well, surveying the group of non-puppy killers, I think Elise Stefanik is the model with a twist. She gives the nod to suburban women. She, pre-Trump, spent a lot of her time working to make the party more female-friendly and still has done a lot to try and increase the number of women who run for office who contribute to the party. She’s got a lot of those networks. She’s good with the establishment. She’s very business-friendly, good with fundraising.

At the same time, though, she has come around to be incredibly obsequious and a kind of big MAGA bootlicker. And has distinguished herself with the base by going hard after college presidents. She’s been big on grilling them about the anti-Semitism on campuses. This won her a lot of brownie points with Trump.

Now, I don’t know if she’s glam enough for him. He might want her to get kind of a Kristi Noem makeover. But he desperately needs at least some small entree to suburban women, especially in the post-Roe era. She would not be a bad pick.

And I think the college presidents stuff isn’t actually just a base play. I think that there’s a set of college educated suburban voters who are not pro-protest on college campuses, who are very much on the Stefanik side of that debate, who are authentic swing voters.

But I would have said six months ago that her profile in the last couple of years has been almost too pure MAGA convert to make her an ideal pick. But I do think that her role in the hearings has gotten her a little bit of that potential swing voter appeal back.

What are her positions on abortion? I assume that she’s pro-life, but has she said anything that would make us believe that she could help Trump ameliorate on the party’s difficulties in that issue?

She would be more of a straddler, I’m sure, in her record than Noem, Rubio, Vance.

Oh, yeah.

I wonder, Lydia, if, in the same way that you suggested that Trump might in a simplistic way see Tim Scott as shoring up his outreach to Black voters, in a similar way, just having a woman on the ticket might seem to him — regardless of the specifics of where she stands and what her specific positions are — just having a woman on the ticket would help his quote, “woman problem.”

Yeah. I think he definitely thinks that. I guess the question that all of this raises for me, though, is does Trump believe that he has weaknesses? And is he trying to solve for them really in this process? I ask that genuinely, because I’m not sure that in his heart of hearts that he actually believes that he has any weaknesses. He’s an I-alone-can-fix-it guy.

We know that in picking Pence in 2016, he was certainly acknowledging his weaknesses. Obviously, the situation is different now, and he is, for instance, leading in the polls, not trailing in the polls. So I definitely think you should expect a real calculation going into the choice.

But you’re right that he feels far less constrained. Our colleagues on the news side of the Times, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage, and Jonathan Swan have done a really good series on what Trump’s second term might look like. And if I had to boil it down, it would be that he will pick up where he left off. In other words, he would not feel that he has to pick those reassuring figures in key positions, including the vice presidency.

Yeah, we keep reading those stories. But at the same time, Trump when pushed, for instance, on the Ukraine vote, ended up lending his tacit support to Mike Johnson’s deal with Democrats. Whatever his true intentions, he needs money. He needs donors on his side. He needs to hold some segment of suburban Republicans and moderates who don’t love him.

Even just this list, he’s not looking to pick Steve Bannon as his running mate. He’s assembled a pretty normal list of Republicans. And they’re leaking things like maybe Tom Cotton will be Secretary of Defense. That is quite different from making —

Mike Flynn.

Right, Mike Flynn, a guest from Tucker Carlson’s show or something, Secretary of Defense.

I think Flynn will be back, by the way, in some capacity.

He’ll appear at the White house. That’s for sure. But I just don’t think we know. I think this pick will actually tell us a lot. Picking Rubio versus picking Vance versus picking Stefanik, each of those choices signals something in particular about Trump’s second term that we don’t know yet.

But I also think that Trump’s greatest need — and this is I think where we bring in the L word — is loyalty. Because if he wants to be able to pick up where he left off, what kept him from doing, quote unquote, “what he wanted,” were all of these people who got in the way, who were establishment types. And loyalty doesn’t necessarily mean just do whatever Trump says. It could also mean helping keep Trump in office.

But I think that loyalty is, to me, the most important characteristic that he’s looking at in anyone. And no one on this list that we’ve talked about has shown any sign of any kind of disloyalty. And I think fealty to election denialism is probably the number one kind of litmus test for that loyalty.

You saw that with Tim Scott this past weekend in that interview.

Totally.

The question — I believe it was on “Meet the Press”— was that sort of straightforward, you know, would you accept the results of the 2024 election regardless of who wins? And he kept saying something along the lines of how he expects the election to be completely fair and above board and for Donald Trump to win, putting those things together. And then the moderator kept saying like, well, no, but wait, what I’m saying is regardless of who wins. And he wouldn’t move beyond those talking points.

It’s just not possible to imagine that Trump wouldn’t win.

Or you just have to keep saying that because any other answer would be a sign of disloyalty.

Well, ideally for Trump, I think loyalty is not a passive matter. You see the people who have been auditioning aggressively for this position out there on the campaign trail and especially on TV. He’s doing test drives for who can make a good argument on TV for all of the things that are important to him. This is a guy, obviously, for whom media ability is very important. So it’s not just a matter of agreeing with him or working behind him. You need to be a fighter. You need to get out there and make that case for him in an ideal scenario.

But the other question here is, if Trump wins a second term, he’ll be in an unusual situation where he has a new vice president but not eight years to go. The vice president will immediately be — certainly in the vice president’s mind — candidate for president in the year of our Lord 2028. And in that sense, I think Trump’s concern might be less about are they going to be loyal to me during the course of the 2024 election and more to what extent does this person have a kind of independent brand that they could sort of cultivate to get separation from me over the course of four years.

And in that sense, if Trump is worried about his vice president essentially just starting to run for president six months in or whatever, that’s a case for not picking the two senators with the biggest profiles and the biggest brands, Vance and Rubio.

On the other hand, it could be super fun to watch him just kind of serially, perpetually humiliate either of them for the duration of four years to constantly put them in their place, which I think he would actually take a certain amount of pleasure in If he’s not really that worried.

I don’t actually know that he would necessarily be successful at that. It might turn out to be more difficult than he’d think. I think the idea of succession is probably quite intolerable to Trump, the idea that somebody coming after him and picking up his mantle. And to me, that’s the strongest reason why Rubio and Vance are probably out of the question. Their planetary gravitational pull is just too big.

And the idea of the future beyond Trump is just kind of a priori a solvent to loyalty. If you’re thinking about what’s next for you, then you’re not willing to put absolutely everything on the line in order to protect a Trump presidency, particularly since, Lord help us, hopefully, if he wins, this is his last term, and we move on to a new post-Trump political era.

But I think that the person that thinking most benefits is actually Doug Burgum. Great head of hair, central casting, fits the part, isn’t weird, doesn’t turn people off, seems like a pretty nice guy.

And can only imagine being president if Trump stays with him all the way.

True, although I do think that’s also kind of a case in a negative way for Stefanik, because I don’t think Trump thinks about women as logical leaders. I don’t think that that’s how he views them. I think he’s an old fashioned sexist in that regard. I don’t think he’s that intimidated by them. I don’t think he looks at them and thinks, oh, well, you know, they’re probably plotting to overthrow me, because that’s just not how he rolls.

But there is no greater compliment in Trump’s vocabulary than killer. And that’s what he calls Stefanik. You’re never going to hear him calling Tim Scott a killer.

Yes, that would be a mistake to call Tim Scott a killer.

That would also be a problem in other ways.

Although maybe Kristi Noem now, the dog killer.

She is absolutely, definitely a killer.

And we’re back full circle.

So we started dabbling into succession here. And I want to maybe —

Play the “Succession” theme?

Yeah, who’s the Wambsgans here?

Wambsgans for VP.

Burgum. Burgum feels like the Wambsgans.

Burgum is the Wambsgans.

Let’s take a quick break there — speaking of “Succession”— and when we come back, we’ll talk about whether any of these potential running mates could signal some kind of future turn for the GOP after Trump, or if it’ll just be Trumpism all the way down.

(SINGING) Trumpism all the way down.

So we’re back.

We keep talking about this job as of it’s overtly and obviously and self-evidently a wonderful thing that all of them desperately want. And that may be true. But let’s explore that a little bit. What are they getting out of this themselves? And what do these potential candidates risk by taking on such a job?

I don’t know about you guys, but I just have this vision of Marco Rubio resigning the senate, moving to some faraway state, and then Trump deciding, no, I’m not going to pick you. But thanks, maybe next time.

Look, the vice presidency is not historically been described as an attractive position, and yet lots of people seem to want to do the job. It’s like, ick, I wouldn’t possibly want to do that. And then when the opportunity is in front of you, you seize it. And I think for each of them, there are many, many different reasons.

But I think that a big part of this is that the future of the Republican Party feels so up for grabs, and the person who is his vice president could potentially shape what that’s going to be. But there are many, many different possibilities on offer here. And I think speaks to, I don’t know, the sui generis nature of Trumpism.

This seems like an incredibly unattractive job. Look at what happened to Mike Pence. He almost lost his life as part of it.

But everybody in high level politics, you hit a certain level and it requires a certain ego and a certain delusion that you have answers and gifts that other people don’t have.

Much like being a New York Times columnist.

Yes, exactly.

We have some real similarities.

So obviously, they all think they’re going to be different, they’re going to be the ones to crack the code. And without that, I’m not sure how they could continue as they are.

This is, again, a very unusual situation where you’re becoming vice president to a term-limited president, who in the normal course of events — stipulating that nothing with Trump is normal — in the normal course of events becomes a lame duck between six months and 18 months into his presidency, and also is not really interested in the details of governing.

And I don’t believe that Trump is sitting there — oh, he’s always figured out the bureaucracy now. He’s got a list of 1,700 offices he’s going to personally go through and replace. No. Trump, even an angry, out-for-revenge Trump, is just not going to care about the details.

So if you’re his vice president, you are in a position, one, where you are certainly potentially his successor. And two, you get to run a real part of his White House. And yeah, the Mike Pence situation hangs over your head every day.

Hangs?

Ooh.

So to speak. But for these guys, people who are crazy enough to want to be United States Senators and President of the United States, I don’t see how it’s a scenario you could turn down.

I think that the great promise of Trump is the way that he has reshaped the Republican Party. And it remains to be seen whether this is real. but the potential coalition to include certain more conservative-leaning voters of color, this is not a you’re just going to hand over and take over the machine.

We talked about this the last time we talked about vice presidents, but the person who also fumbled this was Barack Obama. He had a very smart VP pick in Joe Biden. But then when Joe Biden didn’t end up running for president right then, it turned out the person that he ultimately blessed in the end wasn’t capable of picking up and running with the coalition that he had built.

So I think the question that I have is, who among these names is capable of picking up and running with the coalition that Trump has built? And can Trump tolerate having a person as his number two who is capable of picking up and running with the coalition that he’s built and even build on it?

That’s my question for you. Wouldn’t he prefer somebody who would fail just to satisfy his ego as, see, I told you I was the only one who could do this?

You mean someone who would run after him and lose?

Yeah. Or I mean, that just he wouldn’t care if they ran after him and lost because that’s of no interest to him that somebody else could do it or that he has helped the party in some way. He has no interest in that.

He would certainly create a situation where whoever follows him will have to endure some sort of humiliating test in order to get the blessing from Trump that will enable Trump to claim credit for any victory. That we can be absolutely certain of. I think probably he would still want to beat the extremist, left wing, far left, terrible Democrats.

Maybe, but he hates the RINOs, too.

Right. He hates the rhinos.

But let’s be clear, though. He’s going to be 82 by the time this is all over.

We’re all going to be 82 by the time —

I feel like I’m already 82. I don’t know.

I’m past 82, spiritually.

Again, I think the answer is pretty clear. If you were just designing candidates to sustain a more downscale, multiracial, working-class Trumpist coalition, you would go either with Vance or Rubio. And I could imagine an African-American candidate who would fill that role. I don’t think Scott is that candidate. And Burgum and Stefanik, they’re not inheritors in that way. But again, I think that could make them more attractive to Trump.

So do you think that any of these candidates as vice president could signal a meaningful evolution of the Republican Party from Trumpism? Or does the mere fact of all the loyalty tests, et cetera, that they have to pass to even get the job, make that difficult to imagine?

I think they’re fluid enough that they’ll pivot again. These people are chameleons, a lot of them. He’s not picking Marjorie Taylor Greene to run on the ticket.

Yeah, I think if there’s anything we’ve learned from the Trump era, it’s that many, many politicians who you thought were deeply, deeply committed to a particular ideological profile, discovered that they have other and more important commitments.

They’re deeply committed to their own success.

I remember a time when I was sure that neither Marco Rubio nor Ted Cruz would endorse Donald Trump for president. So if Marco Rubio were Trump’s vice president for four years and then was elected president, could Rubio reinvent himself as a version of the Marco Rubio of 2016?

Oh hell yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

The “Great Republican Hope” on the Time Magazine cover all over again.

I think this is very much as-needs-must situation and it’s very kind of ready-made. But I can easily imagine a scenario in which Trump chooses someone relatively weak, and we have a much more wide open situation in 2028 for the Republican nomination.

Which is how he’d probably like it.

Yeah, yeah.

That’s assuming he doesn’t run for a third term, right?

Yeah.

Third term coming up, baby.

I can’t even think about it. Let’s not go there.

We’re doing the third term debate this time. Save it for the 101st episode.

Ross, you never let me have any fun.

Concluding on the malleability of politicians is always a pretty safe bet. So let’s end there. And after the break, we will get frio y caliente.

Whoo!

Don’t you show off.

[LAUGHS]

[SMOOTH DRUMS]

So finally it is time for our “Hot/Cold.” Who’s got it this week?

All right. I’ve got it. And I’m going to stay political, but I’m going to go in a different direction. I am cold on presidential candidates not making their medical records public or at least coming out with very, very detailed doctor’s reports. And this is on my mind this week because of a great piece in the “Times” about how RFK Jr.—

Oh, my god.

— has revealed, all of these medical conditions that he’s dealt with over the years, including having a dead parasitic worm in his head that he says ate part of his brain.

TMI.

I’m going to I’m going to pause and let that sink in for a while before we also note that he talks about having AFib and having gone through mercury poisoning, something about hepatitis from intravenous drug use, but he’s not releasing his medical records. We’re just supposed to take that and go, hmm, OK.

OK. But come on, this is pretty amazing.

I want more.

And especially given the Kennedy family’s, shall we say, longstanding history of not revealing serious medical problems.

Absolutely.

I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve some points.

This makes me more likely to vote for RFK.

It’s not a letter from his doctor saying that he’s the healthiest person ever.

And he is the best of the bunch. That’s what I’m saying. Trump — what was it, just a few months ago — again, released one of those doctor’s notes that just basically says, yeah, he’s a great guy and he’ll live forever. I think Biden has released several pages of a doctor’s summary.

So look, I get the logic of FDR and JFK. You want to convey strength and comfort people when you’re a sitting president. But that makes it all the more important that when you are a candidate, you just lay it all out there.

And while I do really, really appreciate the parasitic worm story, I need it all out there for us. If that’s what he’s telling, what is he not telling? I’m just saying.

I’m sorry, RFK Jr. has announced to the American public while he’s running for president that part of his brain was eaten by a parasitic worm. I don’t think we need — I think put the man in the White House.

We need to know what kind was it. What was it?

Make him president by acclamation.

Having grown up in sub-Saharan Africa, mostly, I have a lifelong fear to parasitic worms, just in general. So this has been a tough couple of days for me.

I guess I’d just like to bring us full circle, all I want to say is RFK Jr.- Kristi Noem 2024, just the two candidates together.

The dream ticket!

The dream ticket.

Oh, my God.

Sometimes the only way to remove a brain parasite when you’re out in the prairie — and just for the record, I’m worried some of our listeners will think that I’m mocking this. I have spent a lot of my middle age dealing — not with brain parasites — but with extremely bizarre tick-borne illnesses. And so I feel like when I hear this kind of revelation from RFK, I don’t think this is bizarre. I feel a deep kinship. Who knows what’s eating all of our brains right now?

Well, that’s why I want those medical records. You can’t just throw that out there and expect me to go, oh, cool. I want to know more.

Show me the corpse of the worm.

Stop.

We’re going to put this episode out of its misery, and onward to another year of matter of opinion.

Bye, guys.

Thoughts aloud.

Thank you, Lydia.

All right. See you guys.

[SOFT GUITAR]

Thanks for joining our conversation. We’re planning an upcoming episode about the other veep, Kamala Harris, on the Democratic side. If you have thoughts or questions about her leadership, we want to hear it. So share it with us in a voicemail by calling 212-556-7440, or you can email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com.

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“Matter of Opinion” is produced by Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Phoebe Lett and Derek Arthur. It’s edited by Jordana Hochman. Our fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Original music by Isaac Jones, Efim Shapiro, Carole Sabouraud and Pat McCusker. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie-Rose Strasser.

[SOFT GUITAR MUSIC]