Newt's WorldKat Timpf, a libertarian commentator and comedian, shares her unique perspective on the importance of refusing to choose sides in political and social debates. Drawing from her experiences at Fox News and her career in comedy, Timpf discusses how engaging in conversations with respect and humor can bridge gaps and lead to enlightening outcomes. Her new book, "I Used To Like You Until," encourages readers to reconsider binary thinking and highlights the value of connecting with people who hold different viewpoints. Timpf also reflects on her personal journey, including her struggles and triumphs, and emphasizes the power of vulnerability and open dialogue in fostering understanding and reducing polarization.
On this episode of News World. Drawing from her decade long experience as a libertarian voice at Fox News and as a comedian co anchor of the popular late night show Guttfeld, Kat Timf provides a unique viewpoint on how refusing to choose sides can lead to surprising and often enlightening outcomes. Her signature with a voice and unique perspective makes her new book I Used To Like You Until an entertaining read, inspiring readers to reconsider how they think about complex issues and engage with those around them. Kat is a firm believer in the power of conversations to bridge gaps, political or otherwise. Here to discuss her new book, I Am really pleased to welcome my guest, Kat timp She's a writer, comedian, and libertarian commentator. She's currently the co panelist to Get Felt on Fox News weeknights at ten pm and a Fox News analysts. She's also the author of the New York Times bestseller You Can't Joke About That Why Everything is funny, Nothing is sacred, and We're all in this together. Kat, Welcome and thank you for joining me on news World.
Thank you so much for having me.
I must say you know, it's very challenging to be a comedian and to intuit what audiences will respond to. And you've really done a remarkable job. How did you get into doing that?
Thank you well.
I first got into comedy actually back when I lived in Los Angeles. It was after college. I was kind of struggling. I had gotten into Columbia journalism school, but I couldn't afford to go, so I on' enrolled and I decided to instead kind of learn these skills for free by interning working in restaurants. I eventually lost my apartment and things were a mess.
I found that.
Going and talking about these things, making jokes about them on stage, it gave me a sense of power over the things that were making me feel so powerless in my life. And I think, truly it's sad that I think it is difficult people do cut. There are some people who will say, oh, you can't joke about this, you can't joke about.
That, you know.
I think that for me, the toughest things in my life are the most important things for me to joke about, because that's how I learned to get through them.
You make me think that maybe you have a future book called from powerless to powerful.
Maybe maybe I did two books in two years.
I don't know about doing three though in a row, because I am having a baby in February and I hear those take ups some time.
Congratulations, thank you, that's wonderful to have a baby and gut Field all at the same time.
I know it's true.
That's wild. I've always thought that he is one of the most unique personalities on television. Just for a second, what is it like to interact with him?
Yeah, you know, we really have fun, and I think that you can see when you watch the show that we have fun. And something I'm so grateful for about being on that show is goitheld and I don't always agree, but that's okay. I've never wanted to say something on the show, whether it's making a point or making a joke, and been told I can't, which The more I learn about other people's situations, I tend to feel more and more grateful that I have that freedom.
You've written I used to like you until to talk about the divide we have in the country politically and otherwise. There's a great quote in your introduction to the book that kind of sets the tone for everything you say quote. All too often we will let a single difference in viewpoint or association be enough to write off other person entirely, even if we know nothing else about them. I think that's a very profound insight. How did you come to that?
I've dealt with it in my life, as I think many people have. I just working at Fox News. Oftentimes people will think, oh, you work at Fox News, therefore you're this whole list of things.
I'm going on tour. Also again with my show for the second book.
Too, and I've had theaters for my tour be oh, we're not working with you because you work at Fox. Just that it tells you everything you need to know. And I can get it on both sides sometimes because I am independent. So sometimes the viewers of Fox will say if I say one thing that's critical of maybe Trump, or maybe we're a Republican, or it's just not it doesn't fit in with what they think, they can get really mad. But then people on the left, I've found fairly often won't want to talk to me at all, just because I work there to begin with, and as somebody who works there, though, it's just it's wild because it's so different from my experience where I do have a lot of friends that are very conservative who are huge Trump supporters that are my close friends. I also have friends that are very left wing who are my close friends, and those are all very valuable relationships to me in some way, because I think a lot of these issues are nuanced and complex, but people are always nuanced and complex, and I think that's something that we're really losing in the prevailing discourse.
Now in that sense, do you find there are some things you don't talk about to your left wing friends and some things you don't talk about to your right wing friends.
I think a lot of people have that luxury.
But when I give my opinion for a living, I feel like everybody ends up knowing where I stand on everything anyway. So maybe we don't talk about it as much, but they know where I stand anyway. And you know, there are Fox viewers that come to my shows, my live shows, or these are Fox viewers, and a lot of them will be very conservative, you know. So it's not that everybody's like this, because as divided as we are, we're not as divided as I think media and politicians want us to think we are. Because the more divided we are, the easier we are to control. And I think that in this book I really shed a light on a lot of that. And also it serves as sort of a guide for how to connect with somebody who might be different from you, which is to lead with what you have in common, because we're being conditioned to believe that just because someone's in the opposite political party or even has a single different view let's say a different view than you do on guns, then that tells you everything you need to know about the person. You can never have anything in common, and that's simply not true.
That's interesting because you have a remarkably broad and comfortable view about people. Did you learn that from your parents or how did you come to this ability to interact with and synthesize with people who are very different.
I've lived a lot of life in a short amount of time. I mean, I've gotten out, I've lived in various places.
I do comedy. I know a lot of these comedians.
I work at Fox News, and I think it is natural to have certain biases and draw connections about people, So you do have to work against that. And for me, it's just when I approach someone or I meet someone who's different from me. I approach it with a sense of curiosity rather than judgment, and it's worth it.
Right.
It does go against our conditioning a little bit, but you can really learn a lot. You're not operating off these false assumptions. You're going to actually learn who the person really is. That can help you also creatively, It can help you in so many different ways. For me, I found it always to be worth it. I mean a lot of these relationships I can't imagine my life without them. So I'm really glad I've been able to view the world this way. I love to be wrong about a person or about something, because that means you're learning.
When you're on the circuit. Do you go to comedy clubs? Yeah?
So I do a mix of theaters and comedy clubs.
Yeah.
I've always thought because I think comedy is in some ways the most challenging hard form because you've got to have the audience react or it's not gonna work. I mean, you can do drama, make an react or not. The comedy. When you look at at an audience, what are you feeling about whether or not is this the night? They're not going to respond?
Every time?
I mean every time, and obviously I keep doing it because it usually goes well. But everybody, I mean every now and then, you still have the time when it doesn't go well. And just like there's no better feeling than it going well, there's really no worse feeling than when it doesn't go well, especially because a lot of my jokes do draw on some of my personal experiences in my life. And you know, I'm just being open with these people trying to make them laugh, and they just sit there stonefaced.
It's horrible, quite honestly.
But I mean I've quit comedy several times and I always come back to it though, because I really love it.
I think it's also such a great tool to communicate.
I mean, whether you disagree or not, people like to laugh so well, people are more likely to listen to what you have to say if you're being entertaining about it too.
So when it does work and they're rolling with laughter and they're applauding, do you get a really good high coming off the stage.
Oh yeah, it's the best. It's the best feeling in the world. It's what keeps me coming back. I think I'm done with it, and then I'm not done with it. I mean, I'm going back out on tour this week. I'm going all over the country. I'm touring pretty much every weekend until my doctor says I can't fly anymore.
I was going to say, you and the baby are on tour.
I was going to say, this baby's already very well traveled, and it's going to be even more so. I'm doing February and I'm touring through the middle of December, so I'm going to be very pregnant.
Along the lines of audience reaction. Years and years ago, I talked to the quarterly meeting of the South Fulton, Georgia CPAs all these guys who are accountants and I went in and it was an after dinner kind of talk. I was the congressman at the time. I did every single thing I knew to get people to applaud sat there with totally stone faces. Nothing worked, and I felt like I was a total failure and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. And after the program, this one guy comes up to me and he says, God, that was wonderful, and I said really, I said, why was the no reaction? He said, well, you know where accountants and we don't react to anything. It's the only time in my career where it was like nothing would work, nothing would pull them out of their chairs, and it was just wild. So I'm sympathetic to the idea that there's this little butterfly effect just before you walk on stage and you hope this is not the night you finally encounter the audience they can't laugh.
And it rarely is, but every now and then, and it's tough because you know pretty quickly and then it's like, oh boy, I'm up here for forty five minutes.
One of the things you comment on is that one of your early jobs was working at National Review, in that it was a very challenging time in your life. What did you learn from that National Review experience.
I learned so much from the National Review experience. I liked that National Reviews a little more big tent, right. I mean, all the writers are in some ways conservative. You know, I'm libertarian, you know, small l I'm not a member of the Libertarian Party because I do think that the Libertarian Party can be embarrassing, sadly, so I would disagree with a lot of the writers on some things. But I mean, I was so excited for this opportunity to work at National Review. I was living in a horrible neighborhood at that time. My mom was sick. She was diagnosed with a rare illness, and she ended up sadly dying a matter of maybe three weeks after that. But I started working there July thirty first was my first day, and my mom died November fifth, So it was very very soon after this that things took a turn.
So I had this new job.
I didn't want to make it weird by telling them what was going on in my life. But when she ended up being treated at a hospital in Boston, she had cardiac amlidosis.
So it's a rare disease where your.
Body creates a protein that your liver can't break down, so it builds up on your organs.
So it was building up on her heart.
And there's only one hospital in the country that specialized in and that was in Boston, so she was being treated in Boston. We found out she was diagnosed. I had this whole plan that I was going to go meet with Jack Fowler was then the publisher, and then Rich Lowry, the editor in chief, And I called this meeting and I was like I was gonna explain them.
What's going on, just so they knew. And I sat down.
I had never had a meeting before with these guys other than my interviews that I had. I just started and I just started sobbing. I mean not crying a lit but like you know, the snotting, hyperventilating, full on, just body shaking, sobbing.
And I just told them everything that was going on.
And BOYD does that forge a relationship and fire in two seconds to have something like that. And I told them what was going on, and they were the kindest people. They weren't just like, oh, let.
Us know if we can do anything. They did.
They tried to figure out what they could do. I mean, Jack Fowler reached out to my father. They're still friends to this day. Rich was always trying to give me train points because I was very broke. I was taking the bus to Boston and then there was this one day where she was transferred to the ICU and the bus broke down when I was on the way back to New York and I had like a meltdown.
I came back to the office. I was late.
I told them what happened. I got an email later from Rich Lowy's rife just informing me that their Amtrak points had been transferred to my account.
They weren't taking no for an answer anymore.
And when you think about these are people I disagree with on several political issues. Right, I don't know where i'd be without the career stepping stone of National Review. But I also don't know where I would be in my life if I hadn't had that support. This was ten years ago now, and I can't believe it's been that long, but where I really needed it so badly, And I think that we really need to remember the humanity in one another and the way that we talk to each other, because this is the kind of stuff that life's about.
Your first book, you can't joke about that you did a forty city tour. Yeah, I mean that, having an occasionally in my career barnstorm, a forty city tour is a lot. I mean, what did you learn? I mean, in terms of meeting America, you were all over the place.
I tried to go to various types of places as well. I went to Portland, Oregon, but I also went to Midland, Texas. I went to Saint Louis, but I also went to McPherson, Kansas, and honestly, I was writing this second book, this new book, while I was on this tour, because I really kept finding as different as a lot of these people were. And believe me, oil rig worker, you know, in the middle of nowhere, very different than somebody who works as an accountant somewhere else.
People were coming up and.
Talking about a lot of the same things to me because I talk a lot, I do share a lot of personal stories in my writing. I tend to do that. I think vulnerability is a huge way out of this mess, because when you show you're human, people are more willing to treat you as a human. So people come up in the meet and greets, and I love meeting people, and they tell me some things they've been through they related to this and to that, and it's just like, you know, boy, we really do have a lot more in common. We certainly have different ideas about how to get there, or maybe we have different approaches to situations, but we all really want a lot of the same things out of life, and we're all worried about a lot of the same things.
We value a lot of the same things.
And that was really clear to me when I was going to places that were so different, read and hearing so much of the same things.
I mean, you had this really diverse range of human contexts. Did you do anything particular to prepare for the difference between a Portland, Oregon audience and a Jackson, Mississippi audience and a McPherson, Kansas audience.
You know, I honestly didn't. I mean a little bit.
The show changes a little bit in terms of audience interaction, but my show is really about kind of some of the things we have in common, and I have for this new tour, I do have a lot of new material, so the show also did change as time went on. Though, So the show that was the first show that I started, by the end, I had it pretty well figured out and know exactly what I wanted to say, yes and no, I suppose I mean certain things which you know, maybe audience interaction, but it'd be pretty much the same, which is a very interesting thing about comedy because you'll get different reactions to the exact same thing depending on where you are, or do you depending on what day it is the same place, right, Yeah.
So in a sense, and I think this is part of what makes comedy both so challenging and so rich. You really have to interact with your audience for comedy to work. You know, you can do drama on the stage and the audience likes they don't, but in your case as a comedian, you somehow have to be dancing with the audience if it's going to be a good show. And as you were describing it, I mean forty different audiences, that's a lot of dancing.
Yeah, it really is, it really is.
I mean I think that also, you know, you got to be willing to acknowledge when something didn't work, Like if you were going for it and it bomb, do you have to acknowledge I go, you know, I make a joke about the fact that the joke didn't work.
Do you find you gradually edit your show as you figure out what works and what doesn't.
For sure, the month of August, I was just pretty much going around New York doing stand up a bunch of random different rooms, trying on a few different shows in front of smaller audiences than the theaters that I'm going to be going to soon.
So we'll see.
By contrast with your constant travel, you've actually been at Fox for almost ten years, so you have some stability at one point in your life anyway.
Yes, exactly, I'm very very grateful for because a lot of times in comedy you don't have that. A lot of times nobody puts comedian and stable in the same sentence. But I've always enjoyed writing. I think is the thing I'm the best at.
So I think that's.
Always been at the core of everything I do, whether I'm writing talking points, whether I'm writing books, whether I'm writing And you know, as long as I have that skill and I'm honing that skill and I make sure I'm writing every single day, which I am, then I'll always have that.
Part of how your mind thinks. You're looking around all day for the hooks that would lead you to write.
Yeah.
I carry a little electronic notebook that my husband got for me with me pretty much everywhere I go, and I write things down as they kind of come to me. We I'll be like, oh, this is a good thing for me to examine, or there's something with this here. But it's really how I kind of process things sometimes is through writing, for sure.
Well, you know, in terms of processing you have a very interesting and I think very important point when you write that binary thinking is the enemy of critical thinking, explain that. I think it's absolutely right, but I think having you explain it will help our listeners.
Yeah, binary thinking of one side versus the other is the enemy of critical thinking because once you pick a side or a lie lens, you don't have to think. All the thinking has already been done for you, so you get to just go along with whatever your side says and call it a day. And this can be a side or a lens, such as I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat, or it can be a certain preconceived notion about a group of people, and then you don't have to think anymore. What's attractive is that, first of all, it's easy. But the problem is when you're not thinking, you're missing out on a lot stupid things happen when you're not thinking.
Do you find in that sense that the polarization has led to an ability to avoid thinking because you just automatically cling to you know, whoever you're for and whoever you're against it, and you don't have to think about it.
Absolutely And I write about this too in the book, where then conversations between the two sides they really cease to be conversations at all.
They're more of the.
Inverse of you think of the childhood taunt, where it's like, I know you are, but what am I. It's the reverse of that, where you're basically saying, I know I, but what are you? So if somebody criticizes your candidate, you just point something out that their candidate did that was worse, and you go back and forth and back and forth, and nobody ever addresses any policy issue or addresses a criticism, let alone actually have any kind of impactful discussion about it.
I mean, nobody will actually address it.
One of the points you make, which I find fascinating, is you right that binary thinking enables government corruption. How is that true? Why is that true?
I think it really does because of the two sides. It goes back to kind of what I was saying earlier, but on a larger level, where if you know, as a politician and you see this in reality that no matter what you do, you're going to have your.
Own side.
Totally saying it was okay and not holding you accountable for it, and only addressing it by pointing out the fact that the other side did things that were so much worse.
Then you're gonna be able to get away with more stuff.
If all of us held le accountable, regardless of political party, they would be being held accountable. They wouldn't have that easy out based on people saying, oh, it's okay, we're all good because of the partisanside.
You conclude your book with a chapter entitled, in case you still like me, let's talk religion. I mean, I think that's a very very interesting way to sort of wrap up the book and to get people engaged. Why did you decide to write about religion?
Because I think so much of religion is rooted and also the binary of heaven or hell, or you're saved or you're not, and those sorts of things. And you know, it's not easy for me to talk about religion because I get a lot of backlash, not just from the public, but from people that I know. In my personal life. I was raised very Catholic. I fell away from it sometime in my late teens. I have a lot of respect for it. I have a lot of respect for religious people. I wish I could be religious myself. I hope to get there at some point. I'm not an atheist. I'm agnostic. I'm a question mark when it comes to religion spirituality. I know I'd be happier if I had faith in something, but my mom was very Catholic and it.
Could be a sticking point between the two of us.
And again, not easy stuff to write about, you know, the complicated aspects of my relationship with my mother who's been dead for ten years. So this is one of the chapters I was most nervous about being out there. But I think it's important to discuss because I think a lot of people do go through it, and I think it's another thing where people kind of just don't understand each other. Where for me, sometimes people will treat me as though I'm not religious because I've rejected it, and for me, I just can't get there. And also it goes both ways. There can be a stereotype of people who are a Christian or who are religious, stereotypes that they're judgmental or all these other various things, when in reality, I have a lot of people in my life who are very religious who are not that way. So I couldn't justify ignoring it. Even though this was one of the more emotional chapters for me to write and even reaching the conclusion that my mom as difficult as it was to have that, you know, where she focused so much on wanting me to be Catholic. I felt a good moral relationship at times, and I wish there'd been some resolution to that. But I understand her point of view.
Do you think that having a child will move you any more in the direction of seeking faith?
See, I'm already in that direction of wanting it. It's interesting, right because I don't know. I'm open to it. I have those thoughts of how to explain things to my child all the time, even things just as simple as my husband has a mom around and I don't and why is that?
And where is she?
And I don't know. I completely think about it all the time. I remind myself that I need to slow down, and like I do need to learn how to hold a baby, and all these other things that are going to come before or those conversations. It's something that I'm very open to. And my mom I saw. I mean, she wasn't scared to die. She didn't want to leave us without a mom, but she was not scared to die at all. I'm more scared of death just on a daily basis. As far as I know, I'm healthy than she was when she was dying. So I mean, it's not that I don't see the attraction of it. I certainly do, and I'm far from closed off to it. So I suppose we'll just have to see, because I already would say I have changed a little bit being someone. Being a pregnant woman already has changed me. I haven't even met the kid yet. I already loved the kid so much, and I've not met the kid yet.
That's right, You're putting a pretty big burden on the kid to grow up worthy of your love because you've already got it.
I know. That's the thing is, and I get that everybody does it, and that's why we're all here.
People used to say, like, you're not the first person in the world to be pregnant. I'm like, well, I'm the first person in my world to be pregnant. This is it's crazy. You know, I've gone thirty five years owning my own body and now I don't. And it's crazy enough to grasp the fact that I'm pregnant, but then the fact that the baby's going to come out and live in my apartment and then grow up, you know, and like start talking and tell me no. At some point, I mean, this is truly mind bending stuff.
Well I hate to tell you this, but at some point they actually grow up and then it gets more complicated.
Yeah, that's what I hear.
I mean, I have friends who have teenage daughters, and I'm just like and I think about myself as a teenager and we don't know we're having a boy or a girl. I want to keep it a surprise until after I give birth. But I am nervous. What if I have a girl and she's like me? How will I handle that.
I was sitting next to a group of women one time at a hotel and about five or six, and when they were all talking, they all had daughters, and they were all talking about their daughters. Finally one of them said, you know, they become human again, and about twenty three.
Yeah, I see my friends with teenagers.
But I think, on the other hand, it's a joyous thing. I can say this as a grandfather. It's a remarkable thing to look and realize that that's part of you, and that's an extension of your life. It's a wonderful thing. I wish you and your husband very well, and I hope you have a very very safe trip going around the country with the baby talking at comedy shows. I think it's a great thing. And I have to say I will watch you now on Guttfeld with a different sense of knowing you than I used to have. So this has been a lot of fun and very helpful. And I can't tell you how happy I am with the balance you show and with the way you engage life and you engage people. I think it's a wonderful traite. And maybe some of it goes back to your mother.
Oh, thank you. I really really appreciate that. That's very sweet. Thank you. She was a social worker. She was very kind and really loved people.
That's a good thing to have and you've clearly have carried that on and your approach to life is open and engaging. You know, kat I want to thank you for joining me. Your new book I Used to Like You Until How Binary Thinking Divides Us is an entertaining read and available now on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere. And people can follow your work at the realcattimpf dot com, your social media channels. They can find out whether or not you're going to be in their town and they can go see you as a comedian. So thank you very much for taking this time to be with me.
Thank you so much for having me. This is such a great conversation. Thank you.
Thank you to my guest Kat Timp. You can get a link to buy our new book I Used to Like You until on our show page at newtsworld dot com. News World is produced by Gengis three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team English three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of newts World consign up from my three freeweekly columns at ginglishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This is neuts World.
