Did you ever imagine that you'd have kids?

Um, you know, when I was young, uh, I just assumed I would have children, I think, because, like, that's what you did.

Like, there wasn't a choice.

It was like you reached a certain age, and then you got married, and then you had children.

Um, but once I got to college, and once there w- really wa- was some kind of l- you know, like, cultural revolution happening, you know, and once, like, the women's movement really started up, and I started, you know, that's, was very influential to me, I started thinking, "Wow, I see there's a choice here." You know, there was a choice whether to have children.

There was birth control that could make sure you didn't have children if you didn't wanna have children.

Um, and there was a change in cultural, social atmosphere that made it acceptable to not have children, where you wouldn't be seen as either an object of ridicule or an object of pity.

I don't think I've ever heard you do a voice like that.

Hmm

... on our show when it was local, and then for the first couple of months maybe, he was doing it on the national show until he felt like, "I'm not really a radio person.

I'm really more of a writer." Um, so I felt like he's still part of the Fresh Air family, but I also felt, while I was, like, in that really early stage of grieving, that before coming back, I had to explain what I had just been through, and also, I wanted to share a piece of him.

So I did it...

I didn't say, like, "We had such a great love.

Let me share some of our memories together." It was like, "This is what he did.

He was a music critic, mostly jazz.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

I had been doing the show myself three hours a day, five days a week.

It was still a local show.

And when Danny came, suddenly the show was...

It was fun.

You know? I had, like, a partner.

And w- we shared very similar taste in music, in movies, in comedy.

... as The New York Times called it, "I wanna stick it out and do this job that gives me meaning," how are you feeling day to day?

As things stood at the beginning of this year, it was getting a little bit from Venezuela and a bit more than that from Mexico, and all of that ended with the Maduro capture.

I'm wondering where Secretary of State Marco Rubio stands.

So far, he's been carrying on the negotiations with Cuba, and I don't think they've been officially announced, but as you say, people know that they're going on.

Do you know what, what his goal is? Now, he's of Cuban descent, and he has been an opponent of the Castro government for a long time.

But is he on the same page as Trump in terms of what he wants the intervention to look like and the outcome to be?

It sure would, yeah.

And I'm wondering if you think what Rubio is trying to negotiate for, the goals that he's working toward are similar or different from the goals of the activist Cuban Americans, particularly those in Florida, who would like to return to Cuba or who wanna stay in Florida but want the assets that they left in Cuba when they fled to be returned to them.

Mm.

I had been doing the show myself three hours a day, five days a week.

It was still a local show.

And when Danny came, suddenly the show was...

It was fun.

You know, I had, like, a partner, and we shared very similar taste in music, in movies, in comedy.

So instead of this, like, enormous lift every day, suddenly it was fun and he, he, he booked guests and he lived just a couple of blocks away, so I remember once there was, like, a blizzard and he just ran and got some comedy records and brought them over 'cause no one was gonna get to the station to, to be a guest.

... as The New York Times called it, "I wanna stick it out and do this job that gives me meaning," how are you feeling day to day?

How are you feeling day to day?

Day-to-day, I just do my job.

I don't think about the long-term future of public media day-to-day, at least not in a consuming way.

I think about it a lot, and I don't know what the future will bring.

I do know—I'll just speak specifically about public radio right now.

It has contributed so much to American culture and journalism.

You know, there is still nothing in the audio space that's like All Things Considered or Morning Edition.

They are disinformation and propaganda outlets that only publish leftist talking points.